The Campaign Builder's Guild

Here's my initial, unsculpted ideas on the cosmology of Elyria.  I doubt this will even be known in its entirety by any of the sages of the world, but it's still important in shaping the world, I think.

The Material World is the world where Elyria exists.  It is the world of humans and pretty much follows the same rules as the real world, except there is magic.  The Underworld connects to the Material World via various gateways and is the final resting place of the souls of the dead.  This is the basis for the rest of the multiverse.

The Reflections are other parallel worlds that mirror the Material World, but differ from it in some significant way.  The most important one of these is the Otherworld, the Faerie Realms.  It is the magical reflection of the Material World where the trickster spirits known collectively as Faeries live.  The boundaries between it and the Material World seem to fluctuate in thickness.  An important trait of Faeries is that they depend on the presence of magic to survive, even when they are in the Material World.  This normally isn't an issue, except that iron interferes wtih magic, so they cannot wear iron or steel in any great amount, and damage from weaposn of such materials is particularly harmful.  Fortunately, the Underdark, a sort of Faerie reflection of the Underwork, seems rich with copper tin; Faeries are fond of bronze gear.

Another Reflection is the Shadow World, a dark and death-aspeted shade of the Material World rife with signs of decay and ruin.  If emo vampire teens want a creepy place to hang out, this is it.  It's not home to undead, per se, but the inhabitants certainly tend toward that type.  A castle in the Material World might be a fantastic spire or rolling hills in the Otherworld, but a dilapidated, crumbling ruin of forgotten glory in the Shadow World.

There are surely other Reflections, as well, but I haven't conjured them in my imagination yet.  Honestly, the Otherworld is probably the only commonly known one, anyway.  That's where I expect to have most common non-human fantasy races hail from.  I might even stoop to creating hundreds of elf variants...

Note that there is a degree of relativity at work here.  The inhabitants of the Faerie Realms probably think the Material World is the magicless copy of their own, while the Shadow Realm sees the Material World as a bit too bright and chearful.  But since the game is about humans, I'm adopting their perspective, and that will t(a)int everything I write about the setting.


Beyond the Material World and its Reflections lie the Primal Chaos from which everything was created.  This is the extent of Reality, the limit of Existance.  Beyond this lies the Unknown.  It is not empty, however.  Strange, maddening things dwell there.  They have a hard time piercing the edge of our Reality, but sometimes they do encroach.  These are horrificly powerful and strange creatures best avoided.  They make illithids sound cute and fuzzy.

I'd love any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or flattery you'd care to offer.  I especially like the lattermost ;)

You're so cool.

Now that the flattery is out of the way, I know your setting is influenced by D&D4's points of light, but I like your different take on it. I like that the Underworld is on a separate axis from Otherworld and Shadow World; 4E has Shadow World and the Underworld as the same thing.

Iron interfering with magic is also a great way to handle something like "armored spell failure" in world, and I might just steal that (without something like that, there doesn't end up being anything unique for a spellsword-type class, and I might need one for my pesky love of grids and symmetry). I'm assuming arcane magic comes from Otherworld, or does it come from the universe as a whole?

Where do your deities dwell? Knowing they have a greek/norse feel to them, I could see them either dwelling on the material world, or in little protected realms within the Primal Chaos.

We're of one mind, you and I. Our setting share a lot of similarities.

I want to stress that while I steal openly from 4e fluff, I'm not using any version of D&D to run this, so my approach initially lacks mechanics - I'll invent or adapt those as the need arises later.

The Underworld is far different from the Underdark of Dungeons and Dragons.  It is a mixture of Hades and Hel, and is not a place mortals venture willingly, because they don't get to leave once they enter.  That is where Pazeme and Kore live.  Dziluma lives at the bottom of the ocean and keeps the souls of the drowned there - in whatever Norse version of Davy Jones' locker you'd care to imagine. Jura usually stays with her, but is known to wander anywhere there are bodies of water.  The others gods live in the Material World wherever they like to make their abode.  It may turn out that they all live in the region where my starting city-state exists and that they're all just regional deities.  That's most likely the case, actually.

The concept of "arcane magic" from D&D really isn't appropriate here.  Magic is magic; it doesn't come in flavors.  It does come from a field of energy that permeates all of Reality.  Casting magic really is just about using that energy to alter reality to your liking.  Physics applies as soon as you finished altering reality, though.  If you create a boulder from thin air 10 feet off the ground, it'll fall as soon as the spell finishes creating it.  If you make a spell that summons an arrow made of acid in your hand, be prepared for severe chemical burns...or include magic to fling the arrow the heck away from you.

"Divine" magic are just miracles performed by the gods, if they feel like it.  Not the most reliable thing in the world.  You'd have to be a saint to pull off the Cleric thing, but then again, heroes aren't usually the guys that get picked last for dodgeball.  "Primal" I guess would refer to the way druids get their divine magic from nature; it's a little different in that it is adversely affected by the ravages of civilization and the presence of technology (Druids like to use pointy sticks and wear animal hides for armor for a reason).  Ki/bardic stuff/barbarian rage/wuxia/ninja stuff is all just extreme skill.  Shamans and totem warriors use their relationships with spirits get things done.

