This is Part 05 of a series wherein we talk about generating an entire campaign, on-the-fly, for your favorite fantasy role-playing game(s). In the future, it might have a tighter focus on either D&D or Pathfinder, but for now, let's consider this material more-or-less generic.
NOTE: All the usual polyhedron dice are used for DCS, though today, we'll only be using 1d12.
What existed before this world? Was it another world, filled with gods and heroes? An endless plane of energy or thought? Or maybe there was nothing at all?
A Pantheon of Gods
Roll 1d12:
01 -- These gods warred with another divine clan, other-dimensional force, or system of belief, destroying the old world. Only they survived to create the new one.
02 -- These gods warred among themselves. Their conflict destroyed the previous world. They survived only by banding together. Collectively, they created the current world, but their old grievances remain, and their war is set to start again in this world. Some say it already has.
03 -- There are many divine beings, but one of them is the progenitor of all the others. These others were created in the current world, not the old one, having been told by their parent that that place was destroyed through the strife and conflict of its mortal inhabitants. Some of the new gods have their doubts, which they have spread among their clerics and followers.
04 -- A vast civilization of godly beings populated the previous world, which was a literal paradise. They dreamed of expanding to other worlds. Some say that the present world is the one they dreamed of, and that their world never actually ended; rather, it is located elsewhere in the multiverse. If so, those old gods may arrive at any time to wrest this place from its current inhabitants, and to slay the divine beings that reign here.
05 -- The current world was the plaything of a pantheon of terrible, cruel, and mindbendingly-powerful gods of old. When they died off, and their divine home was destroyed, this world remained. It is all that is left of them.
06 -- When the previous world ended, the gods created this one by joining together to become the world. Each aspect of it, each biome, sea and river, each land mass, patch of sky, and condition of life was formed by the bodies and minds of the old gods who held sway over particular domains. Thus, every instance or example that can be found in the current world of something over which those gods once reigned, is an extension of those gods, not an attempt to emulate them.
07 -- The present world is nothing more than the merest clod of dirt churned up in the godly conflicts of the old world. Every single aspect of that time and place was bigger, better, and more spectacular than anything the present world has to offer; so much so, that the newer reality is just sad and pathetic by comparison...including its current crop of divine beings.
08 -- Great gods and goddesses once strode the lands, seas, and skies of the world-that-was, until an unknown calamity that even they could not foresee or forestall overtook them. Some say that whatever that was, it will one day return, and visit its wrath upon the newer gods and their mortal worshipers.
09 -- The gods of the previous world were divine idiots, fools of unimaginable power. Before they vanished, they designed this world...which may well explain a few things about it.
10 -- The old gods and those of the present world are actually all the same beings. They fled their dying world upon golden boats that sailed through the skies. For long ages they searched until this world was discovered, and they claimed for their own.
11 -- The gods of old are the same gods of today, simply known by different names. They were, are, and forever will be. They are eternal, though the present world is not. They created it from the ashes of a previous place, now long gone; and one day, they will return it to dust.
12 -- An entire pantheon of old gods, from a long-dead reality that once stood in this one's place, sleeps upon the present world. They are scattered across forgotten corners, hidden caves, and lost grottoes. The newer gods of the present world fear them, and seek their demise. They send their clerics, agents, and holy warriors far and wide upon great quests across the land, searching for clues to the whereabouts of these old gods, so they may be slain in their sleep.
To be continued...
Image: Clothing, apparel, helmet and game by Ian Gonzalez, released under the Unsplash License. Modified by David in Inkscape.