Monster Demiplane Worldbuilding

Imagine:

Lexicus is a large, yet obscure demiplane on the edge of the universe. Demigods and minor gods converge on it, wanting a piece of the pie. But there's only one catch: the only sentient beings there are monstrous. Kobolds and orcs, lizardmen and bullywugs, kingdoms of these monsters have sprung up everywhere.

Some of the monsters were taken there in order to colonize it for the glory of their god, other gods transported them to the demiplane to save good-aligned monsters from the wrath of their evil creators. But one thing is certain: the monsters here are surprisingly amicable, and nearly all are neutral or good-aligned. The good and neutral demigods who colonized the plane agreed to keep all evil gods out to reduce war and strife, though demons still occasionally find a way through...

If you want to become a god of this new world:

1. Name the god, determine what he represents, determine his alignment (Good or neutral only).
2. Name the race. You can choose a race that someone else has taken, they will become a different tribe or offshoot. Why was the monstrous race transplanted to the demiplane? What gifts or changes were gifted to the monsters?
3. Telll us about the race's history. After getting transported to Lexicus, what did they do? Where did they go? What is their society like? What are your race's favored classes?

If you want to become a demon lord or an evil god:

1. What is your name? What do you represent?
2. Why are you here? Do you want to lay claim to a race another god stole from you, or bring your own loyal worshippers/demons to help claim your own little piece of the pie?

Example of a neutral/good god:

Haldur, Chaotic Neutral (leaning towards Good) god of shared pleasures, the arts, and recently single parents.

He is patron of the Bloodwine tribe of gnolls. About a century ago, drunk on nectar and giddy on ambrosia, he took to bed with Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters. When he woke up about fifty years later, head still buzzing, he found that he was father to a healthy and relatively peaceful tribe of gnolls. Horrified at the thought of Lamashtu turning his children into demon-worshippers, he spirited away the gnoll tribe to Lexicus, where they would hopefully develop without her negative influence. They turned out to be surprisingly intelligent and good-natured, having a particular affinity for history-keeping, storytelling, and music. They also had a penchant for cannibalism, but Haldur learned to ignore that.

The Bloodwine gnolls are aware of their divine and demonic heritage, and they often joke that it makes them "Mary Sues." They have no homeland, but are generally content to live a nomadic lifestyle. They have a morbid sense of humor but care deeply about those they cherish. They fear being enslaved to Lamashtu and love earthly pleasures, and as a result their favored classes are Paladin and Bard.

I am Thek'vok

I am the Goblin God of Ingenuity. I represent science, cunning, crafting, street smarts, and madness. My motto is "Science is not about why, its about why not." My ancient wisdom knows that testing is a waste of time. Who cares if it blows up. Science!

My gift to the goblin is knowledge without wisdom. They'll make good use of it.

Lexicus is a stupid name for a plane.

Do you have any other name I can use? I couldn't think of any other.

Why not Echidna? The name of the Mother of All Monsters in Greek mythology?

Or perhaps, Chimera, or Chimeron since it's a demiplane that is filled with a combination of monster populations?

Since we have a demiplane of mostly good aligned Monsterous humanoids, there should be a BBEG to give the plane some conflict.

Lawful Evil God
The Maiden of Conquest, Invasia
She has come to this plane in order to use the monstrous populations as the base for new armies she will use to conqueror other demi-planes until her legion grows powerful enough to take over the Material Plane itself.
Until then however her armies consist mostly of Demon knight legions who not only worship her but obey her every command as their military overlord. If she can not corrupt or dominate the wills of those of this plane to join her legions then they will die like all those that oppose her will.

They call me Lifeweaver, for I am the keeper of the Web of Life. (LN?)

I am worshiped by the Bullywugs.
Long ago, on the material plane, they were a simple river people. However, competitive neighboring civilizations thrust their tribe into turmoil. Apparently their old gods had either died or abandoned them, I know not. However, they called out to me and found solace from their worldly chaos in the ordered structure of my web.
Alas, it was too little too late and their tribes were brought to the brink of extinction by their warlike neighbors.

