Joshua Dyal’s Dungeons & Dragons Campaign

The faerytale setting is one that is heavily based on a number of things that I wanted to add to my campaign setting. The first thing I wanted to make sure I did was to capture the correct feel of my nations and cultures while still being able to add a modern, almost anachronistic government to the mix so that the PCs can operate in a way unlike any former culture ever did.

Another major goal of mine was to move slightly away from the rather obvious, heavily Tolkien-derived standard D&D world. Not that I don't love Tolkien and think that he's the best author the world's seen since Homer or anything, but I wanted to do something a little bit different. In order to do that, I decided that I needed to go a little bit further back, away from the Tolkien/Howard/Leiber combination that makes up D&D today.

For inspiration on the campaign, I'd rather have you look at the following works, as well as general European (especially early English and Celtic) folklore. Granted, I didn't necessarily borrow directly from any of these in a completely transparent manner, but I did certainly borrow from the feel of these works.

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft -- an early classic from before the Cthulhu mythos was devised.
The King of Elf-land's Daughter by Lord Dunsany -- perhaps one of the most obvious sources of inspiration for me, in terms of creating a feeling of wonder and magic.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare -- one of the most fantastic of his works, although plays such as Macbeth and Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream played very integral roles in shaping my world as well.
The X-files by Chris Carter -- a different kind of influence, certainly, but I wanted to capture a bit of the horror, paranoia and general eeriness here as well.

In addition, it would be helpful to look at the historical cultures of the Celts of the Dark Ages, as well as some of the more easterly Medieval Empires such as the Sassanid Persians, the Byzantine Empire and the particulars of the spread of Islam. Some other minor looks at the cultures of the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings or possibly even the Mongols or Huns would also give some idea of the feel of some of the cultures and societies. However, keep in mind that none of these sources is the same as this setting, they are only inspirations for it.

In general, as may perhaps be seen from this list of sources, I'm also breaking away a bit from the typical paradigm in which the PC's main enemies are monsters. I plan on having the campaign be made up largely of humanoid allies and adversaries. The enemies won't always be obvious or even necessarily evil.