[D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

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Uncanny
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[D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

My main inspirations for this homebrew world. Include basically every book, movie, and videogame I enjoyed during my childhood. I've also included a few anime which during the last decade I've come to enjoy more so then I did during my teenage years. Of course that might have to do with the fact that during the 90's, and early 2000's most of the anime I had access to were the shows featured on Toonami.



Alien (film) ; Alien monster
Asoiaf ; geography, religions, children of the forest (gnome), ibbenese (dwarves)
Avatar (blue aiens film) ; Mechs, Na'vi
Avatar the last airbender ; Lore, Earth kingdom geography
Attack the block ; Monsters
Attack on titan ; titan shifters, The omni-directional mobility gear
Battle star galatica ; twelve colonies, cylons
Berserk ; beherits
Comics ; Amazonian, ghost rider, kryptonians (red sun), vibranium
Castlevania ; Devil forgemasters
Dbz ; Dragonballs, Saiyans, Senzu beans
Dune ; factions , religions, spice melange
Dungeons & Dragons ; eberron geography,Ravnica guilds,Taldorei geography, Ansalon geography & wizards
Edge of Tommorow ; Combat Jacket, mimics
Elder Scrolls ; lore, tamriel geography, dwemer (dwarves)
Final Fantasy Tactics ; Geography, Chocobo
Highlander ; immortals
The Matrix ; virtual reality, Flying tentacled Sentinels
Mortal kombat ; Lore , tournament
Pitch Black (trilogy) ; Monsters froms 1 & 3, religion from 2
Predator 1 & 2 ; Yautja, technology
Star Trek ; The federation as a faction, vulcans, romulans, klingons, borg, bajorians
Star Wars ; Jedi, Lightsabers, Wookies, twilek, droids, sith
Street Fighter ; tournament, shoto clones
Soul Calibur ; weapons
Tekken ; Mishima family, tournament
Terminator ; T-800, time travel

I will explain why I choose to implement certain elements, and excluded others from these properties in future posts

I'm recruiting players for a upcoming one-shot set in the Uncannyverse
Last edited by Uncanny on Tue Nov 09, 2021 5:16 am, edited 22 times in total.
Uncanny
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2017 7:16 pm
Location: USA

Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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The xenomorph a.k.a the Alien from the movie directed by Ridley Scott in 1979. This movie was released before I was born. however very early in my childhood my parents realized I liked sci-fi and feed me a steady dose of 70's, and 80's action movie involving spaceships. Flash Gordon, Dune, and the Star wars trilogy I loved them all. However I have my older brother to thank for getting me into to horror films. I don't remember how old I was when I first saw this movie (4-7 ?), but I remember the nightmares lasted for nearly five years. The monster was very scary, and I never finished watching it as a kid, but the reason that the nightmares lasted so long was because during the 90's Hollywood tried to resurrect the franchise with a couple of sequels. So even when I hadn't thought about a Xenomorph for months. One would pop on the screen during a commercial and ruin my sleep for weeks.

I finally ended up watching the movie in my 20's. After watching a trailer for the movie Prometheus. I decided to re-watch the original, and the effects still held more than 30 years after it's initial release. I'm adding the Xenomorph to my homebrew world as a monster because my setting includes spaceships, firearms and nearly every fantasy, and sci-fi race found in fiction. As far as how I plan to implement them into my campaign I have a couple of idea's. The Guild master's guide to Ravnica book includes a guild called the Simic Combine. A group of scientist dedicated to public health but came to believe that complete health of individuals and of society as a whole depends on the mutual adaptation of nature and civilization to one another. Basically their biological experiments lead to the creation of the Xenomoprh.

Secondly House Vadalis found in the book Eberron rising from the last war. Using the dragonmark of handling which gives its bearer a connection to beasts and the natural world. House Vadalis maintains vast cattle ranches and trains horses, and hounds. However this doesn't satisfy the most innovative members of the house which leads to mage breeding animals to produce exotic magical creatures, and eventually in my homebrew
setting leads to the creation of the Xenomorph


Also I'm including 2 more sources of inspiration

Godzilla (monsterverse) ; Monarch, Monsters
Halo ; The Array, Covenant religion
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

After some further reflection I'm starting to appreciate the Alien franchise a bit more. After spending the last two days reading some of the lore found on the wiki site. I never really grasped how versatile the xenomorph can be as a monster. The face-hugger phase of its life cycle can basically mutate any animal the size of a house cat or larger into a killing machine within a few hours. Snakes are usually a low level threat in D&D. After about levels 4-6 they stop being anything other than cannon fodder for most heroes unless their encountered as a large swarm, but if I reflavor a 'fire snake' as a souped-up face-hugger I think I can keep the players attention

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A Song of Ice and of Fire is a series of books written by George R. Martin. I first encountered this series as a television show. Side-note in the fall of 2010 I remember watching a early teaser trailer for "Game of Thrones" and not being very impressed. I had high hopes for Camelot (2011). Friends to this day nearly a decade later I'm reminded of my mistake nearly every Sunday. I've invested so much of my time in this media franchise. I'm currently reading through the novels (A feast for crows), and have seen every episode of the show multiple times. However for my homebrew I'll mainly just take the two continents of Westeros, Essos, along with their religions, and a couple of non human racial options for players.

