How do I make an interesting plains setting? I'm used to forests and such and wanna look for something a bit new to me. The inhabitants and cultures I can handle, but how do I make something like this geographically interesting and possibly fun to play in? I've got everything else in my setting map figured out except for this part. Any advice?
Think of the American Midwest, but in a high fantasy setting. That's the kind of feel I'm going for.
>On the surface, the Plains of _____ are benign even dull by most adventurers standards
>They are wrong
>Because the flat expanse of these Plains is actually accumulated dirt and topsoil on top of a massive extraplanar fortress that crashed here long ago
>The Plains here are riddled with enhances to dungeons inside this fortress
>Local cultures have established cults and religions around its relics
>Legend tells that those who can find the "citadel key" can make the fortress rise/fly/plane shift again
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>>44368473
Don't think of it as "plains". You've got foothills, scrubland, mesas and plateaus, open grasslands, and you're likely to end up with forests too if the area isn't too arid. The mountains will form natural valleys and chokepoints, area borders that politics will follow. Basically: that huge open space isn't going to just stay flat, even the smallest river given enough time will carve a massive canyon. The lowest areas will form lakes, too, around which larger towns will form, and you'd stereotypically find ore in the mountains creating a trade cycle (ore to main towns that larger caravans can travel through easily, supplies from caravans to mining towns to acquire ore) which can summarily be disrupted. You might also have abandoned mines and underground structures similar to the implication of >>44368798 .
Honestly I find wide open regions more interesting than forests - just that with forests, you can't see the boring for the trees. It's a cheap tactic to make the world mysterious by limiting visibility.
Wild hordes are a must.
>>44368987
>Honestly I find wide open regions more interesting than forests - just that with forests, you can't see the boring for the trees. It's a cheap tactic to make the world mysterious by limiting visibility.
That's exactly what I thought too. I like the way you described it; I need to find the proper way to add things into this area.
Just noticed it's geography. How about some craters?
>>44368473
Water sources are always a big deal. Are cultures congregated around rivers and lakes, or nomadic? Does travel necessarily follow large waterways, or their tributaries?
I live in Missouri (thankfully in the ozark "mountains", so lots of forest and hills vs grass pancake), and the reason we have such wild variations in elevation is glaciers carved out valleys like kilometer-high plows. Depending on the climate of your setting, that could be pretty interesting.
We have lots of old coal, galena, and lead mines around. Missouri is the cave state, and you could add ice caves if you went the glacier route. There are also loads of springs around where I live.
Farming is a bitch here, because we have two inches of topsoil followed by rocks and clay. People still do it, because it's the midwest, but it's bad enough that even when non-farmers from around here see loamy soil they get wet. Livestock is a more popular option than crops.
Lumber is gonna be valuable on grasslands, especially the further you get from forests or major waterways. It's one of the big reasons frontiersmen made sod houses in the midwest (that, and insulation).
Basically the entire bootheel of MO was swampland. Other places, too, but I can only think of Chicago. That could be interesting.
This any help?
Something to keep in mind; plains culture means building with wood is really hard, so as much material needs to be made of nonwooden materials. For example the mongols had horn and animal part bones, and many tribes used bones as supports for tents instead of wood when considering Inuit tribes.
>>44369241
Oh, also. The area was popular among Italian immigrants for the geographic similarities to Italy--thin, rocky soil, hills, humid summers. Viniculture was really picking up just before the Prohibition, and it's making a comeback in a big way now. You might throw some of that in.
>>44369341
Oh, man, is that Wayne D. Barlowe Expedition/Alien Planet stuff? That was some good shit.
>>44369385
It is indeed Barlowe
