What flavor do you use to make your gameworld unique?

[hellbender]

This pertains to any genre of rpg, and the purpose is just to exchange nifty ideas that others can *yoink* for their own games. These can be themes, variations, plots, just anything that makes your world a little off the beaten path, including how the components blend.

My DnD 3.5 world:
Began as a very Tolkien-esque/Dunsany/vanilla DnD world. Then I added a few twists:

• Magocracy is the general rule for most parts of the world. However, there are several levels of "secret masters", who weave their plots. Bands of rakshasas, ogre magi death cultists, wandering troupes of shadowdancers, etc. The average commoner is pretty much living in servitude to one magic user or another.
• Not humanocentric. Elven seers have foreseen the rise of humanity, and how it will destroy everything. And they don't like it. This is not well known everywhere, and not all Elves (and their allies) agree with this policy. The war has begun quietly, people notice certain traders and nomads have not arrived in a long time, people are missing family members in some remote villages. Many elven leaders have promised to look in on this matter and try to help in any way they can.
• Unlikely allies. Elves and dwarves work together well, especially to thwart humans. Orcs/bugbears/hobgoblins work with humans because they know they will be next after the humans topple. Gnolls/ogres/etc, well, they still do their thing.
• A few gods walk the earth, some of them are insane and break/mutate more than they help or nurture, quite by accident. This has caused a higher number of templated creatures than normal. Not multi-templated supermonsters (generally), but something closer to the templates from Savage Species.
• Mages are more powerful, the magic level is higher, but the world itself is fairly gritty. I allow many more spells than the PHB suggests. It isn't fair, neither is life. I am looking forward to using the upcoming Green Ronin magic book that uses the excellent Black Company spell system. I hope that it will work with the existing spell system somehow by allowing addons, but if I have to decide, I will go with Green Ronin's system.

Ok, maybe nothing extremely yoinkable, but these are the twists I have brought to the table and as a whole, they make the game different from just a vanilla approach without introducing anything too alien. These ideas are already in the process of being written up (loosely) and illustrated for a potential product (maybe for gaming, maybe not, there is nothing concrete yet), but the ideas are not anything that any DM/GM can't use in their games. Anyone else?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've just started a new Spelljammer campaign. To account for 3e's changes (and to emphasize my favorite parts of Spelljammer ), I've advanced it 50 years from the end of the 2e Spelljammer timeline. Within it, the central conflict is non humanocentric, though there's a few who'd like to make it so.


Elves vs. Goblinoids vs. Everybody

The Second Unhuman War has been in full swing for half a century, and neither the Scro nor the Elven Imperial Navy much care who gets in the way of their epic struggle. Even major world powers seemed paltry compared to these interstellar superpowers, so human, dwarven, halfling - even draconic! - casualties have been quite high. Non-elven and non-goblin trade suffered, in some cases to the point of starving out entire colonies.

Roughly 35 years ago (the same period I set the events of The Astromundi Cluster in), a third power stepped in: the magic-item-crafting, ever-scheming Red Wizards of Thay. Now, the Red Wizards have done nothing to lose the E in their alignments, but they've also proven to be the only non-elven, non-goblin power with the resources and vision to mount any kind of resistance. They also produce their own spelljamming helms, rather than buying them from the Arcane. Almost all the spacefaring human powers, and eventually most of the other non-aligned races, have banded together in a Confederation of Spacegoing Races - headed by the Red Wizards.

Behind the scenes, the Red Wizards secretly want to put humanity in the top slot and themselves atop humanity, but for the moment they mostly keep their racialism in check because they need the other races' power to compete with the elves and scro. Several of the non-human leaders (and all of the dragons ) know the Red Wizards want to off them when they're done with the scro and elves, but go along with them because they consider the scro and elves more dangerous.

I think this central conflict (as opposed to orcs = bad, elves, humans et all = good) could be transported to a non-Spelljammer setting fairly easily, although you wouldn't have the built-in players.

