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Campaign setting: Primordia

This setting is meant to capture a pre-historic/skull island type of atmosphere. The people are primitive and have yet to develope past their stone age, making due with simple supplies such as bone and hide. Obviously, it is much more than just a prehistoric earth - otherwise there would be no reason for me to write about it. Primordia’s swamps, jungles, and plains are home to an assortment of monstrous beasts, giant insects, and what we would recignise as dinisaurs.

Intended audience:

This setting is quite versatile in the kind of players it can be preseted to. For younger players, it can easily take on a lighthearted, flinstone-esque theme. Dinosaurs are something that a lot of little kids are interested in (although if you’re an adult who likes dinosaurs, I’m not judging you), and it can be refreshing for a GM who doesn’t feel like running yet another midevil fairy tail. However, it doesn’t have to be limited to children. Think of Jurassic Park and King Kong. Only scarier. The setting could be used to create some pretty memorable horror themed adventures. The relative lack of magic means it could also easily fit a sword and sorcery theme. Naturally, you are free to use any or all of these themes in any combination you prefer, based on your party’s preferences and your experience with the themes.

Races:

Humans are, as usual, a young race by comparison to the others, but their ingenuity and resilience have made them one of the most numerous. They manage to get by in almost all environments, usually in semi-perminent huts or sometimes natural caves. The tribes they group themselves into are based loosely on blood as well as territorial alliences, but their cultural beliefs and practices are surprisingly varied from group to group.

Halflings often live alongside humans, sharing their traditions and attitudes, but have been known to build settlements of their own in secluded and hard to reach places. They value privacy and family units, and tend towards good more than humans do.

Elves are as ancient as dragons, and their oral histories are more extensive and detailed than any other race. They are currently the only race actively and collectively trying to understand and make use of the arcane arts. Their lifestyle is mostly nomadic, and they are constantly moving to follow the migrations of animals and visit holy sites. Elves believe that when the world was created, it’s natural terrain was devided among the variations of their own race, and so regard all others as at best harmless guests to be ignored, and at worst tresspassers. The dark elves were jealous of their bretheren, and so were banished to the deep underground where their hate has festered for millenia.

Dwarves are nearly as old as the elves (older, according to some), and most see themselves as the rightful rulers of the world. This self-rightious attitude is the result of a society built around religion, loyalty, and valor. Although metal working has yet to be widely used or even fully understood, the dwarves of this setting make up for it with their mastery of stone carving (meaning that their in game abilities regarding armor and weapons do not need to be modified). They are also one of the only races to regularly makr use of written language, and the halls of their vast underground cities are covered with hyroglyphs depicting their gods, along with the heroes and rulers of their past.

Other races are also found on primordia. Lizardfolk (as per volo’s guide to monsters) are almost as common as elves and dwarves, and show the same coldly logical attitude as they do in other settings. Dragonborn do not exist as an independent race, but people who worship dragons may be awarded similar apperence and abilities. The reason for this is that they are essentially replaced by lizardfolk, as dragons are seen as something more like powerful and highly evolved dinosaurs than unique magical creatures. Aasimar and tieflings are extremely rare, due to the general lack of non-shamanistic religions, and those that do exist are almost always dwarves (as opposed to humans). Genesai exist in small numbers within elven communities, due to the race’s deep connection with nature. Rock gnomes do not exist, but forest gnomes are fairly common, being to elves what halflings are to humans. There is no reason for half-elves and half-orcs not to exist, but they rarely form their own communities because their parent races are a little less judgmental towards them than in other races (after all, a baby is a baby, and a member of the tribe should always be protected and sheltered).

Magic:

Magic, for the most part, is regarded with fear and suspicion. The only spellcasters that exist in significant numbers are druids and rangers, and even they tend to inspire fear in most. Due to the extreme lack of knowledge regarding the arcane -not to mention the general lack of written language- wizards are practically unheard of. There is also a lack of clerics and paladins among all races except the dwarves, as they are the only ones who widely practice religion of the appropriat type. Warlocks are more common then wizards by far, but are still a little rarer than druids. Sorcerers are a little more common than warlocks, as becoming one requires no special effort (one is either born a sorcerer, or isn’t), but both are still rare enough that they genarally are found ruling over their brethren through a mix of fear and reverence. Knowledge of the other planes is limited outside of a few vague legends about the afterlife, and spells that allow travel to them are extremely diffucult to find. Due to this lack of understanding, the cosmology of this world is not likely to come into play and so I leave it to the GM running the campaign. The only note worth adding on the subject is that any other planes the players visit should be mysterious and strange, to help convay the confusion and forbearance felt by the player characters.