Skylord's Tears: A campaign

[the_taken]

The fluff of the sorcerers and the fact that there are many orc sorcerers. It's a cute little story, and an interesting bit. Now I'm wondering what kind of mechanical change you'll make to have a sorcerer orc be a playable character concept?

Also, I have a couple of kingdoms independent of campaign settings. May I donate them to yours?

[Fuzzy_logic]

I haven't gotten to orcs yet, but the mechanical deal is something like this:

(as Tome Half-Orc)

Also, they're a standard player race and there are no half-orcs

[the_taken]

http://www.thecbg.org

A link for when you get a suitable amount of material done. Collect everything and get them together in a moderately organized set of posts, then start a showcase thread in the Homebrews section with a link to a discussion thread in the Campaign Elements and Design section.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Design Intent: Sunlight and Rainfall.

So. There's one major downside to this setting that I haven't figured out how to deal with. Weather gets extremely complicated.

For the most part, I'd really prefer to assume that we have sunlight half the day and nighttime half the day and leave it at that. That's what I did the last time I played.

I'm also cool with having large swaths of the ground in near-perpetual darkness. This means that spectres and vampires can be active ALL THE TIME which is part of why the undead win.

But for intermediate islands it gets weird, and I haven't figured out how to deal with that.

Rainfall is another weird one. I'll probably have a couple desert islands under other islands. And I'll have to do the obligatory waterfall that goes off the edge and onto another island. But for the most part I don't know or care how rainfall would actually work. I'm going to assume that magical water creation makes civilization work at leave it at that.

Still, advice on how to deal with these issues would be appreciated.

Design Intent: Casters

As you can see, I've tried to give each major casting class a clear context in the world. Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers have clearly-defined power sources and relationships to external entities. You aren't required ot be loyal to the Order, the dragons, or the angels, but every time you encounter them your profession becomes at the very least relevant.

I'm a huge fan of specialized casters like the Summoner, Beguiler, Energy Mages, etc. I think they're very good for the game, providing magic characters newer players can comfortably play and characters DMs can get a handle on. Plus ending the nightmare of combing through splat books or even wizardly scroll-collecting.

That said, I don't know how they fit into my world.

They might have been created by the same event that produced sorcerers. This seems especially plausible for warmages, summoners, etc.

They might be dumbed-down versions of wizardry that the Gnomes teach to Halflings and other outsiders.

They might be mystic arts developed by the humans. Or they might be special powers obtained by joining a specific order, bargaining with specific creatures, or being exposed to certain planar forces.

The hardest thing would be to integrate each and every one into a particular culture. That might be interesting, but besides being a lot of work, limits available PC concepts.

[Manxome]

Water in your setting could always have strange, convenient properties. For example, maybe there's some powerful attractive force (stronger than gravity) that all water exerts on other water, so if an island has a large body of water, any clouds that pass vaguely close to the island get sucked into it. This would mean that if you're capable of boiling (or otherwise destroying) the current water reserve of an island, you may turn it permanently into a desert (depending on local water competition from other islands).

Or a concentrated supply of water spontaneously multiplies under the right conditions (say, when exposed to sunlight and a particular mineral). Then you can literally farm water in some places. Maybe you even do a water/vegetation polyculture so you don't need to worry about irrigation for your "regular" crops, but keeping the concentrations right could take some work.

If you wanted to be excessively wacky, you could use Super Mario Galaxy physics and say that the local gravity of the islands is stronger than that of the surface in the vacinity of the islands, so you can walk on the underside of islands. And islands could kind of suck in any rainfall that gets vaguely close, even if it isn't strictly over the islands. But then your sunlight situation becomes even more complicated.


I imagine those are probably more complicated/fantastical solutions than you had in mind, though...

[Fuzzy_logic]

Actually, I kind of like the water farming idea, though I'd probably make it work by attracting water spirits...

[the_taken]

"Mommy, where does the dew drops come from?"
"Why, the Dew Drop Fairies of course! Little tiny boys and girls with dragonfly wings and togas made from oak leaves, the fly around with a magical wand that drips water with every touch. Oh! Look, one of teeth has fallen out. Go put it under pillow."

[Catharz]

1196503456[/unixtime]]Actually, I kind of like the water farming idea, though I'd probably make it work by attracting water spirits...

I was going to suggest that to get rain you just need regularly worship the saint of rain. Any uninhabited islands would either be a desert or very important (the saint of rain cares about it or it has some strong magics).

