Aberrations - Part 3

Factions

The Old Faith - Essentially druidic nature worship. They focus on the element of Life. There is no actual hierarchy but followers are welcoming of each other and do what they can to aid in times of trouble.

The Alucain - Users of draconic elemental magic. They also try to act as a "civilizing" influence upon the region. In some places they are welcomed as heroes and sages. In others they are seen as arrogant newcomers.

The Voidtouched - Not an organization per say but the voidtouched often stick together. Sometimes it is in ghettos of large cities and sometimes in wandering caravans. Some suspect them of having a secret network to aid their former masters and that increases the distrust.

The Bardic School - This school was established in Suthgeard in order to uncover and preserve the lost knowledge and civilization of the humanoid peoples. They often acts as a unifying force and are called upon as mediators when the Alucain aren't trusted by one of the parties.

The Beholders

The beholders weren't all killed. Many still lurk in the dark corners of the land. Now that they are toppled from power, they have withdrawn into the factions that more reflect their nature. (FWIW I'm not sure if these groups were my own creation or from the PDF that inspired me. The brief notes make me think the latter.)

The Consuming Eye - The Beholders who simply want to exist for their own comfort now that they no longer have any responsibilities.

The Eternal Vigil - Beholders who are holed up like survivalists and waiting for the final assault to begin.

The Final Forge - Beholders that wish to regain their lost empire.

The First Eye - Acts the their shock troops.

The Flesh Reborn - Beholders who seek to replace Life with Void in the world.

The Dominion of Revelations - The Oracles who wait and watch.

There are also still beholder cults who await their masters' return. They befriend the aberrations that roam the land and seem to have a special touch with them.

The Dragons

The dragons are not idle. They have dominated the lands to the east in various ways, splitting the region up into various draconic holdings. While the metallic rulers are more benevolent than the chromatic tyrants, it is not lost on the humanoid who live there that they have thrown one set of shackles off for another.

In the West, the dragonborn act as the ambassadors for the dragons. While many do no know it, they are there to prepare the west and it more amicable to draconic rule. Once the dragons arrive they may not be pleased with the way they have been used.

Adventures and Conflicts

Adventurers are needed in this world to keep the horrors created by the beholders at bay, at the least. There are many ruins that need to be explored and cleared for rehabilitation (any many treasures left behind by the beholders.) Beyond that there are many conflicts that can be used to create adventure seeds and motion within the world.

The Alucain vs. the Old Faith - While these sides are not in direct conflict there is a good deal of tension. Suthgeard and the Iron Ring doesn't trust the dragons. The Alucain think the Old Faith wasn't strong enough to gain freedom and isn't work preserving.

Persecution of the Voidtouched - The voidtouched are a tricky problem. Those with a more religious bent consider them innately corrupted but more practical minds see they have free will and chose to rebel. It doesn't help that some ARE still in secret service to their old masters.

Beholders in the Shadows - Various groups of the old masters scheme for their return, revenge or just their own inexplicable purposes. They are threat that exists in every shadow, but they also are one than is intelligent enough to be reasoned with.

Encroaching Dragons - The dragons are coming. Some are benevolent, some are tyrants. All of them are coming to establish themselves are rulers. The Alucain seek to prepare the western lands for this in as peaceful a way as possible, but it is likely Suthgeard and the Iron Ring will never be persuaded. Can the humanoid people retain their freedom?

Final Thoughts

In the big picture of games and game world it is somewhat generic but I think this world would make for a nice change-up for regular players of D&D. Additionally it comes with some built-in world events that can be used to create shorter campaigns with definite goals (which is a good thing for some groups).

Aberrations - Part 2

Places

(These refer the the western portion of this map.)

