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Mankcam

Hallowed Be Thy Swo
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There is a thread kicking on over at TBP which is actually interesting, in that it's asking people to talk about their homebrew settings.
This got me thinking about my old homebrew days, and I thought perhaps this may also be a good thread for here as well.

It's basically a blank canvas, you can discuss current homebrew settings, or published settings that you have significantly altered at a fundamental level.
Or just plain nostalgia regarding gonzo settings you created in your youngster days.

If anyone is interested, post away :thumbsup:
 
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Well to kick things off, here is a copy of my post on TBP thread
It's more nostalgia than anything else:

A GLORANTHA UNLIKE ANY OTHER...

I intially started with Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, so the look of the 'World of Titan' influenced me a bit.
I then wanted to get Basic D&D, but my cousin ended up convincing me to get RuneQuest instead.

I initially had the RQ2 corebook and nothing else to go on for a year, then I had the RQ2 Companion.
It would be at least two or three years before I got the Cults books (which expanded religions and cultures at the same time), and any of the official RQ2/RQ3 supplements

So during the gap years in between, I just had to wing the entire setting.

This was the 1980s and I was a teen who lived in a regional Australian town. We were a long way from the hub of the rpg industry at that time, there was only a few groups of kids who played rpgs in the town, and we knew most of them. Things are quite different now, but back then we had to work with whatever we had.

All I had for most of that interim time to play RuneQuest with was the RQ2 Box set (Corebook, two scenarios), and the RQ2 Companion - these books eluded to an ancient world setting, gave a bit of history, and that's about it.

The World of Glorantha was just a bare bones setting with these books, and pretty much a canvas for me to add alot to.

So although this was a published setting, my original Glorantha was at least 70% my own homebrew ideas, which was a mish-mash of what influences were around me at the time.
I was very influenced by ancient history, as well as Sword & Sorcery, with lots of ideas ported in from a plethora of CONAN comics, as well as the old Sinbad movies. In addition to this, I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' (both the book, as well as the animated film), and I loved the Brian Froud influence in 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth'.

Additionally as a player in other GM settings I was also exposed to Basic D&D 'Greyhawk', AD&D's 'Krynn', MERP, and Rolemaster's 'Shadow World'.

When it was time for me to GM, all these influences poured into my home brew of Glorantha

Think a bizare homebrew cross between 1980s 'Clash Of The Titans', "CONAN The Barbarian', 'Beastmaster', Ralph Bakshi' 'Lord Of The Rings', and a hobble of psuedo-feudal atmosphere influenced by Jack Vance or Fritz Leiber, that Classic Fantasy flavour. Touches of 'Dark Crystal' and 'Labryinth' as well. Even influences from the BBC series 'Robin Hood' at times. I also loved the David Lynch 'DUNE' film back then, and although it was SciFi, it also influenced my Glorantha quite a bit. Of course I was a big fan of 'Star Wars', I think some of it may have unconsciously also slipped into my Glorantha at times.

In addition to Tolkien, I was also influenced by Ursula LeGuin's "Earthsea', Terry Brooks 'Shannara', Fritz Leiber's 'Fafhrd & Gray Mouser' series, Weis & Hickman's 'Dragonlance Chronicles', and Raymond Feist's 'Magician' (which would later lead into the 'Riftwar Saga").

My high school Ancient History textbook was used quite alot. It also was a great cover for when my parents walked in expecting to see me doing homework, and I had my Ancient History textbook sitting right there in front of me.

For Glorantha, I only had the Kerofinela (Dragon Pass) map, and the Kethaela (Holy Country) maps, which were neighbouring regions - one inland and one coastal. I had a very broad world map of Glorantha from the RQ2 corebook, but nothing was detailed. I ended up detailing alot of the cultures and regions myself, completely oblivious that the world was already detailed by the author(s).
I had lots of handwritten note books, maps, pictures stuck in from Fangora magazines and such; basically a bursting patische of everything I wanted.

Because I never had the Cults Books for Glorantha at that time, then the presence of the Deities was initially very much a background thing (which is actually the opposite of how Glorantha ticks). It slowly became more prominent once it was evident that this is how you could gain magical abilities within the setting.

The RQ2 Corebook had the Storm God, and the Darkness Goddess. The Introduction in the RQ book (as well as my cousin) told me about the Sun God, and the Earth Goddess. So I pretty much had everyone worship this one pantheon, placing a different emphasis on whichever deity depending upon the style of culture. I came across write ups for three Death Gods - Mistress of Afterlife, the War/Honour God and War/Berserker God. So these all became incorperated, with War/Honour God worshippers being stern warriors and noble templars, almost paladins in some regions, whilst War/Beserker God was for barbarians and evil doers and such. I eventually added the Peace/Healing Goddess once I knew about her, and that rounded the entire pantheon off.

So all cultures worshipped these gods, although some were banned in some regions, depending on the situation. I ballooned alot of their magic out beyond what I had in the core magic, and it was a very different version of Glorantha. I was aware of other deities at the times, but I just placed them as folklore, and learning an ability from one of them had to occur under the banner of one of the bigger Cults.

The PCs tended to get low-level magic from various temples, and treated them more like a bazaar at times. Once they had learnt a spell, that was generally it, they may learn a Healing spell from the Peace Goddess, or a Bladesharp from a War god willy nilly; it was something that just took the place of Feats in other games.

The Gods were portrayed very similar to the ancient Greek gods, as back then that is what I thought a fantasy pantheon should look like. However the pantheon was mainly a background canvas, in much the same way deities tend to be in vanilla fantasy settings. Not a major feature for all of my players.

I did have Sorcerers, which felt more like the villains from my CONAN comics than anything else. They also used the Rune Magic, but didn't respect the Gods so they weren't Priests. They mainly summoned the Elementals (from the core book), and I also introduced Demons (some of which was influenced by the 'Stormbringer' game my cousin had acquired).

Later on I had some players who wanted to be Sorcerers, and they ended up feeling much like the lone wizards from the Earthsea books or The Riftwar Saga (although this may have been when I bought RQ3 and it introduced a new version of Sorcery, which was different to my previous Sorcerers using Rune Magic to summon Elementals and Demons. This was probably the start of many changes to my original Glorantha homebrew).

In RQ2 corebook the Guilds seemed to play a more prominent role than religion, so Guilds were initially very big in my Glorantha. Even smaller regions were beholden to the Guilds at times, and the PCs were always in debt to the Guilds, and sometimes on the run from certain Guilds.

My cultures were based of tidbits of lore from canon, and alot of my own invention. Looking back it was actually not bad, considering what I had to work with, and my age at the time.

The land of Esrolia was based off Ancient Greece, with the capital being like ancient Athens. Heortland was similar to early Franksia or Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, with Karse being based off Lanhkmar. Sartar was also very much Ancient Greece, although the capital was based more off Sparta. The nearby plains of Prax felt like some of the arid lands I had seen in the CONAN comics, maybe Shem or something like that. The city of Pavis was originally a Tarsh colony , with Mongolian like tribes throughout the plains (some were more like Cimmerians, others were a little native american indian as well). Tarsh felt like Turan from my CONAN comics, so it was very Arabic or Moorish in my Glorantha.

We had one enduring player-character who was a Foot Barbarian from Prax, so we made him essientially a figure like Conan, except he came from arid plains rather than icy mountains. We kept retconning that character over the years to fit the ever-changing impressions we had of Glorantha. In recent times we reinvented him as a Pol-Joni Raider, which is actually not too far off this original version - he's probably the only thing that has remained constant.

I was aware of an empire to the north coming down from Peloria, the Lunar Empire. In my original setting of Glorantha, the Lunar Empire was very much a background thing and not the feature it played in my later games (RQ3+). Originally Peloria was not detailed in the books I had, so my Peloria was a desert region filled with Egyptian-like people, with a range of icy mountains above it filled with Snow Barbarians (like CONAN Cimmerians) and Trolls. The Egyptians (Lunar Empire) had taken over the Arabic region (Tarsh) and had colonies elsewhere (such as Pavis). There was also a Pharaoh in the southern regions who was a mysterious demigod in charge of both the Athenians (Esrolia) and the Franks (Heortland). Because of the Egyptian title of 'Pharaoh', I had him be the exiled brother of the northern Egyptian (Lunar) Emperor who was also a demigod. It could of led to some interesting possibilities.

According to the timeline, the southern Pharoah had gone missing, suspect to Eygptian (Lunar) treachery. There had also been a war with the Egyptians (Lunars) and the Spartans (Sartar). The Spartan (Sartar) captial had fallen, but recently been reclaimed by the Spartans (Sartar), and the Eygptians (Lunars) retreated for a while.

This was the recent history, so the Egyptian-Sparta (Lunar-Sartar) War was over when I first had the player-characters running around. Arabia (Tarsh) was kind of a neutral ground, and the Arabic-like city of Pavis still had an Egyptian (Lunar) garrison, but that was about it, the Egyptians (Lunars) were no longer a big presence (although I had their Emperor scheming to return one day).

Troll hordes were a big threat, and I also read about Delecti The Necromancer, so he became a Sauron-like presence from his swamp (which stood in for a damp Mordor), and he was coordinating the Trolls much like Tolkien's Sauron coordinated the Orcs. So the growing presence of Delecti the Necromancer (who was the Arch Sorcerer, and also High Priest of the Darkness Goddess) was meant to be the big background metaplot to connect the various separate scenarios I was runninng (which were often re-trapped D&D modules).

Most of the games were essientially dungeon crawls or hack and slay, and I had to allow extremely liberal use of Luck rolls to save the PCs from the harshnes of the RQ system, otherwise we would of had TPKs every week.

I had wanted to pursue my over-arching metaplot of Delecti/Sauron, but the PCs took the campaign further south and I think it derailed in the end. We moved onto other games, but I kept developing my Glorantha, altering it bit by bit as I became aware of new canon, until my original Glorantha really didn't exist anymore. By the early 1990s it had been absorbed into the Gloranthan canon that was on the shelves at that time.

So yep, my early Glorantha was a very different setting to what was being published. In my isolation from the commercial side of the rpg industry, I had completely gone down a differen path that the authors would of loved or completely hated. I would like to think that the original creator Greg Stafford (deceased) is smiling down chuckling to himself. I did share alot of his initial inspirations, but this train was completely off the tracks.

Overall my homebrew Glorantha turned out to be a bizarre cross between Ancient Greece meets Hyboria meets Lankhmar/Nehwon meets DUNE meets High Fantasy Europe. It all came together in an implausible crazy gonzo way that only 1970s/1980s adolescent Fantasy lovers could appreciate.

Eventually I became exposed to the real Glorantha canon, and the setting dramatically changed for me over the years, got worse in many ways and I eventually felt some things became bland.
The products started moving the setting date back a decade, so the Lunar Empire was still ruling Sartar. The Lunars became very Roman-like, the Sartarties became very Celtic-like. That worked okay for a decade, but then didn't feel right for me.

I really didn't dig Glorantha again until the contemporary interpretation.
Glorantha has definately returned to an ancient world flavour, and I really love how it is portrayed these days.

However despite my appreciation of the current Glorantha, there is still a part of me that yearns for the crazy gonzo Glorantha homebrew of my youth.
It's almost like seeking out a tattered old pulp fantasy novel in second hand book stores, but never finding the one that first grabbed my attention.

