Alright, homebrew.

Making world for game I'm starting as I'm moving in with girlfriend in distant city and the friends she's made in grad school want to play D&D. So, running a game, making a world.

Setting aesthetic is 6th century Greek/Byzantine with culture a combination of Greek, pre-11th century Japanese, and pre-Roman Celtic, in that it's city-states, tribal-based as a larger whole, and clans within those tribes and an aristocracy in each City-State that could give a shit. Everyone has divided loyalties between each, and has to choose between which of the three masters they serve.

Primary race is human, with Elves (typical, not that different but more tied to the history and geography), Goblins (were Halflings but corrupted by the Elves), Dwarves (more "must build things"), and two homebrew races: the Variag and the (nameless as of yet).

Cont'd.

not op and still working on this

long ass time ago the world was just a rock floating in space with basically nothing on the surface because the sun was so hot it burned everything away. dragon's found it and were able to colonize, along with some subterainian races that the dragons didn't know about that built an underdark style area just by digging to avoid the sun. the dragons ended up getting bored of being the only things around and asked pelor to cut back and allow the other races to come to the world. he eventually came around and to mark the deal bahamuts 7 gold great wyrm attendants made 7 items know as the chalices of dawn. after the other gods started getting their races set up the chalices were given to the leaders of the metalic dragons, chromatic dragons, elves, humans, dwarves and giants (who used to be friendly), orcs, and the various monster races. eventually the mortal races went to war for each other's chalices. two were destroyed, three were lost, and the dragons, worried that the mortals would try to attack them, took theirs and broke a continent the size of greenland off and made it float away, pretty much sticking to themselves from then on out. much later and a few hundred years before the campain starts one more chalice was found and destroyed, while lots of outer plane things flooded the planet during a time know as the cleansing (this is where cosmology switched from 3.5 ed to 4 ed, while the planes were getting mixed up stuff was able to get in). most pure outsiders ended up getting banished before to long once the planes got settled but the few who got left behind bred and there is now a small population of planetouched.

Man, this thread is bumping.

>>14926047

Variags are the original inhabitants of the "planet" the setting takes place on, and are large, gorilla-like creatures that absolutely hate Humans and Elves, Elves because they're not from this world and Humans because they made the Variags play second-fiddle. Very honor-based society, the color of their fur indicates their caste. Distrustful of arcane magic, prefer more brute shows of power and things knowing their place. Have no use for actors or merchants, everything is dictated by tribal leaders who decide where things go and what is produced, and what entertainment there is: all of which is traditional or driven by the religion, which is animistic.

The other race, as of yet unnamed and undeveloped, are purple, scarred humanoids who lack eyes but instead have a kind of tremor-sense. Intrinsically connected to the world around them, they worship it as dragons, ancient titans subjugated by the other races' gods (which is not true, Dragons just don't give a shit that often). They are dreamseers, oracles, and other races seek them out. While the Elves don't know why, this race absolutely hates all things Elven and will go out of their way to magically purge everything remotely Elven.

Cont'd.

>>14926066

Hey, someone else. I'll read when it's done.

>>14926100

Setting takes place on a world, which is, in fact, a moon, one circling an orange planet (which was not always the case). Light is thus rare, making the planet mostly cold: however, the planet reflects enough light for warmth, as does a certain level of magic the Variags and other race, aside from what the Elves are supplying now, that keep it from being an ice ball the goblins and humans have to put up with. Thus, all races BUT the Elves are nocturnal, as there is simply more night than there is daylight. Everything but Elves has darkvision, as a result (Pathfinder, by the way).

All races save the Variag are from the planet, which is roughly the size of Saturn. Lush, green, and cool, Humans, Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves (still up in the air about Gnomes and Orcs, Trolls fit in somewhere but not sure how yet). Humans and Elves dominated, with Dwarves on the Humans' side, and eventually the Elves went to war for the greater good of all. Humans annihilated, Dwarves and Humans banished to the greatest of the planet's moons, leaving them and Halflings.

>>14926193


Elves are arcane casters, but they were only introduced to magic by the dragons, who are merely observers now: it is against their customs and laws to interfere and do anything but preserve things of historical or arcane importance, be it artifacts or arcane text books. Elves begin to experiment with the Halflings, and while some escape (not sure where yet), most are transformed into Goblins: the class that experiments on the Halflings are the strongest-tied to magic and have no regard for morality, believing it gets in the way of progress. They are assisted by a class of warriors who agree, in a sense, but also believe in industry, which grows. These are the High Elves (Magic) and Blood Elves (warrior, called that only because of their warrior ways).

The other four Elves (Sun, moon, desert, snow, and wood Elves) get weary of this and go to war, erupting the planet into chaos. Eventually the High Elves make bonds with outsiders and threaten the whole of the planet, causing all but the Moon to flee, as the Moon create giant portals that allow them to flee to the same moon as Men. Moon Elves, as a final hoorah, erupt the planet into flames, leaving the fate of the High and Blood Elves to mystery. The Moon Elves are annihilated and the other Elves discover mankind has done well for itself on the moon, and find themselves at a disadvantage. Goblins brought here likewise, under the tuteledge of the Elves who feel guilty over their forced change.

>>14926212

Actual setting proper takes place on five large islands (not unlike Japan, despite attempts to draw it otherwise) and archipelagos that lead to a larger continent. Culture and geography outside of this area is undeveloped.

Gods aren't terribly developed, nor the cosmology, but basically there is an overarching set of gods over the whole of the islands and aside from that, local deities that often combine with these and are their own at the same time. Shrines are everywhere all over the islands, curated by the tribes mostly unless the god warrants a temple in a region, which is then segregated from the tribal structure and more likely favors the City-state or clan near it.

>>14926066

That's pretty interesting, truth be told, albeit a bit generic (but I don't believe in originality, so that doesn't really mean a lot to me). Where did the dragons come from? The whole "space dragons" thing is pretty neat in honesty, I'm curious as to what else is out there. Dying worlds, other Material worlds (Spelljammers?), etc.

If no one else cares to contribute, I'll merely bump with images until I run out. Excuse some of these for not being explicitly D&D, I get whatever looks cool and throw it in.

>>14926274
other material worlds, some spelljammed, some planejumped. old dragons were exploring for the sake of knowledge and ended up finding a rock they could use. it's not the first world ever made and it certainly won't be the last

I am running a campaign based on The Culture setting by Ian Banks at the behest of 2 of my players. I had asked for opinions before and refined my original concept with the help of /tg/ to remove as much author favoritism and make a balanced antagonist faction for the Culture. Details on the first thread and the faction here: http://pastebin.com/8ckdpdv8.

The last campaign ended with the team facing a low ranked member of the Mercenaries that had been sent to kill them by an as of yet unknown party(probably an Overlord acting with secret permission of the local Oligarch). Since I was using a d10 system based on DH, I played it as “Oh shit, Eversor!” They eventually killed the guy buy trying to crash their Culture made gunship into him. Getting shot by starship weapon systems, hit by its effectors, still blowing the thing out of the sky, and dodging the debris left him open to a Drone player’s suicide attack. That player had been planning to be the hero from the first encounter and had already transferred a copy of himself into four of his networked missiles. The assassin then nuked himself Predator style to prevent them from examining his remains.
They all lost at least one limb. But this is space opera so soft if makes 40k look like corundum so grow some balls or grow’em back later, either way starting rolling those crits chud monkeys.

>>14926339

>>14926316

As it should be. Also, fuck yeah, Hakodate.

>>14926339

That sounds relatively intense.

I've never used this homebrew but it's a favourite of mine, although still in the making...

This world is essentially a planet of clear and very shallow seas, dotted with jungley volcanic islands, white beaches and all that. The prevailing climate is typically tropical: hot, humid and spontaneously wet. The world is young, but very much alive (low-tech, but high-magic). There are no gods as they are normally known, however powerful spirits are in colourful abundance. The magic-rich environment combined with the intense climate has caused a vibrant and exotic ecology to emerge, both on the emerald lands and across the sparkling waters; deadly creatures lurk in the forest caves and swamps - huge insects, poisonous lizards and a multitude of strange organisms have made their homes in the vast range of environments. It’s a rich, dangerous and intensely exotic environment.

Contd.

>>14926425
They seemed to enjoy it and asked me to start a new campaign in the setting after a two month break from it. So after setting the previous campaign on a planet where the Species was interacting with a much less advanced humanoid society, I decided to set this one on an Orbital that has been given to the Species by the Culture as an experiment to see how they interact with it. After 1 month a hive city of vagrants has already sprouted and is denuding the orbital of most of its carefully constructed biosphere and technological infrastructure. Meanwhile ships have arrived and are beginning to disassemble the Orbital.


I wanted some impute about how other people think the Culture would react to this, since I'm not exactly a big fan of utopias I might not foresee the kind of reactions decent people that want utopias would have to the events in the campaign. What would you like to see to flesh out this setting and the Species if you were playing?

>>14926459

This sounds pretty fun so far.

>>14926459
This sounds scarily similar to my homebrew. Are you me?

>>14926433
fdsafasd MIND = BLOWN
Homebrew campain that is pretty much vanilla D&D with twists and different flavor... My PC's are currently in a city JUST like that one in the picture!

>>14926459

Typically the world’s islands are home to a few tribes (humans, elves, halflings, orcs, goblins and the like, no known dwarves and very rare gnomes), though many islands remain uninhabited by such beings. In some areas, tribes are at all-out war with each other, and in others, peaceful networks of islands are to be found.

Magic is raw and primitive in nature. A strong shamanic element is seen in its culture, and although common, it is seen as a power to be revered and respected. Clerics, paladins and wizards do not exist - druids, spirit shamans, sorcerers, bards and rangers are the only spellcasting classes, as magic comes only from the wild and from oneself.

contd.

