Scarterra
Scope
The motivation behind building Scarterra
Originally I wanted to create a detailed homebrew 3.5 D&D setting, but I got carried away and created an elaborate fantasy world mostly for fun and fiction writing more than RPGs.
Then for various reasons, I opted to make my own RPG system instead of using D&D.
I have ran two campaigns for my oldest friends in Scarterra and now I am running a game for people I barely know. I'm thinking fresh eyes should help me ferret out some wrinkles in my setting and game setting. I have half-baked planned to push my RPG system.
I am also (slowly) working on writing fiction set in Scarterra and Scaraqua.
My first novellete is Unstable Ground and I have a short story Shoemakers' Stand. More short stories and novelletes will be forthcoming and I'm slowly working my way up to a full length novel.
The goal of the project
I am hoping to create a very detailed and immersive setting that can be used as a basis for many varied stories, both fiction and RPG stories.
Scarterra's Unique Selling point
Most fantasy writers start with the people and figure out what kind of gods they worship.
I started with the gods and goddesses and tried to figure out what kind of mortals they would create, what kind of world they would create.
I have put a lot of effort into the cosmology of my world. My goal is to have everything make sense and be connected.
The initial inspiration for my pantheon was the story in the 2nd edition D&D Player's Handbook with the hypothetical story where an adventuring party with all nine classic alignments in it has an interesting adventure. The godly version of this group became the Nine which became the metaphysical baseline of my world.
I also two worlds in one. Scarterra is for land fantasy stories and Scaraqua is for aquatic fantasy stories. Originally I wasn't going to develop Scaraqua much but my first few fans gave me a lot of positive feedback for Scaraqua and encouraged me to expand on it greatly.
Theme
Genre
This is essentially a high fantasy world with minor sword and sorcery elements. My goal is to create detailed societies with realistic political systems and economies to allow for the telling of complex stories and intrigue.
I also want to include enough wilderness and wild places to allow simpler stories involving survivalist struggles and monster attacks.
Reader Experience
Scarterra has two aspects, Scar and Terra.
Scar means that every person, place, and group stands on the ruins of loss from previous ages.
Terra, means I want to include a whole immersive world.
Reader Tone
I am aiming for a varied tone. I want a world with potential for both loss and hope, for both light hearted romps and dark gritty adventures.
Recurring Themes
I like complex politics and one motiff I like to revisit is to have natural rivals forced to put aside their differences temporarily to cooperate against outside threats.
Likewise, old allies might be forced to take opposite sides by changing events.
Yesterday's enemy is today's friend and visa versa.
This is often how the Nine operate with each other and this pattern repeats itself on the mortal plane all the time.
But these changes are not random or arbritrary. A savvy negotiator can get far in this environment.
Character Agency
The scope is geared towards survivalist stories and heroic fantasy but generally stopping short of epic fantasy where characters metaphorically or literally punch gods in the face.
While characters do advance in personal power and abilities, this setting is geared to advanced characters gaining more political power rather than gaining more raw might.
Focus
Drama
The Kingdom of Swynfaredia has a long history of bloody civil wars and Byzantine intrigue that flares up periodically over the generations. It has rcently reached a fever pitch. A lot of assassinations and attempts at such including a failed attempt on the royal family itself.
Gwendolyn ap Numaness, Queen of Swynfaredia has been plotting to invade the smaller nation of Fumaya to give her feuding vassals an external enemy to focus on, but the scrappy and tough Fumayans are not going to take this sitting and unlike the Swynfaredians, the Fumayans are (mostly) unified.
King Drosst of Uskala is a human who has seemingly not aged in 800 years and he is never seen in the daylight. It is rumored that the young women sent to his bed chamber are never seen again.
It is generally assumed he is a vampire and by this point his subject have gotten used to this. Drosst has been annexing weaker neighbors by the pen or by the sword, and growing his kingdom one tiny piece at a time for centuries, but he went from getting a new piece of land at least once every twenty-five years to suddenly stopped. He hasn't annexed a new piece of land in well over a century and he has been sending explorers into wild areas for unknown purpose. What he is trying to do now?
The realm of Scarterra which includes humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves etc and the realm of Scaraqua which includes merfolk, Karakhai (sharkmen), astalakians (crab people), and Ojiongo (cephalopod people), etc
the Nine decreed that dragons would rule the mortal plane. the First Age was ruled by mighty of nations of dragons until intercine dragon warfare caused a foolish dragon queen to tamper with power beyond her ken and accidentally awaken millions of rogue elementals in the mortal plane killing 90% of all mortals in an event called the First Unmaking.
the Nine created elves to be the new dominant race (though tiny numbers of dragons remained). the Second Age was ruled by mighty nations of eleves until intercine warfare drove a foolish elf king to tamper with powers beyond his ken and accidentally let in millions of otherworldly demonic horrors into the mortal plane killing 90% of all mortals in an event called the Second Unmaking.
the Nine created humans to inherit the world (though small numbers of elves remain). Now some are saying it's only a matter of time before one or more foolish humans triggers some kind of Third Unmaking.
The Border Baronies Region is a somewhat chaotic realm where swamps, mountains and other natural barriers prevent farming in all but a few metaphorical islands of arable land. Each of these islands are independent realms with their own customs and peoples, collectively called the Border Baronies.
It is joked that you cannot travel through the Border Baronies twice without at least one of these realms having a complete governmental change. One year it's a republic, then a brutal absolute monarchy, than it is ruled by a theocratic council, then it is ruled by a council of merchants.
Why is the realm so unstable? Do the hardy locals realize they don't just sit in the border region between mountains and plains but also the border lands between Fae Home and the mortal plane and between Scarterra and Scarnoctis?
An evil mage is seeking a magical item called the Adder's Key which is said to allow the wielder to open a mystical prison door to a pocket realm with terrifying monsters.
A daring thief stole the Adder's Key, but the evil mage's minions were hot on his heels. In desperation he hit the Adder's Key in a pair of shoes in a random cobbler's shop before he died.
Now Nilen the gnome cobbler is about to have his life turned upside as he gets dragged into an epic adventure against his will. My goal is to write a novel about this, but progress is admittedly slow.