Sorry about the first line, I have a player or few who frequently browse the forums. Anyway, i've wanted to run a game in a world I created for about 4 years now, but have been holding back on it. But seeing as 4E came out and we're willing to try it and try a whole new rules system we might as well try my world i've been holding back.
I'm still working on it, but i've had this great image in my mind of what it'd be like. I want it to have a very norse-land-of-mythology feel to it, mixed with the feel of two games (the Bloodmoon expansion for Morrowind, and The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker), along with the feel of the two MTG sets (Ice Age, and Coldsnap).
Basicly it would be a land that long ago prospered, and before long something happened, the sun became less bright and the plants began to die off and it got colder. Snow and ice covered the land within months and by this point in time (467 years later) the "actual" land beneath the snow is hundreds of feet below the frozen ice, covered in snow. The kingdoms that once were died off and the stragglers made for the mountains seeking warmth from deep within among the dwarves, but the dwarves caring for their own survival, denied the humans access forcing them to adapt in the snowstorms that wrecked havok in the land.
The only forests that remain in the current day are around the areas where the tops of the lower mountains (now about the same level as averything else) are. The elves being very attatched with with the woods scaled the small mountains overtime, and currently the hundreds of elves that still exist reside in these snow-covered pine forests. Although, some of the elves did adapt and came to call themselves the Snyauve Elves (snow elves in the common tongue), but around two hundred years ago the race became extinct in a full-scale war with the humans over disputed territory. (these "were" the eladrins, who won't be in my game).
The humans began to live peacefully in their villages based in places with natural protection (mountain ranges, forests) against the goblinoid races. One day a great red dragon attacked the village, and the village beckoned a hero, and he came. Lykrler Sworis was his name, a descendant of one of the greatest warriors in the human/elven wars. He journeyed up the mountainside and slayed the great beast, afterwhich he hauled the carcass back to his village where he and all the men bathed in it's blood in spite of the damage it caused. The next generation of children born at the village had very minor draconic appearances. This continued on for many, many years and as time went on the appearance became more draconic (dragonborn), also during this time the village suffered many things, disease, and foul weather, among others and their numbers grew slim. In the current time there are only 15 or so dragonborn left in the world.
Myths and legends claim that Ro'dull the great sun giant hurles a large ball of fire over the land every day providing light for the mortal races, but now the "sun" has became more dim than before the happening. No one is quite sure what happened, but it is said that one day when Ro'dull hurled the ball it made contact with something chipping it and shards of the sun fell to the earth, although none of these shards have been found.
Since the "happening" occured the goblinoid races rose up from deep within the earth (apparently from nowhere as the land had never seen their kind before) along with the orcs. Among the dwarves only certain clans lived, the dwarven holds to the north (used to the cold) survived, while the others farther south did not. When the gobinoid races came from below, many made these emty halls their homes. Although some of the goblinoids (much like the mortal races) adapted to the cold weather outside the mountains. Currently there are two "types" of goblins, your standard goblins, and the Ofolr the goblins who adapted to the weather and live outdoors in small scattered communities and ride boars. In addition these were the "smarter" of the the goblins.
That's all I have so far, i'm not too sure where to put halflings if at all, same with tieflings... For dungeons i'd have all the towers/fortresses that were built at the top of the highest mountains 467 years ago, because the tallest portion of the tallest mountains would remain above the ice and snow serving as your now "standard mountain". In addition I of course have caves/burial mounds, and very tall towers that were built before the freezing that the PCs could enter from the top and go down deep under the ice being able to access whatever building this tower was attached to.
I decided to post this to see what everyone though of it, and any ideas would be appreciated. Another thing is i'm NOT using any other planes in my game aside from Material. And many uncommon-magical items would be items of legend and lore, relics from before the "happening", and such items would be quested for. Again i'm trying to give this a very Norse-feel, and because of this i'd like to try to figure out how to fit a race of giants in somewhere.
Also suggestions for how to handle constant cold weather would be helpful, I just don't want the players to have to roll once every hour for the whole campaign. I want to keep this method really simple, so far the best suggestion i've heard so far (from another 4E player: "just give them 1d8 cold damage each day they stay outside, preferably around noon-ish", "of course you could always tack on another d-whatever of cold damage depending on wether or not its a snowstorm, blizzard, normal cold, etc..." I sorta want this to feel like a 2nd Ed game so something like this for simple rules would be great, if you have any other ideas please let me know. Also I plan on using three Megadungeons in my campaign, one for each tier.