>>14926489

"Decent" people don't believe in utopias, but that's just my opinion. Anyway, I can see one of two reactions coming out of this: either concern for the development of the race on its own (this is strictly interfering with their development, and either it needs to stop or it needs to be done according to a dotted line that the Culture set up), or acceptance and perfect assimilation instantaneously, which could lead to the original inhabitants of the race freaking the fuck out. Personally, I think it would depend on the Culture (I'm reading the original thread right now, so I'll get back to you on that) and its beliefs, but something tells me it would lean towards assimilation instead of development or repulsion of development.

>>14926504

Good to hear it.

I've been working on a generic RP system for a while now. The goal is to blend freeform character creation/actions with simple stats and rolls, easily adjustable to your preferred level of crunch. Nothing as free as FATE and nothing as heavy as GURPS, but a lot of possibilities in the middle.

Here's the document I've been condensing stuff into.
http://www.mediafire.com/?eahqimlofqkcf0m

>>14926459
You could have conflicts centered over the few deep portions of the oceans, where upwelling allows for plankton blooms and increased fishing. Basically you made a planet where the continental lithosphere and oceanic lithosphere have densities that are very similar so that the relative relief of the topography is low. The shallow seas cover continental lithosphere and the deep covers the oceanic lithosphere. The warm seas will also allow storm formation, and invoking storms for warfare could be an element of the setting.

captcha: Blanehard: tionvena

This must now be made into a campaign setting starring a man named Blanehard.

>>14926532

Due to the hot climate, there would be penalties to wearing heavy armour (metal armour would be virtually unobtainable anyway). I’m trying to draw an ideal party away from tank-based operations, focussing on stealth and magic with rangers and barbarians being the melee power, or perhaps just fighters ‘travelling light’ (see previous pic).

This is where my solid ideas taper off, although I have some concepts for this world floating around:

- An island which is home to some sort of mutating disease, isolated due to being surrounded by water
- Nomadic, amphibian-riding elves who travel the shallow seas
- A dragon living in a volcano
- Giant colourful carnivore birds (perhaps a quest hook where some person’s daughter has been snatched off. Later, a nest full of bones and rubies: hurrah)
- Cannibals everywhere

>>14926614
Awesome, geography is not what do best - thanks for the brain candy!

>>14926659

Your setting sounds pretty cool, a lot of room for a lot of cool stuff. The closest thing I can think of to it is Earthsea, and they're really not all that similar. Have you read any of them?

Fuck, I love talking about my homebrew!

The setting is a sort of 15th-16th century technological reinassance where the majority of the worlds population is living in close-knit train and ship connected cities that are heavily populated.
This of course all took place after Dwarfs had taken over the world: Humans, Halflings/gnomes, and giants were all assimilated volunteerily into modern Dwarf civilization. The rest of the world quickly changed completely.

The Dwarf empire controls pretty much everything within their grasp: the seas, the cities, the humanoids, the money, the technology, everything but the "wilderness".

The wilderness is the 80-70% of the rest of the world that doesn't have "enough" Dwarven influence. This is where all the "wacky fantasy" happens.

In preparation for a Fantasy Craft campaign, I've begun thinking of a custom world based off of this map that an elegan/tg/entleman posted up a few weeks back.

Mulmoran is known as the Land the Gods Forgot, but it would be far more apt to say that they have long since forsaken it.

It is a place of extremes, of old secrets and even older curses. Vast stretches of grasslands and sunbaked dunes cover much of the landscape, broken up intermittedly by ancient forests, foreboding mountains, and vast saltwater lakes and streams. Living is often harsh, and it is a rare and blessed individual who has not known the exhaustion that comes from waking before the sun and laying their head to rest long after it has fallen asleep. In Mulmoran man and woman alike must know the toil of backbreaking labor, forging their own destinies by their own hands, however pitiable they might be.

The rarity of natural freshwater rivers and lakes has drastically defined the nature of civilization in Mulmoran. The country is said to have been cursed by the gods in ages past, making the water bitter and vile to the tongue while dangerous monsters from the oceans flourished and glutted themselves on the flesh of mortals. Thankfully much of the Western lands are frequented by gushing rain storms, during which the native populace collects all that they can in water towers, tanks, pots, glasses, and even the occasional frying pan in order to survive. The largest cities typically form around massive underground freshwater springs, or places where rock and algae-filled rivers soak up the excess salt and deposit clear water out the other end. The greatest wells are said to dwell deep within the forests, but only the Fair Folk may drink from them without repercussions.

<cont>

>>14926678

.. A Dwarf Empire? Holy fucking balls.

>>14926659

And actually, here's a neat island generator. It's actually pretty fantastic.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/mapgen2.swf

>>14926679

Magic is a rare and distrusted art, and few have access to the many luxuries that it could afford them. It is often associated with the devilish wiles of woodland spirits or the trafficking of demons, and as such there are few rural communities willing to suffer a mage in their midst. Witch hunts are common in such places, and most end in tragedy and the execution of innocents. It is an age of paranoia and suspicion, and for good reason. Strange and fabled creatures still stalk the dark or forgotten places of the world, but it is a rare and well-traveled individual that has ever seen them.
Practicing magic is a truly difficult affair, taking both intense dedication, concentration, and a little bit of luck for good measure. Spells are powerful and capable of performing deeds that no mere mortal could ever hope to match, but often have a price attached and are prone to backfiring or succeeding beyond the mage’s wildest imaginings. For those with the proper talent and patience, the path to true power is firmly within their grasp.

Mechanically this is shown in the Difficult Magic, Potent Magic, and Wild Magic campaign qualities. This doubles the casting time and adds +5 to the DC to actually cast the spell, increases damage results by 50% and the save DC by +5, and also increases the Threat and Error range for criticals.

>>14926571
I wanted to use this civilization to present the Culture with a very different kind of problem that the ones it faces in the books using this society. Instead of making the Culture look morally ambiguous and comparing it to a morally compromised civilization, I wanted to this civilization to have no morally and be utterly dismissive of it. Instead the problem it challenges the Culture’s assumption that it’s ways are the most efficient.

Frankly I thought the books were alright, but not nearly as good as one of my PCs said. I think he just likes the libertarian/anarchist/socialist thing that the Culture represents. But the first thing I thought when I read about the Culture and all the other societies was that they were weak and self indulgent. Banks(the author) is dismissive of imperialism and conquest, but it seems to me that he invented a society he wanted to live in and then worked backward from there to justify it. Banks outlines his whole Culture thing here: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm. Some of his assumptions like that you can run away and hid in space. Or that a habitat with several thousand people could outrun a military battleship of the same technologic level seem a little contrived.

I tried to just extrapolate a society from trends I would expect would come about if the technology he has in the setting was slowly developed by real people over thousands of years. The only end point I wanted was for them to be antagonistic not for them to reflect my personal tastes.

>>14926705

How technologically advanced be these people?

>>14926677

Thank you, and no I haven't, might check it out for some inspiration; what's the story?

>>14926701

Sweet, thanks!

>>14926705

Humans and Pech (Catch-all term for gnomes and halflings) are the most prolific races of Mulmoran, but undoubtedly the weakest (save for goblins, which are almost exclusively a slave race). Most Kingdoms consist of only a single city and very little territory, while independent towns and villages scatter the landscape without the protection of vast military bodies or support from allies. The greatest human nations are those whose people have taken to the many waterways and massive lakes and inland seas of Mulmoran, lashing together fleets of boats into naval cities. The Boat Lords travel up and down the country on a seasonal basis, trading or looting coastal cities and villages as they go.

I have been kind of itching to start writing a primer to the setting I'd like to run a game in, but I haven't had a group in over four years, so trying to write down any ideas ends up being a severely depressing experience coupled with masturbatory shame.

I'd just write a story set in that world, but I'm completely retarded when it comes to writing fiction.

>>14926717

Good call on that last part; personally this Banks guy seems a bit too naive to have developed anything worth taking seriously. Perhaps naive isn't the word. But anyway.

This seems built around your players, what do they think of the Culture? Aside from the one guy, what do your other players think about this giant faux-topia?

>>14926678
Fuck, that was scant.

cont'd

The wilderness is anything from the "deepest" parts of the ocean to: praries, jungles, woods, hinterlands, tundra, rain forests, it's really defined as any place where "Modern Dwarven society is not evident."

Unlike it's name though it isn't always a suicidal dog eat darwinian world- after all before dwarfs decided to create society the world WAS nothing but the "wilderness".

It is however no cake-walk either as the wilderness is dominated by beasts ranging from:
Mudsharks, salamanders, dragons, owlbears, beaked wolfs, dinosaurs, and giant forms of more "mundane" animals. Even then thats not counting the plants which can be as dangerous as Morgue Ginger: a kind of Ginger plant that raises the dead in order to take care of itself and defend itself from predators.

To long forgotten artifacts created by geniouses not recognised in their time or other wise long forgotten:

>>14926736

You're welcome to both accounts; Earthsea, I've only read the first book and my impression is built around that, is a society that's built in an archipelagos, most of the people uncaring of what goes outside of their island save the priesthood, the empire thing, bandits, and of course the namesake Wizards of Earthsea, who do whatever. It's an interesting first book, not sure how the others pan out but I've heard good things.

>>14926725

Mostly the sort you'd expect from low-fantasy, meaning that most places are rural communities with a healthy stroke of paranoia when it comes to anyone that isn't their immediate neighbor--and sometimes even that isn't enough to quell suspicions.