I plan to flip Westeros upside down in my world so that Winterfell will be facing the south pole and their wont be a wall. Timeline wise my campaign will be taking place before Aegon's conquest or the founding of Kings Landing. I'll mainly leave western, and central Essos mostly the same as it's found on most maps. However I plan to adjust eastern Essos drastically with a map I found for the videogame Castlevania.

I find the Children of the forest to be a interesting concept. I like their lore, and I don't find most "Wood Elf" culture engaging, but these guys intrigue me. Their portrayal in the HBO show especially during the earlier seasons when they were portrayed by child actors made the race seem more like Gnomes than Elves. Wood Elves are a dime a dozen, but a decent forest gnome culture with built in lore is rather hard to find. '

The Ibben are the asoiaf version of the fantasy dwarf. However in the books they are mostly sailors rather then the miners that dwarves are usually portrayed as in most works of fiction. In the books that cannot have children with humans, but in my homebrew setting all half dwarves are welcome

btw I decided to reflavor the Simic Combine guild from Ravnica as a bronze age version of Monarch. The group of monster obsessed scientist from the most recent Godzilla films. I'm still working out the details but as of right now I'm thinking that the faction makes most of its money from creating potions, and poisons harvested from monsters that they breed.
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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The Amplified Mobility Platform is my favorite live-action mech. I used to watch Gundam as a teenager, but for the most part giant robot anime usually don't get me to excited. However the mechs in James Cameron's Avatar film are my favorite part of the movie. The machine isn't ridiculously tall, and the controls don't seem overly confusing. Also the Mech has a rugged appearance. Which I like because the design seems to be more functional then the flashy over the top designs found in other mechs from various media. I've never served in the armed forces, but from my amateur vantage point it just seems like something a future military would use.

For my homebrew world the Mech will be a reskinned Stahlmaster. A Mech found in the Explorers Guide to Wildemount book, and renamed as the "Arcane Mobility Platform". Basically Elves long ago created 'Blade-singer' Mechs. Four designs survive into the present campaign timeline. The "AMP" a human shaped Mech, "Voltron" a large feline shaped mech which is faster, but slightly more fragile then the "AMP" version, and finally "Yggdrasil" a long snake shaped Mech which can both tunnel through solid rock, and gracefully skim across the oceans. Lastly the 'Ornithopter' less of a Mech and more of a cross between a World War 1 era dogfighter and a helicopter.

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To me the Na'vi are basically James Cameron's version of wood elves. As a culture they live off the land, and can 'bond' with both plant, and animal life found within their forest. This movie is one of the highest grossing films of all time and these guys, and their stunning homeland is a very big reason why. For my homebrew this culture of giants will be off limits to players during character creation, and I will mainly be treating the Na'vi as antagonist whom distrust all non elves, and look down their blue noses at their elven brethren. Literally
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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I love this series. For just the world building alone this show is amazing. Not only are all four of the cultures distinct from one another, but the supernatural elements are handled beautifully. However this show has some of the best action scenes I have ever seen. It's first three seasons are pure gold. I realize some people within the fandom have negative views on the Legend of Korra. Personally I didn't think the second series was perfect, but I can understand why people enjoy it.

The Tadorei campaign setting book co-written by Matt Mercer includes a background called the Ashari which are highly inspired by the benders found in ATLA. It's main feature is a elemental cantrip. Four element monks will have additional options to reflect the advanced bending techniques from the show, although their wont be a avatar in my Homebrew so the players have additional options.

The four air nomad temples, Earth kingdom, and southern water tribe lands are going to be featured heavily in my Homebrew, but I'll modify the map by changing city names to keep the players on their toes. The Spirit world will also exist however everything other then the two portals found in the Legend of Korra will be discarded from my lore.

