Thank you for any responses.
I wanted to create a world that would some what diverge from the Tolkienesque fantasy, and redefine some general concepts.
I really have no idea how to go about talking to any one about what I envision so I am going to do my best.
Chaos existed and at some point order coallesed out of it. This order is the original diefic force of the game. He/she discovers the ability to tap the chaos and using the energy there and effort from itself, is able to craft things out of it. The first things he/she crafts are a series of lesser dieties that will help him in his creative works. And they will be judged based on their creations. The original force has already created several planets and has asked this new group of beings to visit each of those planets and craft on them life. Each of these new beings is given the same ability to tap into the chaos and bring some order to it and thus create. So they go to the planets as ordered and begin creating.
This is done, and upon reaching the game world, this task force of beings creates two races. Dragons and Titans. Then they leave. The dragons are very creative and free willed where as the Titans are more of the work oriented craftsmen. Thousands of years later the task force returns to take a look at their creations. When they see that this particular world has not really gone any where, there are buildings and songs and art and monuments but nothing of substance, the task force has an idea. They gather together a council of equal parts Titan and Dragon and explain to them about the chaos and about the ability to tap it to create. They charge this council with creating lifeforms on the planet. The taskforce will return in years to come to judge them based on their creations.
Unable to decide amongst themselves on a single style of life the council divides and the Titans go off to create as do the Dragons.
The Titans create both the Dwarves and Gnomes and the Dragons create High Elves and the Fey (will expound on this later). The task force return years later to see these new life forms and are pleased with what they see. There are multiple cultures spread about on the world now. Each is developing an identity and relgion often based on the worship of Titans or Dragons.
As time goes by and these civilizations grow and began to experiment with their world they discover the manipulation of the chaos. However they are not nearly as powerful as the Dragons or Titans or the ones before because they are so removed from the chaos at this point. Many great things are done and advancments made using Order and Chaos. The practice of it grows as does their understanding of its powers and limitations. One of these limitations is the inability un-create something.
Skip a head a bit. There is a growing cult, dedicated to the creation of things unliving, they are seeking immortality and power through the study of the chaos effect on death and undeath. This cult unknowingly begins the study of Necromancy. Over time this corrupts them. They begin raising armies of Skeletons and other lesser undead. The cult begins to threaten the stability of the main civilizations. It is decided that this can not be allowed to happen.
After much investigation the united efforts of the nations are lead to an underground temple/academy where the cult is headquartered in the main capital of the Elves. In this temple is discovered a coaleced fragment of Chaos, this item is the source of the power that the cult is wielding. The ensuing battles for control over this item is the War of the Shadow. A war that lasts several year and during which the cult actually blocks out the suns light. It is also during this time the the cult goes beyond anything thought possible, sacraficing their humanity in hopes for immortality they become Creatures of Shadow, such as Vampires and Liches and Wraiths. In a last ditch effort to prevent the world from being over run with these undead and the cult a powerful Orderer( the guys who manipulate the chaos) steps and and attempts to un-create the Chaos Shard. The result is along the lines of a nuclear explosion combined with a magical rift.
The city on top of the temple is destroyed. The members of the cult that were in the temple at the time are sucked in to the rift adn magically thrown across the planet. The orderer is destroyed.
When the dust settles, the Elvish capital has been leveled and across the world there are small pockets of the cult. These pockets would grow to become eight smaller empires. They grow in strength quickly and began to take over neighboring peoples. The world is again in a panic. Unable to stand aside any longer one of th Council Dragons steps in. She using a great deal of ordering as well as some of her own energies creates a new peoples. (Goblinoids) These creatures would take on certain qualities of her, such as green skin or lizardy skin, and they would exist with out self awareness for one purpose, to seek out the undead and destroy it.
This works amazingly well combined with local armies and such the goblinoids are able to stamp out six of the eight empires. The seventh proves to be very elusive and runs to the northern reaches to join forces with the eigth. Some of the goblinoids follow this flight and settle down on the plains/tundra to the south of this evil hold. Unable to gather enough force to infiltrate it and still dedicated to stamping out the undead they waited there. The other goblinoids who had accomplished their goals took to living in the areas where they had been created waiting for the chance to battle more undead.
