What are the archetypal, iconic qualities of a D&D fantasy setting that you love?

[Mercurius]

This is going to be a broad question, but I'm happy to see where it goes. I'm in the early processes of designing a new campaign setting that I'd like to use for the next campaign I run; my group has been on hiatus for about six months because of my busy schedule (I'm the DM) and I'd like to run one final adventure to finish off Paragon tier and then start something new after that, either in late spring or summer. Hopefully Next will be out by GenCon and then I'll use that, but I might just run 4E again.

Anyhow, editions aside, I'm wanting to design a setting that is, at its core, an archetypal fantasy world with all (or many/most) of the iconic D&D themes and tropes, yet with some specific and distinct flavorings thrown in. Think vanilla, but with tones of cardamon and nutmeg and just a hint of salt thrown in (or something like that). I designed my last setting with the "points of light" approach at its core, yet I ended up missing a lot of the classic fantasy elements of "kitchen sink" settings. I felt that the setting worked fine as more of a region than an entire world. In other words, it wasn't varied enough.

Some key elements and examples that I want to include are:

• A world with a rich, deep, and mysterious history - with many lost civilizations and, of course, the ruins left over
• A somewhat plausible reason for the diversity of D&D creatures to exist
• A "kitchen sink" that also has a kind of internal logic to it and isn't haphazardly thrown together
• No or few clear Earth analogs (in other words, I don't want "fantasy Egypt" but am fine with a desert nation with Egyptian flavors among others...more Dark Sun than Mulhorand, in other words)
• A world with Big Fantasy Ideas - truly fantastical locations that bring the world to life as a true fantasy world and not just a pseudo-medieval world - stuff like mile-high towers, floating sky islands, and cities built around tarrasques (after an RPGnet thread)...but not so much that this sort of thing becomes the norm. In other words, a middle ground between Talislanta and Harn, but veering more towards Talislanta
• Incorporates many of the classic fantasy setting ideas, but with new flavors. For example, I'd like to include a massive cosmopolitan city with numerous factions and that is a center for adventurers ala Waterdeep or Greyhawk, but I want it to have something new or unique about it (e.g. it is actually on a small sub-plane that is accessible from different parts of the world - each gate from the city actually exits into a different region...so imagine Waterdeep, but it is in the North, the Dalelands, the Unapproachable East all at once...or something like that).

In other words, I'd like to "get back to the roots" of what D&D is, but with a fresh new approach. I don't want to simply re-create yet another vanilla fantasy world, but I also want to include those key elements that are iconic, even archetypal and thus of universal and lasting appeal.

So my question to you is: what are your favorite, archetypal or iconic elements and qualities in D&D settings? And what new takes have you enjoyed or employed to great effect? List one or two or as many as you like. I'm not afraid to steal your ideas or the ideas of published settings, both because this isn't meant for publication and because I'll probably "re-skin" any ideas I steal anyhow!

 

[the Jester]

1. There aren't tons of novels that have rewritten the world's canon over the years.
2. The setting enables sandbox play.
3. No- and I mean NO- metaplot. Nothing that tells me how my campaign ought to end up or on what it should focus. Nothing that tries to dictate what themes I'll explore or implies that the world is only suitable for good pcs, fighter pcs, dwarf pcs or whatever.
4. Room to grow- either via "off the map" areas, bits that are not super-detailed or whatever.

 

[Jacob Marley]

A hex, a town, and a dungeon.

The town should include: a local noble (probably a lowly baron or knight) with a small keep; a thieves' guild; an inn/tavern that, for some reason, is regularly filled with adventurers; and an enigmatic wizard. There should also be a few "questionable" characters in and around town.

The dungeon should include: goblins/orcs, undead (skeletons and zombies), a dragon, and a necromancer*. Some of the rooms should be inexplicably trapped. The dungeon was originally a dwarven mine.

The world beyond is left undefined, filled with rumors and dangers and all manner of strange and wondrous sites.

That's about as vanilla as there is.

* The necromancer could also be an underling to a more powerful wizard/demon/deity.

 

[Starfox]

My favorite worlds are more defined by what the don't have.

No strangely barbaric/civilized areas that somehow exits without having any impact or being impacted upon by their neighbors. If a land is isolated, it needs a reason to be isolated.

No current large war or large-scale conflicts that need to progress in-game. A cold war or unstable peace is good, but an actual hot war is generally out unless it is the central theme of the campaign. A major war is simply too disruptive. Local wars and skirmishes are ok.

I am not fond of an "empire of evil" that lacks an economy or otherwise feels unsustainable. A tribal orc society in badlands is by itself incapable of being more than a nuisance to a strong human state. I also dislike "evil for the sake of evil" societies, but realize they are sometimes needed to provide legitimate enemies to the players.

I don't use points of light settings. The players may not know what is around the corner, but I need to - or else I cannot effectively use foreshadowing.

Beyond that, I love a world with history, both ancient and modern. I adore the migratory maps of the Greyhawk setting and the past empires of Golarion. I am ok with ripoffs of historical societies and from literature, and I don't mind old tropes - I find they usually makes it easier for the players to understand the setting. Science fiction used to have an adage; you can introduce ONE odd/unrealistic element in your story to make it otherworldly and set the scene, but the rest should all seem reasonable or derive from your one change. I like that idea, and often make variants of known settings, such as "Just like 10th century France, but with hereditary superpowers".

