A Guide to the Planes in My Homebrew Setting

Many years ago now, I started a new campaign. I was designing the campaign based on player suggestions, so I didn't know where it was going yet. But I knew my tastes and my style, and I remember telling a player who was new to my games that I run a pretty low-magic world. That player would later tease me because the opening session of the campaign would feature a displacer beast accidentally let loose from a circus--not exactly a low-magic world after all. I've always resisted high-magic for reasons related to my aims as a DM, but after my most recent campaign, I think it's time to admit that I am not much of a low-magic DM after all. 

And if I'm going to get comfortable with being a high-magic DM, it's time to get serious about what exists outside of the mundane world. That's why this guide explores the different planes of existence in my homebrew setting. Some of these will be adaptations of what already exists in much of the writing about D&D, and some will be more or less fresh ideas. But having had my players visit the Fae realm in the final session on the campaign helped me realize how badly I needed to think about all this, so here is a guide to all of the planes of existence in my homebrew setting.

Changes Made to My Homebrew Setting by Players (and Why It Should Be that Way)

I've been arguing for some time that player actions should have meaningful consequences. Doing something in-game and having no meaningful consequence feels hollow and flimsy, like a cardboard cutout of a real adventure. That's why I've dedicated so much of my DMing career to providing meaningful consequences to player actions. Recently, I realized just how much of my world has changed, with no small part of that coming from my most recent campaign, Of Gods and Dragons. And the thought struck me that it may be worth considering all these changes at once to see the world at large and how (and perhaps why) these changes have happened. To do this, I'm going to review the five campaigns that have taken place in Evanoch since I started DMing in the setting more than fifteen years ago. 

Campaign One: Talon Gorge

I set out to run a "twists and turns" kind of story about assassination contracts leading up the royal family, but the party didn't trust the questgiver and turned on them, resulting in a party split that led to a civil war. This meant the fall of the last monarchy in Evanoch, already a remarkable moment in the world, but the conspirator who had planned the whole thing escaped (with a player character at that). To date, I've never brought back the conspirator for more shenanigans, but it's nice to know she's out there. As a result of the fall of the monarchy, a democratic council was appointed which focused more on the needs of citizens than the old regime had. 

At the time, this felt like a pretty appropriate consequence. They saw the city through the civil war, they helped install democratic leadership, they ensured that the new leaders would be more progressive--there was no reason to not grant them a newly prosperous city. I stand by this. The whole crux of the campaign had been the safety of the city and its leadership, and the party fought long and hard to achieve that (the part of the party that remained loyal to the city, anyway). Meanwhile, the rogue agents who opposed the city did succeed in killing the king and dismantling some of the royal government, and that led to the compromise that the monarchy fell but a new progressive government replaced it. So within the context of the campaign, the consequence was fitting--the party saved Talon Gorge, and so Talon Gorge thrived in its new identity. 

This was the first campaign I ran in Evanoch. I had no idea the scope of running years of campaigns would mean. Looking back, Talon Gorge's reinvention as a progressive democratic city changed the balance pretty meaningfully. I had created an array of cities that represented different extremes and variations of all manner of details including government. Talon Gorge was the last monarchy, a conservative holdout amongst the major cities of the world. Talon Gorge swinging from most repressive to essentially the most progressive was a big impact. The balance shifted. Evanoch leaned toward a more progressive future and away from a traditionalist past, and I learned at this point that you can establish a world as a playground, but that means surrendering that playground to be changed by the players. 

What I would soon realize was that the point of the playground was the players having fun in it. It was not about creating a perfect world and a perfect story, but giving the players a stage to tell their perfect story. Acknowledging this, I decided to move forward by striving to create situations for players but not guide them and to encourage them to change the world. 

Campaign Two: Listen Check

I set my sights on something so ambitious that it's a wonder I didn't fail miserably. For my second ever for real D&D campaign, I elected to run a live broadcast D&D game as a radio show and podcast. It was called Listen Check, a pun on 3.5's skill name, and it was my baby. I chose special music every episode for each character, wrote over a hundred pages of in-game documents, illustrated an in-game children's book, wrote the opening seven chapters of an in-game novel, and more hyper-commitment to the art. And oh yeah, the party brought about a change in political leadership and killed a god. 

This was something of a mistake. An unintentional outcome, anyway. I'd meticulously made a table of random events and quest hooks that were specific to the gameworld and meant to be explore as non-hierarchical--they're all equal quests. But the first one the party encountered involved a quest from a god, which they took to be the main quest, and I had to develop a campaign about the god. I never intended it to work out that way, but I'd say it went well enough. However, the tunnel vision of creating a campaign around fighting a god got the best of me, and I didn't realize that the end of the line was killing that god. I introduced a dragon character to help the party, and my dragon lore was born. Soon, the god was slain, and I had a rift in time and space as well as the implied existence of more dragons (one of the party assumed a dragon mantle as a reward for his role in defeating the god). I more or less left this untouched as a hook for later stories (and ended up using it for my most recent campaign).

With the ambition that had led me there--a sprawling campaign with new-to-me methods that used a new technology to tell a story over years--the ending was ambitious too. Using a homebrew magic system, one player character stripped the god of its immortality, setting a dangerous precedent of how powerful the magic system was. I would offer it again to future players anyway, always turned down until my most recent campaign. But now the consequence was killing a god and becoming a dragon--taking immortality and gaining it. I recognized that I was flying very close to the sun so to speak, and I realized something conceptual about campaigns. 

All campaigns either take place within a narrative vacuum or within a larger context. If the problem that the party is solving as the main campaign only exists within the world in order to be solved, that's a sign of a narrative vacuum. If the DM started with a story idea and created set dressing around it to place it in the world, that's possibly a narrative vacuum. This isn't a bad thing, but a vacuum generally limits how many consequences will reach the larger world beyond the campaign immediately. Talon Gorge began as a vacuum--kill these people, get this reward, for instance, and I designed the city so that the campaign could take place. But it became a broader thing--"how do the people in town feel about political leadership?" is not a direct consequence of "kill these people and get paid." Listen Check began as and stubbornly remained within a larger context. It was a true sandbox that the players treated as something bigger than individual quests. So I noted where things had succeeded and scaled back. 

