It's still a work on progress but here goes my first attempts at this "epic adventure setting":
As new adventurers your party is gathered on promises of some easy money and a little bit of experience. A coveted book, The Book of Places, has been discovered by an enclave of Wizards. The usefulness of the book is that it accurately and very thoroughly describes real places on the material plane, giving whoever reads from it enough description to make a rather successful journey to those places (using the rules of teleportation). The places were recorded down through the ages by many a powerful wizard and cleric. Different languages, and races, different alignments. If the players get a chance to look at the book it is clearly ancient, the parchment re-stretched many times, the spine rebound many times. Admittedly the book has no continuity or chronological order to it.
After much research, buried deep within the tome, one such place intrigues this enclave the most and unbeknownst to the party of adventurers, this isn't their first attempt to access that place. It's tricky; because when a teleportation to a description is false it may simply mishap the traveler to death, or land them in a completely unrelated but similarly described place. Needless to say exploration is expensive and the concerns of the enclave isn't for the strength of a party that maybe is getting mangled by the teleport, their concern is to do it until despite impossible odds, it succeeds.
The place described is thought to be of the First World. The world created by Bahamut and Tiamat before it was sundered.
The party having agreed to an adventure, but not fully understanding what's at stake, is teleported to their destination at level 1, they know the description of the place, they must role per the teleport description rules (might want some extra character sheets on hand), and if this means the party is split up then they better remember the description of the place where they can all intuitively meet if separated. This separation should result in some roleplay to get back to the meeting places where each of the characters can interact with that location and get some clues to the world they've come to. They, being level 1, would most likely need to dodge the CR9s that casually roam the place. The giant lions, the giant ox, the hill giants themselves. A band of Dragonborn sorcerers; or the shadow of a large (adult) dragon sweeping across the meadows. As will be explained later there is a generally rigid caste system and unless a player is specifically a dragonborn or dragonkin then if met by such humanoids they will be treated as little more than abject slaves. The best outcome for all party members will be to lay low and make it to other party members before starting their first adventure.
Thus the party member passes through the portal, probably unawares of the nuance of the danger they put themselves in as none of them are 7th level casters. If a player decides to inquire about these dangers then they need to do some dice roles and the wizards will lie or obfuscate anyway. Arguably only a player familiar with the rules book should know the dangers and not the actual level 1 characters themselves. Even a level 1 wizard should only have general knowledge of the dangers of teleportation through their schooling but should be guiled into believing its generally safe because higher level and experienced wizards are doing the spell. Lastly; any attempt to determine the true intentions of the enclave or any information they are hiding from the party will be met with higher perception checks and spells that are obfuscating all this from the party.
The party then find themselves on a foreign world. They feel heavier, noticeably but not by much (because this world is slightly larger and has more gravity than the world they were coming from).
In the sky, if they aren't finding themselves in a forest or some other covered location, is filled with a ring of a shattered moon. If the sun is setting the stars are foreign and brighter, a nebula lights the night like another moon, and the galaxy is vivid and rich in color rather than muted by the interstellar dust cloud as we are on Earth.
Though they may not think it; this is the First World. Their instructions were to teleport back to the place they know using some magic provided to them, but the ability to do so would have been expensive for the enclave and so the enclave decided instead to just go for a ruse. They figured sending a bunch of level 1 party members through the other side would pay off years later when some of them learn how to teleport and return to a familiar place on their own world. They are in it for the long game.
The First World was not actually destroyed as myth suggested. Instead, it is ruled over, generally speaking, by Tiamat. And the other worlds of the material plane are left to Bahamut. Where Bahamut has an affinity for cultivating and developing other humanoids and where dragons are diminished or spread out across many worlds, and where dragons are challenged by many dangers; this world is relatively unchallenged.
Chromatic dragons have made themselves the supreme rulers, metallic dragons are generally "evil" in alignment, and gem dragons stay out of the Chromatic's way.
Where ancient dragons might have ruled over a radius of 3,000 miles on the other worlds, here they maybe only rule over a country 1,000 miles or 500 miles across.
But; the First World is not ruled by dragons unopposed. Giants are still plentiful here, they use their observatory of thunder as a sort of super weapon to keep an uneasy cold war from going hot with the dragons.
Dragons are born in the worlds of the material plane normally, through sexual reproduction, but here; when a dragon dies in the other worlds an egg is spawned in a respective biome of the First World. Though dragons maybe still reproduce here the primary method of populating the first world seems to be one of death in the other worlds and rebirth in the First World.
