The Four Civilisations

For the "Life Under the Wheel" setting, I want to focus on a relatively small area of land, something roughly the size of England. That being the case, I want a few nations of men but not too many. Specifically, four.

I want each of these four nations to have a couple of iconic motifs that make them unique, but each should also be a reflection of an underlying theme - which in this case is actually two-fold: firstly that power is an illusion, and secondly that all things decay.

And so...

Uthia, the Realm of Water: The core area of the campaign is Uthia, the realm of water. The northernmost of the four realms, Uthia is positioned on the east coast of the peninsula. To the north and west lie unclaimed lands dominated by orcs, while across the sea to the east lie the lands claimed by the hobgoblin empires.

Uthia is a land without a monarch or any central authority, where power is held by local rulers who can claim and hold land. It is also a land with a long history that was once the centre of a much more powerful nation. However, as water erodes all things, the land was gradually brought down, first into decadence and indolence, and then into outright ruin. Uthia is also the site of a localised apocalypse that has left much of the land ruined, as well as bringing the mysterious Wheel into the world.

Kayland, the Realm of Stone: The dual nation of East and West Kayland lies to the south of Uthia, and has always dwelt in the resentful shadow of that more ancient nation. Kayland is the most prosperous of the four realms, but also the most rigid, with sprawling noble families that control almost all aspects of life. However, Kayland has split into two halves, neither of which has the strength to expand alone, and neither of which is content to become subsumed within the other.

Kayland is also threatened on all sides - from the east by hobgoblin raiders, from the west by the incursions from Oestia, and from the north by orcish forces. It is also threatened from within, as the nation has reached the height of its powers and is already slipping into decadence.

Sosocar, the Realm of Air: Sosocar, the Shining Jewel, is a city state nestled in the lands controlled by Kayland. Positioned between the two halves of that dual nation, it is a hotbed of intrigue for the nobles of that land. Sosocar is also incredibly rich, but also incredibly decadent.

Sosocar is ruled by an absolute monarch called The Veiled Queen, who lives in a palace that none in the city are permitted to enter. Daily edicts emerge from the palace and are enforced sporadically amongst a populace who care little for the absurdity and contradictions imposed by their ruler. Instead, they spend their days engaged in pointless philosophy, drug use, and sexual experimentation.

Given its great wealth and seeming weakness, it seems odd that Sosocar remains both independent and indeed thriving. However, it is widely held that The Veiled Queen has significant influence in the courts of both East and West Kayland, and as such could end the conflict between those nations at a stroke. As such, by balancing the two forces she is able to ensure the survival and independence of her realm. Or, at least, so it is said...

Oestia, the Realm of Fire: The youngest of the four nations, but also the only one currently expanding, Oestia lies to the south-west of Uthia and to the west of West Kayland. It is a wild and untamed realm, but one populated with a hardworking and happy people filled with great notions of manifest destiny.

Oestia was until recently a region with no central authority governed by petty nobles who each fashioned himself a king. However, following a recent Great Moot, the land has become united under a council of nobles who hold themselves equals. Under this council, they now seek to expand and civilise their lands, uniting all the lands south of The Wheel into a single great kingdom. Of course, once that is done the council of lords will determine amongst themselves which shall be first amongst equals, and so Greater Oestia will break asunder immediately after being formed.

About the Nations

Each of the four nations represents an age of man: Oestia is dynamic and foolish youth; Kayland is man at the height of his powers but defeated by his own need for control; Sosocar is the dissolute waste of a life misspent; and Uthia is man once he has slipped beyond his prime and lost everything.

Equally, each of the nations is ruled in a different manner: local tyrants backed with the threat of force in Uthia; in Kayland great noble houses and laws that constantly undermine one another; utter neglect and madness in Sosocar; and dynamic leadership but with inherent instability in Oestia.

Hopefully, this should give enough to distinguish the four nations and allow the PCs plenty of scope for investigation!

