Rilmorn is a D&D world. It started as a dungeon with a wilderness map. In time, I added a city map, then came the BIG continent map. I stole gods and pantheons from history, mythology, and Dragon Magazine. I lifted names and words out of Tolkien’s Silmarillion (“Rilmorn” translates into “Bright Darkness”). Witch World and Gwynedd were the bones upon which I applied the flesh of Rilmorn. For many years, I ran a pseudo-medieval, Euro-styled, fantasy game. Yet, even in those early days, I couldn’t help but stretch the boundaries of my world; it got more extreme.
Dungeons and Dragons was originally about exploring underground labyrinths and strongholds, while battling monsters. I was fairly standard and followed those guidelines, when I first began, but I wanted more for my game. Dungeons and cities existed in places with cultivated and wild lands. I built very a basic ecology to explain what the bigger monsters fed upon. I tried to build societies in which the PCs could interact. I attempted to provide my players with the illusion of a living world in which they could suspend their disbelief while we played our D&D games.
Because I knew that I didn’t have all the answers on how to do such things, (Truth be told I did not even know that that was what I was doing) I took from other sources to make what I hoped was a better game. I added names for magic weapons and items from the role playing game Bushido. I dropped the Gamma World module Legion of Gold into one game. I used magic effects tables from Man, Myth, and Magic. I loved the Middle Earth Role Playing Critical and Fumble tables. Some of it worked, some didn’t. Then I began to let my players design things both in-character and out-of-character.
Suddenly, I had monster teleportals hidden in caves under my main city of Kardon. Some of my PCs were humans mixed with giant blood. I got a square lake on my main continent, Moytonia, when my ideas of world building clashed too much with a friend’s ideas. An PC elf rolled up a merchant family empire from tables in Oriental Adventures. PCs began running around with World War II style guns, after we played The Keep from Mayfair Games. A pro-psionic PC founded a psionic monastery and warrior order, built massive weapons using psionic power, and established a culture that was pro-psionics and anti-magics–all of which led to the Wolf Wars that redefined the nature of my world.
Years have passed. My PCs have been vikings born in a world, whose dangers have included cities of robots, undead kingdoms, and tribes of wolfmen. Others have been desert dwelling heroes, who fought against weapons left over from the Wolf Wars and defeated a version of Acererak that was attempting to meld the heroes reality with one that would have given Acererak nigh unlimited power. Still others were an all elven musical band that defeated an invasion from the Far Realm. Now, I have PCs that have gone from simple adventurers exploring ruins and getting gold to merchant lords traveling the world in a flying, steam-powered ship, while attempting to continue building the city that they founded and restoring a mystical wood hidden in another dimension. Other PCs have decided to become gypsies and are enhancing a magical network that allows them speedy travel from one place to another.
Deviating from the D&D Standard, sure has given me a fun world. Game On!
World Engineer 