With the remnant of their population faced with either slavery or death, they cried out to me. So I plucked them from their world and found this place for them to make a fresh start.

My gift to them is the Art of Weaving. This extends beyond mere mundane textiles, for everything in existence is connected by the strands of my web. By learning to gently coax these threads, one can weave a beautiful tapestry from any material, either physical or not.

Now they do as they once did. Living along a peaceful river. Weaving homes and boats from the reeds and sailing this worlds waterways.
They seem to delight in exploring this new web of life, mastering the art of weaving and offering trade and friendship with other races. As a result their favored classes are Druid and Bard.

I have four gods who are all aspects of the same idea. I'm guessing since most of the monsters are good then they too have laws and gods who are of law. So I present to you,

Samael The Benign
Samael The Pure
Samael The Blind

He is the lawful good patron god of justice who was blinded by the other gods as they felt he was not humble and his past was of 'wrong doings'. He is the father of three sons

Ramiel The Wrathful who is a chaotic Chaotic Good diety of lawful execution. Represents the Executioner.

Sariel The Wise who is the Neutral Good diety of knowledge and understanding. Represents the Jury.

Tabberis The Arbitor who is the Lawful Good diety and the eldest brother who has the final pass of judgement. He represents the Judge.

Samael and his sons are worshiped by lawmakers of the monsters and have seats in the pantheons of both the Kobolds and some minor Giant tribes. The brothers are represented by three silver rings on the right hand of their worshipers one with a sapphire gem, one with ruby, and the last with emerald. They are never represented seperately and there are very little depictions of their father and none of their mother.

The kobolds who worship the dieties, often entire settlements, are usually forgiving but fiercly verbal and often engage in debates over many simple things. Temples of the brothers are usually used as debate halls. One of the main points of the religion is a temple in the mountain made by the giants from white marble. The entrance's arch has three large gemstones one for each brother and a forth at the top which is an amethyst. Within were five statues, one defaced and is to be belived to have been the only current depiction of their mother.

Good idea. Henceforth, this demiplane shall be known as Echidna!

Skarilex is the Lawful Neutral (leaning towards good) demigod of the rule of law. He brought the Ratmen to Echidna.

The Ratmen, in their native plane, were a race of mutated savages, unbound by moral code. They skittered forth to consume the kingdoms in their wake even as they developed dangerous technologies and betrayed each other daily.

Sick of this life, a small faction of the Ratmen tried to rebel and establish their own kingdom. The Ratmen's demon lord, the Lord of Disgust, personally went to destroy the upstart faction utterly and completely.

Skarilex then threw open a planar rift to save the rebellion, sending the Ratmen to the mountains of Echidna. After cleansing the Ratmen of their demonic taint and suggesting some actions to establish a functioning government, Skarilex left them, some say for good.

The Ratmen quickly set up an electoral council to guide their people. Though faith in him reduced with time, the respect for rule of law he instilled in them never did.

The technology they brought with them ensured their future prosperity. Suits of dangerous powered armor were refined and made safe, for use in loading cargo in addition to defense. The explosion-prone muskets they used to kill siege beasts were improved to defend against monster attacks. Eventually, a vast and prosperous trade empire was established, and Skarilex grew fat on the worship of his followers.

These Ratmen stand as tall as a human, with a lanky frame. Their fur tends to be smooth and varies quite wildly, grey being the most common but white and piebald tying for second. They are quite altruistic and courteous, striving for chivalric conduct in their every action. After the invention of the condom, their birthrates dropped to around the same general level as the other monstrous nations.

Because of their natural agility and their natural intelligence, the Ratmen's favored classes are Rogue (Swashbuckler/Investigator) and Wizard (artificer.)

Okay, some more ideas.