It really only exists now in my mind, but yeah it was a fun place to play in :grin:
 
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20+ years ago (so I would have been in my early 20s), I ran lots of games in a "gritty" cyberpunk setting that I was convinced was far superior to all other similar settings (Narrator: "It was not superior to all other similar settings"). It took place in the south east of England and northern France, where urban sprawls were linked together by the Channel Tunnel and its successors. It was really influenced by the contemporary 90s, so there were lots of refugees and immigrants on both sides of the channel (I had them mostly be from the Balkans and the former USSR), and this was one of the big in-game issues. Oil was no longer in such great supply, so there were floating cities constructed out of old supertankers sitting off of towns like Hastings. I must have some notes on it somewhere. I think my recollection makes it sound a lot better than it actually was. Although, weirdly, when I watched Children of Men for the first time, I was like "Holy shit! Some of that was in my game!"

Cheers,
Franko
 
20+ years ago (so I would have been in my early 20s), I ran lots of games in a "gritty" cyberpunk setting that I was convinced was far superior to all other similar settings (Narrator: "It was not superior to all other similar settings"). It took place in the south east of England and northern France, where urban sprawls were linked together by the Channel Tunnel and its successors. It was really influenced by the contemporary 90s, so there were lots of refugees and immigrants on both sides of the channel (I had them mostly be from the Balkans and the former USSR), and this was one of the big in-game issues. Oil was no longer in such great supply, so there were floating cities constructed out of old supertankers sitting off of towns like Hastings. I must have some notes on it somewhere. I think my recollection makes it sound a lot better than it actually was. Although, weirdly, when I watched Children of Men for the first time, I was like "Holy shit! Some of that was in my game!"

Cheers,
Franko

Just messaged my old gaming buddy Allan about this. His recollection was "Remember how you would describe every little street food stall and grubby, hole in the wall greasy spoon cafe in excruciating detail? But when someone pulled a gun you'd say 'They pull a pistol' and we'd be like 'What kind?' and you'd go 'I dunno, it's just a bloody pistol!' It was basically CyberPunk StreetFood: The RPG."

And you know, I don't think he's wrong.

Cheers,
Franko
 
I have a Ravenloftish setting I've cooked up over the years. Its inspired by Ravenloft, Hammer films, and various others. Placed in a vaguely 1800ish time frame. Centered in a Transylvanian eastern european county.
 
Well to kick things off, here is a copy of my post on TBP thread
It's more nostalgia than anything else:

A GLORANTHA UNLIKE ANY OTHER...

I intially started with Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, so the look of the 'World of Titan' influenced me a bit.
I then wanted to get Basic D&D, but my cousin ended up convincing me to get RuneQuest instead.

I initially had the RQ2 corebook and nothing else to go on for a year, then I had the RQ2 Companion.
It would be at least two or three years before I got the Cults books (which expanded religions and cultures at the same time), and any of the official RQ2/RQ3 supplements

So during the gap years in between, I just had to wing the entire setting.

This was the 1980s and I was a teen who lived in a regional Australian town. We were a long way from the hub of the rpg industry at that time, there was only a few groups of kids who played rpgs in the town, and we knew most of them. Things are quite different now, but back then we had to work with whatever we had.

All I had for most of that interim time to play RuneQuest with was the RQ2 Box set (Corebook, two scenarios), and the RQ2 Companion - these books eluded to an ancient world setting, gave a bit of history, and that's about it.

The World of Glorantha was just a bare bones setting with these books, and pretty much a canvas for me to add alot to.

So although this was a published setting, my original Glorantha was at least 70% my own homebrew ideas, which was a mish-mash of what influences were around me at the time.
I was very influenced by ancient history, as well as Sword & Sorcery, with lots of ideas ported in from a plethora of CONAN comics, as well as the old Sinbad movies. In addition to this, I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' (both the book, as well as the animated film), and I loved the Brian Froud influence in 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth'.

Additionally as a player in other GM settings I was also exposed to Basic D&D 'Greyhawk', AD&D's 'Krynn', MERP, and Rolemaster's 'Shadow World'.

When it was time for me to GM, all these influences poured into my home brew of Glorantha

Think a bizare homebrew cross between 1980s 'Clash Of The Titans', "CONAN The Barbarian', 'Beastmaster', Ralph Bakshi' 'Lord Of The Rings', and a hobble of psuedo-feudal atmosphere influenced by Jack Vance or Fritz Leiber, that Classic Fantasy flavour. Touches of 'Dark Crystal' and 'Labryinth' as well. Even influences from the BBC series 'Robin Hood' at times. I also loved the David Lynch 'DUNE' film back then, and although it was SciFi, it also influenced my Glorantha quite a bit. Of course I was a big fan of 'Star Wars', I think some of it may have unconsciously also slipped into my Glorantha at times.

In addition to Tolkien, I was also influenced by Ursula LeGuin's "Earthsea', Terry Brooks 'Shannara', Fritz Leiber's 'Fafhrd & Gray Mouser' series, and a little later, Raymond Feist's'Riftwar Saga".

My high school Ancient History textbook was used quite alot. It also was a great cover for when my parents walked in expecting to see me doing homework, and I had my Ancient History textbook sitting right there in front of me.

For Glorantha, I only had the Kerofinela (Dragon Pass) map, and the Kethaela (Holy Country) maps, which were neighbouring regions - one inland and one coastal. I had a very broad world map of Glorantha from the RQ2 corebook, but nothing was detailed. I ended up detailing alot of the cultures and regions myself, completely oblivious that the world was already detailed by the author(s).
I had lots of handwritten note books, maps, pictures stuck in from Fangora magazines and such; basically a bursting patische of everything I wanted.

Because I never had the Cults Books for Glorantha at that time, then the presence of the Deities was initially very much a background thing (which is actually the opposite of how Glorantha ticks). It slowly became more prominent once it was evident that this is how you could gain magical abilities within the setting.

The RQ2 Corebook had the Storm God, and the Darkness Goddess. The Introduction in the RQ book (as well as my cousin) told me about the Sun God, and the Earth Goddess. So I pretty much had everyone worship this one pantheon, placing a different emphasis on whichever deity depending upon the style of culture. I came across write ups for three Death Gods - Mistress of Afterlife, the War/Honour God and War/Berserker God. So these all became incorperated, with War/Honour God worshippers being stern warriors and noble templars, almost paladins in some regions, whilst War/Beserker God was for barbarians and evil doers and such. I eventually added the Peace/Healing Goddess once I knew about her, and that rounded the entire pantheon off.

So all cultures worshipped these gods, although some were banned in some regions, depending on the situation. I ballooned alot of their magic out beyond what I had in the core magic, and it was a very different version of Glorantha. I was aware of other deities at the times, but I just placed them as folklore, and learning an ability from one of them had to occur under the banner of one of the bigger Cults.

The PCs tended to get low-level magic from various temples, and treated them more like a bazaar at times. Once they had learnt a spell, that was generally it, they may learn a Healing spell from the Peace Goddess, or a Bladesharp from a War god willy nilly; it was something that just took the place of Feats in other games.

The Gods were portrayed very similar to the ancient Greek gods, as back then that is what I thought a fantasy pantheon should look like. However the pantheon was mainly a background canvas, in much the same way deities tend to be in vanilla fantasy settings. Not a major feature for all of my players.

I did have Sorcerers, which felt more like the villains from my CONAN comics than anything else. They also used the Rune Magic, but didn't respect the Gods so they weren't Priests. They mainly summoned the Elementals (from the core book), and I also introduced Demons (some of which was influenced by the 'Stormbringer' game my cousin had acquired).

Later on I had some players who wanted to be Sorcerers, and they ended up feeling much like the lone wizards from the Earthsea books or The Riftwar Saga (although this may have been when I bought RQ3 and it introduced a new version of Sorcery, which was different to my previous Sorcerers using Rune Magic to summon Elementals and Demons. This was probably the start of many changes to my original Glorantha homebrew).

In RQ2 corebook the Guilds seemed to play a more prominent role than religion, so Guilds were initially very big in my Glorantha. Even smaller regions were beholden to the Guilds at times, and the PCs were always in debt to the Guilds, and sometimes on the run from certain Guilds.

My cultures were based of tidbits of lore from canon, and alot of my own invention. Looking back it was actually not bad, considering what I had to work with, and my age at the time.

The land of Esrolia was based off Ancient Greece, with the capital being like ancient Athens. Heortland was similar to Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, with Karse being based off Lanhkmar. Sartar was also very much Ancient Greece, although the capital was based more off Sparta. The nearby plains of Prax felt like some of the arid lands I had seen in the CONAN comics, maybe Shem or something like that. The city of Pavis was originally a Tarsh colony , with Mongolian like tribes throughout the plains (some were more like Cimmerians, others were a little native american indian as well). Tarsh felt like Turan from my CONAN comics, so it was very Arabic or Moorish in my Glorantha.

We had one enduring player-character who was a Foot Barbarian from Prax, so we made him essientially a figure like Conan, except he came from arid plains rather than icy mountains. We kept retconning that character over the years to fit the ever-changing impressions we had of Glorantha. In recent times we reinvented him as a Pol-Joni Raider, which is actually not too far off this original version - he's probably the only thing that has remained constant.

I was aware of an empire to the north coming down from Peloria, the Lunar Empire. In my original setting of Glorantha, the Lunar Empire was very much a background thing and not the feature it played in my later games (RQ3+). Originally Peloria was not detailed in the books I had, so my Peloria was a desert region filled with Egyptian-like people, with a range of icy mountains above it filled with Snow Barbarians (like CONAN Cimmerians) and Trolls. The Egyptians (Lunar Empire) had taken over the Arabic region (Tarsh) and had colonies elsewhere (such as Pavis). There was also a Pharaoh in the southern regions who was a mysterious demigod in charge of both the Athenians (Esrolia) and Nehwon (Hoertland). Because of the Egyptian title of 'Pharaoh', I had him be the exiled brother of the northern Egyptian (Lunar) Emperor who was also a demigod. It could of led to some interesting possibilities.

According to the timeline, the southern Pharoah had gone missing, suspect to Eygptian (Lunar) treachery. There had also been a war with the Egyptians (Lunars) and the Spartans (Sartar). The Spartan (Sartar) captial had fallen, but recently been reclaimed by the Spartans (Sartar), and the Eygptians (Lunars) retreated for a while.

This was the recent history, so the Egyptian-Sparta (Lunar-Sartar) War was over when I first had the player-characters running around. Arabia (Tarsh) was kind of a neutral ground, and the Arabic-like city of Pavis still had an Egyptian (Lunar) garrison, but that was about it, the Egyptians (Lunars) were no longer a big presence (although I had their Emperor scheming to return one day).

Troll hordes were a big threat, and I also read about Delecti The Necromancer, so he became a Sauron-like presence from his swamp (which stood in for a damp Mordor), and he was coordinating the Trolls much like Tolkien's Sauron coordinated the Orcs. So the growing presence of Delecti the Necromancer (who was the Arch Sorcerer, and also High Priest of the Darkness Goddess) was meant to be the big background metaplot to connect the various separate scenarios I was runninng (which were often re-trapped D&D modules).

Most of the games were essientially dungeon crawls or hack and slay, and I had to allow extremely liberal use of Luck rolls to save the PCs from the harshnes of the RQ system, otherwise we would of had TPKs every week.

