The Campaign Builder's Guild

The Shattered Horizons Campaign Setting

Introduction

"I remember what life was like back before the elves, the demons, the volcanoes, the plagues, the death sorcerers and the wars. It was boring."

The World is a product of an extraplanar cataclysm when three separate and completely different universes superimposed themselves on each other. Imagine you had in your hands three precious vases. Each one is shaped the same way, but each one is glazed in completely different colors. Then they slip from your hands and shatter into thousands of pieces. You piece them back together with glue and a blindfold. When you take the blindfold off, the vase you were gluing together is made up of all three vases now. It is still shaped like a vase, it can still hold water, but shards of blue, red, and yellow are now molded together into a new vessel.

This is what happened to the worlds of Tzaloc, Demos, and the Imperial Dominion. The World's surface is a patchwork of mismatched terrain.It is a thousand puzzle pieces that do not quite fit one another. For the past 70 years this has caused endless conflicts as the Empire attempts to rebuild itself and conquer a new world, as the elven tribes try to come to terms with the invasion of a powerful human nation encroaching on their domain, and finally the fiends of Demos continue to wage an eternal civil war that threatens to break this world again.

The Three Worlds
The setting is broken up into three worlds, each was very distinct and seperate ages ago. Today however they have come into close and intimate contact with one another. Some piecefully, some less so...

Tzaloc (pronounced Chalok) is wild land of nature untarnished by civilization. The native elves are tribal and sturdy, forced to live with the wild creatures that roam the jungles. Volatile volcanoes belch forth ash, soot, and molten lava. Today these wild zones come into close contact with the peaceful farmlands of Imperial Domain. Tzaloc zones are rich in natural resources making them prized among the many guilds of the Empire.

Demos (pronounced Daymos) is hell made manifest. Blood stains the earth and bile rains from the sky. Fiends rule a land that is now called The Scar of the World. It is a huge island continent ripped apart by demonic civil war. Unfortunately, the real danger from Demos are hundreds of tiny satelite islands that pepper the entire world spreading demon spawn.

The Imperial Dominion once was a world completely controlled by a powerful empire of nothing but humans, with the elves and other races having long died out. Today however the once united nation has been shattered and seperated by long expanses of Tzaloc land and Demos land. The Empire must rebuild itself while also defending from elven and demonic threats to their security.

Ten Important Facts
The following decribes the biggest key points to the setting. This is like a small factsheet that helps give an overview of what the world is like.

    1. The Empire is shattered. Today, the Imperial Dominion that had once been entirely under Leopald II's rule has been sundered. Some heretic regions have taken it upon themselves to declare independence from Imperial Rule. Other more secluded regions have chosen an interim government while they await rescue from the Empire.

    2. 40 years have passed since the cataclysm. Today it is the year 1745, The Year of Stone Rain according to the Imperial Calendar. The Elves have their own complex calendar based upon the stars. The elven philosopher Kolletec has rewritten their calendar to reflect the new patterns of stars.

    3. There is only one thing stopping the Scar of the World from washing the world in blood and death. For millenia a war has been going on between three powerful armies. The Army of the Sorcery God is a small nation of powerful necromancers and mages dedicated to arcane might. The Army of the Blood God are warriors dedicated to carnage, slaughter, and violence in all its forms. Finally the third and most alien faction are the Slavers, a group of super psionic floating jellyfish.

    4. The World has Three Moons. One is green (Tzaloc's), one is white (The Imperial Domain's) and the other is red (Demos')

    5. Aether (pronounced ether) is the oil of the World. Basically it is the element that makes magic work it is a valuable natural resource. The Empire uses drilling silos to collect it, Demos makes use of mines that stretch miles beneath the world, and Tzaloc has long used it to power their mysterious ziggaurats. Aether comes in three forms: Crude Aether is simple and natural, the boons that it offers to magic users is wild and chaotic. Refined Aether has been ran through the refinement process making it more stable and valuable. This is the ingredient that the Imperial economy is based upon. Anti-Aether is rare and dangerous, it serves as a null-magic ingredient. Only a gallon of it exist on the entire planet.

    6. Gods are real. The Imperial religion is The Church of the Light. The Light is not a physical deity as seen in other fantasy stories, so much as it is an idea and a common pursuit. It represents Imperial ideals and values. On the other hand, the Elves of Tzaloc worship omnipotent super beings that are very real. These gods rarely step foot on the World, they are incredibly powerful, able to manipulate the aether that holds the universe together. Only one god actually lived on the material plane, and he is long dead (one of billions to die during the cataclysm). All that remains are shards of his miles long subterranean city miles beneath the surface.

