Kith of Welkin

Last time, I was creating a basic framework for the Wardens (the five gods of the setting) and their worlds and preferences. I want to build on that by getting a solid list of playable races and their basic qualities and relations to the Wardens.

Now, we have some basics laid down. The first thing I decided is that each Warden will have created two races of sentients on their world, but these have spread out over time such that all races will be more or less present in all five of the worlds. This is common knowledge. I assume they have made other races and perhaps other powers have meddled too, but those will be mysteries for the players to unravel if they ever want to. The second is the basic name and type of the five worlds or planes. The setting is really Welkin, but I want to know some things about the other worlds, who came from there, how long ago (if known) and why they left.

Now I will look at what we have so far and extrapolate out what that means for playable races of Welkin. We won’t have much of a hard timeline for Welkin as that doesn’t become very useful for players, but I will have things occur in the distant past or antiquity, the medium past, and the recent past just to give an idea of how recent an event is. We will also decide if an ancestry (race or subrace) is common, uncommon, or rare.

Kith of Welkin

I start with Skrion as she is the Warden of Welkin itself. Her morality is centered on just authority, and respect of authority. She created two races of beings for her world: Tengu (for which we will use aarakockra or maybe kenku stats or both?) and Murine (this will be a homebrew race to play mouse folk and rat folk).

Tengu have been created in Skrion’s own image. They are carnivorous, birdlike, and prefer to live in matrilineal clan groups which occupy a territory. In the ancient past, the murine were created to be a subject people and source of meat for the tengu. The tengu can fly and so they could trap murine populations on earth motes where they could be hunted.

When crag maya elves (for which see below) appeared on Welkin they befriended the murine and told them about the other gods. As news spread, the murine rebelled and aided others in rebellion and escape. Since that time in the distant past, most tengu have rejected the practice of eating sentients and instead cultivate other types of herds: most likely horseclaws, ostrich, and wind riders (jellyfish of the skies). The murine formed their own society of interdependence between the mousefolk and the ratfolk, but sometime in the medium past (i.e. before the present age of global exploration), most of the ratfolk will have rathered and departed in a great exodus.

In the present day Tengu will be uncommon outside of their eyries. Tengu found in the cities or at least outside the influence of their clans will most likely be individuals who have forsaken the old ways and learned to  integrate into society as an equal. They may instead be clanless exiles. Tengu rarely get involved with other races, except for commonly making alliance and communities alongside crag maya elves. Mousekin and halflings are liable to maintain a healthy distance.

Mousefolk live in communities with the other kith and make consummate diplomats, couriers, and envoys, and have recently gotten into the banking business, usually in partnership with halflings (for which see below). While on duty they are courteous and often refined, but on their personal time, they can be quick to take offense and love to settle disputes with duels. Skrion has a personal vendetta against them and they are the arch rebels of her creation.

The majority of ratkin declared war on the gods and all other kith and disappeared in a great exodus. Those who remain behind are mostly integrated into mousekin society and have a reputation for ferocity and surliness which is not wholly unearned. Mousekin may employ ratkin as muscle, bodyguards, spies, or sentries.

Kith of Reverie

In the distant past humans and halflings fled Reverie and made their way to Welkin. We don’t need to know why at this point, but we know they have been in Welkin for a long time. Perhaps they were among the first kith to migrate. Humans will say that there are no people left in Reverie besides those who visit in dreams and visions. Halflings believe that the nightmare that chased them is still there.

Because of their connection to Reverie, humans and halflings will display vast creativity and value the arts of all kinds.

Some halflings settle down in an urban or rural area, but most prefer to take their home with them and see the world. They like to travel in large troupes of players, merchants and artisans. Halflings are usually welcome when they arrive in a town or village. Their expertise in animal rearing and training is highly regarded, especially with horseclaws and riding dogs. When a troupe of halflings arrive in town, some will warily guard their coin purse, but most will joyfully call for a three day holiday. Because of their inherent ability to mind-speak other halflings, those who settle into towns and cities have begun to involve themselves in banking and messenger services.

Human architecture, song, theater, books, fine arts, cooking, and other arts are varied, thought provoking, and always changing. For some reason unknown to scholars, this creative drive of humans has caused human societies to constantly run afoul of dragons and draconic interference. Individual humans may exhibit many different qualities.

Humans are unmatched in their drive to share knowledge with anyone who will listen, and to learn. The material and cultural style of humans can change wildly from region to region. Human physical characteristics, though, vary according to the ancient migrations of the earliest humans and the forced relocations of various empires, so that humans anywhere in Welkin have every possible variation of coloration and features. Present day humans of Welkin are the dominant group of kith, even outnumbering mousekin. Humans from northern continents are likely to speak Saxonne, the language of the post-aquiline peoples,  as a lingua-franca and humans from the southern continents are likely to speak Jin Yu 金语, the language of the Golden Empire, as a lingua-franca.

Kith of Ashen

Changelings are known to have been created in Ashen by the Raven Queen but little is known of their natural state. They were brought to Welkin as slaves of dragons and are pressed into service in the dragons constant infiltration of human society. A few changelings have been fortunate enough to escape their enslavement and find others of their kind to live with and build a future. Others are
convinced that dragons would go to any length to recapture them, or the populace would kill them if their secret was revealed, so they live in constant fear of discovery. Trust is a difficult thing for changelings.

It is unknown whether the driven are a creation of the Raven Queen meant to live in Ashen or if they are a recent sign of her efforts to affect change in Welkin. Death comes for all in many ways. The Raven Queen hates all undead, but she has mysterious plans. Since about 150 years ago, driven have been accounted different from other undead.  A Saint of the Circle of Ten was once a human who came back as a driven and she is the most famous and hallowed of all. Therefore, reactions to driven may vary from complete horror to welcoming acceptance in a community.

Kith of the Weald

In keeping with the splitness inherent in the personality and background of Ecbol!, I want to reflect that splitness in the kith originating in the Weald.

