So I’m currently world building. And I want to get away from the Sword coasts Medici politics/frontier style world. So I’m creating Using 20th century Europe as an analogue specifically the Ottoman Empire, and the Mediterranean nations (Greece, Serbia etc) but the idea I’m toying with but I don’t know how to execute is this: What if the Fey Wilds, and planar travel were possible simply by exploring. The goal being that the Monarchs send their Knights on quest King Arthur style. Thus there’s this feeling that the world is heavily settled, and you think carefully before you wander into the wilds because you might end up in the Shadowfell.
You could have particular areas where the world tends to be thin, with an evocative name like shallowings or something. I believe crossroads tend to be places where it's easier to cross over to the Feywild. Perhaps you could find an equivalent for the Shadowfell.
Or perhaps there's some natural resource like mineral deposits or a certain type of tree where it happens. Or you could have ley lines with ruins or other odd things where they converge. Lots of fun possibilities.
It reminds me of an idea from a while back to explain why people and races from multiple worlds all spoke English. It amounted to the Bristish empire having good mages who could thin the barriers between worlds, allowing their sea trade companies to travel to both other planets and different versions of earth just by sailing, and they did so just so that they could have more exotic goods to trade. So several thousands years later humanity gets into space travel and every so often they find a planet in which the aliens speak English and then as soon as they see the humans they go "Oh, not you ******** again". You could probably repurpose it a bit: the ones who would be the most interested in exploring the fae wilds and figuring how they work would be the merchants, both to find new stuff to sell, new markets and try to find shortcuts and profitable routes by dimensional shennanigans. Being hired by a merchant company to either explore, protect caravans or pacify the locals and expeditions by them or countries to colonize an area might be a good source for quests.
If that doesn't rock your boat and want more knightly ambiance, maybe the dimensions of the world are not fixed? Have different planes overlap with each other and grow depending on factors, so the knights have to pacify the wilds and slay monsters to keep the fey realm at bay, since otherwise it starts to encroach to cities, consume their farmlands and make weird things happen in the cities. Humanity would be heavily settled in some areas because they are the most stable ones they found and the shape of the world and how much space they have is defined by their actions. Since space is at a premium, there is heavy competition between countries whenever they discover a new stable area.
For that matter, if the world is that unstable, it might not even be humanity's original one. It could be that the world they originally came from was destroyed in a cataclism and the people who leave in yours are the descendants of the refugees. You could add some lore about how humanity ruined earth, so they waged war on heaven/hell for their land (or whatever kind of cosmology you want, it could be just another planet or the ways connecting different planets/realms).
This opens the possibility of time/space hijinks. Like, there is a mist that separates different patches of land that make it so you are easily lost and you never know how long it takes to reach your destination, with sometimes arriving there before you left the original one and sometimes taking more time than you think it did. Sometimes you end in different eras. There are several orders of scholars whose missions is figuring out how this works or stabilizing the areas near the cities or killing the monsters that wander outside of it or finding people lost inside of it and guiding them to safety. Though you would have to determine what the safe paths are since that would define a lot of the world, whether the sea is mostly safe from those effects or not, where it is most likely for it to happens, stuff like that.
I guess I’m struggling between balancing the areas of the world where the Planes are thin. And how to map that in such a way that it feels like the players could accidentally stumble into it.
I think I’m looking for advice on Keeping a sense of randomness. I don’t want quests to feel like “Okay! Now we wander into another plane!”
So I’m currently world building. And I want to get away from the Sword coasts Medici politics/frontier style world. So I’m creating Using 20th century Europe as an analogue specifically the Ottoman Empire, and the Mediterranean nations (Greece, Serbia etc) but the idea I’m toying with but I don’t know how to execute is this: What if the Fey Wilds, and planar travel were possible simply by exploring. The goal being that the Monarchs send their Knights on quest King Arthur style. Thus there’s this feeling that the world is heavily settled, and you think carefully before you wander into the wilds because you might end up in the Shadowfell.
any ideas???
Sounds like you're fine already.
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-OboeLauren
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-Ilyara Thundertale
What specifically are you looking for? Because I agree it sounds like you have a good start already.
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You could have particular areas where the world tends to be thin, with an evocative name like shallowings or something. I believe crossroads tend to be places where it's easier to cross over to the Feywild. Perhaps you could find an equivalent for the Shadowfell.
Or perhaps there's some natural resource like mineral deposits or a certain type of tree where it happens. Or you could have ley lines with ruins or other odd things where they converge. Lots of fun possibilities.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
It reminds me of an idea from a while back to explain why people and races from multiple worlds all spoke English. It amounted to the Bristish empire having good mages who could thin the barriers between worlds, allowing their sea trade companies to travel to both other planets and different versions of earth just by sailing, and they did so just so that they could have more exotic goods to trade. So several thousands years later humanity gets into space travel and every so often they find a planet in which the aliens speak English and then as soon as they see the humans they go "Oh, not you ******** again". You could probably repurpose it a bit: the ones who would be the most interested in exploring the fae wilds and figuring how they work would be the merchants, both to find new stuff to sell, new markets and try to find shortcuts and profitable routes by dimensional shennanigans. Being hired by a merchant company to either explore, protect caravans or pacify the locals and expeditions by them or countries to colonize an area might be a good source for quests.
If that doesn't rock your boat and want more knightly ambiance, maybe the dimensions of the world are not fixed? Have different planes overlap with each other and grow depending on factors, so the knights have to pacify the wilds and slay monsters to keep the fey realm at bay, since otherwise it starts to encroach to cities, consume their farmlands and make weird things happen in the cities. Humanity would be heavily settled in some areas because they are the most stable ones they found and the shape of the world and how much space they have is defined by their actions. Since space is at a premium, there is heavy competition between countries whenever they discover a new stable area.
For that matter, if the world is that unstable, it might not even be humanity's original one. It could be that the world they originally came from was destroyed in a cataclism and the people who leave in yours are the descendants of the refugees. You could add some lore about how humanity ruined earth, so they waged war on heaven/hell for their land (or whatever kind of cosmology you want, it could be just another planet or the ways connecting different planets/realms).
This opens the possibility of time/space hijinks. Like, there is a mist that separates different patches of land that make it so you are easily lost and you never know how long it takes to reach your destination, with sometimes arriving there before you left the original one and sometimes taking more time than you think it did. Sometimes you end in different eras. There are several orders of scholars whose missions is figuring out how this works or stabilizing the areas near the cities or killing the monsters that wander outside of it or finding people lost inside of it and guiding them to safety. Though you would have to determine what the safe paths are since that would define a lot of the world, whether the sea is mostly safe from those effects or not, where it is most likely for it to happens, stuff like that.
I guess I’m struggling between balancing the areas of the world where the Planes are thin. And how to map that in such a way that it feels like the players could accidentally stumble into it.
I think I’m looking for advice on Keeping a sense of randomness. I don’t want quests to feel like “Okay! Now we wander into another plane!”
These are great ideas. I’m definitely gonna think about these ideas.