The Land and the King Are One!
A line taken from the 1981 epic Excalibur, a beautiful mess of a movie.
The concept is old in fantasy. The land grows when the king is good. The crops flourish and the people prosper when the king and the land are united in purpose.
In most role-playing games I’ve played, the characters advance in power due to experience points and at higher levels can do space and time bending spells.
I always disliked the notion in the Wizards Of The Coast 5th Edition products, that the player characters are small fry, and that there is a 5th level wizard waiting in every tavern, that every town has a 7th-9th level priest, and the lords of each city are powerful not only in money but in levels just like the characters.
In the old products of TSR, the NPCs were also hanging around and way more powerful than the PCs. The Village of Hommlet springs to mind, where Rufus and Burne (VERY HIGH LEVEL) are sat chilling in Hommlet, whilst the characters go investigating the Elemental Evil. Why aren’t they solving the problems plaguing the region? There are lots of answers that all make sense for a time, but not for EVERY TIME and every problem. The powerful NPCs have bigger issues to deal with, the NPCs want to use the PCs, etc etc.
I therefore love the idea of the land growing as magic grows or magic growing as the land grows. None know which grows first, only that they compliment each other.
So as the characters grow in level, so do the villains, so does the land, and stronger creatures start to awaken from the depths of the fallen empires.
No higher level NPCs?
Obviously higher level NPCs exist, just not so many that are drastically higher, only those who are kings, court wizards, a high priests of cults. I select about 3-7 NPCs in the whole land that are way more powerful than the PCs. The rest grow alongside the PCs, garnering experience from the land and the creatures residing in it.
Other more powerful creatures and NPCs are buried in the ruins of these fallen empires that the PCs explore, and in melting the ice, they awaken them, whatever they are - a wizard in stasis, a dragon in an one hundred year sleep or a species of ancient snake people.
Why are the dragons slumbering? Why are the giants not ruling the kingdoms of men? Why aren’t the high elf magicians in power over all?
There has to be a reason, ask yourself why in your campaign? They must be dormant, the PCs are low level and with their magic and their meddling and investigations, they start to awaken the power in the land…
All Dungeons & Dragons is based on the pretext that great empires existed before the one they live in, just as they did in our own world.
Why else would there be magic swords in lost ruins? They are in 7th Century Arabia and the Romans fell long ago, leaving their ruins and secrets to be discovered.
High Magic Games?
If dragons are already awake, then they rule the world. As a DM, build your Elf Empire, construct your Illithid Colonies, there’s no way that men or halflings would rule anything.
I can understand the appeal of high level games, as it can get wild, but ultimately there is very little room for a meaningful story unless the game began as a low magic game. I never want to turn the spectacular into redundant and the magnificent into mundane.
The High Magic Is Birthed By The Players
The high level games can become meaningful if the PCs and the land around them was a low level game to begin with.
That doesn’t just mean starting at a low level, that means everything around them begins at a low level. The village they begin in must be but a few hovels, with a tavern and a church, then it grows into a trade route, which grows into a town, which then grows into a walled town, then a collection of villages outside this walled town…
Trust me when I say that the players will love to see this growth.
They will love to see their favourite tavern, that was a jumbled together wreck, become a bastion of life in the community.
They will visit old locations just to see what progress or regress has happened there. The ruin of mountain goblins they cleared out is now a valley dwarf castle, they are rebuilding the stones and reworking the forges. This active and reactive change of the land around your players will spark their imaginations. THEY can change the world. They will actively seek to do so, giving them more agency.
It usually ties into the idea of magic growing, civilisation building.
It has always been a very important concept in my campaigns and will probably always be so!
Obviously the fantasy trope is played with and reversed so as not to be a one-note Dungeon Master, but I have always found the best campaigns are the ones where the player characters’ actions have consequence, and them blundering around causes worldwide change… over time.
How does this manifest in play?
The more powerful spells they cast, the more the land awakens, the more creatures start interfering with civilisation.
If they cast a Contact Other Plane spell, the Plane will start contacting others too, with dreams of conquest and prophecy.
If they cast a Raise Dead spell, they have cheated Death itself, and Death wants its silver coins (Only Death Can Pay For Life).
If they cast Plant Growth on the crops around their home village, it kickstarts a change in the land, and the rivers that flow through their land also flow through others, and the grey empty forest becomes a twisted, monster-filled labyrinth.
Various factions across the country or map are trying to rebirth magic, various factions are trying to hinder it. Men, who are not so powerful as elves, would mostly try to hinder it, except for those traitors who seek power above all. Witches would try to control the rebirth of magic, to have a balance, for they are ancient and used to the rise of fall of empires.
This will not stop the players casting the spells, it will only help your world feel real, with simple cause and effect play. Do not punish them so harshly, just remind them now and again that the cost of magic is great, that the land and magic they draw from it are one.
Conclusion
The Land And The Players Are One, and they will love you for it! And if that player should become King…?
Lord Gim the Great Bishop of Suojus cast his planar spell, and before him a portal opened to a glade of cold sunlight, with giant pale horses galloping across its fields.
Dilax the Illusionist watched as the fabric of nature was slowly being torn apart by his best friend’s weaving. Their planar travel was opening permanent rifts across the world, dragging in entities and races never before seen by the eyes of men, dwarves or elves.
“By Suojus!” swore Lord Gim in his native dwarfish, “I would take one of those horned horses as a pet! Look at how they ride!”
Dilax sighed at at his friend’s naivety. “You can’t take everything you see as a pet. They are probably of a higher intelligence than you…” the gnome spoke in his patronising tone, shaking his head in humour.
They stepped through to the safety of the unicorn’s glade, and saw the Palace of the Cold Sun in the distance, floating on golden clouds. Though they jested, both of their minds dwelled on the darkness they had let in, somewhere, someplace, upon their own world.