The Campaign Builder's Guild

Long ago, humanity used magic as a way to oppress and conquer other lands. Dragons sealed all arcane magic away, limiting it's power. Now, the empires of humanity lays in a shadow of it's former self.

What I have so far:
A map (

Races* and locations:
 Humans, skulk, sea kin, illumians, and half-ogres- Large left continent.
 Elves, raptorans, killorens, catfolk, and hafling, forest covered continent on the right.
 Dwarves, gnomes, goliaths, and stonechild- middle mountainous continent.
 Xeph, elan, dromite, thri-kreen, Maenad, and the gith races- top right wasteland continent.

 *- races includes subraces, which is why dueger and drow aren't listed. This only includes races that are in high numbers on the surface world, which is why illithid aren't included.

So my first questions are:
why did dragons seal magic away? Were/are they in direct opposition to humanity or were they some kind of agents of the divine? What were humans like before? What are they like now?

I'm working on that..... Currently working on caffine fuel right now, so not much energy to post anything coherent.....

 Give me half an hour, and I'll have the history up.

I think a key for your map would be nice too.

Barren Lands History in a nutshell:

 The Spirit War: The spirit war took place over ten thousand years ago. It was a war between the users of arcane and psionic magic. Before the war, the continents of the land were joined as one. So much energy was released from the war that the continent was split. Those who wielded psionic power lost and went into exile on the desolate wasteland.

  War of the Sublime Way: before the land could recover from the Spirit War, another war shook the lands. This time, it was between the many paths of the Sublime Way.Armies of skilled warriors clashed over who's path was best. Finally, nine paths arose from the dust. The fallen paths still exist, but they are merely underground.

  The Peace Times: Peace settled upon the lands for the next 8,000 years. The races settled to where they are now, and the kingdoms prospered. Technology advanced in leaps and bounds. Massive astral ships the size of cities traveled the planes, making contact with the planes.

  The Stripping of Magic: 1,000 years ago the forces of the princes of elemental evil turned thier attention to the Barren Lands. They humanoid races fought hard to stop them, but in the end thier massive fleets were no match for the combined power of the princes.
 When the expeditionary forces of the princes arrived on the material plane, the dragons intervened. Working from every outer plane and the Barren Lands, the dragons drained a majority of the magical energy from the lands. The magic reserves of the world are still drained.

Quote from: TuralisjBarren Lands History in a nutshell:

 The Spirit War: The spirit war took place over ten thousand years ago. It was a war between the users of arcane and psionic magic. Before the war, the continents of the land were joined as one. So much energy was released from the war that the continent was split. Those who wielded psionic power lost and went into exile on the desolate wasteland.

Good idea but I think it can be improved. One, maybe change the name away from "Spiritual" as that gives the impression of it being divine (stylistic preference mostly).

Maybe the energy released was part of a gigantic power/spell that was released as a final resort, a desperate act by the psionicists that failed them.

QuoteWar of the Sublime Way: before the land could recover from the Spirit War, another war shook the lands. This time, it was between the many paths of the Sublime Way.Armies of skilled warriors clashed over who's path was best. Finally, nine paths arose from the dust. The fallen paths still exist, but they are merely underground.

The Peace Times: Peace settled upon the lands for the next 8,000 years. The races settled to where they are now, and the kingdoms prospered. Technology advanced in leaps and bounds. Massive astral ships the size of cities traveled the planes, making contact with the planes.
[/quote]
  The Stripping of Magic: 1,000 years ago the forces of the princes of elemental evil turned thier attention to the Barren Lands. They humanoid races fought hard to stop them, but in the end thier massive fleets were no match for the combined power of the princes.
 When the expeditionary forces of the princes arrived on the material plane, the dragons intervened. Working from every outer plane and the Barren Lands, the dragons drained a majority of the magical energy from the lands. The magic reserves of the world are still drained.
[/quote]

Just for clarification: Why did the dragons want to help the humanoid races? Are the fleets the plane ships? (would explain why the dragons didn't intervene until later). Why did they have to drain magical energy? Was it consumed due to their efforts to fend off the Princes?

Hope I helped! ;)

Quote from: So-KeherGood idea but I think it can be improved. One, maybe change the name away from "Spiritual" as that gives the impression of it being divine (stylistic preference mostly).

Maybe the energy released was part of a gigantic power/spell that was released as a final resort, a desperate act by the psionicists that failed them.

 I didn't really have any synonym on hand for magic war... And arcane wouldn't be right, because psionics is definitely  not arcane.

 As for the energy, it's more like a series of powerfull spells and powers (think hundreds of meteor swarms and hundreds of genesis going off within seconds of each other. Effectively, it is like setting off a dozen thermo-nukes across the san andraes fault line.

QuoteAre paths styles of warriors or almost like different factions? How many were there and what makes the paths different from each other?

Please expand on the giant plane-shifting ships! How are they powered, who controls them etc. Very interesting concept. I'm a big fan of airships but I had never connected them to planar travel before.
[/quote]
Just for clarification: Why did the dragons want to help the humanoid races? Are the fleets the plane ships? (would explain why the dragons didn't intervene until later). Why did they have to drain magical energy? Was it consumed due to their efforts to fend off the Princes?
[/quote]

 The dragons had to help the humans because they would have been next after them. Better to seal off the problem then have to fight it after a slaughter. Yes, the fleets are the planar ships. I'll write up stats for them sometime. Again, I'll explain more on the magical energy thing later. In a nutshell though, the magical energy gets it's power from six reservoirs of elemental energy.