Talk about your setting

My current game takes place in the Duchy of Avaigne, it’s based on Arthurian legends and German folktales.

My homebrew world is Borrelia, a Post-Apocalyptic medium magic setting, where the gods have faded, leaving four powerful archmagi to decide the fate of the world. You can find more information about it on this thread.

I have a very small Homebrew Setting (as in, in-dev at moment), but so far I have a giant desert called the Harundan Desert, a strange "Darkened Vale" which is home to many strange fey-fungi and forests just to the North of the desert, there's a thriving temple of Kurtlmak Fanatics and a Gnomish Shanty Town to the North-East of a small village called Rumandor, which is controlled by a city watch, has a leader called the Tax Master and a lovely little inn owned by the dwarf Jumar Littlehammer called the Shambles, and way way to the south-east is the Eastern Kingdom, a giant gleaming jewell of civilisation, and that's all on the world of Lyst.

One of my players has described it as steampunk with pseudoscience. There are airships and railguns.

It's also dominated by aarakocra, who use their ability to fly to their advantage in the highly mountainous terrain, where long-distance commerce by land is impossible, and by sea is also impractical because of frequent extreme storms.

My homebrew setting is a story of the end of the world.  A vast continent populated by humans (90%), elves, dwarves and orcs (with tiny populations of variant human neanderthal-like creatures and a variant human barbarian race in the utter north.  A sprawling and ancient human empire rules, with massive cities with even more massive bureaucracy in the south and smaller towns and villages (with less imperial control) as you get further and further north.  Dragons and other great monsters are rare except in the most remote places.

A horrible cataclysm wracked the empire almost 1000 years ago and plunged the continent into a brutal dark age.  After 300 years the empire was re-established and it has been rebuilt to new and greater splendor.  But as the players have learned, the end is coming.  Ages ago humanity entered into a dark pact which they have failed to honor.  1000 years ago the bill came due and the world was nearly destroyed.  In a few years the 1000 year cycle will complete again and once again humanity has failed to pay its debt.  The players aren't sure exactly what form the apocalypse will take but based on stories from the last cataclysm, they expect earthquakes, plagues, war, and monsters erupting from the ground.  So this is something of a "doomsday prep" setting.  The players are faced with an impending earth shattering disaster and have to decide how to face it.

While preparing to ride out the storm, they are also uncovering various plots and conspiracies.  One secret society within the empire is feverishly (and misguidedly) trying to satisfy the terms of the ancient pact with horrible sacrifices to stave off the doom.  Other conspiracies are counting on the apocalypse, preparing their forces to swoop in on the ravaged world and conquer it and usher in their own dominion over the next 1000 years.

I DM a family campaign in a revised Greyhawk setting, set a generation after the Living Greyhawk events, and focused strongly in the Northeastern Flanaess -- so Ratik, Kingdom of the North, Bone March, Rakers, Pale ...  Much of the campaign revolves around regional security for Ratik, and around peace and freedom for various non-human stakeholder communities.

IMC, people are generally not monoliths, so much of the plot revolves around the variations and divisions.  As one example, it's a very "revisionist Orc" campaign.  The Orcish community can be essentially divided in three: traditionalists, modernists, and Hextorians.  Traditionalists are religiously always Orcish-pantheon, and typically prefer to retain wholly or partly nomadic, hunter-gathering ways.  Even when their priests have presences in population centers, they often subscribe to rules like "an Orc should not sleep under a roof three nights running."  This lifestyle requires significant hunting territory or regular raiding, and therefore tends to bring them into conflict with human and other communities that either invade their territory, or raise livestock on their borders.  Modernizers believe in adapting to the denser economic and political realities of human-dominated settlements.  This means earning recognition of some kind from human political structures, and making warfare and raiding work within those structures, for example by forming irregular and mercenary companies.  One PC's NPC father, an Orc, learned to ride and fight from horseback, and taught the skills to his followers and his son, because of the social respect accorded to horse soldiers by human communities.  However, for modernizers, assimilation is not seamless, and constant human racism and resistance to Orcish advances is a daunting reality.  Finally, the human religion of Hextor, the state religion of the Northern Kingdom, welcomes Orcs.  However, the priesthood is resistant to their advancement within: the church treats them as cannonfodder and functions as an authoritarian cult.  The half-Orc in the party has is a modernizer, dedicated to carving out Orc-ruled lands within the Bone March that have formal recognition from human rulers, but looks to traditionalists as wary allies, and Hextorians as fierce enemies.  The Hextorians, in the final analysis, are under the command of the human hierarchy and always do the bidding of the State, which ultimately will not permit an Orcish principality outside its direct control.

In our campaign world, Gnomes have a tradition of crafts and trade and independent business that make them well-traveled, itinerant and affluent.  They have a strong base within the Nonizhold, one of the fourteen baronies of Ratik, but also a strong presence in Bellport, the largest port in the Northern part of the Northern Kingdom.  The Gnomes have no single leader, though a religious leader known affectionately as "Whistle Pop" for his grandfatherly appearance and habit of whistling, has great influence.  Gnomish businesses have expended the economy in several cities; for example, magical techniques for procuring year-round ice in one port city has led to a blue-water fishing fleet that can stay out for days instead of subsistence-level coastal fishing, because the fish can be brought to market a day away after landing.  However, human powers sometimes treat Gnomes as an easily-targeted "other"  One major adventure began when Bellport expelled its entire Gnomish community in collective punishment for the act of one evil Gnomish adventurer.  The humanitarian crisis saw six hundred Gnomes and all their worldly possessions thrown out on the road, in carts loaded with all their possessions, entire shops packed and towed behind a horse or ox, preyed on by raiders and  unevenly protected by hastily procured guards.  But the city's Lord Mayor was horrified and scandalized by the Prince's decision, which brought a crisis over control of the city to a head.  With the intervention of the players, who killed a monster and won a duel and engaged in a clever act of political theater, Whistle Pop got a seat at peace negotiations and the city managed to win the status of Free City.  This proved a tense standoff, cemented more permanently later after a full-scale battle during a succession war.  

