The Campaign Builder's Guild

i feel like i've hit a creative brick wall. none of the ideas that've popped into my head recently seem worth developing, and the setting that i'm currently working on has become uninteresting. so, in an effort to jumpstart my creative mojo, i started brainstorming a list of ideas for potential campaign settings. cause for me, a setting evolves from 1 or 2 ideas. usually strange ones. there aren't quite 1001 ideas here yet, (more like 20 right now) but i thought that i'd post them up here. i'm encouraging people to add to the list with the following thoughts in mind:

[ic=the rules (sort of...)]1) the ideas should be usable by any game system. so nothing like "wizards get to wear heavy mail armor at 15th lever" or anything like that. crunch-free please.

2) if you post the idea here, it becomes "public domain". sort of. meaning that anyone reading the post is free to use it. so if you have a really killer idea that you don't want anyone else to know about until you publish something, don't post it here. you can't "claim" or "call" exclusive rights to anything posted here either. [/ic]

that's it. nice and simple. like i said, there are only 20ish so far, and i grouped them into similar (and funny) catagories for you. when i use the word "people" i mean all sentient, non-monster, life in the setting (dwarves, orcs, humans, lizardmen, elves, whatever). when i use the word "setting" i usually mean the entire campaign world (since i usualy build the entire thing), but some of the ideas could be appropriate for a smaller scale setting, say a continent or single country. not all of these ideas are original. it's pretty much impossible to be origianl anymore. as one of my design teachers once said "you can't invent anything new, there is nothing left to invent. all you can do it take something old and look at it in a new way."

[ic=Altered Afterlives]
heaven and/or hell (or their equivalents) is/are somehow full. the souls of the departed start spilling over into the real world.

people are born with full and complete memories of their past lives.

people are born with mostly intact memories of their past lives, but these are growing inconsistant with each passing generation as a finite number of memories are spread among a growing population.

people are born with random, and often times contradictory memories from past lives.

people are reincarnated in a set and specific form when they die. the form is based on what kind of life they lead (good, evil, honest, etc.)[/ic]
[ic=Celestial Shenannagens]
the sky has turned opaque, blocking out all external light.

the sun has gone out, or been blocked by something.

the moon or another nearby body has recently been destroyed.

there is no space. air and light simply go on forever, and you can get to the other planets if you can fly high enough.
[/ic]
[ic=Disruptive Deities]
something is preventing the gods from contacting this setting. this implies that BOTH gods and mortals are trying to solve the problem.

the gods have abandoned this setting for some reason. this implies that only the mortals are trying to solve the problem.

the mortals of the setting have turned their backs on the gods. this implies that only the gods want to solve the problem.

the gods have chosen to return to the setting in corporeal form and walk among their mortal followers once again. or, then simply were ALWAYS in corporeal form.

the gods USED to walk the setting in corporeal form until very recently. something caused them to retreat into the upper planes (or their equivalent).

the gods walk the setting in corporeal form, but some (horrible or wonderful) recent event has caused them to forget that they are gods.[/ic]
[ic=Meddlesome Magic]
magic has allowed information age equivalent technology to be created at a much earlier time in history.
[/ic]
[ic=Problematic Prophecies]
the event that foretold the end (and possible remaking) of the setting has just happened.

the "chosen one" has just been born, or reached his/her full potential.

the "chosen one" is somehow stopped (killed, captured, held, turned, etc.) from completing their destiny at the very last second.

the "chosen one" completes all the requiered steps/tasks to fulfill their prophecy, but nothing happens.

the end results of the prophecy happens suddenly without any of the necessary steps/tasks/events happening first.[/ic]
[ic=Strained Planes]
another material plane has started overlaying the setting.

the material plane has somehow been skewed or tilted so that it crosses various other planes are certain points.

time no longer flows in a linear fashion in the setting.[/ic]
[ic=Weird Worlds]
the setting is a strange shape (cube, torus, flat disk, inverted sphere, etc.).

dry land is (or is believed to be) poisonous/cursed/infested with dangerous creautres. people live in giant ships (sea or air) that never make landfall.

due to some overabundance of the material, the people of the setting are (and always have been) a melding of biological and inorganic material (stone, metal, crystal, plastic, etc.).

the people of the setting are either androgynus or hermaphroditic.

the people of the setting have a parasitical reproductive cycle. they need to use another species to have offspring (posibly killing the host in the process).

one of the cosmic dualities (good/evil, law/chaos, etc.) has just won a major victory and totally eliminated it's opposing half from the setting.[/ic]

please feel free to add any ideas that you desire. they could be ones that you started to use and discarded for some reason, or something that sounded cool but you never had the time to develop.

wow  :o i didn't really think that i would get this many responses. cool. i have to leave for work soon, so this will be quick.

