Let’s have some Worldbuilding fun, /tg/. I’m running a 3.5 campaign (yeah, I know) that will quickly get to epic levels and I’m making a gnarly-ass world that I wish to be horrific and awesome. And I thought why should I have all the fun? Horrific and awesome are things that you fa/tg/uys do best. Let’s rock! If this goes well, I’ll be sure to archive it, and/or a 1d4chan entry so everyone can use it or take inspiration from pieces or the exercises.
So here’s the game.
>Every post for a race description, animal/monster species, location, NPC, whatever, is canon.
>People can play off each other’s ideas but the most awesome wins; we can put a vote for contentious things if people post at nearly the same time. Otherwise, be sure to read the thread.
>Feel free to grab anything off the map you like and run with it. Don’t feel the need to go strictly by book rules, be awesome. Just don’t be a retard or you will get vetoed.
If this goes well, I’ll be sure to archive it so everyone can use it, and/or a 1d4chan entry. The tone is aiming for a bit gritty and metal as fuck, legitimately threatening, and also not necessarily taking itself seriously so we’ve got some room for a little light-hearted fun and levity here and there. But I mean, there’s that map entry that’s supposed to be marked “The Dungeon of Awesome Madness” which simply cannot be allowed to not live up to that name, and it needs a world to match, but I’ll probably make another thread for that alone on another day. Also sorry for map being so hueg.
The context in this universe is most life-bearing planets are sentient. Each one chooses how physics/magic/whatever works on it’s own individual planet-self. This planet, Grimoria, is like an old man who walks in and steals the best work from other planets in disaster-mode and lets the survivors fight or die on its surface and encourages natural selection to take its course. Cont'd.
>>47253157
On this world, (nearly?) all humanoid races are from other planets and arrive through the Tower, which I’ll cover to get this party started. This covers all your 3.5 vanilla races and bullshit but feel free to jazz up your own and make this interesting, since we’ve all seen the vanilla bullshit and a lot of us are clearly sick of it. Also I’m not 100% on how I want to mess with magic functions but so far I’m sure that Raise Dead and similar magic might work without a hitch, or might produce highly unpredictable and truly horrific results. I was thinking maybe ley lines or areas of instability which produce random antimagic or wild magic zones. But I guess I’ll leave that to you folks. Side note: I haven’t restricted any books to my players for this, so I don’t see why we should start now. Also here's a book that I used for a few things on the planet so far.
The Tower of Broken Worlds
The highest floor of this giant circular tower on the northern side of the inland sea is where all new species arrive. They always must proceed with the same ritual of descending the tower to see the stories of those who came before, and meet the gatekeeper (Hunefer, CR25 who may or may not have an 18HD mummy buddy with optional floor-based puzzles/traps) who explains they must build a new floor of the tower before they are allowed to leave. The highest floor is the 198th and is mostly completed, but the next arrival will be building the 199th.
The gatekeeper was the result of the 2nd resurrection attempt on this planet, and was cursed to never leave the tower but to ensure its continued growth for unknown ends. Every floor depicts various languages and many pictographs featuring natural and supernatural disasters on an apocalyptic scale, and almost always some suggestion of a portal or planar magic. Each floor is of slightly differing materials, construction and craftmanship but to the same specifications, and always leaving a staircase exposed to the roof, which will be the floor for the next newcomers. The tower manifests building materials for this purpose that are similar to what the new species is most familiar with.
Near the base of the tower is home to a large colony of mobile cacti that shoot boiling acid out of oozing sores and creep around and up walls but generally leave the tower alone. These cacti share a symbiotic relationship with a swarming bee-like poisonous insect that resembles an orange gem cut like a d10 when at rest.
Daham
Arabic-flavored city of arid plains, sitting atop a large hill crest overlooking the coastal valley and the Tower of Broken Worlds. Created by the most recent newcomers to the planet several centuries before. There’s a Formian hive somewhere in the hill beneath them. I’ll leave the rest of those details up to some other anons. Needs much more awesome.
The Scarlet Jungle
Second to last newcomers were a Druidic people and settled near the lake in the middle of a big jungle. They may be alive or dead but everyone else assumes they fucked up because now the entire northern half of the jungle is made of meat and very few things there are cannibalistic.
Animalistic trees, creeping toothed vines, carnivorous sundew plants, fanged roses; it’s nothing but miles and miles of a bleeding jungle continuously eating itself almost silently. Almost. No one has tried or even wanted to go in to see what else might be there. Because FUCK. THAT.