First will be the cousin enemies of the elves. I will draw the split down the lines of leaning towards either wisdom or intelligence.  The crag maya elves value wisdom above all else, followed by living in harmony with the wilds and cultivating a deep understanding of life. In the ancient pre-history of Welkin, the crag maya appeared. They were fleeing a conflict which drove them apart from their cousins the eladrin.
Eladrin honor intelligence above all else and strive for deep understanding of esoteric magicks and engineering. The eladrin did not appear in Welkin until about 100 years before the previous time. They terrorized the peoples of the main continents from their sole floating fortress city and caused the final downfall of many governments during a ten-year reign of terror. After their city was forced down, the remnant of the eladrin mostly stayed in their Fallen City and plotted their revenge. The few eladrin that have left the Fallen City have sparked a magical and mechanical revolution over the past few generations.

Another recent arrival, fleeing the Weald at the same time as the eladrin are the sylva. Sylva, often named “Green Ones,” or “Arbre Knights” are a young race of tall, elegant, humanoid plant people. They come from only the greatest forests and jungles-the only places that can support their mother trees. Sylva biology is very different from other kith. The sylva do not merely look like plants - they are plants. They do not need to consume food to survive, but they wither when they are without water and sunlight for a long period of time. They can consume food, but they prefer to get their nourishment from photosynthesis. Sylva say they escaped certain destruction at the hands of something taking over the Weald called the Blight. They believe the mother trees that were brought with them are the last remaining untainted progenitors remaining to them.

Kith of Lambent

Goblins may be found anywhere kith have settled on Welkin.They live underground throughout the continents in tribal groups and some have even moved into the upper floating islands. Because of their similar love for life underground, goblins are often the first to discover infestations of insane ratkin and are always at the forefront of the campaigns to fight them. Goblins like to supplement their normal diet with a kind of rock they pound into bits and call “grit.” Eating this magic-infused stone has given the goblins resistance to the maddening psychic emanations of the ghosts that that ally with ratkin from time to time. As an added benefit, it toughens their skin, protecting them from the elements and physical danger.

Shardminds are living only in the loosest sense. Their crystalline bodies require no sustenance, and they don't breathe. They don't need sleep, though they must still rest for four hours to gain the benefits of an extended rest. They don't have gender, but may choose a gendered appearance. Also,  the Shardminds alive today aren't the same ones that appeared originally. There must be processes at work in their lives unknown to outsiders. Shardminds may come from anywhere they appear. They may make their homes in an abandoned mine or underground cavern, where they can feel the vibrations of the floating continents and earth motes. Although shardminds are extremely rare they do not encounter prejudice.



That’s ten main player ancestries with some interesting possibilities for players. But I want to add a few more. These will be ancestries that appear for other reasons in the world than the creation of a god.

Other Kith

Dragonborn

Dragonborn are created by dragons wherever they live. Many have escaped from service to the dragons. As warriors and engineers they excel but they have free will and sometimes chafe at being forced into service. When an opportunity presents itself, they may escape and attempt to make a life for themselves. Dragonborn search for the secrets of their creation, so they may make a true community. Until they have control of their own creation and reproduction, they can be little more than refugees. Dragonborn usually have direct and forthright personalities and have a reputation for telling the truth, whether the truth will aid them or not. As servants of the dragons, they are only used openly in war and diplomacy, so a dragonborn attempting to live freely is accepted in many communities in a way that a changeling could only dream of.

Genasi

Genasi are the mysterious elemental offspring of mortals. Although rare, they may be born to any parents. Scholars posit that genasi exist because of the influence of baleful elementals in the world, but most people do not ascribe inherent evil or destructive intent to genasi. They didn't ask to be born this way, after all, and legends say that in the past genasi have been powerful allies against evil elementals.

Genasi inherit something from both sides of their dual nature. They resemble humans or elves but have an unusual skin color (red, green, blue, brown, or gray), and there is
something odd about them. The elemental blood flowing through their veins manifests differently in each genasi, often as magical power. Seen in silhouette, a genasi can often pass as human. Those of earth or wood tend to be heavier, while those of air, water, or fire tend to be lighter. As rare beings, genasi might go their entire lives without encountering another one of their kind.

Warforged

Freedom is wonderful, but it can also be terrifying. Warforged were created by an alliance of goblins and humans (with captured eladrin consultants) to fight ratkin in the Lacuna War and were released from service after the continent ofKaruvasha sank into the clouds below.  Trained to follow orders and now lacking a war to win or a leader to follow, many warforged are intimidated by the possibilities of freedom and seek comfort in roles where expectations are clear. As the warforged strive to find a place in society for themselves after the Lacuna War, they simultaneously struggle to find ways to relate to others. Throughout certain lands they have freedom, but sometimes find themselves the
victims of discrimination, hard-pressed to find work or any kind of acceptance. Most warforged, not being particularly emotional creatures, accept their struggles and servitude with equanimity, but others seethe with resentment against all other races as well as those warforged whose only desire is to please their “masters.”


Here is our completed list of player ancestries:
Changeling: rare
Dragonborn: uncommon
Driven: rare
Elf: Crag Maya, common &  Eladrin, rare
Genasi: uncommon
Goblin: common
Halfling: uncommon
Human: common
Murine: Mousekin, common & Ratkin, rare
Shardmind: rare
Sylva: common
Tengu: uncommon (needs subraces)
Warforged: uncommon

Addendum: What about other races?

If a player wants to play a race that is not one of these choices, have a conversation with them. Could their character concept be covered with another race? Is there a specific ability they want to play with that is not available among these choices? Reskinning is always a possibility also. Here are some examples.

If a player wants to play a gnome, I would make gnomes a subrace of halflings that spent a millennium in the Weald before emigrating to Welkin, then just use gnome as it is in the PHB. If a player wanted to play a dwarf I could say they were from below the clouds- from the planet core and they are the only dwarf. Or make them a subrace of humans and use the dwarf from the book. Or you could make the character a mixed-race half-human and half-haling... a three-quarterling. Well, they would need a better name. I'll say people call them tetrarchs as a joke but the name stuck.