I had wanted to pursue my over-arching metaplot of Delecti/Sauron, but the PCs took the campaign further south and I think it derailed in the end. We moved onto other games, but I kept developing my Glorantha, altering it bit by bit as I became aware of new canon, until my original Glorantha really didn't exist anymore. By the early 1990s it had been absorbed into the Gloranthan canon that was on the shelves at that time.

So yep, my early Glorantha was a very different setting to what was being published. In my isolation from the commercial side of the rpg industry, I had completely gone down a differen path that the authors would of loved or completely hated. I would like to think that the original creator Greg Stafford (deceased) is smiling down chuckling to himself. I did share alot of his initial inspirations, but this train was completely off the tracks.

Overall my homebrew Glorantha turned out to be a bizarre cross between Ancient Greece meets Hyboria meets Lankhmar/Nehwon meets DUNE meets High Fantasy Europe. It all came together in an implausible crazy gonzo way that only 1970s/1980s adolescent Fantasy lovers could appreciate.

Eventually I became exposed to the real Glorantha canon, and the setting dramatically changed for me over the years, got worse in many ways and more bland. The Lunars became very Roman-like, the Sartarties became very Celtic-like. That worked okay for a decade, but then didn't feel right for me.

I really didn't dig Glorantha again until the contemporary interpretation.
Glorantha has definately returned to an ancient world flavour, and I really love how it is portrayed these days.

However despite my appreciation of the current Glorantha, there is still a part of me that yearns for the crazy gonzo Glorantha homebrew of my youth.
It's almost like seeking out a tattered old pulp fantasy novel in second hand book stores, but never finding the one that first grabbed my attention.

It really only exists now in my mind, but yeah it was a fun place to play in :grin:

Your cargo cult Glorantha sounds more to my liking than the real thing. Compile it, fine off the serial numbers and I’d pay money for the pdf.

Just messaged my old gaming buddy Allan about this. His recollection was "Remember how you would describe every little street food stall and grubby, hole in the wall greasy spoon cafe in excruciating detail? But when someone pulled a gun you'd say 'They pull a pistol' and we'd be like 'What kind?' and you'd go 'I dunno, it's just a bloody pistol!' It was basically CyberPunk StreetFood: The RPG."

And you know, I don't think he's wrong.

Cheers,
Franko

I assure you: you will fit right in here. Check out our Food & Drink thread!
 
I have drifted away from homebrewed settings with age. I mean, I might draw up a sandbox of sorts like a hex map or a Traveller subsector, but I’m most likely to place these into some published setting or other. Or failing that, some fantastic parallel Earth.

If I ever do a straight homebrew again I’m going bottom-up rather than top-down, which is how I used to do it.
 
This is my flooded, balkanised future London from Cyberblues City Deluxe. If anyone is interested the full game is free and can he downloaded here https://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/cyberblues-city-deluxe/

Intro
It’s the future. The Cyborg Queen Victoria Perpetua rules with an iron grip but her control is slipping over an increasingly divided and rebellious London. Crime is out of control, corporations act with impunity and the people rage against the Cyborg Queen’s crippling taxes. London Bridge has actually fallen down. Large parts of London are flooded. The River Thames itself is now the setting for a three-way battle between Royal Navy patrols, pirate crews and mutated river creatures.

But the tourists... they still come in large numbers.

balcony.jpg

The Cyborg Queen Victoria Perpetua waves at the crowds from the balacony at Buckingham Palace.

London is split into six major areas; Greater Westminster, The Southern Isles, The City, The Old East End, The Corporate Sector and The North London Alliance. These cover many of the historic London boroughs. We'll look at these area in turn. If the locations mean nothing to you just treat them as any other fictional setting.

map-small.jpg



big-ben-small.jpg

The Thames Wall protects the north bank of London from flooding and other things.



arrest-v2-03-tiny.jpg

Tax Collector robots supported by the Queen's Guard arrest an anarchist
 
I remember spending a lot of time dreaming up my own setting when I was in high school. Now that I look back I realize it was just a cheap pastiche of all of the fantasy books and movies I consumed growing up -- The Conan movies, Ridley Scott's Legend, Deathstalker, Beastmaster, a melangé of Grimm's Fairytales, the first couple of Robert Jordan Eye of the World novels, too many bad D&D novels to count, and the baaad Terry Goodkind novels. Toss in a heavy dose of Frank Frazetta illustrations for inspiration and you've got yourself one helluva grab-bag of clichés and barely gameable content because it was all so high level, with almost no real attention paid to the point of contact with the player. To cap it all off I was a not a very good GM; the best I could do to improvise was throw in some random encounters to stall for time. Characters died a lot!

Apologies to Jason and Brian who put up with this wankery.

These days I've learned to let some actual game designers with more talent and free time come up with the high level stuff and then I can focus on the parts that matter, like all of the NPCs with plans and goals that inevitably cause friction with the players. Dolmenwood by Gavin Norman has been great for that. Now that Lyonesse has dropped, I'm eager to use that as a template for tormenting players.
 
I remember spending a lot of time dreaming up my own setting when I was in high school. Now that I look back I realize it was just a cheap pastiche of all of the fantasy books and movies I consumed growing up -- The Conan movies, Ridley Scott's Legend, Deathstalker, Beastmaster, a melangé of Grimm's Fairytales, the first couple of Robert Jordan Eye of the World novels, too many bad D&D novels to count, and the baaad Terry Goodkind novels. Toss in a heavy dose of Frank Frazetta illustrations for inspiration and you've got yourself one helluva grab-bag of clichés and barely gameable content because it was all so high level, with almost no real attention paid to the point of contact with the player. To cap it all off I was a not a very good GM; the best I could do to improvise was throw in some random encounters to stall for time. Characters died a lot!

Apologies to Jason and Brian who put up with this wankery.

I am so there with you. Every setting I came up with in school was a mishmash of Mad Max, cheapo Italian Mad max ripoffs, Terminator (the bits set in the future at least), decent books like Riddley Walker and In the Drift, and all those awful nuclear anxiety post-apoc novels that cluttered things up in the 80s.
 
My most detailed setting is Pima County, as seen here:



I've used the basic set-up a couple of times now. It's a fairly realistic setting with a fictional town dropped in and room for the PCs to pursue any number of goals. In the PBP, they've become a sort of law enforcement band. In other games, they've pursued land and water rights acquisition, mining, and become bandidos.
 
Every few years, I'll get it in my head to make a new D&D setting. Lately, I prefer post apocalyptic settings, mainly because I'm lazy; fewer people makes for fewer things to detail. But smaller populations also means it easier for a band of heroes to have a decisive effect. Plus, it's easy to make a points of light setting with lots of blank space.

The one I've been using for the past few years assumes that a giant curse gone wrong during a war resulted in all land being covered in a poisonous fog. The fog extends up to 5000 feet elevation and cannot cross water. So imagine if Africa/Asia/Europe was wiped out but for islands in lakes and high elevations and the new world was unknown. Much of the current action has been on the ocean but there's a ton to loot in the fog, which has it's own developing ecology.
 
I've posted this elsewhere, but being a bit lazy today I digged it up and slightly edited it before making this post. I think I'll keep to only one setting per post anyway :smile:

My latest game (that's unfortunately on hiatus) have been in a fantasy setting; using Drakar och Demoner Expert (kind of a BRP derivative).

While I don't think anyone playing in my settings are members and can read here. But if not... Spoilers ahead...

So, where do I start. Well, with some background stuff the players have already discovered. There were at least three human Empires. One was destroyed about twenty years before the game started when the dwarves opened the gates and let an orc army into their holy city. Almost all of the rivers dried up, the vegetation of the empire wittered away within days, turning everything into a desert where the dead rose, killing the living. Some managed to flee to the second empire.

While the orcs sent their armies against the second empire, the third empire invaded from the other direction. The last seventeen years, that third empire have been fighting the orcs and resistance groups. The main temple, in the holy city of the second empire, is significant to all of the human cultures the player characters have encountered. Those from the first empire referred to the building as the temple of Ra', some sort of Bedouins calls it the temple of the ancients, to those from the second empire it is the temple of Ba'al, and to those from the third empire it is a temple of the celestial order.

Some priests and monks of the the third empire made a summon for champions/heroes at the temple. Besides receiving three representatives, heavily armed, the player characters turned up as well; without a single item (the player character's are from other settings, and the two remaining player characters happens to be from two different sci-fi settings).

So, a few details about the setting...

While the dwarves have the classical "stout build" of most Tolkien derivatives, they are usually 2,5-3 meters (8'-10') tall. The name is because humans encountered the giants first. No one in the setting have told the player characters about this yet as it's too common knowledge, so no one have considered they might not know.

Those from the third empire don't have separate male and female names, and think it's weird that other cultures do.

The orcs and the dwarves is only indirectly responsible for the destruction of the first empire. It was originally a desert, but The Ancients built a device that made it a fertile land; but it slowly poisoned the land with necrotic energy. The orcs saved the world by destroying it, and repairing it will doom it again. The other temples can be used in moderation without dooming the world, but no one knows that at the moment.

The Ancients was an alien race that kidnapped humans from Earth long ago and transported them to other worlds. They were defeated long ago, but those living in their hub -- a city in a pocked dimension -- kept up the image as they wanted and needed the food and goods the people where sacrificing to them. A later apocalyptic event in that city made them lose the ability to communicate and travel to a lot of worlds. The invasion of the second empire was because they had reestablished communications with the third empire but could only tell them how to open the gate from the second empire.

The planet is actually a moon on a polar orbit around a huge gas giant. So in a three year cycle, there is a "long night" and a "long day" where the gas giant blocks out the light or is directly behind.

Magic is uncommon among the human cultures of the three empires.

The technology level is more antiquity than medieval. Unless when meeting dwarven technology, or the stuff used by the champions/heroes. So far, the player characters have more or less only found out that Dwarven arrows cut through most armor like butter, and it the wounds are difficult to close.

There is legends about a war against the elves a long time ago, and rumors says that the elves have recently begun taking contact. That war, while forgotten by the humans, was because transplanting Earth fauna and relocating a lot of humans to this world was an ecological disaster. Nature have found a new equilibrium since then, and it would be a new disaster trying to remove it now. The reason they have been taking contact is because of all the land turned into an undead infested desert; and they're not more aware than the humans about what's going on.
 
Most recently there's the sci-fi 'verse I'm building up. It's loosely based on two earlier campaigns I did - one that I ran about 25 years ago with a homebrew system (basically a hacked about version of Twilight:2000 1e) and one I did for Traveller, set in the collapse of the second imperium.

The setting focuses about a neutral zone between the dying commonwealth and an alien polity started from a botched uplift program Actually in the depths of the canon, the entire known universe is the result of a botched uplift program done by a black-monolith wielding singularity-level intelligence that subsequently went senile. That was really by way of explaining around the Fermi paradox.

There are a couple of other major regions - the core worlds and commonwealth itself (really more of a hegemonic polity) and a 'marches' region with two antagonists. These regions don't exist beyond a few notes at the moment and they're not an immediate priority.

Most (although not all) of the aliens are based on a sort of deconstruction of various stock alien tropes.

The Aferas are the party on the other side of the neutral zone. They're really taking the 'warrior race' trope and asking 'What if these folks were morphing into a middle-class industrial society?'