The Role of Monsters

D&D has a lot of monstrous humanoid races. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say D&D has too many monstrous humanoid races - do we really need Orcs and Goblins and Hobgoblins and Bugbears and Lizardfolk and Gnolls and Kobolds and...? Especially when each of these takes up a page or more of the Monster Manual that could instead be given to other, more distinct, creatures?

But that's an academic debate now. D&D has all these monstrous humanoids, so a better question is: what shall we do with them all?

I'm a big fan of Paizo's decision to recast a lot of the classic humanoids, giving each of them a new identity. (Incidentally, Eberron does much the same thing - it's not exactly a unique idea.) However, I'm also inclined not to simply reuse Paizo's redefinitions. In at least some cases, I want to have my own take.

So...

Kobolds: Kobolds are diminutive cavern dwellers. They thrive in large cavern complexes near the surface of the world, and clash extensively with dwarves. Kobolds are small, cunning, and cowardly.

Goblins: Goblins come into being in dark places where the Shadowfell comes close to the Prime Material Plane and where strong emotions are gathered. Sages are divided as to whether such a convergence gives rise to these creatures, or if it merely allows corrupted fey spirits to break into the world. Either way, goblins are monstrous little creatures that want to eat you. They are cruel, and sadistic, and utterly insane.

Orcs: Orcs represent the rejection of civilisation. They live in large semi-nomadic tribes that plague the borders of the civilised world. Orcs war on the nations of man, and also on each other.

Hobgoblins: Conversely, hobgoblins represent civilisation gone wrong. They have dark and complex nations built on cruel laws and slavery. Hobgoblin mercenaries are amongst the best in the world, but they are never entirely trustworthy.

Bugbears: Bugbears are solitary, lurking terrors. They're the monster that lives in the wardrobe or under the bed, the unknown threat that comes seemingly from nowhere and ends you. Bugbears may well be nothing more than particularly large, particularly dangerous goblins. (And yes, this is essentially the same as Paizo's interpretation.)

Lizardfolk: Lizardfolk are the unknown and the alien. Their behaviours and their morality is utterly inhuman and therefore unpredictable. And yet lizardfolk aren't evil; they're just different.

Gnolls: Gnolls are the servants of decay and entropy. They dwell in the shadows of civilisation and gnaw on it as it collapses. In that way, they're much like the Skaven, only hyenas rather than rats.

And that's it, or the short version at least.

Elves and Sex

My previous post had a throwaway comment on elves being like bees, which led me to note that I needed to say something about elves and their society. So...

One of my pet peeves in gaming is the "human with a funny nose" approach to playing a non-human race. This is most commonly the case with power-gamers, who probably chose the race purely for some mechanical benefit (which, in turn, is why I don't like races having ability score adjustments). The player duly writes 'elf' on the character sheet, and then proceeds to play the character exactly the same as if he was human.

Yet if we are to accept the in-game conceit that elves start at 100+ years old and that they potentially live for many more centuries, it is absurd to imagine that they might be indistinguishable from a human. Either they have grown up in a radically different culture, or they were raised by humans and have seen every single person they knew as a child die of old age.

And yet, non-human races also shouldn't be too inhuman in their manners, and in the case of the 'known' non-human races (elves, dwarves, halflings), they equally can't stray too far from the common portrayal of these races. In either case, players will find themselves having difficulties getting into the mindset, or simply won't recognise the races for what they are 'meant' to be.

So the challenge, then, is to find a portrayal that is different, but also one that is not too different.

In my campaigns, or at least in my homebrew settings, elves have a strict caste system. However, unlike human caste systems, this is based not on social conventions and/or inheritance, but rather is a function of birth and diet. Yes, like bees.

The vast majority of the elves in a colony are of the Worker caste. These are the lowest ranking elves in the colony, who dedicate their entire lives to a single mundane pursuit. Some are soldiers, some are farmers, some are craftsmen of various sorts. None are wizards. Worker elves are likely to be exceptionally skilled at their one chosen field (as centuries of practice are likely to cause), but they are almost mindless and totally without imagination. Worker elves are therefore unable to adapt to changing circumstances, are without ambition, and must be directed.