[ic=brainface]I would say that having absolute good (angels) in a Event Horizon-inspired horror setting would likely miss the point. [/ic]
i absolutely agree. one of the staples of lovecraftian horror (in my opinion) is that the characters are completly alone. they have no one to rely on but themselves. there are no angels, no gods, no people who can weild powerful "good" magic, etc. even if those things existed but were incredibly far away, and the characters would NEVER come into contact with them, they have an important effect... they give the characters hope. they are no longer alone. there is something just as powerful as the evil out there. it kills the mood of horror in my opinion.

[ic=DeeL]His Great Old Ones were simply so alien to human thought - and indeed, to terrestrial life - that contact with them was sufficient to render a human delusional and unstable.[/ic]
that's exactly what i was thinking too. however even though they aren't really evil in that sense, i would argue that they are seen as such in our world because the things that they do or cause to happen fall into the category of what we define as "evil".

oops. more later.

i really liked the fuzion system since it was so maleable. i found it when i picked up a copy of the bubblegum crisis rpg. too bad that the company kinda stopped making stuff for it.

the other rpg system that i really REALLY liked (and maybe that's just because it was the only system that i ran a successful campaign in) was starwars. not the new wotc d20 version, but the old one created by westend games. it was awesome. i am a big big BIG fan of skill based systems over class and lever systems (another reason why i liked fusion) and the mecahics were nice and streamlined. stats and skills were rated in #d6's. when you attempted something, you rolled your dice, totalled them, and compared it to a target number. kinda like the newer d20 system, but better in my opinion.

i totally cried when i saw that wotc had turned starwars into a class and level system. how do you have a "smuggler", "ambassador", or "princess" class? it just makes no sense.

didn't really know where to stick this thread, but since it came up while i was exploring a setting idea i figured i'd post it here.

[ic=the million dollar question]can good or evil really exist without it's polar opposite?[/ic]

i'll give this some context to help, and to see where this whole thing came from. i hit upon an idea for a futuristic/horror campaign set on a huge orbital station where a freak accident (is there any other kind?) has opened a rent in the fabric of space into (what is essentially) hell. the tear is small though, localized around one point of the station, and the "hell-things" lose power and direct influence over the universe the farther they get from it. but they can still indirectly influence people (promising them power if they do certain things for them and so on), and so the station is quanantined anyway, trapping lots of people onboard. generations live and die on the station (it's that big), the rent is impossible to close (because nobody can get close enough), and everntually the inhabitants just come to accept that all kinds of weird and dangerous stuff goes on around this one area and simply stay away from it. this was influenced by the movie "event horizon" (which was a cool idea but scared the HELL out of me as a kid), the chaos gods of the warhammer and warhammer 40k universe, and my desire to depart from "realistic fantasy" for a change.

the "things that came through the rent" are always looking to expand their influence, trick people into giving up their souls, that sort of thing. but they're not stupid. they know that if they just kill everone on the station they have NO hope of expanding that influence. like a virus that kills it's host before it can spread to other hosts. so the two sides exist in "relative" harmony, sort of. anyway, i was trying to avoid including a definatly good person, place, or thing to counteract them. there's no rent at the other side of the station that lets "heaven" leak in, there are no station churches that can protect people with "divine magic" or anything like that. i imagined it rather like a Lovecraft story. i wouldn't call the "heros" of lovecraft's tales good, but the "villans" are definately evil.

but is that really true? i mean, the outer gods and such were supposed to be so alien that humans could never hope to fathom their thoughts. does that mean they were evil? i'd like to hear people's thought on this one.

don't boo me off the stage here people, ok? but when i hear the word "tangle", and especially "the tangle", i immediately think of the twisted metal forest from the mirrodin setting of magic: the gathering a few years ago. sorry.

i really like the setting though. it's probably the best explaination i've heard for the existance of multiple planes in a long time (if not ever). i envy the players that will get to experience this setting.

bah! other people beat me to it, and probably did a better job with all the questions too, but oh well. here goes...

