Be me, DM

>be me, DM
>running a campaign about a human world where a race of about 50 beings, named the High Ones (sounds better in my language), who are basically natural-born archmages, hang around in the main continent establishing domains and waging war against each other for influence.
>They see the world like a strategy boardgame and thus usually don't care too much for human lives, though they often take a liking in individuals and are pretty social when it comes to humans.
>They are not supernaturally intelligent, but possess enormous magic power and master shapeshifting to some degree.
>They love cheesy titles such as "The unyielding monarch" or "The Light of the humans"
>I intend to make all of them named characters with a distinct personality

Remember this, Veeky Forums ? Someone has urged me to make a follow-up thread about what I had gotten from the last thread a few months ago, and here we are.

I ran a few sessions with my players on both sides (High ones and Human rebel army) and the setting has progressed a lot. If you guys are up to it this thread is for the setting discussion, and if you have other ideas for NPCs, High ones, humans or demis (humans who recieved the favour of a High One), I had a truckload of awesome ideas last time.
Art and drawfags more than welcome

So far the campaigns have been :
>Mercenaries and a slave hired by a necromancer High One to look for another, in the middle of the war with the humans
>Group of warrior-priests and a scholar journeying through the continent to look for a treaty on necromancy that would help turn the war
>Two one-shots where the players played high ones and kicked major ass while completely fucking up politics of the region
>A few one-man sessions to flesh out characters for later campaigns
>A journey to get the son of a PC back from a bunch of corrupted nobles living in the court of a High One
>An ingoing campaign where the players play as shock troops tasked with setting up the field for the assassination of the only known human who threatens the High Ones

Every session has been a load of fun, might green text it later if people want. One of the sessions ended with the only good PvP experience I've ever had.

Quick reminder of the setting :
>One main continent, most if it being a gigantic forest inhabited by huge magic beasts
>Settled land is mostly human kingdoms
>High ones have "domains" that overlap human kingdoms and often wage war on each other, using normal footsoldiers, favoured commanders (demi) and sometimes go themselves on the field.
>This has been the case for the best part of 800 years, with one full-scale war a few centuries ago and three to four deaths among the High Ones in total
>Setting is set when a human overthrows a High One by killing him and starts a religion to support him
>He and his followers use strange powers that don't seem related to magic
>For now they are winning

>High Ones aren't able to reproduce
>They are about 3 to 4 meters tall
>They do not age and are extremely hard to kill
>They are an individualistic race that forms friendship but alliances are exceedingly rare and never last
>The magic they use is insanely strong, though individually they aren't world-enders or atomic bomb tier
>They do not know where they come from and grew up among humans for the most part.

Awesome character ideas suggested by creative anons :

What about a pair of friendly rivals?

Sinara the Shaper of Flesh and Izar the Master of Metal. Each of them has set their mind on creating the deadliest thing possible, something that they can call a worthy companion. They are quite similar in their thirst for knowledge and creation but their methods are drastically different.

As the names imply, she believes that nature has given her all the tools and materials she needs and relies on flesh, bone and chitin to shape her armies and behemoths, but also all sorts of things that are useful for her followers. He on the other hand uses steel, glass and stone to create constructs of war. And like his sister gives the many byproducts of his work to his followers to ease their lives.

He lives on/in a mountain with forges that are as large as small towns. She lives in a swamp at the foot of it, filled with strangely grown breeding vats. His city is one great machine. Hers a living organism. But both care little for humans unless they make themselves useful to them, and often use them in experiments to further their research, often ending in gruesome deaths or deformations of the subjects.

The reason for this arms race is a running bet between them who will be the first to build/grow the perfect creature/machine of war. To test it out, they regularly send their armies against each other on a field far off of their cities to avoid collateral damage. By now the whole area is devoid of life, partially glassed, poisonous or constantly burning, remnants of corpses and pieces of metal strewn around.

