More from Cambria

After thinking a bit more about the setting and checking for some of my old files, I realised most of my old notes were destroyed when an external hard drive failed, so now I have to start putting things back together and try and work out what went where and such.
But since it’s well over ten years since I’ve even thought of the setting, it doesn’t matter too much how things worked and how things will be going together.

So what have I remembered so far?
I know that originally I had a couple of cities called Elfhome and Dwarfhome. Guess why? And that the forests were mostly impassable, teeming with some scary monsters and such. Now, how to pull that together with my new ideas?

A world of Humans, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Elves, Kenku, Goblins, Bullywugs, Ratfolk, Kitsune and some other form of Birdfolk (I’m thinking Owls maybe? Or Songbirds? Both?) living in the ruins of huge buildings in a vast forest.
Arcane magic is gone. Psionics is around instead. So we lose the Bard and Wizard completely, and Sorcerers and Warlocks will be hunted. It’s possible that some Artificer Wizards might exist, but will be equally hunted down.

The forest is filled with dire wolves and dire bears and dinosaurs and other angry things. Trade between ruins is done mostly by airship, flying either with a hot air balloon and sails or powered by psionic energies.
Some ruins are still uninhabitable, either because of monsters living there or because they’re some kind of horrifying focal point for unspent magical energies (and therefore interesting loot). Some are guarded by ancient clockwork or arcane sentries of unknown provenance.

The biggest ruins are generally the largest and most intact. There’s a few that stand out.
Dwarfhome is a squat fortress on the edge of a mountain range, one of the few features to cut through the forest if only at the peak ridge. It has extensive mines and tunnels beneath it.
Bastion is the home of the Church, and the Inquisition, both guardians against new Arcane influence on the world, and its distorting effects. It is perhaps the most intact of the ruins.
Spindles is a series of thing towers piercing the treetops, connected beath the high leaves by various bridges. Newer bridges are grown using the nearby tree branches themselves.
Sprawl is the home of the closest thing to a government that Cambria has left. It sits just over the mountains from Dwarfhome, and acts as a hub for the trade of goods and ideas from extremely far afield. Representatives of many of the other ruins act as a sort of guiding council, though with plenty of squabbling between themselves.
Ravine is built into the dense cave network along a steep valley, with lots of bridges crossing it. It is the home of airship technologists, constantly crafting new vessels.

At the time of originally thinking up Cambria, I’d gotten my hands on the Ghostwalk supplement. I had an idea of incorporating it somehow, though perhaps only in one part of an ongoing game – an unavoidable death, trying to return to life and sort of Quantum Leaping back to just before the characters died. I might have a think on using it again too.

And that’s it. Other than statting out the stranger races, and working out which subraces I’d allow, and how psionics even works in 5e because there’s still almost no rules support… yeah, all looks good. Maybe I could run this!