Fort Crown: firstly, if the city is ONLY soldiers why would anyone want to try and attack it? that's just asking for a whole lotta trouble. maybe if the city had some great and much needed resource or a vastly powerful secret, but otherwise i don't see a reason for it repelling siege after siege. secondly, SOMEONE would rise to power in the city just from the nature of soldiers. fighting men are trained to follow orders, and if there isn't anyone to give them orders the whole thing breaks down. in the absence of a king, governer, or other goverment official the most senior ranking officer would probably take control of the city. he/she would title themselves something that sounds fair and honest (like protectorate, defender, or stewart) but in fact rule like a complete tyrant. there also would most likely be a HUGE deliniation between high ranking officers and normal grunts. since the current leader/ruler came to power through his/her rank, anyone that comes close to that rank is going to be an automatic threat. meaning that they would want to keep everyone else in the city much lower on the totem pole.

Blackwater Port: the problem of a port with a central design plan and no mention of water got me thinking... what if the "ports" were somehow located ABOVE rather than on the water? for example, the city could be built on huge supports in the middle of a huge lake (kind of like laketown in the hobbit). that way the ships have to travel under it to get to the center of town. there'd be all kinds of openings leading down through the decking to the water below. perfect for all kinds of underhanded dealings. or the central opening of the city leads down to an underground sea or river system that connects to the rest of the world. you can't get the ships up to the city, so you'd have to have an elaborate system of cranes and pulleys to get the cargo up onto land. the shaft leading down would most likely be riddled with all kinds of seedy dockworker pubs, shady shops, and other places scum would hang out. in otherwords, perfect for an adventurering party's base of operations.

Dawnspire: i heartily echo Raelifin's "lack of creepiness factor" statement. a "perfect little happy-happy place with a dark secret" lends itself more to an adventure hook than a major campaign location in my opinion. mainly because it seems unlikely to me that the PCs would single handedly uncover the secret of an entire major city. especially since there are thousands (if not millions) of other people there already, and have been for some time now. SOMEONE other than the PCs would have stumbled onto SOMETHING by now and blown the whistle on the operation, right? and even if the PCs DID expose the city's awful secret, you would have to be prepared to completely rewrite the setting as ALL of dawnspires inhabitants fled to the other major citys to escape. or maybe that's what you want to happen. it DOES make for a good long term campaign idea if you choose to go that route. and the point about someone else already knowing the secret (or atleast part of it) is a great springboard for creating several secret organizations that are trying to expose things from the inside. as far as the secret itself goes, you need something that matches the dark tone of the rest of the world. something obvious to everyone that keeps dawnspire from becoming the center of civilization. otherwise, as others have said, the other cities and towns would eventually be completely empty. you probably know what the secret is already, but it should be something like people just disappearing for no reason on a regular basis (like 1 a day even). or some really dangerous THING (or things) roams the streets at night, killing anyone it (they) come across. it needs to be big, something that forces the citizens of the city to chose between paradise and scratching out a living in one of the other population centers.

that got WAY longer than i thought it would be. hope some of it helps, and i can't wait to read more about your setting. keep it coming.

thanks for the replys. reading them has boosted my confidence enough to continue with my projects. i think this whole thing stemmed from the fact that i haven't played a "pen & paper rpg" in more than 10 years. i don't have any perspective of my creations from the player side of things. only the dm.

in literature there are three kinds of conflict; man against himself, man against man, and man against nature. i think it's pretty safe to say that rpg hooks follow the same mold. it just bothers me that my settings tend to be more about the man against nature ones. i guess i shouldn't worry too much though. just create and see where the players go. but as a test or excercise i think i'll purposely make a man against man  conducive setting. one with lots of different powergroups that can interact with each other.

and how did you guys know that my next setting was going to incorperate demons? are you all psychic or something? or maybe you've just been reading my notebooks somehow. speaking of which, have any of you run a sucessful "horror campaign"? i recently obtained a copy of "heros of horror" and was reading through it. there is some good stuff in there. being a fan of edgar allen poe and h.p. lovecraft (and by fan i mean always seeing "things" out of the corner of my eye ever since i read them) i have wanted to do some sort of horror game. i had a copy of the old chaosism inc's "call of chtullu" but (like almost every other game) never actually played it. plus i wanted to do something completely fantastical. it's my next germ of a campaign setting and any advice you couls give would be helpful.

so, i've decided to put my "fatebound" project (www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?15444) on hold for a little while. i was using the marco to micro approach and got caught up with the wind and water currents and how thy would affect weather and temperature over my continents. it's going on the back burner until i go home & bring back my copy of the old tsr 2nd edition ad&d "world builder's guidebook". i love that thing. and i'm hoping it'll get me past my "creators block".