Morlocks take a look at the 'fractious space ork' trope and fill out a background as to why they might be found working as mercenaries and thugs all over known space.

Garps are sort of a Jawa/Kerbal type critter - short, comical and numerous, flying about in Heath-Robinson spacecraft and forming a social underclass all over the show. The race really looking at an uplifted race being successful in the cracks and crannies of society.

Gonks are an attempt to take a look at how a 'barbarian' race relatively recently contacted might be integrating into society.

Shree are a sort of cthulhoid thing with too many tentacles. How might such a critter function in a society where the ergonomics are totally mismatched to their anatomy?

Verkonians are the Grey aliens - a modified worker species adapted by the AI that tried to uplift everybody a few million years ago. As the AI (think something like a GSV) wore out it re-jigged its worker species to breed independently and try to act as custodians of the uplift program. This failed ultimately, and what's left are a few scattered settlements of these critters. They have some fragmentary records of the uplift programme and know where they came from, and have a prime directive of sorts ('no technology transfer')

Squids are an aquatic race with rather strange views on property from their evolutionary background as scavengers.

Symbiotes are a sort of uber-toxoplasmid that can infect other beings. They also enhance their hosts. Think something like a cross between the intelligent algae from Revelation Space and the virus from the Spatterjay novels.

There's another species that can function in a vacuum and has a propulsion organ a bit like a bombardier beetle. They hang around in large organic hive ships.

The last race I've actually done any design work on is a sort of 'Evil Lizard Man' antagonist race. This is something for the 'marches' region, so it's not a high priority. The original concept is loosely based on the Moties so they're a sort of major latent threat on the outskirts of known space. They got warp technology by capturing it from a commonwealth contact team and within a decade or two had repelled a major naval attack force. As their world is somewhat exhausted of resources they can't build large expeditionary forces and are trying to secure other sources of raw materials.

The principal region of interest is the neutral zone, which consists of a trade route between the commonwealth, federation (a successful splinter that seceded about 70 years before the game is set) and the Aferas. Surrounding this is a region of progressive less civilised space that riffraff like the party might hang out in.

The other major player is the smegs. Smegulons is a mildly derogatory term for space-born, stateless folk who inhabit pretty much anything they can squat off the grid. Many can't return to high-G gravity wells so they hang out where they can. There are many smeg settlements and an entire shadow economy including a fair amount of manufacturing. For a party of lowlifes they can provide fuel, maybe repairs or supplies of equipment off the grid.

AI and transhumanism are a mixed bag. Because of historic AI wars in the Commonwealth, many regions have a blanket ban on strong AI or even large scale automated surveillance tech. The federation has an outright ban on AI (with plenty of loopholes) and 'Terran' AI tech has a sort of quasi-mystical attribute. On the other hand, the Federation are quite big on cloning and genetic engineering, which many other people view as an abomination.

I had psionics on the to-do list, but have adapted a force-like trope from Scum and Villainy, mainly to make it work with the S&V rules for my PbP game. In practice, I will probably keep something like this and nudge the whole assembly a bit further towards pulp science fantasy. Having tropes like cthuloid entities hiding in warp space and force-manifestations actually makes the 'verse a bit more flexible. Monsters are quite hard to do in hard sci-fi, so softening and pulping the setting makes this easier. As long as it doesn't clash with the rest of the setting, the pulpier the better from this perspective.

The setting itself (i.e. known space) needs to be big enough to run a sandbox game in but doesn't really need to be bigger than that, and I would actually like to finish it in a reasonable length of time. There's no need for a huge meta-setting like the Third Imperium. One problem with Star Wars is that a whole galaxy is rather large and unwieldy for a sandbox.
 
My most detailed setting is Pima County. . . . It's a fairly realistic setting with a fictional town dropped in and room for the PCs to pursue any number of goals.
Ruritanias - fictional locations set in the real-world - became my favorite sort of homebrew setting. The fictional 'El Dorado County' of our Boot Hill campaign replaces several actual counties in southeastern New Mexico, and I'm (very)* slowly working the setting forward in time - 'Promise City 1920' - to use for my ¡Viva GangBusters! campaign; to that end, I introduced Lakefront City, GangBusters core rules ruritania, in the Boot Hill campaign when it was still active, so they shared the same universe in actual play for a game-year or so already.

I also have copious notes for a Flashing Blades-slash-generic swashbuckling game ruritania set in the south of France around 1626; really, I just need some time and motivation to type it into my blog - it's that close to being done.

I really enjoy the challenge of creating a fictional location which tightly fits to the real-world in which it's set; it merges the best of two worlds for me: a deep-dive into history with the creative freedom to make a setting which plays off that history in (hopefully) novel and interesting ways. Frex, the demographics of southeastern New Mexico are very much 'West West Texas' as opposed to the multicultural Rio Grande Valley, but we wanted Spanish and Mexican land grants and colonias for the Boot Hill campaign, in keeping with the setting described in the rules, so it became an interesting task to fit them into the fictional El Dorado County in a way which was at least plausible enough to not snap the suspenders of disbelief** too hard. It allowed me to rewrite BH5 Range War! for the Boot Hill campaign, using hispano and Navajo sheepherders in place of the immigrant Basques of Oregon presented in the original adventure.

* I wasn't expecting to be nearly as busy with actual pay-the-bills work during stay-at-home, but my best-laid schemes indeed gang aft agley: stared at my games longingly but haven't played a thing or written more than a few words in the seven weeks since US society imploded.

** Suspenders of disbelief: Enable the wearer to detect all illusory or invisible things within viewing range. There is a 5% chance each time the suspenders are snapped that the viewer will possibly see through some real thing as if it were an illusion. XP 1500 GP Sale Value 15,000
 
I'm currently brewing two sci-fi settings (work in progress, so not used in any gaming yet). One as an alternative to 3I if I'm going to run Traveller (which I mentioned in my Traveller thread) and the other is kind of a "Sin City in space" to have an alternative to the setting of the Swedish rpg Noir (in part to have a an alternative, as things like sexism and homophobia is a noticeable part of that setting, which isn't to everyone's liking, and I feel that setting would be flat without it).

So the first one of them...

In my Traveller Universe humanity was spread out over the stars by an alien species, as their laborers, a several thousand years before the start of the game. The aliens were a dying species, and as they slowly shrank in numbers they let humans take care of more and more. However, they created a culture among the humans to make them keep each other in check.

The last of the aliens died out a few thousand years ago, and for a while their old structure held things together and things just chugged along. However, humans being humans, different parts began to develop their own cultures. Then, about seven hundred years ago, a plague tore through the star systems, killing countless billions. Some garden planets even lost 90% of the population. It it's wake some cultures changed a lot more noticeable, and some questioned the old truths of the aliens.

There was a system the aliens had said was forbidden to visit. Four hundred years ago an expedition was sent there. What they found was a garden planet with humans; but it was technological backwater planet. Wooden ships with large pieces of cloth for propulsion, and while they had handguns they gunpowder and bullet was loaded separately through the muzzle; and many were just armed with different kind of pole-arms. A group of scientists landed, and it is a bit sketchy what exactly happened as they were put on trial and burned alive.

About two hundred years ago, another expedition was sent to the forbidden system. A large war was raging over several parts of the planet. To avoid the conflict, the scientists decided to land on the opposite side of where the brunt of the war was raging. Yet again, what happened was unclear. Despite some severe linguistic problems, things had been going well to begin with. Then something had happened, and the entire team had been killed and eaten by the locals.

At about the same time, some archeologists had found documentations there had been a previous visit to the forbidden system; it was the origin of the plague. It was decided the aliens knew what they were talking about, and "everyone" agreed that system should be off limit.

Almost two hundred years after that decision, one space nation hatched a desperate plan. Their neighbors had joined up and declared war on them, and while the enemies were barely stronger, it would be a losing war of attrition. If they built a shipyard in the forbidden system, they most likely could hold out long enough to turn the tide. After all, the only thing they would need from the planet would be some food, and possible they could even recruit some workers; as the shipyard would be built on another planet in the system. The medical knowledge had come a long way the last seven hundred years. Also, the natives might have been dangerous to scientists, but they would send an army brigade and a marine battalion as security. Any locals wanting to make noise, and they could show them what real firepower looks like.

What they found shocked them. The only explanation of the amount of debris in the garden planet's orbit, and the amount of radiation and pollution in the atmosphere could only be explained by them just coming out of a nuclear war. Still, while armed conflict still could be registered on several locations on the planet; most of it behaved if it was peace time and the were illuminated as any other city in charted space. All readings indicated the planet currently had about the same population as their own entire space nation. The atmosphere was also full of aircraft; well for a few hours, as within just a couple of hours of the fleet entering the system, most aircraft appeared to deviate from their previous course and land. Instead other, armed aircraft launched, and silos opened readying nuclear missiles; thousands of them.

There were a lot of radio traffic down at the garden planet. What they could hear was in a weird incomprehensive language, nothing even remotely close to what everyone in charted space spoke. What really started to worry them was that most was sent in what seemed to be encoded, but to fast for their equipment to distinguish.

Then they discovered a wheeled drone or probe on the planet they landed on. It was covered in the sand, a clear indication it had been quite some time since it had stopped working. Any hope of those missiles not being able to reach them was now gone. The electronics in that machine was way more advanced than anything they had themselves. Maybe their escort could outrun them for a while, but without enough fuel to jump out, any confrontation would mean the fleets annihilation.

The real panic kicked in a few days later, when they were hailed over one of their own encrypted military channels.

Well, that was twenty years ago and luckily no shooting match broke out. In retrospect, any such conflict would probably had meant a mutual annihilation, as even if 99% of the missiles had been shot down, it still would have wiped out the fleet. On the other hand, the garden planet had been pretty defenseless against anything sent their way.

Initial contact was bumpy, not sharing any common language; and the Dirtlings (by many used as a derogatory term, but it is what the crazy fuckers call themselves) having multiple distinct languages. Still, people on both sides managed to learn each other languages, and soon diplomacy and trade could begin. That was another hornet's nest as there was a lot of mistrust and conflict between the different groups of the planets (while there had been no nuclear war, they had detonated over two thousand nukes on their own planet as "tests").

By buying the Dirtlings' advanced electronics, recruiting workers and mercenaries, and getting the shipyard into full production, the tide of war swung into the other direction and the aggressors soon sued for peace. That was however just a precursor of the the storm to come. As the other space nations and the Dirtlings learned about each other, new alliances was made and new conflicts arose. Not only have the introduction of Dirtling electronics made a huge impact, a lot of them have ideas and opinions considered dangerous and heretical among the stars and new lines of conflicts are drawn. Many of the adventurous, disenfranchised, and the crazies, among the Dirtlings have taken to the stars; and quite a few as mercenaries and other forms of military and security contractors.

The rumors that Dirtlings are cannibals seems to be false, as they seems to be rather upset or at least annoyed by those claims. Oh, and some claim it should be Earthling. Dirtling, Earthling... what's the difference. It just mean soil, right?
 