Campaign Three: The Eastweald

Except that years passed, and I forgot the lesson of ambition. I wanted to follow what I believed was at the heart of tabletop roleplaying joy--having agency. I even asked my players to suggest concepts for the campaign itself, a process I've outlined. The result was hard to work with. I had hoped to get aesthetic notes, story fragments that could be chained together or used as mid-level quests; I got a main quest idea from every player. The ambition returned and struck, perhaps lethally. I insisted I would string four main quest-level ideas into one big story. I did my best. My players say it was a success. I remain dissatisfied, wishing more of it had come together in the final sessions. But in the end, each storyline was concluded: a terrorist strike had been made against New Dalton, goliaths had arrived on Evanoch, a plague had been cured, and a traitorous deal with Vecna was made. 

I'm sure my displeasure comes through here, and I think on reflection that it just felt like while I took big swings, these were all vacuum stories. I made the Eastweald, a large stretch of forest with a gorgeous map to give the player characters a sandbox, but to tend to the stories, they spend most of their time in a few bigger cities. The storylines individually were interested, but connecting them was hard because none was related to the larger world. The Eastweald had all this potential to be a huge success, but I think that I might have been a little shy of offering huge consequences. After Listen Check, killing a god and becoming a dragon was a very high threshold of consequence, and I had a player dealing with a god, and I had another player planning state violence, and another introducing a new species to my homebrew setting--the possible consequences were massive. I uncharacteristically did not provide an epilogue because I didn't really want to push further consequences of the campaign into the canon history of my world. I regret that. I wish I had done a lot differently. At the very least, I'm glad I got to run something better with the same group later on to vindicate myself. 

In terms of consequences, this one remains pretty minimized. It has small ripple effects--Vecna, the god dealt with in this campaign, was largely characterized for me during the god's conversations. I treat the goliaths taking up residence in my homebrew Underdark as canon and plan to handle any future excursions to the Underdark with a full account of this campaign. I treat Woodhearth, the largest city in the Eastweald, as more important than its relatively small size would merit given the important crossroads it lies on (and sentimentality). But by and large, I gave vacuum stories and minimized consequences, and that's both why there are few marks left on the world and why I regret not doing better. 

I do want to acknowledge here again, though--my players said it was a grand time. They got personalized main quests! They got multi-genre adventure! There were backstabbings! There were bombs! There were antics and dramatic moments and big fights! It was everything D&D is meant to be. But I had done radio theater for three years, telling a cohesive and beautiful and frightening and infuriating and intoxicating tale that pushed the boundaries of every format it used--I wanted more. The question now was how to bring the aspiration I had to reality despite challenges. Humbled, I went on. 

Campaign Four: The Mystery Campaign

I took nothing for granted. Every step in a process that felt natural had to be analyzed--anything could be a bad habit. Too much narrative suggestion before--edit the suggestions more. The requests involved a mystery premise, the appearance of a dragon, a class divide, chaos, and other details. I hatched a plan for a murder mystery that involved a class struggle and chaos storms powered by a tortured chaos dragon. The players investigated. They formed relationships. They improved the city. They incited a rebellion. They ended the chaos storms. They solved the mystery. It was a careful process--nothing makes you more careful as a DM than any given piece of information spoiling the whole session or more, and I often had to adjust to strange and curious player actions (like starting a real band as a cover to talk to someone)--but it all paid off. The mystery campaign was satisfying to me to DM, it was a favorite for the players involved, and I would say that it fulfilled the artistic drive in me to do something special. I'll tell you: D&D is not designed for mystery storytelling, but I'm happy with how it came out. (To the readers shouting "Then play CoC/TTRPG of your choice!"--my players wanted D&D mystery, and I felt up to the challenge.)

The consequences of this campaign are not unlike those in Talon Gorge--peace and prosperity are granted, the evildoers are driven out, and all is well. But the scale here is different. The Mystery Campaign took place in the small mountain town of Yamseth. Talon Gorge was a leviathan, a powerhouse of a city; Yamseth was a town made specifically for the campaign. That does regrettably mean this is a vacuum narrative--because my players wanted the chaos storms, which do not exist in any city I had already established, I had to make something for them anyway. That just necessarily meant that what happened in Yamseth would cause less ripples, and given how far outside the canon I was working (putting a non-canon dragon in the campaign for the chaos storms because it was requested), I didn't entirely mind keeping the Mystery Campaign as kind of a contained story. 

I haven't used this campaign much in terms of consequences to the larger world since it's fairly limited in scope--by far the most limited of any campaign I've run. Talon Gorge was about the overthrow of the last kingdom; Listen Check was about standing up to a god; the Eastweald was about a thousand massive things; the Mystery Campaign was about three people solving a murder. The Mystery Campaign is about this little story that has no real impact outside of Yamseth, and in a way, I think I was driven to do that by ambition too. I think I wanted to see if I could tell a small story--when so many D&D stories are so big--and still satisfy my players. I'm really proud that I did. This campaign made me unafraid to really play with the small moments, which would ironically help me in my next campaign. 

The thing that strikes me now about the Mystery Campaign is that it took me out of my element. I am a mushy emotional feelings roleplayer, and I tell stories about the way people feel--and I can feel all that out in the moment. On top of that, I'm an improviser. I've been improvising in one way or another for most of my life. I can't do any of that in a mystery campaign. I have to mind the script, the details, the plot. I have to make sure the expression of feelings matches the plan. It's tight and rigid and careful, and I'm a fast and loose DM. So it was a big challenge, and I always recommend doing creative work that's hard--it stretches you, and you learn what you're missing when you engage with it. 

