"Coming from the RPG point of view, I guess I would say that the most important thing to get started (world building) is to begin with your simple, irreducible statement of what's unique about the world: this is swords-and-sandals fantasy in a dying world; this is epic fantasy in a world torn by a war of dragons; this is fantasy in a world where you are the king. Sometimes the best hooks come from combining two unrelated ideas. Then, with your broad theme in mind, answer these three questions: Who are the heroes, what are they fighting, and where or how are they adventuring? If you combine a good theme with interesting answers on the heroes and their enemies, you're well on the way to creating an engaging world. Or so I think, anyway."
-Rich Baker

Since 2000 when D&D 3.0 debuted I've run a dozen or more campaigns using D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 4E as well as Pathfinder. I've gotten the 3E based games up to around 13th level and 4E I ran through the heroic level (and I played a paragon level adventure).

Sometimes I've created my own world and sometimes I've used a pre-built world like Eberron or Golarion. I've always wanted to create a world of my own that had my players and me wanting to not only reach high levels in one campaign but also return to again at for future campaigns.

I never really succeeded at the second goal. One of the things I've come to realize is that Pathfinder like 3E becomes fuzzy at high levels and involves a lot of DM calls to run. 4E with the core rulebooks is also not balanced at paragon and epic levels although as I understand it errata have been released to partially fix this issue.

So when my ten-month long Pathfinder game was starting to fracture under the weight of magic items and twenty encounters a level standard I decided to look around for something new. I checked out both Airship Pirates and Ashen Stars and even went so far as to make characters for Ashen Stars which I like quite a bit. In the end, though, neither Airship Pirates nor Ashen Stars quite hit the mark I was aiming for.

So what to do? I was burned out on 4E and Pathfinder but I like D20 fantasy. Retro-clones don't do too much for me and Dungeon Crawl Classics was pushed back to a February 2012 release.

Then I remembered Fantasy Craft (FC). Fantasy Craft was still D20 fantasy but highly geared toward homebrew worlds. It kept many traditions of D&D but wasn't afraid to mix things up.

I was nervous. I'd try to sell Fantasy Craft once before to a group that ultimately went with Rogue Trader instead. It just doesn't have the traction of 4E, PF, or even Dragon Age. But it is an excellent system.

Character creation dispelled all my fears. My players loved it; they felt that the character they saw in their mind's eye really translated onto paper. I think the addition of origins (kind of like themes in 4E or campaign traits in PF) really helped in this regard.

I was also inspired on the world building end of things. With alignment transformed in FC to a broad view of conflicting beliefs rather than just an abstract description of good and evil the sky was the limit in designing a creation myth and accompanying spiritual forces.

Over the next few months I'll detail the Prismatic Steel campaign setting. I'll also include my experiences with FC and how it works in the campaign played at the table using this homebrew world. I followed the world creation guidelines provided with FC. Without further ado, check out the Prismatic Steel campaign setting.

Prismatic Steel Campaign Setting

Kruvil teeters on the edge of the abyss. A party of sellswords, magic hounds, and ne'er-do-wells could take advantage and live the good life while watching the last light of civilization slides over the edge and into the abyss. Or they could attempt the impossible, to try to right things in one small corner of Kruvil and try to turn the tide of annihilation and ruin.

Welcome to the world of Prismatic Steel.

Spirit of the Prismatic Steel Campaign Setting

In the Prismatic Steel campaign setting, adventurers are challenged to explore a ruined world, to reconnect species and cultures, and rediscover and rebuild civilization while fighting the urge to give up, give in, and just ride the spiral of destruction downwards. The genre is dark fantasy which can move either towards traditional fantasy if the adventurers work towards it or will move toward sword and sorcery if they give up.

The era has fallen to feudal levels, but tech all the way up to the age of reason still exists. A few exceptional craftsmen still create reason tech level. Politics and day to day life is at the feudal tech level.

What People Believe

In the beginning, a ball of prismatic fire fell from the space between the stars and crashed into the planet of Kruvil. As the chromatic fire continued to burn, rivers of molten green and blue metal pooled in the crater left by impact. A perfect mixture of iron, carbon, and magic, the prismatic steel and its eternal fire unlocked the potential of Kruvil and sentient life arose.

The races of Kruvil risked life and spirit to unlock the secrets of prismatic steel. The use of fire was learned at the expense of many lives. Metallurgy awaited a patient hand to first unlock the liquid metal's secrets. And the magic given off by the prismatic fire and molten steel permeated all life, all matter, all energy.

The races lived in harmony with the land or tamed it or destroyed it. They warred with each other and grew from families to tribes to clans to city-states to kingdoms to nations. Might magic was mastered, gunpowder and guns refined, and powerful sailing ships and even flying machines traversed Kruvil.

Finally, two empires of man, Amperia and Vanar, dominated most of the known world. One group of men had pale green skin and the other light blue. Each group followed a different path of belief about prismatic steel. Rhetoric turned to anger. Anger led to violence. War engulfed both empires and spilled over into the lives and realms of most of the other sentient races.

All that had been built over a thousand years burned in only thirteen years. A terrible black void ate the stars in the northern sky and burning rock fell across Kruvil.

A great city of learning, Anbegriffon, lay between both realms. Whether by magic or monster or another strike of prismatic steel hurled by the space between the stars in anger, Anbegriffon was torn asunder. It broke up into shattered islands, broken and half-submerged buildings, and areas of wild and dangerous magic. The mighty Library of Anbegriffon burned and a thousand years of history, science, and magic was lost in three days of fire and madness.

As tens of thousands died in the ruin of Anbegriffon, undead arose across Kruvil. Killing and eating their way through towns and villages, the mindless undead sometimes fell under the sway of terrible vampires, rampaging werewolves, and worse things that seemed to thrive in the new darkness. All seemed lost.

Sentients of all living species fought together against the undead and supernatural scourge. Orc and elf fought side by side, dwarf and goblin died defending the same walls. Only by turning aside thirteen years of intense warfare and centuries of violence and hatred was the undead plague slowed.

Today, Kruvil is a ravaged and savage world. Undead take and eat those they can catch, supernatural monsters stalk the land and hide in the small pockets of civilization remaining, and old hatreds flare anew. For every orc and elf who continue to work together, a hundred more kill each other and burn down homes.

Next Month

Miracles of the Color Roads, unbound magic, and campaign qualities. Also, how did the first adventure go: what is Fantasy Craft like at the actual table?

"We are rainbows in the dark" (Color Road saying),
Charlie