But they never attack each others city, lest it would sully their deal and they actually like each other. As such, if one of them gets attacked, the other rushes to aid. Together, their armies are the deadliest force in the world and if they wished, they could conquer most of it, unless the other High Ones unite to fight them back, but they don't really care.

Halochor the Contrived.
Somewhat of an aloof person by nature, she finds more of a fascination in the wilds and biology than she does in humanity. For a time she roamed the lands, drinking in natural beauty and attempting to recreate it herself, through forced molding of earth and nature. Her domain is wild and secluded, and striking in its outlandish and creative landscaping. She believes her art to be the most remarkable among her siblings, and has a sense of superiority, thinking their squables over territory and men to be meaningless.
She is a very mischievous and cruel High One at times, the sort that is like to play tricks on humans who wander across her path, simply for her own amusement. She particularly enjoys making them believe they are dreaming by showing them such outlanding things that they cannot believe it to be reality.
Legends of creatures spliced from one another mostly originated from her work, things like chimaeras or sphinxes, and she is always trying to concoct new and interesting ways to mash together animals.
She does host a small gathering of people, mostly as muses, some of which she may decide on a whim to get rid of or use in experiments. The majority are those of abstract mind who regard her as a goddess of the arts. Any normal-minded person would think her follower, and her, completely insane and her "art" utter nonsense. Similarly, her siblings feel the same and consider her completely loony.

Vertagon the unseen

After his citizens tried to overthrow him he became extremely paranoid and retreated to his castle on a hill overlooking his city state. It is believed that he has never left his palace since, because no one has seen him after the revolt. The city is instead ruled by his advisor, who gets his instructions directly from Vertagon.
In truth however, Vertagon is now closer to his citizens than ever before, since he uses his shadow magic and shapeshifting abilities to wander undetected amongst his citizens. He learned of their great distrust towards him and their longing for a revolution.
Thus Vertagon, under a secret identity, started the militia group "the golden dawn", who are fighting against Vertagon's rule but unbeknownst to them led by their very enemy.
By leading both the "state" governed by his servants and the revolutanaries, governed by himself, Vertagon ensures his rule over his people, while still leaving them hope in the form of "the golden dawn".

Tl;dr
Basically a manipulator leading both his forces and his enemies to make sure he isn't overthrown

That's all for now folks.
I'll keep the thread alive with examples of good work from anons, or my own creations, if people seem to show interest.
Looking forward to see new ideas/plots/NPCs you guys can come up with

Nothing to say except this is really cool and sorry no one else replied. I don't have anything to add.

I remember hanging around and helping come up with High Ones. Good to see you, user.

>Tfw
Thanks anyway guys

Stealing this idea btw
and there's nothing you or my players can do to stop me.

Definitely wouldn't want to stop you.
Go ahead

Keep going. The last thread inspired the demigods in my setting.

>strange powers that don't seem related to magic
Have you any deeper lore related to this? I'd love to hear it, user.

Yeah of course.
These powers appeared when the Saint revealed himself, and started teaching them to young men he would later call the "warrior-priests". They manifest as an increase in strength, speed, reflexes and durability. There is also an invisible force that protects them at will ; some say it is like a shield, others that it is an armor. It mostly depends on the person using it, but it is the reason why most priests fight with their left hand free, as most of them don't seem to be able to maintain it at full strength everywhere on their bodies.
Where this power comes from is not known. The Saint says it comes from the Lord, and teaches his followers to use their faith to call upon it. Some say it is a form of chamanism, the true magic of the humans, but instead drawing upon the spirit of Mankind rather than species of animals. Some say this is but another manifestation of the will of the immortal beasts that live in the forest, and were said to have created life in the old myths that the people in the East still believe in.
In the late days of the war, a cardinal (highest ranking warrior priest) will discover a certain truth about the Saint, twenty years after his death. This guy is the main character of the novel I'm writing and on which I based the setting.

Who exactly is the Saint? He sounds like a rather interesting fellow.

