Crescent Bay

[geekling]

I will start with saying that Crescent Bay is very much a work in progress.
It is also fairly much a vanilla setting nothing really out of the ordinary, so I have doupted if it's really worth posting here. For the most part, it is meant to work directly with rules, classes and characters created straight out of the PHB. No new races, not even any mechanically modified ones, standard PHB deities, etc. and so forth.

That said, here goes nothing... At least it'll give me a kick up the backside to write these things down.
[spoiler=The aim]
What I'm trying to achive with this setting, apart from hopefully not make a pig's ear out of my first game as a DM. :) Is a setting which the players can explore through the eyes of their characters, and both sharing the sense of newness. If that makes sense to anyone but me?
An mostly unexplored continent the characters have little advance knowledge of.

My aim for the feeling, or theme is a more or less, what if the gold rush/settling of the wild west happened in a world with D&D technology and magic. There's a new frontier, a 'new world' to be explored and tamed, where a fortune is waiting for the few that dares to grab it...

And possibly a setting where it's 'logical' to come across ancient ruins of unknown provenance... Ruins that no one knew existed and that haven't been explored before. Even if they're less than 10 days travel from the nearest populated area.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=uncategorised ramble]
Crescent Bay is a 'newly' discovered continent across the sea, the newest province of the Velia empire. It was discovered over two centuries ago, but not until recently have the colonization of the continent begun in ernest. In the last twenty odd years since the magical proprieties of the shells of blue oysters were found [note=Blue oysters]These blue oysters is a spiecies native to Crescent Bay, but not found anywhere else in the empire.
Apart from being purely decorative, when the shell is polished and usually carved into cameos. They carry no XP cost for crafting magical items. They are however very expensive as the demand for them both as a fashion statement and for the creation of magical amulets are high. A large concentration of shells in one place will create a small localised anti-magic field as the shells soak up magic. They can only be harvested and grown by  manual non-magic labour.  
They're simply called blue oysters because the inner layer of the shell is bright sky blue. The name predates any further discoveries of the shell's special proprieties. A crosscut of the shell will reveal that the shell itself is layered in 4 different colours. Hence their suitability to be carved into cameos.
The outer layer, once the rouch surface have been polished off is iridencent white. The second layer from the outside a deep red, followed by a thin black layer before this sky blue inner layer that is revealed as you open the oyster.
The shell of a fully grown oyster is aproximatly 6 mm thick at its thickest point before polishing, up to 1/3 of the thickness can be lost during the process. A relativly small area of the oyster shell does hold the thickness that makes it suitable for carving.
Pearls are very rarely found in blue oysters, according to the law of the empire, any pearl that is found is the property of the Tsarina, although a hefty finder's fee is issued to compensate those that bring one to her. To this date, three blue oyster pearls have been found. They are currently being worked by the empire's most prestigeous jeweller into a new addition to the imperial crown jewels a ceremonial scepter for the Tsarina's celebration of half a century on the throne.
Blue oysters have been farmed in Crescent Bay for eating for over half a century before that one cameo made its way over the ocean as a gift to the Tsarina. The shells discarded, or used to craft buttons and similar common household items. Until one artistic son of an oyster farmer saw the potential in the shells and started carving cameos, one of which eventually made its way to the hands of the Tsarina.[/note]the population of Crescent Bay have grown from around 10000 to 500000.
That original population are from those two centuries of the empire was content with keeping a small garrison on the island. Many soldiers station at this garrison opted to retire and settle this pristine land at the end of their term. Sending for their families to come and join them. An additional small trickle of people with a good reason to leave the reach of the empire and start a new life also braved the seven month sea-journey during this time, (fringe religious cults, criminals escaping justice, etc.)
The empire is now activly campaigning to get people to relocate to Crescent Bay, all to feed the growing oyster industry and to farm the land to feed those working in it.
Its efforts range from sponsored travel and promises of land grants for those that are willing to emigrate and start a new life on the new continent. To offering pardon for lesser crimes to small time criminals that are willing to be deported.