There are two notable exceptions. The city of Llandriane is currently in the midst of an industrial revolution at the beginning of the campaign, complete with bustling factories and the like. This is primarily due to the limited trading rights they've managed to forge with the kobolds, who are the single most technologically advanced race in the setting. In ages past the kobolds, led by a revolutionary figure of singular strength and intelligence, surged forth from their mountain homes in the heart of Mulmoran, slaughtering both Man and Dragon alike in an attempt to free themselves from the oppression of overlords that would otherwise manipulate them as cannon fodder. Through a combination of guerrilla tactics and dangerous ingenuity, they managed to shatter the kingdoms of man and drive all but the most powerful of dragons into the darkest and most isolated portions of the country.

They then retreated back beneath the Star Peaks and sealed themselves in, making no contact with the outside world for hundreds of years. Without the constant threat of death from outside forces, their natural cleverness and knack for delicate trap-making propelled them forward by leaps and bounds. They have a monopoly on the production of gunpowder and firearms, primitive tank-like siege weapons, and have also invented this setting's equivalent of Warforged.

>>14926778

No need to get down on yourself, I generally make at least a party in the settings I make before I allow them to be used for play. You may suck at writing fiction but that's no reason not to try, and besides, you could always try online play.

>>14926778

When it comes to introducing homebrews to players, I find it's much easier to keep them interested with something very succinct as an introduction and then ease them into it.

I also find writing quite depressing. I just say go for it man - find an IRL group or a bunch online to play with. Don't worry about the whole backstory to your setting, just outline it and then keep it colourful. Dumping a whole new universe on them is both dull and really too much to remember and retain as the campaign goes on.

>>14926869

Agreed, and I've found that letting them explore it and fleshing it out that way is much more rewarding to both me and the players than making it, setting it in stone, and making them figure out what's going on around them, despite being tempted to flesh it all out yourself beforehand.

As for the writing, I use it sparsely when it comes to D&D. I did an experiment a few years ago where I wrote something like an episodic intro to every session we had, to draw them in. Worked for D&D and World of Darkness while I did it, especially World of Darkness. It gives them a hint as to what's to come and makes them ready to look for this or that while being completely wrong in the mean time.

>>14926678
>>14926811

Cont'd Races!

Humans: a 5ft9 "Man" humanoid that covers the world and can literally be anything and everything. Morality with-standing. They get a long great with any species.
Dwarfs: a 4ft9 "Man" humanoid that Took over the world. They're like humans only they're stubborn and stupidly ambitious. They get a long fine with all man species.
Halflings: a 3ft9 "Man" humanoid that didn't give a shit either way. They tend to do whatever they hell they want and are well liked by most species.
Giants: a 25ft tall "man" humanoid. Giants live very long lives. They joined the other "man" species for the bitches and booze mostly. They get a long great with both man species and "wild" humanoids.

Elfs: a 4ft9 tall "Man" humanoid that is both canibalistic and very difficult to differ between their genders. Elfs are immortal and ironically almost extinct. A handfull of them survive and even prosper within the Dwarf empire. Elfs don't really get a long with anyone but humans and minotaurs.

>>14926850

To the north lie the ancient homes of the dwarves, both feared and reviled by most other sentient races. It is their hubris that brought down the wrath of the gods in days long past, and it is hinted that they waged outright war against the Higher Powers before being struck down in a single mighty attack. The Dead Lands are ground zero, a magically-irradiated wasteland populated by hideous abominations and ravenous undead. Think Chernobyl, times ten thousand.

Facing the thread of extinction, the greatest and most powerful dwarf lords banded their magic together in an act that would permanently redefine their culture. They became Liches, Eternal Kings of dwarfkind, and utilized their newfound power to raise the millions of dwarves that had fallen on the battlefield. This massive, mindless labor force would aid in the reconstruction of the dwarven empire, converting cities into tombs and forges into laboratories.

I've been working on a homebrewed system using 2d10. Kind of like Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy, only without the buttload of stats. Dexterity, Empathy, Intellect and Physique. A player gets four positive traits to assign to their stats, along with two negative traits. Those traits grant the player unique bonuses, depending upon the situation. Besides the traits, a PC has five skills to put points into. The precise details of this need work.

However, I have something of a setting in place, so all is not lost.

>>14926930

What did you have in mind?

>>14926918

The Old Gods gone, true resurrection failed to exist for those who died in Mulmoran. Only necromancy could bring the dead back, and then only as a twisted shell of the person they used to be.

Their powers stripped from them, the paladins and priests of the land fell from grace by no fault of their own. Suddenly their words were hollow and meaningless, and many fell into a deep spiritual depression.

The days of traditional religion are long since gone, replaced instead by Pagan Worship. Powerful spirits and demigods quickly rushed to fill the void left by the Old Gods, glutting themselves on the blood and faith of desperate worshipers. In technical terms most of these false gods are closer to being powerful aberrations than anything else, striking clear parallels with such beings as Shub Niggurath, Dagon, Chaugnar Faugn, and Hastur. Though only a few are actively malevolent, nearly all of them are petty, fickle, and jealous at best or indifferent at worst. Priests and Paladins are now little more than glorified cultists, latching onto promises of power for selfless and selfish reasons alike.

>>14926678
>>14926811
>>14926899

finishin' races

Orcs: a 6ft9 "Wild" humanoid with tusks, a flat face that on a bad day looks disimilar to a bulldog, brown skin, pointy ears, and likes to fight. Orcs suprisingly enough are welcomed into Dwarven society and aren't treated "too" badly. They don't really get a long with anyone but Pigmen and humans. Orcs and humans have a kind of "brotherly love" thing.
Ogre/Cyclops: a 15ft tall humanoid thats built like a heavy weight lifting champion -gut and everything-. They come in three different flavors: Two-headed, cycloptic, and single headed and any combination there of. Orcs and humans don't mind them.
Pigmen: a 5ft9 "Wild" Humanoid that's basically a human with a pigs/boars head. They're the "Human" of the animal people world and are suprisingly civil. Orcs, Humans, like them and even dwarfs don't mind them.
Trolls: a 7ft9 "wild" humanoid with fur that changes colour to match their surroundings, long tusks, long ears that are like a hippo's and huge forearms and forelegs with no visible wrists. No one likes trolls.
Minotaurs: A 15ft tall "wild humanoid" thats basically a human with a bull head that's built like a swimmer. Elfs love them, humans don't mind them.

>>14926725
Just below Culture tech. But I wanted there technology to be characterized as more brutal and straightforward. For example a Culture weapon can curve its shots and do all kinds of fancy things. But those fancy things would require a lot of energy in proportion to the shot fired by the the weapon itself. The weapons of this race just put all the effort into making the shot as powerful, penetrative, and transfer as much energy into the target as possible. Banks always goes on about "elegance", I wanted to have them focus on efficiency. To keep this from harming the PCs I gave them the option to modify and tailor Culture weapons to whichever style they preferred.

I really wanted them to be balanced so that neither they nor the Culture could gain much from a war at this point. They are very numerous but they only control a few hundred stellar systems, and most of those are planetary nebula. They consume everything available to them and live in packed into space habitats. But despite the fact they are what Banks calls a "Hegomizing Swarm", they are very isolationist for the moment because they biding their time until one or more of the major galactic powers become inactive.

The conflict in the first campaign arose because less advanced civilizations coming into contact with them usually adopt their survival focused lifestyle. Not because it is appealing but because it creates such a brutal dog-eat-dog environment that it is hard to survive if you don't adopt it.

>>14926976

The wood elves, or the Fair Folk as many know them, make their homes in the many vast forests of Mulmoran. They are unfathomably beautiful, powerful, capricious, and cruel, their mindsets both baffling and alien to most other civilized races. Most share blood with fae creatures, and it can often become difficult to discern the two from one another. They treat the woods as their personal playground, moving through the natural world like a fish through water and toying with those who enter their lands without permission.
One never knows how an encounter with the Fair Folk will go. They may simply follow you in silence, or make strange cries that echo through the canopy and unnerve all but the most weathered of travelers. Perhaps they will come and proposition you for a dance through the foliage, or offer to grant you a wish--for a price. Or perhaps they will simply descend upon you, attacking as ruthless, laughing savages, and tear you and your fellows to pieces. When enough of them get into the latter bloodthirsty mindset, they often form massive bands and go raiding through the nearby countryside on a Wild Hunt, slaughtering anything and everything in their path until they become satisfied or bored. These events happen only rarely, but any culture living on the borders of the woods are always live in fear that their generation may be the one to suffer at the Fair Folk's demented whims.

>>14926930
It involves giants. Giants used to roam the worlds, their stately grace matched to footsteps that shook entire cities. They pursued their own agendas sometimes, othertimes they became heroes of the little people. Gargantua, Goliath, Magog, Pantagruel and many others have been found in the texts of yore. But where are they now?

They're still here, amid the masses from Baltimore to Cairo to Kyoto. Sometimes, people rise to greatness, growing with their fame and reputation. But how? How can a person become a towering juggernaut without some kind of superscience or magic?

Answer: the Glow. The Glow is a strange thing, part liquid and part gas, bioluminescence incarnate. It tends to seep between worlds, causing organisms to mutate into the hideous Glowbound, driving them to consume anything Glow-related to fuel their strange bezoars. Men become like animals, animals become like men and plants become something else. But some men (and women) take in Glow differently. Their ancestors were beings of greatness, possibly true giants. The Glow awakens their true might, granting them gifts.

>>14926991

Elsewhere, dominating many of the eastern plains, the Wildling (Wolf Nation) Elves make their home. Many consider them to be little more than barbarians and heathens, but nearly everyone considers them a fair sight better than their psychotic tree-dwelling cousins. Theirs is a nomadic culture, their once-fair skin burnt brown by the sun after many long centuries of trekking through dune and desert. Trading camps often collect around oases, but rarely last for very long. Their culture is deeply tied to that of the orcs, with whom they share their lands. The two trade and live alongside one another in equal measure, and though tensions occasionally break out between them both are on fairly good standings with one another.