Thanks,
-wrecan, your friendly neighborhood forum lead[/highlight]
Weather - You might simply make an endurance check every day before the extended rest (unless the PCs have not spent more than, say, 8 hours outside - you could even invent special clothes which eliminate the need for checks, but impede movement), and every PC that fails takes 1d8 damage per tier.
You should also research Norse mythology - some really interesting things there, you might find a way to re-fluff tieflings and halflings based on Norse folklore. Or just make halflings midgets - small humans everybody seems to like. Technically, you can re-fluff any "race" as humans with different characteristics (aside from some special abilities like dragonbreath and feystep). Definitely try to squeeze Yggdrasil in there somewhere, even though you said you'll only be using the Prime Material Plane, the possibilities of Norse mythology should not be left unexploited
)My take on thee halfling might be something like a race of hill-burrowing humanoids, inherently mistrustful of other races. The other races find them to be harmless. They survived by learning to dig through the snow and ice instead of the ground (they would have to have some interesting digging tools and techniques, probably kept secret). They have subglacial tunnels which might even connect ancient buildings and settlements with the surface, but most of the tunnels and burrows is the size of a small village, fit for a few dozen halflings.
Tieflings could be descendant of several human mages/priests/warlocks who rebelled against the gods, trying to take their place (maybe even causing the sun-chipping disaster). Forever cursed by the gods they wander the earth without a home, like the greedy beasts they are. They look intimidating, yet fascinating to the other races (CHA bonus) but their temper and bloodlust makes them unwelcome in the long run.
Also, you can make goblins playable (maybe) and put Drow and Duergar (they don't necessarily have to be evil) in there somehow if you want - the setting is really not that limiting.
Then that would happily give you the giants as his servants; be they the Frost giants that dwell in the mountains and acting as his army or the twisted Formorians (and their cyclops buddies) that dwell in the mountains in their cool bio-luminescent caves where they create the Greenskins that seem to have appeared from nowhere...
This might help give you an array of monsters to fight through in the Paragon/low epic tier and a suitably giant fight against the Primordial itself as the campaign end and the sun is restored...
While you don't want to use actual planes you may want to consider the heart of the ice where the Primordial lairs as "Niflheim" (norse realm of mist & ice) and to help restore the sun they may have to try and journey to Muspelheim (the realm of fire and home of the fire giants (their god surtur) and in your case possibly Ro'Dull to find the the shards of the sun necessary to "restart the sun"
As for the weather in general if the players describe themselves as wrapped up in furs/ coated in seal fat etc... I would ignore it and then only if they are left out in the cold for a long time or caught up in rather brutal conditions would I make them start rolling for things (they are vikings after all!).
Then I'd probably do a series of weather themed Skill Challenges with failure being loss of healing surges/weakened etc...
The disease mechanic also works quite well as an option with the cold weather being treated as a disease that attacks the PC's every day they are outside. The initail attack might be -1 healing surge then getting worse to -2 to attack rolls/ slowed as hypothermia/ frostbite sets in. So if the disease "misses" every day they are fine but if they get "cold" they may get worse.
Sounds like a very cool world/campaign idea though
Another thing i've managed to fit in were minotaurs, I know they're not a typical thing in norse mythology but it fits. I really liked Dragonlance's view on minotaurs, ya know seafaring. So I have humans living their lives as the norse did, but not seafaring. While I have these beast-men vikings preparing to take over the main continent.
I want to main Antagonists, one being Xixecal, the other being a lich. I can see why Xixecal doens't want the players to bring the sun back to it's former glory, but where could the lich fit in? or should he have a seperate story going on in the background that the players get caught up in while searching for the shards?