speaking of creators block, i have a question for the group. something that i'm struggling with a little bit. when you are designing a setting or campaign world, how concious are you about the types of adventures that will happen there? i've tried my hand at writing fiction and creating graphic novels and i'm terrible at it. i acan come up with all these great background ideas and histories, but can't think of a main conflict to save my life. that's why i decided to do an rpg setting in the first place - because the players and gm will come up with the storylines. or so i thought.

as the campaing setting designer, i have to set the tone of theose stories and push people in the right direction. so i have to have SOME idea about a main conflict. just today i came up with another great (in my opinion) idea for a setting and want to flesh it out. but as soon as the spark hit it was almost extinguished when the logical part of my brain said "yeah, that's great, but what do the characters DO smartguy?" does anyone else have trouble with this, and if so what do you do to get around it?

that's a fantastic mythology/creation story. there is just one thing tha bugs me about it though. maybe i'm being a bit too PC, but Auria really gets shafted in the story. i mean she gets raped by her dad/husband, blamed for his eye almost scorching the world to cinders, and then blown up to top it all off. i'm not saying change it. please don't it's a great story. just maybe change some of the wording so that Malach doesn't seem so righteous and holy and Auria so vile and evil. it DOES rather fit with the whole middle eastern flavor i felt before though. women pretty much 2nd class citizens or property. the thought that a woman who gets raped somehow brought it on herself and therefore deserves to die and all that. i know you said that you liked "the godtears" for the meteor showers, but how about linking them to Auria? you could call them "tears of Auria" instead. just a thought.

absolutely LOVE the setting, and not just because i'm a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff either. how about calling the meteror showers "the glimmerling" or, maybe even better "the godtears"? i would so totally play in this campaign setting. can't wait to see what else you do with it.

wow. did i forget to check some kind of box that allows people to post comments?

The Draudge (pronounced like "dr AWE j")

<<brief history>>
As the early years of the Binding Wars unfolded, the High Kings of <<insert kingdom name here>> were faced with the task of reconstruction and unification on a large scale. Conquering the neighboring regions had been easy enough, but ensuring that they remained part of the foundling empire was proving to be more difficult than anticipated. Riders dispatched from the newly installed regional barons were reporting population unrest that could slowly build into full scale rebellion in several areas. Knowing that they would be unable to continue their outward expansion while fighting a war within their own borders, the High Kings took council together. They agreed that the best way to sooth the populace was to improve the quality of life through new civic works. However, the problem remained of where to raise the labor necessary for such large scale projects. Almost all of <<kingdoms>>'s workforce was engaged in the war effort, and the other regions populations were still decimated from the fighting. Without help the reconstruction would move at a snails pace, dooming the empire to tear itself apart. Once again the High Kings turned to the art of Binding for a solution.

The Bindhalls had made great progeress in their craft so far, thanks to the wars; producing arms and equipment at an astonishing pace, significantly reducing the casuality rate with their battlefield fleshbinders, even breeding improved mounts and pack animals. But this request was to test their skill like never before. They were asked to create a ready supply of cheap, expendable labor for the reconstruction efforts. The bindwrites retreated into their halls and began their monumental task. After nearly 15 years of frantic research and experimentation they finally presented the results of their toil: the Draudge. Rumored to be a Bind-induced combination of captured slaves and reptilian packbeasts, the actual creation process was a closely guarded secret. Met with skepticism at first, their usefulness could not be long denied however. Within a decade the use of Draudge labor had spread throughout the empire, holding together what would have surely fractured under the strain of reconstruction.

<<physical description>>
Draudge are large, barrel-chested, vaguely reptillian humanoids that stand roughly three meters in height. Their legs, while mot much longer than a human's, are thick and bowed. Four flat nails rim their broad, conical feet, identical to the ones on their four stubby digits. A strongly curved spine gives them a constantly stooped appearance; the head is thrust forward, level with the powerful shoulders, and the fingertips almost brush along the ground.It is not uncommon to see Draudge ambling along on all four limbs when not cattying a burden.The beastial head is just one of several prominent feature that started rumors of pack lizard ancestory. Draudge skulls are long and wedge shaped, ending in a high muzzle topped with slitted nostrils. The eyes are widely spaced, deeply set, and crowned with horny protuberences. These tough outgrowths continue along the neck and head, flattening into broad disks that cover most of the back and shoulders. Short, coarse hairs sprout intermittenty from between the plates along the spine down to the small triangular tail.

