#d&d worldbuilding

[nerd-at-sea5]

worldbuilding: when i go into way to much detail and play god and my characters are all suddenly becoming atheists

#worldbuilding #fantasy worldbuilding #at the hands of fire and iron #fantasy #d&d #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d worldbuilding

[neilanuruodo]

I can't think of any specific question so this is your free "ramble about any fic or idea or character you want" card now!!

Thank you so much for the free license! (...and sorry I've been so slow to respond. I'm about 1/8th of a person trying to get by in life LOL)

I'm gonna take this as an opportunity to talk about the worldbuilding I've done more or less within Toril, specifically in creating a number of related illithid colonies that behave rather differently than others in the Underdark. It... started as one and just got a bit out of hand, as worldbuilding tends to do, heh.

It began with a trio of illithid OCs in a throuple and the colony that gave rise to them, and then I began thinking about how their colony might have come about in the first place and that turned into a fanfic featuring madness, tragedy, and Ilsensine's meddling. I haven't updated it in a little while but it's far from forgotten, and I have plans to work on it as soon as I clear out a few smaller ideas that are pestering me.

The ultimate aim for this story is to create a setting that people will be welcome to use in their own games or writing, either the specific colony and NPCs I've come up with or other colonies founded by this one that they can tailor to their own wishes. (And all with thanks to @tcfactory for putting the idea of a "wine aunt Elder Brain" into my mind in the first place. The ulitharid that becomes this particular Elder Brain ends up being one of the main characters in this fic eventually.)

The main point of view character is an illithid who has begun dabbling in the arcane, but before they are caught and made to flee for their life madness seizes the colony. They manage to protect themself with a spell, and then (along with a few other survivors and the help of a visiting ulitharid) they begin putting their lives back together, albeit in a new order. The other survivors are the priests of Ilsensine, and the fic is written from each of their perspectives in the form of records left behind, inscribed in the absence of an Elder Brain to hold their knowledge.

If this sounds interesting and up your alley, feel free to check it out, though I certainly won't be offended if you'd rather wait for actual updates or until it's finished.

And thanks again for the lovely ask!

#Neila blathers #my fanfiction #writing things #illithid #illithid oc #D&D worldbuilding #Ask and ye shall be answered

[bonkusdonkus]

I’ve been thinking about bunnies again!

A while ago, I made a list of list ideas, headcanons, and hombrew thoughts on the Harengon, one of my favorite D&D races. Mostly because WotC just kind of slapped them into a book, mumbled something about how they like freedom, and left it at that, and I didn’t like that.

Well I’ve had more ideas since then!

I will now shotgun them onto the Internet so others may steal and\or get inspiration from them! Same rules apply as last time, Harengon and Rabbit folk are interchangeable terms, you can use any of these you like, or don’t! Okay! Let’s talk about bunnies!

Harengon traditionally have extremely long, extremely difficult to remember names. Their names are often literal paragraphs long, or even multiple pages. Some Rabbit Folk actually have names so long they literally need a novel sized book to write them down, and that’s just their first name. Harengon surnames can be encyclopedia sized. On average. As bizarre as it sounds, there is a reason for this. It’s a defense mechanism! In the Feywild, names have immense power. Giving a Fae your full name can have terrible consequences. So, being native to the Feywild, the Harengon counteracted this by making their names impossibly long and complicated, so that remembering them to use against them is near impossible. Plus, many Fae have short attention spans, by the time they’re even halfway through reciting their name, the dangerous Fae will probably just get bored and leave. Obviously, in every day life most Harengon only use a part of their full name, but traditionally all harengon are taught to memorize the full thing, just in case.

It’s common knowledge that Harengon are considered lucky. They have an unusual propensity for pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, or landing that one-in-a-million chance. Hilariously, this means that many casinos or gambling dens often ban Rabbit Folk from playing. Less amusingly though, it has also led to some ugly superstitions. One fairly harmless belief is that a kiss from a Harengon grants the kissed good luck. Some considerably less harmless beliefs are that drinking Harengon blood will give their luck to the drinker, or that having a charm made from Harengon teeth will ward off misfortune. There is little to no evidence that either of these superstitions are true, but doesn’t stop the depraved or the desperate from trying to find out…

On occasion, a Harengon will be born with pure red eyes. No pupils, no whites, just red. These Rabbitfolk are typically referred to as Unfortunates. Not because they’re particularly unlucky, but because they have a peculiar… Aura, let’s call it. Whereas normal Rabbitfolk are known for their supernatural luck, Unfortunates seem to almost suck the luck out of people around them. Specifically, people who wrong them. This is a very difficult thing to catalogue or measure, so it very well could just be a cultural belief of the Harengon, and not an actual phenomenon. But, well, they are from the Feywild. It also could be true…