Dwarves hold the key pass between Ratik and The Pale, as well as mining rights in key positions.  Their affairs are complicated.  While some campaign might conceive Dwarves' internal affairs as driven by historic alliance, IMC Dwarven affairs are most often driven by family business.  Most Dwarven enterprises are familial, but control and profits are divided in ways that are unknown in most human communities in the region, and more closely resemble early industrial human societies.  A Dwarven mining claim may involve a two hundred year grant from a human King, be under the day-to-day control of a Dwarven Vice-Thane, who answers to a Thane who may or may not be his Clan chief, and a council who each share ownership.  The Vice-Thane might have only ten percent of the profit, but take an outsized share of the blame if anything goes wrong, and need buy-in from the whole council to pay for major investment, expand the labor force, or add muscle to defend the claim.  Many Dwarves are involved in complex family businesses, have income from some and responsibilities to others.  Walking away from those responsibilities is very difficult, as it also often means leaving relatives in the lurch and giving up investments, income sources and advancement.  That's why it is often said "the strongest thing the Dwarves forge are the chains that bind their children."

Right now, heading into today's gaming session, there are multiple crises brewing.  The Dwarven chief closest to the party, Hugunn, can't help them.  The Pale is in the midst of a civil war between the religious reform movement (or heretics, depending on sympathies) that hold the Southeastern cities and the central government.  The tension has spilled into the critical Loegrimm Pass, which is Hogunn's.  He has deployed his elite force, the Tangstadt Axes, entirely into the pass and is completely consumed by the crisis.  The party needs to get an evil magic item to a monastery of Moradin, deep in the Rakers, South of the Loegrimm Pass, where it can be destroyed.  But there are multiple parties of Hobgoblins trying to steal it for their own purposes.  They may or may not be working with a Drow sorcerer (who is actually fronting for the Drow clerical hierarchy) who have already said it's originally theirs and they want it back.  But while the party is distracted and Hogunn is consumed, that might leave his mining claims across the Tessar Torrent outside Bellport undefended.  Having both secured and defended Bellport's Free City status and the safety of its Gnomish community, the party would want to defuse any tension that might break into war, because it could only afford an opportunity for the new King to chip away at Bellport's self-determination.  Those wars also created an arms race: the Gnomes pioneered the partly magical construction of super-long-range floating arm trebuchets which wrecked the attacking navy.  Now, every regional power needs an answer to the new siege engines.  The Gnomes have just a few individuals who understand the construction and all of them are under careful control: three who tried to sell the secret were collected and dealt with severely.  But every ruler now wants to find some artificer or wizard or alchemist who can replicate the weapons, or create the counterpoint.  It's an expensive and serious regional arms race.

Meanwhile, the new King, who rose to power after the party killed the lich-king who preceded him (by winning a war over the party's preferred successor) is concerned that the party could make common cause with a possible Orcish messiah who threatens to turn the Hextorian church inside out.  They have an uneasy peace with the new King.  But his own party, a high-level special mission force, could always be deployed to eliminate them if he believes this new Orcish leader too greatly threatens his interests.  But those are problems for another day.  This magic item can't fall into the hands of the Hobgoblins, especially the prolific Daz family of warlords, who would certainly use it to summon extraplanar assistance and carve out a kingdom of their own, a constant threat to everyone around them.  

So that's our world.

Actual setting for me as a Player is a Midgard campaign, with people that i met here on PbP and then moved from a campaign to another and then moved from here to Discord.

We where started in the Free City of Zobeck, and where all part of a mercenary group, My Dark Knigth Tiefling(Paladin/Hexblade), Beer Domain Cleric Dwarf, Paladin of Khors Dwarf, Warlock of the Margrave Piney(think a mix of Fey and Groot), Exalted Kobold Rogue Demolitionist.

We are lvl 8.

We end in a Scuffle with a Void-dragon in the tavern where we where to met our new contractor, killed Morena's Zealots( midgard's Vampire/Blood Godesse), got in a bit of a jam with the Towns guards, cause the Captain is a ******, then on our way.

We had to retrieve for our Patron an ancient Journal from an ancient Wizard/researcher, that had his Lab somewhere under the city in the cartways( labyrinth like network od tunnels, sewers and caverns), we also got a job from the Magica Academia Headmaster, he also wanted that Journal, cause it was stolen from his safe...

The First Patron who was a merchant paid us 20.000 Gp EACH upon completion, while the Academy headmaster paid us 5000gp each, but we would alos have connection to the Academy and acces to their facilities and services...

We managed to find a way to the Cartways through an ancient Ghost called the Hunged Lady, who took each of us a dear memory to open a portal.

We where ambushed by Clockwork assassins and abominations, found the Lab, solved the puzzles and got attaced by a Clockwork Priest of Morena.