Thought Tiamat is generally regarded as an evil destroyer, in this campaign she is seen more as a cruel ruler. Societies have sprung up to the ancient dragons and the greatwyrms likings, dragonborn and dragonkin are favored over all others. There's many of the other races as well that have worked their way here through accident, happenstance and naturally opening and closing pathways.
Dragons in the other worlds either don't fully understand the First World still remains, or all of them successfully take their beliefs to their deaths without ever convincing anyone of the truth.
The adventures that take place here will put the party members into a survival mode. They suddenly find themselves in a world where humans and elves are less than 2nd class citizens. You'd be lucky to be treated as a slave in a Red Dragon's territory if you were even a red-colored dragonborn. While other dragons' territories may be more benevolent to such non-dragon humanoids; it isn't by much. This is still the world of Dragons and of Giants.
The real "2nd class" citizen of this world, in a hard-fought peace that frequently erupts into petty wars, is the race of Giants.
Given the fact that dragons lay claim over all humanoids, the Giants have built a society unto themselves. While in the other worlds Giants seek remains of their fallen empires; this apparently ruined and barely surviving society on the First World would rival if not be the envy of Giant empires in the other worlds. These Giants are more devoutly religious as their survival depends on their gods and goddesses. They cultivate the world tree which isn't a sapling anymore and if seen from some vantage points it is quite large over the horizon. But most importantly they oppose humanoids.
This leads to animosity right away between the party members and Giants, even though as the adventures progress the Giants should be their natural allies. It's not so much that dragons are their enemies as it is the fact that the dragons are too accustomed to unrivaled power in the First World. The only powers that rival them here are the giants and their dinosaur pets; and the elementals the giants seek to bring into the world.
The party can choose to become more dracophile and serve the tyranny, but at a great cost to autonomy and the adoption of a rigid societal structure. While humanoid civilizations may be quite different across the First World, dragon-culture is quite homogenous and so the civilizations share some characteristic expectations by their dragon overlords.
If the party chooses a more giagantophile path then they find themselves opposing the dragon tyranny and become more aligned with the forces who seek to be freed of the dragons.
I have been thinking of many adventures that can be met in such a world, but for now this is just worldbuilding at the highest level. It is meant to be a level 1-20 adventure where players will progress through chapters to an ever climactic ending. Eventually the players may find other surviving adventurers who have sought means of teleportation back to where they came from, back to the enclave, but haven't achieved it yet. This furthers the understanding of the enclave's scheme. But as the adventurers get closer to also being able to teleport back, after many adventurers where maybe the players try to play both sides as the dragon-giant war grows from cold to ever hotter, the realization that the rediscovery of the First World could undo the tenuous peace that Tiamat and Bahamut have maintained all these eons, if you could call it a peace, creates a moral quandary for the party.
Should they go back and exact revenge or tell the enclave the existence of the First World? Or should they continue their adventures and make this their new home?
Notes: Tiamat imprisoned in Avernus rules the First World through proxy of the Chromatic Dragons and a tenuous peace with the Giants. I think it's important for the First World to be ruled by the Chromatics and not by Bahamut; to give reason for Bahamut to wander the other worlds of the material planes and to encourage the Dragons there. The First World is threatened in many ways; most notably by the Giants invading should they ever learn of its continued existence. The reason the First World has been kept hidden so long is that all out war across the material planes involving many powerful Dragons and many Giants would be hugely destructive. Bahamut would not wish it; and has worked with Annam the god of Giants and Tiamat to keep the peace.
Reserved for notable dragons, giants or characters as I think of them.
Aranondrax's Veterans - based on Half-Red Dragon Veterans which can be found in the monster manual, I am thinking of building them a little differently. Because the Dragon they serve would be an ancient (who himself serves a legendary as part of a feudal system); the Red Dragon Aranondrax has outfitted his humanoid troops with the finest magical gear.
Defender Longsword +3 (which can be redistributed as +x AC if give up bonus action) ; a regular short sword and legendary plate armor +3 as well as a Ring of Protection (+1AC and saving throws). Instead maybe a ring of spell storing recharged by dedicated spell casters.
This should give the Veterans an AC of 22 + an additional +3 if the Veterans think it prudent.
Elemental Hunters - an idea for some elemental ring wearing soldiers that serve the Dragons.
