The Campaign Builder's Guild

I'm looking for feedback and ideas for expansion on Vere, a homebrewed setting I've been working on for about five months now. Designed to have both beautiful aspects and harsh amounts of versimilitude juxtaposed, it is particularly strong on culture but weaker in the areas of history and adventuring opportunities. Vere is SRD compatible, using no other copyrighted material.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, though I'm particularly interested in:
a) Ideas for exciting adventures set in its locales.
b) Suggestions for fleshing out the less-developed areas
c) Comments on your view of its strengths and weaknesses.

The main link to Vere is here:  http://eruvian.com/locale.asp?localeID=151. If you don't want to peruse the entire setting, below are three of the most developed components:
1) Kenalne, a primarily human city-state where kobolds form a permenant underclass- http://eruvian.com/locale.asp?localeID=144
2) Neftsalyi'dam, a morally ambiguous land of dark elves- http://eruvian.com/locale.asp?localeID=173
3) The mesai, a custom race with a strong hatred of undead- http://eruvian.com/race.asp?raceID=15

Thank you in advance for all your help!

Interesting use/cultural position of the kobolds. That's a really different situation for them, as far as I've seen. Usually they're just insane dragon cultists in the woods somewhere... or in a cave with an obscene amount of traps around the outside.

Hi there--I'm Gorice XII on the WOTC forum. PM me if you need any help or anything. Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the guild. I've been planning on reviewing Vere for a few days, but I wanted to make sure you were still around, as we get a few people who drop by and disappear.

Hi! I'm still here and I would love feedback. Thank you. :)

Some things I noticed, that stuck out...

Any setting with a racial/cultural group that can be called 'The Pinks' is one step closer to full approval.  Somehow, that just seems so real.

I liked the Agrarian guild, and the interaction with the local churches.  You did well with building factions a few times.  Work more with this.

I did not find any reason for folks to worship Carn however, and could not get a grip on the worship of him, so I looked over the deities.  I was having trouble grasping how any of them would build worshippers.  In some of the area writups, there are comments on how they are envisioned, but not hwo the truly feel.  Might be something to beef up, perhaps by including some of the history and myth in their writeups. (See Raelifin and Luminous Crayon's work for some truly enjoyable-yet-unusual examples of myth).
 I appreciated the comments on how death is viewed on Vere, and even more enjoyed the comment on how different areas might see different aspects of a God (I like complex, living religions).  

Liked your racial overviews very, very much.  I am trying to find the mechanism you've placed for the Mesai not owning the world, since they seem more advanced and brighter and tough as nails, but other than that, the races were all very well done.  You do not mention about the Mesai racial antipathy for undead, and I need to get a handle on the place and power of undead in this setting to better really grasp this.

I was very pleased to read that there were no evil or good races, but then surprised to read that the kobolds tend towards neutral evil.  Could the racial alignment slant here be culturally derived, or are they really evil?

Much here that is nicely 'different'.  Hope that was a nice, helpful start! :D

Quote from: LordVreegSome things I noticed, that stuck out...

Any setting with a racial/cultural group that can be called 'The Pinks' is one step closer to full approval.  Somehow, that just seems so real.

I liked the Agrarian guild, and the interaction with the local churches.  You did well with building factions a few times.  Work more with this.

I did not find any reason for folks to worship Carn however, and could not get a grip on the worship of him, so I looked over the deities.  I was having trouble grasping how any of them would build worshippers.  In some of the area writups, there are comments on how they are envisioned, but not hwo the truly feel.  Might be something to beef up, perhaps by including some of the history and myth in their writeups. (See Raelifin and Luminous Crayon's work for some truly enjoyable-yet-unusual examples of myth).
 I appreciated the comments on how death is viewed on Vere, and even more enjoyed the comment on how different areas might see different aspects of a God (I like complex, living religions).  

Liked your racial overviews very, very much.  I am trying to find the mechanism you've placed for the Mesai not owning the world, since they seem more advanced and brighter and tough as nails, but other than that, the races were all very well done.  You do not mention about the Mesai racial antipathy for undead, and I need to get a handle on the place and power of undead in this setting to better really grasp this.

I was very pleased to read that there were no evil or good races, but then surprised to read that the kobolds tend towards neutral evil.  Could the racial alignment slant here be culturally derived, or are they really evil?