There was a Scribe Demon in an hidden library, since he was not hostile we left him alone, but for personal plot reasons, my character was interested in a Deal with him to gain some knowledge that muight help im to find his familly (he was separated when ayoung child from his parents and never found them, wich was not surprising, since his parents and him lived in the era of the magocracy Wars 100 years ago, and during a bomùbardement of spells on his city, he and his parents where sucked into a Time bubble, and while my character was flung 89years in the futur, his parents landed at another location and another time).

So he made a deal with the Devil who only asked for my character to be the caretaker and guardian of the "Library", it was a tiny construct creature called a Library Automaton( acts like a BoH but only for scrolls and books) so i had acces to some sort of ancient library, with an invisible Demon following me and giving off informations and knowledge when i asked to (and after carefull read of the contract, i din't give my soul or anything so it was all good)

Found out that the Ancient Wizard was NOT actually dead, and just locked himself in some sort of Loop of twisted time & space plane, cause he was actually NOT that evil as everyone think he was, and he was staying here cause a century before during the Magocracy Wars, some douch unleashed the equivalant of a Nuke magic, and he managed to lokc it in a force field, but has to remain there to maintain it, else the city will blow up.

But the seals he used are starting to weaken, and he need powerfull artefacts to reseal it before its too late, so he ask us to do it, we say why we are here( we found his journal on the Cyborg Vampire Priest) and he says that this is too dangerous to be left to the outside world, but seeing our predicament, he makes two copies of it with somewhat altered informations in it to make his research unusable.

We get out of there, go to both our Patrons telling them mission accomplished and get our rewards (yeah that was sneaky and dangerous, but worth it 120.000gp and the academy "trust"), we decide to bail for a while, since we need to go look for these artefacts anyways( they are all over the darn land, up to a 800 miles for some on the ******* Demon Mountain...)

Before we depart, there's a fire and somewhat of a riot that starts in the Kobold Ghetto, with the city watch and the army been just in front of the Ghetto gates, with the Kobolds not wqnting any outsiders getting inside to help them get rid of the fires...

Now...during our fight witht he Cyborg Vampire Priest, the Kobold had found a "Cube" with different runes and buttons on it (press one, roll a D100, see what random effect you get...), And one of them made a FOUNTAIN OF FLOWING MAGMA appear in the First layer of the Lab, and since some part of the ceilling collapsed, we could do anything about it anyways, and thouhg that the effect would end eventually...

Ahaha..., Nope...the Magma basically started to flow upward in the tunnels and ended up bruning and starting fire in the ghetto...

Some one took the opportunity of the confusion to kill the Self proclaimed Kobold King, we saw who was it and started pursuing them, got only one of the assassins, the other got away, found a letter that lef us to another city.

We where joined by another guy who played a dwarf Ringmaster (a Midgard's Wizard subclass)

We made some preparations, and our Paladin got a squad of Soldiers to accompany him (we use the Strongholds & Followers from Matt Collville).

Got like 9 miles out of the city and since our Ringmaster friend took longer to gather some followers and get a cart and horses for the journey we halted at a Mound, that our Piney friend scouted before and choose as a camping site...

We get comfy for the night, then 3 of us gets dragged underground by Xorns...

We wake up in coffins in a crypt that was UNDER the mound we where camping..., the thing was like a small Necropolis..., without armor and gear, i thankfully could still summon my Pact blade and killed the darn Xorn and got out, had to face Uber skeletons( ****ers where wearing Runic weapons and armors and could Multi attack 3 times...) and find my way in these catacombs while finding the others and a Way to get out...

Found the others after a few fights and tried our darnest to get out, but the only passage leading up collapsed years ago, so we instead got deeper to fidn another way.

In the meantime the rest of the group was attacked by Skeletons emerging from the ground , they managed to push them, one of the Followers NPC's got KOed and dragged down by a couple of Skelletons.

Our Kobold could SHapeshift due to a racial ability or something( his character was weird) and used it to morph into a giant sand spider and dig a tunnel for them to join us.

We joined the rest, our Piney Warlock and Kobold went on their own in another floor of the crypts and got ambusged by Zombie Priest, the Piney was killed, and since we where too far for our cleric to not only Know about it, but get there, nothing we could do about it...RIP first casualty...

With grief we powered through the Place, cause there was some evil afoot,a nd we could not just leave it like this.

We then found and fought a Chained Angel, and Angel captured by Devils and cahined with cursed chains, rendering him mad, we managed to free him from the chains, wich then he was able to ascend again and gifted us a blessing (wich counted as a Long rest and Heroes Feast effects, wich was needed since we fought all night long)

Found deeper catacombs with rows and rows of coffins...

Each time more of these Uber skeletons would opo out, and they some would use Leyline magic (we use the Koblod's Press, Deep Magic suplement), nearly wiping us with a 80magic damage line that got through 4 of us...

We managed to get them and got through the last Doors, to find a giant room with a funerary Longship in it, with atop of it the corpse of the paladin Follower, found out he was just unconcious, so we tried to climb aboard to get him out, Only for the ceiling to open up into a Maw like portal that gave into the Shadowlands...

With the ship slowly rising towards it, with 3 of us on it and the 3 dwarves on the ground, fighting off an Horde of Zombies coming from the corridor behind us...

While we where on the floating ship some high tier Revenants appeared Elven revenant,s one Warrior like the other Archer, and somekind of Winter Queen/Lich that was screaming at us...

Managed to get the Revenants,not without leaving some skin behind, as we where taking each turns Necrotic damage due to the Shadowrealm enegies eating at us.

