Hello! I’m looking to start DMing a new campaign based on the book The Magician’s Nephew from Narnia, in which there’s a land between worlds in which people can jump into different worlds. The exciting part, and the complicated part, of this is trying to create many distinct worlds to explore. So I want to create worlds based on existing science fiction and fantasy works, with the corresponding lore, politics, and races. Does anyone know a good source for finding succinct lore docs and prebuilt media inspired races? I want to blend a mix of traditional high fantasy worlds like the lord of the rings or the standard DND setting with historical worlds, modern low-fantasy settings, and classic sci-fi worlds like Star Trek worlds (I know there is already a Star Wars DND system and I’ll likely incorporate some of that but I’d love to add trek as well, and the only guide I’ve found doesn’t seem to be balanced for 5e), Dune, Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, and various others (I would love suggestions of great worlds to include!). I would also be open to creating my own homebrew races, but I’m not super confident on balancing races for 5e, so I’d appreciate any guides or resources anyone has about creating balanced character races.
So tldr, I’m looking for any of these tips:
- Suggestions of scifi/fantasy/dystopian/any worlds you think would be cool to add to a mixed-world campaign
- Information on creating balanced player races for 5e
- Resources for existing homebrews/premade races or monsters or settings based on media, or original settings anyone has created
- Any other suggestions you may have on how to build out these worlds!
Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!
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How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in ’t!
That sounds like so much fun! I’ve been wanting to DM a Narnia themed campaign for quite a while. I don’t have too much in terms of suggestions (although I would like to say an Avatar: The Last Airbender world could be pretty fun). I will say that you could consider that the main feature of the custom lineage “race” is just a feat (same with v. Humans), so perhaps just compare the balance of the features you give to a custom race with various feats. (Although I will admit feats vary wildly in terms of balance)
For worlds to visit, may I recommend the planet Mercury as envisioned in The Worm Ouroborous. E. R. Eddison is the author. You might also try the unnamed colony founded by the Star of India in Lord of Light. That's Roger Zelazney. Or, if you're feeling sadistic, Brakebills from The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
As for balancing custom races... how much time do you have? Balance can mean a couple of different things. Balance can be the way your choices change the math of the game. Balance can be the role the race serves in the story or the world you've created. Balance can be in how things work at your table. Balance can also be a mix of any of those qualities. But here's an example from my own experience. I've created a conworld, and in that comworld, I need a few things which aren't well represented in 5e's basic or extended rules. A central conflict of the setting is between the giants who were here before humans and human refugees from future earth. Now long before the PCs stories begin, the remaining giants have used magic to make themselves deathless chthonic abominations. In that state, they've had functionally infinite time to invent curses to plague the lives of characters living in this world. One such curse is represented in half-giants who, in the course of their lives, must self-destruct spectacularly creating ruin in their wakes.
I've introduced this element into the setting as a way to expand the space for storytelling. D&D is only the one story--the one about the farm boy's rise from rags to riches. If you look at some of the source material, you'll see that not all hero stories end well. Hercules is a great example. And since some of my favorite stories are tragedies, I wanted to find a way for this storytelling game to tell those stories. But that's a gameplay problem, because players are totally the type of people who will choose the tragic option and then expect there to be a way for things to work out. Which brings me to the first step in balancing the half-giant lineage: making it clear to players that the choice entails catastrophe by degrees. I gave the race a quality called Doomed, the text of which explains that half-giant's lives always end earlier than their human counterparts. I also restricted the choice of lineage to a certain background, which I called Cursed just to make the point extra clear.
At this point, you might ask, "why would any player choose those kinds of limits?" Well, it's because those are the kinds of limits that justify commensurately awesome benefits. So half-giants have another feature called Hysterical Brawn. By spending a bonus action or a reaction when forced to make a strength or constitution saving throw, a half-giant enters a rage which lasts a minute, gives advantage on strength and constitution saves, and sets the characters strength to 30. The action and the time limit are balance components that are shared by features with similar effects, and so they serve to offset the routine benefit of advantage. In a broader analysis those balance components are not quite on par with a unique ability to surpass the bounds of bounded accuracy, which is why it was important for the lineage to create short lived characters. How short lived is a balance question that the DM determines by how they enforce the parameter of the curse. More on that in a moment.