The Wardens

In the beginning, God Sublime, called 绝伦 Jué Lún, created five caretakers called Wardens and set each one over one of the five worlds. Over time myths and religions have accorded the wardens many powers. 

This much is known: they each have lordship over one of the five seasons, elements, life stages, and worlds as well as at least two races of kith, two passions, and some of the saints. The numbers five and ten are considered holy, lucky, or numinous by most kith of Welkin.

Today I am enumerating more details about the Wardens. I am keeping this mostly to things that will be accepted knowledge by averagely-educated people in the setting. Secrets may come later. For now we will be adding to what we made last time which was the following for each warden:

Name:
Morality:
Vice:
Element:
Passions:
World:

Players will want a lot of choices and to make a dynamic setting we will want more than five playable races, so I will start with saying each warden created two types of sentient beings on their world. These will have spread throughout the worlds over time. I have decided that sentients call each other kith and others of the same kind kin. Some other things I will add is information about the warden’s personality, the types of person or activity that they love the most, and the thing the warden is considered a harbinger or bringer of. As far as morality and vices, it will be up to the DM whether the vice is an expression of the warden, in the sense of being the other side of the coin, or if the vice is the thing the warden most hates. Both could lead to interesting results in your game.

Also, if I associate each warden with a season, I will need a fifth season to dole out. This could be monsoon or a new season I invent. I like both of these ideas. Maybe I will have part of the world use monsoon and the other part use the new season….

I’m thinking the season should go between winter and spring. It is a season of doubt over whether the next year will bring plenty or lack. But the farmers will be preparing for spring, even if it is a few months away. I will call the new season “Harrowing” and that will encompass the fear of the unknown and the farming activities taking place at that time.

Also, if people for thousands of years have been worshipping these gods and according them powers, proclivities, and personality, they will need lots of titles and nicknames. This leaves us with this list:

Name:
Title:
World:
Morality:
Vice:
Season:
Harbinger of:
Kith:
Kith:
Lover of:
Element:
Passions:

The Wardens

Skrion

Skrion, Lord of Winds is the Warden of Welkin. She is the authority over all the worlds and the special master of Welkin itself. She considers subversion or disrespect to be the greatest vice. She is warm and giving in the summer, but cold and spiteful in the winter. She loves the tengu (aarakocra), predators, and all who take for themselves and exercise their legal authority. She is the creator of the murine (a mousefolk and ratfolk player option), but they no longer worship her.

Skrion is the bringer of transformation. She is the patron of air and the harrowing season, as well as dread and confidence.

Welkin is a world dominated by floating continents, many earth motes, and a layer of thick clouds about 2,000 miles below, beyond which no reports have come.

Onyros

Onyros, Shaper of Minds is Warden of Reverie, the Dream Roads which lie beneath all creation. He is mysterious and lord of a place that connects all places. He values fairness and proportionality and considers cheating and nepotism to be the greatest vices. He loves humans, halflings, and all who tell stories, sing songs, and or create.

Onyros is the bringer of harvest. He is the patron of earth and autumn, as well as grief and joy.

Reverie is the world of dreams and nightmares, always shifting and changing but always just below the waking world. You could run Reverie as the Ethereal Plane or a Mirror World in that it is always touching all other places. Halflings can use this connection to speak to each other over long distances and humans use their connection to dreams to facilitate creativity and divinations.

Raven Queen

The name of the Warden of Ashen, or the Pale, is long forgotten, but she is called the Raven Queen. She is the Spinner of Fates. She marks the end of each mortal life with a promise of peace; mourners call upon her at funeral rites in the hope that she will keep the departed from the curse of undeath. She values above all purity and sanctity and fights above all else degradation and pollution. This is why she fights evil undead and protects the faithful from undeath. She has a special love for changelings, driven (an undead player option), and all who persevere. The Raven Queen seeks to free the changelings from slavery to the dragons who brought them from Ashen to Welkin.

The Raven Queen is the bringer of stasis. She is the patron of water and winter, as well as apathy and zeal.

Ashen is a dark mirror of Welkin full of flowing waters and ice. This is the world where the dead dwell in peace waiting to be reborn into the other worlds.

Ecbol!

Eladrin say the Warden of the Weald is a vengeful, deadly female named Ecbola, Moon-Maiden. Crag Maya say the Warden of the Weald is a sanguine, helpful male named Ecbole, Life-Giver. All the untamed places, but especially the forests, are under their eye. Ecbole has a special love for crag maya elves, sylva ( a plant-like player option) and all who nurture life. Ecbola watches over eladrin elves and all who take vengeance. She holds a grudge against the sylva.

Ecbol! is the bringer of birth, and is the patron of wood and spring, as well as intensity and euphoria.

The Weald is the primeval forest, vast and untamable. It is dotted with fey, sylvan, and elven courts but many clans have fled to Welkin in the face of encroaching evil.

Tisar

Tisar, Fire Wielder, the Warden of Lambent, is a passionate and intemperate master. He is prideful to a fault and his curiosity has no known bounds. He is also called the Watcher in the Desert and his eyes pierce all mirages to see truth.  He has a love for goblins, shardminds, and all who work magic or craft with metals, gems, and eldritch ceramics or eldritch glass.

Tisar is the bringer of growth. He is the patron of fire and summer, as well as anger and love.

Lambent is a harsh anvil laying beneath the hammer of the sun. The sands and glittering cities lie baking beneath the near-constant daylight. Here secrets are the greatest wealth, artisans enjoy the most fame, and magic is at its most potent.

Individuate the Five Wardens

Here are the idealized goals I laid out for my setting in the last document:

1. Elements of the setting tie together thematically 
2. Tons of hooks without constraining player choice 
3. Make it easy for the game to be exciting 
4. Diversity baked in
5. Build with Dungeons and Dragons 5e play in mind 
6. If it is in D&D it should have a place in the setting 
7. We want the setting to seem fresh without being overwhelming
8. Rule of cool: if it's cool, it may have a place
9. Subvert and lean into various tropes
10. Encourage players to engage with the setting 

I’m not going to tackle these one at a time. But I am going to keep these in mind while laying the groundwork for my setting. Today we will decide on the names and characteristics of our wardens. I think we will want to keep in mind #1, #2, and #4 the most.

