How to make my setting beyond the norm (3.5)

[Cheomesh]

I'm creating a new campaign this upcoming spring, and I wanted to make it a tad more "alive" than before.  I can write some detailed stories, but I have a hard time figuring out how to make it apply to players.  Law doesn't count when you're in the wilderness, and governmental styles rarely affect you.

Class limiting seemed obvious (In fact I'm sort of turning my fighter re-hasn into a setting-specific class), as did creating new gods.  My last campaign was set in a world where the nation in question had few trees and was mostly grassland, but to be honest that didn't make the world "feel" any different, in spite of item changes and some differences in trade / economy.

So I turn to you guys for inspiration.  I posted a rough up at the Home brew section.  I want to augment the race lineup abit but I'm unsure of what some good player races would be.  I think Halflings and maybe Gnomes might make an appearence as "god-touched humans", so they're not just some random race in existence for some reason.

Any advice would be golden.

M.

[Steerpike]

So you want to create a world that's simultaneously traditionally European and that feels very different?  Hmm challenging.  A few thoughts.

To make a world feel different/unusual:

-STRANGE races and similar stuff - weird things (not races of the traditional lineup) that don't resemble typical humans.  To cull from Norse/Celtic mythology - which seems to be where you're deriving a lot of the feel of your setting - how about a prominent troll-like race with bodies made of stone?  Or infestations of angry little fairies everywhere who'll murder your cat (or steal your baby, or similar mischief) if you don't leave them their nightly offering of salt?  Or dark elves done in a way more faithful to their mythological original - ugly little mechanistic creatures indistinguishable from "dwarves" who pupated from the maggots of a dead god's rotting corpse (maybe this is how they still reproduce?)...

-Bizarre geographies/wilderness areas that are radically different than standard earth ones.  A mountain range that's alive with an elemental and malign intelligence, which must be appeased with appropriate tribute or else it will cause tremors/send out its nefarious "Children."  A sea abroil with Beowulf-esque sea monsters in all their tentacled glory - or in the same vein, fetid swamps that contain portals to Hellish dimensions deep within them (Grendel's Hellmouth/lair).  Or a forest made of absolutely massive trees (think skyscrapers) whose fruit has magical properties.  Or a frozen wasteland where huge mammoth-riding giants are trapped in the ice; cultists devoted to the giants are trying to melt the glaciers and revivify these murderous jotuns.

-Make magic a part of the world in a very day-to-day way.  Perhaps you actually can cast auguries by examining entrails or bones or stars.  Or perhaps every stream has a river-spirit, and if you don't mumble a short incantation before drinking, you're going to have a pissed-off naiad or something similar ready to spill your blood ("you take my water without permission?  I guess I'm going to take yours").

To make a world feel "alive":

-Emphasize exotic or particular customs/practices/traditions.  Festivals, religious or astronomical events, etc.

-Even in the wilderness governments and politics can affect things.  Maybe the players pass through a village decimated by war, strewn with corpses, or a battlefield, or a mass grave (think the Uruk-Hai in Two Towers).  Or maybe they come upon deforestation or strip mines.

-Populate the world with as distinctive NPCs as you can, avoiding stereotypes at all cost.

-Name everything.  Look at Britain: a tiny little island in the big scheme of things.  Every hill and glade and stream has been named, despite the place's tiny size.  If instead of just surmounting some random hill the players are climbing Trollskin Mound or something, the world will seem much realer/more alive.

Hope any of that was helpful in some way...

[Nomadic]

-Even in the wilderness governments and politics can affect things.  Maybe the players pass through a village decimated by war, strewn with corpses, or a battlefield, or a mass grave (think the Uruk-Hai in Two Towers).  Or maybe they come upon deforestation or strip mines.

I can't emphasize this one enough. As your players adventure you should have background machinations going on. After all the world keeps spinning with or without them. This is something that instead of it directly affecting them it is a secondary effect. They hear news from PCs, discover remnants of burned villages, etc. You can even tie this into quests. Perhaps someone is looking for a brave soul to deliver a message to the king. Nobody else is willing to help him out of fear for their lives. Your PCs find this odd since the road to the capitol is normally safe. Things like that, dropping little clues here and there and tying it into your main game.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquotecHEOMESH]So I turn to you guys for inspiration. I posted a rough up at the Home brew section. I want to augment the race lineup abit but I'm unsure of what some good player races would be. I think Halflings and maybe Gnomes might make an appearence as "god-touched humans", so they're not just some random race in existence for some reason.[/blockquote]

Yes.
Rule 3--everything has a reason for being there.  And as Steepike said, unusual races help as well.  
And based on your first descriptions, I'd make sure I included separate clans/tribes in the humans, as well.  Family/clan organizations would fit in well.