The small garrison stationed on the island is not by far big enough to deal with the preassure of this growing population, it has its hands full with the purely administratative duties of keeping up with the traffic of ships and running the port. Leaving the sprawling port town, Crescent bay town, that has sprung up around it mostly lawless.
If it's not about ships, empire business, import/export duties, or disrupting the oyster industry, the garrison don't want to know, nor have the rescourses to deal with it. The only effort to keep the order in Crescent Bay town that has been made is to appoint one of its now retired officers as mayor of the town.
Civilan complaints all go through the mayor, if you can and will put up a reward, the town will foot the bill for 'wanted, dead or alive' posters to be posted in public places.
For those arriving not to work the oyster banks, or farm the land (ie. PCs) the bounty hunter trade is booming.

In the last few years, other enterprises have started to make tentative inroads on the island. This bid to colonize Crescent Bay have seen a dramatic increase in ship building back at the shores of the empire. Increasing the demand for wood, Crescent Bay island is largely covered in forests...

The ships arriving to bring new settlers to Crescent bay return to the empire with the bulk of the cargo filled with logs as it's just plain not safe to load too much blue oyster shells into one ship.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=the Velia empire]
The Velia empire, or just the empire as it's most commonly known, spans the entire known world. It is for most parts an administrative behemouth operating unter the premise of creative inertia.
Currently the empire is enjoying a long span of being politically stable and with no known outside enemies.

The empire is a large and diverse place, consisting of 17 provinces (18 counting Crescent Bay although it has not been declared a province proper yet, these things take far more time than a mere 200 years) and 5 'reservations'.[note=the reservations]Orcs, goblinoids etc. the so called savage races, (ie. most things that aren't normal player races or monsters) are part of the Velia empire. They are not, how ever citizens of the empire. Much like the provinces, the savage races are left to their own devices in large reservations. As long as they do not try to leave these reservations the empire does not interfer. And a peace, of sorts, is kept. (There are the occational border raid, but for the most part the arrangement keeps the savage races subdued.
The reservations, unlike the provinces do not have their own local army/government/administration/etc. any attempt to form such a thing would quickly be stamped out.[/note] The provinces are mostly selfgoverning, each with their own army/government/administration the empire only really getting involved if provincial policies would have an effect on the other provinces, or if they would be in direct oposition of the empire's laws, and to solve conflicts between provinces.

[ooc]In many ways the empire is more resembling a mix between the UN and EU than a traditional country as such.[/ooc]

Head of the empire is the Tsar (male)/Tsarina (female) a hereditary position within the Velia (the imperial) family. The current ruler is Tsarina Elevna, it is the 47th year of her reign.
The imperial family is half elves, the empire itself was born when two provinces joined their ruling families one elven, one human, by marriage. Since then to follow in the tradition of this joining the tsar/tarina have alternating married an elf or a human. If the last Tsar was married to a human, the next will marry an elf. The eldest child of this union inherits the throne.
[/spoiler]

[Túrin]

I think I already said so in your first thread about this, but you have a good idea to start your first campaign from, and if you're like me, you will be very happy with a "vanilla" setting to start in, but will eventually start making minor changes, and before you know it, you have a world with many of the good old things your players will recognize, but also some twists and new things that you and your players like. So keep up the good work and enjoy your time in the DM's chair!
Túrin

[Jürgen Hubert]

A couple of thoughts and questions:

- How large is the continent? Have you created any maps that you'd be willing to show here? What are its climate zones?

- Have you given any thought to the wildlife native to the continent? I'm not even talking about the monsters here (though those are of course of interest as well), but ordinary animals that the PCs might encounter. Some of them might provide meat, pelts, or other useful by-products, while others are annoying parasites and pest, and others still are merely interesting local color ("Look what I trained my chameleon bat to do!")...

The point here is to make the new continent and its ecosystem come alive - and to keep the PCs on their toes. Not everything they encounter is a monster, but sometimes harmless-looking creatures create unexpected dangers, and the PCs should never be sure which is which until they know these creatures very well.