North and South Alor

Alor was an influential kingdom before the beholders took over. It still isn't united like it used to be but the city state of Micelburg has enough influence over the area that it probably won't be long before they decide they're worthy of calling themselves a kingdom again. The Alor region is very dragon friendly and intolerant of the Void. They were directly aided by the Council of Alucinor and still feel beholden to them. While respectful of the Old Faith, especially in the outlying regions, Micelburg itself has become much more urbane and commerce oriented. They profess to be practical in all things but they're successful enough to afford the luxury of driving out any eye-kin in the area. The city of Micelburg is a monument to independence as they have torn down all of the aberrant architecture and replaced it with a city of human and elven design.

Highland Heath

The highlands were lightly touched by the beholders as the population was low. The hills were a refuge for followers of the Old Faith and it is very strong in the villages here. Beholder eye-towers still dot the landscape in remote areas and the cities still make due with some large rounded doorways but much has been torn down and replaced with simple wooden structures for the time being.

Alucinor

A island of material element worshiping elves and humans with a high dragonborn population. Their stronghold is at Arbor Turris and houses the Council of Alucinor where the plans for the revolt were hatched. The people who live here are almost considered to be a breed unto themselves, haven taken in so much draconic teachings and power, and are referred to as Alucain. A monument called Sol Fala appeared here before the revolt and is said by the dragonborn to be a monument to their masters and proof that they belong in the land.

Middlond

This area is mostly controlled by the city-state of Suthgeard. A rugged place at the border of civilization, the people of this region saw little help from the Alucain and suffered a great deal of loss during the revolt. The Suthgeardians take whatever help is available and use whatever they can get their hands on. The Old Faith is strong here and use of Void magic is tolerated, as are eye-kin. Suthgeard itself is still largely of aberrant design with humanoid touches - towers that originally had 10' round holes in the floor instead of staircases now have makeshift wooden stairs, massive 10' round doorways are nailed shut with smaller doors cut out of them.

The Iron Ring

The dwarves never fell to the beholders and held fast in their keep of Nurognurtz. When the revolt began they crossed the southern waste and gave aid to rebels in Middlond when the Alucain didn't. Now that the beholders are gone they have retreated back into their keeps, though now they have expanded out into what had once been the kingdom of Ridnath and use it as their bread basket. A caste system has evolved where miners, smiths and other more dwarfly professions are treated like lords over those who farm and work outside. The dwarves have never cared much for the Old Faith and practice their own form of elemental worship which they keep closely guarded.

Carrdun, Hargaldor and beyond

These lands are wild, frightening places where all sorts of abominations lurk. Many think the beholders retreated to this area. Other say it is simply the dumping grounds for their failed experiments. It might be both.

Stanfolde

This area was completely destroyed during the beholders' last gasps. All the non-void residents of these places were killed and the buildings were terribly damaged. Strange aberrations wander about the ruins. It is not considered a safe place to be, but it may one day need to be reclaimed.

Lands to the East

Beyond Stanfolde are borderlands where few people lived to begin with. It is unknown what lies beyond. The dragonborn say that the people there who survived have also begun to rebuild under the tutelage of the dragons.. This has been confirmed by some travelers who have made the perilous journey back and forth. There are rumors that things are not so rosy, but travelers who have those tales to tell can never seem to be found after making their supposed claims.

Next time the conflicts and underground currents of the setting...

Aberrations - Part 1

I have really sensitive eyes. Eye exams are a traumatic nightmare. Even thinking about eyes makes my own eyes water. Why the hell did I create a beholder setting?

All locations referenced are on the western portion of this map.

Metaphysics

There are six elements and their respective planes - fire, earth, air, water, life and void.

Beholders are of the Void and Dragons are of the four material elements. The fey are of Life.

There is no pantheon of gods, only the "old faith" embodied in the worship of life and nature.

Elementalism, or dragon magic, calls upon the four material elements. One cannot practice void and draconic magic at the same time.

History

The campaign history begins with the domination of the "good" races (humans, elves, dwarves and halflings) by beholders. The eye tyrants forced them to see to their needs and to act as their playthings. The ultimate goal of the beholder empire was to eventually replace all life with Void. A whole new race was created, the eye-kin, as part of this attempt. Massive cities twisted in odd shapes to fit the variety of aberrant beholder forms were built along with towers and laboratories.

