Truly 'Homebrew' - Using Local Area IRL to create Fantasy Settings

[takasi]

In addition to a monthly Eberron game, I've decided to run a bi-weekly game set in a homebrew setting of my own design.

(As an aside, the game is 3.5 core only. 4d6 drop the lowest. Stats are rolled per ability, no reassignment allowed. I'm going for a Hackmaster feel without resorting to actually using Hackmaster. Highly freeform meatgrinder with lots of opportunity for infighting. This is with a completely different group than my first group and I'm running this because it's the exact OPPOSITE of what I normally run.)

On to the topic of this post. I live in Northern California and I'm thinking of building my homebrew world as a fantasy bizzarro land of our home. Counties will be kingdoms and city and town limits will be fiefs. Has anyone done anything like this? Anything you can recommend?

Does anyone have any input on what a fantasy world would like like if it took place in California? I want travel to take longer, so I'm thinking of increasing the size 5 to 10 times. I want a journey from the Bay Area to LA to take months instead of weeks. Any suggestions?

Although I'm going for a somewhat goofy campaign, do you think this is a little over the top? Would you play in a campaign where there is a King of Sacramento (who looks a lot like Conan)?

 

[Lanefan]

Using the local geography, landforms, etc. certainly can make design easier; just buy yourself a few local topographical survey maps and you're in business. Having towns etc. be about where they are makes sense also; towns locate where they do for a reason. But I'd avoid replicating artificial borders...the California-Oregon border, for example, is an arbitrary line. Medieval borders tended to follow landforms - rivers, hills, etc.

The big advantage is you can take your players out for a picnic and say "See that hill? That's where the Orcish stronghold is. How you gonna get at it?"

Good luck!

Lanefan

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Society for Creative Anachronism has already done a lot of the work for you in this regard. I suspect they have a wiki or something that includes all of the setting information you need -- just add monsters for an instant campaign.

 

[Stormborn]

I have done this twice. Once I developed a short campaign set in a human/dwarven colony of Burningholm (Birmingham) on the Iron Mountain (Red Mnt, so named for the iron ore), the PCs had to travel past the Valley of the Shades of Death (Shades Valley, orignally the Valley of the Shades of Death in the local indian dialect), along the Bluff (where i lived at the time), etc.

On another occasion a friend of mine and I took the geography of the South East and began a campaign in which a black draogon and an evil druid had turned all of FLA, lower AL,MS, and GA into a great swamp.

It can be very fun. Horror games set in modern times can especially work well in familiar settings.

In your case I highly recommend starting with geography and working backwards. Given the amount of irrigation that has gone on in California you might want a topographical map from the 1800s and go from there.

 

[Kularian]

Reminds me of Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Xanth, the world of his books, is made up of the state of florida, pretty much. You could probably pick up one of the later books for a map for some ideas, *shrug* Worth a shot.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

My brain turns on the idea occassionally, especially as I've taken up backpacking and have started researching all the trails and history of the state (boy, there sure are quite a few abandoned mines, ghost towns, forts, buried Native American villages, and standing stones in Washington, plus an excellent mix of terrain types!). Another very helpful resource was a book on local native legends regarding the area, which goes a long way towards gathering a more "magical" feel for your local area, and help you identify which landmarks or features would be prominent to a quasi-medieval/fantasy society.

 

[Nyaricus]

Has anyone done anything like this?

Well, my homebrew is vaguely inspired by Europe (there are a few big changes, like a huge inland sea which basically seperartes the east from the occidental are in my campaign, of which the southern portions are know for the bold "chinese" pirates ) so I can see where you are omcing from. However, I see nothing wrong with this idea which you have

Anything you can recommend?

Personally, I am a fan of the Grand Theft Auto games, of which the most recent one is San Andreas, which is inspired by California and Nevada. I thinkk it's be cool to have the mountanous region of Cali and then the desert wastelands of Nevada beside it. Personally, I'd use differnet names for everything, and also I wouldn't clue in the players, just to see if they 'get' it

I woudl also either feature this as an island or as a peninsula of a larger contient which isn't easily naviagted to. Keep it different (maybe that desert would be a good land barrier?).

Does anyone have any input on what a fantasy world would like like if it took place in California? I want travel to take longer, so I'm thinking of increasing the size 5 to 10 times. I want a journey from the Bay Area to LA to take months instead of weeks. Any suggestions?

You'd have Vale elfs, which live secluded lives in the deep and lush valleys. Forest and Mountain giants would be common, as would Ents and the like. Dwarves might no be so prominent, and maybe only in the northern half of the mountains. Orcs could occuy the southern half. Halflings live whereever it's flat and comefortable, and humans: pretty much everywhere. Maybe you should consider buying Stormwrack, since the ocean is really close and I could see Hadozee's and Darfellans abounding. Also, Sea elves might be prominent

Although I'm going for a somewhat goofy campaign, do you think this is a little over the top?

Naw, this is pretty safe compared to say Dark Sun

Would you play in a campaign where there is a King of Sacramento (who looks a lot like Conan)?

Sure; although I do suggest choosing some different names for everything, but keeping their geographic locations the same.

cheers (and good luck!)
--N

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

SCA links I could find that you might find useful:

* SCA Geography breakdown, including links to all 19 kingdoms
* Atlas of the Known World

 

[Pure Puppet]

I'm not sure how useful you'll find this information, but go to http://www.andycollins.net. He specifically states that the starting village for his Bloodlines campaign was converted whole cloth from the town he enjoys vacationing in. There's even several articles about how it was all worked out.

 

[SWBaxter]

I'm a pretty big fan of using real-world maps for my campaigns, just makes the work easier. My Arcana Unearthed setting, for example, bears an uncanny resemblance to the east coast of North America (though as of yet no player has seen a sufficiently large-scale map to realize that). I have a D&D campaign sketched out that takes place in an area very like coastal British Columbia and Vancouver Island, which is where I now live.

Generally, I change the names so it's not immediately obvious what's going on. It's usually also necessary to adjust population centers - there's fewer people in a D&D-type world, and some locations that make sense for towns in our world (such as where rail lines meet) don't necessarily translate to a campaign world all that well. At that point it's entirely possible the players will never know what "inspired" the geography unless you show 'em the big picture.

Oh, another nice aspect of a local campaign is weather - weather adds a little authenticity to a campaign but can be a pain to randomly generate, using a real world location allows you to bypass any random weather tables and just use actual records and forecasts.