The iron thing really started as an extrapolation of why fairies are harmed by "cold iron."  What exactly "cold iron" is has been debated to death, but I'm just taking it as any iron.  Steel is around 90% iron, so steel counts as iron, for sure.  So I figured that the presence of iron interferes with a faery's link to mana.  Mages can still wear armor, but it won't be made of iron.  I can envision poor mages in copper chain mail or rich ones in solid bronze plate.  One side effect of this is that iron and steel items cannot be enchanted.  That alone will drastically increase the price of any magic items, although I don't expect such items to be common anyway.

The way I envision the Material World and Underworld is that they are two sides of the same world.  The Upper World is where you live when you're alive, the Underworld is where you go when you die (hopefully).  This duality gets shadowed in the Otherworld where you end up with the Seelie court in the Upper World and the Unseelie in the Underworld.  I haven't given much thought to the shadow reflection, since it's kind of odd to me, still - it almost seems superfluous.  We'll see what happens once a game gets rolling....which will require a magic system.  grr.

Quote from: Humabout
The iron thing really started as an extrapolation of why fairies are harmed by "cold iron."  What exactly "cold iron" is has been debated to death, but I'm just taking it as any iron.  Steel is around 90% iron, so steel counts as iron, for sure.  So I figured that the presence of iron interferes with a faery's link to mana.  Mages can still wear armor, but it won't be made of iron.  I can envision poor mages in copper chain mail or rich ones in solid bronze plate.  One side effect of this is that iron and steel items cannot be enchanted.  That alone will drastically increase the price of any magic items, although I don't expect such items to be common anyway.

The idea that mages can wear armor, but not iron because it messes with magic, is really awesome. Actually, the idea that iron messes with magic in general is really cool.

So if iron cannot be enchanted, are magic weapons just made with bronze or stone or wood? Do enchanted weapons even exist, or are magic items strange, quasi-primitive trinkets and tokens, like a wooden bracelet or a specially woven leather necklace?

I'm not really sure what kind of vibe you're going here, but with the iron/fairy thing, it comes off as very Celtic/Gallic.

Thanks.  Anything not made of iron could be enchanted, as far as I'm concerned.  Magic weapons would likely be bronze, since it is generally regarded as superior to any steal of early medieval production (I'm looking at a generally 900 - 1,300 A.D. feel to Elyria in terms of technology).  The same goes for armor.  Low tech trinkets certainly fit as well, especially for druids, shamans, and the like.  I could see a warriors carrying magical bear fetishes dedicated to Vetra into battle with them.

I'm going for a general dark european feel overall.  I want to justify the many tropes of dungeon crawling and goblin bashing, but otherwise have a world that'll support almost anything.  I think the iron thing being a rule rather than a weakness of faeries alone grabs that little bit of celtic awesomeness without forcing everyone to wear kilts and play bagpipes.  Frankly, I suspect the region I'll be dealing with will be modeled geographically on eastern Europe, with some nordic lands to the far north and desert to the far south.  Travel will be sufficienlty dangerous to prevent anyone from wandering too far without giving me time to flesh out the surrounding regions.

I like your handle on the material worlds. If you go back and read some of my setting things, I originally had three worlds (spirit world, material world, land of the dead), but ended up merging the two reflection worlds into one. Now you have me thinking that the spirit world and land of the dead could still be different places ... so much confliction.

Having most of your gods be regional would probably lend towards the feel I'm getting (that of the real world but with magic). By having a few deities represented globally, but others represented regionally, gives you a very organic feel.

Organic is the goal.  I'm really only focusing on one region at the moment.  I'm hoping that will allow the setting to grow in a less contrived manner as it (hopefully) gets used and expanded.

One of my biggest problems is usually that I start off with this kitchen sink approach and then start holding all those bits up to the light of my intentions and have to throw have of it out.  That's why I'm not sure the shadow reflection will make the cut.  It doesn't quite fit at the moment.  Then again, it might end up in an adventure somewhere and become cannon.  Either way, I'm not investing much time in it right now.  I'm glad this stuff is helping you develop yoru own setting; you're comments have helped solidify a lot of things for me.

Excellent. I often worry that my commends tend to towards reflecting on my own setting, so I'm glad it helped you. You've certainly helped me.

Even if they are reflecting your own setting, I think our trains of thought are sufficiently convergent for that to work for us both ^^

I think I'm almost ready to draw a map and start on some city info . . .

Cool. I'll keep my eye open. Please feel free to peruse the links in my signature.

Quote from: Humabout
I'm looking at a generally 900 - 1,300 A.D. feel to Elyria in terms of technology

Quote from: HumaboutI could see a warriors carrying magical bear fetishes dedicated to Vetra into battle with them.

Quote from: HumaboutI'm going for a general dark european feel overall.  I want to justify the many tropes of dungeon crawling and goblin bashing

Quote from: HumaboutI think the iron thing being a rule rather than a weakness of faeries alone grabs that little bit of celtic awesomeness without forcing everyone to wear kilts and play bagpipes.

Quote from: HumaboutTravel will be sufficienlty dangerous to prevent anyone from wandering too far without giving me time to flesh out the surrounding regions.

Lush. You, sir, are a man after my own heart.

Glad I can pull your heatstrings, sir.  Ill pull this all together into a proper setting post eventually.  I still need to tackle magic and draw a map, first.  For now, I'm jsut posting the bits i've already written.