    7. The Light and the Shadow are eternal enemies. It is the ages old conflict of creation v. consumption. In the Imperial Religion, the Light is the key source of all that is good and virtuous in the multiverse. It is life incarnate. The Shadow is the key source of all that is evil and cruel in the multiverse. It is hate incarnate. The Shadow is capable of corrupting and mutating any creature, while the Light is capable of doing this in a completely opposite manner.

    8. The Imperial Dominion was created by the Light. It was paradise, a land where men would not want for food and would be free. Unfortunately, like all things, men corrupted their paradise over the centuries. They brought War, Totalitarianism, and wanton Capitalism. They conquered their world and it's resources with steel and smoke.

    9. Demos was created by the Shadow. It was a living hell, a land where good men would be corrupted by the dark forces and become something worse than living. Some mages and scholars believe that the people of Demos have had their bodies shaped to match their black hearts. However not all men are inherently cruel, there are those who suffer the corruption of their bodies while their hearts long for freedom.

    10. No one knows why these three Universes have collided. Each have their own theories. The elves believe it was chaos, a pure fluke that any of this happened. Some scholars of the Empire believe that the drilling operations for Aether lead to this gravitational collision of universes flaoting in the Multiverse. The people of Demos blame their rival factions believing they were attempting to gain the upper hand in the constant war.

Chapter One: Tzaloc

"I had never seen anything like it Captain! A whole city made of gold! They had so much of it they could blow their nose with it! So much, just sitting there ripe for the taking!"
Tzaloc is a world of strange races and dense jungle. It is nature unleashed, filled with all manner of strange monsters, rich natural resources, and tribes living on the raggedy edge of civilization. The wild zones of Tzaloc are chock full of high grade Aether which is easy to refine. This makes it a big draw for the many guilds of the Empire.

However, deep in the jungle, are hidden doorways into the depths of the world. These doorways bring you to the underground domain that once belonged to Madras the Shaper. Madras was the only elven god who lived on the material plane, he burrowed miles into the surface and created a labratory/sanctuary for the infinite number of creations he gave birth to. Since his death, this domain has been broken into small dungeons that still pepper the landscape. A man could literally spend his entire life walking through one, and never see the light of day again.

Chapter Two: The Imperial Dominion

"Do you know why the elves left the Dominion all those years ago? To make way for the machine of industry and the might of the Empire."The Imperial Dominion is a Totalitarian State that until recently had everything under control. A small resistance group had stepped up to the plate to fight the Empire, and in doing so was able to cement the Empire's control on citizens. For decades the rebels were blamed for everything from food shortages, bombings, deaths, and were painted by imperial bards and periodicals to be thieves, rapists, murders, and cultists.

In fact most Imperial citizens blame the current situation on the rebellion and continue to blame the rebels for all their ills, even though the rebellion has almost ceased to exist. Those who oppose Imperial Rule today just leave into the wilds of Tzaloc (or even Demos) lands.

Chapter Three: Demos

"My only regret is that I have but one life to give for Magog the Destroyer."
It is Hell on Earth ruled by three of the most depraved horrors the multiverse has ever known. What is left of Demos consists of a large continent known as the Scar of the World and several small pockets of what was once Demos. The Scar is locked in an epic three way war between The Blood God Magog, The Arcane Lord Accelios, and the alien intelligence known as The Collective. These three beings have fought a war that stretches on before most universes were ever born. Their history is long and bloody, their war has cost more lives than their are grains of sand on a beach. The death toll is estimated to be in the tens of trillions.

Races
Humans
Play a human if:

    * You dislike every other race on the face of the planet.
    * You love making money, killing monsters, and conquering everything before you.

Noble and headstrong, the Empire of Man once ruled an entire planet. Today the empire is broken into shards, and under attack from Demos and Tzaloc.
Humans are very ethnocentric, they see the world from the view of a human, and often have some sort of bias (usually unconscious, but sometimes straight up racism). Humans are greedy, but they are not always interested in just gold. They have a very strong "What's in it for me" mentality.

Elves
Play an elf if:

    * You love Aztec, Incan, or Mayan cultures.
    * You have a strange yearning to rip out your manager's heart and offering it to the gods because he did a really good job today.