To further balance against class features, like rage or paladin capstones, which already share the same restrictions, half-giants also gain a level of exhaustion at the end of their rages. Exhaustion is one of those conditions that has different balance effects at different tables. If players get a long rest between every fight, exhaustion is barely a concern in terms of balance. However, the longer the adventuring day, the more it can have an effect. Put the other way around, this is a penalty that's as bad as the DM feels like making it. Additionally, the curse this lineage represents is meant to be progressive. I've been having the player in my current game roll DC 15 wisdom saves every time he makes use of Hysterical Brawn. Failures will add trouble, starting with an increase in the maximum value for strength and a decrease in the maximum value for wisdom, progressing to a chance of berserking while under the effects of the rage, and culminating in an inability to control when the rage activates. By that point the character will be on their way out. Yet the rapidity with which the changes accumulate is something a DM decides.
So I've balanced an ability to unbalance the math with a limit to the lifespan of the character and penalties which can become worse if the PCs are steamrolling the challenges I've set up. So far it seems to be working. I'm not progressing the curse especially quickly because of a combination of good dice luck and the player having an interesting character who's adding to the fun of the table. Already we've had some awesome game moments, like the time the character tore an adamantine door off its hinges. He was stopped by a wall of force--although in the future I'd consider a devil's bargain where he might be able to break one if he's willing to automatically fail the save against trouble. But hopefully I've made the point that balance is not a monolithic concept. The word hides complexity, and you'll get a better answer by spitballing some of the specific cases you can imagine.
It never hurts to go with fantasy classics that inspired early Dungeons & Dragons: Vance's Dying Earth series, Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné and Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. For sci-fi, there's all kinds to choose from, especially if you want crashed spaceships, mutants and the like. Whose to say an Ark Angel-class Colony Fortress from Robotech (with funky aliens from that setting like the "Magicians" of Peryton, whose magic is probably some kind of advanced nanotechnology) and/or a Megaroad-class Colony Ship SDF Macross didn't crash on your world? Heck, look at classic RPGs like Metamorphosis Alpha (which had its origin in D&D), Star Frontiers (Dralasites!) or Traveller.
Radiant citadel just came out and has lots of places you could use as different worlds. Or at least seeds of different worlds. And there’s always the existing D&D worlds, FR, eberron, oerth, krynn, mystara ravinca, theros, wildemount, ravenloft, etc.
Or give it a few weeks and see what spelljammer has going on.
And as I’d suggest with any homebrew campaign. Don’t make all of it right away. The players will not see all of them at once, and may not even visit some of the ones you make, meaning your effort was wasted. So don’t spend time on something until you know it will be used in game. This is normal advice for someone trying to homebrew a single campaign world. It goes triple for someone trying to homebrew an entire multiverse.
As for races, Tasha’s has rules for custom lineages, making new races with those is pretty easy. Or just limit your players to the PHB races. Then when they go to theros and meet a leonin, or ravinca and meet a simic, it will give that alien vibe you’re going for.
I guess, in short, most of the work on this setting stuff is already done. You might be better off using what’s out there, and focusing on developing your plot and NPCs, rather than places.
I have a city that is loosely modeled on Red London from "A Darker Shade of Magic" by V. E. Schwab, and another sort of modeled on Ankh-Morpork by Terry Pratchett.
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Hello! I’m looking to start DMing a new campaign based on the book The Magician’s Nephew from Narnia, in which there’s a land between worlds in which people can jump into different worlds. The exciting part, and the complicated part, of this is trying to create many distinct worlds to explore. So I want to create worlds based on existing science fiction and fantasy works, with the corresponding lore, politics, and races. Does anyone know a good source for finding succinct lore docs and prebuilt media inspired races? I want to blend a mix of traditional high fantasy worlds like the lord of the rings or the standard DND setting with historical worlds, modern low-fantasy settings, and classic sci-fi worlds like Star Trek worlds (I know there is already a Star Wars DND system and I’ll likely incorporate some of that but I’d love to add trek as well, and the only guide I’ve found doesn’t seem to be balanced for 5e), Dune, Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, and various others (I would love suggestions of great worlds to include!). I would also be open to creating my own homebrew races, but I’m not super confident on balancing races for 5e, so I’d appreciate any guides or resources anyone has about creating balanced character races.