Also, feel free to come up with new locations entirely. On a planetary scale that's even laughably small realistically but good enough for game terms, those hexes are at least about 50 miles across so there's plenty of room. In fact there would realistically be far, far MORE distinct features of the map so go ham. And feel free to post world art also. Alas I do not have many images for fantasy.
I also favor stuff like pic related, but wanted a horrific welcome mat for the players.
This sounds like a blast. I'm envious of your players.
Natural disaster idea; balefire storm.
when fell winds blow across bodys of water steeped in death the lingering negative energy rides the evaporating water up and lingers in the clouds. These rare storms crackle with green lightning and the dark clouds shape themselves into skulls or twisted malevolent faces. The rain that falls from them looks normal but causes an unhallowing effect, killing plants and inflicting light cha damage to animals and humanoids. Bodys great and small buried in shallow graves or left to rot in the open rise as skeletons or zombies under no ones control. They roam without aim, attracted by light and movement and slay any living thing they find under the fell rainstorm. The hoard grows as the newly dead join its ranks and they move with the storm as it drifts on the wind until it dissipates. The unhallowing effect is short lived, a month or less at worst but can whipe out vast swaths of farmland. It is worthy to note that these storms can sometimes spawn a worm that walks that "lives" on after it passes, coalessing from the many worms forced from the earth by taited water. These Worms have scattered and fragmented memorys of those who fell to the storms hoard rather than those of the caster that usually spawns such a creature. It is no less potent though and usually leads the hoard even after the storm passes, consuming the living to fill the void in their memorys.
>>47254389
Thanks, I really like that idea. I think that would be best used as a localized thing instead of across the world. Then it's not a force of nature, it's a plot hook.
>>47255251
Glad you liked it.
Here's another syplen from my buddys PF game.
Corpse eaters. Undead simmiler to ghouls in that they need the flesh of the living to sustain their unlife. Corpse eaters however aren't to picky so long as its flesh, doesn't have to be humanoid. They are often mistaken for ghouls by their the dug up graves they leave behind but woe to the would be ghoul slayer when they catch their quarry. They stand about 6 foot tall, pail, gaunt with destended bellys full of slowly rotting flesh. Their anglerfish like mouths drip a tarry oil secreted from glands in the mouth. When this substance comes in contact with living blood it simmers and froths before exploding like an M-80 firecracker and potentially infecting the victim with the disease from which all corpse eaters are spawned. Only victims that die of the disease turn, all others are gnawed to the bone and piled somplace hidden so as not to attract attention. Sometimes the piles of jumbled bone may animate and take on a ooze or swarmlike form of mindless scrabbling bone aching to cover itself in flesh once more.
>>47255934
Sounds gnarly as fuck. Also appreciated.
>>47257757
well you asked for metal and when one of those tore into my kitsune fighter and his forearm exploded a little i though "well there went a quarter of my HP but damn that was fucking metal."
etherial creatures of some horific desription plant their eggs in people dreams like a trans-dementional taratula hawk. the egg uses the dreem as an anchor to find itsway to the persons actual head. once they hatch they start eating the persons brain, making them dizzy and not feel well. laying down to rest gives the larva time to consume the brain and set themselves up in the skull to pupate. in this form they replace the brain, carrying on as "normal" as best the bug can which is pretty well seeing as they ate the persons memorys. i could see a town "taken by a strange sickness" be a nest for a swarm of these due to a plot hook item that caused the veil between the planes to grow thin here and allow the creatures to prey on even those whos minds don't stray far into dreamland. but who put the item there and more importantly, why?
>>47258745
oh and when the larva hatches the hosts head explodes like that guy on scanners and they bamph back to the ethereal plane. the sight is prone to causing nightmares which lead one deep into the dreaming lands where one's mind will be more venerable to implantation.
>>47253157
There exists a god of livestock, though he isn't widely worshiped. In fact, the followers of the god of livestock seek to protect all domesticated creatures from being killed and eaten. One powerful spell, granted to the most chosen of clerics, is called The Awakening Hunger. When their efforts to deter people from consuming farm animals fails, The Awakening Hunger grants 2d100 domesticated animals in a two mile radius self awareness and a consuming hunger for the flesh of sentient beings. The spell lasts for 6d20 hours, or until all sentient humanoids within sight of the affected animals are killed and eaten. The spell is effective on cattle, horses, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, rabbits, pigeons, fish, crabs, lobsters, sheep, and honey bees.
>>47259141
