West Marches Original Dungeons and Dragons - World Map and Setting

In this blogpost I will explore my setting. I use the setting, as with everything else, to forward possibility of players within a hexcrawl sandbox environment. If they understand how the world is made, they can make better decisions and profit from those. Of course I take a certain pleasure of the mind in crafting this world, because the Referee needs to find his fun in all this. But I always think: what does it change to my players ? If I have no answer, then I don't dwell on it. That's why you will not see some things that are normally prevalent in worldbuilding but, for me, are useless for West Marches, such as demographics, economy, and so on.

WORLD MAP

I started out with an idea: what is a nice country we rarely use for adventure ? Ancient Persia/Iran and what is around was my first inspiration. I felt it could be good because of the green areas in some portion, big mountains, snow in some high area in winter, desert not too far off, two gulf around, etc. 

So this was my first draft. The zoomed starting portion:

Then I realized I would need about a billion hexes to cover everything so it would make sense. Therefore, by translating it back into hexcrawl, I simplified it a lot and made it shorter. The project (for the moment) being thus:

I still kept my original idea of having every kind of place/climate in a somewhat realistic fashion, since the northwest is very high altitude and so on. The areas have been separated with names:

• The Woodlands: Central and starting area. Mostly sub-boreal forest and woodlands. Some hilly sectors, especially in the southwest and north where the mountain chains are. 
• The Lake of the Dead: Eastern portion. Mainly composed of old and now gone huge lakes and rivers, giving way for moors, swamps and other such nasty places. 
• The Eternal Jungle: Southeast. Ancient jungles barely explored even by the ancient people. Dark and primitive things are hidden there. 
• The Grassland: South. This was the border of the Arthurian Kingdom prior to the slow collapse (more to follow). Green pastures, lots of grazing and animals. It goes on for a long while towards the south and then below the jungle southeast. 
• Blasted Lands: West and southwest. A huge wasteland of magic and ancien warfare that gave way to patches of desert. Dangerous places to dwell and live. The main road that goes back to the main kingdom of Camelot goes through there in the west. 
• The Northern Peaks: Northwest portion, including the forest. Ancient lands protected and barred from entry for a long time. 
• The Great Sea: North. A great sea that goes on in the north to reach other portion of the kingdom. Was much used in the past. Now the Haven doesn't have direct contact with it. 

For now the players have mostly explored in the Woodlands and the Lake of the Dead. They are completely unaware of the size of the map or the other region. 

SETTING

General Quest

The premise of the quest is simple: find the Holy Grail. The setting is very Boorman-esque, where Arthur, the king, is slowly dying and the land with him. For the past decades, everything has gone way worse. New evils have resurfaced, plagues have wiped important cities, roads have been destroyed by bandits, and so on. The Barony, where the players are, is in dire shape: they were already one of the furthest land of the kingdom. They are now all but isolated. 

Yet, two years ago, an envoy from the court of Camelot came to tell them that the redemption of the land was possible with the finding of the Grail, and that all portion of the kingdom were asked to search for it. And so it begins. 

I wanted to keep it simple so that players could find other sub-quest for themselves, and also because I wanted something that could be big enough that I could work on it. 

One of my player asked if the Grail really existed, or if it was a red herring just to go out and adventure. The Grail is there on the map, but his primary goal is indeed to invite them to go around. 

Cosmology

My cosmology is a mix of three sources: Tolkien, Arthurian/European fairy tales and cosmology, and the blog of a fellow Game Master, Father Dave.

• Tolkien: From Tolkien I wanted magic that wasn't necessarily science or destruction. I also wanted different type of influence and a "hierarchy" of higher beings, so to speak. Therefore, Gods are not necessarily present, but they do have envoy (so do the Demon Lords). 
• On that note, my demon lords and such are very much influenced by Greyhawk and old D&D in general. 
• Arthurian/European: Since my setting is Arthurian, the fey in general have a big role to play. There is a feywild, which is a distorted mirror of the world. Also, I stole the old cosmology of the Greek for the basic creation:

• The Blood of Prokopius: I took the name (Arta, Frumos, Tizan) and their analogy to Christian truths. 

There is also other influence, such as Age of Decadence CRPG for the Qantari/Magus ark, and the Phyrexians/Yawgmoth from MTG for Haagenti.

The general tone I try to aim for is grim fairy tales at the macro level, and Greyhawk exploration/heroism at the lower level. I don't want players to become the new king (especially since it wouldn't work with the campaign itself, being West Marches in a small places and all), but at the same time, this is not a grimdark/occult campaign where the players can't do nothing. They have already had a positive impact on the setting, on which I will come back in a future blog post. 

