TheWorldOfTerra

The World of Terra

Zarkina has kindly asked me to give a brief description of Terra, my campaign world, to go along with the spells I've contributed. (Links to the spells can be found at the end of this page.) Some of the flavor of the world can be seen from the spell descriptions and the commentary I've provided with them. It should be fairly obvious, for example, that Terra is a high-level campaign. The definition of that term is somewhat fuzzy, but I think the fact that a fair number of player characters (more than 10) have been worked up from 1st level to over 20th level qualifies Terra as high-level. (It did take many years to get to that point!) This should also explain something of where I'm coming from with the cautionary warnings about some of the spells being game-breakers--I've tried to balance them as best I can, based on play-test experience in my own campaign, but many are still geared towards high-level characters. Feel free to adjust them for your own campaign if it seems necessary; and please feel free to e-mail me with questions or comments, especially if you come up with a novel way of using the spells in your campaign.

Now for that world description... :)

The active campaign has been running for 135 years of game time (and 23 years of real time) as of the last play session. Actually, there are several "campaigns" going on within the single world of Terra. The "original" campaign (the one that started it all) is set mainly in an area of the continent of Terra, which is one of two major continents on the world of Terra, called the Western Kingdoms. These kingdoms were formed some 122 years ago by the original group of player characters; but they were in fact restored versions of ancient kingdoms that had been decimated by wars with evil for centuries, and finally had been dissolved (because all known heirs to their rulership were dead) 1000 years before. During a series of adventures into the Underdark (the G1-G3, D1-D3 series of 1st Edition modules--still, IMHO, the best "dungeon crawl" series of adventures out there), the original PC's stumbled upon ancient relics which had been left behind when the kingdoms were dissolved, and guess what? They found that they could use them, which meant (according to the ancient lore that was now remembered only by the elves) that they were in fact the rightful heirs to the rulership of the kingdoms. Yes, we had delusions of grandeur in those days. :)

Anyway, the kingdoms were restored, but it soon became evident that there were evil forces at work against them--the same evil forces that had decimated the ancient kingdoms, awakened from sleep by the Restoration and the growing power of those who started it. The story of that campaign ever since has basically been the story of the heroes' struggle against these evil forces--the original PC's are still around (at ages of 130 plus--for a variety of reasons too complicated to go into here), but there are now several generations of younger PC's also in the game, along with plenty of villains, of course. At any rate, you can now see why this campaign is high-level. :)

There are also, as I mentioned, other campaigns besides the Western Kingdoms campaign underway in Terra. I won't say much about those here, since I've had enough on my hands trying to bring some order to the pile of material I have on the Western Kingdoms. If I ever win the lottery... :)

A final word: As noted in the comments preceding the spells, everything is currently in 2nd Edition format. I hope to have 3rd Edition versions available soon.