Individuate the Five Wardens

I have decided to only have 5 gods in Welkin. This means they will need some ambiguity and they will need to have broad and/or many portfolios. I hope they will have complex and layered personalities. Something that can cause disagreements and even factions and schisms in mortal societies. Also, keeping #1 in mind, we are going to lean into the number five as hard as possible. We want the number five to come up often enough in play that the DM can signal something to the players when another number comes up. Time for some research! Let's find some interesting groups of 5 (or 6) things to add to our barest beginning here.

From the beginning, I need to give myself permission that while creating these gods everything will not be perfectly symmetrical. There may be odd bits sticking out here and there. But I will hope this adds complexity and personality.

Moral Foundations Theory

In my research, I found lots of groups of five’s I can use to individuate the five gods. I will also be taking some common 4’s and adding to them to make 5s as well. Our starting place will be this interesting thing I found on Wikipedia: Moral Foundations Theory.

According to the moral foundations theory, differences in people's moral concerns can be described in terms of five moral foundations:

• Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
• Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
• Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
• Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
• Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation

There is even the following: "A sixth foundation, liberty (opposite of oppression) was theorized by Jonathan Haidt."

This is just what I need! I want to have a different moral code for each. I can have 5+1 different moral systems to help give each warden their own personality. They will need names too. While doing this for the first time, I will also add a pair of emotions to each of them to add some more complexity.

From the creation story, we have the kingfisher who had total authority, the tortoise who was full of ideas and tried to apportion efforts fairly, the raven who was alert and protective and the stag, whom we don’t know a lot about except that he spoke too loudly, so he must be energetic and boisterous. We also know he was never the same after dragon bit him in half, so we can add some differences to him later. Also, salamander and the dragon.


Animal: Kingfisher
Name: Skrion
Morality: Authority & Respect
Vice: Subversion & Disrespect
Element or Phase: Air
Emotions: Confidence & Dread
World: Welkin

Animal: Tortoise
Name: Onyros
Morality: Fairness & Proportionality
Vice: Cheating & Nepotism
Element or Phase: Earth
Emotions: Joy & Grief
World: Reverie

Animal: Raven
Name: The Raven Queen is cool. But that's a title, not a name. I will leave her unnamed.
Morality: Sanctity & Purity
Vice: Degradation & Pollution
Element or Phase: Water
Emotions: Zeal & Apathy
World: Ashen

Animal: Stag
Name: Ecbol!
Morality: Care
Vice: Harm
Element or Phase: Wood
Emotions: Euphoria & Intensity
World: Weald

Animal: Salamander
Name: Tisar
Morality: Loyalty & Ingroup
Vice: Betrayal
Element or Phase: Fire
Emotions: Love & Anger
World: Lambent

Animal: Dragon
Name: —-
Morality: Freedom
Vice: Oppression
Element or Phase: Void
Emotions: Confusion & Loss
World: ??

This is a great beginning towards fully fleshed out gods for the setting. In a future post, I will layout and explain these traits in more detail for each warden and also keep adding things to each portfolio. After this step, I will take off the animal association as that is only supposed to represent one group's version of the creation story and not be all-encompassing.

Some upcoming posts I need to make while still in Top-Down mode:

• What are the attributes and personalities of the Wardens?
• What is each of the planes like? Emphasize Welkin as that is where we will be playing. 
• Which playable ancestries will there be? How do these relate to the Wardens?
• What about religions and magic on Welkin?

Welkin: Creating the Meta-Level

We are walking through the worldbuilding process together. I am starting at the top level to make some choices before I dip down to the very bottom level and create a starting area for our players. As stated in a previous post, this will take quite some time at the blog post level, but shouldn't take a DM very long to sit and plan out some ideas before their first session.

Let’s look at these idealized goals I laid out for my setting in the last document:

1. Elements of the setting tie together thematically 
2. Tons of hooks without constraining player choice 
3. Make it easy for the game to be exciting 
4. Diversity baked in
5. Build with Dungeons and Dragons 5e play in mind 
6. If it is in D&D it should have a place in the setting 
7. We want the setting to seem fresh without being overwhelming
8. Rule of cool: if it's cool, it may have a place
9. Subvert and lean into various tropes
10. Encourage players to engage with the setting 

I’m not going to tackle these one at a time. But I am going to keep these in mind while I start laying the groundwork for my new setting. You can tell from the name of this blog that I have made some of these decisions already, but I want to walk through them and lay them out so I can see them clearly and refer to them as needed.

Also, this is a living document, so I don’t need to keep anything that stops working or is holding me back or is supplanted by a better idea. Besides, part of keeping open space in the setting for players to use (see point 2) means that each campaign in the same setting probably will have a different version of these ideas. I want the game to dynamically twist around the characters that are made so they feel like integral and important players in the world.

Art by Ryan Richmond

BASICS
I'll start by working through some basic thematic elements I will keep in mind throughout all the rest of the worldbuilding I do for this setting.

I want to encourage players to interact with the setting and the magic and gods if they are interested. There are many ways to do that. But I want to keep the number of gods small. This means the gods will encompass many aspects of life and perhaps overlap with each other and conflict in interesting ways. By keeping the pantheon very small, it will mean the characters will develop feelings and ideas about the gods and their followers in ways that would not happen in a setting with 20 or 30 gods.

I’m also thinking of how I want the world itself to make the players feel their characters are an important part of it, central to the whole business. Wouldn’t it be cool if some of the themes of the setting reflected the party? A normal party of characters is five people. I like the number 5. And there are many groups of five things to riff off of. And 10, which is just two 5’s after all. And then, of course, you run into 4 +1, 5 +1 and 10 -1. I think starting from an item as basic as 5 is something I can build on.

If you go back to the creation story I posted earlier, you will see how 10 and 5+1 play out in that story. There are 5 main gods in my setting, who are called Wardens,  leftover from an original 10. And one off-god or bad apple. I think the inhabitants of the setting should consider the number 5 to be numinous in and of itself. They will also consider 10 to be a holy number. This means they will have strong feelings about 4, 6, 9, 11 & multiples of 5 like 15, 50, etc.