>Hippie lizardfolk feuding with cutthroat businessmen lizardfolk
>Braveheart-styled Orcs with giant claymores
>A cult of racist and extremist Bullywugs led by the Demon Lord Apep, whose main goal is to insult as many people as possible

Bump

The BBEG is actually the sum of all the demon lords and evil gods who covet Echidna for themselves or are angry about their slave races being taken away from them- a dark, disorganized horde of malefic beings.

However, just like DnD and Pathfinder, their ability to take what they want is limited by the fact that they're too disorganized to accomplish anything on a large scale. They may win over or conquer small populations, but they can't truly achieve a final victory.

I read "Monster Demiplane" and thought you meant a demiplane that was itself a monster.

It was interesting because it reminded me of Exalted.

The demiplane is called Echidna, so why not? Let's have the entire plane be alive. Though, to what degree? Fully aware of everything that happens on its surface, vaguely aware, sentient, hostile, what?

>One group of lizardfolk is brought there by an Elven demigoddess of beauty and nature- she gives them the gift of empathy.
>Another group is brought over by a demigod of profit and legal power- admiring their ruthless attitude, he gifts them with intelligence
>The hippie ones are experts in singing plants into what they need to survive and prosper through their use of biotechnology, the businesslizards go into banking and make tons of dough, amassing political power and inviting complaints about how the "reptilians control our government"
>Hippies favored classes druid and ranger, businesslizards favored classes are warlock and sorcerer

Christian gods and kobolds are kind of weird together, though.

I been thinking about what the mind flayers would be like here. Any suggestions are nice.

They'd have more than two problems. The mind flayer life cycle involves evil at pretty much every step. First they're born from the elder brain as tadpoles in massive swarms, who eat each other as infants. The the survivors are taken out of the spawning pool and parasitically infect sentient humanoids to change into illithids, who eat the brains of other sentients to survive. Then when they finally grow old and powerful enough, they're removed from their bodies and returned to the elder brain, who eats them to absorb their power and knowledge and pretends that they're still alive.

So, the first problem is that they have to kill sentient beings to survive and reach maturity. That's going to be a major inconvenience if they want to be anything but evil. They'll probably want to keep their numbers small, which would also mean that the elder brain wouldn't grow as large and wouldn't spawn as many tadpoles. But they'd still have trouble finding any morally justifiable victims at all.

Also, if they're not evil they won't be as keen on infanticide. Normally, tadpoles are eaten by the elder brain if they reach a certain stage of maturity without finding a host, but those that survive will grow into a massive worm-like creature called a "neothelid", which is a dangerous feral monster until it eats a sentient creature and gains sentience itself. A non-evil mind flayer community would most likely spawn quite a few of those when its resources are scarce.

user it could be a symbiotic relationship that won't kill the willing host.

I rather liked Lexicus myself.

We are Zedikim myriad voice of the righteous. We are god of the maggot men and we are legion.

My sons till the earth and eat the dead. The foul taint of undeath does not stand on land over which the burrows of the maggot men lie.

Once a great plague of undeath swept Echidna. We struck down those unaging and undecaying ones with the curse of maggots. I took those remains and shaped them into guardians to stand opposed to undeath forever more and strike down those men who would stand against the gods.

>Bullywugs
>Monstrous
Fool! Bullywugs are the true humans, as decreed by the rites of WASTRI, ONE TRUE GOD OF MANKIND!

Echidna faces the threat of a legion of Bullywugs who worship Wastri as the god-emperor of mankind and themselves as the destined true human inheritors of Echidna.

So we've got bardic gnolls who love wine, women, and song- and also fear losing their freedom to their demonic parent.

We've got goblins who regularly break engineering records, their own bones, and the laws of physics.

We've got spider-worshipping bullywugs that facilitate trade down river routes.

We've got kobolds and some giants who worship representations of the gods of justice.

We've got honorable, agreeable, and technologically advanced ratfolk who actually aren't that religious but feed their god well all the same.

The plane Echidna is alive. Scholars disagree on to the degree of its awareness, but they unanimously agree that it possesses qualities unique to living beings.

A druidic and a businesslike faction of lizardmen who hate each others' guts, given different blessings by different gods.

