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Hey elegan/t g/entlemen,
I'm just doing a little homebrew in my free time and wanted to share my campaign setting. Its a mix of utter cliches as well as some subversion of the tropes.
If you guys have feedback or worldbuilding advice that would be appreciated.
-DnD 5e races are there but subverted-
>Gnomes are gypsies that travel in huge caravans
>Halflings treated much like jews, highly insular, heavily segregated
>Both elves and dwarves are older than humans but simultaneously utilized humans as food/vessels for magic (elves) and slaves to build their civilization (dwarves)
>Humans worship a man-turned-god who lead the revolt.
>This is thousands of years ago.
>Turns out both elder races were simply being manipulated by more powerful beings (the elves manipulated by terrifying fey who gifted them magic in exchange for hideous rituals, the dwarves manipulated by giants using the dwarves as slaves).
However thousands of years have past. The world has descended into, essentially, dark ages. Humans now nearly exclusively rule the land as the dominant sentient race.
>Magic is rare. Magic users, once lauded, are persecuted and feared or, when the rare user escapes persecution, they are forced into the service of royalty at threat of death or isolation.
>The majority of the land is un-mapped and un-claimed. People spend most of their lives in their village making a living.
>The forest is terrifying. Mountains are terrifying. Old dungeons are terrifying. Literally every bit of wildnerness might be hiding a creature or being whispered from the ears of crones into the trembling ear of a child at bedtime.
>Human civilzations borrow fairly heavily from both pre-medieval and medieval themes. Attempts are made to be conan-esque.
TBC with some of the nations:
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>>50685660
Kalaban - Mountains, barbarians (Goliaths). Hilariously true to the trope. They are Cimmerians. One of our players is from here.
Frostbite Steppes- Think Mongorians. Genghis Khan. Horrible steppe people that, with the barbarians of Kalaban, prety on weak settlements that survive the fertile lands between them.
Essembra- A fallen feudal monarchy that is essentially on life support after a famine and plague has decimated the population. Another player is playing prince of this realm.
Thanesburg and southern Tarsber- The region along here are a people that benefit from raiding and looting. Think Phonecians meet Vikings for flavor. They also have an unusual meritocracy which esteems rather than berates their fallen. They consider the death of their enemies to be an honor.
Phaselus- One of five city-states including Lydos, Mileetus, Korinkia, and Mykon.
The islands in the middle are the Ravennan islands. Think Venice-meets-Medieval Hamburg.
South of there is the Divine Empire of Uartu. Think Akkadian empire, meets Persia, meets Kesh from Conan. Very mid-eastern themed. Lives comfortably on the two fertile rivers that feed into the delta the capital is built on.
Past the western mountains is Auvergne.
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Anyway, trying to think of some interesting homebrew ideas to keep things spicy and maybe play out an idea drawn from history as well as putting a twist on it.
Anyone have success stories?
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I guess I'll just post how I approached Orcs in the setting in one last attempt to get feedback.
The orcs are sort of an elite berserker race. They are condemned by an unusual curse. Orcs in this setting number maybe, at most, a few thousand in the entire world.
However one orc is known to have no difficulty overwhelming entire villages. Several orcs? Entire war parties of humans have gone missing after a clash with several orcs.
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>>50685660
>thousands of years have past.
It's "passed" not "past." One is a verb, one is a noun.
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File: here is some attention.jpg (10KB, 225x225px) Image search:
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yawn
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>>50686237
Yes, thanks. My mistake :)
Any recommendations for interesting civilizations?
>>50686248
Thank you for the bump. I guess it's pretty boring, huh. What has worked well in your campaigns?
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>>50685660
None of this means anything on its own. It's all in the execution.
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>>50685660
Whenever I see
>Gypsies
>Jews
I think
>Lazy worldbuilding.
There are cultural and historical reasons for gypsies to be nomads or Jews to be insular and segregated. If you just apply it to a race then it feels like you just cut out a template and threw something in there because you wanted something that isn't just another flavor of medieval fantasy.
You could try looking at actual European history and culture and basing minor races off of the customs and culture of various pre-existing cultures. Like, compare 12th Century Venice to 12th Century Florence. Similar, but different and distinct, with their own customs, histories, and motivations.
Why is magic rare? How do you get new magic-users? D&D wizards are taught, D&D warlocks make pacts but have to discover them first. Only sorcerers have innate magical ability.
Do the various races/humans even care about prehistoric history anymore? How did they pass on this history if the world has fallen into the Dark Ages? Or is it just backstory that isn't directly related to how players interact with one another?
>The forest is terrifying. Mountains are terrifying. Old dungeons are terrifying.
This is good. Too often writers take a very American or post-colonial viewpoint, which is that every unknown border is an opportunity. Traditionally the unknown is fucking scary, which is why Romans feared the deep forest, even in Italy.
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You might have better luck in /wbg/, bro.
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>>50685804
Is the majority of the land unmapped or is it known? Why does your map show so much of the world instead of just the region around which the players rule/explore, and some of the region around that?
If they know about all these lands south and east how can things be unmapped?
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You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, /op/.
Never start a thread with more than 500 characters if you don't have an eye-catching image.
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>>50685660
>Magic is rare. Magic users, once lauded, are persecuted and feared or, when the rare user escapes persecution, they are forced into the service of royalty at threat of death or isolation
Why? What happened? Did the same thing happen for everyone all over at once?
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