Harengon aren’t immune to poison, but they are immune to several notable poisonous plants, such as hemlock and nightshade. In fact, they think these plants are quite tasty. They often eat them raw in salads, or cooked much like spinach. But the most famous use of these poisons, is the infamous Snake Blood wine. A potent, magically charged alcoholic wine said to taste like angel’s dreams and unicorn tears. Fanciful descriptions aside aside, it is an exceptionally valuable item, a luxury among luxuries. Brewing it is not only extremely difficult and time consuming, the method is a jealously guarded secret among the Harengon. And while it is still very much poisonous to most species, It can be imbibed by non-harengon, in very, VERY small amounts. Because of this, among wine enthusiasts, it’s become something of a pilgrimage or right of passage to taste the legendary Snake Blood wine of the Rabbitfolk.

One of the most common jokes people make about Harengon is that they love carrots. Because, you know, bunnies. The Rabbitfolk have no particular attachment to carrots, culturally or biologically. Though it’s not unheard of for them to like the orange vegetables, it’s no different than if a human liked them, just a matter of personal preference. However, some Harengon have heard so many stupid carrot jokes, that they have developed a deep seated hatred of them. There are multiple incidents of Harengon actively going out of their way to destroy carrots, out of sheer spite.

#dnd homebrew #dnd ideas #d&d ideas #d&d worldbuilding #dnd character concept #dnd #dnd stuff #harengon #rabbitfolk

[jesseisstuckinside]

Based on your new DM post, what is the general fauna in it?

hey oaty I want you to know that I'm not ignoring this question but it's WAY more in-depth and now I'm making a map starting with my own Pangea and I am overthinking EVERYTHING

#dnd #d&d #d&d worldbuilding #worldbuilding #pangea #i guess

[blazestar345]

Hey!!! Please ask me questions about my D&D world. Whether through my ask box, comments, or reblogs. I wanna talk about it so badly. Also your questions may prompt me to add something cool to it so ask your weird out of pocket questions.

(It's inspired by Rolling with Difficulty's planescape setting so if you see it on those tags that's why)

#dnd5e #dnd homebrew #dnd worldbuilding #d&d worldbuilding #world building #worldbuilding #rolling with difficulty #rwd #dnd planescape #dnd stuff #dnd campaign #dnd #d&d stuff #d&d aesthetics #d&d

[digital-magus]

The fantasy world I’m building for a D&D campaign now has steam trains for no reason other than I like trains.

Does it fit with the rest of the setting? Not really. Will it be worth it when my players inevitably try to skip a boss fight by hitting them with a train? Absolutely.

#d&d #worldbuilding #world building #d&d worldbuilding

[camellia-ai-art]

The Neighboorhood with the Red Houses

#D&D Art #d&d worldbuilding #AI Art #Fantasy art #fantasy treehouse

[words-from-the-coast]

The Woods

so! it’s once again that time of year when i disappear into my hobbit hole of seasonal sadness. as such, i will be cheering myself up with some worldbuilding and character making. this time around, i’m proud to introduce the Woods! (this is the current working title and i haven’t really found a better name.) 

this whole dealio is my first real big worldbuilding project that i’ve actually made comprehensible! 

the Woods is a place full of magic and strange creatures. i’ve based most of it off scandinavian and european folklore, as well as some other stuff from pop culture like the spiderwick chronicles, hilda, epic (the movie where they ride hummingbirds), thumbelina, disney pixie hollow, etc. it’s full of whimsical creatures and plots, and designed for exploration. 

the trees are boundaried tall mountains, fully enclosing the forest. the isolation has caused the Woods to develop by itself, with its own rules and cultures. (another idea i had was that this was actually on the back of a huge creature that wanders the word and the rock spikes are the edges of the island.) this could also be interpreted as a chunk of the feywild for those who are D&D purists. (i didn’t write it that way, but you can use it like that if you’d like.) 

the Woods has its own set of deities (also currently in production, but the big ones are done), each pertaining to the different archetypes present in the people who live there. 

the most notable piece of lore from the Woods is that everything and everyone is pretty small. in pitching this campaign setting and game to my friends, i called it “the little guy game. you play as a lil guy exploring a big forest.” much like disney’s pixie hollow and epic (the movie), the creatures live in trees, gourds, fruits, old teapots, etc. the people are small. 

i had to make some changes to the playable races sizing in order to make them fit into this setting. i also had to make a list of playable races, including a variety of creatures like goblins, plasmoids, pixies, etc. basically anything one could possibly think of and adapted it to be smaller. it wasn’t much just a “you are very small now.” for example, an elf wouldn’t be the standard 5e elf height. they would, instead, be scandinavian elf height (tiny). think of the elves from hilda. 

there’s certainly more to share from this setting. lots of additional information and specifics to be created and shared. but for now, this is what will be sent into the void. enjoy. 