Also here is the link to my website for this setting: Freewebs.com/adamaro
In her case with the fall of the sun and the spread of shadows & night she is seeking to extend the Underworld into the "overworld". So she may in fact be actively opposed to the Frost Giants as well if you want some possible interesting alliances later in the game
Darkness & cold just screams of undead be they shadows/spectres or the bog standard frozen zombie vikings. If you don't already have it Frostburn has a whole host of winter themed undead that are quite cool and would be quite easy to convert to 4th Ed monsters. You can PM or email (KHolbourn@hotmail.com) if you'd like a hand converting any. I've found it pretty straightforward so far converting 3rd --> 4th Ed monsters
P.S. Really nice website
I'm glad you enjoyed the website
, i've worked on it alot. I also like the idea that sometime later in the game players possibly allying with the lich army vs. the frost giants, but i'm not quite sure if they'd ever do it. The way I see it is the lich becomes their first main antagonist around 4th level, sending minions and such after some artifact the players will have aquired by that point. The artifact is not working currently, but that could be fixed. And later on Xixecal hears of what the players are trying to do and sends his frost giants. I'm expecting that around 14th/15th level, and I don't want the Lich to just suddenly go away. I sorta want to have his story intertwine with Xixecal, or fade into the background and suddenly return near the end of the campaign around 25-28th level.
Also it would help alot if you could help me convert some of the stuff from Frostburn, thanks for the offer. I'm still trying to figure the whole "make your own monster thing", I've copied and pasted the whole entire post from the Monsters section of the boards detailing how to make creatures, but I have yet to memorize it.
Drow could easily just be the dark elves from Svartalfheim, the counterparts to the elves/eladrin from Alfheim.
To give it a bit more of a Norse flavour you may wish to rename the Primordial of cold to Ymir who was father to the frost giants (and incidentally Midgard [Earth] was made from his corpse, players of dwarves may not wish to have been descended from the maggots that crawled through his skin though). Halflings could be another race from Alfheim, they do look like mini elves after all.
While I know you're playing with Ice, have you thought of playing with fire? Just an idea but maybe you could bring in the PCs freeing Surtr the Primordial of Fire to have an all out battle against the Ice primordial. Have the Ice primordial Win but be weakened enough for the PCs to take him on (i.e. make him unassailable beforehand and then a level 34 solo afterwards although).
For the tieflings, I first thought of the dark elves from Svartalfheim. They are mistrusted, loners, and live outside normal society.
Have you read the Song of Ice and Fire? The parts beyond the wall of ice should provide some very good inspiration in terms of Norse inspired flavor and surviving in the cold. Some of my favorite antagonists from the series are the giants, which are possibly a little large than ogres (it's been a while) and ride mammoths. They travel together and make great raiders, and could be a good way to go with the minotaurs.
I've found a place (easily) for the frost giants to fit in, but have no idea where to put the fire giants. In my world there's a section of the continent called the "jotunn lands", a place where no mortal has entered and returned alive. I expected all my giants to be warring in that area amongst themselves, with the occasional that wanders into the rest of the continent to find something, or someone.
I'm still having some trouble with the lich though, towards the end of the campaign I want there to pretty much be three "factions" The Lich's Army, The Frost Giants, and the Players. I love the idea of the final epic battle of the campaign consisting of:
The players fighting off frost giants and undead hordes (who are also fighting each other), While a fire primordial and the ice primordial face off in the background. Eventually the fire one falls (crushing some undead and frost giants beneath him), and the ice primordial turns his attention to the players and kicks undead out of his way and heads towards them (players get 1d4 rounds to prepare) and finally the players face the ice primordial while the frost giants hold off the undead horde so they don't distract their primordial.
So pretty much right now I have to work on:
Fitting in fire giants
Establish more legends in the campaign's backstory
Also, sinceI know (pretty much) have the goal set for the end of the campaign, I need stuff to fill in beetween the beginning and then.
It would help alot if you guys could describe cool encounters that fit the setting, or provide ideas for legends. One idea I want to use as an encounter is some kind of chase scene, but I can't think of something they would run from and not try to fight that is hostile to them...Currently i'm working on converting most of the creatures from Frostburn to 4E.
Fitting in fire giants
Establish more legends in the campaign's backstory
Since you're wanting to keep the setting light on other plains, Muspelheim the home of the Fire Giants could easily become a string of volcanoes within the Jotuun Lands.
I'll need to have think on additional encounters though.
For additional information about the happening, you could say that whatever it was the sun hit was linked to the Primordial of Ice who wanted to remake the world into an icy kingdom in which he and his children would reign supreme. This is information that your PCs can find out as the campaign progresses which will give them more incentive to fight the Ice primordial as his defeat will result in the strengthening of the sun and the world warming up again.
How are you going to be using the sun shards? I was thinking that they would probably grant cold resistance of varying levels with greater shards able to fire a beam or burst of heat as a daily which could be of great help against the frost giants.