Background

When the fantasy campaign I was running came to its natural conclusion, I needed to make some decisions about the setting I was using.  I had purchased the Valdorian Age from Hero Games. The Valdorian Age is a great setting that worked very well for what I wanted to do.  Could I start another campaign in the same setting?  How much work would I need to complete to 'reset' the setting to start a new campaign? Did I want to continue to use the same setting?

The Valdorian Age and the campaign I had run had created a set of limitations that it impossible to run another campaign in the setting.  The vast majority of the material of the Valdorian Age revolved around one vast city in the world.  That city is very detailed and has adventures from the source material.  It is a beautiful sandbox city-based campaign setting.  To reset to another time frame using that same city meant redoing all the details around the city.  That did not seem practical.

Setting vs. Campaign

A bit of definition concerning setting vs. campaign.  A setting is a place with geography, ecology, history, and physical/metaphysical rules that provide the background for any stories that might told inside that setting.  A good setting allows for many stories to be told.  Those stories can be part of a larger epic, or they can stand on their own.  For instance, JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth is a wonderful setting, and he told many stories within that setting; some are part of the epic involving the one ring, and many other stories are not directly related to the one ring.

A campaign is a specific set of stories (or chapters of a single story) in a setting.  Usually, for a role-playing game, the characters within the campaign are consistent, and there is generally a clear beginning and ending for the campaign.  When the campaign ends, the only effect on the setting is that there is more information about a particular place and time within the setting.  Another campaign can occur before, after, or to the side (different location) within the same setting.

The Valdorian Age is a campaign because it is tough to tell many different stories within the Valdorian Age due to the focus on one major city.  It is very much like the various Batman or Spiderman franchise movies.  How many times can you reboot the Batman or Spiderman franchise and retell their origin story before everyone says, "Meh!"

Total Control

Building your own fantasy setting gives you total control over everything.  Here are some decisions you will get to make:

• How big is your world?
• Where is it in relationship to the sun (or suns)?
• Does it have a moon, multiple moons, or no moons?
• What is the climate like on the planet?
• What is the geography of the planet?
• Are plate tectonics a factor on the planet?
• What is the ecology of the planet?
• What kind of wildlife is there?
• Why are there monsters?  Where did they come from?
• What intelligent races are there?  What is their relationship with each other?
• What is the history and mythology of the races?
• Are there any god(s) (real or imagined)?  What impact does that have on the intelligent races?  If the god(s) are accurate, what direct implications do they have on the planet?
• Weather?
• What are the countries, and how do they relate to each other?
• Is there magic?  How does it work?  Who can use it?
• What kind of technology is available?  Who has access to it?  If there is magic, how does that impact the technology?
• Warfare?  Trade?
• Languages?

That list is pretty overwhelming if you think about it and try to do it all at once.

In my next article, I will explain how I developed my current setting, Nyonia—Celestial Jewels.