#DnD 5e #dnd homebrew #dnd 5th edition #dnd resources #D&D 5e homebrew #dnd 5e homebrew #d&d homebrew #d&d 5e #d&d 5th edition #5e #dnd #d&d #fifth edition #worldbuilding #dnd worldbuilding #d&d worldbuilding

[very-fast-star]

Ok so on my homebrew D&D world Erroeth there's a gulf that is the only stretch of coast that the Ryuu Council still controls. In their language, they call this gulf "Shōri no Wan" (Gulf of Victory).

When the Skendish Elves managed to establish contact with the Dragons of the Ryuu Council and they asked "what is this place called" they understood "shore no-wan", so they began calling the gulf "Nowan's Shore".

When some Comian Human trader asked the Skends "what's this place called" the interpreter understood "no-one's shore", but then noticing that it was clearly not a shore but a gulf they began calling the place "Golfo di Nessuno" (Nobody's Gulf).

Some fun linguistic worldbuilding I did today in class ^-^

#River Avon #worldbuilding #d&d #d&d homebrew #d&d worldbuilding #dungeons & dragons #dragons #elves #erroeth #yes in my world fantasy races speak real life languages. fight me #japanese #italian #japanese dragons #big energy

[sirobvious]

“You just wrote your medieval fantasy setting to have medieval gender roles and homophobia and prejudice because you secretly fantasize about being able to be sexist and homophobic in a land with no PoC without any pushback! It’s fantasy, there’s dragons and wizards, it doesn’t have to have prejudice unless you, the writer, want it like that! In *my* D&D setting, there’s no sexism or homophobia, so that gay transgender women of all races can be holy knights fighting to protect the good kingdom from the endless hordes of the evil dark race that has threatened its borders for a thousand years!”

#writing #medieval fantasy #medieval women #fantasy #d&d #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #ttrpg #books #novels #worldbuilding

[prokopetz]

On the one hand, it's true that the way Dungeons & Dragons defines terms like "sorcerer" and "warlock" and "wizard" is really only relevant to Dungeons & Dragons and its associated media – indeed, how these terms are used isn't even consistent between editions of D&D! – and trying to apply them in other contexts is rarely productive.

On the other hand, it's not true that these sorts of fine-grained taxonomies of types of magic are strictly a D&D-ism and never occur elsewhere. That folks make this argument is typically a symptom of being unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons' source material. D&D's main inspirations are American literary sword and sorcery fantasy spanning roughly the 1930s through the early 1980s, and fine-grained taxonomies of magic users absolutely do appear in these sources; they just aren't anything like as consistent as the folks who try to cram everything into the sorcerer/warlock/wizard model would prefer.

For example, in Lyndon Hardy's "Five Magics" series, the five types of magical practitioners are:

Alchemists: Drawing forth the hidden virtues of common materials to craft magic potions; limited by the fact that the outcomes of their formulas are partially random.

Magicians: Crafting enchanted items through complex manufacturing procedures; limited by the fact that each step in the procedure must be performed perfectly with no margin for error.

Sorcerers: Speaking verbal formulas to basically hack other people's minds, permitting illusion-craft and mind control; limited by the fact that the exercise of their art eventually kills them.

Thaumaturges: Shaping matter by manipulating miniature models; limited by the need to draw on outside sources like fires or flywheels to make up the resulting kinetic energy deficit.

Wizards: Summoning and binding demons from other dimensions; limited by the fact that the binding ritual exposes them to mental domination by the summoned demon if their will is weak.

"Warlock", meanwhile, isn't a type of practitioner, but does appear as pejorative term for a wizard who's lost a contest of wills with one of their own summoned demons.

Conversely, Lawrence Watt-Evans' "Legends of Ethshar" series includes such types of magic-users as:

Sorcerers: Channelling power through metal talismans to produce fixed effects; in the time of the novels, talisman-craft is largely a lost art, and most sorcerers use found or inherited talismans.