Thinking of things that come in groups of fives reminds me of the Wu Xing, the 5 phases of matter from ancient Chinese philosophy. These are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. I like this, it’s already giving me ideas I can spin out from here. But I don’t want to just copy the Wu Xing either. Also, even though I lived in China for over six years, I am western enough to think that Metal and Earth are covering a lot of the same ground (pun intended). Also, D&D specifically does not have a lot of things like damage types or spells that resonate a lot with Metal. Let's have our 5 phases be Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and Wood. We don’t want to associate our gods TOO closely with a phase or element, but let's say they will have an affinity for the element that will inform their presentation and preferred environment.

Something I liked from the edition that shall not be named was the Feywild and the Shadowfell. I ran a 1st through 30th level campaign in that edition and frequently made use of these two planes that overlaid and were somewhat coterminous with the main setting. I’m thinking I should have 5 planes that interact in a similar way, and one will be our main setting. The other planes will be there if I need to do plane hopping or introduce strange villains, but I could run a whole campaign without going to them as well.

This brings me around to the final basic idea I want to explore. A lot of D&D settings have a feature with bothered me for a long time, but I could never put my finger on it. These are fantastical realms of magic and might. Yet they all seem a lot like the real world and a lot like each other. Let’s break out of this bind and do something really different. I have five gods, called Wardens. I have five elements or basic states of matter. From the creation story, I have the idea that they each are lord of one of the worlds but all the worlds have some strength taken from each of the wardens.

I will make Wood the Feywild (but I will come up with another name for it) and… the Shadowfell will be Water (and will need another name too). Fire will be like a big desert (kind of Athas-adjacent). Earth is dangerous because I will be tempted to make it just like the real world of most other D&D settings... so let's flip it and I will say that it is actually a kind of metaphysical bedrock in a way….  Earth will be the Ethereal plane which always lies beneath and connects all the others, and Air will be where I have my main setting.

Looking in the thesaurus for some synonyms for sky or heaven and I found Welkin --an old word that means the sky or the vault of heaven. Welkin will be a world with a lot of earth motes and a lot of sky to fly around in. This will add our high adventure (literally). Of course, kingdoms need land, but we can do interesting things at the edges of the kingdoms if they are floating in the sky… and at the bottoms of dungeons if the floor opens out into the sky beneath.


I think I  have made some progress here. Everything will need to be polished but I'm happy I have a good direction to hang some more work on.

I think the next thing I  need to do at the Meta level is name the gods and their worlds as well as decide on their portfolios. It's too simplistic and modern to just have them attached to an element. Also, because there will only be five gods, I want to open up a lot of space for characters and NPCs to have a lot of opinions, stories, and theories about them. To do that they need to be multi-faceted and ambiguous. We need to imagine that any one or two of them may be the antagonist in any particular campaign, or for a character or NPC to have good reasons to not follow one of them.

Between now and next time I  am going to do some research.

-Ellery

House Rules: Character Death

In Welkin, resurrection spells are available but don’t always work. Loremasters and followers of the Raven Queen may have insights into why. There are no rules for this. It's just a mystery of the setting: Sometimes resurrection works and sometimes it doesn’t. I want to keep character death a real possibility.

A character’s death can be the turning point of a campaign. It can result in the most memorable roleplaying moments but it could also result in a player quitting a game or just become little more than a tax on player fun. There are a lot more ways to handle character death than are represented in the 5e basic rules. For DMs that want to keep death a real possibility in their games, there is a spectrum of possible approaches.

Today I will explore some options you can incorporate. At my table, I don’t treat one of these solutions as a one-size-fits-all. Different situations will call for a different approach. It’s nice to have a lot of tools in your toolbox.

Art by Kekai Kotaki

System Reference Document

The relevant sections from the SRD state:

Dropping to 0 Hit Points

When you drop to 0 hit points, you either die outright or fall unconscious, as explained in the following sections.

Instant Death

Massive damage can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.

Falling Unconscious

If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious. This unconsciousness ends if you regain any hit points.

Death Saving Throws

Whenever you start your turn with 0 hit points, you must make a special saving throw, called a death saving throw, to determine whether you creep closer to death or hang onto life. 
Roll a d20. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. A success or failure has no effect by itself. On your third success, you become stable (see below). On your third failure, you die. The successes and failures don't need to be consecutive; keep track of both until you collect three of a kind. The number of both is reset to zero when you regain any hit points or become stable. 

Rolling 1 or 20. When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures. If you roll a 20 on the d20, you regain 1 hit point. 

Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.



These rules represent a lot of different possibilities for when death may occur to a character and how many opportunities the party may have to affect the outcomes of a character falling to zero HP.

Characters have a roughly 40% chance to die without assistance from allies.  Possibilities without assistance from others:

1. Instant Death
2. Sudden death after taking more damage 
3. Sudden Recovery (rolling a 20) 
4. Final Resolution after the 5th roll

If a character does die, how do you deal with it at the table or allow recovery from it?

Resurrection

This is the classic method to let the party recover from a death. They may need to go on a quest to get the desired resurrection, or they may be able to pay someone from their hometown to take care of it for them. At higher levels, it often becomes assumed that someone in the party will gain access to Revivify by 5th level.

This is fine for a lot of games. Death can be a rare occurrence and you don’t want a few bad die rolls to derail a whole campaign. But for story reasons, I like to keep these spells unreliable.

Angry GM Method

I’m surprised I haven't seen more DMs advocating for this method which comes from the Angry GM. He says when a character drops to 0 HP, ask the player to roll their death saves in private. After the combat, ask the player the status of the character. Done. This puts the narrative back in the player’s hands.

Momentum

I love this rule from the Entromancy RPG. You can check it out here. Seriously, go buy this. Anyway, Momentum is an expendable resource which replaces 5e’s Inspiration Mechanic. Among other things, it allows the players to spend 1 Momentum to go from 0 HP to 1 HP. I like this because it is another knob the players can use to control their own level of risk.