***** Queen, summoned 2 Ghostly Phallanxes when we managdd to make the ship return through the portal, but it was a slow ascent since we could not focus on it and had to defend ourselfs (ship would go 10ft per turn if not attended, and we where like 60 ft away from the portal...)

Phallanxes would rain on use Necrotic arrows that dealt D8+2D8 dmg like 6 per sides, those ****ers where protected by the Shield bearers, while we alos had to fend off 3 Spectral Griffon Ridders...( yeah things where going CRAZY), while our Dwarven friends and the Followers where fighting off the Zombies.

We manage to get through the Phallanxes and the Portal before it closed, but before that the Spectral ***** Queen activated a Spike in the room ( there where 12 15ft Long black ironwrought Spikes with 2-3 zombies impaled on it), and that thing just when up and flew towards one of the Dwarves, the Ringmaster, dealing 12D8 Lightning and Necrotic dmg.

Killed him on the spot (wizards with their low HP) leaving NOTHING, completly obliterated out of existance, not even any of his gear was to be found...

After that we explored a bit mor but nothing major.

Except... that our Kobold friend found a room throuhg wich he had burrowed his way to us, previously, and the place ha da large coffin and the rets of the room filled with art, jewelry and gold...

And 4 chest, while he managed to open and disarm the traps of 3 ot them, he couldn't for the live of him deal with the last one( rolled really low).

He finally opened it, but there was a false compartiment in it, still couldn't open it, of frustration he put 4 of his homemade bombs in it, closed it and tossed in in the hole..., Not seeing that me and the new paladin Elf who joined us( the Piney player new character an Elf Storm paladin, think like Thor but she used Bow&Arrows instead of an hammer) was just UNDER the darn hole...

So the chest exploded litteraly over our heads, sending shrapnel everywhere, luckely i survived it, but the Elf got KOed, not only that but the structurale integrity of the place was jeopardized cause since he's a Demolitionist, he adds his Sneak Attacks dices x Prof Bonus to damage he deals to structures and buildings with explosives...

Also off course destroying anytghing that was hidden in the secret compartiment he couldn't open...

After a short rest and some healing, we finaly managed to get out of there..., to be attacked by an Evil Ent...

See our Piney friend, always had the habit to plant grains wherever he could, and the day before he planted a seed next to the tree the others used to tie the rope to get out of this Hole...

When he died and was corrupted by the undead priests, the thing became sentient and Evil, and tried to kill us...

So low on Spells and HP, we had to fight that, off course sinc ehte rope was attached to it and 3 of us was using it to get out, the freaking thing just lifted us OUT of the hole and started swing us around...

Unfortunatmy i let my grip go and landed on top of the paladin, who received to the face a 6.5ft tall 240lbs in breastplate armor Tieffling...

Managed to obliterate the thing, when i scored a crit on it with a Smite...

We decided to Block the entrange of the crypt, using the left over explosives from the Kobold, cause we din't want to leave it like this(after we hauled the loot out of it, another 18.000gp worth of shit, the rest of our gold was put in the bank and we even got a Ship with a crew paid in advance for a year of service).

We then got back on the road to the nearest town, wich was still 4 days of travel away in the Mud and rain (start of the winter), got a few days of downtime to do stuff, and amoght the loot from our first Lab incursion from what was left of the Cyborg Vampire Priest, i got a nice +1 Breastplate with Blood magic infused, but i wanted to fit it to my plate armor.

So i've found a Smith that could do it, but we had to go to the Everforge for this kind of work, a lost Dwarven bastion high in the mountain, that was abbandoned years ago, we where to pay 5k for the expedition and we could keep whatever we found in the Fortress, we where like Ok why not?

So we made a WEEK long trek through the Mountains in a FREAKING BLIZZARD, before getting to a plateau full of Geysers...

And thats when you realie that Horses and Warhorses are flimsy as ****..., 19hp when its it from below by a Geyser that deals 4D6 Fire dmg..., poor beast doesn't stand a chance.

Lost 3 of our mounts that way and a Kobold/Dragonborn ambush, cause see, the place was Not THAT abbandoned, some Saclly arse moffos had invested the place...

Had to fioght out way through 2 waves of xbow men that was firing at us from an elevated position, with on each sides 2 Dracotaurs (Centaurs Kobolds) that could once per LR shoot lightening arrow at us...

120ft long Line, hit everything on the line, 8D6 lightening dmg...

We managed to kick their arses, and had to find a place to hide from view, since it was a flat land plateau with no cover, for some reason there was some misscommunication and istead of going to one of the Bastions from where the Kobolds where firing at us and take a rest there, the group staretd going forward to the main gates of the Dwarven Fort and get a rest there.

Since we Play by Posts, the speed and pace at wich we post varies, so it took me a while to realise what was happening, and we off course got into another ambush...

This one got 2 of us KOed (me and the Dwarf paladin) and brought inside by two Swolbolds( Kobolds, that would have used Arnold Swharzenneger Fitness programme and fed nothing But Wey and anabolics and became SWOLL as ****), and the others doing a tactical retreat.

I'll shorten this, cause it as been long enough.

We are brought before the Kobold boss, i try to bullshit my way out of there, at least long enough for the others to come, luckily it was long enough to count as a Short rest, so i started Blasting the ****ers and opened the gates to see the others come inside, we manage to ambush a patrol, and get ambushed by several others cause off course the have tyhe terrain advantage and this Fort has more Holes and secret doors than a block of Swiss Cheese!