Theurges: Summoning gods; the setting's gods have no interest in human worship, but are bound not to interfere in the mortal world unless summoned, and are thus amenable to cutting deals.

Warlocks: Wielding X-Men style psychokinesis by virtue of their attunement to the telepathic whispers emanating from the wreckage of a crashed alien starship. (They're the edgy ones!)

Witches: Producing improvisational effects mostly related to healing, telepathy, precognition, and minor telekinesis by drawing on their own internal energy.

Wizards: Drawing down the infinite power of Chaos and shaping it with complex rituals. Basically D&D wizards, albeit with a much greater propensity for exploding.

You'll note that both taxonomies include something called a "sorcerer", something called a "warlock", and something called a "wizard", but what those terms mean in their respective contexts agrees neither with the Dungeons & Dragons definitions, nor with each other.

(Admittedly, these examples are from the 1980s, and are thus not free of D&D's influence; I picked them because they both happened to use all three of the terms in question in ways that are at odds with how D&D uses them. You can find similar taxonomies of magic use in earlier works, but I would have had to use many more examples to offer multiple competing definitions of each of "sorcerer", "warlock" and "wizard", and this post is already long enough!)

So basically what I'm saying is giving people a hard time about using these terms "wrong" – particularly if your objection is that they're not using them in a way that's congruent with however D&D's flavour of the week uses them – makes you a dick, but simply having this sort of taxonomy has a rich history within the genre. Wizard phylogeny is a time-honoured tradition!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #dungeons & dragons #d&d #worldbuilding #taxonomy #phylogeny #media #literature #history #literary history #death mention

[eighthdoctor]

fae courts like, you know, the fae small claims court

#d&d is going well #we're not solving any problems but we are doing fae worldbuilding

[spacerockband]

overly specific dnd meme that could also be about godhood if you think about it

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #dnd 5e #d&d 5e #dnd memes #comic #comics #wizard #digital art #art tag #discworld if you squint #worldbuilding #writing #writeblr #bc i do this with my comics too. sigh.

[bonkusdonkus]

Maybe it’s because I’m an edgy dork, but I have a soft spot in fantasy settings to do sort of a reverse thing with some of the old fantasy stereotypes.

For example, in my setting that I’ve had cooking in the back of my mind for years, Gnolls are usually good aligned. They travel in semi-nomadic packs on set routes across the world, and they see it as their duty to keep those routes safe from bandits and monsters, both for their safety and the safety of other travelers. Travelers and merchants across the world use these routes because they’re some of the safest around, since no sane monster or bandit wants to tangle with a wandering army of 8ft tall hyenas who can bite through steel.

They also strongly believe in hospitality, and any fellow wanderers they meet they greet as kin, offering them food and shelter. Big friendly giggle dogs who love to meet new people.

Also, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, but I like evil elves. An ancient, ageless empire that once ruled the world by twisting nature itself to their whims. The younger races have driven them back, their dominion crumbles, now they hide in their timeless forests, watching, plotting, waiting for the younger races to whither and age as all mortal things do, so that they might reclaim their verdant domain once more…

Like I said, I’m an edgy dork, and reversing tropes is fun.

#dnd ideas #d&d ideas #d&d worldbuilding #dnd #dnd homebrew #dnd stuff #pathfinder #gnoll #dnd gnoll #dnd elves

[corvidstoneage]

Ronin pt. 1

TW: Graphic violence.

This short story takes place in my "Peninsula" world a couple weeks after the fall of the second age. It follows a young Sklann warrior and is intended to showcase the Sklann culture and traditions I didn't get to explore much because my players decided to create a shadow army and destroy the world. go figure.

The Sklann culture doesn't deal with gender in the same way as we're accustomed to but I don't have the language finished yet so apologies for the weirdness with pronouns.

Hopefully I have enough material to make a series of sorts out of this. Again, this is unedited. Enjoy!

My legs burned as I crested the top of yet another hill, my clan’s menuki sitting heavily in the pouch on my right hip, my sword seeming much lighter on the left. It seemed like I had been walking for months since I left home, though it had only been that morning.

I started down the next hill with a sigh and tried to shake the memory. Early that morning a rider had come barreling through our gates. Most of the family was out in the fields trying to salvage what they could from the ash storms of the week before. So it was me and my cousin Emry who were at the house to hear about the incoming army.

“An army of shadows” he had said, his horse shuffling nervously as he spoke. “They don’t feel pain and they don’t bleed. They’ve slaughtered my clan and taken our menuki.”