CAMPAIGN SETTING

Creation

In the beginning, Tizan created heaven and earth. He separated the primordial waters and designed the strata. His act was Arta, and his inspiration Frumos. Here is what is found in ancient texts primordial:

There was a time when everything was plunged into thick darkness. Dawn had not spread its soft light. Leaving the eastern beaches, the sun was not yet tracing its fiery path, and the moon, adornment of the long nights, did not show its crescent in the heavens. All the elements combined wandered randomly in space, slave of the dark empire of the Ancient Chaos.

It was you, Arta, who, obeying Tizan, established order in this confusion. At first the light was, so that your marvelous works shone in pure brilliance. Then, O prodigy! You round the orb of the firmament, enamelled with stars where you stared two bright stars: the sun to pour on the men inexhaustible floods of light and mark the succession of hours and time, the moon to charm the troubles of darkness and to offer the image of a new day.

The earth was also your work and in its vast continents you chained the seas which, in turn, hugging it in many folds. The world was in the union of these various objects: earth, sky and seas. The sky was shining with sparkling stars, the sea populated by inhabitants who plied its waves and the earth had its animals.

Tizan, then casting a satisfied glance at the work, and seeing it terminated by the effect of a common will, delighted in the perfections of Arta. But he was looking for a being who could accept and understand the harmony of the Order that was Frumos, a creature image of the deity itself and who was the king of this globe. He uttered these words: "A crowd of faithful and immortal servants live in the heavenly court. Pure spirits, they sing to our glory an endless hymn. The earth is its ornament of creatures deprived of reason who cover it. Today I want to show the light a new being. "

Thus spoke Tizan, and taking a parcel of this newly created earth, he formed with his divine hands the first being of my kind. He made him participate in his heavenly life and inspired him with that soul which flows from the very divinity. Earth by body, spirit by soul, so it was created.

Cosmology

Tizan is the primordial god of creation, strength and law. His taboos are destroying works of art or not helping the poor. Tizan has authority over animals, fish, insects and birds. He is also a god of fire and storm and one of his old titles is that of "killer of dragons" to symbolize his domination on the primordial chaos.

Arta is the compassionate god of light, life and healing. His taboos are to disturb the dead or touch a corpse in the dark. Arta hates the undead and the demons. Arta is also a god of fertility, whose root "AR" means "sun, light, life" in the ancient language. His two festivals are called Am'nor, December 21 for the winter solstice with the birth of the world and the sun, and the Aramaz in spring for his intervention in the world once when he sacrificed himself to give harmony to the humans.

Frumos is the link god of peace, good understanding and knowledge. His taboos are to break a promise or a pact; do not be open to concord or bargain for to save lives. Frumos tries to contain Chaos caused by fairy creatures and aberrations. His name in the ancient language also means "star", and it is related to the waters.

The primary world is composed of different components: the paradise of fire, the ocean of the sky, the firmament with the stars, the earth, the subterranean, the pillars of the earth, the pillars of paradise and the primordial ocean.

The primary plan where humanity resides has two parallel realities: the fairy world and the world of shadows.

The first is a world of magic born of the dreams of the deities of paradise. It has points of entry all over the world and its influence is felt in the creatures and magical effects that come from it.

The second contains the demons and was born of the first souls who decided to voluntarily withdraw from the harmony of the world. Since then, the underground has several portals to the shadow world, and the demons are trying to corrupt the souls of all humans. The demon lords are the souls (all species combined) that have corrupted the harmony of the world. Demons are the corrupted souls back by these primordial forces. Fairies too can be corrupted.

Each demon lord has his own domain of corruption:

• Pazuzu: flying creatures, wishes. Demon Lord of envy.
• Demogorgon: the prince of demons. Lord demon of anger.
• Orcus: the prince of the living dead. Demon Lord of Gluttony.
• Graz'zt: contracts, betrayal. Lord demon of lust.
• Dagon: the demon lord who has old knowledge and is the oldest still in the primary world. Demon of magic, arcane lyrics, talismans. Demon Lord of greed.
• Obox-Ob: the vermin. Lord demon of the acedia.
• Jubilex: the indeterminate, the slugs, the slimes. Demon Lord of laziness.
• Haagenti: Alchemy, artifice and machine. This demon is different from others. He was before a human who gained considerable power through technical, magical and demonic experimentation. He ended up thwarting the demons themselves and acquired his own infernal plan: however, this plan was Haagenti. He now represents a near-divinity conscious on his plan and sends his henchmen to do his tasks. He is the one who gave the secret of teleportation and machines to the Magus and allowed his colleagues to invade the primary plan. Demon Lord of pride.