Campaign Five: Of Gods and Dragons

Okay, this one is aaaaaaaaaalmost done, but basically wrapped up enough to discuss. I did my time being careful with the Mystery Campaign; it's time to be ambitious again. That hole in divine reality from Listen Check? We're bringing that back. All the implied dragons? Now major characters. So are the gods. The highest level I'd ever had players get to before this campaign was 12. This campaign started at level 12. I gave a powergamer access to the glyphs that made a god mortal. I let a player introduce Tanarukk into my homebrew setting. Custom classes for everyone! Utter chaos, and all because I have the final say: all the NPCs they had to deal with with gods and dragons, levels 30-80. Besides, they can only really progress by leaning into my strength--mushy emotional feelings roleplaying! This is in part in jest, but I did genuinely set out to build a campaign where roleplaying had to be the way forward, and this allowed me to connect so many dots I had been itching to connect for a long time. In the end, the party brought together all willing dragons, restored reality to stability, eliminated threatening dragons, and dealt a blow against oppression. That's where the epilogues begin. Over one hundred years, all three player characters use their powers, resources, and alliance to make the world a better place. This includes changing the governments of several major cities (Mishara, Finiel, Underhar, Torga, Ringsdale) to democratic councils as well as instituting public services including free food and medical attention (Torga, Curagon, Ringsdale, Mishara, Underhar, Talon Gorge). Other more minor but still notable achievements and justices were obtained, particularly in the realms of public safety, shared culture, and education. 

Obvious takeaway to start--massive and plentiful consequences. At the beginning of my DMing character, I was humbled by the weight of one major city being changed. Here, in the space of the epilogue, practically every major city was transformed into a happier, healthier, safer, more prosperous place. I want to really bear down on this point. Remember at the beginning, when I was discussing Talon Gorge and its shifting government throwing off the balance? At this point, Curagon (anarchists without a government), Kruush (too small to merit a meaningful government), and New Dalton (ideologically opposed to progressive values) are not democratic councils; the other seven all are. More than half the world's major cities have socialized medicine. Taken with the other achievements, this represents a golden age for Evanoch which is unmatched in its history. This is not only a very important consequence, this is a massive shift in the course of humanoid history. A few individuals with benevolent agendas managed to change the world they live in so thoroughly that I can't just run my next campaign in the world that resulted like any other campaign. 

We've spoken of narrative vacuums. Of Gods and Dragons is as much the opposite of a vacuum as can be. Evanoch was a place that had been designed and then refined for over a decade and a half. No place in the campaign aside from backstory homes for player characters, had to be created for the campaign. And the problem doesn't exist outside of or apart from the world--it is all over the world. Of Gods and Dragons feels like, by far, the biggest success I've ever had as a DM. And I think that's because I was ambitious with a plan, because I learned from my mistakes, because I took inspiration from my successes, and because I handed over the reins to my world entirely. It was scary! I backed off giving lots of control to players after Listen Check, and it took me a decade to take that risk again. But I'm glad I did. I gave them control, and they made the world a better place. 

Which presents DM problems. In a world were there is struggle, stories are everywhere. But in a world where everything is perfect, what drives the players on adventure? There are obviously fixes--some great evil rises, corruption rots the peace from within, etc. But that feels cheap. I have this world I had players fixing and helping in small ways for years. I took the people who knew my world most, cared about it the most, and gave them control of the world only to see a golden age fostered. To say it just leaks away dishonors my players. I will need something truly special to really pay my players the respect they deserve. But that is a tomorrow problem. I still have a finale session to lead, and I'm not discounting dramatic happenings. 

So what changes have happened? When I've restricted my players to narrative vacuums, they have dealt cleanly with those problems with gusto. When I've allowed my players to meaningfully impact the world, they have improved it. They ousted corrupt governments across campaigns spanning almost twenty years. The more power they had, the more good they did. When granted epilogues, my parties' characters became benefactors, mentors, protectors. They used wealth to make material improvements for the public. They fought for good. I feel foolish to realize it now. I resisted my players changing my world for years only to see I'd been afraid of them helping the little NPC people I'd made for them. 

I will say, I wouldn't trust every party this way. I wouldn't strive to make every campaign transform your whole world. This is a special case scenario, one I'm only striving at because I'm compelling to try and because I have willing friends. I fully intended to shift to a more conventional D&D story if the experiment failed. It was a gamble, but it worked, and I do think that with most good groups, the same potential for trust and the drive to improve the world exists. Trust your judgment, but be open to considering if you might give your players free rein to take big actions that will affect the world. 

I think at the end of the day, I'd estimate that Evanoch as a whole has been changed more by my players than the average DM would be able to say. I'll acknowledge that Of Gods and Dragons skews things, but city topplings, god and dragon antics, city hopping, terrorist striking, and mystery solving are not neglible contributions from the other campaigns. And now that I've seen how it can go when I trust my players to shape the world, I think my future campaigns will trend in that direction.

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to work well with other players, how to stop railroading, and how to "win" a tabletop game. Until next time, happy gaming!

Friendship in My Homebrew Setting

Sometimes an idea for my homebrew world will be so core to basic humanity that when I think to write about, I've already mistakenly thought to myself that I've written about it already. That was certainly the case for my core cultural values guide, and it's especially the case with friendship. I considered adding style of friendship to my to-write list several times but decided not to because I figured I must have already. Friendship is a basic part of life, even if not partaking in it is one's way of interacting with it. And as with differing approaches to romantic and sexual relationships, there are different approaches to friendship as well. Here's a profile on the styles of friendship of each culture in my homebrew setting.

Visual Arts by Culture in My Homebrew Setting

Some details of my homebrew setting are things I've thought about plenty and never put down until I wrote the guide; others are things I've thought fleetingly of and expanded; some don't exist until I sit down to make them. This guide to the visual arts of Evanoch is of the last sort. I enjoy visual arts, but I'm not very informed in them like I am with literature, so I have to confess that I sorta imagined Evanine art galleries as having paintings and sculptures and stuff, but I never really considered what any of it would look like. I think it's times like these that we all benefit from remembering that there are endless things to write about in terms of worldbuilding, and not getting around to something obvious well into your GMing career isn't a bad thing--it all comes in time. So in that spirit, 60 articles about my homebrew setting down, this one before us now, and as many more to go as we like. (And remember: you don't need to write 60 articles about your world to know it well or be able to DM well.) Let's take a look at the visual arts of Evanoch, guided by culture. 

