Brainstorming for a new world

[VoidAdept]

Greetings,

I hope this is the right place to post this stuff. :P

Anyway, I'm dusting off the books and starting a campaign for my wife and 12-year-old son, neither of whom have played D&D 3.5E. My wife's played a little 2E, but my son's never played a pen-and-paper RPG before so I want his first taste of gaming to be a good one so he'll keep coming back!

I've been brainstorming a little bit about the world and have come up with this so far:

- The world (called Varrin) is a 'vanilla' fantasy setting for the time being. This is more because of the players' inexperience more than anything else.
- Long ago, a cataclysmic event turned much of the western half of the world's main continent, Macardia, into a thousand mile wide inland sea now called the Sea of Tears. The survivors have been squabbling over what's left of the known world (ie, the rest of the continent) ever since.
- There are rumors that ancient cities and lost magic still exist under the surface of the Sea of Tears.
- There is indeed a "city of the ancients" on the bottom of the sea, and it was occupied by aboleth and their skum minions soon after the sea was created. Maybe their actions started the events that led to the flooding.
- The aboleth have been biding their time for millenia, and have now set in motion a plan to enslave the divided kingdoms of the surface world and raise the oceans to submerge the land for all eternity.

Now, the creation of the Sea of Tears is the defining moment of the world's history. Besides the flooding of almost a quarter of the continent, the sheer amount of dust and debris thrown up into the air, as well as the smoke and ash produced by newly-formed volcanoes, blotted out the sun for nearly a decade. Disease and famine were widespread during the Years of Shadow, and the desperate survivors of the holocaust fought frequently among themselves and with the humanoid hordes that swept in from the north to take what they could.

Not only did the shape of the known lands change, but most of the races as well were greatly affected as well, each in a different way:
- The Halfling lands were swallowed up by the newly-formed sea, forcing the survivors to become the nomads described in the PHB.
- The geological upheaval caused the extinct volcanoes which housed the Dwarven homeland to suddenly erupt. The remaining clans, bound by centuries of tradition and suddenly without a ruling clan, fell into disarray and began squabbling amongst themselves.
- The Elves have been reduced to living in small enclaves, the largest no bigger than a small town, scattered throughout the land. (I'm not sure exactly why yet.)
- The surviving Humans fled southeast and managed to carve out new empire of their own. This was short-lived, as corruption and internal conflicts caused it to collapse under its own weight a century ago in a bloody civil war.
- Gnomes... um... I haven't found a place for them yet.

And that's all I've got so far. What do you all think? Do I need something else to make the world stand out? Any ideas why the Elves have declined (this may be important, since both of the PCs are Elves)? Any other factors I may have missed?

[Numinous]

You've certainly got eough to start something here, and I like simple settings myself.  May I ask why you feel that you need to include gnomes?  I know they're in the PHB, but do you really want them?

The elves could have declined as their lands were sunk int he cataclysm as well, as the event probably didn't follow perfect national borders.

Maybe the halflings made war on the elves for territory, causing enmity and the destruction of an elven nation.

just my thoughts.  I'll give you more when I see more information.

[Xeviat]

As the original founder of the guild back on the WotC boards (I think I'm just a figurehead now), I extend a warm "welcome". And yes, indeed this is the correct place to put this post; great way to start things off.

Secondly, kudos to bringing in young blood; I wanted to teach my younger brother and sister to play but they're too into video games to spend time imagining (and that's a lot coming from me, an avid video gamer). And you're right that a "vanilla" fantasy is a good way to bring people in. Normally, I'd recommend using as much of the PHB setting descriptions as possible, simply so players don't confuse what they read with what you tell them, but you're off to a good start on the world. But just remember, vanilla is some people's favorite flavor, and there are big advantages to it.

I really like that you seem to be using Aboleths as the big bad evil guys; you don't see that to often. The Sea of Tears is a good name, and it really gets me wondering about the specifics of what happened.

I'm under the assumption that the world is a little grim, but I won't immediately associate that with gritty. Your race ideas are good. I don't think you need to do too much to make the world stand out; I think it will be to your best interests to make the world as "vanilla" as possible in the beginning, and let the campaign you run develop it futher (so it can grow with the players).

As for your elf question ... if your elves are suposed to be an ancient race like most people assume, what if the Elves were the ones who failed trying to defend against the Abolleths? The elves could be the abolleth's mortal enemies, fighting them for ages, holding them back until they finally failed.

As for gnomes ... I don't know. I don't use them (a gnome is an earth spirit in my mind).

And again, welcome aboard. I'll keep up with your setting.

[Raelifin]

Hey! Welcome!