A Changeling Scheme

My setting has changelings which have infiltrated society for a variety of inscrutable reasons. When a character fails their last save, tell the party that the body changes to that of a changeling. Suddenly, the party is beset with unanswered questions.

• How long has the imposter been in the party? 
• To what purpose were they there? 
• What information do our enemies have about us? 
• Where is the original person?

You can use this with Angry’s method outlined above. If the player wants the character to live, have the party follow some clues to rescue them. If the player wants to make a new character, this could be a loose end hanging over the party or even a window into a huge conspiracy, depending on how much you want to bend your campaign around this incident.

Vision or Deal

This option has worked very well for me in the past. When the character fails their last save, take the player aside. Describe what happens to them after the moment of death. They may have a vision of impending doom and be sent back to stop it. A god or other power may make a bargain with them and send them back. When they wake they may have a new quest, a new power or resource, or even a level in a new class or a new character race.

Whatever you choose, you should have a plan ready before this ever happens, so you will be ready to tie it in with the plot of the campaign if it comes up. Trust me, your players will be blown away when an obviously accidental death turns into a pivotal moment in the campaign. The thing is, encounters are hard to balance and d20s are swingy. Plan ahead to make the most of accidental character death and you can be assured this planning will not be in vain.

Undeath

Another player race option in my campaigns is an undead race. If a player wanted to keep playing their character but was looking for a change, this might fit. Any time after falling to 0 HP they could become undead.

Do this in a way that seems cool to you. The character could arise after being healed to find they are undead.  The attempted resurrection could fail and instead produce an undead character. Combine it with the [previous option, but when the character awakens after their vision, they have become undead. Maybe the dead character could walk into the party's camp ten hours after dying and being buried and just sit down with a big sigh. This happened once while I was a player in a Deadlands game, and it was a complete shock to the rest of us. Very memorable!

In one campaign about ten years ago, I had a player whose character had the classic amnesiac mysterious background. After about 6 levels I asked her if she wanted to fill in her own background or let me reveal her secret through the events of the game. She thought about it for a week and then gave me permission to do whatever to her background as she didn't really have any ideas. I sat on it for a few months and in one situation where the rest of the party were on the verge of being wiped out, she was revealed as a vampire, allowing her to save the day with her newly "remembered" powers.

Are there other ways to take a character death and tweak the rules or make it more central to the storyline? I would love to hear about them in the comments.

Starting A New Setting

When you look online for world-building advice you often see the advice to either start top-down or bottom-up when creating your setting. Both of these have advantages and disadvantages.

TOP-DOWN

Top-down world-building will begin with the very basics of how the setting works and the various powers at play in shaping the whole world and what is possible within it. This may also set the tone you are going for and just laying everything out in the broadest possible strokes. Working from the top down is also a good place for you to look at which meta-elements you want to include or shy away from. For an RPG setting, this could be things like deciding which player character races you want to make available before you do any creation so that the ancestry options available to the players will tie directly into the story of the setting.

With a top-down approach, it becomes easy to create things which your players will never experience. This is where jokes about DMs turning into J.R.R.Tolkien come from. DMs can easily spend hundreds of hours making things just from the sheer enjoyment of creating. But for the "working DM" this is a danger you want to be on the lookout for. You want to use your time well to make things which will positively affect the play at the table.

BOTTOM-UP

Bottom-up worldbuilding is where you start with the specifics of one small area and build out as the players or your story progress. This is great for first time DMs. In one of Matt Colville’s first videos he lays out a perfect example of this kind of setting: there is a town with one tavern, a forest, and a tomb on the other side of the forest. Add in a few characters, some goblins who need a sacrifice, and a blacksmith whose daughter is kidnapped and you are ready for a few sessions of gaming. If you use this to build up a campaign around, as I have done, you can just add the next part whenever it’s needed. It is a very organic way to build out your world and you almost never make stuff you won’t use.

The downside of the bottom-up method is your campaign can have a very ad-hoc feel when people take a step back and look at it as a whole. Some things may not make sense when viewed together or may stick out as oddities in a bad way. This is how DM's end up creating a J.K Rowling problem. By the end of the Harry Potter books, it became apparent that some things had been well planned from the beginning, but others which had solved problems earlier had themselves become problems the author had to deal with later (time turners, we are looking at you).

Art Seek the Wilds by Anna Steinbauer

TOP THEN BOTTOM

As you can imagine, each DM or writer probably has their own take on using one or both of these methods. In creating Welkin we will spend some time at the top adding details as we go down, but then we will stop and move to the very bottom and work our way up for a while. I want to try this because in running my last two campaigns I came across another downside to the bottom-up method. We used the above mentioned bottom-up method and it invariably led to a rather generic setting. This isn’t a bad thing! My players had a lot of fun. But I had ideas I felt I could not bring into the game easily. This time, I want to make some large decisions about the setting before we jump into fleshing out a starting town.

Because I hope to explain my thinking as I go, this may take a while on the blog. But for a DM, I think all you would need is an hour or so at most of planning before your first session to lay out some broad setting ideas that set your world apart from others. This way, your players have something to bite into when creating their characters.

GOALS

I will try to enumerate my goals for my new setting, Welkin. I want the elements of the setting to tie together thematically. I would like to give my players tons of hooks without boxing them in. I want to make it easy for the game to be exciting. I would like there to be a lot of diversity in the setting; this should not be an "all-European all the time" setting. I will be creating this setting with Dungeons and Dragons 5e play in mind. Therefore, if it is in D&D it should have a place in the setting (it’s ok for something to have a small or hidden place, however. It will be there waiting for a player to draw it out). Also, we want the setting to seem fresh to experienced players without being overwhelming to new players. So, it will be fun to subvert some tropes and lean into other tropes. We should also hope to encourage players to engage with the setting.

• Elements of the setting tie together thematically 
• Tons of hooks without constraining player choice 
• Make it easy for the game to be exciting 
• Diversity baked in
• Build with Dungeons and Dragons 5e play in mind 
• If it is in D&D it should have a place in the setting 
• We want the setting to seem fresh without being overwhelming
• Rule of Cool: if it's cool, it may have a place
• Subvert and lean into various tropes
• Encourage players to engage with the setting. 