It's still a work on progress but here goes my first attempts at this "epic adventure setting":
As new adventurers your party is gathered on promises of some easy money and a little bit of experience. A coveted book, The Book of Places, has been discovered by an enclave of Wizards. The usefulness of the book is that it accurately and very thoroughly describes real places on the material plane, giving whoever reads from it enough description to make a rather successful journey to those places (using the rules of teleportation). The places were recorded down through the ages by many a powerful wizard and cleric. Different languages, and races, different alignments. If the players get a chance to look at the book it is clearly ancient, the parchment re-stretched many times, the spine rebound many times. Admittedly the book has no continuity or chronological order to it.
After much research, buried deep within the tome, one such place intrigues this enclave the most and unbeknownst to the party of adventurers, this isn't their first attempt to access that place. It's tricky; because when a teleportation to a description is false it may simply mishap the traveler to death, or land them in a completely unrelated but similarly described place. Needless to say exploration is expensive and the concerns of the enclave isn't for the strength of a party that maybe is getting mangled by the teleport, their concern is to do it until despite impossible odds, it succeeds.
The place described is thought to be of the First World. The world created by Bahamut and Tiamat before it was sundered.
The party having agreed to an adventure, but not fully understanding what's at stake, is teleported to their destination at level 1, they know the description of the place, they must role per the teleport description rules (might want some extra character sheets on hand), and if this means the party is split up then they better remember the description of the place where they can all intuitively meet if separated. This separation should result in some roleplay to get back to the meeting places where each of the characters can interact with that location and get some clues to the world they've come to. They, being level 1, would most likely need to dodge the CR9s that casually roam the place. The giant lions, the giant ox, the hill giants themselves. A band of Dragonborn sorcerers; or the shadow of a large (adult) dragon sweeping across the meadows. As will be explained later there is a generally rigid caste system and unless a player is specifically a dragonborn or dragonkin then if met by such humanoids they will be treated as little more than abject slaves. The best outcome for all party members will be to lay low and make it to other party members before starting their first adventure.
Thus the party member passes through the portal, probably unawares of the nuance of the danger they put themselves in as none of them are 7th level casters. If a player decides to inquire about these dangers then they need to do some dice roles and the wizards will lie or obfuscate anyway. Arguably only a player familiar with the rules book should know the dangers and not the actual level 1 characters themselves. Even a level 1 wizard should only have general knowledge of the dangers of teleportation through their schooling but should be guiled into believing its generally safe because higher level and experienced wizards are doing the spell. Lastly; any attempt to determine the true intentions of the enclave or any information they are hiding from the party will be met with higher perception checks and spells that are obfuscating all this from the party.
The party then find themselves on a foreign world. They feel heavier, noticeably but not by much (because this world is slightly larger and has more gravity than the world they were coming from).
In the sky, if they aren't finding themselves in a forest or some other covered location, is filled with a ring of a shattered moon. If the sun is setting the stars are foreign and brighter, a nebula lights the night like another moon, and the galaxy is vivid and rich in color rather than muted by the interstellar dust cloud as we are on Earth.
Though they may not think it; this is the First World. Their instructions were to teleport back to the place they know using some magic provided to them, but the ability to do so would have been expensive for the enclave and so the enclave decided instead to just go for a ruse. They figured sending a bunch of level 1 party members through the other side would pay off years later when some of them learn how to teleport and return to a familiar place on their own world. They are in it for the long game.
The First World was not actually destroyed as myth suggested. Instead, it is ruled over, generally speaking, by Tiamat. And the other worlds of the material plane are left to Bahamut. Where Bahamut has an affinity for cultivating and developing other humanoids and where dragons are diminished or spread out across many worlds, and where dragons are challenged by many dangers; this world is relatively unchallenged.
Chromatic dragons have made themselves the supreme rulers, metallic dragons are generally "evil" in alignment, and gem dragons stay out of the Chromatic's way.
Where ancient dragons might have ruled over a radius of 3,000 miles on the other worlds, here they maybe only rule over a country 1,000 miles or 500 miles across.
But; the First World is not ruled by dragons unopposed. Giants are still plentiful here, they use their observatory of thunder as a sort of super weapon to keep an uneasy cold war from going hot with the dragons.
Dragons are born in the worlds of the material plane normally, through sexual reproduction, but here; when a dragon dies in the other worlds an egg is spawned in a respective biome of the First World. Though dragons maybe still reproduce here the primary method of populating the first world seems to be one of death in the other worlds and rebirth in the First World.