Much here that is nicely 'different'.  Hope that was a nice, helpful start! :D

Thank you so much for your detailed response! I love seeing both things I've done well and constructive criticism. At the moment I am working on a faction of dark elves, actually, so I am trying to get in some more organizations around the continent that will bring its politics to life. Thanks for the suggestions on myths; I will take a look at the work of the two users whom you mentioned as soon as I make this post. I'm thinking of designing some churches around Huis soon, to hopefully up the feel of religion, to get at how people interact with the faith.

I need to do a lot more work on the mesai (as I'm sure was clear), but their obsession with undead-killing is so bad that they often end up destroying much of the creativity and resources they would need to conquer other areas. Their sense of superiority and fear of outsiders also decreased interest in petty human lands, but I should detail some of the wars they have had in their history (they are essentially in civil war at the moment, but they have fought many other nations in the past).

Good point on the kobolds and alignment; I need to clarify that it's cultural (helped along by their sole nation's ruler being a red dragon).

That was an excellent start (some of the best feedback I've ever gotten on any of my work); I appreciate it most sincerely. :)

Quote from: QueenfangeThat was an excellent start (some of the best feedback I've ever gotten on any of my work); I appreciate it most sincerely. :)

It's always nice to hear things like that about the site.  I don't have the time to look over every campaign setting like I used to, so it makes me glad that other people here, such as Lord Vreeg, are doing such a good job.   Stick around long enough, and you'll probably get so many reviews you can't sift through them all! :)

You've got a lot of potential. I'm enjoying the races especially, as so few people come up with races that I find interesting. I applaud your discussion of familial and romantic systems, including the casual mentions of homosexuality. It gives me the feeling that your setting is much more about love than hate, which is a very nice change of pace. (Note that a "love" focused setting isn't necessarily less violent or dark, it's just where the emphasis is placed.)

This morning, I just finished reading the setting "The Eternal Crusade," and I'm struck by just how much it is the opposite of your setting. It is filled with ideas of unstable, violent cultures eating one another until they'll eventually consume themselves. Paranoia, death, disgust, ignorance, sin and loss are all thrown into a big melting pot and discussed with very broad strokes.

Now, there are ways that you can look at the yin-yang relationship as a good thing - Vere has much more material on daily life and the people who live on the world - but I'm going to focus on what The Eternal Crusade (TEC) has that Vere doesn't, because there are some important holes.

TEC has emotional power, Vere (in my opinion) does not. What does one feel when reading or playing in the setting? "Casually happy" isn't a very powerful emotion, and that's what I felt when reading over everything.

TEC has conflict, Vere doesn't. You mention undead, and yet they haven't been seriously introduced. I don't see any wars or major evils, and it leaves me saying to myself "Okay, what do you do in Vere?"

TEC is condensed and easy to read, but I found myself more or less wandering the Vere website, trying to figure out what was what.

And one last thing, while I appreciate the details that you include with your races and cultures and places, I've come across sections which just seem scattered and thrown together, such as:

Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?7052.0Jade Stage[/url] for my favorite setting). I hope you disagree with my points, as that makes for interesting discussion. ;)
Good gaming,
 - Raelifin  

To the contrary, your feedback was extraordinarily helpful. I am looking for constructive criticism, and you certainly provided me with some!

I do need to rewrite much of the section on the mesai; I appreciate the reminder and specifics on where it was most weak. That has been added to my to-do list.

Ah, conflict. Vere does have conflict- it is just still inside my mind. The Quixioshen are rising up and preparing to conquer Cyahen, Goerth is being torn apart from the inside out, the darklings are dying off, Valchete is being hacked away at from both sides, Seiwalel is provoking the bronze dragons who protect Marakei, and there are so many other things I've just begun to think of. My world-building strategy is to lay the foundation for everyday life and then conflict will arise naturally- it just takes time. When I first envisioned Vere, it was just a bunch of pretty creatures running all these little nations. As I fleshed out their cultures, prejudices, and differences, natural fault lines started to show, at least in my mind. For example, though I designed Neftsalyi'dam and Cyahen to be traditional enemies, as I further described Quixioshe as far more bloodthirsty, the potential for a new dark elf-feireld war became obvious.

Again, you bring up some great points. I'm glad you liked the culture I presented (and the casual mention of homosexuality- Vere is a more sexually open world than most other DnD settings, partially to add to versimilitude but partially because it's just more interesting). I will put more focus on conflict, and will post here again with some examples of how I'm incorporating it soon. As to the prejudice and evil of the other setting... Vere will have that too, in good time. Quixioshe in particular is my focus at this time, and it has some great opportunities for genuine perverse darkness.

I would love to hear more; everyone here has been amazingly helpful thus far!