What's your favorite campaign setting?

[Webhead]

I was under the impression that the clerics/priests of Athas worshiped the Elements, at least as the novels go...

It's been so long I had nearly forgotten about them...

Yes, there are also the elemental priests who worship one of the four "classical" elements (Earth, Fire, Water, Air).

Besides them, the only "priests" or "clerics" are the Templars who serve and worship the Dragon Kings.

[RMajere]

Well MortonStromgal already posted the wiki to the Scarred Lands, but I can expound a little bit.

The Scarred Lands is a world of 5 continents, only 2 of which are intimately written about. Ghelspad and Termana.

Basically if you understand Greek mythology, and the war between Gods and Titans. Titans are primal forces of nature and the world, and their progeny the Gods are (now) planar entities with that divine connection to their followers.

War was inevitable since the storm or the plague has no feelings one way or the other about the people in the world, but the gods did. So the Divine War, or the Titanswar ensued, shattering the world of Scarn, and turning it into the Scarred Lands.

Eventually all the titans were sundered, banished, and/or killed. And the gods now rule the Scarred Lands, and have set about to rebuilt the shattered world they inherited. Countless lives, magic items, and divine beings were killed during the war. Other races, titanspawn, now actively work to return their fallen masters under the belief that the cycle of life, death, birth, rebirth, etc... has now grown stagnant with but one treacherous titan, the earthmother Denev to have taken it briefly at the end of the war, and then abdicated her role.

Countless other intrigues and plots await those willing and brave enough to journey the face of Scarn!

Ok, so melodramatic maybe, but I really like the setting. If anyone has any questions or wants to know more, I'd be happy to share, just message me. =P

[BrotherDog]

What be this Malatra mentioned in the poll? Never heard'o that'n.

[Dytrrnikl]

On the list, it's Dark Sun first followed by Forgotten Realms. However, overall, my favorite setting is the homebrew one I created during 2E, called Ne'ernight, that started as a way to have a campaign where the characters became immortal and deities of the setting through divine ascension.

It's a sort of ancient greek like setting, in a world where the major continent has a landlocked sea that is large enough to fit the continental United States in it with some room to spare.

Their are two pantheons one with 12 Deities and one with 12 philosophies, with the two in constant conflict, causing war to spread throughout the land. The Philosophies are basically my take on what happens if enough people believe with the power of faith in the same idea - it comes alive in its own way and takes a psuedolife of its own. This conflict, while it is the major plot point, if you will, for the setting, other stories could be played out easily enough.

Due to a cataclysmic event, in which a lich attempted to reassemble an artifact called the Elfsun, arcane magic and its practitioners are ostracized and loathed by most people, except within two very powerful city-states. The elfsun was an artifact designed to open a 1 mile wide gate that lead to some really horrible place. It compelled elfves and fae folk alike to enter it, completely ignoring any and all protections to compulsions.

The Lich was eventually thwarted, but only after he had assembled the Elfsun and untold tens to hundreds of thousands of elven and fae folk entered the gate. The magical backlash of opening a gate that large caused tremendous and widesweeping destruction across the world. The two moons of the world spontaneously combusted, effectively adding two more 'suns' to the world. This constantly bathes the world in sunlight. However, the world is not a desert planet. Lloth's presence was banished from the world during an event called the Upheaval, with drow splitting into two distinct races - drow who remained below and the Aldurra who returned to the surface. Additionally, the Elfsun caused a dramatic change to arcane magic-users - wizards could no longer had access to all 8 school of magic. They began play with the ability to cast spells from 4 schools of magic and could only ever cast spells or use magic items with magic from one of those four schools. At 5th level they had to pick a primary school, which dictated what special abilties they developed as they advanced further.

Well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I've got 6 or 7 binders at home filled with tons of info about the setting. I even entered it into the contest that brought the gaming community Eberron.

[nijineko]

greyhawk, my own variants thereof, and my own settings. i'm very fond of the origins and evolution of the greyhawk world and setting. so much history, flavor, depth, and variation. my settings have a lot of scope. and still need lots of work. sigh.

[Authorien]

Planescape, hands down. Why? Because the possibilities were limitless. If you want a little Revenloft for one adventure and a little bit of homebrew the next, then off to the 9 Hells, you could do it. It was also an awesome way to switch off DMs AND keep the same characters without having to make new characters every 5 fraking seconds. If the DM got tired of running, just go thru a portal to a new place and the next DM takes over. Worked SO well in college! Also, you could just fraking ignore the idiotic portions of the setting, like modrons, or the adventure set on a fraking microchip.

[Mindbomb]

Planescape, hands down. Why? Because the possibilities were limitless. If you want a little Revenloft for one adventure and a little bit of homebrew the next, then off to the 9 Hells, you could do it. It was also an awesome way to switch off DMs AND keep the same characters without having to make new characters every 5 fraking seconds. If the DM got tired of running, just go thru a portal to a new place and the next DM takes over. Worked SO well in college! Also, you could just fraking ignore the idiotic portions of the setting, like modrons, or the adventure set on a fraking microchip.

Absolutely agree. Nice and to the point.