Quick view of the human hierarchy :
When the Saint conquered a country, he chose to ally with the kings (who were very limited in power in comparison with High One domains) if they promised to accept his newly founded Church and Temple. Nobles still exist and are allowed to rule to some extent, but have to share their power with templemen.
The Church is the armed force of the Saint, and most caserns have a few priests to teach children about the particular way of fighting of their order while they receive a proper military training from the soldiers.
The temple has a more complicated role. Templemen aren't fighters - most of them. They often fill the role of what we know of a priest, and are tasked with managing the population in terms of religion, and are also responsible for the defence against an eventual siege. They are able to use the powers of the Saint to erect temporary barriers or reinforce a structure against assaults (magical or a good ol' door kicking). Usually, they rank higher than priests with the exception of cardinals. They're also tasked with silencing eventual renegade priests via the use of a secret police wielding the same powers, but doesn't have to take the oath of never turning against a comrade. A priest attacking a templeman will lose his powers.
The Church and Temple have a common leader, the Council of Sages, made of seven grandmasters of the Temple, as many cardinals alive as possible, and the auxiliary commander of the common human army.

Only he really knows. Only one thing is sure : he is not a High One.
While investigating the place of death of the first high one to die at his hand (he revealed himself with this very act), they found a strange village lost in the forest, surrounded by mist and where every inhabitant seemed concerned with the fact that they have forgotten something very important, but just couldn't put their finger on it. A middle-aged couple sometimes obliviously put a third plate on the table, without knowing why as they never had a child (wife almost died in miscarriage, they told the players)
He seemed to age like a regular human until his untimely death. The only thing outstanding about him were his powers and seemingly unyielding determination to exterminate the High Ones. The public doesn't know why he sometimes disappeared entirely for weeks, suddenly appearing again as if nothing had happened. His only friends were the Auxiliary commander, a young noble he chose himself when he created the church, and a demi he saved from Toum the Tearer of Skies, a High one the man had betrayed. Even they don't know what he did when he disappeared.
Rumors say he spent a lot of time negotiating with Linara, a High one who turned herself in to be imprisoned temporarily for parleys. In the end, she escaped, which seemed unlikely yet undeniably happened.
He was a very joyful man when he wasn't fighting, and yet sometimes showed unexplained melancholy fits from time to time.

What the shit, how deep does this worldbuilding go? Also, the whole " they felt like they had forgotten something important" thing, is really creepy. I like it.
Have you got all of this stuff written down in one place, user?

I do, unfortunately it's all in French and mostly on paper. I'm a lazy piece of shit so I still haven't typed all of it.
The worldbuilding isn't all that deep whatsoever, compared to most authors I've read. I have the cosmology and the characters pretty much figured out, but many places of the map aren't fully fleshed out yet.

I feel like you should have at least one of these High Ones look like a regular human, and he never really wanted to be all powerful or anything. the black sheep, if you will. Just a regular ass superpowerful dude that goes on adventures.

For just being some guy on Veeky Forums, your worldbuilding is worlds(!) better than most here. You mentioned a book, so, is this whole thing principally for that, or just for a campaign for your players?

There is actually one like that, as I really enjoyed this idea.
His name is Nora. Just Nora, he's one of the only two that don't have a long and complicated title. Other High Ones look down on him (but know he's not to be crossed)
Irony of fate, he lives in the capital city of the Church. As he never told anyone who he really was, no one knows if he wasn't noticed by the Saint or if he willingly left him alone.

Yeah, the whole thing is originally for the book. I only made it into a campaign because I was discovering TTRPG at the time and since my players liked it I just stuck with it.

>Just a regular ass superpowerful dude that goes on adventures

Make it so he just wants to be left alone and he gets roped into adventures against his will, like Mad Max

I kind of have trouble making up good adventures for a guy that is naturally one of the most powerful forces of his setting.
I mean, it's certainly doable but I don't know how to do that.

I'm bumping this once before going to bed