A Glimpse Behind the DM's Screen

Fair Warning I,
this is not for those that wish to retain any
sense of mystery regarding this campaign world.

Fair Warning II,
this is rambling and I would be surprised
if it made any sense at all.

Background on myself:

I started playing D&D back in 1976, using the original D&D rules, those that were playing then remember the thrill of those little books. Greyhawk, Eldrich Wizardry, Blackmoor, those were names to conjure with. Before long I was DM'ing and have been pretty much DM'ing ever since, with a couple times off to play. D&D has gone through a lot of changes over the years. I switched from the original D&D booklets straight to 1st edition when books came out, I switched straight to 2nd edition when the books came out, I never did use any of the Combat & Tactics or Skill and Powers books, and never got suckered into the fancy Spell Compendiums or The Complete Flumph books and others in the series. I have used a lot of published modules over the years, I had Dungeon Magazines going back to #7, I bought most every TSR module before 1985, I bought a lot of third party stuff like Judges Guild and Role-aids before T$R closed them down.

Needless to say I have spent my share on D&D products over the years. One thing I never really had was a consistent campaign world. For a lot of years I used a small map from an old module I can't even remember the name of. No real world just a small slice of a kingdom. Then I discovered the Forgotten Realms. I bought the 1st edition box set and was thrilled with the setting. I liked Waterdeep, I liked the North, I liked the general feel of the world. Sometime in the late-80's I started running campaigns set in the Realms. I bought the first of the FA series of supplements, then the second, then the third. Then the Realms switched to 2nd edition, I bought more Realms material. Soon I had a large collection of material for the Forgotten Realms that I didn't even had time to read, let alone use.

Soon the Realms in all it's detail began to bother me, there was no way I wanted to, or was able to keep up with all the modules, supplements, details, and novels it seemed that the campaign world required. I started searching for more simplicity. I made a short foray into GURPS but having combat orientated players in a low tech GURPS game just made for deadly, long combats. Though I enjoyed the system otherwise. We even went back for a short campaign using the original D&D booklets. Finally I settled for running modules in one of my favorite setting from long ago, The City State of the Invincible Overlord by the Judges Guild.

Then several things happened at the same time. I started hearing rumors about a 3rd edition of D&D, I heard that WoTC had bought out TSR, that the Judges Guild was starting back up, the first stirrings of D20 and WoTC letting third party publishers sell D&D material. I was also in the planning stages of adopting a daughter and needed to clean out some rooms in the house. I kept looking at the huge collection of gaming material I had accumulated over the last 20+ years and kind of decided that with the new edition of D&D I was going to start with a clean slate. I got rid of over 450 lbs. of gaming stuff, I sold/traded it to online used sellers (big plug for Noble Knight Games here) and I sold on eBay. All my old 1st edition books - gone, all my old modules from the early 80's - gone, most all my 3rd party stuff - gone, all my Forgotten Realms stuff - gone, all my GURPS stuff - gone. Just about the only stuff I kept was the Judges Guild stuff I had and my core 2nd edition books, everything else went away in anticipation of 3rd edition.

I decided at this point that I wanted to have my own campaign world, I had most of the Judges Guild maps and city states already and with all the trade-credit I had I managed to acquire the rest of the maps, the city states, and some of the adventures I was missing. I had hopes that the Judges Guild would become active again, but as it looks like it will be quite some while before it does, I couldn't really plan on using that world. So I had these really cool maps and large City States but there was no real world history for them.
*** Note: as of 06/27/2002 Necromancer Games now has the license to the Judges Guild products and is working with Bob Bledsaw to get the stuff updated to D20 and re-released. By early 2003 there should again be Judges Guild stuff for D&D!! See my link page for links to Necromancer and Judges Guild

The beginning of Wearth.

So I created a history, sounds simple doesn't it. But it really was, I had a rough creation story worked out in my head.
- Modern day, maybe a little in the future Earth type world.
- Invasion by Evil Elves (cross between Melinbone and Drow), enslavement for an untold of years
- Good Elves come to save the day, humans get caught up in the cross fire (the Uttermost War)
- Humans learn magic from the elves (Sorcery), manage to seal the gates to the Elvish Homelands
- Elves retreat to their respective corners, Human Sorcerer Kings rule the world (badly)
- Humans learn Wizardry, take down the Sorcerer Kings, build up a World Empire
- Evil Elves raid for human slaves, World Empire starts to crumple.