[TheRageOfGaia]

I listed three:

Ravenloft - because I like scary/creepy things. The books themselves are... meh. But I think the setting has a lot of potential.

Forgotten Realms - I don't know a lot about the history of the Realms, but I like that it is so rich, a DM could run hundreds of campaigns through the realms and never repeat history. Though I agree with others who have said the sheer amount of source material is intimidating, especially if your players are FR fans.

Eberron - I just like it. Maybe it's my inner pulp fiction two-fisted adventurer, maybe it's that I tend to like morally grey campaign settings, or it could just be that changelings, shifters, and warforged are pretty awesome.

[shilar]

Dark Sun and Planescapes for me. For most of the reasons listed. Also I just loved the background story for Athas. And what rouge can resist the allure of the city of doors, Sigil, the greatest metropolis on all of the planes.

[drewshi]

I chose Ravenloft. I don't think I've played much in the others in the past; I haven't heard of some of them for that matter, but Ravenloft always felt like it had some substance to it and my players loved it.

[russdm]

I would say Dark Sun and Dragonlance.

Dark Sun was gritty and really dangerous like. I still have my 2nd ed Dark Sun Shattered Lands computer game. I enjoy re-playing it since it is so fun.

Dragonlance is more a favorite of mine than Dark Sun. I like everything except the Dragon Overlords before teh war of souls. I personally didn't care for them any. I thought it was well done and that the characters in the stories were people i could identify with.

I never became a fan of the other settings. I didn't understand and still don't what alot of the hype about them are.

[Freejack]

Of the listed ones, Spelljammer would be number one. I like wooden ships and flying stuff. I incorporated cloud castles into my home brew and Spelljammer fit right into that as PCs couldn't "ascend" until they reached 5th level and that was also about when they became aware of cloud castles.

I do have my own setting. Since I started playing before there were settings (well, as we see them now; Blackmoor being orginal ) I created my own world.

Garth

It's more watery than Earth. The primary continent being more Australian in size with a chain of islands for a "tail".

Off the northern coast is a leper island and supplying it is a city state (it's been a bit so I don't have the name on the tip of my tongue and everything's still packed ).

The City State is on both sides of a large river with the north side being for the more well to do. It also borders on two countries.

The center of the continent has a large range of mountains with a few passes on the northern and southern sides. The northern country is more pastorial with farms and small hamlets and villages. There are two countries south of the mountains. The one closest to the mountains is heavily forested and inhabited by elves and druids. The coastal one has a few larger cities, mainly on the northern border and southern. Trade with the City State comes around the north side or through the northern passes. Trade with the island chain is done from the southern most city.

There is a smaller continent south of the islands that was the stronghold of a tyrant who has long been deposed. His stronghold is a major destination for adventures. Lots of adventures there.

The northern pass is somewhat dangerous however at the southern end of the pass is the Red Dragon Inn. It was built where the fierce Red Dragon (can't recall the name I used ) was slain by a brave party of adventurers. The nagahide coverings on the bar stools and chairs are said to be from the Naga's that inhabited the flowing stream that runs next to the Inn. Inn is somewhat of a misnomer as it's more of a large trading post.

Half way through the southern pass is a large abandonded castle. Adventurers have braved the deeps of the castle. Survivors have talked about the very large open cavern that has a great white dragon guarding it. The dragon has a sense of humor though as one party upon discovering the chasm decided to take a short cut to the lower levels. Unfortunately they were making lots of noise where upon the white dragon nicely asked them to quiet down as he was trying to sleep

The northern most country is a heavy swamp land with foul reptilian creatures that enslave any intelligent creatures that dare to trespass. The path to the northern pass skirts the swamp and caravan guards are well paid for getting to the pass safely.

There is a large land mass a bit to the east but no one has returned who sailed there.

That's all off the top of my head. I have maps, notes, and all sorts of dungeons and dead characters in boxes.

Carl

[Celebrimbdal]

I prefer Eberron for the elements of modernity that it manages to blend into the standard fantasy milieu to create an atmosphere peppered with "techno-magic" and renaissance sensibilities. The dragonmarked houses take on the role of modern multinational corporations, there is air and rail travel, mass distribution of news, the magical equivalent of nuclear devastation... So many nice shades of gray.

[wulfdesign]

I'm going to have to go with home brew game worlds as my favorite as well both to as a player or GM.

1) Most recent is TempleOrder's "Steel Realms" even before it was converted to the Incarna system.
2) Second best was another friends game world call "Emerald Kingdoms"
3) Quite a while back would be "Forgotten Realms" under "Skills and Powers"
4) and way back when... we brewed up a world that was a mixture of "Savage Sword of Conan" using the Arduin system (long gone) and 1st ed. D&D.

[William Murderface]

while forgotten realms is easily my favorite for todays rpg's i will always prefer Greyhawk cause that's how i learned
without all these extra rules and regulations on how almost everything has to be done
and also the Dragonlance settings are magnificent because of the mystery involved but again i will always pine for a good old Greyhawk campaign in fact pretty soon i think i'll try dm'ing for once in a 1st Greyhawk setting............i don't know