So tldr, I’m looking for any of these tips:
- Suggestions of scifi/fantasy/dystopian/any worlds you think would be cool to add to a mixed-world campaign
- Information on creating balanced player races for 5e
- Resources for existing homebrews/premade races or monsters or settings based on media, or original settings anyone has created
- Any other suggestions you may have on how to build out these worlds!
Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!
How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in ’t!
That sounds like so much fun! I’ve been wanting to DM a Narnia themed campaign for quite a while. I don’t have too much in terms of suggestions (although I would like to say an Avatar: The Last Airbender world could be pretty fun). I will say that you could consider that the main feature of the custom lineage “race” is just a feat (same with v. Humans), so perhaps just compare the balance of the features you give to a custom race with various feats. (Although I will admit feats vary wildly in terms of balance)
Best of luck with your campaign though!
What am I supposed to do with a signature?
Egg
Dune. Always Dune.
Larklight.
Look at some Escher and Dali art for inspiration as well.
H.G. Wells’ The Time Traveler
This is ItsNotAChest’s alternate, so no some random psychopath hasn’t stolen their storylines/posts. Or maybe I did. Who knows…
I am what happens when you write character concepts on a spice high
#ForeverAlone
#ForeverDM
1984
A Wrinkle in Time
The Mapmaker’s Trilogy
Fever Crumb
The Search For Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi (Defo Reccoment)
Six of Crows
This is ItsNotAChest’s alternate, so no some random psychopath hasn’t stolen their storylines/posts. Or maybe I did. Who knows…
I am what happens when you write character concepts on a spice high
#ForeverAlone
#ForeverDM
Leviathan
This is ItsNotAChest’s alternate, so no some random psychopath hasn’t stolen their storylines/posts. Or maybe I did. Who knows…
I am what happens when you write character concepts on a spice high
#ForeverAlone
#ForeverDM
For worlds to visit, may I recommend the planet Mercury as envisioned in The Worm Ouroborous. E. R. Eddison is the author. You might also try the unnamed colony founded by the Star of India in Lord of Light. That's Roger Zelazney. Or, if you're feeling sadistic, Brakebills from The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
As for balancing custom races... how much time do you have? Balance can mean a couple of different things. Balance can be the way your choices change the math of the game. Balance can be the role the race serves in the story or the world you've created. Balance can be in how things work at your table. Balance can also be a mix of any of those qualities. But here's an example from my own experience. I've created a conworld, and in that comworld, I need a few things which aren't well represented in 5e's basic or extended rules. A central conflict of the setting is between the giants who were here before humans and human refugees from future earth. Now long before the PCs stories begin, the remaining giants have used magic to make themselves deathless chthonic abominations. In that state, they've had functionally infinite time to invent curses to plague the lives of characters living in this world. One such curse is represented in half-giants who, in the course of their lives, must self-destruct spectacularly creating ruin in their wakes.
I've introduced this element into the setting as a way to expand the space for storytelling. D&D is only the one story--the one about the farm boy's rise from rags to riches. If you look at some of the source material, you'll see that not all hero stories end well. Hercules is a great example. And since some of my favorite stories are tragedies, I wanted to find a way for this storytelling game to tell those stories. But that's a gameplay problem, because players are totally the type of people who will choose the tragic option and then expect there to be a way for things to work out. Which brings me to the first step in balancing the half-giant lineage: making it clear to players that the choice entails catastrophe by degrees. I gave the race a quality called Doomed, the text of which explains that half-giant's lives always end earlier than their human counterparts. I also restricted the choice of lineage to a certain background, which I called Cursed just to make the point extra clear.