EDIT: I might consider using the sanity rolls found within the DMG, Azula's character arc was amazing
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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Attack the block is a often overlooked movie. I've loved it since my first viewing, but the reason I re-watch this movie as much I do is because of these creepy blue jawed bastards. The sound effects these monsters make when their on screen is great. They aren't ever given a proper name in the film, and after doing some searching on the net I found out this aliens are basically blind hybrid bear/gorilla's. In the film they locate prey through scent however in my Homebrew they will terrify opponents through echolocation which includes a fear effect

I feel like if I include these monsters in my game then I should do something with those glowing blue teeth. My first thought was to make them a special material component for spells, but I kind of already had that spot reserved for the Spice Melange found in Dune. Also theses monsters would make good pets for a medusa since they wouldn't be effected by her gaze attack. Also I meant to add this to my earlier post about Avatar the Last Airbender but I love the idea of hybrid animals existing throughout my Homebrew. Thankfully I was reminded with this monster.
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

I've been flipping through Eberron Rising from the Last War. Chapter 1 includes a section on Dragonmarks. For those unfamiliar Dragonmarks are symbols etched on a persons skin in colors more vivid than any tattoo, magical power made flesh. It enhances the user's ability to perform certain tasks, and no one can buy or choose to develop a Dragonmark. The book only mentions twelve known marks, but the lore includes room for 13 and each is tied to the bloodlines within a specific species.

At last count I had 64 playable races in my homebrew world. I want some of the lesser known races to get these dragonmarks. Mainly to make space for them in the lore, but also because I honestly don't want to shove Minotaur's, and Centaurs into one corner of my World map were the players will rarely encounter a town or city full of them. I want to fully embrace the quirkier racial options in my Homebrew by making them the owners of 'mega-corporations'. However I don't want to fully alienate potential player's so out of the twelve I'll allow 9 of the Dragonmarks to be options for any player regardless of their bloodline. Speaking of nine I was watching a anime recently ...

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Attack on Titan features 9 titan shifters. Actually let me back up and explain a bit about the show. Nude giants with a healing factor have a taste for human flesh, and can only be killed by nearly decapitating them. The last city on the planet has been safe from the monsters for about 100 years having built three tall walls to protect themselves. They have devised a clever tool which basically allows them to swing around, and stick to walls sorta like Spider-Man called the ODM gear, but of course something goes wrong because its a anime. Lucky for the inhabitants of the city one of their own finds the power within to turn himself into a giant. He does battle with the enemy but over the course of several seasons the audience learns that their are 8 other people around the globe who have discovered how to get big.

I'm skipping over a lot of details but that is pretty much the gist of the show. I'll mainly be taking the titan shifters, and ODM gear from the series. The gear will give the players a slight speed boost, and a solid climb speed. The Titan shifters will all by NPC's however. I'll probably also give the giants in my Homebrew a healing factor, and some pants
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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Battlestar Galactica the reimagined series is one of my top five sci-fi series. Until I recently watched season 5 of the Expanse. BSG stood out from star trek, and other spaceships shows by being hard sci-fi. The fact that the mechanics fixed the ships with regular screwdrivers, and wrenches. Is huge for me. Even as a kid when I was watching Star Trek the Next Generation with my dad whenever one of the 'mechanics' with the yellow trimmed space pajamas broke out a hand terminal to fix massive damage to the Enterprise it took me out of the show. I appreciate how gritty the show felt because the show-runners took the time to make the repairs feel 'real'. Especially for a show like BSG were ever battle mattered. Because the crew of that ship were basically the last humans left in the galaxy. Take a show like Star Trek Voyager which sorta had a similiar premise. None of their battles entertained me like BSG, because whenever the Voyager got bust up it seemed like the mechanics would just wave their hand terminals over the damage and by the end of the episode the ship was as good as new.

I really like how the skin-job Cylons could infiltrate society. Realistically they probably wouldn't have such a low number of models, but given the nature of the show and actors contracts I understand that the Cyclons couldn't have a different face each episode, but for my Homebrew Cylons will basically be a mix of warforged, and changelings mechanically. I imagine they rearrange their facial features like the silver terminator from T-2 Judgement Day. I'm also a fan of Caprica. The BSG prequel spin-off that only lasted a season. I like how the show-runners expanded the lore with the 12 colonies. 7 languages were added, and each of the few colonies they showed looked distinct from each other. For my Homebrew I'll add the languages, and explain to my players how humanity ended up adrift in space in a dozen giant generational ships before reaching my Planet.
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

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I first discovered the Berserk franchise on Netflix. Within the the first five minutes of the movie the fight chorography hooked me. The rest of the day I watched the entire trilogy. Thankfully I didn't spoil the twist ending for myself by searching the internet. I usually prefer anime with larger character rosters, but Berserk resolves around a big three. A brute with a big sword, a charismatic leader of man, and a fierce female warrior. Within a week I was viewing clips from the 90's version of the anime on Youtube, and reading the manga. The art is both beautiful, and disturbing. It isn't for everyone but I enjoy it