And to take the ball from my friend the Nomadic, we are talking about a world in motion, as opposed to a static world where the PCs unconsiously feel like everything is responding to them.  Set up marriages and alliances in the town that have nothing to do with the PC's.  MAke sure that there are shortages and surplusses.  etc.

[Cheomesh]

Clans and family lines might be nice for atmosphere.  It takes place in one generally unified region but I've given thought to private wars and feuds being a plot element.  As current, the initial "hook" is the players falling under the employ of a former adventurer, who has recently retired from adventuring after his entire party was killed, dragged off, and taken away.  If I have to assign a "main plot", I might just make a big part of it trying to get into the place he was and secure more of that treasure.

He bought himself an old ruined tower, a stone Republic watch tower that once stood guard over a crossroads.  He's hired himself a few hirelings and their first task was a simple "Too busy to shop, please take this money and get me X of Y".  It's actually a test of player alignment; if he finds them to his liking, he'll eventually take them into his confidence, and will inevitably reveal the location of a valuable treasure.  Unbeknowingst, maybe he's after something darker, and he's not as nice a person as he appears to be...maybe.

I like the river-spirit idea, actually.  I wanted to make a world where superstition is a lot more than just superstition (though this is coming from a guy who throws salt over his shoulder if he spills it).

Also, the idea of multiple interacting religions might be nice too.

M.

[snakefing]

If things will be taking place in a fairly unified area, think about creating some kind of unified theme that runs through at all different levels.

For example, in one part of my setting there is a group of related kingdoms that used to form part of a grand empire until it fell apart. The theme is "Faded Glory" and it runs through the physical environment (ill-kept old monuments, gilded facades with decaying infrastructure), international relations (nearby cultures that were formerly subservient), politics (some laying claim to glories past, others promising to lead them back to prominence), personal (obsession with appearances and status), etc.

There's lots of other things that could be a good theme, like virtue, honour, piety, pride, etc. Think of the seven cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins, pick one or two that look fun, and just emphasize the crap out of them with NPC's and places that bring out various different aspects.

[EvilElitest]

Personally, i think the best wan to make the game beyond the norm is to make it less dramatic and more gritty and harsh (like real life).  Morality and ethics shouldn't be based upon modern standards, but the standards of the time.  Racism, sexism, and religious zelotry should be normal and taken for granted, science should be mistrusted and war should be seen as a natrual aspect of life

[EvilElitest]

Personally, i think the best wan to make the game beyond the norm is to make it less dramatic and more gritty and harsh (like real life).  Morality and ethics shouldn't be based upon modern standards, but the standards of the time.  Racism, sexism, and religious zelotry should be normal and taken for granted, science should be mistrusted and war should be seen as a natrual aspect of life

[Bill Volk]

Be sure to get the players involved if you want the setting to be alive for them. Make the PCs movers and shakers in the setting, or at least in the area where they go adventuring. Ask them what they want out of the campaign. Let them help you create the setting before the campaign begins. Let the PCs build and change things. Make the setting change permanently in response to things that the PCs do. If they finish a dungeon and earn some downtime, give them chances to build bonds with NPCs or create organizations or do whatever else they like. If they fail, you could destroy their base town or something.

[Cheomesh]

I am thinking that the population centers closer to the mountains in the south will be de-facto ruled by some mountain power and his cronies.  Not all of them will dislike this arrangement, either -- you're faced with an oppressed village who wants out, but the other likes the arrangement and sees the active participation of this power as preferable to the general non-intervention of the political body.  If you take out the "mountain power", you now have a grateful and a pissed off village.  If you take out the pissed off village, the Cynning's court might see that as an act of agression (As they were never aware of what was going on down there; nobody told them).

Old Republic stuff will feature as well, thanks for reminding me.  One location is that old watch tower I mentioned, but the other is a Wizards tower (Because you *have* to have one!).  It has its own garden and forest, but the Republic's wizards have long since left the place.  Nobody managed to get in it before, because the forest has all sorts of weird stuff.  Things like flying plant-things that try to eat you but taste like fruit, trees that are actually animals, and the like.  Oh, and the door's locked :/.

M.