At this point, you might ask, "why would any player choose those kinds of limits?" Well, it's because those are the kinds of limits that justify commensurately awesome benefits. So half-giants have another feature called Hysterical Brawn. By spending a bonus action or a reaction when forced to make a strength or constitution saving throw, a half-giant enters a rage which lasts a minute, gives advantage on strength and constitution saves, and sets the characters strength to 30. The action and the time limit are balance components that are shared by features with similar effects, and so they serve to offset the routine benefit of advantage. In a broader analysis those balance components are not quite on par with a unique ability to surpass the bounds of bounded accuracy, which is why it was important for the lineage to create short lived characters. How short lived is a balance question that the DM determines by how they enforce the parameter of the curse. More on that in a moment.
To further balance against class features, like rage or paladin capstones, which already share the same restrictions, half-giants also gain a level of exhaustion at the end of their rages. Exhaustion is one of those conditions that has different balance effects at different tables. If players get a long rest between every fight, exhaustion is barely a concern in terms of balance. However, the longer the adventuring day, the more it can have an effect. Put the other way around, this is a penalty that's as bad as the DM feels like making it. Additionally, the curse this lineage represents is meant to be progressive. I've been having the player in my current game roll DC 15 wisdom saves every time he makes use of Hysterical Brawn. Failures will add trouble, starting with an increase in the maximum value for strength and a decrease in the maximum value for wisdom, progressing to a chance of berserking while under the effects of the rage, and culminating in an inability to control when the rage activates. By that point the character will be on their way out. Yet the rapidity with which the changes accumulate is something a DM decides.
So I've balanced an ability to unbalance the math with a limit to the lifespan of the character and penalties which can become worse if the PCs are steamrolling the challenges I've set up. So far it seems to be working. I'm not progressing the curse especially quickly because of a combination of good dice luck and the player having an interesting character who's adding to the fun of the table. Already we've had some awesome game moments, like the time the character tore an adamantine door off its hinges. He was stopped by a wall of force--although in the future I'd consider a devil's bargain where he might be able to break one if he's willing to automatically fail the save against trouble. But hopefully I've made the point that balance is not a monolithic concept. The word hides complexity, and you'll get a better answer by spitballing some of the specific cases you can imagine.
It never hurts to go with fantasy classics that inspired early Dungeons & Dragons: Vance's Dying Earth series, Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné and Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. For sci-fi, there's all kinds to choose from, especially if you want crashed spaceships, mutants and the like. Whose to say an Ark Angel-class Colony Fortress from Robotech (with funky aliens from that setting like the "Magicians" of Peryton, whose magic is probably some kind of advanced nanotechnology) and/or a Megaroad-class Colony Ship SDF Macross didn't crash on your world? Heck, look at classic RPGs like Metamorphosis Alpha (which had its origin in D&D), Star Frontiers (Dralasites!) or Traveller.
Radiant citadel just came out and has lots of places you could use as different worlds. Or at least seeds of different worlds.
And there’s always the existing D&D worlds, FR, eberron, oerth, krynn, mystara ravinca, theros, wildemount, ravenloft, etc.
Or give it a few weeks and see what spelljammer has going on.
And as I’d suggest with any homebrew campaign. Don’t make all of it right away. The players will not see all of them at once, and may not even visit some of the ones you make, meaning your effort was wasted. So don’t spend time on something until you know it will be used in game. This is normal advice for someone trying to homebrew a single campaign world. It goes triple for someone trying to homebrew an entire multiverse.
As for races, Tasha’s has rules for custom lineages, making new races with those is pretty easy. Or just limit your players to the PHB races. Then when they go to theros and meet a leonin, or ravinca and meet a simic, it will give that alien vibe you’re going for.
I guess, in short, most of the work on this setting stuff is already done. You might be better off using what’s out there, and focusing on developing your plot and NPCs, rather than places.
One source I've been meaning to work with is the Monstress series of comics by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. I highly HIGHLY recommend them.
I have a city that is loosely modeled on Red London from "A Darker Shade of Magic" by V. E. Schwab, and another sort of modeled on Ankh-Morpork by Terry Pratchett.