The mid-ranking elves are the Lords and Ladies. These are the elves most commonly encountered by outsiders - both lower and higher ranking elves tend to remain in or near the colony, while the Lords and Ladies may travel abroad. And, similarly, when a visitor to an elven colony must meet an ambassador, it is a Lord or Lady who serves in that role.

The elven Lord or Lady is essentially the 'known' elf - they tend to be skilled in swords or spells, be skilled trackers or archers, and so on and so forth. Elven Lords and Ladies are somewhat larger in stature than Workers. There is little difference in height and weight between Lords and Ladies.

A subset of elf Ladies are elf Maids. Treated in all respects as being a Lady, a Maid is distinct in only one respect: an elf Maid has the potential to be promoted to Queen.

At the top of any elven colony there is a single Queen. The largest, wisest and most powerful elf in the colony, though not necessarily the oldest, the Queen in the lynchpin that holds the colony together. She sets the direction for the colony, directs the Workers, and in many ways she is the colony. Of particular note, in all elven colonies other than those of the drow, the Queen is typically not a child of the colony. Instead, as the old Queen reaches the end of her life, the colony will arrange to bring an Elf Maid from a nearby colony to be promoted to Queen and succeed from the old.

Ambrosia, and the Elven Lifecycle

As soon as a new elf Queen ascends, and at periodic times during her long life, she will select a consort from amongst the Lords of her colony. She mates with the consort, and will shortly thereafter lay a multitude of eggs. Over the course of a year, these eggs will grow, and eventually hatch the next generation of elves.

The overwhelming majority of young elves will be Worker caste. These grow to maturity over the course of a decade or so, being apprenticed into the roles they will follow all the rest of their days.

About ten percent of young elves will be nascent Lords, Ladies, or elf Maids. However, if left alone at this stage, their development will halt at the same stage as that of Workers. They will remain near mindless, and could be apprenticed to roles in the same way as their kin.

However, elven colonies maintain a supply of Ambrosia, a foodstuff of unknown composition. To races other than the elves, ambrosia is little more than a slightly alcoholic but fairly anaemic beverage. However, when fed to a young elf Lord, Lady, or Maid, it provokes a transition from Worker caste into their full selves. This transition, and the full training to maturity of the elven mind, takes the better part of a century; it is not clear whether an elf must be fed ambrosia regularly during this process or only once.

When an elf Maid is to be promoted to Queen, she is fed a second, much more concentrated, diet of ambrosia. This provokes a very painful, but thankfully short, transition from Maid to Queen.

It is possible for a colony that has been devastated to promote Worker caste elves to the rank of Lord, Lady, or even Queen if this is essential. However, elves promoted in this manner are seldom as wise or powerful as those born into those ranks. Elven colonies therefore only do this if some disaster has forced them to that point. They do so to enable them to produce the next generation of elves, who will be in all respects normal examples of their kind.

The Grand Tour

Most elven Lords and Ladies, shortly after reaching their maturity, engage in a period of wandering away from their colonies. They travel in the wider world, either in the societies of other races or entirely on their own, simply to gain experience of things away from their insular colonies. This grand tour may last just a few years, or may last for the remainder of their lives - eventually, most elven Lords and Ladies return to a colony, though not necessarily their former homes, and make their homes with their kin thereafter.

Sex and Fertility

Elves of the Worker caste are completely unable to procreate, and indeed have little to no interest in sexual activity. Elven Lords, Ladies, and Maids are capable of sexual activity, but are infertile amongst themselves. The next generation of elves are born of the mating of the elf Queen with her chosen consort, who will be one of the Lords of her colony.

Because of this infertility, and because also of the elves' chaotic nature, elves have no concept of marriage, commitment, or monogamy. Elves take lovers as suits them, and the couple remains together as long as they wish it. Because of the conventions of their society, elves rarely feel any great jealously or pain about such partings; after all, they might well be lovers again at some future time.

There is one oddity in elven physiology, however, that sometimes causes elves problems while on their grand tour. Although elven Lords and Ladies are not fertile with other elves, they are entirely able to have children with humans. However, young elves are frequently unaware of this fact, and very few give it any serious thought. After all, the conventions of their society are such that such matters don't occur.