Orcs are the only ones to build static settlements in the Border Lands, where a great empire watches over the limitless sun-parched deserts. There they have erected countless great stone monoliths and temples, massive blocks of chiseled stone heaved into place through the efforts of thousands of goblin slaves, or curious oblong rooftops carved by the hands of skilled orcish and elvish artisans. Of all the civilizations of Mulmoran, none is more beautiful than the city of Calaunt, a paradise hewn from ivory and gold and dyed silks that rests at feet of blistering hills and overlooks the wasteland beyond.

>>14927007

That sounds fucking neato. Reminds me vaguely of Changeling.

>>14927017

At the very heart of the country lie the Star Peaks, and among them the great Mount Cavenath. Here the Ohni make their home, great and powerful spirits bound in physical forms. Though brutish in appearance, they are crafty shapeshifters capable of traversing the great snowy peaks and cliffs of their mountains with the same graceful ease as a ram. They have hewn mighty fortresses of stone and wood along the sheer surface of Mount Cavenath, such that the glow of their massive bonfires at night can be seen for many miles. Their culture is largely honorable, but they are known to lie unabashedly to mortals who come to their territory unannounced. Despite their spiritual heritage, most of them prefer the arts of the warrior and wield great spiked clubs in combat. Others prefer the way of the spear and the sword, while still others have honed their fists into lethal weapons in their own right. Proud and versatile, there are few who dare to challenge them. Their only natural enemies are trolls, though few of their ilk ever wander far enough from their woodland lairs to act on their age-old grudge.

>>14927007
The Glow comes from the Big Country, a place between worlds where size *does* matter (as it also does in biology). Animals the size of skyscrapers swim the seas, graze the plains and soar the skies as Giants arrive to reclaim their heritage. People that become Giants can hold Glow in their bodies, using it to fuel their strange powers and heal any wounds they might incur. The Big Country has natural Glow Seeps, shallow lakes where bizarre bivalves and plants collect to begin an ecosystem that produces strange lights at night. The largest animals and plants that die form Glow Falls - a banquet for the largest Giants.

That's another thing: Giants will actually keep growing in size as they improve themselves as well as their territories within the Big Country. On Earth, they'll simply appear to be tall/bulky individuals. But in the Big Country, their true size is made manifest. Giants are not loners, of course, but there's a distressing number that are. Diets conflict Out There, as individuals wage war over particular trees or Glow Falls. It doesn't help that these towering apes can sometimes amass an army of creatures to fight on their behalf.

Decided to homebrew a setting over the summer. First draft of the world map, here. The setting is gunpowder age fantasy with custom races instead of the usual fantasy races.
Is anyone in the mood for a description of each of the nations?

>>14927079

I daresay we all are. I as OP have been, anyway.

>>14926981
>>14926678
>>14926811
>>14926899

And now it's time to bring it all home with the STORY~

The world is largly a very quiet albeit overshadowed world. Dwarfs had effectivly taken over the world: They stormed out of their caves, hills, burrows, and tunnels as if the earth cried tears of little hairy men and women and then proceeded to douse the earth in them. The Troll empire that had controlled the world previously was completely massacred by the dwarfs use of firearms and artillerey and to this day no sentient being other then a troll has actually seen a troll in braud day light. The world settled down after this though as the Dwarf empire turned their eyes to their friends; anyone they could reproduce with. In a suprising display of multiculturalism the dwarfs accepted humongous swarths of: humans, halflings, and giants into their society and it grew and grew. Soon it was breathing down the necks of Elfs. However the Human influence on the dwarfs society had grown and they begane to lobby against the idea of "turning all hermaphrodites inside out" and it isn't too unusual to see entire districts made for elfs within cities. Time and progress continued to march on and the dwarven empire soon came to the conclusion that not only were the "wild" races not nessicarily evil or stupid, but that they would be willing to work for money and lodgings just like everyone else. With the aid of the humans: orcs, minotaurs, and pigmen were welcomed into society even though they couldn't "interbreed".

The world was slowly becoming more and more modernized and it was up to brave adventurers from all walks of lives to make their stake in it. Whether they decided to stay within the city limits and fight crime or run buisness, or go into the wilderness and become anything from dragon slayers to pinoneers.

>>14927076
When the battles prove too much - such as a Giant using the Gargantuan trick of farting and pissing everywhere - a Giant can always go back home, to Earth. There they have to deal with regular everyday life. A family begins to question their mother's increasing height - without the high-heels on. The chief of Police notices how tall and burly the greenhorn is. The local "radical feminist" organization has a ginger leader with a belly bigger than a truck tire - and an appetite for Tory Englishmen to match. These things can be a tiny problem compared to the Glowbound rampaging around a Giant's Glow-tainted home.

Once they rest up and settle Earth issues, the Giant can walk into the Big Country by way of a doorframe, ancient ruins or the woods. To each their own.

There *are* other worlds out there, however. Giants such as Pantagruel knew this all too well; from a land of people that ate wind to priests that loved the Pope a little too much, there are places far stranger than the Big Country out there. And some of those worlds are dying affairs, judging from the way they burn in the Big Country's night sky.

>>14927141

This sounds like Time Burton's Gullivar's travels.

>>14927098
Very well.
Hilaugh and Lordos are analogues of Scotland/Ireland/Wales and England, respectively.
Solana is an analogue of Spain and Italy, while Kingsland is an abbreviated version of its' old name "The Land of a Thousand Kings" as quoted from an old Elderkin emperor (I'll get into them later). Kingsland is actually divided into several miniature kingdoms, duchies, republics. archbishoprics and assorted city-states.
Flora is actually Florida re-imagined as a gunpowder age European minor power. Holds several colonies in the Katoro Isles.
Embria is a mish-mash of French and German culture, a major power in the setting.
The Deadlands are a collective of baronies, duchies and counties that are mostly ruled by undead noble houses. Primarily vampires lording over zombies masses and well as frankenstien monsters and other ghouls.
Dangrad is an analogue to Scandinavia and Russia.
The Empire of Ara'el is inhabited by the Eldarkin, the successors to Ara the Sun God's original creations, the Elder Race who have long since died out. Elderkin can be described as orange-skinned, with bronze spots or markings (which differ by individual, often genetic), golden hair, silver pupils and pointed ears.
Zorr is inhabited by darker-skinned and highly religious Elderkin who declare themselves as unofficial vassal of Ara'el. They are either at war with Herot or preparing for war with Herot.

>>14927209

Sounds pretty neat; humans only?

>>14927209
Herot is ruled by the Heroti, a race physiologically split into two castes. The governors and merchants are often squat, almost spherical, while the warrior and worker castes are tall and buff.
The Khalifi States are a collective of human-populated Caliphates and Sultanates. Arabian analogue.
Hadja is a nation populated by a reptilian race of the same name. They are very xenophobic.
Mostafu is a mostly savannah plains where African-based nomads roam.
Urghaan is similar, but instead a jungle with a weak, but existing central government.
The Rodha Steppes are also populated by nomads, this time inspired by the Mongols and Central Asians.

>>14927222
Nope, if you read, the Eldarkin are non-human. In my most recent post a also described the Heroti and Hadja. More to come!

>>14927245

Ah, apologies.

>>14927141
The Super Marines hail from one such world. It's another Earth, albeit one fifty thousand years older than our own. A veritable shell of concrete, carbon latticework and steel, its populace of twenty billion subsists upon Tejan longtusk hogs and algae. That's all the most-learned Giants know. The Super Marines are the elite soldiers of this bizarre Earth-alternative, wearing armor powered by flywheels and wielding rocket-firing rifles. Somehow, they discovered a way to enter the Big Country - despite not having any Giants - and are doing their damned best to harvest whatever Glow Seeps they can find. Traveling in ten-man squads, they seem to have a religious culture; their Glow-harvesting machines are carried by four Super Marines and are considered holy relics, bound with scriptures on cotton strips and gilded with gold. Beyond this, not much is known. Their weaponry is vicious by any standard and the leader of each squad bears a horrific laser gun decorated like the Glow-harvesters.

>>14927238
Onto the next continent!
Great Quan and Tenjima are analogues of China and Japan, respectively. Tenjima has modernized quicker than Quan and has even invested in colonies in the Katoro Isles.
Ruun is cut off by mountains and populated by a race also known as the Ruun. They are large, muscular, grey-skinned and have two large fingers and a thumb on each hand, with three toes on their feet. They have very little modern technology, save for cannons which they discovered in a botched attempt of colonization on part of Ara'el. The entire region is teeming with deadly creatures. It's like Conan the Barbarian in there all day, err day.
Pujhan is currently occupied by Lordos. It is mountainous and full of as many riches as problems such as the bug-like Skandrith and tiger-like "Jungle Fey" that have staked a civilization in the mountains.
Rhaamijar is an analogue of India as a whole.
The Katoro Isles are a mix of the Caribbean and Polynesia. Many of the islands are colonies of other nations like Solana, Flora, Embria and Tenjima.
The lower colonies of Embria and Solana are mostly populated by colonists and the antlered "Forest Fey" who are very territorial of their sacred forests.
The Northern Wastes (name subject to change) is mostly tundras loosely connected by glaciers. There are a few ports there for fish and whale harvest. The polar bear-based "Glacier Fey" guard this realm from a foothold of the Oblivion Angels, an extra-planar race sent to destroy all life to bring everlasting tranquility.

OP must bounce, hope this thread was fun for everyone as much as it was for me; keep it going, if you'd like.

