5e, worldbuilding

[gnoah]

I have a campaign that has been going for 35 sessions,  lots of story and a concept in a homebrew world.  But i would love to talk to someone who has a passion for worldbuilding about some ideas and thoughts in my world.  hit me up.

Overall concept from what the characters know.  A continent, with 4 nations, a mostly good mixed race world, a Evil dessert dwelling elven slaver nation, a dragonkin honor bound nation and a orc/dwarven forced friends through conflict nation.  They all but up against the dragonkin nation so that place is pretty war wracked.  The characters grew up together and all experienced one of their friends killed by a random event of what seemed like a meteor and he vanishes without a trace.  There is 35 sessions of info after this.  Let me know if you wanna shoot some ideas.

[Laughing Hyena]

I imagine the basics you have already covered since you have variable civilizations for a number of player races. With some deviations from the norm I see, particularly with the elves. I take it orcs are more of a true neutral race?

Anyway I am still in the works of making a world setting that can work well in elliquiy in both normal and nature standards. I haven't figured it all out but I make up more as the need arises. Kind of like a quilt I let my players help shape it further beyond my basics.

I started with a few decent places for ruin exploring and treasure hunting. For example is Kingshearth, a community of settlements that has a coalition of young adventuring guilds, half long gnome, elves and humans seeking to tame an evergreen forest and wetlands that once were the sitevof a ruined citybof magic that had been claimed by cataclysm of druidic nature.

Along with a few variations on the normal races. Some based on pantheon and some on life style. Example being the tieflings being a nomadic caravan that has a religious creed to them in the former of a good aligned goddess called the Red Mother. As a result most tiefling adventurers are of divine classes such as clerics and paladins.

Currently it is just one large continent I work with filling the map with several locations. Anyway what I would ask is for more info on your pantheon. Are they any cults or deviations from the normal setting? You also didn't mention humans gnomes or halflings in your summary so I assume there's no changes there?

Which is the dominant race in your world on a whole? Whom is the most justly despised and which is the most unjustly despised? Has the wars taken a hit on the economy in any way?

[gnoah]

Well i have a whole overarching story and what im finding hard is keeping the pace of the story with also including the characters own backstory elements.  So at least to me its starting to seem like they move from one coincidence to another.  This is partially because they have a high pace at which they want to move at. 

The cleric has a dying god trapped in him, but has no idea except random voices and a tattoo that he never got that appeared on him.
The Ranger has found a cursed sword that has promised him great power if he became its chosen and is now a warlock.
The Shadow sorc shared a soul with an identical copy of her that lives in the shadowfell.  He wants to get her home but has no way to yet.
The Barbarian is fae touches and is trying to get back to the fey wild because he has collected all these parts to an ax that only can be made there.

What they do not know is that there continent is more like a aquarium,  a powerful order encased the continent to keep powerful demons away that had started to take over the world.  But one demon was already in when the shield went up.  It was captured and then contained with the power the lesser god of jails and bondage.  What the group through was a meteor was actually the demon escaping and possessing their friend.  The god to survive attached itself to the cleric, who was not able to use magic till that point and believes he is special because he does not prescribe to any gods, he thinks the power is from himself.

There is also a ranger order that the ranger had already become part of that is defending the world from extraplaner beasts.  that a coming in through cracks in reality, which are cracks caused by the shield that was put up.  Again no one knows there is a shield up. 

In the end the demon and them will have some sort of showdown over a magic battery that is keeping the shield up, but they have no idea what it is.  by this point i hope to give them the ideas that the demon is trying to secure this powerful thing that can make her a god.  And it can, but if removed to do so it brings down the shield. 

[Laughing Hyena]

Well it seems like you have a good lot of this thought out. There is a bit less of a party dilemma on matters of the shield.

The lesser god using a mortal as essentially life support can potentially cause a three pronged dilemma since in order to be revived the shield would have to go down thanks to this requiring the magic battery. Opposing him would be the Shadow Sorceress trying to get her twin back home into the Shadowfell. Again the shield has to go down. Obviously no one is going to be able to go to the fey wild to complete the axe with the shield up. On the other hand the ranger probably doesn't want that shield to drop under any circumstances.

But the thing is that three out of the four party members will probably want that shield to go down at this point because they cannot go anywhere past it. Least thats what I'm taking away from this. How does summoning work in this world. Does it not work at all?

On the other hand an argument could be made that the shield might have to go down. Its damaged, and cracking and its only a matter of time seemingly before it is destroyed anyway. Once they deal with the demon they have to deal with the shield that violates their Prime Material Plane. Also how did the demon escape? By himself or was this part of some unknown villains (the chess master trope) scheme? Are there any other people or beings trying to take advantage of the chaos or whom could possibly know of the shields existence? Are the order of rangers funded by anyone of noteworthy or duplicitous nature?