Warlike and spiritual, the twelve tribes have been at war with the Empire for decades. Their temple pyramids rise above the thick canopy of trees and serve as a place for sacrifices. Elves are physically strong and feral, their bodies are covered in scars, tattoos, and piercings. They are not as long lived as elves in other worlds, instead usually living to about 100-150 before being killed, murdered, sacrificed, or eaten by some monster. Most elves are an artist of some form such as pottery, carving (stone and wood), basketry, or occaisionally metal smithing.

Gnomes
Play a gnome if:

    * You have always been interested in the hidden tribes of people who have never seen the modern world.
    * You like being small and striking not from the shadows, but from beneath everyone's feet.

Gnomes are hunters that live deep in the jungle. Most have never seen a demon or human, but live in huge cities high in the treetops.
The gnomes are curious by nature, and are especially interested in the brave new world. Most gnomes leave their communities for a few years then return to settle down. The gnomes have built a strong relationship with the spirits that live in the rain forest and worship them as gods.

Orcs
Play an orc if:

    * You want to be a tool of the slaughter god and love to shower in the blood of those weaker than you.
    * You want to play a hero escaping a bloody and dark past.

Created by Magog the Destroyer, they were shaped into his image. Their skin ranges from forest green to blood red, they are destruction incarnate.
Orcs aren't evil, you can easily be an Orc and still be a good hero, however it's important to remember that most of your responses to dangers will be with a sword or axe not diplomacy. Orcs have a rich culture of battle and seeking a warriors death. They were crafted to be the perfect soldiers, strong willed, strong armed, and strong hearted.

Half-Elves
Play a half-elf if:

    * You want to have one foot standing in the human city and another in the elven jungle.
    * You want to be a jack of all trades, comfortable in almost any setting while traveling around the world

When you have lusty humans and beautiful elves, you inevitably have half-elves. Most half-elves are products of an Imperial program to breed out the Elven population in a few generations. Half-elves usually find themselves under extra attention by humans, and openly hunted and killed among some elven tribes. It is this life of danger they are born in that makes them ideal adventurers.

Dwarves
Play a dwarf if:

    * You love the idea of playing a person who has lost everything.
    * You want to find a way to make the most of your life.

The dwarves come from a fourth universe that was a dwarven paradise, then that universe began to collapse upon itself. The dwarves constructed three huge ships and set out into the multiverse. The fleet came to Tzaloc 78 years ago, then 8 years the universes merged. During the merge 2 ships were lost, leaving the smallest ship with only 1,967 survivors. Today they are just doing their best to survive in a dangerous new world.

Heya Gnome Nachos. It's not a huge deal, but the name "Three Worlds Campaign Setting" is already being used around here. Namely by me. I've got some very old threads on it. The similarities basically stop there, so I'm not claiming any shenanigans, but maybe we can help you come up with a different name?

what do you suggest?

Xeviat and I talked about it, we both like the Broken Horizons setting name. Xeviatize me Cap'n!

Other than that, awesome work. I especially like the format of your post, makes it easy to read through and get the gist of what's going on.

I seem to remember you saying you weren't going to make this setting system exclusive, right?

QuoteCrude Aether is simple and natural, the boons that it offers to magic users is wild and chaotic. Refined Aether has been ran through the refinement process making it more stable and valuable. This is the ingredient that the Imperial economy is based upon. Anti-Aether is rare and dangerous, it serves as a null-magic ingredient. Only a gallon of it exist on the entire planet.

and wanton Capitalism. [/quote]
:( I like Capitalism. So sad.

Who created the elves' world? The light? The shadow?

Who can say who created the Elven Wild World of Tzaloc. I believe that it was born from the chaos of the multiverse. But I'm probably wrong.

Hmm, we now also have two campaigns starting with Broken :p
But no matter, the second word is different so people should be able to keep track of it.

OK Cataclysmic Crow you make an excellent point. Capn Xeviat and I also were talking it over late last night and decided that "Shattered Horizons" sounds much better because Shattered has more oompha.

We talked about a lot of good ideas for the setting, like fitting in some more races then just humans, elves, (and conceivably tieflings). So here's a shorthand version of my races:

Race Notes
Elves: Very Aztec in flavor. I was inspired by my trip to Cancun and Chichenitza. The elves are warriors with spears and a hunter mentality. They are far removed from the elves of Lord of the Rings

Humans: For now I am focusing on Imperial humans who are very "british" or "american" in looks. They are prejudiced against other races, and this can go from being subconciously biased against an elf or openly racist against gnomes.

Gnomes: These guys are one of the minor races from Tzaloc. They live deep in the jungle and worship spirits. The spirits are very physical beings, like the Ancients from the Night Elves of World of Warcraft. They are huge and powerful beasts. These guys are shamans and druids.