I expect to have varying degrees of success with these, but I am happy with the overall list.

-Ellery

Reskinning 5e Classes Part I

It is common to see requests for new homebrew classes online in forums and comments sections. Making new classes is fun and it is exciting to bring something fresh to the table. Sometimes this is because a favorite old class is not available in the new edition (i.e. swordmage. mystic, & warlord). Other times these requests come from a desire to play in a different setting (Rokugan,  Maztica) or use a tool that is not available in the PHB (alchemist, gunslinger). But a lot of these requests can also be completed with a little bit of imagination and a lot of reskinning. By reskinning an existing class, your DM will already know how your class will fit in their game and understand the mechanics of it, but you still get the fun of playing something new.

My campaigns usually begin in an area of my setting that has a newly discovered archipelago in the ocean between the continents. I like to give my players ideas for how the classes in the book might look different in different parts of the world because anyone could end up in my starting area, so let's use this reskinning opportunity to get out into the wider world.  This time, I will be trying to bring new life to a few PHB classes through an Asian lens.

Features not mentioned are great as-is for our character and don’t even need a new name to match the new skin.

In this post, we will reskin the Barbarian and the Druid.

Barbarian ——> Samurai

You are a minor noble on a mission from your feudal lord, a wandering ronin with no lord, or a skilled peasant who is trying to become something more.

Battle Focus

First off,  we are going to reskin barbarian Rage as samurai Battle Focus. Our samurai will use her rage feature as written but instead of getting rage abilities from her insane battle lust, she can enter a state of pure situational clarity. This zen-like battle trance is difficult to enter into and maintain so she will still only be able to use it rage-times-per day and will, of course, follow all other rage rules as written.

Calculated Offense

We are going to call the Reckless Attack feature Calculated Offense. Our samurai may choose to leave herself open to attack, having made the calculation that with superior offense sometimes no defense is needed afterward.

Danger Sense 

This feature also does not need to be adjusted for our samurai. I would play this as a low-level version of Battle Focus that is always on.

Primal Path ——-> Path of Five Rings or Path of the Ancestors

Battle Instinct

The barbarian’s Feral Instinct has become Battle Instinct. This will interact with your Battle Focus the same way Rage and Feral Instinct interact.

Relentless, Persistent, and Battle Champion

These features also all work great for our re-skin as written, but we will change their names to something befitting a samurai as shown above.

Path of the Berserker ——->Path of Five Rings

Upon choosing this Path at third level, our samurai chooses to follow the teachings of Musashi Miyamoto, or an in-setting equivalent. She is now re-skinned as fighting with two full-size swords, or a katana and wakizashi. She can now do things other samurai cannot do while she is in her battle trance. She becomes a whirlwind of attacks and eventually becomes a pure intimidating presence on the battlefield because she is in complete control of her surroundings.

Frenzy ——-> School of the Two Swords

Like Musashi, our samurai now has pure freedom of movement and control unmatched by those who fight with both hands on their sword. She is not using the two-weapon fighting rules, but we have reskinned her Frenzy ability so that her bonus action attack comes from the flurry of her two weapons working together.

Mindless Rage ——-> Mindful Clarity

We are going to change Mindless Rage so that it is called Mindful Clarity. Everything else in the Path of the Berserker works as written.

Path of the Totem Warrior ——-> Path of the Kami

Upon choosing this Path at the third level, our samurai has learned to communicate with and gain guidance from lesser and nature kami. Kami can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, as well as beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the spirits of venerated dead persons. Our samurai can now tap into the wisdom of her ancestors who were once mighty warriors.

Spirit Seeker

This feature is great as written, but we will reskin the spells beast sense and speak with animals so that they are kami sense and speak with kami. Kami are now our samurai’s allies and with the proper ritual and ancestral trinket or totem they will help our samurai accomplish her goals. They may appear as animals or translucent spirits. Work with your DM to see what they prefer.

Kami Spirit, Aspect of the Kami, and Kami Attunement

These features are fine as written as well—our samurai could be empowered by her relationship to nature kami that grant her the animal traits from the book. But while we are reskinning, let’s offer another option: our samurai has learned to connect with the kami of her venerated warrior ancestors. They will aid her in time of battle if called upon. Bear will be reskinned as Iron — the spirit of a samurai lord wearing full nanban dou gusoku, the heavy iron samurai armor granting resilience, strength, and an imposing aspect. Eagle will be reskinned as Silk— the spirit of a ninja master granting speed, eyesight, and maneuverability. Wolf will be reskinned as Spear— the spirit of an ashigaru warrior trained to fight in a formation and move silently.

This reskin makes a samurai who is a lot of fun to play. As always, if you are running a barbarian or planning to have one in your game, you want to consider the article by Colin Mclaughlin Rage Against the Barbarian.

Sun Wukong Art by Wang Xiao https://wangxiao.artstation.com/

Druid —->  Sun Wukong / Cursed Demigod

This one might sound weird but stay with me a minute. Depending on your DMs setting, you may need to change this skin a bit to fit.  This re-skin is based on the monkey king Sun Wukong himself. You don’t have to choose the monkey king as your character, you could instead be a demigod or a saint from your DMs setting who lost their power or is growing into it. Sun Wukong fits Druid perfectly.

Character Background

You are not adventuring to gain new knowledge, you are trying to get back the powers that have been stripped from you by amnesia or a curse. In the case of Sun Wukong, he made a lot of enemies and many of them could have tried to strip his powers away. Another possibility is a god could be trying to teach him a lesson by making him start over and has removed his powers and immortality. I also like druid as a class for this because it is wisdom-based. Perhaps the god he angered wants him to live another life and try to get some wisdom this time.

When you create your Sun Wukong, choose any race from the PHB and make your character as usual. We will recommend wood elf or human from the PHB races.

Druidic 

Your DM can let you know druidic or some other replacement secret language as they feel fits your new skin.