The Dwarf Smith that was with us, knows the place, and even used some magic to bring one of the Swolbolds to life to help us ( we found out that he had some talent for Demonology and he summoned a Dyubuk or whatever it is that can possess a Corpse, off course we had questions and where kinda warry, but since I was the one who hired him for a job, and seeing my dea with a Scribe Demon, i could not say anything).

We then find out that deeper in the fort they are conducting some sort of ritual, involving the Everforge (wich is a ever burning elemental flame that fuels the Forge) and...a Flame Dragon!!!

A ******* FLAME DRAGON!!!!

Holy crap..., we still manage to get a long rest cause my Scribe demon kindly gave me a Tiny Hut scroll to us, then once everyone was better, except for the 2 dwarves( cause we play a somewhat Gritty system, when a character falls at 0HP and is healed back to conciousness, he gains an Exhaustion level, the Dwarves where at 4 lvls before the rest, with their restorations they where down to 2 levels, but it was still an issue...)

We divised a plan, to atytack from two places with the intel our Kobold friend managed to get while sneaking, and the Dwarf Warlock Smith found an ironwrougth Construct Guardian that he could remote pilot to fight off the Dragon...

So we buresdt in the room with 4 Xbow kovolds and 3 Edjets (elite Dragonborn Figthers) a Azer/elemental priest and off course a Flame Dragon...

It was going SOMEWHAT well for the first few turns, there where smoke and lava Mephits that got spawned out of the flowing Forge, that staretd to fill up the room with magma each turn...

But we wiped the floor with all the distractions and then tried to get hte Dragon and the priest, the Dragon did a number on us with his Breath attack...

A Fire Breath that IGNORES Fire Resistances..., as a Tiefling, i kinda took offense to this..., cause the dmg rolls he got each turn where just...And only a succesfull save could save anyone...

Now came the real issue...

See our Kobold friend,a ctually is NOT a Kobold, but a Void-Born, Dragonborn, that used Polymorph to change his appearance.

He also thus could use Void Magic (Kobold's press Deep Magic), wich is litteraly Chtulhu bullshit...

he had used it a few times, and seeing the composition of CHaotic people we where the only one who had raised objections vividely to it was the Elven Paladin, wich created some tensions between the 2 characters and we told hil to use it ONLY if neccesary, cause to be frank he saved our bacon a few times with it.

But Void magic has nefarious effects, it causes corruption, and then madness and also can have some random effects if the corruption levels are high enough...

SO first he tried to get the jump on the baddies with using and Invert Gravity AOE field, where EVERYONE suddenly was thrown at the ceilling and had to walk on the ceilling, with the flowing magma suddenly also starting to "drip" from the floor to the ceiling, see the issue is that both the player and the character are REAL CHAOTIC, after a year and a half, i still can't understand how that guy think or works, and MORE than none, he do stuff and cast spells, without reading ALL of it, or misreading it...

Yea its litteraly like giving a Bazooka to a 8yro..., cause he keeps forgetting that in D&D friendly Fire IS ON...

So there thats, Inverted Gravity field+Flowing Magma, +Invisible Dragon(cause the priest cast invisibility on it) + the Dragon's Lair Actions that he use to put a Fire Wall each turn through our lines and then his Breathing attack (DM told me after wards that he recharged the breath nearly each turns...), so we had like 3-4 saves to make PER TURN...

And if shit was not crazy enough, on his last turn before getting KOed, the Rogue, used again one of his Void powers, but it backfired and he collapsed...

But the effect took place...

ALL the Corpses and Unconcious bodies in the area, where Possesed by Chtulhu Tentacle/****** type of creatures..., wich could all cast Evard's Black tentacles...

To make it short, we din't make it...

There was like 5-6 layers of AoE's going on, the floor of the place started collapsing and the ironwrought guardian squashed the Rogue body ending the Gravity inversion, thus the KOed Paladin Dwarf was killed, he was down, got falling dmg, fell into the Magma flow and was also into the Dragon's Fire Wall...

So immidiate kill.

At this point my character and the Elf where the last one standing, i Misty stepped the **** away from where i was, took the paladin corpse out of the magma and throw it through the doors in the corridor, to be able to rez him and took the prone/restrained Cleric on my should and made a run for it.

Dm tells us " when you reach the Doors, you ear and feel like a gust of air going backwards, like something breathing In..., before been engulfed in a see of Fire"...

TPK, the Cleric who was at 4 level of exhaustion was instagibbed, due to the amount of damage been higher than his Max HP, i botched the save, was at 39HP and took 56 unresistable fire damage...

And same for the Elf...

We could still make a comeback with a lucky 20 on our death saves since we where out of any AoE's in the corridor, but...

The DM told us that while the encounter would be difficult, it was something we could manage, the Dragon was a Young ne, and he was on his last leg due to his fight with the Clockwork Guardian and the few hits we got on him, he was like 20hp from keeling over...

What ****ed us, was the Void Bullshittery from the rogue, we kindly told him that he could **** off with Void magic from now on, off course it was sarcastic, but not really...

The DM said that since the Warlock Smith was still around, he could help us, at the end of the fight he barged outof the room where he was since the Iron Guardian was wrecked before the end, and revealed his half demonci self and even summoned some lesser Devils to keep the dragon busy, before we got toasted.

But the others voted for simply doing other characters, since they din't like the Smith and din't want to own him anything.