Only two places, the elven Isle of Alucinor and the dwarven Iron Ring, stood fast against the beholder's rule. When a massive war began in the east against an enemy powerful enough to level entire cities, these two bases acted a staging points in the revolt of the western lands. A new race of people claiming to have been sent to aid the revolt, the Dragonborn, were also useful in teaching the ways of the material elements and established a school on Alucinor. Between the onslaught in the east and the revolt in the west the beholders were forced to yield and flee to wherever they could hide.

Game Elements

Using the bried outline above we can suss out the following rule elements (3.5 edition D&D).

Races

Humans, elves, dwarves and halflings each play their normal roles though the elves of Alucinor are very religious and the dwarves of the Iron Ring are survivalist bastards.

Dragonborn are welcomed in many places as saviors but some people are suspicious.

Eye-kin also rose up against the beholders and for that they aren't killed on sight. They have varying degrees of acceptance throughout the land.

Monsters

Aberrations are everywhere, not only beholder-kin but their many horrid experiments breeding in the wild.

The Fey were annihilated when the beholders took over and the few survivors are now treated like lesser gods.

There are no real races of humanoids aside from the player races.

There are no angels or demons, only elementals.

Corporeal undead exist, but they are corpses filled with Void and positive/negative energy doesn't play a part.

Dragons... are mentioned later.

Classes

There isn't really divine or arcane magic per say so this is a chance to break out all the non-standard 3e classes:

Fighters and rogues exist because why wouldn't they?

Druids are the new clerics which means healing isn't as easy as before.

Neutral paladins (Avengers?), Rangers, Scouts and barbarians of course.

The Warlock and Hexblade can exist as willful channelers of Void magic. (I've got a invocation using Hexblade variant sitting around somewhere...)

The Dragon Shaman and Dragonfire Adept for some draconic goodness.

The Elementalist from Occult Lore for what the dragonborn teach.

The Minstrel (a magic song only bard I've got somewhere) and Skald (a warrior only bard).

These are the basic, brainstormed elements of the setting - the building blocks. The actual setting itself will continue in Part 2...

Aberrations - Introduction

The last setting was recent enough to exist in Evernote. Now I'm breaking out the notebooks.

Let's see - first is a few pages notes for a new Omega story. Not appropriate. Next is the massive Kill Your Gods game... I actually may convince our group to let me run that, assuming I'm ever allowed behind the screen again, so I'll hold off. Next is... beholder world!

Okay, a little background. Years and years ago I found a map of a little region that was called either Stanfolde or Middlond. It was just a single portion of the map I linked to. I found this map to be evocative of a story, one where all civilization beyond the river had fallen. A friend and I came up with a Diablo-like setting of with fallen kingdom, an army of demons and Lucifer's attempted return to the world. Probably the best campaign I've been involved in and it actually ended when it needed to. If I run out of non-used worlds to talk about I might post it.

Anyways, since the little piece of map we had was only a little piece, we had to wave away what was beyond it. What's to the east? An empire of wealth beyond your imagining. What's to the west? Another fabulous empire. The north? Hordes of barbarians. To the south? Halflngs. Cannibalistic halflings.

After the campaign was over Kristian Richards of Crooked Staff Productions posted more of the region that the map came from - about half of the area was done in the same style now. I immediately began thinking of more things to do with these new maps. One was to expand the Stanfolde campaign into a larger world, but that seemed a little boring.

I had just read a book on beholders - sadly I can't remember which one - that focused on them being of the Void. I drew some inspiration from that, combined it with the fallen empires feel of the maps and came up with what is below. In the larger scheme of things it probably isn't all that original but it was fun to come up with. In coming posts you may notice that this map sees a lot of work. In fact, assume any setting that doesn't specify a map to be using some form of this one. I love it that much. Kinda feel bad that none if it lines up with the intents of the original creator.

That's enough blabbing about stuff you probably don't care about. So much that'll make this an "introduction" post and start the actual setting separately. How do I write blog?