What areas exist in your world?

[Cedric]

This might sound ridiculous some GM's, but I develop my world as the players explore it.

Right now it only consists of a large continent, with large coastal cities and coastal trade/fishing. There is only one large inland city, which lies in the dead center of the traderoute between the two coasts.

In the largely unexplored wilderness in between there are occassional ruins of an old, lost empire.

As my players investigate more, I'll flesh out more of the world.

Cedric

 

[blackshirt5]

That's actually how I'm developing my world right now Cedric. I only started with a vague idea of what was where to have references of what to tell my players, and now I'm filling out the world as they explore it. It gives me a sense of urgency, trying to stay one step ahead of my players. Also, they can give me really good ideas in game.

 

[Ace]

Ooo fun question

IMC there is Medieval Europe/Ren Faire/Arturo Celtic area, Howards Hyperborean style (lot of this) a Asian Hybrid (A little of everything as one confued culture) Horse Nomads, Fae, Tolkiens Shire (more or less) a Renisance Italo German Area (Venice mixed with German Flavor), Colonial American (Yankee Traders, sort of) Mageocracy, Psionic Dictatorship, Eastern European, Victorian British- Roman Imperium, Bronze Age like Matriarchy, something like Steven Brust's Dragera crossed with Glen Cook and an Indo European Society

 

[mythusmage]

I'm sort of busy with a book on dragons right now, so I haven't been able to do much with my setting. I'll relate what I do have.

The world of Ki has but three areas laid out. The first is The Wolf Folk Sea, a long, narrow body of water in the middle of the main continent. The southern shore is a land of grassy plains and low hills along the shore, with small rivers. Inland it gets more arid, the grasses fading away to scrub. Trade is by coster and caravan. Minerals, gems, spices, etc.

The northern shore is mountainous, spurs and ridges sometimes reaching down into the sea. The climate ranges from Mediterranean along the coast to Arctic in the highest peaks. The cities of the north shore are coastal. Independent city states engaged in trade with each other, and the cities of the south shore. The culture here is Phonecian/Sumerian.

The second area is known as The Unicorn Plains. A vast grassland crossed by a pair of large rivers to the north of the mountains north of The Wolf Folk Sea. Two cultures dwell here. One is a bit like the American frontier around 1830. Villages and small towns established along the rivers and the creeks and streams that feed them. The other can best be described as Japanese Mongols. Orcs who raise unicorns for riding, war, milk, food, and trade.

To the northwest of The Unicorn Plains is a forested land I haven't named yet. The culture here is about the closest to Central European as I'm apt to get. At the center of the plot complications here is a theocratic dwarven state, determined to bring their enlightenment to the rest of Ki, whether the rest of Ki wants it or not.

They are opposed by a secretive elven kingdom, and their goblin allies.

BTW, the elves are not overtly secretive. Matter of fact, they appear to be rather open. But, if you're good at reading people you'll learn that those elves don't tell you as much as you thought they did. They prefer to misdirect than stymie inquiries. The curious have a hobby, they get to keep their secrets, and everybody's happy.

The goblins enjoy the hunting rights they've gained through the alliance, and keep their councils to themselves.

 

[s/LaSH]

Imaginatively, I base my campaign out of Venice.

Things get more original from there.

Well, to be fair, I've substituted demihumans into certain nations (germanic people are now elves, steppe nomads are orcs). And I've thrown in a couple of extra powers, like dragons ruling chosen towns, or marauding goblins roaming the countryside, or the Necromancers of Babylon. But for the most part... it's just history simmered gently in the Pan of Fantasy.

 

[Tonguez]

This might sound ridiculous some GM's, but I develop my world as the players explore it.

Nope thats exactly how my world developed - it is a group of seperate settings combined into a single world.

So for instance I started about 20 yrs ago doing very much vanilla stuff which became the basis of Cruithne but soon shifted (as I got older) into more exotic stuff like the Mongol-Inspired Yuan Empire (Genghis Khan is one of my personal irl heroes).

About 10 yrs ago Anziko was developed as an entirely new campaign and then placed south of the Yuan Empire with Idehan in between as my Anziko PCs travelled North seeking a lost city in the Desert. (I've got a huge folder of notes on Afrikan myth stored at my Parents house somewhere). Later the descendents of these characters made contact with Cruithne via the Trade hub of Bishnagar

My current campaign is set in Mythic Polynesia and although it includes some cursory contact with the coast of Khitai. The Peoples of Hawaiki no nothing of the Cultures on the Continents.

 

[ph34r]

As of right now...a land mass and a few islands. I know I'm lame!

 

[Nifft]

My campaign takes place in the year 2113 -- 2,113 years after the fall of the First Empire, which was like the Roman Empire, except that with the magic at its disposal, it spanned the Earth and was colonizing several nearby planes.

Something Very Bad happened, but no-one is really sure what -- Divination magic won't reach back farther than that date, and the thousand years of war with demons destroyed most records.

(More on history here: http://klimt.cns.nyu.edu/~fishman/DnD/dhe-history.html)

By this point, one thousand years since the demon-hordes were driven back, the human kingdom of Luxoria is experiencing a Renaissance. They have peace, prosperity, and good neighbors -- elves to the west and dwarves to the east. It's a land of plenty under the watchful eye of Raelor, the LG Sun God, and his pantheon of assorted non-evil co-Gods.

For geography, I'm using Earth. Luxoria is the Great Valley of California. The elves live in coastal redwood forests (which cover most of the west coast). The dwarven Barrony takes over what in our world is the Sierra Nevada range. To the north are misty fey lands, to the south are wastelands.

(There's a picture here: http://klimt.cns.nyu.edu/~fishman/DnD/kingdom.html)

-- Nifft

 

[kenjib]

There is a long gone Atlantis style empire that has left a great legacy throughout the world. A gypsy-like race but heavily waterborne claim to be the descendents.

The most powerful player today is the Dorian Empire, kind of like the Holy Roman Empire mixed with the wars of the English and French.

North are "barbarians" based on the native americans of the Pacific Northwest and the Inuit further north.

There is a race of very ancient and mysterious people similar to Tibetans.

There is an alliance of City-States with influences drawn from ancient Greece, the Hanseatic League, and the United States (it includes an occult conspiracy).

There is an era recently like a Quixotic Spain, but currently in a civil war that has destroyed the high ideals of the older generation.

The east is based on dark ages europe, with a more rugged ethic and constant warfare/changing borders.

Another area spans from Egypt to the Central-East.

The far east has a Chinese like empire and south is a conglomerate of African and Aztec culture, with a high priest-king who demands tribute and human sacrifice from feudal states in order to stave off the cosmological end of the world.

Out from there across the ocean are countless islands that get more and more strange...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

In Urbis, I have quite a few parallels to the real world:

Atalus: A mixture of Rome and Venice.
The Flannish Cities: Northern Germany and the Netherlands.
Gawaris Desert: Arabian peninsula, with a definite Arabian Nights theme.
Hamajan Mountains: Himalaya.
Lake of Dreams: Egyptian and Babylonian/Sumerian influences.
Norfjell Wastes: Scandinavia.
Parginian Rim: Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
The Siebenbund: Switzerland (the image of Swiss halflings was just too cool to resist...).
Magrith, Surtus, and Calturus: Venus, Mars, and Pluto as imagined by H.P. Lovecraft.

Of course, this being Urbis, these aren't identical to their real world equivalent, but all have their unique twists - like lots of city-states with populations ranging into the millions, magical Nexus Towers that suck the life force out of slum dwellers, golem-drawn railroads...