more will come along as i develop it. the draudge are going to fill the "warring, hordelike baddies" spot usually taken by orcs and goblins in my campaign setting. which means that they eventually have to break free of their masters and start their own civilization. i've decided that "the draudge wars" that come later in history are what cause the "binders" to create other playable races. though i'm not entirely sure why since their bindcraft (aka magic) would have evolved to be quite potent by then. just one of the many kinks i still have to work out. anyway, what do you think of the concept so far? just looking for some general feedback from the group here.

this isn't at all related to the "cannons and black powder" discussion, but about you initial question on lack of conflict. the first thing that popped into my head when realing your fluff was greed. after generations and generations of peace, the current heir of the Meruan family probably doesn't actually DO much, and so lots of things could go on right under his nose. or, you could have the real power of Kerdith tied up in the governers and merchant houses and the king just be an emblem of that power. a figurehead, pretty much like any modern country that still has royalty (like england or japan). the powerless king idea ties in nicely with your expansion theme too. Kerdith is in a race with the other nations of the world to colonize those newly discovered lands, right?. well, who says that the govereners and merchant families are all going to play fair and even? yes they all work for the greated good of Kerdith (mostly, i'm sure) but you can't tell me that they all care nothing for personal gain. with the promise of untold riches and power just waiting to be claimed, there is going to be an ever changing web of alliances, blackmailings, and sabatage between the governers. it's mostly political conflict right now, but if things keep going, it could spill over into actual violence and a possible civil war with numerous sides.

wow. thanks for the great welcome, i'm really glad i found this place. i had a similar post over on the wotc site and hardly got anything. that's what led me over here. and yes, constructive questions and ctiticism are the best things that a worldbuilder can get. so here goes...

@ realm weaver - originally this was going to be a story for a graphic novel i was working on, and the story revolved around the destruction of the arcons to release stored magic and fix the world. just like you suggested. the problem with that was to turn the earth into a wasteland would require alot of trapped magic, meaning that there would be HUGE numbers of arcons running around, meaning that they would be very easy to find and destroy. once everyone figured out what was going on (i suppose that could be ae catch, people haven't figured it out yet). the world wide wars would have contributed alot to restoring the world to normal too, since arcons would be getting destroyed left and right in the fighting. plus, that would tend to dictate very monotonous "kill the arcon" type adventures. so, i decided to "solve" the problem by trapping the magic where no one could get it back, in the city ships. that way the world would stay messed up, because no one can follow after them and destroy them (meaning that this is not going to turn into a sort of "spelljammer" type setting).

as far as "death" for an arcon goes, short of total physical destruction (aka being smashed to bits) i imagine that you'd just have to wait for it to breakdown. i came up with the arcon idea before i stumbled onto the eberron campaign setting, but now i imagine them kinda looking like the war-forged. atleast the humanoid warriors and workers. there are many different kinds, including giant "super-brain" computer type ones. there wouldn't be any fancy materials on the fantasy world (no plastics or polymers), so the arcons would be built out of wood, metal, and stone (maybe even some crystal too). so you'd just have to wait until the things wore down. meaning they last a long time, espeically the metal and stone creations. so i guess EVENTUALLY the world would return to normal as the scattered city ships slowly breakdown and release their stored magic. but that's going to take a long long LONG time. things may have just broken down too much to be fixed by that point in time.

oh, and just in case you were wondering, under no circumstances will a player be allowed to be an arcon. they are strictly NPCs.

epic meepo pretty much hit the nail on the head. i'm using the d&d 3.5 rules and trying to include all the usual character staples of that system to try and appeal to the widest possible audience. i did think about designing everything from scratch (and if i did i would use the skill-based FUZION system which i really like), but here is why i decided not too. too much free reign. i'll give you an analogy: i was a graphic design major in college. i loved tweaking and playing with the rules and parameters of the projects that i had to work on. my stuff came out great. but now that i'm out of school i haven't designed a single thing for myself in the past 4 years. why? too much free reign. there are just too many themes, options, and ways that i could go with things... so i go nowhere. it'd be exactly the same thing with this campaign setting. if i allowed myself to design everything from the ground up i would get bogged down and not finish everything. so constraining myself to using the common elements of the d&d system helps keep me focused. i mean, i absolutely HATE gnomes. i think that they're totally stupid. but i'm going to find a way to work them in because it'll be a good challenge. plus i don't want to turn possible players off to my setting by leaving out certain things. i have a better chance of having people actually use my setting if i have all the classic d&d elements (just presented in a new and radically different way). and don't worry poseidon, i fully inted to include atleast one new race and character class, just to differentiate the setting that much more from the norm.