Feywild

If the shadow world is inhospitable and no living humans are there, this is not the case for the fairy world. Some humans have come and gone, others are lost in their dreams.

Dragons are dreams in the real world of arch-fey sleeping in their own world. Spheres of power such as ioun stone are physical and concentrated manifestations of the materialization of souls outside the fairy world. This is not akin to the special powers of the Templars or Holy Relics of the world which come from the Gods, their Avatar and the Harmony of the world. 

There are eight fairy lords who sleep in the form of a dragon (most of whom also sleep) in the primary world, one for each of the colors. The rest of the fairy court is controlled by counts whose level of loyalty, corruption and good is very variable.

Dragons therefore represent informal chaos and a form of danger. Some of them are slowly being corrupted by time and into their nightmare, producing from their bodily union chaotic dragons, or the dream of their dreams, atrocities like the Eye Tyrants. It is for this reason that Arthur sent a knight enchanted by a divine oath of each color in order to keep an eye on them and to kill their child who tend towards chaos. It is said that Arthur sometimes regrets not having them with him in order to use them in a larger mission that was revealed to him later in his life ...

History

Thousands of years ago, the demon lords invaded the earth through coarse and brutal body they had created by the portals that Haagenti, the demon lord of Vain-Glory, had taught to build to the Atlantis society (through other destructive machines), while he himself was once a hybrid of machine and human, high priest of the gods, before becoming a demon lord. This was the last heard of this atlantean civilization. Some of the demon lords, at that moment, like Dagon, refused to expose themselves and instead chose to regain the primordial waters.

The gods intervened through powerful avatar and gave the humans of the past lessons on Harmony and Divine Things. Armed with this new knowledge, they also sought help from the fairy world, which was also under attack. In order to create a gap between the two worlds, dreams became the way to cross from one world to another. The support of the fairy lords was to dream in their world to materialize in the form of the first dragons in the primary world.

This alliance between the humans supported by the gods and the fairy world drove away and locked the demon lords.

Thousands of years later, three main factions from the first men had emerged on the continent: the Magus, a technocratic empire with an important administrative culture and a developed imperial structure; the Qantari, a Magocratic / Theocratic people with a culture of slavery and highly developed power; and finally the Flaiths, who had preserved the monarchy and the traditions of the first men.

The Qantaris had slowly decided not to pray to the old Gods, but rather to new spirits who had offered themselves to them. These promised them power if they allowed them to materialize in the world. The Flaiths opposed this change of culture and declared war on the Qantaris, annihilating entire villages and sometimes innocent populations. Seeing here an advantage for his own situation, the Magus allied themselves with the Qantaris. They proposed using advanced teleportation and energy control technology to bring the spirits into this world, also receiving the promise of great power.

The Magus took all possible precautions to keep a check on these spirits, but they did not take into account the betrayal of the Qantaris. In doing so, spirits arrived in the world without any restriction and so there was a second demonic war: those spirits were none other than reformed avatar of the Demon Lords.

This one was much more difficult to win, and the majority of humans like dragons ended up perishing. The Magus themselves unleashed weapons of immense power that destroyed both Flaiths and demons. The empires collapsed and the monarchies died.

Many centuries later, a young man received a vision of divinities that told him to unite humans in prey to demons, creatures of Chaos and descendants of the Qantaris, the primitives. This man received from the gods a mythical sword, Excalibur, forgied from tears of Arta, the god who had once sacrificed himself to teach harmony to men. This man was Arthur, the King of the Human Kingdoms.

The rest is history: he unites the kingdoms, defeats the adversaries of men and founded a dynasty that led to a golden age. Now that he is old, the earth is dying with him, and the heroes everywhere are in search of the Grail to save the King and the Earth.

ADDENDUM - Calendar and Time, Society

I realized after writing the post that I didn't touch on the subject of time. So it's very simple: I have exactly the same calendar as real life. This is so that my games are easier to place. If the players play on the 25th of July, their leave the Haven on the 25th of July at 0600h. I use the weather of the real world for the first day, to keep it random, and then I roll on weather table.

For festivals and such, I use the Christian calendar, modified by symbolism. So the birth of Christ is now the Birth of Arta, with sun symbolism added it, as it was pre-christianity.

As for society, I keep it very vanilla medieval-fantastic which, like I said, is very much "in the background" to put emphasis on the adventuring portion.