[Fuzzy_logic]

Design Intent: The planes

So, one of the themes of this campaign is going to be travel, especially planar travel. Another subtheme, of bargaining and negotiation (probably) will involve outsiders as well. So the planes are a big deal. However, I don't want them to interfere with the floating island theme.

So I'm extending the island theme to the toher planes. This actually works out really well for heaven and hell, which are already supposed to be divided up into discrete pieces and inhabited by winged outsiders.

For the elemental planes, it gets a little weird.

The Plane of Fire works fine as a series of islands which are... ON FIRE!!!

The other elemental planes are a little weird. I COULD give in and make them genuine other planes, you know, alternate dimension-style. Maybe they're the source of the building blocks of this world. But if I were to try to integrate them:

The Elemental plane of earth might be a bunch of islands... MADE OF EARTH!!! Sadly, that's not every different from the rest of the world. It might be a series of caves under the planet surface. Or maybe a single HUGE floating rock with the whole plane on the inside.

The Elemental Plane of water, again, is tough. Maybe the planet has an ocean with an archipelago that's actually the plane fo water. Maybe it's just a bunch of bowl-shaped islands full of water. Or maybe it's a giant sphere of water floating in empty space.

The elemental plane of air... is presented in the DMG as an endless expanse of sky sparsely sprinkled with floating rocks. In other words, my campaign setting. The chief difference, besides inhabitants, is subjective gravity.

The plane of Air might be another dimension -- even if the other three aren't. I'd make it a coterminous transitive plane, a la the ethereal. Alternately, it could be the space between the planes. In other words, if you get out of the gravity of the big Prime Material islands, you find yourself in subjective gravity and an asteroid belt.

Thoughts?

[JonSetanta]

Dragonball.
King Kai's planet.

... lots of those.

[the_taken]

1196588185[/unixtime]]Dragonball.
King Kai's planet.

... lots of those.

Werd.

[Catharz]

1196584540[/unixtime]]Design Intent: The planes

...

Thoughts?

Just grab the planes that actually add something to the game. IMO Hell could work rather well as 'if you're bad, we dump your body off the island and the necromancers get it'. You get geothermal if you go deep enough, right?

Outsiders could hang out on 'celestial spheres', odd islands that make haunting music and good smells detectable if you ever get close enough to see one. The outsiders tend to keep to themselves, and so if you bother them by trying to come too close they first ask you to leave, and if you don't listen they cast you down to the surface of the planet.

They occasionally reward[?] individuals by lifting them bodily up to the celestial spheres.


Elemental planes are really worthless. You don't need to channel a 'plane' to make a fire, or to get it to rain. It's one thing to have floating islands that are on fire or made of dirt. That can be cool. It's another thing entirely to try to force D&D's senseless cosmology into an otherwise cool setting.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Hmm... what you say makes sense, but I'm not sure I'm ready to abandon the elemental planes just yet.

First of all, I like the idea of elemental planes as sources of things. The reason the islands float in the first place is because this world is closely tied o the plane of air. The rivers and lakes aren't full because of condensation, they're full because water comes from the plane of water.

Furthermore, what happens to elementals if I destroy the elemental planes? I guess they roam around free wherever they like... That feels kind of weird to me, but I guess it could work.

Still, it causes issues. For instance, when wizards summon elementals, they're supposed to be commanding otherworldly beings from the beyond, not bobby elemental your next-door-neighbor.

This also raises the issue of why Genies haven't taken over hte halfling empire--though, actually, that's a fair question anyway. Maybe they *have* (makes note)

Still, genies and elementals need a plac eot come from, and abolsihing the concept of planes mucks with too many D&D concepts for me to be comfortable doing that.

[Catharz]

1196636162[/unixtime]]
Furthermore, what happens to elementals if I destroy the elemental planes? I guess they roam around free wherever they like... That feels kind of weird to me, but I guess it could work.

Still, it causes issues. For instance, when wizards summon elementals, they're supposed to be commanding otherworldly beings from the beyond, not bobby elemental your next-door-neighbor.

Sometimes they're supposed to be magically infusing a big pile of junk with sentience and mobility. In that case all you have to wonder about is where the magic comes from.

1196636162[/unixtime]]Still, genies and elementals need a plac eot come from, and abolsihing the concept of planes mucks with too many D&D concepts for me to be comfortable doing that.

Why don't genies just live on cloud islands with storm & cloud giants? IMO it would be cleaner to just tailor realms to the creatures and campaigns. Everybody lives on the ground or on some kind of floating island.