One of the things I love about Berserk is how it introduces it's supernatural elements. A lot of the monsters are men, and women who willing sacrifice something they value for power. With the use of a Beherit anyone can use blood magic to became a serious threat to the stories protagonist by being able to blend in with normal citizens yet also able to transform into a terrifying beast who feeds on human flesh. A Beherit is reusable although most people don't retain enough of their humanity after their initial transformation to have something or someone they care enough about to warrant a viable sacrifice for the Beherit. I will be using this in my Homebrew campaign because I personally believe this magic item can contribute to all three pillars of play. Especially the combat and social ones, but also exploration since the players will have to investigate to discover the 'hidden' monster.
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

For simplicity sake the technology in my homebrew will be divided into 3 tiers. Bronze age era villages, Iron age era towns, and pre-industrial revolution era cities. The items Merchants sell will depend on were my players encounter them. Iron will be rare,
and shoddy weapons, and armor will be abundant. Equipment bought from villages will quickly break if not maintained, and will do less damage. Merchants found in towns will sell the standard gear found within the Players handbook which is durable. Gunpowder and steam-punk gadgets can be purchased in Cities, but they are quite expensive. I'll use a random table to generate what traveling merchants will offer on the road.

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I don't believe I've ever played the video game Castlevania, and if I did it was so long ago I don't remember. Resident Evil is the only horror video game I have found memories of, but I do enjoy the anime adaption of Castlevania. So far I watched three seasons, and
I can't find many flaws. The action is well done, and the dialogue doesn't drag. I really enjoyed the "Speaker Arc" from the first season. A group of traveling nomads who collect stories, spread goodwill, and targeted by those in a position of authority. I love them,
and will definitely be using these guys in The Uncannyverse. Along with the Devil Forge masters featured in season two. The concept of a blacksmith who shapes metal during the day, and creates devils out of corpses after midnight is great. I will limit the total number
of devils a character can control to their proficiency bonus.
MacynSnow
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by MacynSnow »

So....A max of 8, as that's as high as a Prof.Bonus ever get's in D&D 5e?
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

MacynSnow wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 4:44 am So....A max of 8, as that's as high as a Prof.Bonus ever get's in D&D 5e?
Actually it will be less then that since I'm capping the levels for players at 12. and these will be devils not just undead skeletons and zombies. I will go into further details after I get off work but my next post will be dealing with the comic book influences for my homebrew. Which include the walking dead
Uncanny
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Uncanny »

@MacynSnow: Thanks for the interest, and to answer your question. I value quality of quantity. The Devil Forgemaster of the Uncannyverse is a background available to anybody with a tool proficiency which includes a knife or hammer. Meaning npc carpenters, cobblers , jewelers, leatherworkers , masons , potters, smiths, and wood carvers could potentially have a small squad of devils at their command.

Also because its just a background any player is welcome to choose the class of a wizard necromancer. Instead of the usual feature most background receive, the Forgemaster be able to perform a ritual on a corpse, after dividing their character level by four a CR appropriate Devil will spawn and serve.

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The Walking Dead displayed some brutal violence in it's pages. Robert Kirkman did somewhat similar things with his book Invincible, but something about the action in black & white just gives it a bit more flavor for me. I feel the same way about the Berserk manga. I don't know maybe it's just me because I also enjoy the Kill Bill scene were the bride fights the crazy 88 which also takes place in black & white. I know it was done to censor the violence but having re-watched that scene in color. I enjoy the original more.

What I'm ripping off for my Homebrew is the disease it's self. Whenever someone dies in the Uncannyverse unless their soul is claimed by a higher power they will raise up as the undead within 10 days. I will make a d10 roll behind the screen. If this happens to a player they have to make a new character.

Some of you might be thinking why anyone would play a necromancer in the Uncannyverse when the dead self raise within a month ? Well create undead is a 6th level spell. Using Strongholds & Followers a player can cast the same spell at 5th level in some buildings and special sites found around the campaign world. The 150 gp onyx stone that the spell requires for each raised corpse will act as a soul gem for those familiar with the Elder scrolls franchise. For those who aren't basically each corpse will raise with one of three supernatural gifts found in book Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Anvilwrought (Iron skelton/warforged), Nyxborn (Resistance to radiant & necrotic damage) , and the Lifelong Companion (Aura against being charmed or frightened) I will go into more detail when I post about Elder scrolls , and Terminator influenced the Uncannyverse
Hoid
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by Hoid »

This many influences melded into one? This....will be epic! I’ll avidly follow this thread!
MacynSnow
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Re: [D&D5e] The Uncannyverse

Post by MacynSnow »

So how does Command/Turn Undead work in the Uncannyverse?
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