Tieflings: I never liked the word "Tiefling" it sounds weird. So for me I will probably just call them fiends or something. If this was 4e I would gladly allow a player to play a Tiefling. These are the humans from the Scar of the World who are corrupted by demonic energy. Warlocks and mages for the most part.

Dwarves: The dwarves are going to be refugees from a fourth plane. 100 years or so ago, the Dwarves escaped on extra planar ships as their universe collapsed. They came to Tzaloc, a small fleet of 1,976 survivors. As they searched for an island to call home, the universes converged and 300 souls were lost. Today almost two thousand live and are building a new mountain home. If a player wants to be a dwarf he might be an explorer, an exile, or a dwarf on a mission from the community.

Orcs: I don't like half orcs. Why not just make them full orcs? for now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the orcs, but I always liked the idea of samurai orcs. alternatively, I always liked the Fel Orcs from WoW (They are red demon orcs) so to me it would make sense that the blood god in the scar would have created the orcs as bloodthirsty as he is.

Other Notes:
The elven gods are 8 or so Dr. Manhattans. I was inspired so much by the movie when he says "I have walked on the surface of the sun, I have seen events so small and so quick they can hardly be said they happened" I feel the same way about my elven pantheon. They created the elves, gave them everything they needed. But now they let the elves fly on their own wings so to speak.

There was only one god who was really hands on, and he is gone now thanks to the melding of universes. All that is left are shards of his undergound domain, which will be one of the many dungeons that the players can visit!

The demons of the scar are not sitting on the far side of the world ready to invade. This was something that Xeviat and I talked about. Instead the bulk of the Demos forces are at war with one another in a menage trois of death. What is more of a threat are the pockets of Demos land that were folded into the entire planet. IT might be a small city of bones and death, or an island of molten rock but there are small localized threats to the people of the world.

Truly, shattered is a much more awesome word so good idea. (although i do like my own setting name; shattered is just too dramatic for it).
Sweet that you are going for aztec elves. Love Mesoamerican cultures.
Looks like you mixed up a gnome and a spirit entry, unless gnomes are huge and powerful (which i doubt).
For dwarves, why not abandon the whole "Mountain homes" trope? If they have goddamn flying plane ships, can't they just live on them, orbiting the broken landscape below? Much cooler in my opinion.
Comparing the elven gods to Dr. Manhattan sounds cool.
I think a map (just a sketch really) would be pretty useful for visualising the campaign; it has some complicated geography. And are there like three more or less unbroken landmasses since the Scar seems to be almost entirely Demos?  

Quote from: 0[/imgDo not doubt the power of gnome.

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowTruly, shattered is a much more awesome word so good idea. (although i do like my own setting name; shattered is just too dramatic for it).
Sweet that you are going for aztec elves. Love Mesoamerican cultures.
Looks like you mixed up a gnome and a spirit entry, unless gnomes are huge and powerful (which i doubt).
For dwarves, why not abandon the whole "Mountain homes" trope? If they have goddamn flying plane ships, can't they just live on them, orbiting the broken landscape below? Much cooler in my opinion.
Comparing the elven gods to Dr. Manhattan sounds cool.
I think a map (just a sketch really) would be pretty useful for visualising the campaign; it has some complicated geography. And are there like three more or less unbroken landmasses since the Scar seems to be almost entirely Demos?  

Hey I didn't want to say your setting name was bad, I just wanted to make sure the Layman cannot mix them up easily. :D

I'm glad you like the Aztec elves, it'll take some work but I have some good ideas for them.

I did not mean to mix up the gnome and spirit entry, but they have a strong symbiotic relationship. The gnomes probably could not stand on their own against some of the threats facing them. So they worship these spirits as real life protectors.

Good idea for the "mountain home" trope. Instead of a flying ship though it's a sailing ship, but a big steel one like a cruise ship! so heck yea they can live on them. Some of them are dealing with the loss of their friends and family when the universes melded again. Possibly losing the lead ship, the one that allowed them to planeshift. So now they are stuck.
Now this stuff is all unofficial spitballing. I'll be updating the first post when I want to set it in stone. How do I get a picture into the thread?

I know you didn't call my setting name bad :p
I prefer using broken rather than Shattered for my own setting partly because of definitions, and partly because the name fits better. Shattered is too grand for my setting. But it fits perfectly with yours in my opinion :)

agreed!

What else do you want to see in this?

Any word on how to post pictures in a thread?