D&D 5E What makes your homebrew setting special?

[Magistus71]

For mine, it's the gods.. here's a sampler.

• Doutain Mou, God of Knowledge and Hyperactivity
• Arnold Schvornhammer, God of Strength.
• Barg, The Bearman, God of Hunting
• Barb, Barg's Wife, goddes of Hearth & Home
• Noradth, God of War. (His symbol is a flaming mushroom)
• Snuffy the Smith God, patron of Smiths and Distillers.

Nice, do your gods mostly fall under a single domain?

 

[Magistus71]

Monster Town! campaign handout:

View attachment 92240

This is a first draft so it may be a little rough in places. What do you guys think? Is it too much info for a campaign primer?

In the history you mention Shardron, but in the people of interest nothing about this dragon that founded the city. Is this dragon still around, was it slain, I would think this is important history of the city.

 

[schnee]

Monster Town! campaign handout:

View attachment 92240

This is a first draft so it may be a little rough in places. What do you guys think? Is it too much info for a campaign primer?

Four pages, well-formatted, with 1/3 of it being images is quite succinct. You get to the point quickly and each bullet point is a possible adventure hook or plot event. Nice work! I'd be happy to jump in and DM a session in that world with a briefing like that.

 

[aramis erak]

Nice, do your gods mostly fall under a single domain?

No. Each has at least two; the world started under AD&D 2E.
The 5E version has two or three per each.

 

[Tallifer]

Someone described my setting as the Wizard of Oz, another as fairy tale, another as gonzo.
Basically every situation and monster is warped through a lens of whimsy.

 

[Sebastrd]

Lovecraft meets the Dark Crystal in a western.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

My only homebrew setting is Earth, only magic has come back and a lot of magical races have invaded. People are a lot less fond of celestial beings in the setting, since the constant fighting between celestial and demonic armies is what trashed half the cities. The fey invasion and people dealing with suddenly having magical powers trashed the other half.

Without any working factories and with an overload of people using medieval weapons and armor, technology has mostly regressed to be DnD-like. There's still the occasional working gun or piece of tech found.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm currently developing a setting from an idea I had where each clerical domain is an actual plane of existence known as a greater plane. Life is the positive energy plane and opposes death, the negative energy plane. Knowledge and trickery oppose each other. Where certain greater planes meet, lesser planes are created, the Prime is one of these being the merging of all of the greater planes.

Religion is the next thing I've been thinking of. Rather than gods, clerics draw power directly from the plane they follow. Some of these may follow something which is God-like but they are more like a patron than the actual source of power. This leads to the church of the heavenly host, a faith which draws on the magic of the life domain and follows the 7 archangels of Celestia. There may also be a small shrine to a healing spirit or ascended mortal that also draws upon the life domain. This allows me to create some major/minor religions for the setting while also allowing a player to create a minor faith that he follows.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[Lee_Hammock]

My homebrew setting, working title Catamaran, is a set in a vast stretch of islands with local cultures that mimic the Maori, Polynesian, Aboriginal, Inuit, and similar Pacific Island cultures. It's inspired by Moana, the movie the Deadlands, etc.

• Metal is rare. Weapons are assumed to be a mix of of wood, obsidian, bone, and stone (the shark totem barbarian's greatsword, Witchsplitter, is a massive wooden blade with shark teeth down both edges). Metal weapons are mechanically +1 weapons, but have all sorts of upkeep issues due to the corrosive effect of living on the sea.
• Characters do not usually wear armor, but instead do a haka-style ritual before battle to clad themselves in the power of their ancestors. Mechanically it works just like armor, only you wear Spirit Armor of the Turtle People instead of chain mail. It keeps the aesthetic where I wanted it. Some characters do wear light armor, but with all the time the group spends in tropical environments and on boats, wearing actual heavy armor is asking to drown or get heat exhaustion.
• With a few exceptions, there are not separate racial cultures. Genasi are humans born too close to places of elemental power, aasimar and tieflings are half celestial or fiend and half human, etc. The only totally non-human races with separate cultures are goliaths, tritons, and lizardfolk. The classic fantasy races (elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome) are not present except as strange outsiders.
• The region is called the Sea of Keruna, in which there are 333 islands formed from the body of the ancient goddess of the sea, Keruna, when she was slain. Each island has a fragment of her power, and thus a local diety. For example, most of the players are from the Island of the Dead, home of the Bonewitch goddess of death, where the people of the region bring their virtuous dead to be thrown into the volcano. Those who are found to be less than virtuous are consigned to the Boneyard to be raised as undead so they can work off their sins. If god leaves their island they become a demigod, losing most of their powers until they return (and demigod is a playable race). The players have met a god of plenty that is a giant tree in which all known fruit grows somewhere in its branches, a god that of justice that is an obsidian eyeball carried by a human host, etc.
• There are setting restrictions on classes:
• Each local island god only has one cleric.
• Wizards get their powers from having a fragment of a fallen star in their soul called a mage spark. When a wizard dies, the mage spark goes to the next most appropriate host (what appropriate means is unknown to the players). This has led to one of the campaign villains being a wizard order that's found a way to collect wizard sparks on death and is trying to claim all of them.
• Druids are only possible when a god leaves its island to become a demigod. A druid can then move in and claim the island's power, which gives them their abilities. Thus druids are not really well respected in the setting; they're kind seen as squatters.
• There are only 6 paladins in the setting. When a paladin dies, the paladin's squire is then promoted to paladin. If the paladin has no squire, the paladin essence is lost. There were once 300 paladins in the world and they have been whittled down over time.

Plus there's a whole boat building subsystem, a system for speeding up combat that involves allied NPCs by turning them into buffs for PCs, a magic crafting system, some new classes/prestige classes, etc.

 

[Magistus71]

My homebrew setting, working title Catamaran, is a set in a vast stretch of islands with local cultures that mimic the Maori, Polynesian, Aboriginal, Inuit, and similar Pacific Island cultures. It's inspired by Moana, the movie the Deadlands, etc.

As someone that married into Polynesian culture, I love this idea.