There, a good world history with even more things possible in the future.Now I needed a name for this world, since I planned on ripping off some Greyhawk stuff and they used Oearth I thought I could be just as original and called it Wearth. Wearth started as a working name and just kind of stuck.

And I had some really cool maps. If you have never seen any maps of the Judges Guild world, you should get a hold of one just to see what a campaign map should look like. They are large hex maps set to a 5 mile/hex scale. This allows for a lot of detail, and there is a *lot* of detail. Every little village and stream and mountain range, every pass, and wood, and clearing has a name. Most are even fairly good names (nice generic fantasy names). The maps come with brief stats on the villages and islands, but no detail on anything else. So I just sat down, with my brief history in my hand, and started looking at the maps letting the names guide me as to what each area was. Just what does live in the Widsith Woodlands, who lives in the village of Cudgel, why is it called the Plain of Skulls or the Minatour Hills? Every map has so many neat adventure hooks just from the place names. And there are 18 maps in total.

Let's see what else does a world need? Gods, got to have gods right? I knew that 3e was going to be using Greyhawk as a "base world" so I decided to use the Greyhawk gods. Lots of information available on the Internet regarding them and they were easy to shoehorn into the Judges Guild world also. Decided that they were not "gods from the beginning of time" but rather extra-planar Powers contacted by the early sorcerers and now worshipped.

Then I need some sort of calendar, got to have a calendar right? Since I was using the Greyhawk gods I decided to also rip off the Greyhawk calendar since most of the festivals celebrated by the gods were linked to this calendar.

Next you need villains, sure you can kill orcs and goblins all you want but it does get boring. So who to make villains, I have the Evil Elves (Drow), I have the stock Orc/Goblin/Monsters villains, I could have one of the old Sorcerer Kings reappear, I stole the idea of Iuz from Greyhawk, several old evil Powers, tension between the various City States, Good vs. Evil, Law vs. Chaos. I think I can come up with a villain or two out of these.

So, I have a world, I have a back story, I have gods, I have a calendar, I have potential villains. What's next?

Adventures. Now be aware that I and my players are busy people. I wish I had all day to sit around making up fantastic adventures with intricate plot lines that span decades of game time. But, I tend to make do with published modules. Of these Dungeon Magazine is a godsend. This is the best buy for the money that TSR ever produced. Every month has 3-5 adventures, with at least one usable with almost no changes, and another with moderate changes (of course each month also contains an adventure that I would never use for various reasons also). In addition with the new D20 and OGL (Open Gaming License) there are once again third parties making adventures for D&D. What I have seen so far has impressed me. Sure there will be some converting, but it is much easier to convert than create. Actually, as of now, it looks like modules from Necromancer Games will probably be some of my favorites. In addition there are a lot of the classic 1st edition adventures floating around the web and soon to be released as ESD's from WoTC, once converted to 3E these are still better than most stuff being put out today.

Finally you need players.

I have been DM'ing pretty much the same core group of guys for the last 20+ years. Be forewarned that we are not a big "forget the dice, let me *act* as my character would" Role-players. This group is more of "bash the door in, kill them all, loot the bodies" kind of group. For us D&D is a fun night out, beer and pretzels, not community theatre. This web site is more for their use in chronicling the campaign, so they can remember what they did in the last game :-).

There then, a mix of Core D&D, with a lot ripped of from Greyhawk, maps and lots of other stuff ripped off from the Judges Guild, a dash of my own imagination, heavy dose of modules from Dungeon and other places, and you have a campaign world. You may be wondering why I haven't taken any thing from the Forgotten Realms, or Al-Qdim, or Birthright or Dark Sun. Well, I want to spend as little time converting stuff to 3e as possible and currently not much is out for those worlds. With all the WoTC downloads of OOP material, and new FR books coming out I am sure I can find something to take from those campaigns in the future.

Jim Morris October 28, 2000        Email Comments:
Updated March 20, 2001
Updated July 8, 2002

Page Last Updated Monday, July 08, 2002