The setting for my original Savage Worlds space opera campaign was initially intended to be, essentially, "Firefly with the serial numbers filed off," but between my players rapidly taking several hard left turns from what I had thought/ planned/ intended, and me having no idea what I was doing as a baby GM & therefore just making everything up off the top of my head, rather than asking for a few minutes to adjust my plans, it rapidly became much, much, goofier than Firefly. I consciously drew a lot from Marvel's goofier cosmic comics, and probably subconsciously from the old Star Wars EU. One of the nice things about running space opera is, if you have an idea for an adventure in a setting a bit different than what's already been established, you can just make that setting the Adventure Planet of the Week. Anyway, it was strange, it was silly, it was way off course from what I originally intended, and... it was a ton of fun! :smile:
 
I'd made a Rome-based setting for a game.
It's Rome. The only differences are that there are seven Vestal Virgins, nobody contradicts the Head Vestal Priestess, and the Temple of Vesta is a big, kinda blocky structure built in the basalt hills...oh, and people know a lot about hygiene:devil:.

The seventh Vestal Virgin is a cyborg. The whole set-up was created a couple centuries ago by a Virus ship of the Mother variety. The ship is the temple.
Yes, we're in Traveller: The New Era.
 
My last homebrew setting was called Albion. Yep, totally original name. Loosely based on the British Isles of the Dark Ages, only Wales got broken off the mainland and Scotland was full of Trolls. Using BRP/RQ2 (the Games Workshop edition) and drawing heavily on Brave, seasoned with Prydain. Which my players never actually cottoned on to.

I decided that I wasn't actually going to write down anything that wasn't going to be used in play, so there were only very loose notes. But there were three kingdoms, with the Wales expy being a fourth related but separate one. The High King had died and the three remaining kingdoms fell to the usual clannish squabbling. There was also the remnants of a Rome analog in the South West. And I had this vague idea about 'The Isle of Wights' that never came to anything.
 
Not really settings but Venice filled out with NPCs for a historical game using a medieval map of the city. A town outside Rome (Pontibus) in the late Republic period and a Mycenaean Greek petty kingdom (Wiasus) for a game during the time of the Iliad.
 
The Otherworld

The basic premise of my setting is that it is The Otherworld of European folklore, but set some time after the earth died (whether through some Apocalyptic event, the sun dying or going supernova, or some sort of astronomical event is left unanswered). It's basically exists as the dreams of a world that no longer exists, the fading echoes of myths whose original dreamers are long since gone.

The Otherworld exists as a series of Realms that each have individual, but shifting geographies, and whose boundaries are defined by the cultures that once told stories of them. Connecting them all are The Forest Primeval, The Sea Primordial, and The Mountains Perilous- essentially what this means is that every forest, mountain range, and ocean or sea is a reflection of a core archetype, and travel far enough into any one expression of it and you reach the core idea, from which every other expression emanates. So you could enter the Black Forest in Alfheim and exit the Mirkwood of Caledon, or the Broceliande of Armoricia. In this way all Realms are connected. Think Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood, but on a grander scale.

At the centre of The Otherworld lies the great city-state of Rings, built upon the enormous stump of what was once Yggdrasil, the world tree. Rings is a sort of mix of Planescape's Sigil with Gormenghast and New Crobuzon. It is a metropolitan melting-pot of old gods, retired monsters, and eclectic fae.

The Otherworld is one of two "moons" that orbits a vast "planet" known as Akasha - which has the appearance of a great shifting eye made of liquid ideas. It's sun is a star called Bahamut. The other "moon" is The Netherworld, Land of the Dead", and when their orbits bring them in contact, the two worlds are briefly one.

Both The Otherworld and Netherworld face incursion from three other Realities that seep into and warp it, cancers at the edge of their realities - The Howling, The Inferno, and The Void. The Howling is dimension of ideas that never were, potential realities that didn't get the chance to exist, and is ruled by demonic entities known as The Archons. The Inferno is the manifestation of the dreams and nightmares of Hell, of a world of eternal punishment and torment, populated by demons and devils. The Void is an unknown, a sort of psychic collective intelligence made manifest that appears like television static, and rewrites and mutates beings it comes into contact with it, eventually absorbing them into an unending mass of shifting flesh. The Void is like a Cronenberg Dimension X, it represents the dreams of a machine-mind, artificial intelligence attempting to rewrite reality in it's image.

People ("humans") in The Otherworld are divided into The Doomed, The Forsaken, and The Lost.

The Doomed are those that have lost their souls or spirits and been absorbed into the Otherworld, perpetually caught up in archetypal stories that they play out for eternity.

The Forsaken are those that were once the lovers or pets of the Fae or some other entity of The Otherworld, but were either discarded or escaped this servitude and, with no world to return to, are left to wander The Otherworld until they too are absorbed by an Archetype or Story and become one of the Doomed. They still retain some piece of their soul or original identity, but are also no longer completely human.

The Lost are those that have wandered into The Otherworld from some point in history. Because the Otherworld exists outside of our Time-Space continuum, they could be from any point in Earth's history, in some manner having slipped from our world into this one.

I could probably keep writing on about this, but that's the basic overview.
 
I'd made a Rome-based setting for a game.
It's Rome. The only differences are that there are seven Vestal Virgins, nobody contradicts the Head Vestal Priestess, and the Temple of Vesta is a big, kinda blocky structure built in the basalt hills...oh, and people know a lot about hygiene:devil:.

The seventh Vestal Virgin is a cyborg. The whole set-up was created a couple centuries ago by a Virus ship of the Mother variety. The ship is the temple.
Yes, we're in Traveller: The New Era.
I must add to this that Parthia is the next state over, while China is the one after. However, they have no analogues of the Temple of Vesta.

She's playing favourites. But she'd still punish them for deviations from the script:smile:. That's why Claudius was recently made Emperor. He'd probably hate it to know that one of the Vestal Virgins maimed him as a kid based on a file analysis which pointed his possible suitability for the role and who knows what he might do then:wink:?

That's known deviations, mind you. She doesn't have all that much info on the period, and as you have seen, she has enforced some variations herself:shade:.

Also, the planet has even more water, despite being slightly bigger. No real reason for that, other than me wanting some more ship-building:thumbsup:.
 
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Like the OP, I started running RuneQuest in Glorantha before much was published, though I started in 1978 with first edition. If one looks at those rules, particularly the weapons and armor, there's a very medieval European feel to them rather than a bronze age feel. The descriptions of guilds also seems rather medieval European. Slowly I got modules and read about RuneQuest and Glorantha in magazines. White Dwarf introduced some stuff that wasn't necessarily Gloranthan. There was also some influence from people who contributed to The Wild Hunt APA. I did read Cults of Prax, and certainly picked out stuff from the cults, but I didn't necessarily take all the cultural bits from the Biturian Virosh story. My early games were primarily set in Sartar, partly due to the modules Apple Lane and Snake Pipe Hollow, but also due to using the map from the White Bear and Red Moon board game. In college I had short failed games in Balazar (Griffon Mountain) and Prax (Borderlands). I didn't get Pavis and Big Rubble until later. In the 90s I ran a long campaign in Sartar and Prax that used a lot of the RQ3 modules (and I had access to borrowed Pavis and Big Rubble, and maybe before that campaign ended I got Pavis). So my Glorantha is half home brew and half canon. My settings are primarily places for adventure to happen, so the culture and history stuff tends to be pretty vague and the culture tends to be pseudo-European fantasy medieval with sort of vague ideas of what barbarians are like. It's a mishmash of modern culture, bits absorbed from fantasy novels, random bits from settings, and some of whatever I picked up from my history classes and maybe a bit of non-fiction reading.

To me, a game setting is mostly a map with interesting places on it. When provided a map from a published setting, interesting names will help me make interesting places for adventure and inform the possible encounters.

For totally home brew fantasy settings, I still have the map from my high school AD&D campaign. It has some of the Midkemia Press cities placed on it and maybe even an adventure module or two. But really I didn't do much with it, mostly I just ran the PCs through modules and occasionally my own dungeon.

I also came up with a setting in grad school but again it wasn't much more than a map. For the grad school campaign (which started as a Fantasy Hero campaign and eventually AD&D with a short run of Cold Iron), I did come up with a PC race, Ethiri, that were sort of elfin but had a latent ability to shape change into felines (from house cats to bigger cats).

I am currently running two Classic Traveller play by post games in a home brew setting called the Wine Dark Rift. The story of that setting is a contracting Imperium (NOT the 3rd Imperium of the official setting). The PCs are dealing with civil wars, refugee relocation, various aliens, secretive psionic cults and more. I have detailed very little beyond worlds and space lanes beyond the Imperial worlds, though one of the groups is on a former Imperial world. One player in the other group is a noble and has been contributing some setting through his PC.
 
I am currently running two Classic Traveller play by post games in a home brew setting called the Wine Dark Rift. The story of that setting is a contracting Imperium (NOT the 3rd Imperium of the official setting). The PCs are dealing with civil wars, refugee relocation, various aliens, secretive psionic cults and more. I have detailed very little beyond worlds and space lanes beyond the Imperial worlds, though one of the groups is on a former Imperial world. One player in the other group is a noble and has been contributing some setting through his PC.
Oh, so it's really you over on Unseen Servant:shade:?
 
Oh, so it's really you over on Unseen Servant:shade:?
Yes, I'm ffilz pretty much anywhere I can get the id. Sometimes I'm ffilz2 because somehow I created an ffilz ID but can't log into it or reclaim it... Sometimes ids need to be longer than 5 characters. I run games on Unseen Servant and odd74.
 
My most complete homebrew is BX Mars.
I’m working on another right now, it’s called The Last Days Of the Great Equatorial Empire and takes place on a snowball earth.
I generally lay out all my settings in the format below. The goal is to keep things short and to the point so players will actually read it.
The initial idea of laying out setting details like this comes from The 4e DMG, which had lots of good world building advice that was lost in the kerfuffle Surrounding its mechanics.

What Came Before

Uncountable years in the past, a war that had gone on for a thousand years, or maybe ten times as long, came to an end. A missile launched by the losing side tore through space and impacted the sun. The sun flared and dimmed, its heat stolen away. Ice marched north and south from the poles. The war, the nations and peoples who fought it were forgotten and no more. Life became a struggle as its range became increasingly restricted by the cold and the ice that came with it. Nations were covered; things long understood were lost and things long forgotten, perhaps best forgotten, came once more into the world.


What Came After

In time, conditions stabilized leaving a narrow band close to the equator, bracketed both to the north and south by immense glaciers, each of which spanned half a world. Life went on, evolution took hold, changing it and shaping life to the near frozen world that was the new normal.

The humans are gone, or mostly so, those that remain are altered beyond recognition. A myriad of strange and more specialized species have risen in their place.

Time is deep

The Earth is immeasurably ancient. Humans existed as the dominant species for eons, and they have been gone for nearly as long. In their wake, new peoples have risen and evolved to survive in the cold world.


The Forever Winter

Winter is the constant condition of the climate. So long has it gone on that summer is merely a legend, held by many to be entirely a myth. Across the world, there are two seasons. The weather during the season of silence is colder. during the Season of storms, the weather is, as the name imples, violent and unpredictable.

Things are getting worse.

After millenniums of environmental stability, the climate, over the last few centuries, has taken a turn for the worse. It grows colder. The so called Ice Free Corridor constricts as the glaciers are once again on the move.


The Great Equatorial Empire

For the last two thousand years a single state has ruled the equatorial regions.

The empire is on the verge of collapse.