I have a setting I've been working on, but don't really know what to do with it.

The basic idea is this:
Last remnants of humanity live inside giant walking city fortreses, wich were build both to harbor humans and to guard powerful devices that were used to kill a God and absorb it's massive energy within themselves.

The "world" where this takes place is actually a dimenssion between universes, an intermediate reality, without definate laws of physics ect. The universes, one witch humanity itself originated from, are just dimenssional bubles in this realm created by the Godlike being composed of strange "energy" called Aura, to catch the infinite potential energy of this real and make it to useful form, witch it then consumes.

The Aura is what essentually everything is. It is the base form of everything in existance. Active aura fields form bubles wich create the laws of physics. Static aura captured within the fields are shaped by the laws of the buble into matter and energy ect. The God was essentually a massive self aware Aura field.

Somehow, in the distand past, humanity found its way to this realm. We found a God that was leeching of countles universes, and somehow after a massive and long war, we managed to shatter it's coherent form.

>>14927394

This war chainged the God however. Its original passive nature chainged and adapted to even more destructive one. it lost its original form of pure aura field, as it converted more and more of it to static aura, to protect itself and to fight against the humans.
Humans won when they unleashed their most powerful weapons. The walking fortreses. The devices inside these beasts of war were capable of absorbing the aura energy of the God, causing a feedback loop of energy, that resulted in a massive blast of energy.

The blast of energy resulted in the formations of rift storms. Massive universal holes, that were originally the small portals the God used to acces the energy inside them. Without the god to support them however, they spiralled out of controll.

Some of the blast energy we were able to capture and use it to further power the walking cities. Most of the energy hoever spred acros the realm and reformed itself in to differing forms.

>>14927294
A contrast the lethally organized Super Marines are the Mahreezoos (Mary Sues). Sometimes the Glow can be soaked up by electronics and inevitably corrupts some poor soul into one of the Glowbound (freak-a-me, freak-a-you). But some people are just too damned goofy for such a thing to occur. Their minds are focused on some fictional character that is incapable of losing and immediately becomes friends with everyone no matter what. The Glow tends to react to emotions for whatever reason, so a hambeast or chinless "juggalo-samurai" will normally become a Mahreezoo during a heated internet argument about their character. The Glow suffuses them at the height of their tantrum, changing their bodies to match their character in some manner; an obese teen girl with lanky black hair might end up with the rainbow dreadlocks of her character, for example, or a gawky "nerd" with no chin and stubby arms might have his character's bulging biceps. In short, the change is usually a minor one.

But their abilities are not. For one, a Mahreezoo develops a strange aura of sorts; anyone within a certain distance of the Mahreezoo will find them quite agreeable and will go out of their way to help the Glow-infused freak. Besides this "Beloved Aura", a Mahreezoo also has an uncontrollable power; as invincible their character may be, the Mahreezoo still has to obey the laws of physics to some degree. The power requires Glow to fuel and more often than not causes them harm in some way. Sometimes it's a transparent katana, other times it's flight. Each Mahreezoo has one unique power and has almost no control over it, which results in a gang of them accidentally killing each other. The Big Country opens to them for whatever reason, and most never make it back to Earth.

>>14927414

The most prominent ones were the Deamons. Individual and self aware shreds of the massive aura field of the God. Energy vampires capable of complete control of their of everything within their aura field. If deamon wishes something, it happens.

The second creatures are the Apostles. A hiveminf formed from the self organised static aura of the God. They lack the reality altering abilities of the deamons, but are absolute masters of their own form.

Both species, are a threat to humans, and their cities, because both of them seek the devices that shattered the God. The individual deamons wish to aquire them to absorb its energy and become more powerful. The apostles seek them because they want to use them to reform the God and achive unity again.

The humans themselves are composed both from static aura and aura field. Each human has an small aura field of ones own, wich allow him/her to exist in the static form. Cabable humans can manipulate these fields to cause magic like effects. The static aspect of humans is our bodies, that serve as and anchor for the aura field. Without the body, our aura would escape and be devoured by some passing minor deamon. Without the aura field, the body would disintegrate to silverdust.

>>14927444

The walking cities project an massive aura field around them, allowing human life to life in the areas surrounding the cities. This life is however very nomadic, as the people have to move as the city moves, to stay within its protective field.

The cities follow the migrating rift storms and use the flow of aura energy as a powersource
from them. This is unreliable, because the rifts are far from stable. Rality twisting riftstorms are a constant thread, and only the powerful aura field of the cities can withstand them.

Now, humanity is left so fight for it's survival in a hostile universe with no stable laws of physics, assaulted by reality altering energy campires and a swarm of ever adaptable creatures, intending to bring worth the very God humanity lost everything to destroy. No way home, no help from anywhere, humanity has to use their own integenuetu, their own meager powers of reality alteration and even the very artefacts that they used to destroy the God, to protect their last bastions. Will we survive?

And thats it. As I stated, I really don't know what to do with this setting. I have just been thinking it up for my own amusement.

>>14927394

Oh and thanks to the kind anon who fulfilled my request for that pic in a drawthread few days back. You are awesome!

>>14927007
Amazing idea.
>>14927076
>>14927141
>>14927294
>>14927442
Totally ruined.

Damn, so much good stuff in this thread...I can't even keep up with how fast everything's being posted, lol.

As for myself, there's quite a lot I could say about the homebrew I'm working on...let's start with the cosmology, shall we?

It all started with the the Grand Progenitor (I suck with coming up with names, so for now I just use the title...which is a lot to type out, so from here on out I'll abbreviate it GP), a timeless, omnipotent (or nearly so, at any rate) overdeity, and the source of goodness and benevolence. The GP got bored of being the only thing in existence and wanted other beings to bring joy to (after all, benevolence is rather meaningless without someone else to receive it), so he decided to create a little company. So he first created the Primordial Sea -- a vast expanse of aether, the raw, unrefined metaphysical substrate of existence. From it he created the First Heaven and populates it with lesser divinities and angels. Not satisfied with this, he then created the First Mortal Realm, filling it with plants, animals, humans, all that stuff we're familiar with.

But that's not where the game takes place.

>>14927830
Now, the first batch of divine entities created by the GP, known as the Firstborn of Heaven, originally had no purpose besides to chill out in the First Heaven and hang with the GP. They observed him making the Mortal Realm, and got curious. They wondered if they could do the same, and asked the GP for permission to make their own Worlds. So the GP agreed, bestowed upon them the power to make Worlds, and sectioned off a portion of the Primordial Sea for them to use as they saw fit. The Firstborn were free to make whatever sort of world they liked, provided that they continued to acknowledge the supremacy of the GP and ruled any intelligent beings they brought into existence with appropriate measures of justice and benevolence.

So the Firstborn set out. Before long, some of them started to break the rules. They ruled as tyrants over their creations, and posed as the supreme rulers of all existence, denying the sovereignty of the GP. Thus, as punishment for their evil and disobedience, the GP disowned these Firstborn and banished them to the Nine Hells. There, cut off from the source of goodness, they were left to fester in their own selfishness and malevolence, eventually becoming the first demon lords.

>>14927844
The rest of the Firstborn of Heaven, meanwhile, began to notice that the worlds they created were rather bland and lacking compared to the Mortal Realm they'd watched the GP create. As it turns out, each individual Firstborn had a limited scope of interests and creativity; only by working together could they hope to create a thriving, vibrant world like the First Mortal Realm. Realizing this, a number of the Firstborn banded together to create the Second Mortal Realm. By combining their talents, they found they were able to create a joint product that satisfied their creative desires, and each Firstborn took charge of a different aspect of the new world. Thus, the Firstborn of Heaven became the gods of the Second Mortal Realm (more commonly known simply as the Second Realm), with each governing and sustaining the aspect he or she finds most appealing.

>>14927860
The Second Realm is composed of a set of distinct but overlapping realities, called planes. Most of its denizens dwell on the Material Plane, which most closely resembles our own world. Most closely linked to the Material Plane is the Astral Plane, which acts as a sort of bridge between the Material Plane and two other planes: the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Dreams. The Ethereal Plane is the realm of mortal souls, which bear the essence and consciousness of the individual, as well as disembodied spirits and ghosts. The Plane of Dreams is an ephemeral landscape shaped by the imaginations and fantasies of mortals on the Material Plane. By linking the Material, Ethereal, and Dream planes, the Astral Plane ultimately serves as the seat of the mortal mind, combining biological instinct, spiritual identity, and creative inspiration. There is also the Plane of Spirits (populated by incorporeal entities created by the gods to tend to the mundane details of making the material world tick; they typically have very little overt interaction with the other planes), the Plane of Shadows (a twilit twin of the Material Plane with ties to the actual shadows of things on the Material), and the Plane of Mirrors (a peculiar plane nearly identical to the Material in most every respect, accessible via reflections). However, the most intriguing and important plane for those on the Material is the Plane of the Fey. This plane closely resembles the Material in its landscape, but is populated by strange beings that denizens of the Material Plane often find quite alien.
Mages of the Second Realm are able to tap into the other planes for a variety of purposes, and even travel between them.

>>14927870
In addition to trafficking between planes, it is also possible for denizens of the Second Realm to travel to other Worlds in the Primordial Sea. The gods maintain a number of channels in the Primordial Sea for easy travel between their own personal realms and the Second Realm, and travel via these routes is relatively easy, if a bit limited. The most prominent such channel is the River Styx, a vast aetheric "highway" of sorts that carries the souls of the departed to the realm of the god of death, where they are evaluated for assignment to an appropriate afterlife.

