Planegea

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Planegea is an upcoming third-party setting for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition that seeks to explore a very unique question: "what would your typical D&D world look like during the Stone Age?"

Setting Conceits

No Tech, High Magic

Planegea isn't "Historical Fantasy, Hard Mode", it's "Primeval D&D" and "Caveman Pulp". This is a world of Primordial Fantasy, and the corebook actually suggests that DMs contemplate the term "stonepunk", in the vein of steampunk, when it comes to designing terrain features and factions. Planegea is a world where you might find floating islands, cities built on the backs of mammoths, temples hanging from the boughs of giant trees, a tribe that flies using gliders of skin and wood giving lift by strange glowing crystals. Don't be "realistic" to the point of just making it all about the mud, the blood, the hunger and the thirst. In other words it's D&D if instead of Reading lord of the rings, Gygax had been reading Conan the Barbarian.

The Black Taboos

Planegea isn't just a primordial fantasy world, there are forces actively keeping it in that state. All know that there are certain acts which a person MUST NOT DO, lest they bring the wrath of the dread Hounds of the Blind Heaven down on their heads. These forbidden behaviors, which will summon one of these eldritch entities to hunt and slay the transgressor, are collectively known as the Black Taboos, and consist of four commandments:

Writing is Death: Whilst pictures and patterns are permitted, the use of abstract symbology to communicate draws the Hounds raging from the Blind Heaven to devour whoever attempted to write.

No number higher than 9: Planegeans are only allowed to count individual numbers as high as 9; anything after that is "many". Attempting to use higher numbers will draw the Hounds. (we wish to also quickly note that chimps can count higher then 9)

Do not use wheels: Attempting to stick a wheel on an axle will draw the Hounds. (pottery wheels seem to be ok though)

Do not use money: Planegea runs on the barter economy, period. Attempting to create or use abstract fiscal currency will draw the Hounds.

On a meta level these exist to keep your player's firmly in the right technology level and mind set. Even without meta gaming a player would find it hard to not just invent things. Take the Money Taboo for example, it's natural a player get annoyed with the idea of bartering everything and start hunting down some thing they know is culturally valued and so can be used as a barter item but is easy to carry, such as cowrie shells (bet you thought I was going to say gold? Nope Cowrie shells were among the first and longest lasting form of money even more then gold) since there pretty, can be used as decoration, and so have intrinsic worth and thus can be traded for other items without running into the taboo. . .Except as soon as you say 'this sword is worth 200 enough cowrie shells to be equal the number of legs on two centipedes many legs', (we can't say 'centipede since 'centi' means 100 which is a number we can't use, meaning we have to call it a 'Many Legs')* congrats you actually have invented money and the hounds are coming for you. That thought process is how money was invented and it can be extremely hard to not even accidentally go through the steps to reinvent that or any of the other items. Hence why the GM needs a metaphorical stick to swing at players to remind them to not meta game even more then in standard fantasy settings.

• This whole extended bit is it self another way to cheese the 'no number bigger then 9' taboo. You don't say '14" you say "as many as there are legs as on a crab atop a wolf" or something, which depending on your GM this sort of neanderthal math might actually be acceptable.

Nascent Pantheons

Planegea is an age of proto-gods, when the first spirits are forming and beginning to take command over aspects of reality. There are no great universal gods with dominion over entire aspects of reality - Planegean gods are animals, plants, or elemental beings that have learned to tap into the primordial energies of the world and begin exerting their authority. They are physically bound to a sacred place, a Hallow, and attempt to lure mortals into providing them with worship, offerings, and act as their agents as part of their ongoing struggles to survive, grow, and conquer.

Clanfires and Hallows

The traditional D&D mainstay of the Tavern is replaced by the Clanfire; the central ever-burning fire that is the heart of clan life. All but the wickedest maintain a tradition: if you leave your weapons in the gloom before the firelight circle, you may approach the Clanfire and be welcome. Here is where you can rest, find information, and trade.

But if you need magic? Then you need to seek a god's Hallow, and offer worship or services in exchange for what you desire.

The Three Themes

In the corebook's own words, these are the three themes that define Planegea:

Kinetic Action. In Planegea, you don’t stand still and hit things. Battles are fought on the backs of mammoths, on racing ice floes, on trees bent before a magical gale. The battlefield is never constant here—fires fill the air with smoke, hungry scavengers gather at the edge of combat, and enemies leap through the air, bodies and blades twisting as they throw themselves at you without regard for life and limb. Planegea is built for over-the-top action, where combat is never just a combat, but a story in itself and an explosion of dangerous, chaotic energy.

