Cosmology

Ok, I'm going to back peddle a bit. 2 things occurred to me as a re-read what came from my mind last night:
1. I should give you a better idea of what I have already used before. While I'm not opposed to changing things at all, I think it helps to give a better insight into the kinds of things I'm going for thematically. Also, the less I change about my home-brewed D&D world, the easier the creation process will be.

2. I really should get basic, basic. And much to my chagrin, that means figuring out the cosmology of my new gaming world.

What has gone before:

In the latest iteration, my D&D world originated from 3 primary gods, hereby referred to as the Shaper (law), the Spirit (neutrality), and the Destroyer (chaos). Each of the 3 gods was borne from an greater god simply referred to as the Primordial.
Each of the 3 lesser gods went on to create their own respective plane. The Shaper made the spirit plane of law-stuff, the Spirit made the bountiful material plane, and the Destroyer made the land of the dead spirits, the shadow plane.
Later, the gods beget smaller gods, which explains away the standard D&D type pantheon. Also, the 3 gods each created 1 immortal race (each, meant to represent their ideals). Eventually, the Primordial saw all this cool shit occurring without his consent, and decided, as greater gods do, to Fuck Shit Up. He created the Titans (especially skilled at Fucking Shit Up), and lesser races to serve them, all elementally aligned (both Titans and servitors).
blahblahblahwarhappens. Eventually, the Primordial loses. The 3 major gods are rendered inert. The servitor races switched sides and help the 3 immortal races put the Titans to sleep.


Most of this I love. Problem being, how many elements can you have? 5? Maybe 6 on a good stretch? That makes maybe 8-9 races at the start (currently Gith, Elodrian, Minotaurs, Humans, Dwarves, Salandross (lizardmen), Elves, and Orcs). Where do the rest come from? What idiot god would come along later and just randomly create halflings? There are obviously some kinks to work out here.

As far as the planes go, I hate planes. They take a gargantuan undertaking of designing a world, and effectively multiply your effort level times a bajillion.
Not to mention, I have only determined 3 good reasons for the planes existing.

1. Plane the gods came from before the 3 planes existed, now used to hide out in and have tea and crumpets.
2. Summoned monsters HAVE to come from somewhere (unless they dissapear elsewhere on the material plane. Hmmmm.)
3. A place for dead souls to go.

Other than that, they generally invite headaches. I largely ignore demons, devils, angels, archons, etc in my game (preferring a much more cthulhu-like summoned Stuff), but I also still like the idea to a point of gods and religion. Heck, I think it's good fantasy when towns have little meek patron gods and shit. It's tempting however to toss out gods, planes, and clerics altogether just to avoid this mess. The standard D&D pantheon doesn't do it for me, and although I'm tempted to go all Song of Ice and Fire with dozens of unrelated pantheons and Gods - that would be a sheer nightmare when the rules come into play.

There are a couple of things I'm set on:
1. It appeals to me, the idea that a God is only as powerful as his followers. Well-known Gods can squash forgotten Gods, and gives reason to the spreading of religion. However, I can't think of a mechanic to settle this: "My super-YouTube-God-of-Infamy casts a level 8 spell of Blow-Shit-Up that cancels out your weak-ass-2member-blog-god's spell of Blow-Shit-Up and proceeds to kick your ass!" Just doesn't work right.
2. Planes should be minimal, and have purpose. I may need more than 3 as mentioned above, or less. But it has to make sense, and has to work within the rules framework of the game. "You wasted time preparing astral projection. Idiot"

Try not to worry about races for now, unless they're integral to the Gods and planes, other than the fact that I appreciate seeds that allow their numbers and presence to make more sense than the acquiring of a new Monster Manual. "What do you mean there were Wemic here this whole time? We've been wandering this valley for YEARS!"

Help me out.

WTF? or, Why does Sam need another website?

So, most of you know that I can't seem to shake the RPG bug, despite all my best efforts. At this point, it's only been approximately 20 years of DMing (or STing, or...whatever) RPG games. I'm really starting to finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

So why a website?

As my latest D&D game enters it's final chapters (Not too final, at least 15-20 games to go), I realize that I've been using this same home-brewed world (that most of you have played in) for the last 10 years or so, and I'm still not satisfied with it. So, in the interest of inevitability that I run another game again (or, any of us get together and play again), I'd like to make a better world. No, really.

So to start, I'm looking at the planet. No monsters, no Gods. Just the geography and environment to which this world may unfurl. Climate, landmarks, etc. How many suns does it have? I've long loved the constant-cloud-no-sun thing that I've cribbed (as it allows maximization of undead), but I'm willing to entertain any and all good ideas. How big is the world? Is it best to have a moon, maybe 4 moons? Large lakes, frozen wastelands, desert dunes, mountain reaches - what's the best?

So, feel free to throw in any and all ideas. I'm going to eventually use these to help formulate a open map. We'll go from there.

Better world, indeed.