Thus, an elf Lord in human society may think nothing of sleeping with any women who take his fancy, and with the otherworldly glamour of the elves, they seldom lack for willing partners. And, equally, they may think nothing of departing quickly thereafter, perhaps even without a word, and potentially leaving any number of half-elves behind them. Needless to say, this can cause some amount of strife in human villages, and leads to no small amount of suspicion aimed at newly-arrived elves!

Perhaps more difficult, however, is the plight of an elf Lady in human society who, for exactly the same reasons, may think nothing of taking lovers. If she should subsequently find herself pregnant, she is likely to be scared and confused by this experience, and is unlikely to have anyone able to explain or assist her. Perhaps fortunately, most such elf Ladies return to the nearest colony, where the Queen typically takes a great interest in her wellbeing for the next year. The half-elf child may then be raised by the colony, or may be fostered amongst humans.

Of Drow

Drow maintain the same castes as other elves, but the vast majority of drow Workers are simply left to starve in the Underdark - drow simply do not have the food to feed large populations, nor the interest in raising young. The vast majority of drow who live to adulthood, therefore, are Lords and Ladies.

Drow also lack any supply of ambrosia. However, these exiled elves have become adapted to the strange radiations of the Underdark that suffuse their environment. As such, those drow who survive, and who have the potential of advancement, will automatically advance to the rank of Lord or Lady. (Some elves postulate that the radiations that suffuse the Underdark are also responsible for the twisted nature of the drow. They speculate further than drow who were raised on the surface and fed ambrosia instead might return to the light. Naturally, neither the elves nor the drow are keen to test this theory.)

It is not known how drow Maids advance to the rank of Queen. It is known that the elven convention of Queens moving from one colony to another is not practiced by drow, and it is believed instead that a drow Maid may perform some ritual to take on the mantle of the former Queen when she dies. However, the details remain unclear.

And that's basically it. Any thoughts?

Rethinking the Drow

I actually quite like the drow, both as a concept and also as depicted by R.A. Salvatore for the Forgotten Realms. The books clearly aren't high art, and certainly can't be considered 'literature', but they're fun, entertaining dross.

However, the drow suffer from a number of problems. The first of these is nothing really to do with me, but is a distinct problem for WotC: they're a black-skinned matriarchal race of psychopaths with a definite psycho-sexual/bondage element to their depiction. Given that WotC would really like to license Drizzt for a film, this is a distinct problem.

(If I were WotC, then, I would be strongly considering a redesign, probably along the lines of the dark elves from "Thor: The Dark World" - give them a mix of skin tones and a propensity to wear masks, especially while on the surface. And while they should remain matriarchal, they should probably lose the bondage gear.)

But the problem that does affect me is that the drow suffer from a serious case of Villain Decay (warning: TV Tropes can be addictive). Like the Borg, when they first appeared they were cool and mysterious, and indeed somewhat scary (perhaps), but over time we've seen the more and more, and learned more and more about them, and now they're just not scary at all.

And so it's time for a rethink.

It's perhaps worth noting that Eberron has already had a rethink of the drow - in that setting they're (mostly) surface-dwelling primitives with a scorpion fetish, who live in Xen'drik. Which is okay, I guess, but doesn't do what I want - Eberron's drow are aimed at making it easier for them to be used as player characters, not villains. Since I have no use for drow PCs, this is irrelevant to me.

What I'm Going to Keep

I intend to keep the basic concept of the drow as twisted and evil elves, who were once the same as their kin but who fell from grace somehow and were exiled. I intend to keep also their place as Underdark dwellers - they were exiled from the surface world, and indeed have been cursed the sunlight hurts them.

I will also be keeping the matriarchal nature of the drow, solely because all my elves are matriarchal - they're ruled over by a queen who is specially selected, bred, and indeed fed for the role (like bees).

What I'll be Changing

The whole spider-theme will be gone. Lolth, if she exists at all, will simply be one of several demons (note: not deities) that the drow might follow.