Healing by Culture in My Homebrew Setting

In D&D and other tabletop games, healing is a big part of the game. This is for a number of reasons. Primarily, combat happens in tabletop games, and combat means injuries, and injuries necessitate healing. Secondarily, magic is considered a staple of D&D, and an extension of that means that healing magic would exist. And thirdly, since the beginning of D&D, healing has been a major part of the game. But medical care is more than a "Cure Wounds" spell, and I thought it would be interesting and valuable to investigate what healing is like between cultures in my homebrew setting. I know this idea is a little out there in terms of what I write for this site, but trust me--this guide will help to add some great details to healing in the game. So without further ado, let's get started by looking at the cultures in my homebrew setting and how they handle healing and medical care. 

Education by Culture in My Homebrew Setting

For most of my adult life, I have been a teacher. I've taught elementary school, middle school, high school, and at universities--the whole range, for those unfamiliar with United States education. And yet I've never really thought about what education looks like in my world. I think that on some level, I just imagined everybody doing slightly different versions of what I'm used to--classroom teaching. But of course, my homebrew world is more complicated than that. With fidelity to my homebrew versions of D&D groups, this guide will explore how education happens, who is allowed to teach and learn, what sorts of things are taught, what the purpose of education is, and how the group feels about education. 

Flags of the Cities of Evanoch

So many details of everyday life are taken for granted in tabletop games. Until recently, I never took the time to plot out what the solar system that contains my homebrew setting is like. Until recently, I did not think too hard about the social expectations that cultural groups carry with them. And likewise, it took me years and years of writing about my homebrew setting and inspiration from my best friend to start working out who the powerful and renowned people are in my homebrew setting. These are big things. But small things slip by too--until very recently, I hadn't really thought about flags in my setting at all. It made sense that they would exist, but I never really imagined what they would be. And I'm very pleased to say that putting together these flags--one for each of the ten major cities in my homebrew setting--to the point that there was some real glee in designing them. So without further ado, here are the flags, what they are supposed to represent, and how they are produced. 

An edit of the map I recently made with the flags added.

Rules of Communication in My Homebrew Setting

In life, we all have our challenges. One of mine, as an autistic person, is communication. Don't get me wrong--I have a Master's in English Literature, I write constantly, and I know how to understand and be understood. But there are certain social cues that are not obvious to someone like me, and I've grown fascinated by the unspoken rules of communication that seemingly everyone else knows and I don't. That fascination is going to be expressed here, in this guide, and it will explore the different expectations people have for communicating, what is considered polite and rude, and the consequences of communicating in a way that other people find strange. As regular readers know, this will entail examining all eight of the cultural groups in my homebrew setting; this will add a fun dimension to roleplay where different cultures have different tendencies and preferences. So let's get started with the rules of communication in Evanoch:

Profiles on the Warlock Pact Patrons in My Homebrew Setting

Until Of Gods and Dragons, the many campaigns I have run in my homebrew setting have never included a Warlock. This is in part because I ran 3.5, which does not have the class Warlock, for much of my DMing career before switching to 5E. And even then, I worked with small parties, and it just happened that no one ever selected Warlock. At the same time, I've only ever played D&D as a player once in 5E, and I played a rogue-cleric, so I also didn't have experience as a Warlock. As a result, I never thought much about Warlocks and especially not about the elder forces that empower them. But when the character Brokk appeared in my world, a monk-warlock cross-class character, I suddenly was faced with the question of the Warlock patrons. Brokk's player said he wanted Magoth to be Brokk's patron, a king of the underworld who had had a part in creating the war machine that birthed Brokk. I'll admit it: I had reservations about carving out a space for the literal devil in my homebrew setting. It felt tonally off. But Brokk's player was passionate about the idea, an adaptation of something in his own homebrew setting, so I ran with it. At the time of this writing, Brokk is beginning plans to confront Magoth, which will have sweeping consequences regardless of how it plays out, and I've realized that I badly need to explore the Warlock patrons in my world. 

I want to note that the Player's Handbook offers a few options here. I'm going to keep those and adapt them slightly to fit what's canon in my world, and I'm also going to create a few from scratch that would exist in my world. Specifically, the Player's Handbook names three "otherworldly patrons," namely The Archfey, The Fiend, and The Great Old One. I'll tackle these adaptations of what's in the Player's Handbook first, and then get into the patrons that I've created. These descriptions are for lore and worldbuilding purposes, but I am also going to include class abilities for each patron in case any of these get used in the future. So let's get started--here are the Warlock patrons of my homebrew setting.

The Archfae

In my world, the Faewyld is a confusing and haunting space where multiple dimensions exist at once. It takes mortals months or even years of time in the Faewyld to adjust to the disorientation. The Fae and other creatures who live in the Faewyld are typically extremely chaotic, but they generally tend toward good actions in the end. Extremely powerful Fae have a strong enough grasp of magic that they are able to grant power to those who are willing to serve them. Fae of this sort are typically elevated in some way in Fae society, be it through political leadership or achievement in magic, but sheer power is enough to grant a Fae access to being a patron. 

To become a Warlock with the Archfae, one must strike a deal. Fae are famous for negotiating and striking bargains, the conditions of which are not always clear upon making the deal. In Of Gods and Dragons, Aurora gained her access to her custom class by striking a deal with a Fae (perhaps an Archfae in secret?), and Aurora would not know until session twelve that the price of her powers was destroying the city she came from. It is not uncommon for an Archfae to select a humanoid to accomplish one large task and then leave them alone, seeking a new and specially qualified humanoid for their next big goal, but still supporting the old humanoid so long as they serve the Archfae's interests. 

Class Abilities:

Fae Bearing

Starting at 1st level, your character is inherently more charming like the Fae. All Persuasion checks made with a +2 modifier and can roll one Persuasion check with advantage per long rest. 