However, it is also possible to traverse the Primordial Sea without resorting to established channels. Doing so requires immensely powerful magic to create an appropriate travelling vessel, but for those with the means it is the ultimate adventure, an uncharted frontier filled with all manner of unknown challenges and experiences. A rare few powerful individuals have purportedly managed to travel to other worlds in this way and actually return to the Second Realm, bringing with them tales of other worlds created by groups of Firstborn entirely uninvolved with the Second Realm.

>>14927593
Advice on improvement?

>>14927394
>>14927414
>>14927444
>>14927565

Expanding this a bit:

The devices used to absorb the nergies of the God have chinged over time. Slowly, but surely they have started taking aspects of the God to themself. They are said to be self aware and even malevolent, vut despite this, there are many factions whoo seek to use them to further their goals. Secret societies such as Exeo, religious cults and power hungry leaders, all of them seek to use these parts of God to further their own goals.

The cities are in almost warl like state between oneanother. Some of them think that htye alone should be protecting the artefacts that hold the shards of God. Trust is a luxury in this world.

Outside the cities live the nomadic peasants. Most of them were originally outcasts from the city or their descendants. Now they mostly live by animal husbandry and farming. Some have taken their grudge against the cities as an exuse to rob the trade caravans that go between the cities. Piratical raids with hower sleds are not uncommon. Because of this the cities and trade cartels enforce tough laws and swith indiscriminate retribution to the people of the wastes.

The aura field of the cities extends only so far. Outside of it, people are much rarer, because their won aura fields are forced to keep them from disintegrating to silverdust, witch consumes energy. In their desperation some of the people who have found themselves there have turned their prayers to the deamons in hope for aid. For reasons known only to themselves the deomons sometimes have accepted the misplaced worship, and protected the humans.

>>14927903
Not the one you're replying to, but I think it's fine up to here >>14927141, but everything after that is just ridiculous.

Also ridiculous is
>such as a Giant using the Gargantuan trick of farting and pissing everywhere

Now, I appreciate toilet humor as much as the next guy, but making it an explicit part of the setting is just stupid and immature. It's the type of thing a 12-year-old would come up with and then spend five minutes giggling over how clever he is.

>>14927946
In Gargantua and Pantagruel, that's a core part of their stories. The humor in those is genuinely immature. Of course not many Giants do that kind of thing, but you get the idea. There are other abiltiies the Giants bear - lightning, iron skin and such.

Another thing is that the Big Country is something of a bizarre hub world, where countless other worlds could possibly connect. I'm still trying to lay out the basics and have about ten other groupings that could be antagonists.

>>14927971
If you insist on immature toilet humor being a key part of the mythos of some of your races...well, that's your call, I guess.

However, that stuff with the Space Marines and Mary Sues? No. Just no. Steer clear of all of that sort of thing.

>>14927930

Deamons and Apostles are constant threat to the cities. The aura field of the cities can deter them with increasing succes the closer the deamon or apostle is. This however is not foolproof.

The deamons can sneak in, because after all, they are self avare pieces of God. They can mask themselves, passing as a mundane devise, or even a human. They can chainge their form to resist the hostile aura of the city or they can just manifest in their armored forms, witch protect the aura energy of the deamon itself, while giving it an almost impenetrable carapace.

The Apostles don't have as fancy tricks in their arsenal. Instead, they rely on their resilent forms and number advantage. They are somwhat vounreable to aural attacks tough.

Both of these enemies present a serious threat to humanity. Thankfully they are also enemies of each other. The Deamons consider the hiveminded Apostles to be the anathema to themselves and their individuality, whereas the Apostles consider the deamons to be the bastarditation of the Gods desing, only to be rabsorbed for the God to be reborn.

Their strife is one of the reasons why mankind still exists, because if they were to unite, the God would be reborn. The Great Enemy would once again have both the absolute control of its form and the absolute control of its reality.
Altough he would be weaker than before, his powers would easily outmacth the cripled humanity.

>>14928063
I don't insist, really, it's just one part of giant mythology I thought stood out. I figured it would be best to run this by /tg/.

>>14928073

Humanity is fighting a losing battle, the cities won't las forever. Encircled by enemies and faced with the threat of utter anihilation desperate minds have banded together to find a solution, an escape from this mad realm.
One of these groups is the Exeo. A secret society witch seeks to entablsih order in this mad real. The order of humanity. For centuries they have tried to create a human who has the absolute control over his form and his aura field.
These ascendants have so far been les than succesful, but with each error more is learned. Slowly the Exeo is getting closer to its goal. After the humani absolute has been produced, they will merge him with the remaining artefacts, wich contain the absorbed shards of God. This will result in the rebirth of the God, but in human image and human intentions. The Exeo seeks to create A God that would protect and care for humanity and wipe out all those who seek to harm us. It has many influential members in all of the cities, who are working hard to achive this goal.

>>14927930
>>14928073
>>14928198

As you can see, this is all backround stuff. No real plot anywhere. Just enstablishing the setting. The problem I have now is the fact that setting entablishing is the only thin I really can do. I can't come up with plot or characters at all. nevermind the fact that I have no idea of what to do whit this elaborate thing.
I am too lazy to write a book, and as already stated, I can't come up with an engaging plot at all.

Should I just give up this thing, because right now, I am just wasting my time?

>>14928198
I gotta say, I like this whole setting idea. Particularly how the whole "rage against the heavens" scheme backfires, but without it being due to any sort of obvious religious bias in the setting. The player is free to come to his own conclusions on whether the god is good, bad, or somewhere in between, but it's clear that humanity should not have gone charging in all gung-ho like they did...doesn't look like that worked out well for them.

My current homebrew setting is based on Xorvintaal from MM V 3.5.

Nothing more to say. Because anyway that's pretty much it.

>>14928261
It seems like it could make a good staging ground for any number of typical RPG plots, even apart from the overarching issue of the dead god. If you're having trouble coming up with specific stories, just spread the setting idea around to other people, maybe it might inspire a GM to run a game in it.

>>14928287

Thanks. I tried to keep the religious things kninda ambigious. It gives so much more room for speculaliton, witch in my opinion is always a good thing.
The original God of the setting wasn't really a sentient being. It just "farmed universes" to feed itself and grow. Humanity chainged it to much more manovelent being by attacking it and now the reamains of it, the Apostles and the Deamos are both very dangerous threats.
Humanity really didn't get the longest stick in that battle, altough neither did God.

Actually, everyone is kinda fuckied. The deamons are the singualrity of individuality. All alone, and total masters of themselfs, slowly dying out, because of their incabability to work together to any meanignful degree.
The Apostles are all connected mindels creatures, with only one purpose in mind. They will never create anything, even if they win. They are the enbodyment of staus que.

And humanity is fucked, because of its shortsightednes, petty disputes and the lack of trust and a common goal. All the universes in existance are fucked because their energy is being spilled back to the intermediate reality where it will simply disolve to aura and potential again, because the destruction of God destabilised the rifts to them.

>>14928307

Thanks, I might do that.
Would run it myself, but I have no experience with GM:ing or even playing RPG:s. I would like to, but I don't know any people who would be interested.

When I discuss my homebrew on /tg/, I get fucking banned.

Feels bad, man.

I have a homebrew which is basically a mix of "Warhammer in the real world" and "WW2 never formally ended". Instead, in 1942, following certain events, the Chaos Gods, magic and most things associated with Warhammer was released upon "the real world". It is now set approximately 8-10 years later, in the early-to-mid 50's.

It incorporates strong mythological and pseudoscientific as well as "real-life" magic, such as Cabalism. Actual god-like personas are non-existant, at least in an active sense. In a nutshell, if there's a myth about it, there's an aspect of it somewhere in the setting.

That's all I can say about it, lest I get banned for speaking about it.

>>14928461
Is your homebrew the one where the setting was a urban city being taken over by a Furry STD and the PC's had to live a double life by seducing the furries and getting information about where the Queen Furry was without succumbing to furrydom themselves?

>>14928538
No.

>>14928564
I am glad to hear it.

Don't see why you'd be banned otherwise, though.

>>14928575
"Racism".

In a fantasy game in a fantasy universe, based around fantasy premises.

Yes. It's bullshit. But been there, done that. Our mod is a fag.

>>14928610
Is that the setting in which Jews have no souls and Asians have mutated into ratmen?

>>14928639
My lawyer advises me to not comment.
That said, it sounds so crude when you say it like that.

I don't run campaigns, but I have my own setting I use for fiction. It's a universe without space, stars or planets. It's simply one giant plane of terrain with a sky that extends forever.

Worlds are divided by the Expanse - an unseen field that drives most sentient life insane and causes most technology to become inoperable. The only means of traversing the Expanse to these worlds is often cache technology humans dig up, usually in the form of battleship-like flying vessels.

There are various higher powers that gravitate towards areas that appeal to them, and so humans call them gods. These are caught up in a war that no one quite understands, yet finds themselves participating in frequently.

Immortal, nearly omnipotent heralds of these gods are usually the only evidence humans see of them. They were human too once, although no one remembers that far back.

I tell a lot of stories in this universe, but the reoccurring element to them all is the war, what Nahala is and how humans are involved.

>>14927830
>>14927844
>>14927860
>>14927870
>>14927886

If anyone could give me some feedback on this one, I'd really appreciate it. Good, bad, mediocre, TL;DR -- whatever it is, honesty's the word. I won't get offended if you say it sucks, I promise.

And admittedly, the cosmology isn't really the main feature of the setting, I just figured I'd tell about it first since most anything else would refer back to it at least a little bit. I could elaborate on magic or races/cultures if you'd care to hear it.

I'm currently mulling around a setting. It's in the most basic stages at the moment.

Humans: Are humans. They do human things. Think traditional Tolkienite fantasy.