Cantrips

You are playing Sun Wukong. You have to take Shillelagh as one of your two cantrips known. 金箍棒 jīngūbàng is the name of your golden staff which you can make as small as a needle and keep behind your ear. If I was your DM, I would say casting Shillelagh allows you to make your staff appear, or change its size anywhere you like between the needle and ten foot pole— you don't have to cast it on an existing weapon. Depends on your DM: your mileage may vary.

Wild Shape

Sun Wukong is a master of transformations. He has knowledge of the “72 Transformations,” basically, he can assume any shape he likes except he cannot transform his tail. At level two, he begins to gain some of his transformation ability back. Just use the Wild Shape rules as written. If I was your DM, I would also let you change— at will—  from a humanoid-sized monkey and back again to your PHB ancestries’ appearance. No matter which shape you take with Wild Shape, you will always have a monkey’s tail.

Other Reskinning

Sun Wukong, before he was cursed,was a master of many spells. He also had golden mail, cloud-stepping boots, and other cool items and knowledge. Part of his knowledge of the “72 Transformations” is that he can pluck out hairs from his body and turn them into animals or clones of himself by blowing on them.  Any spell or item you get as you level up could easily be him regaining lost abilities.

Circles  ——->The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal or Master of the 72 Transformations

We don’t need to change anything in the Druid Circles except the names.  We will call Circle of the Land The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal and Circle of the Moon Master of the 72 Transformations because in D&D you have to choose one. But, as Sun Wukong, you are going to want to take Master of the 72 Transformations, as this gets you closer to becoming the true master from the stories. Once you get to 14th level the Thousand Forms will be very up your alley as you can now cast alter form at will.

Too bad about your tail though.

Worldbuilding Welkin

Welkin is the name of my setting for running games and roleplaying in D&D 5e.

Welkin Worldbuilding

Some of the posts on this blog will be exploring the worldbuilding of Welkin. I will use this space to work through, for myself, the reasons guiding what I will be creating in the Welkin setting. I plan to use a few levels to facilitate organizing the different articles on the site. These will be marked Meta, Macro, Medium, and Micro based on the scope of the contents.

We will look at the worldbuilding of Welkin from a Meta point of view. These will be posts useful to DMs discussing worldbuilding itself, as well as offer guidelines I will be following to do my own worldbuilding. Other posts will be the worldbuilding itself.  Macro content will be top-down in nature. Micro content will be individual locations, NPC’s and items which will go directly into my game. Medium content will be things that don’t fit in the other categories. Gazetteer articles, adventures, and the like.  Some posts will be in-setting material: stories, letters and other ephemera which may be used to give to players or to just build up the world for the DM.

Meta: Worldbuilding and how to approach it using Welkin as an example
Macro: Top-down looks at the overall setting and major forces at play
Medium: Gazetteer articles, adventure ideas, stories and letters, calendar discussions & ect.
Micro: Locations and NPCs for tabletop use

Other posts will be providing D&D homebrew material, ideas for converting Welkin into other RPG systems and whatever else I may get up to on this blog.

Welkin Works Blog

Organizing my thoughts enough to write them down really helps me to get a solid handle on what I am doing. I am writing this blog as a sort of conversation with myself which will leave a record. I present it here in the hopes that watching me go through the process of worldbuilding will help others with actionable examples to fuel creation of their own world.

Thanks for coming along on this ride  — Ellery—  7/28/19 8am Grand Rapids, MI

Creation Story

This is how the Ghostwise Moiety tell of the creation:

In the beginning, God Sublime, called 绝伦 Jué Lún, created ten wardens, puissant and clever. But some were more clever than others. They were tasked with creating a universe worthy of glory. They were together, they were united, and they were: kingfisher, dragon, raven, stag, luftwhale, tortoise, flying squirrel, locust, salamander, and carp. 

They had almost come to a consensus to unify and collaborate on one magnificent world under the leadership of the kingfisher herself and the guiding will of the tortoise (who was always overflowing with ideas) when the dragon whispered to his neighbor “But what if kingfisher doesn’t value all our contributions equally?” Dragon had wanted to be the leader and was outraged to be following kingfisher.  The stag replied, “Of course she will, we are all in this together.” But he spoke too loudly and the luftwhale overheard him. When dragon saw the look in her eyes, he jumped in and they began to mutter together. 

After a long time of argument, the wardens agreed to tortoise’s new plan: create ten different worlds. Each would be a pure expression of their creator with no collaboration between them. This was when the raven said, “Where is luftwhale?”  They looked around and there were only nine of them. 

While they were searching the skies for luftwhale, dragon said to raven, “Why did kingfisher tell tortoise not to let us help each other?” Raven defended kingfisher loyally and looked suspiciously at dragon ever after this, but the locust took the question to heart and began arguing for collaboration again. 

After another long argument, tortoise proposed that each would choose a few friends to collaborate with and they would share each other’s burdens while building worlds. But raven said “Where is locust?”

This went on until dragon had eaten not only luftwhale, but also locust, carp, and flying squirrel. The next time an argument started raven was watching dragon very carefully. She saw dragon biting stag in half and yelled a warning to the others. Dragon escaped and raven was able to put the two halves of stag back together, although they were never the same after that.

So, kingfisher, tortoise, salamander, stag, and raven followed tortoise’s best plan and helped each other build the sun, the stars and the five worlds. Then they spun the worlds around each other, so that each world had four moons. Each warden had a leading role in making their world after their own image, but took help from the others and combined their strengths. 

The work wasn’t as good as it should have been. 

Not only because they missed their friends’ wisdom and help, but because dragon kept attacking them, or undoing work after they had finished it, or making tunnels everywhere they didn’t belong, and it took them a long time. The wardens had to work together, because the dragon was stronger than any of them individually having eaten so many of their friends. The In the end, dragon didn’t create anything for himself, he only ruined the work of the others.

The five are still guarding against the dragon, because he has not given up wanting to remake the worlds after himself. Welkin is the kingfisher's world, the best of them all, and Skrion is still Lord over all the others and Warden of our world.