as for the campaign story xeviat, i'm not quite sure where i want to go with that just yet. my poor story-telling skills is what sparked the idea to turn this into a campaign setting in the first place. i could create all the fluff and back story, and then let other people run with it and do the story-telling. at the current point in history (where the players jump in) i imagine that enough time has passed where basic survival is not the end all be all of life. things have setteled down into a grey area where you won't die simply by going outside, but at the same time you have to be careful and aware at all times. as i said before "fixing the world" was the goal of the story at first. but that's no longer possible thanks to the city ships leaving. that could eventually be a high-level character idea, but at the beginning i think things should be much more local. like helping helping settlements defend against raiders and invaders, guarding baggage trains, things like that.

another thing i'm thinking about doing (which is very ambitious) is giving full game information about the world-war before the exodus. that way people could choose whether to play on the brink of the apocalypse or after it. but that is practically a whole nother setting.

hey, glad that i found this place. i introduced myself in the rogues gallery, and i'm gonna toss my campaign idea up here before i head off for work.

......
in the distnt past, the ancient kingdoms progressed to a level of magical understanding that allowed them to control the very fabric of life. the natural world was reshaped according to their whims, sickness and disease ceased to exist, all but the most serious wounds could be healed in a matter of days or weeks, and individuals could live for centuries on end. as mortals crept closer to border of immortality, the old gods began to be forgotten. religion faded in the face of the new magical sciences. prostheses were developed to replace lost or damaged body parts, and soon entire artifical bodies could house the conciousness of a person. finally, the last boundry was broken. the spark of life, the spirit, the very soul could be created from nothingness. the birth of a new race, a race of independently intelligent, fully aware, artifical beings. created in every shape and size, these "arcons" formed the backbone of ancient society. eventually there was no profession, trade, or aspect of civilized life that did not rely on these beings to continue functioning. it was a golden age where one could pursue any desires one wished, free from the toil of work, fatigue, hunger, and even death.

however, as more and more of these constructs were created, the balance of the biological world began to break down. the non-renewable store of life energy in the planet began to run dry, trapped in the immortal arcons, not being refreshed and redistributed through the natural process of death and decay. as resources started to become scarce, the old kingdoms began to argue and fight. suspicion, jealousy, and hatred swept the globe like a virulent plague. each sought to protect wat was deemed "rightfully theirs", and the forges of war began to burn painfully bright. armies of mindless artificial soldiers and war machines poured forth from every kingdom, destroying those populations not brought low from famine. law and order failed as the world crumbled. generations lived and died as the war ground bitterly on to an exhausted stalemate.

it was during one of these brief but tense lulls that the fate of the world was sealed, doomed forever. one of the smaller kingdoms, knowing that it would not survive the conflict much longer, chose to flee. to quit this blighted world in search of another. it secretly built a ship of colassal proportions, capable of carrying it's people up into the uncontested reaches beyond this dying orb. the firey liftoff scorched a crater the size of a continent in it's wake, and sparked a panicked mass exodus. a race against time to leave while they still had a chance. vast clouds of soot covered the sky as the remaining kingdoms fled. charred, smoking debris fell like black rain as the great cityships fought, crashed and burned, even as the tried to escape. many were left behind, forced to scratch out a pitiful existance in the mad scramble to depart. those that managed to excape did so with little regret, vowing never to return to their ruined homeworld.

with it's store of life energy now carved up and scattered across the heavens, the earth had no chance of ever healing, repairing the awful damage it had sustained. centuries passed and life did eventually reached a balance, if it could be called that. bleak and desolate, a twisted wasteland of ash and dust is all that remains of the once proud world. a few remnants of the mighty kingdoms remain, as twisted, bitter, and hostile as the landscape they have been cursed to live in.
......

that's it. i'm fleshing out the details as i go along. to give myself some sort of framework, i'm using the d&d 3.5 system. this will keep me on track and keep me from going too crazy. my first problem is how to work the common PC races (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling) and classes (barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard) into the setting. i also have a newly started blogsite where i record all of my thoughts and ideas.  http://www.hyvemynd.blogspot.com/