So they will make other characters and we will start a few months later in the same world someplace else...

Except for me..., see i was under a deal with a Demon, and since i was not killed outright, something happened after the group defeat.

One of my objectives was to achieve "Ascension" (essentialy gain an ability called Devil trigger, yes like in the Devil May Cry games, that allows me to turn into an Halfdemon, essentially Tasha's Otherworldy Form, but we homebrewed something else, cause at the time TCoE was not out)

And the Scribe Devil who was working for the Hell Marquis Totenvillius (the Sage/Scientist of Hells) and the Dwarf been also a Warlock of Mammon, they used the dead carcase of the dragon, the wild Living Leyline magic that the Cleric managed to release before been Grilled AND my unconcious body to conduct a ritual, where they jammed the Dragon's still beating heart into my chest.

Now something backfired during the ritualt(thanks to the Blessing of the Brewfather apparently that the Dwarf had casted on me before to help), and instead of making me a Mindless Slave to the Hell Marquis, i managed to get away, with severe burn marks, and dead companions...(and the sole inheritor of our fortune...)

With both the Dwarf and the Devil dead.

the DM plan is to let me rejoin with the others later on, but for now i'm rolling a "dummy" character, so that they have no suspiscions.

Made a throw away character, first thouhg about doing a Ranger, but i ended up doing a Battlemaster/Scout Bounty Hunter, that actually looks fun to play, so it will kinda be sad to see him be killed, but i can always keep him on the side for another campaign.

We will start anew at lvl12, and a lot of the things we did, will have consequences on whats going around in the world.

Cause yes while you might think that what we got through was crazy and brutal, thats the kinda thing we like, High Risk, High rewards and High Action (i mean we roll our stats as 2D8, keep the highest +10...)

Pfiou, the end, for now..., sorry if it was long and full of errors, english is not my first language.

I feel a bit bad posting my setting in comparison to everyone else! Everyone else has some awesome home-brew ideas and it looks amazing. I haven't gotten to that point, yet. However..

I currently just finished running Lost Mines of Phandelver. This is my first time running a campaign. I feel like I'm a pretty decent player and I've been running some modules. As stated, my party just finished up LMoP. I've been listening to a lot of YouTube and Reddit suggestions on how to run the various antagonists throughout the campaign, such as Venomfang and The Black Spider. Currently, my party is on their way to eliminate Cryovain and possibly pick up a few quests from Dragon of Icespire Peak.  However, they've managed to establish some pretty interesting points. The area along the Triboar Trail and the High Road (I believe... That whole grasslands area) is now an official sanctioned goblin kingdom for the Cragmaws. My characters have established that relationship with the Cragmaw and have them protected by Neverwinter and have backing from the Lords Alliance in Waterdeep. Ultimately, I'm going to start tying in Tyranny of Dragons and I"m going to develop unique subclasses that are dragon influenced specifically for the campaign (Although I haven't fully figured it out yet.. I'm basing them off the PDF that came out for the ranger and monk that were dragon influenced). 
My characters are level 5 and my party consists of a Halfling bard (College of Lore, a Human Monk (way of the astral self), a Tiefling Rogue (Phantom), a wood elf ranger (gloom stalker) and finally, a Leonin Echo Knight (I know.. Super weird for the Realms but it's made things reeaaaaalllll interesting). 

I am making my setting into a rather cool-looking setting book, inspired by Thaurealin's one... but word is glitching with the columns.  Sigh.

My homebrew setting is basically a desert planet (it's a small planet. More like a dwarf planet really, but those distinctions don't exist in the world). It's very volcanically active, and the only freshwater available is from oases or along a single, great river that flows uphill until it reaches the peak of a volcano, where it turns to steam. A number of large cities have sprung up around these freshwater sources, inspired by real-world Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Most of the life on the planet is non-human, and lives underground. Under the desert sands, there are numerous large caverns similar to the Underdark, but more benign. These are filled with plants and fungi (both sentient and not) as well as a special race of elves who have adapted to their sunless environment (think good drow, with mushroom powers) All of the oases, as well as the Great River, are fueled by underground springs. The springs defy gravity, flowing in all directions and changing as they flow. The elves use them similar to how sea turtles in the Pacific ride ocean currents.

Below this lies a darker, more cramped system of caves. This is the Underdark of the Underdark, and it is evil. Elven mythology says that the elves were separated by civil war, and the two halves formed different clans, one dark and one light. While most modern elves and above-ground dwellers believe that these are just tales, there actually exist dark elves, they just stay secret and are basically a giant cult whose religious leaders communicate telepathically to each other.

Below even, I haven't made yet. I've had ideas for something like the nine hells, but with three regions, all on one layer - a field of nothingness, an icy ocean, and a poisonous swamp.

I got this cool setting idea but I got no Idea how to make it work and I’ve been used the world of Eberron. 

here it is, there where two parallel material planes and then 10 years ago, they collided. It’s still a mystery of what caused it but the effect was huge. There are passages and ways to enter the two words. When it happened, there was a massive earthquake. The main city in the setting used to be two cities when it happened. One on them was on the main land around a river. Before the cataclysm the river had dried out so the city was dying. Then when it happened, the west end of the city was risen 250 feet above ground level while on the other side, there was a city in a position just like Neverwinter. This city sunk into the earth on the coastal side, the river was about to flood the city when the stone broke and the opening the the other world appeared. Now the two cities are one. There was a planar disruption as well, there are plane touched people and people who lived in the ethereal plane entering the world. That’s all I got, if you like this idea feel free to steal it.  