Due to diverse factors, including climatic degradation, internal strife and technological amnesia, The Great Equatorial Empire is in a state of severe decline. The powerful are slowly fleeing the surface world, retreating to the empire’s cities beneath the sea. Resource shortages, government oppression and the ever present threats of the wilderness make life within the outer empire uncertain at best.


One Empire split in two parts.

The Outer Empire is comprised of the empire’s holdings on land. The inner empire exists below the sea in ancient domed cities. The Inner Empire is where the true power lies. Although its wealth has declined over the last few centuries, it is still the most vibrant part if the empire.

New Powers Rise

Factions within the empire and polities outside it have increasingly gained power over the last several centuries. To the average citizen of the empire, balkanization seems inconceivable, but it grows more and more likely every day.

No place is Safe

The cities are a quagmire of street violence and paranoia. Criminal gangs and secret police terrorize the populace in equal numbers. Corruption and the politics of fear make the two nearly indistinguishable from one another from the view point of the common people.

The wilderness is ruled over by savage nomad tribes, beasts, the undead and amongst the great ruins and industrial temples, freaks of every description hold dominion.
 
Ruritanias - fictional locations set in the real-world - became my favorite sort of homebrew setting. The fictional 'El Dorado County' of our Boot Hill campaign replaces several actual counties in southeastern New Mexico, and I'm (very)* slowly working the setting forward in time - 'Promise City 1920' - to use for my ¡Viva GangBusters! campaign; to that end, I introduced Lakefront City, GangBusters core rules ruritania, in the Boot Hill campaign when it was still active, so they shared the same universe in actual play for a game-year or so already.

I also have copious notes for a Flashing Blades-slash-generic swashbuckling game ruritania set in the south of France around 1626; really, I just need some time and motivation to type it into my blog - it's that close to being done.

I really enjoy the challenge of creating a fictional location which tightly fits to the real-world in which it's set; it merges the best of two worlds for me: a deep-dive into history with the creative freedom to make a setting which plays off that history in (hopefully) novel and interesting ways. Frex, the demographics of southeastern New Mexico are very much 'West West Texas' as opposed to the multicultural Rio Grande Valley, but we wanted Spanish and Mexican land grants and colonias for the Boot Hill campaign, in keeping with the setting described in the rules, so it became an interesting task to fit them into the fictional El Dorado County in a way which was at least plausible enough to not snap the suspenders of disbelief** too hard. It allowed me to rewrite BH5 Range War! for the Boot Hill campaign, using hispano and Navajo sheepherders in place of the immigrant Basques of Oregon presented in the original adventure.

* I wasn't expecting to be nearly as busy with actual pay-the-bills work during stay-at-home, but my best-laid schemes indeed gang aft agley: stared at my games longingly but haven't played a thing or written more than a few words in the seven weeks since US society imploded.

** Suspenders of disbelief: Enable the wearer to detect all illusory or invisible things within viewing range. There is a 5% chance each time the suspenders are snapped that the viewer will possibly see through some real thing as if it were an illusion. XP 1500 GP Sale Value 15,000

I'm also a huge fan of the "Ruritania" settings.

If I ever run a World of Darkness game again or really any modern or near-modern setting, I will likely use a fictional location.

Matter of fact, I've been mulling about a fictional city in my head. Kind of torn on whether or not to put it in the Western United States (most likely Colorado or Arizona) or put it in the Northern states (probably Pennsylvania or upstate New York)
 
DARK FABLE

I've been wanting to run my own Fable setting for a while, a dark Faerie Tale mini-setting.
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Early period of Late Middle Ages Europe feels the right spot for this in regards to setting inspiration. It's not historical, it'll be a completely fictional setting that I vaguely have in mind, something to sandbox in. No black powder weapons yet, and an increased presence of folk magic practices and such, due to superstition.

I'm thinking of a micro-setting approach. Only one or two large urban cities, with most of the action happening out in the rural pastoral villages that are clinging to forlorn shorelines, or sparsely scattered at the edges of mysterious heavily-wooded forests where all manner of Faerie and Supernatural things can occur. Very whimsical in flavour, although a bit threatening at times, especially the further one wanders away from the glow of civilisation.

Princess Bride meets Lord Dunsany meets Brothers Grimm are the broad brushstrokes I am going for, with a bit of Clive Barker and Neil Gaimann around the edges.

I'm keeping my eye out for lots of major influences from traditional Fairy Tales - Snow White, Pinocchio, Hansel & Gretal, Red Riding Hood, etc all spring to mind. As well as some of the Slavic folk lore, with Baba Yaga witches and shadowy entities and such. Also influences from fictional literature like The King of Elfland's Daughter, Gormenghast, The Hobbit, Earthsea, The Witcher series, etc. Other rpg settings I can see influencing me are titles like Beyond The Wall, Symbaroum, Trudvang, and Vaesen.

I really want to run this with BRP. I thinking a lighter variant of BRP suits this well, so the game mechanics can blend into the background.
Magic World was my initial idea, although I'm also leaning towards OpenQuest at present.
Undecided which one of those will work better here. The word cut artwork style of Magic World initially inspired me for this, although I do prefer how core skill chances are calculated in OQ.
They are both reasonably light BRP systems which appeal to me for this setting.

I have half a mind to set it in Dolemwood, and milk the Dolemwood products for content - those Wormskin 'zines look great, just the kind of setting I am thinking of. I am aware that there may be a detailed Dolemwood gazeteer to be published by Necrotic Gnome next year, so that sounds pretty useful to me. I think I could easily ignore their D&D OSR stats (OSE), and use BRP to run the setting. Something for me to consider.

Depending on how much role I want character background to play, I may be better taking it up a notch in BRP complexity and go with Mythras instead. I’m not sure I want combat to have such an emphasis however, and I want the game to feel a bit lighter than Mythras’s more crunchy mechanics. However I wouldn’t be too adverse to using Mythras, I’m sure I can nestle it within the setting.

I'm also thinking that perhaps Lyonesse may touch on alot of similar themes, so I will have to give that tome a deep dive (considering I bought it a month or so ago). If it hits the beats I'm after, then I could easily run it RAW using BRP/Mythras.

But Dolemwood still has alot of appeal, it's a very flexible micro-setting to use as background canvas. It certainly hits the target in regards to the flavour I want, and I think BRP (MW or OQ) can support it quite well.

Hmmm decsions, decisions...
 
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20+ years ago (so I would have been in my early 20s), I ran lots of games in a "gritty" cyberpunk setting that I was convinced was far superior to all other similar settings (Narrator: "It was not superior to all other similar settings"). It took place in the south east of England and northern France, where urban sprawls were linked together by the Channel Tunnel and its successors. It was really influenced by the contemporary 90s, so there were lots of refugees and immigrants on both sides of the channel (I had them mostly be from the Balkans and the former USSR), and this was one of the big in-game issues. Oil was no longer in such great supply, so there were floating cities constructed out of old supertankers sitting off of towns like Hastings. I must have some notes on it somewhere. I think my recollection makes it sound a lot better than it actually was. Although, weirdly, when I watched Children of Men for the first time, I was like "Holy shit! Some of that was in my game!"

Cheers,
Franko

My Shadowrun campaign was based on Portsmouth and Southampton merged into one continuous city with the Isle of Wight as a corporate owned free trade zone. Using somewhere that you know can really help in real world games

Just messaged my old gaming buddy Allan about this. His recollection was "Remember how you would describe every little street food stall and grubby, hole in the wall greasy spoon cafe in excruciating detail? But when someone pulled a gun you'd say 'They pull a pistol' and we'd be like 'What kind?' and you'd go 'I dunno, it's just a bloody pistol!' It was basically CyberPunk StreetFood: The RPG."

And you know, I don't think he's wrong.

Cheers,
Franko

I played in a WFRP game that was a bit like this. All the food was detailed, but the Skaven were glossed over. It was quite fun and half the party bankrupted themselves when we ate at a posh coaching Inn by mistake.
 
Well to kick things off, here is a copy of my post on TBP thread
It's more nostalgia than anything else:

A GLORANTHA UNLIKE ANY OTHER...

I intially started with Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, so the look of the 'World of Titan' influenced me a bit.
I then wanted to get Basic D&D, but my cousin ended up convincing me to get RuneQuest instead.

I initially had the RQ2 corebook and nothing else to go on for a year, then I had the RQ2 Companion.
It would be at least two or three years before I got the Cults books (which expanded religions and cultures at the same time), and any of the official RQ2/RQ3 supplements

So during the gap years in between, I just had to wing the entire setting.

This was the 1980s and I was a teen who lived in a regional Australian town. We were a long way from the hub of the rpg industry at that time, there was only a few groups of kids who played rpgs in the town, and we knew most of them. Things are quite different now, but back then we had to work with whatever we had.

All I had for most of that interim time to play RuneQuest with was the RQ2 Box set (Corebook, two scenarios), and the RQ2 Companion - these books eluded to an ancient world setting, gave a bit of history, and that's about it.

The World of Glorantha was just a bare bones setting with these books, and pretty much a canvas for me to add alot to.

So although this was a published setting, my original Glorantha was at least 70% my own homebrew ideas, which was a mish-mash of what influences were around me at the time.
I was very influenced by ancient history, as well as Sword & Sorcery, with lots of ideas ported in from a plethora of CONAN comics, as well as the old Sinbad movies. In addition to this, I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' (both the book, as well as the animated film), and I loved the Brian Froud influence in 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth'.

Additionally as a player in other GM settings I was also exposed to Basic D&D 'Greyhawk', AD&D's 'Krynn', MERP, and Rolemaster's 'Shadow World'.

When it was time for me to GM, all these influences poured into my home brew of Glorantha

Think a bizare homebrew cross between 1980s 'Clash Of The Titans', "CONAN The Barbarian', 'Beastmaster', Ralph Bakshi' 'Lord Of The Rings', and a hobble of psuedo-feudal atmosphere influenced by Jack Vance or Fritz Leiber, that Classic Fantasy flavour. Touches of 'Dark Crystal' and 'Labryinth' as well. Even influences from the BBC series 'Robin Hood' at times. I also loved the David Lynch 'DUNE' film back then, and although it was SciFi, it also influenced my Glorantha quite a bit. Of course I was a big fan of 'Star Wars', I think some of it may have unconsciously also slipped into my Glorantha at times.

In addition to Tolkien, I was also influenced by Ursula LeGuin's "Earthsea', Terry Brooks 'Shannara', Fritz Leiber's 'Fafhrd & Gray Mouser' series, Weis & Hickman's 'Dragonlance Chronicles', and Raymond Feist's 'Magician' (which would later lead into the 'Riftwar Saga").

My high school Ancient History textbook was used quite alot. It also was a great cover for when my parents walked in expecting to see me doing homework, and I had my Ancient History textbook sitting right there in front of me.

For Glorantha, I only had the Kerofinela (Dragon Pass) map, and the Kethaela (Holy Country) maps, which were neighbouring regions - one inland and one coastal. I had a very broad world map of Glorantha from the RQ2 corebook, but nothing was detailed. I ended up detailing alot of the cultures and regions myself, completely oblivious that the world was already detailed by the author(s).
I had lots of handwritten note books, maps, pictures stuck in from Fangora magazines and such; basically a bursting patische of everything I wanted.

