The question: How does a DM who enjoys making up new settings cope with an unspoken agreement to stick to the same setting for multiple adventures in order to build it up over time?
The answer: The Feywild.
So for my next campaign (such as it is so far. Come around in a month and see if I haven't switched over to something else more shiny =P ) I've decided to try and "all-Feywild" campaign. This allows me to invent new stuff (the Feywild plane) while keeping some of the old (The Prime Material).
So this new setting is based off the portion I created from my previous adventure but given all new inhabitants by virtue of existing on a different plane. And since the plane in question is the Feywild I can kick the terrain up a notch or two.
I'm starting this by considering this region to be the full extent of what will be explored/adventured in. So I need to make the setting as rich as possible. What I've done so far to start this off is to research a few different terrain types that I'd like to include and make a nice long list of different terrains/biomes that I want in this region. Then what I did was picture the region I wanted to use all these in and start dividing it up into chucks on a piece of papered putting one of these terrain types in each section until I had them all filled.
What this does is allow me as a DM to have distinct idea of what the terrain is in each section and to plan out the typical flora and fauna in each region. It will give combats in each of these locales a different feel from each other just in terms of what goes down on the map. So now I have somewhere between 25 and 30 different areas, each distinct from the others even without creatures or inhabitants at all. This will help me a lot in describing the world.
So. Now that I have terrain I have a vague idea of what sort of creatures could live there. The next step to consider are the peoples who inhabit this area and how they came to be there. In a sense I need to establish a history to overlay this land to give it more depth. I need an ancient civilization or two - preferably two. This will give me a basis to figure out the current conflicts in the region (which I already have a sort of an idea about for one thing anyway).
One thing that served me really well last adventure was having five separate motivations driving the nations. I liked that I could ignore the tired old one race vs. another trope that so dominates D&D and has for a long time. So I need a mix of the Fey races and, likely, the non-fey ones too in different alliance and what have you. And of course I will have the Prime Material plane's nations and organizations all pursuing their own ends in this untamed land as well. All that will, I hope, breathe some new life into the boring old Feywild setting. More on that in a later post perhaps. I've reached the limit of what I've done so far and now I need to work on the next step.
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