Any concept of a drow city, or of them maintaining slaves, will be gone. The simple logistics of feeding a fixed population of any size are pretty nonsensical - the drow don't have the space for any significant amount of farming, nor do they really feel like a race with any significant population of farmers amongst them!

Instead, the drow will be made up of very small, semi-nomadic groups who eke out a fairly desperate existence in the dark places of the world.

Combatting Villain Decay

I plan to combat the Villain Decay faced by the drow in three ways:

- Firstly, drow encounters should be very rare and very mysterious. They're a shadowy force that comes out of nowhere, strikes hard, and then disappears leaving the enemy reeling.

- Secondly, I plan to never use the 'stock' drow. Instead, drow bands should almost always be made up of named and unique individuals - instead of "6 drow", you get six individual drow with their own quirks. (This is workable solely because of their tiny numbers - you never get a typical drow because those six individuals don't need to represent a drow population - they are a drow population.)

- Thirdly, drow encounters should always carry a heavy risk. Ideally, every encounter with the drow should result in the death of a 'named' character - a PC or a significant NPC the players care about. Since that's not something that's easily guaranteed, I'll be adding one more quirk: due to the radiations that drow weapons and armour bathe in in the Underdark, they weapons carry an additional curse: anyone killed using a drow weapon (except in sunlight) cannot be raised. More powerful magic, such as resurrection, will still work, but something in the construction of the weapon will corrupt the corpse, rendering it beyond the power of that weakest life-restoring magic.

There's a little more... but I can't really post it here. After all, if the issue is that familiarity breeds contempt...

(I do notice that I'm going to have to post something about elves. Oh, the horror...)

New D&D Setting: Life Under the Wheel

At the post-Christmas drinks gathering, I was encouraged to consider running another D&D campaign - one of our new players really enjoys fantasy but doesn't have the same interest in Firefly. And, I should say, I have had some thoughts along those lines in my thoughts of late.

However, if I were to run another campaign I think I would want to do so in a homebrew setting - largely because I'd almost certainly want to run the game using 5e, because Eberron is not currently supported under 5e (at least, not properly), and because I'm not a fan of the Forgotten Realms.

Which, rather conveniently, gives me something to write about here. For want of a better name, the campaign setting is titled "Life Under the Wheel", where "The Wheel" refers to a dominant landmark in the setting.

Basic Premises

So, to start the setting, here are a few of the basics. I've actually mentioned a couple of these before, but it's probably just as well to repeat them here.

Points of Light

This will be a "points of light" setting, as defined during the development of 4e: the world will be largely unexplored and dangerous, with only a few pockets of civilisation in amongst the wilds - the so called points of light.

The World Malevolent

By contrast, those parts of the world that are wilderness (or dungeon) will not merely be untamed and wild, they will be actively hostile to life. Adventurers in the wild must be careful, because the environs they explore and ancient and angry; they will harm you if they can.

Human-centric

Although all PCs races will be available, the main adventuring areas will be distinctly human in character and population. Strangers are treated with suspicion, and non-humans more so (because they're just that bit stranger still). Not outright hostility, I should say - just suspicion.

No gods, but...

D&D settings have typically struggled with the juxtaposition of a semi-Classical polytheistic setting and drawing heavily from history and from horror films that are both strongly flavoured by Christianity. This makes for some real oddities where things just don't quite 'fit' in a lot of cases. The one major D&D setting that deviates from this, Dark Sun, simply has no gods at all, with a knock-on effect that there aren't really any established religions.

The "Under the Wheel" setting takes a different view again, in that there are no named gods, and yet there is a single dominant religion, called simply "The Tradition". This is actually a patchwork of local rituals and practices with significant variation and little actual authority (and no real commandments), but which virtually everyone pays at least lip service to - if for no other reason that it's so loose you can't meaningfully rebel against it.

The setting will also have Clerics but these are not associated with The Tradition at all. Instead, Clerics are initiates in one of several mystery cults - groups that purport to some greater knowledge and understanding. Their power comes simply from their training in the mysteries of their cult.

I haven't decided about Paladins as yet.

And that's enough to get started with, I think...