Because I never had the Cults Books for Glorantha at that time, then the presence of the Deities was initially very much a background thing (which is actually the opposite of how Glorantha ticks). It slowly became more prominent once it was evident that this is how you could gain magical abilities within the setting.

The RQ2 Corebook had the Storm God, and the Darkness Goddess. The Introduction in the RQ book (as well as my cousin) told me about the Sun God, and the Earth Goddess. So I pretty much had everyone worship this one pantheon, placing a different emphasis on whichever deity depending upon the style of culture. I came across write ups for three Death Gods - Mistress of Afterlife, the War/Honour God and War/Berserker God. So these all became incorperated, with War/Honour God worshippers being stern warriors and noble templars, almost paladins in some regions, whilst War/Beserker God was for barbarians and evil doers and such. I eventually added the Peace/Healing Goddess once I knew about her, and that rounded the entire pantheon off.

So all cultures worshipped these gods, although some were banned in some regions, depending on the situation. I ballooned alot of their magic out beyond what I had in the core magic, and it was a very different version of Glorantha. I was aware of other deities at the times, but I just placed them as folklore, and learning an ability from one of them had to occur under the banner of one of the bigger Cults.

The PCs tended to get low-level magic from various temples, and treated them more like a bazaar at times. Once they had learnt a spell, that was generally it, they may learn a Healing spell from the Peace Goddess, or a Bladesharp from a War god willy nilly; it was something that just took the place of Feats in other games.

The Gods were portrayed very similar to the ancient Greek gods, as back then that is what I thought a fantasy pantheon should look like. However the pantheon was mainly a background canvas, in much the same way deities tend to be in vanilla fantasy settings. Not a major feature for all of my players.

I did have Sorcerers, which felt more like the villains from my CONAN comics than anything else. They also used the Rune Magic, but didn't respect the Gods so they weren't Priests. They mainly summoned the Elementals (from the core book), and I also introduced Demons (some of which was influenced by the 'Stormbringer' game my cousin had acquired).

Later on I had some players who wanted to be Sorcerers, and they ended up feeling much like the lone wizards from the Earthsea books or The Riftwar Saga (although this may have been when I bought RQ3 and it introduced a new version of Sorcery, which was different to my previous Sorcerers using Rune Magic to summon Elementals and Demons. This was probably the start of many changes to my original Glorantha homebrew).

In RQ2 corebook the Guilds seemed to play a more prominent role than religion, so Guilds were initially very big in my Glorantha. Even smaller regions were beholden to the Guilds at times, and the PCs were always in debt to the Guilds, and sometimes on the run from certain Guilds.

My cultures were based of tidbits of lore from canon, and alot of my own invention. Looking back it was actually not bad, considering what I had to work with, and my age at the time.

The land of Esrolia was based off Ancient Greece, with the capital being like ancient Athens. Heortland was similar to early Franksia or Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, with Karse being based off Lanhkmar. Sartar was also very much Ancient Greece, although the capital was based more off Sparta. The nearby plains of Prax felt like some of the arid lands I had seen in the CONAN comics, maybe Shem or something like that. The city of Pavis was originally a Tarsh colony , with Mongolian like tribes throughout the plains (some were more like Cimmerians, others were a little native american indian as well). Tarsh felt like Turan from my CONAN comics, so it was very Arabic or Moorish in my Glorantha.

We had one enduring player-character who was a Foot Barbarian from Prax, so we made him essientially a figure like Conan, except he came from arid plains rather than icy mountains. We kept retconning that character over the years to fit the ever-changing impressions we had of Glorantha. In recent times we reinvented him as a Pol-Joni Raider, which is actually not too far off this original version - he's probably the only thing that has remained constant.

I was aware of an empire to the north coming down from Peloria, the Lunar Empire. In my original setting of Glorantha, the Lunar Empire was very much a background thing and not the feature it played in my later games (RQ3+). Originally Peloria was not detailed in the books I had, so my Peloria was a desert region filled with Egyptian-like people, with a range of icy mountains above it filled with Snow Barbarians (like CONAN Cimmerians) and Trolls. The Egyptians (Lunar Empire) had taken over the Arabic region (Tarsh) and had colonies elsewhere (such as Pavis). There was also a Pharaoh in the southern regions who was a mysterious demigod in charge of both the Athenians (Esrolia) and the Franks (Heortland). Because of the Egyptian title of 'Pharaoh', I had him be the exiled brother of the northern Egyptian (Lunar) Emperor who was also a demigod. It could of led to some interesting possibilities.

According to the timeline, the southern Pharoah had gone missing, suspect to Eygptian (Lunar) treachery. There had also been a war with the Egyptians (Lunars) and the Spartans (Sartar). The Spartan (Sartar) captial had fallen, but recently been reclaimed by the Spartans (Sartar), and the Eygptians (Lunars) retreated for a while.

This was the recent history, so the Egyptian-Sparta (Lunar-Sartar) War was over when I first had the player-characters running around. Arabia (Tarsh) was kind of a neutral ground, and the Arabic-like city of Pavis still had an Egyptian (Lunar) garrison, but that was about it, the Egyptians (Lunars) were no longer a big presence (although I had their Emperor scheming to return one day).

Troll hordes were a big threat, and I also read about Delecti The Necromancer, so he became a Sauron-like presence from his swamp (which stood in for a damp Mordor), and he was coordinating the Trolls much like Tolkien's Sauron coordinated the Orcs. So the growing presence of Delecti the Necromancer (who was the Arch Sorcerer, and also High Priest of the Darkness Goddess) was meant to be the big background metaplot to connect the various separate scenarios I was runninng (which were often re-trapped D&D modules).

Most of the games were essientially dungeon crawls or hack and slay, and I had to allow extremely liberal use of Luck rolls to save the PCs from the harshnes of the RQ system, otherwise we would of had TPKs every week.

I had wanted to pursue my over-arching metaplot of Delecti/Sauron, but the PCs took the campaign further south and I think it derailed in the end. We moved onto other games, but I kept developing my Glorantha, altering it bit by bit as I became aware of new canon, until my original Glorantha really didn't exist anymore. By the early 1990s it had been absorbed into the Gloranthan canon that was on the shelves at that time.

So yep, my early Glorantha was a very different setting to what was being published. In my isolation from the commercial side of the rpg industry, I had completely gone down a differen path that the authors would of loved or completely hated. I would like to think that the original creator Greg Stafford (deceased) is smiling down chuckling to himself. I did share alot of his initial inspirations, but this train was completely off the tracks.

Overall my homebrew Glorantha turned out to be a bizarre cross between Ancient Greece meets Hyboria meets Lankhmar/Nehwon meets DUNE meets High Fantasy Europe. It all came together in an implausible crazy gonzo way that only 1970s/1980s adolescent Fantasy lovers could appreciate.

Eventually I became exposed to the real Glorantha canon, and the setting dramatically changed for me over the years, got worse in many ways and I eventually felt some things became bland.
The products started moving the setting date back a decade, so the Lunar Empire was still ruling Sartar. The Lunars became very Roman-like, the Sartarties became very Celtic-like. That worked okay for a decade, but then didn't feel right for me.

I really didn't dig Glorantha again until the contemporary interpretation.
Glorantha has definately returned to an ancient world flavour, and I really love how it is portrayed these days.

However despite my appreciation of the current Glorantha, there is still a part of me that yearns for the crazy gonzo Glorantha homebrew of my youth.
It's almost like seeking out a tattered old pulp fantasy novel in second hand book stores, but never finding the one that first grabbed my attention.

It really only exists now in my mind, but yeah it was a fun place to play in :grin:
Great post, great thread.

I was in the UK when I met Runequest and Glorantha. I first played it at a con, and got very excited about the Harmonize spell and the fact that all characters could cast.

I got RQ2 from Games Workshop - RQ1 had sold out and I had to wait for it to be printed. I picked up Cults of Prax, which was briefly confiscated as I was reading it in RE class :smile:

My Glorantha was very shaped by the adventures - Broken Tree Inn by Judges Guild was not a great adventure, but it was pretty easy to turn into an attack on a Lunar outpost. I guess my Glorantha stayed pretty close to the canon, but I do love the kitchen sink nature of the setting you describe.

I have mostly used others settings. I did do a teenage conversion of Stormbringer to Conan's Hyboria. Unsuprisingly Cimmerians were the best race to roll.

The closest I have come to a homebrew setting is the apocalypse event I created for Trollszine 5 called Children of Entropy (which alludes to a fan product my brother and I did for RQ). I'll reproduce some of my purple prose to give you the idea...

Nexus

The world of Nexus spun through the Universe, or perhaps more accurately, the Universe spun around it. For Nexus was a verdant world, rich in magic, at the perfect intersection of the planes. The Wizards walked in pomp and power, accessing riches and wonders from the planes beyond. Some populated underground complexes with creatures from across the multiverse, just because they were able to. Races of all kinds congregated on this planet, bickering and disputing for land, but all were in fear lest the Wizards turn on them.

A Wizards Guild, the Wizards Guild in fact, determined who should receive learning and who should not. But those with psi powers yet denied membership still sought after knowledge, and reached for power from beyond Nexus.

Princes listened to those beseeching their aid, and oft gave it, knowing it served their long term goals. Each such interaction cut an opening in the walls between Nexus and the planes around it. Rarely were such remedied, and Nexus began to bleed into other realities.

The Cataclysm

The air changed colour and shimmered. Not all of it, but patches here and there. They started out the size of a dinner plate and very slowly started to grow. They were pretty, radiating different colours, changing through all the colours of the spectrum. Noises, from music to high pitched howls, could be heard from them. Some foolhardy souls reached into the patches - their limbs disappeared from view. Most times they just reported that it felt different - warmer perhaps, but sometimes their limbs were removed, and even more rarely, replaced by the limb of another creature.

The Wizards and Sages were baffled, though some believed that this was the prophesied Constellation of the Spheres, when all the planes would merge as one, with this one small world the eye of the planar storm.

And lo it came to pass that these areas grew, changing in shape and colour until all the world was covered with them. There was no escape, nowhere to hide, save within the strongest of Protective Pentagrams. Where the portals touched they brought death, change, mutation, transformation. Most were killed by the touch of other worlds. Some became creatures of ethereal beauty, others were transformed to demons most foul - the end result depending more on the portal touching them than on the nature of the person they were.

In the space of one week, all was thrown in flux. Civilisation fell under the impact of mass annihilation and transformation. And then the demons came...

Transformation

As the people of Nexus became transformed, so did the world itself. Oceans boiled, mountain ranges thrown down, deserts bloomed and forests burned. The touch of chaos, the energy of entropy, rendered all unpredictable. Wizards with sufficient foresight threw up mighty Pentagrams to preserve a small part of Nexus from the chaos. They laboured without sleep to protect those they held dear. All around them the forces of destruction raged and those inside prayed for survival.

Those outside were not so lucky, losing parts of themselves, and most often their lives to the cataclysm.
 
Wow zanshin zanshin, that's pretty impressive for a home brew! Very detailed and well thought out
I'm glad you got your efforts to see print, that must felt great having it printed in a T&T 'zine! :thumbsup:
 
Homebrew settings where all the thing when started. You really had no choice except perhaps for Wilderlands and who could afford that.