Okay, first things first... I think it's great that you're playing with your family. My father was the one who introduced me to roleplaying, and it's a great way to spend group time. However, playing with newcomers is often difficult, and if you need any advice on that you can check out this thread: (Okay, looks like the WotC boards are down. Someone can link to Oakspar77777's thread when they come back up)

Now, the campaign as a whole... This seems like it'll be a bottom-up campaign, so where do you intend to start? Wouldn't the dwarves be like the halflings if they too were driven from their homes? A rough map (even a sketch in paint) would be nice.

As for elves.... It seems to me that there is great potential for the elves to be the main victims of the catastrophe. And, being elves you have some great supernatural tie-ins available. Perhaps the elven homeland was to the west and the majority of elves refused to flee when the unthinkable happened. Elven gosts are always cool. As for why they don't congregate, I'm thinking it should be one of two things, practical or supernatural. A practical reason for a lack of elven cities, is that cities require lots of food, food shortage in turn requires farming, farming in unnatural. Supernatural reasons might include the elven capital being the first to sink, providing a superstition that would prevent elves from being too keen to get together and give them some nice guilt. Another supernatural reason might include the elven ghosts discussed earlier, but I'll leave the details up to you.

Crit: Gnomes should be kept IMO because they are core, and this setting (from what I see) is core. Dropping gnomes might sound good, but the moment you have a tie-in with them pre-written, things get complicated. Complicated + new players = not good.

Remember, everything suggested above is to get your brain rolling, so to speak. You're going to be the only one who can make such important decisions and be happy with them. ^_^

Good gaming,
 -Rael

[VoidAdept]

Wow, that was fast! Thanks for the feedback!

I think I may have to go with the cliche 'mountain/asteroid/big-a** rock falling from the sky' type of cataclysm. The shockwave from something big enough to alter the land like that would probably do as much damage, if not more, than the impact itself.

Now, what if the elves knew about it beforehand and tried to prevent it from happening? What if the elves tried to erect a magical barrier that they thought would have been strong enough to ward off the asteroid -- but in order to do it, they would have had to strengthen it by adding their own life force to it? Agents corrupted by the aboleths sabotaged the ritual, the barrier was destroyed, and with it the lives of almost every elf that was involved. Considering how dire the situation was, I'd imagine that the majority of the elves would have volunteered to participate.

Now, the campaign as a whole... This seems like it'll be a bottom-up campaign, so where do you intend to start? Wouldn't the dwarves be like the halflings if they too were driven from their homes? A rough map (even a sketch in paint) would be nice.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/Akodo_Tim/Macardia.jpg[/url]
( :heart: Fractal Terrains.  :P)

As for your question about the dwarves, I was thinking that only the capital city/citadel/stronghold would have been destroyed. The remaining strongholds throughout the mountain chain would have been unaffected, at least not physically.

[EDIT: map image didn't seem to work; posting link instead. :/ ]

[Epic Meepo]

As I read through that world description, I started having 1st edition flashbacks (in a good way).  Something about a vanilla campaign world just takes me back to the days of the old TSR adventure modules and their vanilla goodness.

Regarding elves, I think their long lifespan alone should justify their small population.  Of all the races, the elves would take the longest to recover from a continent-wide catastrophe, since every other race has several generations to their one.

As for gnomes, definately keep them.  If you're going vanilla, all of the Core races need to be represented.  Of course, D&D gnomes have always seemed just an inch away from being a dwarven subrace in my mind, so I'd say that their fate should parallel that of their dwarven cousins.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Just curious; is a lot of the campaign going to actually take place in the Sea of Tears (ship-faring campaigns, or underwater campaigns), or is it mostly just used as a backstory to explain the current state of the world?

[Túrin]

If you can't find a place for gnomes, they could be removed, but only if you are certain none of your players is going to want to play one. If they happen to like gnomes, you should fit them in somehow.
Túrin

[Poseptune]

Here is the thread Raelifin was refering to.

I agree that Gnomes should make their way into the setting in some way. They could have been in the lands between the Elves and Dwarves, since they have no problem working with either.

Your cataclysm may be cliche, but for begining players cliche isn't all that bad. I say go with it.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

By-and-by, if you are planning on running a lot of sea-based adventures, a guy from the WotC boards has an extremely-long-running PbP campaign set in Greyhawk's oceans that you may want to take a gander at:

http://www.lobi.com/bpaa/

[VoidAdept]

Just curious; is a lot of the campaign going to actually take place in the Sea of Tears (ship-faring campaigns, or underwater campaigns), or is it mostly just used as a backstory to explain the current state of the world?

I'm thinking that it'll probably be backstory until the characters get caught up in the aboleths' plans, perhaps starting at mid-level. I may scatter a few seemingly insignificant details early on, though.

By the way -- do I post updates here as things progress, or should I start another thread in Homebrews?

[Túrin]

I don't think anyone will mind very much either way, but I suggest you stay here as long as you're still gathering ideas, and when you've got some ideas organized post them in Homebrews.