My world is Tor-eal, a far-future version of Toril that spiraled out of control after the Devils won the Blood War, causing the Catastrophe.

I have stolen aspects from a lot of D&D settings, but most of it is my own invention. Orcs and Goblins are neutral races in my world, like in Eberron. There are powerful magic items created by the gods before they died, which are basically just homebrew Vestiges of Divergence. There are surface-living, nocturnal drow, similar to Wildemount. There are major threats to the multiverse that are currently locked away/distracted, like on Eberron, Dragonlance, Exandria, or Toril (TBH, this is such a common trope that it's safe to say I'm not stealing it from anyone, I'm just using a common aspect of worlds and plots that works well). There's modern "technology", similar in a strange way to Eberron's. There is magic that can drain the world around them, like on Dark Sun. There are unanswerable secrets that the DM will have to make up the answers for, like on Eberron. There's a race of psionic people at that dislike most spellcasters, also like on Dark Sun. However, most of this was just taking inspiration from cool aspects of some of my favorite worlds, with the vast majority of parts of this world being wholly and entirely unique.

As simply as I can put it, this is what happened:

1. Devils somehow won the Blood War (the reason or trigger for this is unknown, or at least is not being told).
2. The Devils conquer the Lower Planes and start attacking the Upper Planes. 
3. The Celestials of the Upper Planes and almost all of the deities that live in the Inner Planes travel to the Material Plane. 
4. There is a short, but absolutely devastating battle between the Celestials and Devils on the Material Plane. The battle ends with 99% of the gods that aren't allies of the Devils sacrificing themselves to keep the Devils out of the Inner Planes, permanently banning travel or communication directly to or from the Outer Planes, Astral Plane, Sigil, or any other crystal sphere on the Material Plane. 
5. 1000 years pass and the worlds of Realmspace and Inner Planes change drastically, with new races created and old ones changing and evolving. 

Let's quickly cover the 4 main races that exist in D&D worlds:

Dwarves:

• Duergar conquered the Underdark and have a whole race of formerly drow (Dhaer) and Derro under their control, trying to take over the surface world and find a way to return the Devils to the Inner Planes. 
• Mountain Dwarves build giant, metallic fortresses on the sides of mountains that have giant wheels. This allows them to escape any danger by rolling down the side of the mountain and moving their stronghold to a new, safe location to craft items. Another group of Mountain Dwarves live on Lantan, as master artisans and crafters there. 
• Hill Dwarves formed an agreement with the angels that they would provide the Celestials with armor and weaponry if the angels would protect their clans from Duergar and other threats. Over the course of hundreds of years, the divine nature blended with the Dwarves, through interbreeding and just living close to one another, turning Hill Dwarves into Forge Dwarves, a celestial subrace of the stoutfolk. 

Elves: 

• Wood Elves were driven out of the High Forest and surrounding forests by the Minotaurs, who conquered the forest and founded a minotaur nation. The Wood Elves were banished to the frozen tundra of the north, having to quickly adapt to their new surroundings. They became Arctic Elves, with pale white skin and silvery hair, who ride atop snowy owlbears and live in igloo fortresses. 
• The High Elves founded the world-wide faction called the Keepers, building settlements of scholars and mages around the largest libraries of the world, being the record keepers, history professors, and scribes of the world. They try to make sure the world remembers the events that proceeded the Catastrophe to make sure that nothing like the Catastrophe occurs again. They no longer practice arcane magic, and now are better at perceiving and finding, as their race has spent hundreds of years searching through the huge libraries of their faction to discover lost secrets and learn the history of the world. 
• Now a split subrace, the Drow lost their deities when the Devils won the Blood War. The Drow that stayed in the Underdark were captured and enslaved by the Duergar, becoming the monstrous and twisted Dhaer whose souls are imprisoned by the Duergar, while the ones on the surface world began to worship the stars, being known as the Surdrae. 
• Sea Elves were forced out of the ocean by the Aboleths, settling in the Sea of Fallen Stars, building an empire under the sea. 

Halflings: 

• Lightfoot Halflings started a religion devoted to the Sun, wearing robes made of golden silk, with dome-shaped churches made of marble, lined with gold, with stained-glass windows that look like the sun. The religion is called "The Day Walkers", and they have Light Domain Clerics, Oath of Devotion Paladins, Sun Soul Monks, and Divine Soul Sorcerers. 
• Stout Halflings lived in the same communities as Rock Gnomes and the two races eventually merged into a new race called the Stoutlings. 
• Ghostwise Halflings now are a part of the Sheiohn Foulen, training in psionics to be Astral Self Monks, Psychic Warrior Fighters, Soul Knife Rogues, and Aberrant Mind Sorcerers. 

Humans stayed the same. 

Dragonborn split into two subraces, the Othrilers and Hearthdrak:

• The Othrilers hate all otherworldly beings and powerful entities, focusing on using brute strength and incapacitating and abjuration magic to both stop these beings from being able to act while protecting themselves and others from these creatures. 
• Hearthdrak are servants of the Draconic Empire, replacing their dragon breath with a frightening aura. They often are the warlords and generals of the armies of the Draconic Empire. 