Larva mages whose ecological niche is to consume and destroy undead.

We've got good ideas for the mindflayers, but they haven't been fully fleshed out yet.

Some races we haven't covered:

Drow?
Orcs
Minotaurs
Githyanki/Githzerai
Ogres
Giants

Let's haul ass and have this completed soon!

>One day, an unknown Chaotic Good demigod was eaten by Ilsensine, and his brain was mutilated into what Ilsensine hoped would be an ideal, divine Elder Brain under his control.
>A portion of the god's consciousness survived, wistful for a past it could not remember and horrified at the atrocities the Mind Flayers committed in his name
>To regain some independence from Ilsensine, the unnamed God-Brain traveled to Echidna with some tadpoles and thralls, under the pretext of taking over the plane
>Once there, the God-Brain proceeded to alter the tadpoles and put them into the thralls
>The new mind flayers found their newfound hunger for brains disturbing, but they found that they retained the memories and emotions of their previous life

Gibe de roving minotaur bandit herds b0ss

>The mind flayers live in their underwater city of Ulthribosk, where they are the elites in a surprisingly free city of all different types of monsters
>They have mastered the art of psionic artificing, creating wondrous items that they trade for freshly extracted brains
>They live a largely secluded lifestyle, dedicating much of their life to the pursuit of knowledge and eating mainly animal brains
>They have no Elder Brain, they store all deceased illithid brains (and sometimes a particularly worthy monster brains) in jars in a psionic library
>They produce far fewer tadpoles than normal, each being treated with love and care until implantation- and those who grow up to be neothelids become important defenders of their underground cities

We need to go deeper. Deeper into the realms of old, forgotten, stupid DnD gods.

Long ago, on other worlds, Gods would craft and play, waging war and love with each other and the mortals they created.
Frakt was one of these Gods. He is known as the Coat Keeper, the Brother Eater, the Frost Taker, and the most importantly of all, the Whole Winter God. He represents the gentle snowfall and the raging blizzard both, and as a result, he is Lawful Neutral. The Frost will freeze all equally, but the Frost must fall, and should anyone threaten it, his wrath will descend upon them.

His 'chosen' are Vampires. Frakt shows no particular favor for them, but their traits allowed them to survive in the harsh tundras and glaciers that Frakt watches over. The months-long winter nights were a favourite of theirs, allowing them to roam as they please, sating their hunger with flights to the south under shroud of the Aurora. Preying on anything warm that wanders the snow fields, they were feared by many, but beloved by demi-gods and heroes, seeing an evil race they could hunt that bore no promise of punishment from their divine patron.

Frakt has always wondered, and Echidna is just the latest stop on his divine journey. With his snow-bound undead hanging on his coattails, they too come to this new world.

The Vampires, of course, are not all of one race. Anything with a mind can be turned, but the process tends to erase all but the most basic of traits. Like many on Echidna, the Vampires are not as cruel or bloodthirsty as many myths would tell you. For the most part, they are content to serve as some sort of Cartographer/Ranger force. A Vampire will travel faster than most, roaming further than those burdened with such things as hunger or sleep, taking what blood they need from beast rather than the more heavily armed monster-folk they may chance upon. A Vampire will occasionally work with others, as long as their new allies continue to roam, for above all else a Vampire wishes to find Frakts new home, to join him in the Great Night.

There's Eilistraee, good goddess of drow.

You forgot zealot Kuo-Toas who range from Mormon to "Deus Vult, Saracen" in their religious tendencies.

What if Echnida is the name of Lexicus's consciousness? What Gaia would be to the material plane, in essence.

>Despite their secluded lifestyle, or perhaps because of it, the illithids are distrusted by almost everyone
>It is rumored that they are stealing the bodies and brains of the other monsters in order to breed more powerful psions
>They also are rumored to know the secrets of brain transplantation, putting illithid brains in other bodies to make diplomacy and infiltration easier
>They are also rumored to be capturing monsters like hydras, sphinxes, and manticores to turn into mind flayers