Dimension Step

Starting at 6th level, your character is able to step across dimensions as though in the Faewyld. You are able to disappear and then reappear within 100 feet as a free action, used once per long rest.

Defense Against Influence

Starting at 10th level, when someone is using a Persuasion or Diplomacy check against you, you can use a successful Wisdom saving throw (DC 14) to see past their words given your experience with Fae communication. You get advantage on saving throws against mind-affecting magic. 

Faewyld Tour

Starting at 14th level, you can send a creature to the Faewyld, where the unsettling shape of the world will terrorize them. Once per long rest, you can invoke this power against a creature, which must roll a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. A failure means spending up to 10 minutes in the Faewyld or until the Warlock recalls the creature, whichever comes first; a success means being stunned for 1d6 rounds. 

Magoth, King of the Underworld

Far below the other dimensions lies a primordial area that defies imagination. Mortals on Izar talk about lakes of lava and endless fires, pain that cannot be escaped, psychological torment that goes forever. But Magoth's realm is more akin to deprivation. All is black. There is a feeling of constriction, of paralysis, of not quite getting enough air on each breath. But no other sensation is experienced by any in this lowest dimension--even Magoth himself is subject to the constant agony of his realm, prodding him to continue inflicting pain on those he has claimed--all former champions who disappointed Magoth. None in Magoth's realm have power except for him, and his power is enough to be a patron, but inadequate for him to escape his own punishment. 

To strike a deal with Magoth, one must forsake all that they have in the world and will ever have, promising to always wreak pain and suffering on the living. Magoth has made allowances for champions who have a single-minded hate of one group of people, but his favorite champions are those who have a blind hatred of all people. Because Magoth is considered an obscure and occult interest, fewer people are aware of him than other Warlock patrons, but Magoth has counteracted this by communicating directly with cultists, who have been able to spread word of the lowest dimension and its ruler. 

Class Abilities:

Consumption of Life

Starting at 1st level, can leech life directly from an enemy; your character can regain up to your Charisma modifier + your Warlock level when you reduce a creature to 0 hit points. 

Magoth's Hatred

Starting at 6th level, you can focus Magoth's hatred--on any attack, skill check, or saving throw, you can roll with advantage thanks to your channeled rage. You must declare the advantaged roll before rolling. Works once per long rest. 

Demonic Resistance

Starting at 10th level, you become inured to the pain of Magoth. Every long rest, you may choose a new damage type; you are resistant to this damage type until your next long rest. Magical weapons and silver weapons ignore this resistance. 

Time In Hell

Starting at 14th level, you can send a creature to Magoth's realm when you strike it and deal at least half of the roll's possible damage. The creature spends what seems like years in the constrictive nothingness, then reappears where it was at the end of its next turn. The creature must perform a Wisdom saving throw (your Warlock spell save DC) or take 12d10 psychic damage. 

The Ancient

Relatively little is known of what space looks like beyond Izar, but somewhere out there beyond the reach of telescopes and imagination are ancient beings suited for life in the unnourishing void of nothingness. Those who have made contact have described a wide variety of beings, ranging from incorporeal glowing entities to massive, lumbering, shapeless things to imperceptible combinations of senses that overwhelm the onlooker. The entities lack names or traditional communication as known by humanoids, but when contacted, some have been willing to lend some of their unknowable power to those who strike them as interesting. 

To enter a pact with an Ancient, one must first learn how to contact one, a feat requiring a great deal of arcane study; then, one must contact Ancient after Ancient until one strikes the Ancient's fancy; then they must discuss the powers to be shared and the conditions of one's power. This can take years or even decades. One of the greatest challenges is in learning to communicate with the Ancient, a task that can require considerable trial and error before introductions can even be made. 

Class Abilities:

Language of the Stars

Starting at 1st level, you can communicate telepathically with any creature within 30 feet of you after the ordeal of learning to communicate with an eldritch being. This power works with any creature who can speak at least one language. 

Turn the Tides

Starting at 6th level, you can see through the world as it is. When you are attacked, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on their attack. If they miss, you can attack on your next turn with advantage. 

Celestial Armor

Starting at 10th level, you are immune to any means of reading your mind after being fortified by your patron. You are also immune to psychic damage, reflecting any psychic damage back to the creature attacking you. 

Eldritch Bond

Starting at 14th level, you gain the ability to charm one humanoid which is incapacitated as your patron does. Your patron takes partial control of that humanoid, keeping them charmed until remove curse is cast or the ability is used again. You can telepathically communicate with the charmed humanoid as long as you are on the same plane of existence. 

Zxete, the Force of Change

While scientists and philosophers struggle to define the causes and effects of changes in all variety of contexts, what invariably must be agreed to exist is the change itself. But while changes have effects, the change itself is not the effect. This force--the change itself--is a living, sentient energy which brings more changes with it. The Force of Change, called by some Zxete, has an everchanging personality which is at turns spiteful or benevolent, subdued or manic, refined or base, all in constantly shifting ways both gradual and sudden. The Force of Change favors those most touched by its effects, those who have known great upheaval or growth in life. 

To enter a pact with Zxete, one must endure or cause tremendous change. Once one has survived the great change and mastered it, Zxete becomes willing to grant an audience to the potential champion. Zxete is only interested in champions who will both have a claim to Its power and further Its agenda. That agenda is not revealed to the champion, who Zxete will reveal the full agenda only as it comes to be. Zxete communicates in a manner that is equivalent to telepathy, but which uses change itself to form words that can be understood by humanoids. 

Class Abilities:

Altered Perception

Starting at 1st level, you can see the world for the changing processes that it is. You gain +2 to all Perception checks and can roll one Perception check with advantage per long rest. 

Cascading Effects

Starting at 6th level, once per day, you can see the effects of changes; roll a Charisma check (DC 14) to ascertain the major consequences of any action, identical to casting the spell Augury, with the exception that the timeframe affected is one day rather than thirty minutes. 

