So I've been inspired to start putting a new setting together - something of a "Borrow from a past GM" scenario. All I've written so far is the Introduction .. the "grab their attention by the short-n-curlies" bit. And I'd like to hear the opinion of some of the gamers hereabouts, as to how effective it might be at inspiring people to play.
Once, we were a great People.
The Kingdoms stretched from the shores of the Great Sea in the west to World's End in the East, from the icy wastes of the Eternal Winter in the north to the sun-burnt Endless Sand in the south. The lands were fertile, the game plentiful, and the People prospered.
Our warriors tried each other's strength in battle, and both Glory and Honor were earned by many. The Kingdoms built great wonders - Temples to honor the Gods, channels to bring water to the driest wastes, Keeps to protect the Kingdoms and house their warriors.
Once, we were a great People.
Then the strangers came, out of the setting sun and across the Great Sea. At first but few, and only a curiousity ... soon their numbers grew, as more and more came to our lands. As their numbers grew, their camps spread and grew like mold and rot ... sprawling, stinking places of noise and filth.
And still they came. The Kingdoms nearest them tried to push these invaders back into the Sea which had borne them to our Lands, and were broken . The invaders did not fight with honor; they cared nothing for glory. All they sought was slaughter, and plunder. When the warriors who had challenged them all lay dead, the invaders did not stop their slaughter. Women, children, the old ... all fell before their swords, their axes, and their foul magic.
Even then, that was not the end of it, for the invaders then defiled the bodies of those they had slain - infusing their polluted magic into the dismembered corpses so that they rose, and walked, and ... hungered. These abominations, they then sent against the remaining Kingdoms.
Each Kigndom stood alone, arrogant in their pride, sure of their strength and certain that they would prevail, where their brothers had fallen, for such was the way of the People. None survived. None could stand against the growing horde of invaders and the un-dead abominations they made from the corpses of our fallen.
A single scion of a single Kingdom's High House survived, an infant in swaddling cloths spirited away as his father's Great Keep burned, a funereal pyre for all the People. Into the World's End mountains he was taken, along with the very few Warriors who survived that final battle, and a ragged collection of common-folk, most with only the torn and soiled clothes on their own backs.
The war was over, and we had lost. Everything was unmade; the invaders tore down our Temples, desecrated the Altars of our Gods, looted our treasuries, and claimed the Keeps, Great and Small alike, as their own. And their blight spread further across the land, until there was no place in the Hills nor Plains where one could stand, and not see the smoke of ten thousand fires, all around, proclaiming the invaders' victory.
The land was despoiled, and we were made homeless ... vagabonds wandering in the wilderness at the Edge of the World.
Once, we were a great People.
It has been thirty full years since we were made to flee our homes. Thirty full years of grief, and suffering ... and preparations for War. For we are not yet dead, and until the last of us breathes no more, the Land will be OURS. We will return to our rightful homes, and we will make war upon these invaders such as has not been seen, nor even SUNG, for eight thousand years.
Where once there were nine Kingdoms, now there is only one Empire. Where once nine flags flew, and clashed, and in their ignorance stood each apart, now we will be one People, and we will take back what is ours.
And then?
Then there is the Great Sea, and whatever stinking pit spawned these invaders. We will go to their home, and cleanse it with fire, and with death. And we will salt the earth, so that nothing may ever again grow there, and no threat to the People ever arise from that place again.
WE WILL BE GREAT ONCE MORE!
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Now, the next bit is the basic premise, which is: turn D&D on it's head.
The "foul invaders" aren't orcs, drow, or whatever. They're Humans, dwarves, halflings, and the like. The People? GOBLINOIDS, chiefly Orcs. The setup is basically to put the "green skins" into the historical role of real-world Native American peoples ... but give them a more common cultural origin, and a unifying leader motivated to forge them into a single, unified whole, and CRUSH the invaders. (Or so the plan goes; who knows which side will do the crushing, and which will BE crushed. As Sergeant Schlock once said: "Sometimes you have fun, sometimes the fun has you!).
So, all the goblinoid tribes will be Good-aligned in this new world - mostly Chaotic good, but still Good. The Invaders wil tend towards Lawful and Neutral Evil. Some part of both factions will be "monkey in the middle" alignment-wise, so there's a possibility of enlisting aid even from some Invader settlements ... if both sides can overcome their mirrored prejudices. OTOH, some of the remaining greenskin settlements may side with the Invaders (out of greed, out of a belief that doing so is the only way to survive, out of fear, etc), so the PCs may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to bring their War down on the heads of the People themselves.
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And, this is the point where I shut up and wait for some feedback, including ideas and suggestions that might fit in with the premise outlined roughly, above.