Elves: Have a basic hunter-gatherer style society. They have an innate ability to manipulate living creatures. Basically, while they have no technology of which to speak, they've modified animals and plants to serve them. Also, they lack weapons more advanced than a sharp thorn tied to a stick but they can modify their bodies to be faster, stronger and more durable.

They outnumber practically everyone else and are divided into several tribes, mostly on ideological boundries. Some of the tribes I've considered are: those that believe they were given dominion over the natural world by a nature goddess and so they have to protect and nurture it;
a tribe that believes it fought and won dominion over the natural world and so has the right to rape it as much as they want;
a tribe that believes other races were created to serve them, they use their fleshcrafting ability to create horrific monstrocities;
a tribe that just wants to get along.

Dwarves: They appear to be relatively small, robotic constructs. In truth, they're a form of life-support machine, similar to a steampunk iron lung with arms and legs. They live in large underground mine complexes, though they don't really know why they mine. While not stupid, they have very different thought processes to humans. They are super-humanly tough and have a gift with technology, to the extent that they're steampunk in a medieval world.

Hey /tg/, I've come to an impasse, and was looking for your guys opinions.

I've been asked recently to run a Pathfinder game. I've ran DnD before (Mostly in Forgotten Realms), but most of my ST experience comes from Exalted (1st and 2nd) and Mage (oWoD and nWoD). Now, I've gone over the rules changes from 3.5, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

My question is about the campaign world for Pathfinder. I started making a metropolis style setting before I even looked at the campaign setting, but from a brief glance through it looks interesting enough. Is it worth reading through the setting material to learn it, or should I just keep writing my own mini-setting?

>>14928965
Golarion is solid, and all the regions have their possibilities. It's worth running a game in.

>>14928861
It sounds fine, man. It works fine.

>>14928980
Thanks for the input! ^_^

>>14928991
Cool. I figured if there were problems I'd have heard something already, but it always helps to hear something explicit, y'know?

>>14927079
>>14927209
>>14927238
>>14927329

I'd also like a bit of feedback on this.
There's a lot I haven't gone over. I might go more into the races and their cultures later, though.

>>14929092
Seems like it has potential, but there's not really enough detail to say much beyond that.

>>14929212
Yeah, I gotta collect all the fluff I've built up, so far. Might post it here sometime.

>>14928861
Since the thread seems to have slowed down a bit, I may as well continue on with this...

At this point, I should note that a big feature of the system is elements. The four classical Greek elements, plus light and darkness (since I felt there were a lot of things that wouldn't quite fit the classical set that would work if I added those). The elements are essentially refined forms of aether, and as such are integral to both the physical and metaphysical aspects of reality. For instance, elemental fire is obviously at work in an actual fire, but it's also a component of anger and similar emotional states.

Every individual has an innate affinity for a particular element, which influences how they interact with the world. For most, the effects of affinity are pretty minor, but affinity can be nurtured and cultivated, and certain individuals, known as adepts, are born with a particularly strong affinity for their element. Certain species have a racial affinity for a specific element (for instance, dwarves have a natural affinity for earth), while for others (such as humans) it varies from individual to individual.

>>14929333
Elemental affinity affects most interactions with elemental effects. It increases your ability to resist and use magic based on your element, but it also reduces your resistance to and ability to use the opposing element. Those with a stronger affinity for their element are capable of manipulating it to produce various effects. Adepts are the most obvious examples of this, wielding their element with scarcely a thought, but even a non-adept can learn to harness their elemental affinity. For example, a swordsman with an affinity for fire could learn to make his blade burst into flame, despite having no innate magical talent or arcane training.

On the subject of magic, there are a number of different ways that one can produce "supernatural" types of effects. However, they all ultimately boil down to the same basic principle: manipulating aether. The differences lie in the source of energy used to effect changes in the aether, and how that energy is harnessed.

There are three power sources that can be harnessed to manipulate the aether: mana, psi, and vital energy.

>>14929338
Mana is raw aetheric energy that permeates the world, stemming originally from the gods themselves. There are a number of different ways that mana can be harnessed, but all can be broadly classified as "magic".

Psi is the energy of the will and consciousness. It is produced by all sentient beings, and is in fact a necessary component of sentience itself. Every sentient creature actually uses psi on a regular basis without realizing it, as thinking is the most basic application of psi -- the consciousness (an astral entity) acting on the brain (a physical entity). Those who study psionics learn to increase their own output of psi and harness that output to great effect.

Vital energy is called by various names in different cultures, but all refer to the same thing: the aetheric energy generated by living things. In a sense, vital energy is to life as heat is to a flame -- you can't have life without a spark of vital energy, and in turn the simple condition of being alive produces vital energy. Those who lead particularly vigorous lifestyles (such as soldiers, for instance) naturally produce more vital energy than more sedentary individuals. Essentially, while psi is the energy of the mind, vital energy is the energy of the body. Unlike magic and psionics, the use of vital energy is often subconscious -- one can go one's entire life using vital energy on a daily basis without ever realizing what it is he's doing.

I'm running this setting right now, because I thought it would help me out a lot to play once through it and see what happens, but here it is:

Races are standard fantasy... Humans, Elves, Fairies, Outsiders, Orcs, Ogres, Crocodilemen.

Humans, Dwarves (All but extinct), Orcs, and Ogres are all descended from monkeys. Elves are descended from Fairies and Humans. Fairies came through Ylfgattir onto the world. Outsiders are anything made by magic, whether by man or nature. Crocodilemen, the Hsk, are valuable as slaves. They're pretty much just amphibious sentient crocodiles.

The era is early to late 1600's, which is the latest I can go without making old heroic weapons completely useless and make firearms the primary weapons of war. The steam engine has just been invented (The party has met the inventor now), along with a prototype automobile, but ideas of using it for mass transport have yet to even be discussed.

>>14929495
Human countries are:

The Confederacy of Alabaster, which consists of four states. Alabaster is the largest of the states. It is the population center of the Confederacy and boasts the richest farmland in the world. Marseilles, the second largest, located to the direct east of Alabaster, is the center of trade for the entire world, and the city of Marseilles is the single largest city in the world. Eisern, to the south of Alabaster and Marseilles, is the third largest. It has rich iron and coal mines that churn out steel that is sought for the world over. Lochden, to the west of Alabaster and Eisern, is the frontier state, consisting of endless bogs, barren hills, and the occasional oasis of farmland. Lumber and peat are the primary exports of Lochden.

Dunn: Dunn is an island nation to the northwest of the Confederacy. A feudal society of knights in which the pistol has replaced the sword and a rifle the bow.

Greater Aurelia: A union of the southern nations of Aurelia, Thune, and Lyrinium. Aurelia has traditionally been ruled by a dynastic line of Emperors, descended from the founder of Aurelia, who united Thune and Lyrinium under his banner. Thune rebelled after his death, and until their pacifying and annexation under the Empress Aurelia, existed as a republic. After her defeat and imprisonment by Confederate forces, Thune was ceded by Aurelia under the terms of the Treaty of Belfast, along with Lyrinium. They are now Confederate protectorates.

Thracia: Composed of roughly 56 seperate ethnic groups, Thracia is a vast country of arid plains, badlands, and lush green river valleys. Cavalrymen all, they still use the bow and the spear alongside pistols and carbines.

>>14929346
Now, I mentioned there are multiple ways to harness mana. In total, there are 6: adept magic, divine magic, spirit magic, arcana, spellsong, and witchcraft.

Adepts, as mentioned previously, are individuals born with a tremendous natural affinity for a particular element, and as such can harness ambient mana to manipulate that element. Every adept has a small reserve of personal mana by virtue of their potent innate talent, and by investing a small portion of that mana they can call a surge of ambient mana to be stored temporarily for use in spellcasting. Mana is by nature rather volatile, so attempting to hold onto too much of it or for too long can be quite detrimental to an adept's physical and even spiritual well-being, leading to any number of debilitating conditions, broadly referred to as "burnout" in colloquial parlance. With practice, an adept can increase his personal mana reserve, and can also increase his tolerance for retaining large mana surges without risk of burnout. Adepts develop their talents by practice, loose experimentation, and simple intuition, and they find it very easy to modify the effects of their magic.

>>14929859
Divine magic is the most widely accepted form of magic in the Second Realm. Divine magic is used by favored scions of the gods, individuals who, for their exemplary piety and faithfulness, are invested with a small portion of their patron's divine power to manipulate reality. Most often these individuals explicitly serve a particular god/ess, but occasionally a deity may bestow power on an individual who exemplifies that deity's principles without specifically venerating any particular god/ess. A divine mage must spend time each day in prayer or meditation to request from their patron a selection of spells to be available to them during that day. The types of spells available to a divine mage depend on the identity of their patron -- for example, a cleric of the sun god would be able to produce effects involving heat and light, but would likely have little control over cold or elemental darkness. Thus, each day a divine mage gains access to a limited selection of spells chosen from a wider variety of options available from their patron, and these in turn are only a limited subset of the total range of spells that can be produced via divine magic. Channeling divine energy is taxing for the individual, and overextending one's limits can be very dangerous, leading to burnout much like a reckless adept may experience. However, with time and practice one can develop a resistance to the strain of wielding divine magic, and so more experienced divine mages are able to evoke more spectacular effects, and do so more frequently, than novices. A divine mage must make sure to live a pious lifestyle acceptable to his patron, lest the gift of magic be revoked.

