So I was browsing through Pinterest the other day and a few things caught my eye, and then I was brought back to thinking about an old setting I had come up with during 3rd Edition.
Originally a post-apocalyptic steampunk setting with jungles and tall ruined stone towers and airships, I think I managed to play one game, maybe? It was fun to think about again, and I started thinking it through using the current rules, and I came up with a few things that I would work on if I start it up again.
So, Cambria.
After some sort of intensely messy magic-based apocalyptic event, the ruined continent-wide city is now an overgrown mess of giant forest, peopled with various strange races and mutated monsters. The safest way to cross the forest floor is by avoiding it completely and flying over the treetops, though newer roads have started to be cleared between some of the closest of the most intact ruins.
The backlash against magic, by both the peoples of the world and reality itself, has all but removed it from the world. Instead, the powers of the mind, psionics, have become the new norm.
Whether that means all magic is gone or just arcane magic needs a bit of work. Wizards can be gone easily, any of the arcane subclasses are gone too. But do we keep the Bard, or say it uses psionics to create the same effect somehow? I’m still working on it.
Faith-based magic might be tolerated, but I’m not sure. Clerics and Paladins might be the remains of a church who led a purge of arcanists in the past.
So, we’ve lost Wizards, maybe Bards. Potentially Sorcerers and Warlocks are still available but hated/hunted. Druids and Rangers might have as much of a problem, but we can at least say their magic comes from natural sources.
Back when I came up with Cambria, the general races of the Players Handbook were all I was using. Now, I’m not so sure. Humans, Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes I’m happy to keep in. Elves are a potential option, as are Birdfolk, Goblins, Kitsune, Bullywugs, Ratfolk. They’d represent things created by the magical apocalypse/before it.
That’s all I’ve got together so far, I’m still thinking things through with it. Probably more to come at some point.
jot jot ïota 