Character Creation & Combat house rules (Word97 doc)The Broken World was once the basic D&D world of Mystara. Thousands of years ago, it broke apart into hundreds of worldlets. Each of these worldlets is surrounded by an unbreakable crystal sphere and resembles a gigantic terrarium floating in space, with rock, earth, and water gathered in the “bottom” half of the sphere, and air in the “top” half. These miniature worlds range in size from several dozen to several hundred miles across.
High-level spells allow travel between the worldlets, but the more common means of transport is via the para-magical vortexes. Some of these are fixed (usually in remote locations) forming “gates” to another worldlet. Most, however, are “wild vortexes” that appear and disappear at random.
The higher level spells in this campaign are relatively “brittle.” Higher level spells are easier to disrupt and dispel, and are more vulnerable to anti-magic effects than lower level ones. It is possible (and in fact common) for an area to be “warded” against high-level spells while allowing lower level spells to operate normally. For that matter, the entire system is warded against spells higher than 9th level – epic and deity-level spells don’t work there.
The campaign is intended to be low-lethality. Many of the house rules are aimed at making death uncommon, at least for elite player-character types. In particular, the high-level “save or else” spells and magical effects have been systematically nerfed. It is the DM’s view that battles between high-level foes should be lengthy epic events, rather than quick-draw contests where the character who wins initiative gets to say “Surprise!” ZAP! “You’re dead!”
Campaign Notes & House Rules
Character Creation & Combat house rules (Word97 doc)
Feats notes & house rules (Word97 doc)
Skills notes & house rules (Word97 doc)
Spells notes & house rules (Word97 doc)
Magic Items Price List & Notes (Word97 doc)
Religions & Deities of the Broken World (Word97 doc)
A brief tour of some of the known worldlets (Word97 doc)