Zxete's Force

Starting at 10th level, you can redirect energy that is focused on changing you. If a creature makes an attack against you, you can negate the damage and focus it instead on another creature within 100 feet. Reroll the damage, adding 2d6. 

Forced Change

Starting at 14th level, you can impose massive change on a humanoid once per long rest. The humanoid gets a Wisdom saving throw at the Warlock's spell save DC. A success means nothing happens. A failure means the target will experience a massive change determined by rolling a d6:

1 - Race changes at random

2 - Age changes at random

3 - Appearance changes at random

4 - Equipment changes at random

5 - Personality changes at random

6 - Two of the above change at random; roll twice, ignore doubles of the same option, if 6 is rolled again then add another roll

Existence

Everything that exists--every star and planet and moon and sun in the cosmos; every living thing that ever has been, is, or will be; every idea, feeling, or spiritual sensation; simply everything that could be and is, real or imagined--has a trace of natural energy in it. Individually, the natural energy of say, a blade of grass or a story once told by a halfling 6,000 years ago, is not much, though it is undeniable. But all of that natural energy is connected, and together, it forms the strongest force in all of existence--existence itself. Existence, as a powerful conscious form of life, tends towards the good and ordered in things, and only chooses champions who will meaningfully advance the wellbeing of the universe. Existence, a term only chosen because the entity resists a name, is more interested in action than knowledge, though it is partially formed of all information. 

To enter a pact with the entity of all existence, one must be learn to recognize the natural energy in oneself and in all things, forming relationships with those energies until the combined energy of existence trusts them. The champion-to-be must propose a meeting, which existence accepts or denies based on whether it believes the champion-to-be will advance good and order. Existence then speaks to the champion-to-be, relating some of the truth of the universe, revealing information and experiences valuable to achieving shared goals. Once the champion has recovered from the unveiling of universal truths, existence grants its champion powers and returns them to life with a new understanding of the universe. 

Class Abilities:

Universal Connection

Starting at 1st level, you contain the wisdom of the things around you; all Wisdom-based skills get a +1 bonus. 

The Ebb and Flow of Life

Starting at 6th level, your connection to the world around you means that you an share life force with them. By focusing for one round, you can draw life force from the world around you; roll 2d8 hit points to harmlessly absorb life from the universe. Can be used once per long rest. 

The Whole Universe

Starting at 10th level, you can target the foes of existence's agenda more effectively. Existence itself bends reality to grant you +2 AC against chaotic or evil enemies, and advantage on attack rolls against chaotic evil enemies. 

The Fabric of Reality

Starting at 14th level, you can guide the forces of existence yourself. Once per long rest, you may grant advantage to any roll (including other creatures' rolls) and impose disadvantage on any roll (including other creatures' rolls). 

Dyzyq

Witches on Izar have a variety of routes to honing their craft: one can study and master the arcane arts, others are born into powers they refine, and still others strike a bargain to become Warlocks. Those who take the Warlock route usually choose Dyzyq as their patron. Unlike other Warlock patrons, Dyzyq accepts all who come to her for power; the catch is that she only empowers those who agree with her ideals, which tend to be neutral good with an occasional flair for the chaotic. Dyzyq draws her power from nature, and she teaches her champions to draw their power from nature too--alchemy is highly popular among Warlocks of Dyzyq. Dyzyq also demands that her champions practice a craft--after all, it is witchcraft, and most Warlocks of Dyzyq practice one practical skill like weaving or carving as well as one magical skill like divination or enchantment. Legend says that Dyzyq is herself an ascended witch, or perhaps the first witch, but no one is sure.

To enter a pact with Dyzyq, one must learn of her through study or by chance. Contacting her requires what amounts to a prayer asking for her guidance, at which point Dyzyq speaks to the champion-to-be, helping to reveal things about them that they did not know. Dyzyq bestows her power slowly; while other patrons give their power in steps, Dyzyq requires that her champions seek out and learn new secrets of magic and craft with her help, which she tends to bestow graciously. A champion's relationship with Dyzyq is more akin to a religious one than a traditional pact.

Class Abilities:

Skilled in the Craft

Starting at 1st level, you become more skilled in the crafts of witchcraft. Of the skills Arcana, Nature, and Medicine, choose one to get a +2 bonus and another one to get a +1 bonus. 

Cloak Against Magic

Starting at 6th level, you gain protection from natural magic. You gain a +2 bonus on all rolls against magic directed at you (spell saves, rolls to take partial damage, etc.), and an Arcana check of DC 14 allows you to redirect the spell if the first roll is successful.

Expert Casting

Starting at 10th level, you become more in tune with the natural magic of Dyzyq. Once per long rest, you can roll any spell-related roll (spell attacks, spell damage, dice-determined effects) with advantage; an Arcana check of DC 15 allows you to roll with double advantage. 

Crafted Spell

Starting at 14th level, your grasp of witchcraft allows you to empower your magic. Once per day, with a skill check of DC 15, either Arcana, Nature, or Medicine, you can cast any spell at one power level higher as though it were cast with a higher spell slot. You can cast your highest level spell with this ability and receive an effect outside of your ability. You cannot choose spells from a level you have not reached. This heightened spell gets any spellcasting roll (spell attacks, spell damage, dice-determined effects) to automatically achieve maximum score. 

Marriage Ceremonies and Customs in My Homebrew Setting

For many, the most powerful bond a person can share is with a romantic partner, and marriage is considered the height of that bond. In order to understand how different societies define their relationships, I'm seeking to describe what marriage looks like in different groups in my homebrew setting--what the path to marriage looks like, the ceremony itself, and the expectations of married people. I'm excited to write this; my wife and I had an atypical wedding, and exploring interesting ideas for things like that will be a lot of fun for me. But more pertinently to the game, weddings do happen, and some characters are married, and this guide will help to understand and play those moments and those characters. [This article references lots of information on parenting and sexual relationships, which you can also read about.] Let's get into Evanoch's different peoples and their approaches to being married. 