Example:
Ifrit live on metal fortress islands which are on fire. They've also got one fortress on the surface of the planet, which is in the caldera of a volcano. They're constantly under siege from the undead hordes, but the light, heat, and fact that they're Ifrit has made the City of Brass pretty safe for now. It's ironically one of the last outposts of the living on the surface of the planet.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Okay, no "elemental planes" -- just habitats where each elemental is common. No "planes" at all -- just different types of local background radiation.

Teleport uses the underlying energies of the area you travel through to conduct you. If the static interference from other kinds of energy becomes too great, the spell breaks down, depositing you at the doorstep.

Plane Shift becomes "Energy Seeker" -- a spell which homes in on a specific type of otherworldly energy and takes you to it. This very fuzzy guidance system is why the results are imprecise.

That said, elementals do have favorite habitats.

fire elementals crawl out of teh great northern volcano. Their efreet and salamander overlords live in the City of Brass, a great network of platforms and wires and scaffolding suspended over the crater. Periodically it belches flaming rocks up into the sky.

The Foamfollower's archipelago is a series of islands around which water elementals splash and play. They spontaneously generate from salt water and a prosperous trapping industry exports them.

Earth elementals chiefly inhabit the gemstone caverns near the Wight King's Barrow. However, they periodically lay diamond-like "eggs" which, when exposed to dirt, and magic, will grow more earth elementals.

The "plane of air" is just the space between the islands -- get far enough away from the major islands and subjective gravity takes over. Indeed, some of the bigger airships ONLY work out here; you need specialized landing craft to actually land. Air elementals and such live out here, but their population density is VERY low, except around "asteroid belts" of rock small enough to not have gravity.

If you fly far enough away from the earth that the atmosphere is gone completely, you find yourself in a starry void with the properties of the D&D astral.

[Fuzzy_logic]

So. Genies. This isn't a culture spotlight yet, because I don't have answers. I do have questions.

Why aren't genies a bigger influence on prime material culture?

They can come and go at will. They are conceivably killable by hordes of lvl 1 archers, but they can go everywhere invisibly, mow them down by the dozens with whirlwind, andcan outfight a half-dozen guardsmen. THey have enough personal power to be taken seriously.

In addition, even those who can't grant wishes can make free wine, food, and vegetable matter out of nothing. This, combined with their flight and fighting abilities, ought to allow them to exert some significant influence on society.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Nothing from the Monster Manual is allowed to exert influence on society. That's just how they write D&D settings.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Culture Spotlight: Kobolds

Kobolds get an incredibly crappy deal in life. You see, they were created by dragons to be their servitors. This sounds bad, but actually, for the handful of kobolds who get to be dragons' lair-sevants, life is okay. They get to eat reasonably well and wear ornate livery. They have a lawful society regimented into clans.

However, even dragons find kobolds pretty annoying, and they breed until they've filled up the draong tunnels. This inspires their overlords to come up with endless tasks to send them on to get them out of their hair.

Right now, the overarching mission of the kobold race? Kill all the gnomes. So most kobolds are forced to live down on the ground, fighting for survival in the undead wasteland, on the hope that one day they might meet a gnome and kill him. Since gnomes are often wizards, this doesn't work out super well, but whatever. It's not like the dragons care.

Fortunately for them, kobolds aren't completely hopeless. They have a natural claw/claw/bite, unlike the monster manual version. Also, they can and do take levels in half-dragon for no reason.

Besides that, I'm struggling to come up with a mechanical shtick for them. The sorcerer thing makes sense given the dragon connection, but since orcs are also sorcerers, it seems redundant. Maybe they can be energy mages based on thier parent dragon? Samurai would make perfect flavor sense, but they'd kind of suck.

Other than that, I think their character classes would mostly be based on using gnomish weapons against them. They'd be Rogues and anything else with UMD to use captured gnomish wands and scrolls. Some might be warmages, summoners, or other specialized casters based on fragments of gnomish spell lore.

In any event, kobolds who acquire enough wealth or power generally desert and attempt to join airborne society, though they aren't terribly welcome there either.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Culture Spotlight: Gobinoids

The goblinoids had an ancient empire on the ground befor eht ecoming of the zombies.

The Bugbears won't give it up. They hide out in the forests. They're hard to, and half a dozen bugbears pose a serious threat to nay corporeal undead. There they hoard the artifacts of this lost civilization, growing ever more murderous and xenophobic.

The Hobgoblins went up. Way, way up. They're now ruled by isolationist theocratic sun-worshippers, and they spread thier empire over the islands nearest the sun. They're the only golin race with a fleet of airships, which they occasionally use to meddle iwth people. They have an elaborate clan system which gives them plausible deniability if anyone complains about they're raiding -- the raiders are always from a clan on the outs with the emperor.