 

[Aaron L]

With my world, Ive done my best to mix Tolkien, DUNE, Lovecraft, and the Wheel of Time.


I think it came out well.

 

[tetsujin28]

I use the real world and go from there.

 

[Agemegos]

IF you were to imagine that the population of Indonesia were hypnotised into behaving as though the were Classical Greeks…. If things in general actually had animating spirits, daimons, genii, kami… If the Pathetic Fallacy were not a fallacy… If mystic disciplines really gave people the abilities of characters in Fung Fu movies….

 

[Gilladian]

Twenty years ago when I began my campaign, I used a vaguely witch-worldlike concept. That's long since fallen by the wayside, but I like the idea of ancient sites devoted to ancient gods, little pockets of strange races that don't much interact with anyone, long-dead wizards still having an effect on the world, things that appear in the night or are ghosts or spirits of ancient things, that whole sort of shattered world feeling.

Nothing really yoinkable. My favorite area of the world right now is a mixed human-dwarf kingdom. Dwarves are loosely matriarchal and clan-oriented, while the humans are still trying to create a feudal structure, and keep failing because the dwarves don't understand or like it, and they're really in charge. There's quite a bit of social conflict under the surface, which is coming out as bad arguments about how to deal with the orcs/ogres/evil badguys up north who are preparing to invade. Not good!

 

[Ravilah]

Nine material planes, each with its own flavors and dominant species. The Ianovan government on the plane of Parapalas has the only access to inter-material-planer travel, so theirs is the uberpower (lucky for us their King is practically a paladin).

 

[Ibram]

My homebrew setting:

Start with Europe in the late middle ages...

Religious Fanatics bent on destroying all those who practice the "dark arts" in a world where those dark arts are a real danger.

Sorcerorus cabals working behind the scenes to maintain their own power and destroy their rivals.

Power-mad warlords who deal with daemons to achieve their goals

Savage dragon worshiping Orcs lurking at the fringes of the "civilized" world, obeying the dictates of their immortal masters.

Goblins far more intellegent then in other worlds, cruel and devious. yet they can be delt with in a relativly peaceful manner, as long as you appear strong.

Ogers, the faded reminants of a renegade giants armies, ferocious and brutal beyond words. master daemonologists and blood sorcerors, there are few mortals who can rival their ancient power.

Reclusive dwarves, desperatly seeking to maintain the last fragments of their once great empire.

Decadent elves, so lost in their persute of arcane power that they hardly seem to notice how few of them remain.

A land where ruins stand older then recorded history, where the ages of the world is written in the blood of empires and etched with sorcery darker then the abyss.

The mortal races struggle to survive, their fate controled by by forces vaster then the night sky and more uncaring then the winter wind.

Salvation can be found.... but only through hope, faith, and a sharp sword.

 

[Corbert]

I'm currently running a Furries and Fantasy campaign where everyone is a humaniod animal of some sort. I have a hummingbird rogue (played by my wife), a housecat rouge/bard, a gecko cleric, a cheetah fighter, a kangaroo wizard, and a ferret scout. You can find the basics here http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/fauna.html

Its an interesting setting and my players are having fun. The kangaroos have an interplanetary teleport network set up, and a hidden sinester agenda. According to the webpage the various races cannot interbreed, however thats about to change . So far in the game the PCs have retrieved the hearts and genitals of various dragons (evil only, by agreement of the PCs) and trading them for magic items to a couple of very high level wizards working on 'something'. That something was a massive spell designed to allow the various sentient races to interbreed, but, this will not result in half-breeds. The offspring of a bear and a ferret will be either a bear or a ferret. Also, the occasional pureblood dragon will pop up, which I've decided will change the psychology of dragons over the centuries. No more will dragonic alignment be dependent upon color, but will be influenced wholly by upbringing .

 

[Mystra]

Basil, and a hint of Rosemary.