I was plotting away at a setting that would work with 4e, as the levels of overt magic inherent in the system conflict with my current vision of my primary setting. So, I jotted down some notes and thought I might share them with the community and get some feedback.
The premise of the world hinges on the solid establishment of a draconic empire on the mainland, where dragonborn were citizens and soldiers, kobolds served as servants, and the actual dragons themselves were rare and mighty rulers of the masses. The arrival of the Imperials disrupted the native humans, forcing them into the role of slaves or toys for the ruling wyrms.
A century ago, one of the dragon rulers imparted to his favorite slaves the secret of the written language as a means to make them more useful. From this knowledge they pried forth a primitive understanding of arcane theory, which they bent towards acquiring their freedom. Using primarily summoning magic, the first human magic users made pacts with infernal powers in order to gain their freedom. The resulting struggle was a war of decades that rocked the land.
Now, a stalemate has been found, and peace creeps over the realm. The autonomous territories of Hellspire and Blackwell lurk on the edge of the draconic dominion, while the last great plantation of human slaves resides between the two, working to feed the empire. To the east is the land of opportunity, beyond the reach of draconic rulers or infernal dukes, known commonly as the Savage Lands. Over the unending plains lies wealth untold guarded by dangers unspeakable. Great monsters like those the dragons fought upon their arrival live in burrows and thickets, wandering about in search of an easy meal. The sentient natives of this region are stoic and suspicious, rarely willing to help those from the civilized lands.
[ic=Religion]The Conqueror: The first dragon to come to the golden land and founder of the draconic empire.
The Fool/The Giver of Gifts: The dragon who gave humans the power of words, obviously viewed quite differently by humans and dragons.
The Defiler/The Flame: Hero of Hellspire who led the revolution and trafficked with demons to free his people.
The Maiden: Patron of Blackwell, spirit of fairness in all things, especially commerce and often pressed into the service of vengeance.
The Whispers: Guidance of the spirits that reside in all things, favored belief of the Savage Lands.[/ic]
Questions I have:
Where should I put the other races? Elves, Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Human are accounted for. I have no problem cutting races, but as a 4e setting, I'm willing to compromise here to find room for all of them.
Tieflings could be humans who made pacts with infernal powers. Perhaps the Tieflings are not a race that is born, but instead a slow transformation as humans are slowly corrupted by Infernal pacts to long-forgotten progenitor gods of the dragons. Basically, magic was not fit for man. So, man became more..."divine". Think Soul Reaver, in a sense.
Perhaps Eladrin could be "celestine" servants of the Maiden, sent to exact equality with the Conqueror's servants.
I would treat Eladrin just as a different kind of elves, myself. Do about the same with them as you have with the elves.
Halflings are easy, I think. Truthfully, they work quite well as nomads. They could possibly be from humans that were once magically cursed to be made weaker or as amusing playthings to the dragons but have since been freed and adapted.
Halflings were once a draconic delicacy before being freed during the human rebellion.
I should mention that I am probably removing halflings and making kobolds a player race, since the nich is similar and kobolds are no longer monsters.
So, I need a place for: Eladrin and Dwarves, from what I can tell. As half-elves and halflings are scrapped.
Scrapping halflings and half-elves? :)
As I already said, I would just treat Eladrin as elves. Eladrin and elves could even live together and be almost the same, just filling different roles in their society.
Dwarves could be a race that have lived under the earth this entire time and now that the scary dragons no longer rule all of the land, they have made themselves known to the surface. Alternatively, dwarves could have been another race of slaves to the dragons. They could have been forced to build for the dragons. Maybe they were even humans at one point but changed over time.
OH, an interesting idea for Eladrin/Elves. Make them genders of the same race. That would be interesting and allow them to be the same thing without getting into odd evolutionary reasons for the differences.
I don't 100% like the idea of dropping halflings. Halflings serve a very useful game role, and not having them leaves that out (they're absolutely perfect Daring Rogues, what with their Cha bonus and their +2 bonus to AoOs).
Dropping Half-Elves is perfectly fine, though, I don't think that will bother anyone but the most pronounced Half-Elf lover.
Cutting out the mechanics for Half-elves isn't much fun though. I know a few of my players have been a fan of them simply due to the multi-classing bits. Perhaps you could use them in a different way. Maybe certain individuals have a knack for dabbling in various things. Maybe you could consider the race as if that person used to be an apprentice of a different class and then chose their current path later.
You could use it to differentiate a specific tribe of people, perhaps Savage Land humans use half-elf statistics. I know alot of people [me included] hate the idea that two species could somehow breed and have children...
When the humans were making pacts, some may not have made them with the infernal powers. Some may have sought fey creatures. Making deals with those of the feywild, as such the feywild sent a few of their own soldiers (Eladrin) and imparted some of their magic to the humans (fey-pact Warlock) aiding them against the Dragons.
Dwarves are nomads, living in the savage lands. (I don't know)
I like Ninja D!'s idea for dwarves. They could have an empire older than the dragons with strange, foreign customs. Perhaps the humans discover them completely by accident or the dwarves go to visit the humans. Either way, they'd be different looking than traditional dwarves due to an almost exclusive underground living. Talk about a great ally for the humans! This vast culture and empire with many, many dwarves dwelling right beneath the dragons' feet. Except maybe the dwarves don't trust anyone so it's practically impossible for the humans to get them to make an alliance against the dragons.
Can I just say how much I love the idea that the humans turned to demons to get free of the Dragons? It has just the right ring of realism to it.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatI don't 100% like the idea of dropping halflings. Halflings serve a very useful game role, and not having them leaves that out (they're absolutely perfect Daring Rogues, what with their Cha bonus and their +2 bonus to AoOs).
Can I just say how much I love the idea that the humans turned to demons to get free of the Dragons? It has just the right ring of realism to it.[/quote]Thank you. This idea is one of the two good seeds the setting is based on, the other being that dragonborn should have a better explanation than "wandering homeless mercenaries".
As a general response to the underground dwarven empire idea, I feel that this doesn't really work with the feel I'm trying to set up. I'm working hard to give every race a defined role and reason for being what and where they are. A xenophobic underground empire that just appears at the beginning of the story is something I really don't want.
Maybe the dwarves are not xenophobic. They were just afraid of the dragons. Or maybe they helped the humans break free? I don't know. If you wanted anything like normal dwarves, I'm not sure how else to do it.
The dwarves don't have to be xenophobic, or afraid of the dragons. Being below the surface of the world may have allowed them to live without fear of enslavement. The dragons were sent into the tunnels, but the dwarves were able to turn back every invasion. Finally the Dragons realized they would not take the dwarves and moved on to easier prey. The Dragons and Dwarves empires traded amongst between each other.
When the dwarves saw the end of the dragon empire they aided the humans. The dwarves still hold the underground as their empire and are not interested in the upper world. Some dwarves decide to surface, and some of those have made new homes on the surface, but a mighty Dwarven Empire still lurks below the surface of the world.
I'm not overly familiar with 4E, do Gnomes still exist? If so they could be a race of 'constructs' that the dwarves use as liaisons to the humans.
Regarding 1/2 Elves you could turn them into their own race, maybe some kind of 'slave/thrall' race to the dragons.
Just a couple of ideas...