What's so special about your homebrew?

[I'm A Banana]

My Feathered Dragon setting is based on Maya and Incan myth, and, well, has dragons with feathers. Blood as power, transformative magic, rebellion, ecological collapse, invading empires, the importance of roads...

My New Jerusalem setting is has a heavy monotheistic influence using Jewish, Muslim, and Christian mysticism in a fantasy context (along with the requisite pagans), and pulls from sources like Dante, Milton, Jewish rabbinical texts, the Vedas of Hindu religion, pre-Muslim Arabic poetry, and Homer...

My Infinite Skies setting takes place entirely on floating islands and continents above a blasted desert planet as parties seek freedom and independence, rebelling against the Theocracy, air-surfing the ley lines, featuring characters like WWII-style pilots riding in giant mecha, punk rock explorers of airborne dungeons, and "thug life" street youth out to get rich or die tryin'.

Those are the ones bouncing around my head recently. I also keep a more mundane setting where I'm just cramming all of Exemplars of Evil and Elder Evils into the same world so I don't have to think about plot much, and I've had postapocalyptic worlds inspired by Mad Max and Blade Runner but with swords and spellbooks, a version of the Forgotten Realms where Cthulu came to town and made every magical person completely and violently insane, "origin worlds" where the PC's were the first creatures in existence, and, well, Planescape, which is just an excuse to go to any world my imagination can dream up.

I change settings often, though. Sometimes I'll re-visit an interesting one, but by and large I'll just make one campaign per world. It's not that there aren't more stories to tell there, it's just that there's so many really cool ideas for campaign settings out there that I can't see limiting myself to just one, or even to a more mundane one. If I play in a stereotypical fantasy setting, it's going to need to have a dynamite hook to interest me. I'm thinking of running an Eberron game in what will be the Mournland as the tragedy happens. I'm kind of looking forward to playing a 4e game in Dark Sun, but I'm equally paranoid that 4e will suck the fun out of it.

I like different settings.

 

[Storminator]

Well I dunno how unique mine are ...

Yeah. You're pretty off base with this one...

PPS

 

[Storminator]

My homebrew is a backlash against FR. One of the things I never liked about FR is how many gods there are. I never played in a party where 2 PCs worshiped the same god.

So I made a world with one good god. The campaign is set in the monotheistic theocracy of that god.

For back story I had the Pax Arcana, thousands of years of magocracy and peace. So peaceful and successful that all belief in the old gods withered away. And when the last believer of the last god died, nothing protected the world from outside gods. So the spirits of good and evil arrived and clashed into each other, not even noticing that they were demolishing the world in the process. This great cataclysm destroyed the Pax Arcana, wiped out the mage guilds, and remade the world.

The campaign is set in the first pause in the direct confrontation between the Powers. Who knows how long it will last?

PS

 

[Jack7]

My Feathered Dragon setting is based on Maya and Incan myth, and, well, has dragons with feathers. Blood as power, transformative magic, rebellion, ecological collapse, invading empires, the importance of roads...

My New Jerusalem setting is has a heavy monotheistic influence using Jewish, Muslim, and Christian mysticism in a fantasy context (along with the requisite pagans), and pulls from sources like Dante, Milton, Jewish rabbinical texts, the Vedas of Hindu religion, pre-Muslim Arabic poetry, and Homer...

I like both of these setting ideas. A lot. Would probably like playing in both. Once I get off my pain medication and can think straight (it makes me drowsy) I'm gonna come back and read some more of the entries. I'll bet many seem interesting.

I don't know if my setting is unique, but it is kinda half and half. Half Real World, half Fantasy World. My players seem to like that. But rather than re-explain it, I'll just link it.

Terra-Ghantik

 

[FloatingDisc]

The campaign setting I am currently developing for my group* is set in the far future (still fantasy, not sci-fi) of the campaign world we first quested together in. The GM of the old campaign will be a player in this new one.

The old setting was more-or-less generic, Greyhawk-esque, and mine isn't radically different in terms of content, except for one important difference: The PCs from the old campaign that survived to epic level exist in the new setting as saints and minor deities.

There will be subtle differences in name and other details, such as how they are perceived by the general populace (think how the perception of Leto II, AKA the Tyrant, changes over the millenia in the Dune series!).

A couple of examples:
The long dead lawful good paladin will be a Saint with a cult devoted to her that goes around judging and hanging people.

The long dead elf wizard who turned evil for power will now be a minor magic deity associated with change rather than wickedness.

I'm hoping that including their old creations in this new setting might help them overcome their fears about changing to D&D 4th edition. Fingers crossed!

*Actually, my old group, to whom I am returning after an extended overseas jaunt.

 

[Crothian]

Complete with a philosopher-king, I hope?

Of course there is the Philosopher King. It has worked well since not that many people are familiar with the Republic to recognize what it is based on.

 

[Rel]

My current homebrew setting for 4e is a world that has undergone a cataclysm some 500 years prior. "The Mist" came and covered all but the highest mountain peaks. It is poisonous and corrupting stuff that gradually kills or warps those who come into contact with it without protection.

The remaining habitable world is an area only about 2000 miles across. It consists of a couple dozen large plateaus or mountain peaks and hundreds of smaller ones. Travel between these peaks is difficult to say the least. A few are connected by land-bridges but most require some form of air travel to get to.

Space is at a premium. Arable land for crops is small. Monsters dwell above and below the Mistline. Tensions are high between the plateau kingdoms. And the gods walk the lands beside those they worship.

Here is a link to a thread about it if you are interested.

 

[Wombat]

Take equal measures of the Mayan Classical culture (and territory), The Three Musketeers, and Indiana Jones and you have ... New Mavarga.

An imperial culture (Mavarga -- broadly like late Renaissance Europe) has established a toe-hold colony in an area somewhat like the coast of Guatemala; the interior jungle is strongly held by an organized, resistant state of huge individuals (the Akapans) and their servitors. You have jungles, dangerous animals, minimal armour (especially due to heat and humidity), strange magics (and an Inquisition-like group called The Office of Love & Correction that opposes all uses of magic as blasphemous), and ancient ruins to be explored and pillaged. Oh, and a strange new group has entered the scene -- the Chilliarchy with its semi-dragon lords...

Let me say that I have now run this setting using three different systems and my players keep asking for more.

 

[Piratecat]

Cat. Cat is well not just one cat, but many, dozens of identical looking black cats spread across the city.

Superb.

My campaign? A decadent empire that is crumbling, turning a civilized world into Points of Light.

My two campaigns take place in the Caprian Empire, a gloriously wealthy and sprawling empire (with Roman influences) that has conquered the continent and now seems to be rotting from within. The Emperor's Peace is beginning to fail and monsters have re-emerged into the world. The heroes in one campaign are members of the Grey Guard, a politically neutral organization peopled by cutthroats and criminals whose job is to destroy monsters. The heroes in my other game are members of an immensely important merchant family sent to investigate a family mystery on the unexplored jungle continent.

 

[theskyfullofdust]

My 4th ed. homebrew (see the maps here) takes the generic stuff from the core books, but the world is flat and was created by a god (Io,with help from Moradin) to use as a staging ground in the war against the primordials.

At the centre of the world is a vast volcano, the Heart of the Gods, guarded by a theocracy of dwarves; it holds a god-forge.

Other that a slight re-fluff of races and an interesting hometown (set on a chasm edge), the rest is fairly standard.