Custom Campaign Settings(For an added bonus, install this font, then reload the page.) Preexisting campaign settings are great, when there is a well established world and history. The players are free to read up on the details and become involved with the story. But players will probably read the parts they shouldn't be familiar with too, such as notable adversaries, monster entries, and in the worst cases they've read the module you're using. Usually I'm willing to live with the risk of metagaming that stems from this (people searching for hidden loot that is hard to come across, unless you've read the book.), if the players are making good use of the portions intended for the player to read. If I get a bit longwinded on this one, admins are free to fork this one into it's own topic elsehwere.
So I've been kicking around some ideas for a new setting. I intend for it to be flavorful, and designed so that there is a solid ground of fluff information to play with, and a vast amount of unknown. While brainstorming, I came across some old Ravenloft materials, and the old PSX game Legend of Legaia. The evil mist is a great means of controlling the domain/region size of the game, and gradually introducing more content. In Ravenloft, the mist was the edge of the realm. In Legaia, there were generators. In mine? I'm not going to tell you.
I will introduce my idea with a short narrative, but I want to set it up first. This is set in a small (as of yet unnamed village), with lots of russian/east european flavor. Their village sits upon a series of hills, close to a coastline to the east. An ancient, well fortified stone wall encircles them on the non-sea sides, scarred from battle and age. A small, but dense grouping of pine trees dot the tops of some of the hills. There is a small potato farm in the southern end. The coastal side has an elaborate dock, yet it is host to only simple fishing boats. The village itself also contrasts the dock, with very simplistic stone structures and a few wooden ones.
Pretend there are Russian accents, because I don't want to type excessively in broken English. And, since I'm at work, and I'd like to keep the job, I'm going to do this in small installments throughout the day, if possible.
***
People of the MistThis village is old. We too, are old. We come from old empire. What was it? We do not know. It was generations ago. Is not important. We have some texts of old age. Most are descriptions of places, and maps that we cannot discern. The mists make it too difficult to venture out. But within the wall? We do fine. But needing are we of room to grow. For time being, resources are adequate. But soon we will use more than what returns yearly.
We worship our gods of old, alongside the gods of new. The old out of respect, and the new because blessings are more plentiful. But the gods of old are important. The artificer caste strictly follow the gods of old, and it is they who craft the tools for traveling the mist. Treated longcoats, flat grey with colored trim, that stretch from neck to ankle. It is assumed they are patterned after old empire uniform. They are usually lined on the inside with the finest armors we can craft. Alchemical masks to cover the face, carefully crafted with glass formed from thunderstruck sand. It is these that allow prolonged exposure to the mist with no danger.
We are told the mists are a punishment toward the old empire. We do not know why. Hidden in the mist are relics of the old world, other isolated villages, precious resources, and answers. The mists also harbor evils of new world. Abomination and abberation alike stalk the new world. The twisted and unnatural creatures only linger within the depths of the mist. Most are utterly terrifying.
We send our brave out to hunt and explore. Predatory and docile beast of nature still live in mist, it does not harm them. The unnatural do not go out of their way to slaughter them as they do with us. The brave we send out take up the duty to find what we need to move forward as a people.
***
More to come. I've got a lot on this one, and I'll probably get some more ideas at lunch.
Also, if you think you can't read the titles with that font installed, just copy-paste that thing into notepad. I will be using that font for in-game handouts (PDFs) which will have plain readable english underneath it. The idea is that not every word in the language is remebered by these people, so when they discover something new, it will not be translated. Players are free to do the footwork to figure out what it says, but the character won't know.
Other details. The villiage is mostly human, but it does contain specks of the D&D race spectrum.
To combat metagaming knowledge, the monsters I will use will be for the most part unique in appearance, but will use the complete stat information for a monster presented in the MM.