>>14929863
Spirit magic is similar to divine magic in that it draws upon the power of immortal spiritual entities. However, spirit magic calls not on gods, but rather the various nature spirits that tend to the banalities of daily occurances. In some cultures, spirit mages also call on the spirits of departed ancestral heroes.
Unlike the gods, which take an active interest in their creations, these spirits are generally unconcerned with mortal affairs, and so must be coaxed into interaction via devotional rituals, typically involving an offering to curry favor with the spirit. Unlike divine mages, spirit mages don't channel power directly; rather, they commune with spirits and beseech them for aid when needed. Thus, a spirit mage typically is not limited in the frequency with which he can cast spells; however, communing with spirits does still put a strain on the individual, and so a spirit mage can only commune with a limited number of spirits at once. Just as a divine mage's spell selection is limited by the scope of the patron deity's influence, so too is a spirit mage's ability limited to what the spirits he communes with have control over. However, a spirit mage can change which spirits he communes with from day to day, choosing whichever spirits best suit his current needs. Also like divine mages, a spirit mage must be sure to stay on his patrons' collective good side; nature spirits are fickle beings, and may refuse to help a mage who does something that offends them.
Spirit magic was once quite prevalent, and is still common in more primitive cultures, but most civilized societies look down on it. Spirit mages are often viewed at best as backwards and superstitious, and at worst as little more than demon-worshippers.

>>14929878
Arcane magic originated from spirit magic, though the two have long since gone in very different directions. At some point in history, somebody (most likely an adept) noticed that the crude rituals used to commune with spirits somehow create potent aetheric disturbances. It was discovered that by bringing together various components that each have a slight aetheric activity -- such as diagrams, incantations, gestures, and objects -- in certain ways can result in a synergistic interaction of the components' individual aetheric resonances that produces a much greater aetheric response. And so arcana, or ritual magic, was born.
Arcana is a highly refined and precise practice, in sharp contrast to its crude roots in the devotional rites of spirit mages. Arcanists must ensure that every component of the ritual is just right, and over the generations have developed a number of aids, such as specialized vestments, rods, and staffs, that help to maintain the proper aetheric conditions for the ritual. If anything is even slightly out of place, it can ruin the entire spell. Since arcane rituals require plenty of time and concentration, they are often poorly suited to the situations where they would be most useful, such as combat. Thus, early innovators developed a way to prepare spells in advance, using a modified ritual that, rather than evoking the spell right away, creates a lingering aetheric imprint bound to the caster that responds to a much simpler trigger ritual (typically just a short incantation accompanied by a series of simple gestures) to produce the full effect on demand. While performing a ritual does not in and of itself put any particular strain on the caster, maintaining a ritual imprint can be quite a strain, and so an arcanist can only prepare a limited number of spells at once without risking burnout.

>>14929759
Pythar-Sheikh: The largest country in the world, the twin empires of Pythar and Sheikh encompass 343 kingdoms. Pythar, the western state, has rich mines of gold, silver, and iron, and steadily supplies itself with workers through slave raids and piracy. Sheikh, to the east, exports tons of silks and spices. Thick with jungles and treacherous swamps, isolation is the norm for many places in Pythar-Sheikh, and the old faiths survive with fanatical resolve in the mapless empire.

Snowcastle: In the far north and west of the world sits Snowcastle, the Dunnish colony on the far side of the world. Cut off by inconsistent navigational routes and an almost constant winter, humanity has thrived in this old land, adopting the pagan faith of the native elves. Their cities fight and raid one another constantly, still using the old weapons with brutal efficiency, and Dunnish villages worry each summer if theirs will be one of the villages burnt to the ground and their wives and daughters the women dragged away across the sea.

Antea & Espannon: Two islands centered between the Confederacy and Pythar-Sheikh, Antea & Espannon boast a navy that even the Confederate state of Marseille would hesitate to engage. Every man of 18 is required to join the navy by law, and every man of 25 who leaves the navy has seen combat multiple times.

>>14928766
that quest you ran was amazing, I just thought that you should know that

>>14929878
Spellsong is most similar to adept magic in practice, but in function seems to also have some similarity to arcana. Certain gifted individuals are able to manipulate mana through their music. While the details of how this works unknown even to the most learned scholars, it is believed that the complex interplay of tone, rhythm, and harmony inherent to music produce an aetheric resonance in a manner not unlike the way in which arcane rituals function, which is amplified by the natural talents of the spellsinger. Although the name suggests vocal music, spellsingers are equally capable of weaving their magic through instrumental music as well. Spellsong is best suited to effects that manipulate minds and emotions, but other applications are possible as well, including effects as profound as summoning creatures from other planes. The effects of spellsong rarely persist very long after the last strains of the song fade away, but they can be sustained for as long as the spellsinger keeps performing. Furthermore, the potency of the effect is directly related to the quality of the spellsinger's performance; mistakes like a wrong note or rushed tempo have significant impact on the effect of the spellsong. Spellsingers are also fairly unique among mages in that they can easily combine their talents to create more grandiose effects. Groups of spellsingers performing together can enhance the effects of each others' music by adding harmony and accompaniment, producing much greater results than any individual member of the band could evoke alone. Some warlords have even been known to employ large companies of spellsingers for use in battle, relying on the cooperative nature of spellsong to produce spectacular effects. Spellsong is by far the lowest-impact form of magic; it's unheard of for a spellsinger to experience burnout, no matter how long he performs.

I've been thinking about working on a Bioshock system. It has such potential to be a tabletop RPG, in my opinion atleast. Not only the customization through gene manipulation (plasmids and gene tonics), but the deep moral choices that the PC's would be forced to make could bring out such amazing and deep characters. The system would favor social interaction, staying sane and sticking to your moral code, instead of how lucky you get with dice rolling and how good you are in combat.

>>14930106
And finally, witchcraft. There are some who desire a shortcut to power, unwilling to dedicate themselves to the study of the arcane or the service of a god or spirit. These individuals often turn to the most taboo of practices: trafficking with demons. Despite their confinement in the Nine Hells, the demons still manage to extend their reach to other worlds from time to time, and seek aid from mortals in finding ways to escape their prison. Contacting a demon lord is actually frighteningly simple, requiring an arcane ritual that even the most slow-witted apprentice can learn, but this fact is of course viciously suppressed by all civilizations with any sense of self-preservation. Once contacted, a demon lord forms a pact with the aspiring witch, granting power and knowledge in exchange for aid in loosing their bonds. The methods of demons are often inscrutable, but their goals are clear -- a demon loosed upon the Second Realm would bring nothing but destruction and subjugation. The demon lords are endlessly envious of their brethrens' creation, having had their own domains confiscated, and want nothing more than to ruin the enjoyment of the other Firstborn. While it is not fair to say that all witches are evil to start (there are those who seek to use witchcraft for evil ends), they all ultimately either are corrupted by their demonic masters or realize that the gains made by demons due to mortals practicing witchcraft cause far more harm than the good that can be attained with the power obtained. Every witch has a familiar, a lesser demon summoned from the Nine Hells to observe and guide the witch and enforce the terms of the contract. Familiars typically disguise themselves as a small animal, or sometimes an object, in order to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the witch. Witches are categorically despised by most all societies, both civilised and otherwise, and so they must make sure to keep a low profile.

>>14930048
Elf Territories:

Arcadia: The last bastion of elf kind among human lands, its kings are necromancers and their nobles the mighty wights, elf heroes who chose to undergo rituals of blood-sorcery so they could serve and protect even in death, and whose bodies are fueled by the souls of elf-children who willingly and knowingly give themselves to sacrifice.

Sar-Karroth: When Sundrael, twin brother of Barael the Phoenix, slew his father for betraying country and kin, he was exiled, and with him traveled all those who believed his words. They settled in the wastelands of Karroth to the far north, and for it were spared the great plagues that destroyed the elven nations. However, they were instead set upon by the First of Those Who Twist Flesh, a demon queen who bound them into service, giving boons of altered form to those who pleased her, turning them into deranged, fanatical killers.

Varros: Though their ancestors came through the Ylfgattir into Arcadia, elves spread wide over the land, and some settled between two great rivers to the east of Sheikh, separated by a great mountain from the Xing-Tse. The water, however, dried up, and the land turned to desert, and the prideful elves would not leave, instead digging into the earth and found their rivers flowing freely in underground caverns. They still brave the desert, for in it can be found the great dragon-eater worms, whose meat is succulent and juicy. Dragons themselves are hunted for their pelts and methane glands.

Sel-Garrym: The citadel and people of Barael the Phoenix, Sel-Garrym is hidden from men by powerful enchantments, nestled in the caldera of an extinct volcano. Viciously xenophobic, Barael smites anything that comes close to his realm, but his power blinds him to the death of his country.

>>14930316
Gotta say, the elves in your setting seem really intriguing.

>>14930316
Elf origin

The Fey do not hail from this earth, but where they come from is as great of a mystery as why they came. Long before the working of bronze, fairies broke into the world. They watched men while they worked and played and slept, and watched their children, too. Some of them stole into homes to watch from closer. Eventually, a child or two would be snatched away, and a replacement left behind. Elves, fairy-children but not true fey, are the offspring of those dragged off into the night. They were the first to learn from the Prince of Lies, a demon lord who came to them in the guise of First of the Magi. Elf-kind he cursed with the knowledge of necromancy and bloodworking, gifts they accepted out of their desire for freedom from their fey masters. Using their vile art, they fought the Fey back across worlds.

>>14931449
The elves were not the only ones to receive a curse from the Prince of Lies, for many men and women learned from him dark arts. Liliana, the first of his human cursebearers, was an ugly woman. She sought a way to become beautiful, that she might gain the eye of a handsome man who was besotted with another, and he taught her the bloodcraft of maskmaking, and with it she murdered the object of her want's affection, stealing her face, but her want learned of the treachery and cursed her. The Prince of Lies had tricked her twice, and she was forever after the First of Those Who Twist Flesh.