Primordial Horror. Sometimes there isn’t a name for the thing that slithers by your skin in the shadows. Sometimes you can’t control the voice you hear whispering your name at night, scratching at your tent flap, begging to be let in. In Planegea, mortals have barely any control over the world around them. You are surrounded on all sides by the unknowable, the unstoppable, and that which means you harm. The fundamental horror of Something Out There in the Dark is ever-present here, requiring great courage—or a little darkness of your own—to confront it.

Mystic Awe. Wonder isn’t about what you see… it’s about what you feel. It’s about coming to the edge of the infinite and discovering how small you have always been. It’s about the beauty of losing yourself in something greater. Planegea is a world of countless gods, of immaculate natural wonders, and of stars that spin above and whisper stories to the mortals below. In Planegea, you can fall into astonishment, seeing the world with fresh eyes, beholding everything as if for the very first time. And as you do so, all is made new again, and stories you thought you knew become strange and wonderful once more, like painted deer on a cave wall in flickering firelight.

Kinships of Planegea

The races - or "kinships" as they are called in Planegea - largely consist of primordial versions of the classic 5e PHB races, as well as a handful of new ones. But, the Planegea corebook itself reminds readers that it only represents a small sample, and that there is plenty of room on Planegea for other, weirder races, calling out beastfolk and golem-like creatures as examples. The one thing to remember is that this is a young world, and all the races are new and relatively half-formed.

Dwarves on Planegea are creatures of living stone which only recently tore themselves from the womb of the earth. Half flesh and half mineral, whilst the youngest generations are growing more fleshy as they are born rather than carved from the earth, all dwarves are known to be stubborn and hardy. The greatest builders and stone-shapers of Planegea, they are known to be friends of the giants, who admire their construction skills... perhaps too friendly for their own good. "Hewn Dwarves", those carved from the stone, use Hill Dwarf stats, whilst "Born Dwarves" can use any of the other dwarf subraces.

Elves are denizens of the realm of Nod, the dreaming plane, a place that sits somewhere between being the Plane of Dreams and the Plane of Faerie. Living dreams (or nightmares) brought to life in humanoid shape, elves show their mystical nature through the translucency of their flesh and the unearthly colors of their bodies. Whilst any elfish subrace can be found in Planegea, the most common and the most solid-looking are the "Exiles of Nod", who use High Elf stats.

Halflings on Planegea largely consist of the "Quietkin" (Lightfoots); silence-obsessed masterful hunters who view all the world as both enemy and prey. Those who reject the teachings of the quietkin become the Walkaways, and might be represented by any other halfling subrace.

Humans are, of course, every where, and the constant influx with all manner of racial cultures and blood makes their versatility second to none. Planegean humans are particularly noted for their ability to domesticate beasts, and so they can take the optional racial trait "Beast Tamer", which lets them apply double their Proficiency bonus to Animal handling checks made against wild animals.

Dragonborn are the youngest race to appear in the Great Valley, as the known world of Planegea is called. They claim to be the direct descendants of the Worldheart Dragon, who broods on Blood Mountain, and to have sailed up the Unfalls on rafts made from the trees of the Venom Abyss to bring the Worldheart's will to Planegea. These primordial dragonborn only have Chromatic Dragon ancestry, as the Metallic Dragons don't exist on Planegea.

Godmarked are less a race and more a scattering of families, tribes or lone individuals who encountered a god and were physically transformed as a sign of either its blessing or curse. Mechanically, they use the tiefling stats.

Gnomes are loathed by all the other kinships of Planegea as a race of sneaky, dishonorable scavengers who rely on trickery, subterfuge and deceit to get ahead. With their willingnes to pick over kills, scavenge from trash piles and steal whatever they believe will help them, these cunning tinkerers prioritize survival over honor or shame. The mainstay of these "Scavenger Gnomes" use slightly tweaked Rock Gnome stats, but those gnomes lucky enough to be adopted into other tribes may express talents comparable to different subraces.

Half-Elves are commonly known as Twilight Children or Dawn Children. An often physically uneasy mix of human and elven traits, half-elves are equally likely to be raiders and entertainers, and for this reason are held at bay by the other clans. The instability of their lineage means that certain unique half-elves are "Blood Dancers", able to shapeshift from their birth form into a purely human form and a purely elven form, which are all but impossible to connect (this trait replaces Skill Versatility).