When the fighting went to a stand still, the dragon who had created the undead took survey of what had happened and was very upset. Nearly 3/4 of the goblinoids had been destroyed in their fighting. This was not what she had wanted. And so with what seemed her dying breath (it took that much effort) she granted all the goblins who were capable, sentience.
The task force returned again to see how the project was comming and were shocked by what they found. They discovered the Councils Flaw in allowing the new races access to the chaos. The quickly took this away. Now unable to Order chaos, the civilations fell flat. THey had just exhasted themselves in several long wars and now they were robbed of their abilities. Feeling sorry for them one of the Taksforce members created a pool of finite chaos, one that he and she (they are embodied twins will also get to that soon) would watch over and that the races could have access to. Thus was born magic. But in order to keep this amount of damage from ever being done again there would be restrictions put in place ( I have two different ideas for this )
Also in response to the ruined world, it was decided amoungst the task force that another race was needed, one who hadn't experienced this travesty, one that would be hardy and adaptable. and thus Humans come onto the scene.
SO what we end up with is this.
Races
Humans
High Elf
Dwarves
Gnomes :: Gnomes come in 2 flavors Tech Gnomes (need a better name) and Magic Gnomes (will explain this too)
Fey :: Halflings and Wild Elves ::
Feyri :: A non player race. that consist of pixies and such, Fey in this draconic means Elf and ri means small so orignally it meant small elves but let humans get a hold of it and it becomes something like Fairies
)Half orcs
Truebred Half orcs (need better name) think when one half orc and another half orc have a baby and it is a half orc
Fantastiques:: (think the original projects of the dragons and titans and maybe even some of the projects of the original elves and dwarves such as ... Minotaurs, Gorgons, MEdusa [things we would think of as mythology to us, they are also that way to this world, these are the things that exist but people arent sure of it until they see one]
We have during the period the game is set (will expand on these too)
2 Human empires
1 Wild Elf Kingdom
1 High Elf Theocracy
1 Dwarvish Kingdom with alot of clans inside it
2 Gnomeish societys
1 Matrarchal semi-nomadic and semi-druidic Halfling Culture
1 Goblinoid Kingdom that has come under the rule of 2 truebred Half orc brothers
and an Empire of the Cult and undead to the north.
Hmm, I will try to be more specific as I go along. I dont have any notes infront of me right now so that was all from memory. Please pardon the wall of text.
Thanks for any thoughts
Steve
1. Don't go into to much detail about how the races came to be. An interesting backstory, is, well, interesting, but if you sum it up a little bit you can spare yourself time while leaving some mystery in the world.
2. I LOVE the Titans and Dragons creating the world. That is the kind of creative original thinking that spawned worlds like the forgotten realms. Wonderful backstory for the creation of the world, but, again, shorten it up some. Possibly, {just an idea, dont feel inclined to use it} the titans and dragons are the gods of your world, instead of them being created by other gods. This makes an interesting, usable and original Pantheon without making it to complicated.
3. Your races are fanominal, but may need tweaking. Instead of truebred half-orcs, think normal orcs that have become good and great. Tech gnomes and magic gnomes-good brainstorming, but think-why dont combind them. Gnome characters offered simple, not to powerful but useful magic powers and the abbility to assemble traps and machines. Or combining the two, maybe making machines tweaked with magic or rune merchanisms. Halflings. Halflings are where your campaign can differ from others. Halflings dont have much of a role or place in many published works {which the 4E staff is trying to fix with D&D}, so its up to you what niche you want them to play. Halflings are also pretty fun to design. Halflings, no matter what, are usually thought of as scoundrels. Lets keep that for now. Decide on what type of scoundrel. Cheery trickster halflings have already been taken by just about everyone else, so why not think dark, sinister halflings. Perhaps the dwarves and humans broke an oath long ago and bread, creating the halflings. the halflings, as tall as dwarves but as adaptibal as humans, would be the exotic race. Or maybe, keeping halflings as exotic race, have them come from the sea, but not aquatic. A race long lost distintally related to gnomes, the halflings became stranded at sea and built wooden floating villages and boats out of driftwood and kelp. The halflings believed there was nothing more then the open sea for an age, until they eventually made contact with dry land. This keep halflings exotic while adding some backround flavor that makes the normal story of halflings as nomads make more sense.
Everything aside, your campaign world looks like itll be great. Just some tuning and finishing touches, and itll be one of the best homebrews ive seen in a very long time.
Debby