Gnomes: 

• Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin) fled to the surface as the Duergar began to conquer the Underdark. The largest settlement of Svirfneblin was in Silverymoon (now known as Sylvarin), where they gained the nickname of "Surfneblin", due to them now dwelling on the surface world. Due to their natural power over the powers of illusion, they were accepted with open arms into the city, using their illusion magic to hide the cities of Sylvarin from above to protect them from enemies. 
• The Forest Gnomes were forced out of the forests they once called their home by the Minotaurs, but did not resist this change and left peacefully to the Feywild, where they currently dwell, not interacting with most of the other races. 
• The subrace formerly known as Rock Gnomes has now divided in two, one merging with the Stout Halflings to become the Stoutlings, and the other living on Lantan, becoming a race of expert crafters and inventors. These gnomes are now called Lantanean Gnomes, and are even better at crafting than all other gnomes. 

Tieflings: The infernal race that was formerly known as Tieflings has now effectively gone extinct, as the Great Sacrifice of the Gods banished all devils and infernal blood from the Inner Planes, magically erasing the fiendish powers that Tieflings had due to this event. During this event, the former tieflings did not lose their tail, skin color, or horns, but they did lose their resistance to fire and fiendish magic. These tieflings became known as "Vacant Tieflings", as the devilish magic that once infused their body no longer remained. 

Vacant Tieflings now are mostly unheard of, with the distinct features of the race being lost through mating with other races over the course of a millennia. Many of the Vacant Tieflings chose to unite their souls with the force known as the Coualescence, which is the merged souls of a host of couatls. These Tieflings ceased to be Vacant and became known as the Couatled Tieflings, gaining shimmering scales that cover their legs and horns, with a coatl-like tail. There are two types of Couatled Tieflings, the Shimmerscaled and Brightwings. The Shimmerscale are the most common type and can use their divine essence to cast radiant spells, while the Brightwings have rainbow-colored coatl wings. There are also Angelic Tieflings, Elemental Tieflings, Shadow Tieflings, Seelie and Unseelie Tieflings, and Aberrant Tieflings. 

The goblinoids of Tor-eal ceased to be evil and began to worship the world's source of magic, which they called the Yikare. Their worship of it eventually granted it divinity and eventually sentience, with their society revolving around the dogma of the Yikkan Contingent. 

Both Half-Orcs and Half-Elves didn't change, and either chose to be members of their parent races' cultures or headed out on their own. 

Other main races of the Tor-eal are Orcs, Gnolls, Felshen, Golmeng, Lizardfolk, Ecubi, and Kobolds, but there are many, many, many other races less common races, most living on different planes of existence or planets. Here are some of the other races, with a very short description:

That's a simple overview of my world. The link for its thread is provided above if you want to learn more. 

So cool

The world of rollendell is based around the kingdom of rollendell a nation that controls the plains of Mara. It advances mage tech as best it can.

It’s main rival is the Volga a tribe of dragon born that control that river of it’s name. They are a trade focused nation and block settlers from reaching the western plains. Sand land controlled the western plains until it got overran by a lich.

The north border of the plains are the spine mountains in which dwarf stronghold are. Ironforge is the largest of them however a rock gnome called Dr Jekyll who runs a large weapons company has gained more power then the council that’s supposed to run the city. Beyond the mountains there is a frozen tundra in which lives the town of helscape. A refuge for tiflings.

On the east of the plains lies a forest of elfs who ambition to take the plains for them selfs have regular been stopped by the fortress city of rein. Known as the city of knights it’s strict codes of honor and discipline have made it wary of new tech. In the contested area the family of nightflower half elfs that have carved out territory and they stay neutral in the area.

The land has many legends but none surpass the dawn martyr who defeated armies of undead and United the living nations against the horde. He and a small team went north to defeat the powerful lich who created the Everwinter a storm of necromancy and cold that covered the Continent. He would never return home but the blizzard lifted.

Sounds great!  Don't fret over using modules instead of homebrew if you make it your own as you are clearly doing.

I've been working on a campaign I call "The Wren Stones" because it takes place in a "lost" kingdom being slowly hacked out of a wilderness bounded by magic stone markers with the kingdom's icon--a tiny crowned bird--incised on them.  (Inspired by "the king of birds" fable.)  I have one major town, very boom-town-ish and a half a dozen other features but mostly lots and lots of room for sandboxing.  It was deliberately designed to be ranger friendly.  I envision a lot isolated communities, lots of fey and a lot of "empire building" by NPC factions.  To keep the magic quotient up, I'm home-brewing a whole bunch of mid-level fey by reskinning various extraplanar beings as fey.

my partys campaign takes place on a set of islands

Not my campaign, but there's a 5e campaign I watch where I've noticed something uncommon:

The only High-Elves encountered so far (a PC and the PC's NPC older brother) are extremely barbaric - often covered head-to-toe with the blood of their enemies. The only Half-Orc encountered so far is rather elegant and kind of a flirt for muscle-y guys. The setting has a famous Orc playwright named Bill the Spearshaker.

Apparently in the campaign setting, none of that is unusual as these things are referenced as if that's just the way things have always been, but for us who aren't used to such a setting, it almost seems backwards with the Orc and Elf stereotypes swapped (while keeping the stereotypical names - barbaric-sounding Orc names and elegant-sounding Elf names).

I'm working on a fairly ambitious setting which features a colossal salt plains, the Wooden Mountain (which may turn out to be a giant ent, I've not fleshed that bit out yet), a lost kingdom, a mountain called "the cradle of the moon" which is the direct result of a mad artificer trying to blow up the moon and shooting through the mountain to do so (he failed). There's a lot of other bits which I'm still working on!