D&D Fifth Edition appears to use the Forgotten Realms as the default setting. For me, however, FR just comes with too much baggage: an intricate history, many novels of existing lore, and the sense that this world already has its heroes. Players will tend to see the world through their own lenses after playing through so many other games in that universe. Since Wizards of the Coast clearly has all sorts of copyrights and trademarks around this world, we can’t publish much in terms of derivative work.
I recently sponsored two different campaign setting books on Kickstarter, Southlands by Kobold Press and Karthun by Exploding Rogue Studios. Neither should arrive for quite some time. The target dates are in May and November 2015, respectively.
So what campaign setting should I use for a Microlite20 campaign? I started developing for the as-yet-unlaunched Madness of Iliasha campaign to fill this hole, but this calls for something simpler. A plane of existence with no surface world has lots of implications that need a bit more thought. The work I’ve done thus far can still find application, though, by connecting to another more typical setting in the future as an underworld in sort of a “hollow earth” model.
One of my favorite games ever, Dwarf Fortress references lots of common fantasy tropes and does a fantastically detailed job of world generation. In fact, most of the creatures not procedurally generated already exist in the d20 SRD. Many of them even have simplified Microlite20 versions already! This allows me to spend my time filling in or adusting remaining details with other tools instead.
The next post in this series will discuss how to get started in using DF as a campaign setting tool and some of the lessons I’ve learned so far.
Technoskald's Forge 
I like to say “There’s nothing forgotten about the Forgotten Realms.” Thanks to decades of world building the setting’s name doesn’t even make sense anymore. It’s an OK setting in my experience, just bland. I really wish D&D would branch out to some other settings. Of course they probably won’t do that until they can squeeze no more cents out of their licensing with Salvatore.
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