Goblins just scattered. A few show up everywhere. Some work for the humans or other airship fleets-- they're small and good with thier hands. Others hide out in forests of various islands. Some try to us their stealth and worgs to survive on the ground, while others are enslaved by necromancers in need of intelligent help.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Culture Spotlihgt: Dwarves

Dwarves love the earth. And they're very stubborn. Thus, the fact that the earth has been taken over by the undead doesn't bother them.

A long time ago, they were wandering druids and earht priests who loved the hills and the valleys and the forests. They were allies of the elves -- caretakers of the earth and of the sky.

There are a still a few of these dwarves left, trying to keep up the old ways. However, it wasn't enough. The dwarves were forced to the mountaintops, where they could fortify against mindles sundead. Ghosts and spectres were sitll a problem...

Until they converted to hobgoblin sun-worship. This was originally seen as heresy and race-treason, but the effectiveness of the new clerics could not be denied. Now thier fortification are built around churches and ruled by the sun priests.

Of course, not all dwarves fight the undead. The Dwarves are sworn to serve and protect the earth. When something unleashed a tide of negative energy over the land, some dwarves accepted it like a change in seasons. They became clerics of death, and the zombie-filled wasteland is their natural habitat.

[CalibronXXX]

I support the idea of Kobolds as Energy Mages, assuming you mean Fire Mage and whatnot, based on their draconic patron's type.

[Catharz]

1196659545[/unixtime]]So. Genies. This isn't a culture spotlight yet, because I don't have answers. I do have questions.

Why aren't genies a bigger influence on prime material culture?

They can come and go at will. They are conceivably killable by hordes of lvl 1 archers, but they can go everywhere invisibly, mow them down by the dozens with whirlwind, andcan outfight a half-dozen guardsmen. THey have enough personal power to be taken seriously.

In addition, even those who can't grant wishes can make free wine, food, and vegetable matter out of nothing. This, combined with their flight and fighting abilities, ought to allow them to exert some significant influence on society.

I can think of a few reasons why genies don't exert a huge influence on mortal culture.

1) Genies don't really benefit from having mortal slaves. As you say, they can already create food and drink, and sometimes even wish. In addition, the environments genies are comfortable in tend to be deadly to mortals, whether it's the flames of the City of Brass or the chilling cold and lack of substantial things to stand on in the cloud cities. So while genies do have mortal servants (often just to ask for wishes beneficial to their masters), they don't have many.

2) Normal mortals aren't that interesting, and powerful mortals are scary. Only aberrant genies find ordinary mortals interesting. They really don't have anything in common. On the other hand, powerful mortals are always threatening to bind genies for their wish ability. This means that most genies just prefer to steer clear or mortals.

3) Some genies do exert influence on mortal society. As a rule these are aberrant genies who actually enjoy mortal companionship. They are invariably rulers, either as sultans or the true power behind the throne (viziers). The end result is about the same as having a powerful wizard as your king, and they influence day-to-day life very little.

...


I like the Sun-worshiping dwarves. I could even see them allying with the Ifrit, which would be pretty crazy.

The kobolds would also represent an interesting case. The average kobold would basically be a poorly outfitted adventurer. This means that a kobold gets to 20th level in under a year if he does not die. Most of the kobolds do die, but there are enough of them that they might well end up a dominant species, and the greatest threat to the necromancers.

Dragons could just be high-level kobolds, although I'm not sure if that would really work.

[CalibronXXX]

More versions of the Half-Dragon Class? Perhaps one that gives bard-casting, or one that gives size increases. Oh wait, I know, Dragons are just Kobolds that took levels in Half Dragon, Fiendish Brute, and some bull Kobold only prestige class that gives catch-up casting like Beholder Mage or Ur-Priest.

[JonSetanta]

1196716743[/unixtime]]
The Hobgoblins went up. Way, way up. They're now ruled by isolationist theocratic sun-worshippers, and they spread thier empire over the islands nearest the sun. They're the only golin race with a fleet of airships, which they occasionally use to meddle iwth people. They have an elaborate clan system which gives them plausible deniability if anyone complains about they're raiding -- the raiders are always from a clan on the outs with the emperor.

Ja, dot's goot.

[Orion]

I like Elementalist Kobolds, actually.

More issues: Ogres. Rel Gians have cloud castles and whatnot; I don't know wher ogres live. They hve no abilities which would let them survive on the ground, and I can't see them holding territory in the air. They really only need to show up as muscle for BBEGs, so maybe there are none outside of captivity, but it would still help to figure out what's up with them.