The world of Caldera

In my January contribution to the RPG blog carnival, I put forth that maybe a mideval world arranged like the Ancient Greek city states would be interesting. If you go back and read some previous posts, you might have figured out that if my brain latches on to something, it chews on it relentlessly. So...

Almost immediately ideas started spewing forth from the chaotic swirl of grey bumpy stuff in my skull. This is how it actually happened in my head.

Each city state would be located in a huge caldera. There will be a lake in the bottom. The outside slopes of the caldera would be incredibly fertile farmland. Some of the calderas will have notches cut in the sides from where the water escapes the caldera, some will have underground rivers. Of course any DM worth his dice is now asking himself "What caused the calderas in the first place?" I had a brain fart. Took me about an hour of bouncing ideas off the wall before I found something I liked. The calderas are the leftover scars from a war between Earth and Fire Elementals.
Moving on to Gods in the world. I wanted to stay as far away from the standard D&D god model as possible. Each city state would have a patron goddess. All divine entities are female in this world. At the top of the goddess ladder is Gaia. She gave birth to the four Elemental goddesses. It was at this point, I got a little tripped up again. I didn't want the patron goddesses to be as raw as elementals. Now we come to the Ur, the first ones. There are an infinite number of Ur goddesses. This gives the DM and the players the ability to create a goddess for anything.
I still don't know where the idea came from, but I grabbed it and ran with it. The ocean goddess died or was captured during the elemental war, her sister the river goddess is despondent. The consequences of this is that the oceans of this world are teeming with monsters. Ocean travel is not safe or advised. Sea monsters are going to be fun. What if some of the calderas are filled to the top with water? Would monsters live in those? Is there some way the monsters could leave the caldera? Maybe an underground system of rivers. Oooo, an entire Underdark under water! Time to break out Dragon magazine #267. :-) Aquatic Drow?
At this point I remembered a couple of maps I doodled a few weeks earlier.

Now I have 3 continents for the world. With that much open ocean, I'll have plenty of room for undiscovered, secret, and lost islands. (I have since filled in the maps even more than they are here)
AAANNNDDD... While typing up this post, I had a few more ideas.
Aquatic Drow need to be tribal and wild. Sahuagin will be bigger and more savage. The only way to traverse the oceans is in giant armored ships. I'm thinking waterbourne, mechanically inclined dwarves. They hunt the sea monsters and mine Ice diamonds from ice bergs.

Currently I'm still thinking up goddesses and coming up with city state names. I just had to get this out of my head to make room for more.

Happy Gaming!

January 2019 RPG Blog Carnival: In My Campaign: Divine World Building

I am again intrigued by the RPG Blog Carnival.

January topic: Divine World Building

   This topic speaks to me. This is usually where I start building new worlds. It should be noted that at any given time I have 3 operationally active worlds going in my head. No, I won't go into all of them, just the just the nuts and bolts of how to get there. Most people I know start with a map, I prefer to start with the pantheon. This will inform my placement decisions for population, ancient threats, etc...

   What I am going to discuss, is how the gods you create can do most of the heavy lifting for you in your world building. I ask questions and then answer them. This process helps me to get the ball rolling and ideas flowing.

   Ask yourself: How many gods are there for your world? Answering this can tell you how many lands and races are on your world.
   Will there be one god your pantheon springs from, someone they answer to? Are they all equal in power? Do they fight? Think about the ancient Greeks.  Multiple kingdoms each worshipping a different god. Some were allies some were enemies. If they fight, are they separated by natural obstacle or great distance? If obstacle, then what kind? Several kingdoms separated by mountains would make for an interesting map.
   If you're having trouble coming up with gods for your campaign, try looking at the creation myths from the ancient cultures of Earth. Again I would refer you to the ancient greeks. If you find you don't have the time or inclination to read about them, there is a show streaming called "The Great Greek Myths"  excellent resource. Ancient Greek myths tell us that first there was Gaia the Mother Earth. She and Uranus the Sky had four sets of children. The Titans, the Hekatonkheires, the Cyclops, and the Giants. Most of us know what happened next, the Titan Kronos ruled over the earth only to be imprisoned by his son Zeus. But what happened to Gaia's other children?
   Determining what creatures and cultures came before the gods in your campaign can tell you what remains of their civilizations, creating some of the dungeons and ruins your PCs can explore. There is another resource out there that can help with that too. Look for How to Host a Dungeon. It's a solo game to help GMs create dungeons for adventuring. By changing what civilizations are available and expanding it from the dungeon level to a world, you can determine where ancient ruins are on your world.
   Figuring out how involved the gods are in your world can also assist you in world building. Are your gods engaged with the populations on your world or are they aloof and uncaring? Do they walk among the inhabitants? Do they use the races of your world as pawns in a larger scheme? If they're benign and helpful, did they provide active assistance or merely guidance? Answering these questions can give you artifacts and magic items for your world. In one of my worlds, the goddess Rane gave her followers a sheaf of silver plough blade that brings bountiful crops. Her sister goddess Rale helped her followers by gifting them a silver scythe that tells them when it's best to harvest and helps preserve the harvest.
    Battles between deities can give interesting geographical features or areas of special interest. Magic dead zones, permanent storms, recurring natural disasters. Say the father of your pantheon kills a legendary dragon in the distant past. The dragons body get covered by a forest, all the trees in the forest no longer have leaves, but instead have dragon scales. The Elf kingdom living in the forest harvests the scale leaves and makes armor out of it...  OK, so I was watching Black Panther while I wrote this. So sue me. :-)
   Dead or forgotten gods can provide you with ready made campaigns. I'm currently designing a campaign around the Greyhawk deity Tharizdun. Tharizdun was imprisoned by the other gods because he wanted to destroy everything and take the universe into chaos. Move forward to present day, and Zuggtmoy has co-opted all of Tharizdun's abandoned temples. With the help of the infamous Iggwilv, the evil queen of fungus now hopes to unleash a spore storm upon the world. The PCs have to find each of the temples and destroy them before Zuggtmoy can complete the ritual.

   These are just scratching the surface of how creating a pantheon can help you build your world. I could go on, but I need to go work on some stuff for my campaigns. So I leave you with these few ideas, in the hopes it will inspire you and spark ideas of your own. I'll be back next month with February's topic. Making Magic Wondrous.

Happy Gaming!