Orcs are doing incredibly well in the world of Planegea; whereas their counterparts on more civilized worlds are regarded as at best savage brutes and at worst little more than humanoid vermin, the orcs of Planegea are revered and respected, regarded as beautiful and blessed. They are the nobility of this savage world, few in number but great in ambition, skill, strength and courage. They are a spiritual people torn by the rising prominence of the hunters and warriors... and their future may not be so bright. A growing blight on orcish nobility are the clans of "Monsterblood Orcs", or "The Doomed", who have devoured beings they should not have and who are being twisted into rage-fueled beasts. Planegean orcs use the Half-Orc stats, whilst monsterbloods use orc stats.

As for the four new kinships of Planegea? They consist of the Dreas, trees sprung to life as humanoid beings; Half-Oozes, a fusion of a parasitic slime and the corpse of its humanoid kill; the Saurians, the obligatory dinosaur beastfolk; and Starlings, sapient stars fallen to Earth.

Classes of Planegea

So, you're probably wondering: how does Planegea fit the usual motley crew of adventurers into its Primordial Fantasy setting? Well, a lot more easily than you'd expect.

Let's get the easy ones out of the way first: Barbarians, Fighters and Rangers are all well represented and resepcted. Barbarians tend to be either highly respected warriors, or else outcasts whose clanmates only keep them around so they can be shoved in the direction of the enemy, depending on how good they are at telling friend from foe whilst raging. Fighters are the hunters and warriors upon whose backs rests the survival of their people. And rangers are the masters of surviving in the ever-hungry wilderness, revered for their skills and respected as leaders in the dangerous lands they call home.

Rogues are known as Scavengers on Planegea, and are reviled for their willingness to prey on the weak and vulnerable, no matter what - or who - they are.

Surprisingly, Monks exist on Planegea too; trhey are known as Ascetics, and they are a nascent class of warrior-saints, slowly building up the principles of using self-discipline and self-abnegation to unlock superhuman feats of physical prowess.

Bards are known as Chanters, and both respected and distrusted, for they are deeply involved in the preservation of the clans throgh their mastery of the libraries of oral lore that preserve all there is to know about one's people.

Clerics, known as Shamans, are the direct mouthpiece of a god, and represent its will, as well as brokering to it on behalf of their clan. Shamans tend to be homebodies, because in this early era of the world, a god's inflence and ability to grant its pawn magic are strictly limited.

Paladins, known to Planegeans as Guardians, come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are raised from an early age to be the champions and protectors of the clan's shaman, others have directly bargained with deities for power in exchange for service. And some simply swore an oath to an ideal with such fervor that it unlocked power within them, power to make their oath reality.

Ironically, Warlocks are actually greatly respected in Planegea, for they fill a role similar to that of the Shamans - it's just that warlocks act as go-betweens for much darker and more alien powers than the gods in their Hallows.

Strangely, Druids are hated and feared on Planegea; their divine magic is powered by tapping directly into the ambient primal magic of the world itself, the same fuel that can grow a spirit into a fll-fledged deity, and this makes the gods paranoid and wrathful. Druids are known as God-Leeches, and whilst they serve a vital role in limiting the divine power of fiends and evil deities, they must keep their true natures a secret.

As for arcane magic... Sorcerers make up the vast majority of mages in Planegea, though of those most only wield the most basic powers of their mystical bloodlines. But Wizards, known as Spellskins, aren't unheard of either. Though they constantly flirt with drawing the attention of the Hounds of the Blind Heaven, Spellskins continually seek to refine and improve their arcane art. Each Spellskin maintains a secret lair, typically a cave, where they construct elaborate pictures that trap magic into permanent shape, creating spells. By using special tattoos to resonate with each spell-picture, a spellskin can draw upon that spell-picture's power from afar and shape it into practical effects.

New Subclasses

The Planegea corebook offers the following new subclasses:

• Way of Abnegation, the iconic Planegea Ascetic (Monk), who excels at resisting and deflecting suffering.
• Path of the Farstriker, a Barbarian specialized in the use of throwing weapons combined with instinctive air elementalism.
• Dream Sorcery, a Sorcerer with an intuitive connection to the realm of Nod, imbuing them with the powers of visions, dreams and nightmares.
• The Dark Forest, a patron for warlocks representing the ominous and fearsome intelligence at the heart of the deeep, dark woods.