"I am Crafter of 9, leader of Borgheim Dwarf City- prepare to be astounded."
You might want to take a look at some of the magi-tech supplements out there, like Monte Cook's Chaositech (
Chaositech ), Bruce Kordell's When the Sky Falls (
When the Sky Falls ), Perpetrated Press' Arsenal (
Amazon.com: Arsenal (d20 System Weapons Guide and Sourcebook): Erik Kjerland: Books ) or what have you to give the proto-Inevitable Dwarves a bit more flair.
Here's a thought- do you have access to Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved game(s)?
Those giants are kind of special- a little bit like the Irda, a little bit like (classical) titans, and so forth. Definitely worth a look.
For that matter, the Dragonlance Irda don't suck either.
Dwarves: I’m leaning towards some version of dwarves being or having been technologically advanced (this may have come from the giantitp site, I can’t remember offhand), having only come up to the surface recently (my first thought for that would be that the dwarves showed up about the time the Dragons disappeared from the campaign world [~1300 years before the start of the campaign], since it leads to several interesting questions: why did the dwarves show up? What, if any, connection is there between the dwarves and dragons?). Provides a source/reason for any odd technological items that are lying around, and gives them a reason to have weird advanced technologies (gunpowder cannons, non-magical everburning torches, etc). I’ve discussed this with a friend (showing him both threads and talking with him), and one idea he had was to make female dwarves the ‘default’, and males are either nonexistent or so rare that they are never exposed to the world outside the dwarven cities. I also had a thought that perhaps making dwarven genders indistinguishable or nonexistent could be an interesting twist.
Giants: I do have access to Monte Cook’s AU/AE giants. Something about them (and I really can’t pin down what it is right now, unfortunately) rubs me the wrong way. I think part of it is that I’m reading them as being caretakers of the world, whereas I would prefer to see that aspect left to something else (like Dragons, perhaps? As a side note, I have written an Exodus of Dragons from the world into the backstory, and am considering how to have the party find out why they left and possibly convince them to return. I actually really like this, but I’m not sure I could necessarily explain why without going far more into the campaign arc I have, which I’m still trying to hash out in my head right now). Removing that, however, we’re left with a large race of people who are strong and compassionate, but have the ability to fly into a rage when provoked… which I like. Perhaps I shall have to go back and reconsider what they have to offer. I realize that I’m probably leaving out a fair amount, but I browsed through them fairly quickly a week or 2 ago, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve missed something significant. If I have, let me know.
loonook said:
Shadefolk lost their shadows because they have internalized their essence. When a Shadefolk dies in battle, his shadow rises to avenge his death.
I like this, or perhaps a variant on it. An idea (inspired by the Wizard of Earthsea book) is that perhaps each Shadefolk was split from its shadow by some event, and is eventually destined to face down their shadow. Either the shadow is ‘defeated’ and the Shadefolk gains some new racial ability, or the shadow wins and the Shadefolk is destroyed utterly. An alternative would be that the shadow winning/losing determines whether the Shadefolk is destined to be evil/good, respectively. This concept, especially if the shadow is able to possess people to get close to the Shadefolk, could explain why the Shadefolk tend to live in the desert or arctic regions – the lack of other people means that innocents aren’t caught up in the confrontations, and it’s harder for the shadow to sneak up on the Shadefolk by possessing someone, since most people are either known or met with some level of suspicion.
BTW, Rogueboy, there is a link in my sig "My favorite thread."
It leads to a thread in which a great hoard of campaign ideas have been posted.
Not only do I think you might find some inspiration there, you might even wish to post a link to your thread in it.
I’m reading through the thread in your sig (it’s slow going, since I’m home for a week and hanging out with family/friends), and I’m seeing almost exclusively adventure ideas and campaign ideas (I’m on page 5 currently)… I may be missing something obvious here, but as far as I can tell, all we’ve got are races. Are you suggesting posting those ideas (including a link back here), or is there something else you’re suggesting that I’m just missing completely?