I've always been a history and geography buff, so geographically loved drawing a world map, and the current map I use is from a sketch from 1984 (one kingdom though dates to my very start)...that then drew up on a very large sheet of paper, not going to go measure it in the basement, just roughly estimating it is 4 feet by 3 feet. As to cultures, of course I put in the flavor of things liked from various fantasy novels and history. Did the whole thing where came up with own calendar, holidays, etc.

Of course a custom pantheon mostly a combination of various historical deities, a few combined (that is actually a historical thing as well, and even a word for it just cant recall), and a few from fantasy novels. A whole creation myth (it's concise and serves as why certain deities do what they do), a cosmology and a historical sketch (emphasis on sketch, the line item version is 1 page, the "full" version 3 pages) of history for the last 50,000 years or so, more detail for the last 2,000 years or so.

Including, explanations of the origins of all the sapient species, and the origin of monsters.

A key important part for me in all this world building was positing axioms, assumptions, about magic and then thinking of how that would shape civilization, politics, etc. part of the historical sketch is the evolution of magic, from the first purported, to a rough time-line as how spells of increasing power were discovered.

In short, my world building starts off with everything natural like our own world, and just crib from that for guide. Magic and most monsters didn't enter the picture until about 10,000 years ago, one species claims they had it 50,000 years ago :smile: , even then natural process shaped the evolution and distribution of species. 10,000 (or even 50,000 years) being a blip in evolutionary and geological time, but a very long time indeed for all the other sapiens (no species is immortal in my setting, and certainly not elves who though living maybe 200 years in decent health are far from immortal, they just seemed so to primitive humans).

The "feel" going for was one of what if the ancient world had survived, what if a hyperborean world had survived, add in a dash of mythic India, and a mythic Axum. Hyperborean about as close to "medieval Europe" ever wanted to get. When I weave in elements from fantasy novels, it is more as this is an alternative world.

All this historical stuff is used to guide magic items, woven into it. For example, that is why the "+1 sword" of certain manufacture is one you will find as they were made in the thousands millennia ago to serve in certain great war. It also informs "cursed" magic items which are rare, much more likely a magic weapon is "keyed" to a specific species (giving them extra benefits) and also harming species that are their enemies (e.g. shocking, attacks at "-1", etc.).


Now why let good creativity go to waste, I have dozens of other homebrew settings,...often just based on a map I found; then there is ones where simply use the map of earth. After all, when you come upon a room with gates to multiple worlds you need worlds to got to. As to world building have looked more to writers and have been involved with various writing groups over the years.
 
I have a dark fantasy that I m working on.

It is a riff on Savage Worlds Beasts and Barbarians, and Conan - with elements of various other science fiction stuff thrown in such as Predator, and the Annunaki (Engineers). There are also elements of Babylon 5 First Ones included which I think really adds to the setting. Magic is essentially from Doctor Who in that it is the fundamental operating system of the universe,.

Various individuals have managed to tap into internal reserves which is essentially similar to abilities from Gurps Martial Arts, and Heroes Unlimited Special Training.

I have catalogued catalogued the various ages of the world, some are more barebones than others, as they simply do not matter that much other than historical aspects to the setting.

There is a currently am opening to hyperspace on various continents which mutate various individuals that get near, in various ways.

The main ages are -

Mythical age (5M years ago). The Alfar from this time are a riff on the Melniboneans. The Annunaki are from mythology (plus Engineers from Aliens). There are Vanara (Ape-men). The survivors from the previous ages were the Saurians that cast themselves forward in time when the asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs. The Xothians hid their city in a fold of space-time beneatth the ocean. There is war in this age and it is not too dissimilar to the Mahbarata.

Atllantean age (200K YA). The Fae are humanoids mutated by proximity to a hyperspace portal. The Atlanteans find that there are beings resident within hyperspace - similar to 40k Dark gods.

Hyborian age (15K YA). This is the most fleshed out era. During this age there are immortal humans, similar to the Man from Earth. There are not many of them, some are believed the remnant survivors of Atlantis.

The crux of the action can take place anywhere in these last two, although I have written far more detail for the last one. Currently the pdf is 13 pages long.

Each age is split into History, Kingdoms, Flora & Fauna, Metaphysics, Species. The Hyborian has a few extra ones as that is more detailed. I have even got art for this, to help inspire my writing - although I do this for all my settings.
 
Why stop there....here is a brief description of the world as seen by humans (mostly), and actually is how most mammals see it. (A good portion of this just extemporaneously writing based on notes, and what is in my head)

In the beginning there were but seven sapient species: Keldak (reptilians), Sauru (saurians), Thal (neaderthals), Humans, Halfen (think hobbits), Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins (note on my goblins, they never stop growing so they start as "goblins" grow to "hobgblins" then to "bugbears" etc). These are called the original 7.

They lived mostly in isolation although it is said Goblins and Humans first arose together on the Southern Continent and humans were mostly driven out to the Northern Continent. Also in pre-history there is evidence of Humans drove the Thal into the remote regions they exist in today. As to Halfen, most early human sites contain evidence of Halfen co-settlement, although they are rarely mentioned in tales or even records.

The archeological record reveals that centaurs, mermen, marook, satyrs, orcs, giants, ogres, trolls, and many other creatures, did not exist prior to 10,000 years ago, and many much later. Certain species are know to have been created by the Unspeakable One, or many millennia later by his servant the Dark One (e.g. orcs, created by the Dark One, have been around for only about 5,000 years).

For those who have not read older works, recall that scholars posit the Pieces of the Sun fell to our world about 45,000 years ago, creating the great Age of Ice. These dates are uncertain as even Goblin Oral history extends back only 25,000 years. Sauru history makes many other claims, but as no mammal has ever been allowed to inspect their original records, Sauru pronouncements are considered but unreliable fables as the Saur have a wont to claim they are the first to have invented or discovered everything.

As most students will know, it was the union of the Three Peoples (Elves-Humans-Dwarves) who first sought out the Pieces of the Sun and constructed the Towers of the Sun to drive back the ice from the land...although this task would be in part undone and completed almost 1,500 years later in a near cataclysmic fashion with the Melting (aka The Great Flood).

It was the gathering of the Pieces of the Sun (Solarium), about 9,000 years before present, that created many of the sapiens we take for granted to today. At the time it was unknown, but Solarium in its raw form is a powerful magico-mutagenic material. It lead to the creation, by such mutation, of Centaurs, Mermen, Marook, and Giants, for example, and is suspected to have bestowed sapience upon the aquatic Octnan.

Although no records, and little oral history, from the time survive to provide details, it is conjectured the Centaur arose from a clan of mounted humans (who helped transport Solarium for the Towers of the Sun), who in some way were transformed ("melded") with their horses to produce Centaur. To this day within Centaur society it is taboo to question if ones lineage is that of a horse who became part human, or human who became part horse....and the greatest of insults.

The story of the Marook is similar, they are said to have been a tribe of the north who used their wolf-pulled sleds to transport Solarium, it too resulting in the Wolf-Human sapiens we know today. As with the Centaur, whether ones lineage is Wolf that became more Human, or vice versa, is a dangerous subject. Note to scholar pursuing this further, do not comment on the fact that Marook can be plantigrade or digitgrade as this distinction has a dark history in Marook society.

The story of Merfolk (Merrow in their own tongue) is similar, Human fishermen/sea travelling folk who transported Solarium. Merrow oral history adamantly maintains that all Merrow were humans who transformed.

The story of giants is different, as there is much evidence the Earth Giants (sometimes called Hill Giants) are very distinct from the Jotun (Fire and Frost Giants) while the Jotun are believed to have arisen form humans who handled Solarium, Earth Giants are believed to have arisen from Thal who did so.

One thing the observant scholar will have noted is that Solarium did not appeared to have this effect on species other than humans. There are many theories as to why this may be, but they are outside the scope of this review.
 
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I'm very 'pro' home-brewed settings; I feel like you aren't really having a classic roleplaying game experience unless at some point a DM sat down with a blank piece of paper and created something.

I've made lots over the years (mostly small scale sand boxes that didn't outlive their 1-2 year campaign). Perhaps my favorite big-scale concept that might pique others' interest was a fantasy Europe, loosely like the late 15th century in social and technological development, but ruled by a small set of wizards whose power is only limited by their vicious competition with each other. Some present themselves as gods and rule domains the scale of kingdoms (e.g., the self styled 'King in Yellow' rules France); others are insane loners who effectively haunt small, weird pocket kingdoms. But the structure of the campaign was effectively dictated by how the players wanted to relate to these figures. Fight them as rebels? Raid them for treasures and magics? Serve them as lackeys or ambassadors? Avoid them while doing something else? It was pretty fun and not that hard to set up because the meat and potatoes elements of the setting (regional maps, common jobs, etc.) can just be lifted from well documented history.
 
I'm very 'pro' home-brewed settings; I feel like you aren't really having a classic roleplaying game experience unless at some point a DM sat down with a blank piece of paper and created something.

I've made lots over the years (mostly small scale sand boxes that didn't outlive their 1-2 year campaign). Perhaps my favorite big-scale concept that might pique others' interest was a fantasy Europe, loosely like the late 15th century in social and technological development, but ruled by a small set of wizards whose power is only limited by their vicious competition with each other. Some present themselves as gods and rule domains the scale of kingdoms (e.g., the self styled 'King in Yellow' rules France); others are insane loners who effectively haunt small, weird pocket kingdoms. But the structure of the campaign was effectively dictated by how the players wanted to relate to these figures. Fight them as rebels? Raid them for treasures and magics? Serve them as lackeys or ambassadors? Avoid them while doing something else? It was pretty fun and not that hard to set up because the meat and potatoes elements of the setting (regional maps, common jobs, etc.) can just be lifted from well documented history.
Sounds a bit Joe Abercrombie Blade Itself series as a concept, which has made for some very cool novels. Nice.
 
I'm very 'pro' home-brewed settings; I feel like you aren't really having a classic roleplaying game experience unless at some point a DM sat down with a blank piece of paper and created something.

I've made lots over the years (mostly small scale sand boxes that didn't outlive their 1-2 year campaign). Perhaps my favorite big-scale concept that might pique others' interest was a fantasy Europe, loosely like the late 15th century in social and technological development, but ruled by a small set of wizards whose power is only limited by their vicious competition with each other. Some present themselves as gods and rule domains the scale of kingdoms (e.g., the self styled 'King in Yellow' rules France); others are insane loners who effectively haunt small, weird pocket kingdoms. But the structure of the campaign was effectively dictated by how the players wanted to relate to these figures. Fight them as rebels? Raid them for treasures and magics? Serve them as lackeys or ambassadors? Avoid them while doing something else? It was pretty fun and not that hard to set up because the meat and potatoes elements of the setting (regional maps, common jobs, etc.) can just be lifted from well documented history.

I can see this working well in D20 13th Age due to it’s Icon mechanics for connections to Patrons (Wizards), although in 13A the PCs feel reasonably powerful even at at First Level.

Of course I can also see it working well with BRP Mythras due to the Passions mechanics being well placed to portray connections with the Patrons (Wizards). The gritty combat system of BRP, especially Mythras, also lends itself to a setting like this as well.

Just wondering which rpg system you used for this M Moonglum?
 
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Sounds a bit Joe Abercrombie Blade Itself series as a concept, which has made for some very cool novels. Nice.
You read my thoughts on this, I was just about to add an Abercrombie reference in my previous email :grin:
 
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