Crime and Punishment in My Homebrew Setting

One of the most pervasive ideas in Dungeons and Dragons is how actions interact with the law. Whether it's a group of adventurers crossing into illegal conduct, seeing that wrongdoers are punished, or any other number of run-ins with law enforcement, the presence of guards and jailers is a constant, looming thing. But I think that DMs rarely give much of a second thought to how crime and punishment is handled, and it's rare that a DM makes different cultures feel differently about the law. But in this guide, I'm setting out to define how each of my eight homebrew groups feel about crime and punishment, from what crimes are most common to how different crimes are punished to how laws are made in the first place. Through this, I believe that playing in different places will now feel different for players, as the stakes for different actions change based on location (like they do in real life). (Check out this guide for general thinking points and advice about handling guards.) So let's dig in and look at how each major city in my homebrew setting, Evanoch:

Homebrew Setting Clans: Halflings

This is the final guide in a series on the most notable groups of people in each culture in my homebrew setting, Evanoch. These guides are perhaps the most important writing I have done here on this site, not for my reader, but for myself. I learned that my Daltoners were not a monolithic evil group. Until I wrote about the Faninites, I didn't understand how their society functioned over time rather than as a snapshot. My dwarves weren't distinct from the classic dwarf in fantasy until I explored how my dwarves could be different. The orcs live based on tradition, and their clan guide allowed me to see different ways of interpreting that tradition. My elves have always mixed progressivism with staunch traditionalism, and their clan guide helped me decide to elevate that tension to a real crisis of public faith in government. My half-elves, true assimilators, didn't have a defined set of cultural values to draw on, so I developed them into a true Chaotic Good group characterized by individuality. And writing about my gnomes helped me to build lore for a society I knew well but hadn't entirely built backstory for yet. I don't know what will come of writing about my halflings, my favorite of my homebrew groups. Here's a little about why: 

Elves, orcs, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and half-elves have established cultures in D&D canon, at least in fragmentary form. For all but the halflings, I took inspiration from the original classic and added various amounts of my own imagination. My elves are more artistically inclined that classic elves but are pretty similar. My dwarves didn't depart from traditional dwarves until their article. My gnomes are industrious inventors with a strange sense of humor like D&D canon dictates. My half-elves are facilitators and trailblazers like the tradition suggests. My orcs are tribal like the classic depiction says, even if their culture is actually quite distinct from other depictions. My humans are quite homebrew, dividing humans ideologically and making neither native to the setting. But my halflings are entirely mine. I kept the detail of underground homes as a nod to Tolkien's hobbits, the inspiration for halflings, but have changed everything else. They live in lush rainforests, mastered alchemy, are anarchists and have no formal government, have bizarre parenting traditions, and are generally the most surprising for players to encounter for these reasons. Getting to explore the halflings is something I saved for last so I could enjoy it as a culmination of this series.

One last thing: halflings unconditionally refuse to be formally organized, and family structures don't really exist as known elsewhere, so clans do not truly exist among the halflings like they do elsewhere. Instead, this guide will describe social movements, which represent a similar function for us as DMs--just as the other groups' clans reveal what people care about and what power may lie with particular people, these social movements and some of the people involved in them will serve the same function even though an organization doesn't exist in the same sense. After all, social movements are the closest halflings get to organizing, so it's the next best thing. That said, here are the five most important social movements amongst halflings:

Homebrew Setting Clans: Gnomes

I'm nearing the end of this clan series, which has consistently helped me to understand my cultural groups better. This guide features my gnomes, classically a favorite culture of mine to write about. But going in, I'm going to learn from the earlier guides in this series: there's a lot I don't realize I don't know about my homebrew groups, and I expect that to be true here too. My gnomes are an eccentric variation on the D&D presentation--trickstery inventors like the archetype says who have elaborate social customs and a unique take on social issues and governance according to my homebrew. But that's a narrowly-defined gnomish people, and these clan guides are about broadening our understanding of these groups, and so the gnomish clans below will get at the things about gnomish culture that truly bring people together. And as an added bonus, I'm going to be adapting my best friend's take on the gnomes' philsophies in his world--the player of Carric in the Eastweald, Beor in the mystery campaign, Brokk in of Gods and Dragons, and the DM for Daisy in my experiences as a player has created a really fun and interesting way for gnomes to process problems, and I'm going to pay homage to that with a clan here. Remember: adapting is not stealing, so borrow ideas and change the details to your heart's content. Now, the gnomish clans: 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Half-Elves

I remember many years ago sitting down with the 3.5 Players Handbook to study more of the world I was trying to exist in. My favorite thing to go back and forth about was not what class I was or what backstory my character had--I liked to think about the races. I remember one time, I was reading about half-elves, and there was some stray, fragmentary mention of half-elves being treated as outsiders to both elves and humans, not quite enough of either to be one of a group. That struck me hard. I was a teenager battling mental illness and autism without realizing it, and I felt like those half-elves. I read that they were diplomatic and understood others well. This too felt like me. I didn't play a half-elf then, and I still haven't nearly 20 years later (I just haven't had that many characters). But when I was developing my world and characterizing my cultural groups years later, those half-elven identities were still with me. I made my half-elves outsiders to everyone, the only hybrid race on Evanoch. But their outsider status made them free--with guaranteed judgment, there's no reason to do anything but what you really want. And I kept the spirit of the diplomatic notion; in my world, halflings are most renowned for diplomacy, and I felt it more intriguing to have my half-elves be expert artists, reflecting how the see the world in more creative means. All of that is to say that as I approach my half-elves, I can't help but wonder what groups will characterize them in this guide. Let's see how we can diversify the half-elves of Evanoch. 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Elves

