Help Me Creating a Campaign Setting

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I'm currently in the process of creating a Scandinavia-in-the-11th-century-Stylized campaign setting for my new gaming group. It use the Norse pantheon from the Dieties & Demigods book, as well as a custom God that will represent the Catholic God that started to gain power in Scandinavia during this time.

As I use the Norse pantheon I will also use the Viking mythos, thus making the following adjustments to playable races:

Humans - More often of Chaotic leaning
Dwarf - Favored Class: Fighter, and I'm using the Midgard Dwarf from Frostburn
Elf - Favored Class: Druid
Dark Elf - Favored Class: Rogue, also, they are more usually of Neutral leaning
Half-Elves - Favored Class: Ranger, and extremely rare and even moreso with Half-Drow
Half-Giant - In, removal of Psionic abilities
Shifter(from Ebberon, here they're the Norse version of Lychantropes) - In, but extremely rare as player race
Fire and Air Genasi - In, representing indirect offsprings of Fire and Frost Giants
Halflings - Out
Half-Orcs - Out
Gnomes - Out, but Svirfneblin in.
Neanderthal - Extremely rare as player characters, favored class Barbarian

I'm also looking for a Grendel(antagonist from Beowulf)-like race to be playable. No ECL above +2 preferably.

Player Classes:
Wizard - Out
Barbarian - Renamed to Viking
Bard - HD raised to a D8
Ranger - Cannot be Lawful
Rogue - Gain Survival Skill
Sorcerer - Renamed to Witch and Witcher and largely shunned by society, cannot be Lawful.
Paladin - Any Lawful, with some modifications to abilities such as Detect Evil, Smite Evil, and ****. They are also renamed to Inquisitors to represent the Catholic expansion to the North.
Psionists - Out
Will allow some Unearthed Arcana modifications to classes, but not all. I also need suggestions on fitting Prestige Classes, and with a note of which book it origin from so I can actually use them.

Monster Races:
Think removal of all non-animal races, and the following races is pretty much what's left:
Neanderthals - Cannibals, like in the 13th Warrior
Mermen
Ettin and Giants, Fire and Frost.
Ents
Ogres
Trolls
Dire ape
Air Elemental
Fire elemental
Frost Worm
Werebear
Fire Mephit
Ice Mephit
Magma Mephit
Skeleton
Pixie
Wright
Winter Wolf
Worg
Zombie

I need more suggestions here to not make it too pale and dull.

Regions:
World is called Midgard for obvious reasons.
Everything but the Danish replacement will pretty much be in a permament cold, with only two or three months per year without constant snowfall.
Characters will start on a small island, relying mostly on trade, raiding, and hunting. Represent a standard Viking society.
Main continent will be more or less unified Viking tribes in the central, west, east, and southern parts. The north will be the most harsh and unforgiving region, with Neanderthals, Giants, Dwarves, Duergars, and Dark Elves being the most prominent races of the region. A large and prominent city-state in the center of the main continent will be the replacement of Gotland in real Sweden.
The Danish replacement will be mostly "Catholic" and currently building up a crusade to "Christen" "Sweden" and "Norway" as well as to end the raids made by the vikings of the other lands. This "Danish" continent will also have very small parts from northern Germany and it's corresponding mythos included within it's power. It's the greatest nation in this world, but it lack a proper navy so they are afraid to launch an all-out invasion until this is solved. "Denmark" also have a part of it's mainland mysteriously removed which have formed an colony of it's own with the "unchristened" Vikings there being under constant threat from the "Danish", only surviving due to the aforementioned lack of "Danish" superiority of the sea.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Any input is welcome.

[ February 02, 2007, 12:24: Message edited by: Register ]

 

I can't find any other race with a +2 ECL or lower who as the strength to represent Grendel (by D+D terms Grendel is probably a hill giant).

The Midgard Dwarf from the Frostfell book is perfect for a Norse setting. They're outsiders who can create magic items without being able to cast spells. Also, wrights are beings of Norse origin who haunt pagan burial sites so it wouldn't hurt to include them either.

Frostfell also has some interesting undead that would be appropriate for the Norwegian glaciers should you campaign take you there, as well as some variant frost giants and a race called the urskan who with some modifications could probably be turned into the vendo.