- Frontier regions, especially during something like a gold rush, often have very high prices for goods that cannot created locally and need to be imported back from civilization. In fact, often items that can be created locally are sold for high prices, because most people are far too busy prospecting for riches than to produce useful things. As a result, often it's those who provide these basic services who make the most money, as opposed to those who seek to "strike it rich" in the wilderness...

Basically, this means that the PCs will be shocked how much things cost on the new continent - the laws of supply and demand are in full force here. And this gives you the excuse to constantly drain the money of the PCs, which forces them to be on a constant lookout for new sources of wealth - motivating them under these circumstances should be quite easy!

- Are there any sapient species on this new continent? Are any of them humanoid? How do they react to the intruders?

Personally, I'd not use any humanoid species in this new environment to empathize how alien it is - use chuul or similar beings and come up with a range of strange behavior patterns and mindsets to keep the PCs on their toes. You should understand the motivations of these beings sufficiently to stage encounters with them - and they should not be limited to combat encounters. "It's as frightened of you as you are frightened of it" is a good standard - the PCs meeting these creatures should be a meeting of two species who don't understand anything of the other side, and the PCs should put in a lot of effort to reach some sort of understanding with them.

[geekling]

So keep up the good work and enjoy your time in the DM's chair!

Thank you! :)

Yes, I can well see that there are room for changes and tweakings as it grows. Even if I'm starting small. ;)

[geekling]

A couple of thoughts and questions:

- this one is not made by me. I'm lucky enough to know someone who does pretty map for me, then I destroy  it little by little by adding text etc. [/spoiler]

The climate range from pretty much mediterranian -esque around the bay, to near enough north European at the mountainous regions of the north coast.
 

- Have you given any thought to the wildlife native to the continent? I'm not even talking about the monsters here (though those are of course of interest as well), but ordinary animals that the PCs might encounter. Some of them might provide meat, pelts, or other useful by-products, while others are annoying parasites and pest, and others still are merely interesting local color ("Look what I trained my chameleon bat to do!")...

- Frontier regions, especially during something like a gold rush, often have very high prices for goods that cannot created locally and need to be imported back from civilization. In fact, often items that can be created locally are sold for high prices, because most people are far too busy prospecting for riches than to produce useful things. As a result, often it's those who provide these basic services who make the most money, as opposed to those who seek to "strike it rich" in the wilderness...

Basically, this means that the PCs will be shocked how much things cost on the new continent - the laws of supply and demand are in full force here. And this gives you the excuse to constantly drain the money of the PCs, which forces them to be on a constant lookout for new sources of wealth - motivating them under these circumstances should be quite easy![/quote]- Are there any sapient species on this new continent? Are any of them humanoid? How do they react to the intruders?[/quote]

No humanoids, no. I have been playing with the thought of having a Formian society among the mountains.  That aren't really too keen on this invasion, when they get aware of it. But we'll see about that one.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Very little to be honest. Apart from using some of the more exotic (well to me at least) stuff from the monster manual, like shocker lizards and psuedodragons. (I'm pretty sure that shocker lizards will be a common household pest, more annoying than a threat even if they are CR 2 - just because they're so cute.) Native spieces probably will be more reptiles than mammals. Also it has been 200 years since the discovery of the island, during which time plants/animals from the new continent have been shipped back home regularly. Think the victorians and their plant collectors. Each ship that brought supplies and replacement troops to the garrison, brought back things to the empire. Novelties from the new continent have been a "fad" at least among the upper classes for at least a century.

If you have some cash to spare, the new edition of GURPS Space has an excellent chapter on ecosystems, including tables for random creature generation down to survival strategies, senses, number of limbs, reproduction strategies and more. The few rules bits are easily portable to d20 - you won't need the GURPS main book to understand them. And that chapter will certainly cause you to think in the right direction (and much of the rest of the book is very inspirational for all sorts of campaigns, not just science fiction)...