Its a new world

So now on to part 2 of my world creation project. I now know the threats I want to use but I still need some geography. Well start by looking at what sort of scenery it would be nice to use. There are a wide assortment of interesting backdrops from endless deserts to perilous cliffs to the cliche secret lair in a volcano. Well first its clear from my earlier ideas that the underdark is important. So we will have a large warren of underground regions underlying much of the surface world. I see a lot of subterranean chasms, huge geodes, and underground rivers and seas.

On the surface I think I want weather to be important, suggesting the region is temperate. Dangerous snowstorms, fierce downpours, and deadly heat waves allow for a lot of variety in even a small location. A simple combat near a bridge plays out very differently if the river is frozen, the roads are mud or the region is flooded. For terrain, mountains would be interesting and work well with a large underground region. Perhaps a range of ancient mountains divides the realm. Deserts are another interesting option to include but I've used them extensively in the past. The same with seasides and archipelagos. I've actually underused winter in the past so it might be interesting to set the game towards the cold north. Forests are always interesting spots to use, so I think I'll need several distinct forests (for the eladrin/elves, for a dark evil wood, and so forth). Despite lacking an ocean, I think several large lakes and numerous rivers might be nice (especially for that flood idea). They also become easy ways of linking cities and towns (and ruins). Plus that also allows for a swamplands.

A few ideas jump out at me that don't fit this pattern. First is the idea of blighted regions, areas distorted by ancient magical wars. Magical (and hungry) woods, living storms, floating islands, great chasms, and so forth. These might be nice to place here and there as evidence of great and terrible conflicts (perhaps between the gods and primordials as links to a later giant plot line). Then there are dinosaurs but I think I might use them in a land that time forgot in the underdark.

Next week need to think of political geography. Luckily for me I'm going with the points of light setting where civilization consists of small independent towns and city states and not large modern nations. Still its good to think about what is known about the wider world and where the various races and classes can be found.

We will start with the dwarves. I think there will be several scattered dwarven fasts in the mountains along with many abandoned ruins from a great dwarven kingdom. Elves will be found in the nearby woods, clustered about the ancient sites of the eladrin cities. A few of these cities will still exist, diminished but still powerful. Most are in the Feywild but a few bleed into this world on special nights. Once it was every night but now they grow few and far between. Halflings just are and can be found everywhere, but especially along the slow flowing rivers. The dragonborn clans I think will nomadic and their ancestral lands are lost. The same with the tieflings though a few demon haunted ruins can be found here and there.

For history, I think the elves kingdoms fell when the drow were cast out several thousand years ago. The dwaven kingdoms fell into ruins more recently after a war of succession a little over a thousand years ago. The dragonborn kingdom was destroyed by the tiefling led empire sometime between that of the elves and dwarves but the cost of the tielfing's infernal pacts swallowed the remains of that empire in single night. A few centuries ago a great human empire that had united the world fell, thus leading the current state of affairs.

Other races such as the aboleths, drow and hobgoblins also had their empires that rose and fell. As far as the surface races are concerned only the hobgoblins are notable. I think I'll have them exist about the same time as the dwarves, thus explaining their enmity.

Now that I have a little history I need to work out the starting setting. This is something I do best with a paper and pencil so I'll have to describe it later.