I began working on this campaign world in 2012, while most of the Dungeons & Dragons world played D&D 3.5E. It’s been built, torn apart, and rebuilt dozens of times with changes to races, maps, theories of magic, godly pantheons, and nearly everything else. Despite many changes, the core idea for this homebrewed world has always remained the same: an unexplored world with many species that have no memory of past contact.
The World History Setup
In the distant past, civilizations flourished, traded, and warred across vast continents. Dwarves, elves, humans, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, and monsters of all sorts fought for power, knowledge, and resources. Wizards threw lightning, mechanical creations belched black smoke, and the world trudged ever forward.
Then the oceans rose, and it was all submerged. The forests of the elves were washed away or harvested to construct ships. The tallest of mountains slipped beneath the waves, flooding subterranean strongholds. The creatures of the world either adapted, sheltered, or disappeared. Humanity first had great ships, but they fell victim to pirating gnolls & infighting, forcing them to band together to survive on floating raft cities, where they fished and free-dived for kelp & sea cucumbers.
As ages passed, vast underwater civilizations emerged. Selkie would trade between the humans & gnolls of the surface, and the merfolk & cecaelis beneath the waves, while dealing with growing threats from kuo-toa and sahuaghin. Underground civilizations of kobolds and dwarves grew to defend against bursting goblin & hobgoblin hoards, with occasional flooding preventing any rapid expansion. As the worlds grew separate, the past was forgotten and lost.
The Campaign Worlds of Today
The world is changing once again, with the oceans receding and dry land poking above the surface. The currents have changed, and raft-cities have started to drag.
Starved & struggling humans & gnolls rejoice at the sight of dry land and new vegetation. Kobolds & dwarves are blinded and amazed as sunlight floods through accidental breaks in the tunnels.
The merfolk & cecaelis can feel their territory shrinking, and their delicate peace is threatened.
The Selkie have long served as merchants and traders between the underwater & surface worlds, but have no true home of their own. They can sense a great opportunity, but also a great threat to their way of life.
What lies in store?
As I begin running campaigns professionally in the world of Quas, I plan to have 3 different campaign launching points: the surface world, the subterranean world, and the undersea world.
The Surface World
This campaign will focus on humans from the raft-city of Orphus. The raft city has trade relations with the Selkie, and regularly defends itself from Kuo-Toa, Sahuaghin, and Gnoll pirates. As fishing boats begin to run aground and free-divers notice changes in kelp harvests, humans discover dry land and “strange” plants & creatures living on it. Coming into contact with underground species, they must navigate delicate first contact situations and work to create a safe place for humanity to thrive.
The Subterranean World
Whether from Kobold or Dwarven viewpoints, the endless tunnels have finally broken into sunlight. The subterranean civilizations must deal with each other, while staving off attacks from goblin & hobgoblin hordes. With the opportunity to explore a strange surface world, they make first contact with the species trying to make it their own.
The Undersea World
Merfolk & Cecaelis have developed vast civilizations and territories, using the neutral Selkie to facilitate trade between each other and the surface world. But the appearance of dry land threatens their dominance and could split undersea nations apart. Selkie could seize on dry land to try to create their own territory, they could work with merfolk and/or cecaelis to prevent the surface species from asserting their dominance, or there could be oceans of undersea scrimmages as old nations try to hold onto what they have.
The Possibilities are Endless
There’s no end to how these campaigns could form, and multiple campaigns from a single starting point could quickly go in completely different directions. Will first contact be peaceful? Will trade develop, or fall apart? How will new civilizations grow, and can old civilizations continue to flourish in a rapidly changing world? Why did the oceans rise so dramatically in the past, and what dangers are buried in the forgotten history of Quas?