Also Storm Giants (like Thiazi) are present in Norse Mythology so changing the MM version slightly may be an idea that interests you (maybe ditching waterbreathing, definately changing them to CE). The Roc might also be appropriate for representing particular individuals related to storms. You might also be able to rework (possibly quite heavily) the nymph to represent Ellemaids (change alignment to CE, possibly add a modified version of the succubus's energy drain that grants insanity/death instead of energy drain, drop druid spells for spell-like abilities, drop blinding beauty, but keep unearthy grace).

The Fensir in the Fiend Folio do a great job representing Nordic trolls (seeing as they turn to stone when expose to sunlight and espouse a definitive culture like the Huldre/Thusser Folk), The fossergrim is fey based of nordic nature spirits (found in the FF). Sea Drake (FF) would probably also be appropriate for a maritime culture like Scandinavia, kraken as well.

In the MMII the Asperi might be appropriate.

Deities and Demigods lists these MM monsters for use in a Norse campaign (with some changes): Dire ape (snow themed), deep dwarf, duergar, air elemental (cold attack), fire elemental (more intelligent then standard), high elf, drow (svartelf), frost worm, svirfneblin (often indistinguishable from dwarves), giant (mostly fire and frost), werebear (warrior or barbarian levels), fire mephit, ice mephit, magma mephit, skeleton, nixie, wright, winter wolf, worg, zombie, animals.

 

Haven't read it myself yet, but maybe there's something useful to be found in the Frostburn book...

 

Ah, sorry where my post above says Forstfell, it should say Frostburn (Frostfell pregenerated region provided in Frostburn). Frostburn is very helpful for creating an in depth RP in a cold environment. Frostburn creates a lot of extra rules, yes, but they're good rules that help further the danger of cold environs. Frostburn, along with Cityscape, Stromwrack and Sandstorm are the most useful 3.5 supplements WotWC that put out to the date I feel (which has me itching for the release of Dungeonscape). Frostburn was money well invested I feel, has some good hooks too.

 

Thanks for the info. Seems Grendel is out, but I'm updating the first post for added stuff.

 

A few suggestions concerning classes.

I'd rename the Barbarian 'Beserker', not Viking. The vikings had beserkers, but they were the elite warriors. I'd also remove the favoured class from humans and half-elfs. The game balance will suffer if you give both races a favoured class.

On a related note, let the Bard retain it's d6 HD. D8 is too high, if you don't remove another class feature like the spellcasting ability.

You could allow the Wilderness Rogue variant as standard Rogue and make the standard version an oddity. Or take the Scout base class from Complete Adventurer. It is one of the few not redundant non-core base classes out there.

 

Oops, the favored classes were part of the first draft but I thought I had removed them.

As for Vikings/Berserker; I'm not sure, let me think about it.

As for Bards; they are one of the weakest classes in the game so I'm buffing that one. It makes sense too; if they are to be the jack of all trades, why do they have a substandard HD?

I'll check out the Scout class in the UA when I get back home.

 

The Scout class is in Complete Adventurer, not in UA.

The Bard is not weak. It excels in non-combat situations or by preventing combat altogether. When the party gets in a fight, the bard is a primary buffer.

By stocking up his HD, you effectivly make it a melee combatant, which did not lie in the creators intention and scrambles overall class balance.

 

Why Neanderthals?

Paladins could also be something like Charlemagne's paladins - the noble companions of the king, characterised (at least in theory) by certain virtues. That would be different from inquisitors. However, inquisitors are what paladins look like in Forgotten Realms well too often.

 

Ever read the book Eaters of the Dead?

I want inquisitors, the kind that the Nordic Kings sent to war between eachother to convert the others to the "correct" Christianity, not much unlike the War Bishops.

As for the Bard question: I've been over this before, and the Bard is underpowered. I'm not giving him a D10, I'm giving him a D8, the medium HD that one that is a jack of all trades should have, really.

 

Bard is only underpowered if set up in a 1on1 combat against the other classes. As they said earlier, he is not a combat class.

 

As I said, I've gone over this before, spent pages upon pages discussing this on other RPG forums, and I have made my choice. I have no problem discussing it, but not in this topic, I don't want it derailed.

[ February 03, 2007, 15:19: Message edited by: Register ]