Thought Tiamat is generally regarded as an evil destroyer, in this campaign she is seen more as a cruel ruler. Societies have sprung up to the ancient dragons and the greatwyrms likings, dragonborn and dragonkin are favored over all others. There's many of the other races as well that have worked their way here through accident, happenstance and naturally opening and closing pathways.
Dragons in the other worlds either don't fully understand the First World still remains, or all of them successfully take their beliefs to their deaths without ever convincing anyone of the truth.
The adventures that take place here will put the party members into a survival mode. They suddenly find themselves in a world where humans and elves are less than 2nd class citizens. You'd be lucky to be treated as a slave in a Red Dragon's territory if you were even a red-colored dragonborn. While other dragons' territories may be more benevolent to such non-dragon humanoids; it isn't by much. This is still the world of Dragons and of Giants.
The real "2nd class" citizen of this world, in a hard-fought peace that frequently erupts into petty wars, is the race of Giants.
Given the fact that dragons lay claim over all humanoids, the Giants have built a society unto themselves. While in the other worlds Giants seek remains of their fallen empires; this apparently ruined and barely surviving society on the First World would rival if not be the envy of Giant empires in the other worlds. These Giants are more devoutly religious as their survival depends on their gods and goddesses. They cultivate the world tree which isn't a sapling anymore and if seen from some vantage points it is quite large over the horizon. But most importantly they oppose humanoids.
This leads to animosity right away between the party members and Giants, even though as the adventures progress the Giants should be their natural allies. It's not so much that dragons are their enemies as it is the fact that the dragons are too accustomed to unrivaled power in the First World. The only powers that rival them here are the giants and their dinosaur pets; and the elementals the giants seek to bring into the world.
The party can choose to become more dracophile and serve the tyranny, but at a great cost to autonomy and the adoption of a rigid societal structure. While humanoid civilizations may be quite different across the First World, dragon-culture is quite homogenous and so the civilizations share some characteristic expectations by their dragon overlords.
If the party chooses a more giagantophile path then they find themselves opposing the dragon tyranny and become more aligned with the forces who seek to be freed of the dragons.
I have been thinking of many adventures that can be met in such a world, but for now this is just worldbuilding at the highest level. It is meant to be a level 1-20 adventure where players will progress through chapters to an ever climactic ending. Eventually the players may find other surviving adventurers who have sought means of teleportation back to where they came from, back to the enclave, but haven't achieved it yet. This furthers the understanding of the enclave's scheme. But as the adventurers get closer to also being able to teleport back, after many adventurers where maybe the players try to play both sides as the dragon-giant war grows from cold to ever hotter, the realization that the rediscovery of the First World could undo the tenuous peace that Tiamat and Bahamut have maintained all these eons, if you could call it a peace, creates a moral quandary for the party.
Should they go back and exact revenge or tell the enclave the existence of the First World? Or should they continue their adventures and make this their new home?
Notes: Tiamat imprisoned in Avernus rules the First World through proxy of the Chromatic Dragons and a tenuous peace with the Giants. I think it's important for the First World to be ruled by the Chromatics and not by Bahamut; to give reason for Bahamut to wander the other worlds of the material planes and to encourage the Dragons there. The First World is threatened in many ways; most notably by the Giants invading should they ever learn of its continued existence. The reason the First World has been kept hidden so long is that all out war across the material planes involving many powerful Dragons and many Giants would be hugely destructive. Bahamut would not wish it; and has worked with Annam the god of Giants and Tiamat to keep the peace.
Reserved for Adventures as I think of them.
Reserved for notable dragons, giants or characters as I think of them.
Aranondrax's Veterans - based on Half-Red Dragon Veterans which can be found in the monster manual, I am thinking of building them a little differently. Because the Dragon they serve would be an ancient (who himself serves a legendary as part of a feudal system); the Red Dragon Aranondrax has outfitted his humanoid troops with the finest magical gear.
Defender Longsword +3 (which can be redistributed as +x AC if give up bonus action) ; a regular short sword and legendary plate armor +3 as well as a Ring of Protection (+1AC and saving throws). Instead maybe a ring of spell storing recharged by dedicated spell casters.
This should give the Veterans an AC of 22 + an additional +3 if the Veterans think it prudent.
Elemental Hunters - an idea for some elemental ring wearing soldiers that serve the Dragons.