I flinched at that. A clan’s menuki collection was one of the most important things it had. Another Sklann wouldn’t take menuki even in the worst times of war. Menuki were literally family, dead family sure, but still family.

I scarcely heard the rest of what he said before running towards the family temple checking my sword as I went. I knew it was there, it was always there, but it made me feel a little better to check. A single sword wouldn’t do much against an army but carrying a spear and armor everywhere wasn’t exactly practical.

I slid off my sandals as I ran up the stairs and through the beautifully carved archway, the cold stone oddly calming on my bare feet. Behind me I could hear Emry blowing the horn to call the rest of the family home.

Before me were the massive set of wooden drawers containing my clan’s menuki. Each tiny drawer was inscribed with the name of the person it contained. Most of them were still empty. Our clan wasn’t that old. One day my own name would be on one of those drawers and my own menuki would be within, my spirit and experience bound within it.

I lit the braziers to either side of the drawers and drew my sword. It glittered in the firelight as I placed it on the low table in front of the drawers and began to sing my clan’s war song.

The melody, simple and strong, started from my own lips and echoed in my grandmother’s menuki in the hilt of my sword, soon grew to an almost deafening volume as the rest of the stones joined in.

The horn in the background trailed off and I soon heard Emry’s voice join the melody as another sword joined mine on the table. We glanced at eachother for a moment before I began the descant, Emry continuing the melody beneath.

It would be both of our first actual combat and I thanked our ancestors, both in my heart and in the music, that we would have eachother and the will of our ancestors to aid us.

Emry finished the melody and began to sing the descant with me, our voices raised over the humming of the menuki. We sang of blood and war, we sang of the family we fought to protect and the family that had fought to protect us, and most importantly, we sang of the peace to follow the battle.

The humming rose and fell and I felt the ages old magic wrap around and through me, the rest of the world seeming to fall away. I reached out for my sword, held it horizontally in front of me, and sighed as I felt the spell complete, binding me to my menuki and my grandmother’s menuki to me.

As the music died away I sheathed my sword and turned to the doorway, reaching for Emry’s hand as I did. A brief squeeze assured me that I wouldn’t be alone physically and my grandmother stepping into my bones from her menuki assured me I wouldn’t be alone spiritually either.

Together we stepped out of the temple and into chaos. Emry’s parent group was armed with spears and shields and was struggling to close the gates as a group of people seeming to seeth with dark mist piled over eachother in an attempt to get in.

Looking up I saw several of Emry’s younger siblings on the roof of the house looking scared. They all had their bows but couldn’t get a good angle through the gate without hitting their parents.

Grabbing a spear and skjoldor from the side of the house, I ran to help defend the gate. Emry took the position to my left and as the youngest members of the shield wall we maneuvered to the left flank where the more experienced warriors would be covering us with their shields.

As we got into position the gates slammed open and one of the people outside lunged forward; unnaturally clawed hands lunging for Tauri, one of Emry’s parents. ddey were immediately struck in the left side with a spear but seemed not to care, running up the spearhead until ddey slammed into the cross piece and the point jutted grotesquely out their back. ddey stuck there then, eyes hungry and claws scrabbling at the spear shaft, still trying to overrun our shield wall.

Tauri shoved forward and the horrible thing that used to be a person stumbled backwards, dark smoke curling from the gaping spear wound, and was replaced by several more similar creatures.

We fought there for what felt like both hours and at the same time less than a minute. I stabbed and cut with my spear and shoved them away from Emry as best I could with my shield in the cramped confines of the shield wall but gradually we were pushed back under the onslaught.

We had only moved maybe ten feet back when Emry suddenly stumbled and fell. I looked down and saw blood. A lot of blood. I froze there looking at my best friend in horror.

“Stop just staring and help me up! My knee’s cut but I can still fight”

I jolted into action, dropping the spear and covering Emry with my shield as I pulled ddem to ddeir feet.

“Kids! Go guard the temple! They cannot be allowed to get the menuki.”

I didn’t know who said it but I grabbed Emry’s hand, my shield and spear forgotten in the dirt, and ran for the temple.

#creative writing #worldbuilding #short story #unedited #writing prompt #d&d worldbuilding

[aprilnacl]

Wooo posting some art of my D&D world, Nalivar! I am going to add it to my module for the game of my realm

Will I post more art or lore about my world? Probably! When will I post it? No clue!

#d&d #d&d 5e #dnd #dnd 5e art #art #map art #AprilNaCl #d&d worldbuilding #dnd worldbuilding