 

[DanotheSlender]

Ever read Raymond Feist Riftwar saga? World of Midkemia, i took the maps from the books for the continent, names of cities, overall feel of the world from the first book etc and tossed in a few of the typical d&d archetypical beasties, which you learn later in the series do have a reason to be there) and voi-la, made it my own. I did drop the greater/lesser magic paths for simplicity of game transition.


Game On!!

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=59082]Mercurius[/MENTION] I like fantasy worlds which really run with the effects of D&D scale magic while still maintaining a feudal medieval mindset. A great example is raise dead & issues of succession/inheritance.

 

[Will Doyle]

A few things you'd see in an archetypical fantasy setting:

A 'badland': Mordor, North of the Wall, whatever. A place for evil villains to arise and gather armies.
A knightly kingdom: Gondor, Camelot. Ideally living in memory of some recently lost glory days, and perhaps becoming a little corrupt, or at least, lax in their duties.
A Sylvan Utopia: Lothlorien, the Shire, etc. Beautiful and possibly forbidden to outsiders. A home for elves, centaurs, other woodland races.
The Dying Dwarven Empire: It's almost a requirement that the ancient empire of the dwarves be on its last legs, their mountain fortresses falling one by one to orcs.
Southern Sultanate: A conquering empire rises from the sands of the desert. Always militant, with either Arab or Roman styling. Perhaps locked in a cold war with the north that is rapidly warming. Often owns strange mechanical devices (guns, flying machines, etc)

As for twists:

Race: I sometimes find tweaking the racial archetypes creates big thematic changes. For example, in my home world the elves are a young race created by humans to defend the stolen secret of magic. Why not have dwarves the most prosperous race, and humans on the decline? Make elves cosmopolitans, famous for their cruel mercantile laws? Have humans as druidic woodsmen, trying to protect their homes from the advance of elvish civilisation? Have everyone living under the rule of giants?

Religion: Instead of a balanced pantheon, have one god rule and all the others outlawed, or say that the worship of all gods is forbidden by the ruling wizard class.

Science: Instead of gunpowder or steam power, think of some power source unique to your world. Perhaps all of civilization is vying for the shards of a meteor that fell to earth long ago, which can boost spells, power street lights, and lift ships into the air.

A Single Point of Epic Weirdness: You only really need one biggy to define your world. Perhaps the great ocean spills off into the Astral planes. A giant mountain at the centre of civilization rises to heaven. The island of the ruling government flies about the world, keeping a watchful eye over its territories. The cruel emperor keeps his realm in check with a vast statue army. Every winter, the world plummets through the nine hells.

 

[Mercurius]

[MENTION=6682161]Will Doyle[/MENTION], I like your archetypal lands - you really captured the classic tropes quite well.

I personally don't like tweaking races in the ways you suggest - I like giving them unique qualities, but am not as much into complete reversals that redefine them in a way that makes them almost unrecognizable from the archetype. For instance, nomadic horse-riding dwarves....why not just a short race of humans that ride horses? I'd rather not "ruin" dwarves in that way. On the other hand, I have no problem with, for instance, making dwarves completely sterile through some curse of a few hundred years ago; this is a deadly secret they keep to themselves, for the flip side of it is that they have managed to keep themselves alive through turning themselves undead....this makes that "dying dwarven empire" trope even more extreme!

I also really like your ideas for religion and science. In the last setting I created the gods were actually the surviving sorcerer kings from a magical apocalypse in which they killed (most of) the old gods. I've also always been intrigued by the idea of some kind of alternate form of "technology" as part of a fantasy setting, although there is danger there of becoming too exotic and veering too far away from classic fantasy.

A thought that came to mind while reading your ideas for "epic weirdness" is that a way that I could incorporate multiple "epically weird" locales is to have a "meta-epic-weirdness" in the form of some kind of "magic sea" boiling at the edges of the known world...the further you go from the heart of civilization, the strong the effects and the more "epically weird" things get. Perhaps ancient sorcerers had created a boundary to keep the epic weirdness out of the known world through some kind of wards or wall, but it, of course, leaks in...which is where many monsters and other mutations come from. Imagine a series of massive towers on the edges of civilization that keep the worst of the magic out. A whole campaign could be designed around these towers failing. I would envision three somewhat concentric tiers of regions - the "Inner Lands" of civilization that are magic-stable, the "Outlands" of wilderness that, and the "Eldritch Lands" beyond the Ward Towers. Most adventures only go into the Outlands, but some actually go beyond into the Eldritch region (need a new name).

The Eldrich lands could be akin to another plane so that there would be roaming creatures from other worlds. Perhaps there is some kind of native race that lives there, sort of akin to the githyanki. This also gives me a variant on the planes; this could even replace the Astral Sea and make it possible to travel to other planes by foot or sea. Perhaps in the Eldritch lands there are myriad gates to other worlds....

Just riffing off some of your ideas! That's why I started the thread, after all.

 

[Will Doyle]

That sounds pretty neat, Mercurias. In my home world I have something sort of similar - man stole magic from the gods, which emanates from great crystal shards kept in the capital cities of men, elves and dwarves. The closer you get to these capitals, the more prevalent magic becomes. The good thing about setups like these is that they allow you to stage magic-rich or low-magic campaigns within the same world.

 

[Pog]

Basically middle earth with a few alterations and more monsters and dungeons. Yup.