This is the fifth of eight entries in a series on clans in my homebrew setting, featuring the elves of Evanoch. In the first half of this series, I covered my humans, the Daltoners and Faninites, as well as my dwarves and orcs. I noted in the orc article that my favorite groups to work with are generally not the humans or dwarves--I'm very satisfied with my homebrew versions of them, but we always have favorites, and my favorite groups in my homebrew setting are simply not humans or dwarves. I enjoy my orcs a lot, but I feel like much of my efforts to characterize my orcs is based on making them not the stereotype. The second half of this series, then, are the groups that I identify with more, the groups who have bold visions of the future with fairness and integrity and innovation in mind. Daltoners, Faninites, dwarves, and orcs, look to tradition, while elves, half-elves, gnomes, and halflings look to the future. And so I'm very excited to get started with my elves, whose culture has always been very enjoyable for me to write about. So let's get started taking a closer look at the elves of Evanoch. 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Orcs

This guide to important groups of orcs is part of a larger group of articles on clans in my homebrew setting, Evanoch. In this series, I have filled in a large gap that has existed the whole nearly two decades I've been DMing in my world--who are the important people? I'd decided who was in political leadership long ago, but there are more forms of power than political power. And in really thinking about who the important people in Evanoch are, I've learned more about the cultural groups in my world--what values does a group hold that allow a certain person or people to be famous or successful? This has been monumental in changing my homebrew versions of D&D groups into multidimensional populaces instead of monolithic caricatures. With the orcs, I'll be looking to add depth and variation to a group that is much closer to my heart than the humans and dwarves I've already written about. So let's get started. 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Dwarves

This guide is part of a larger series on clans in my homebrew setting, Evanoch. This series, which I'm working on nearly ten years after beginning this site, does a lot of things that are so useful that I'm shocked I'm only just now getting to this. Not only does a detailed list of important groups in a society give me a variety of names and backgrounds to go to for important NPCs, but also, I'm able to diversify how I think of my cultures. My Daltoners were always evil imperialists; my guide to their clans showed a much more complex face. And similarly, my Faninites were always humble hippies; my guide to their clans showed them as a far more complicated people. So this guide to the dwarves' clans will help me to expand how I think of and present dwarves whenever I DM. 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Faninites

This guide is part of a larger series in which I delve into the clan identities of the groups in my homebrew setting. This accomplishes a couple of important things--partially, it allows me to have a number of important families and organizations in my world to refer to; it also gives me the opportunity to think more in detail about the way my cultural groups work; and third, as I saw in the entry for the Daltoners, my setting's other group of humans, it lets me add some variation to the group. Before I created my entry for the Daltoners, I treated them as a uniformly evil and colonial group of people who embrace racism and misogyny, so every time a Daltoner appeared in a campaign, they adhered to this group of unsavory traits. But as I wrote the guide to their clans, I started to recognize that the group is not homogeneous and created a few clans that departed from the evil stereotype I'd had in my head. Think about that--an entire eighth of my homebrew setting was a vague archetype that kept all encounters with them very similar, but writing about their clans allowed me to vary and differentiate them in ways that will enrich my DMing. Similarly, I'm setting out to find out the depths of my other groups of humans, the Faninites, who I've always treated as natural-loving, peaceful folks akin to Vikings, but more calm and gentle. So let's see what groups are the foremost among the Faninites. 

Homebrew Setting Clans: Daltoners

I've recently begun writing a novel based on a D&D campaign I was lucky enough to take part in over the last few years, and doing so has involved revisiting the worldbuilding of the DM who ran the campaign. One very rich element of his setting is that most civilizations, particularly the elves and orcs who were featured in the campaign, are very detailed in terms of leadership and clans. In the process of writing the (as of this article's writing) most recent chapter, I got to really dig into the orcish clans, their leaders, and how they are all specialized. It inspired me--I realized that despite the years of development I've put into my world, I've never really gotten into the specifics of how people organize themselves into factions. That seems like a sad oversight now, and so this will be the first in an eight-part series of guides to the major clans of each cultural group. Let us begin with one of my human groups: the Daltoners, sun-worshiping extremists who have always aimed to colonize Evanoch and spread their way of life. 

In this series of guides, the general organization will explain the overall role of the clans in the profile as well as the clans themselves--who runs them, their history, and how they function in the world. These will be partially constructed in order to give more life and detail to my world, but as always, the more important aim is to provide the world with jumping-off points. What I mean is this: should a group of Daltoners appear in a game I'm running, I'll have a reference point to do something detailed in the moment without having to improvise entire structures on the spot. Let's imagine that I'm DMing, and a group of Daltoners becomes a part of the story. Before this clan guide, I would be forced to generalize about the worldviews of Daltoners at large. But with this clan guide, I'll have a more rich and varied take on what makes Daltoners a broader but also diverse group, and I'll have this more detailed information to improvise based on in the moment, freeing me up to make stronger and more specific stories based on a foundation. This is, to me, the point of worldbuilding--to provide a framework for improvisation with details that can inspire further details as they impact the story. So without further ado, let's get started. 

Gender Identity and Gender Roles in My Homebrew Setting

One often-overlooked detail in homebrew setting design is the way that social structures work. Usually, we pay attention to the details that make a setting distinct from the reality we know and don't pay much attention to the things that we take for granted--basic ideas about how people interact with each other and themselves. But these are some of the key building blocks of how our worlds function; without a solid grasp on the ways that people fit together in the homebrew setting, we lack a complete understanding of how individuals and society coexist (or come into conflict). One of my favorite aspects of worldbuilding is this kind of social mechanic. 

In recent posts, I've devoted time and space to details like these: things like romantic and sexual relationships, parenting styles, and funeral rites. In an upcoming post, I'll be tackling friendships as well. Details like these may seem small, but each of them reveals more than we might realize right away. Relationships inform the ways that individuals form close bonds, and they determine the way that NPC romances (a common thing in TTRPGs) might play out. Parenting tells us about the values and expectations placed on people in society, and the have a big impact on the way adolescent characters (also very common in TTRPGs) view the world. Funeral rites imply a lot about how different groups perceive death and legacy, and they can guide how scenes with the loss of a character (very common in TTRPGs) may occur. Similarly, gender will tell us how society treats individuals and how people define themselves, and they allow players to design characters with more freedom (a meaningful element of TTRPGs). So let's get started: how do the different groups in my homebrew setting think about gender?