Inspiration, as it is wont to do, struck unexpectedly today, and I've jotted down some half-baked ideas that I've had for a long time, for my next (long-belated) D&D game. I'm starting with a vague historical outline, ancient and recent, after which I'll shift gears to bottom-up world-building mode by sketching up a sandbox map and dotting it with interesting stuff, including one or more dungeons.

I've debated starting a blog or posting it here. I'm posting it here because I want feedback, but if anyone thinks I should have this on blog for whatever reason, let me know.

Nothing terribly original, mind you, but here it goes.

I. Ancient History

It's all the Elves' fault, of course.

The world was young and the race of Man younger when the Elves came from their homeworld, Arcadia, once a lush paradise, which was ravaged by their careless tampering with vast magical forces. [Think of them as equal parts Moorcock's Melniboneans and Burroughs' Red Men of Mars, with the outward appearance and aesthetics of Tolkien's Elves.] Though they were not without honor, and profoundly appreciative of beauty and contemplation, they were also a ruthless race of conquerors, equally versed in warfare and sorcery.

But they were not alone; through the gates followed the Goblin, their enemies from time immemorial. Goblin oral tradition claims that Arcadia (for which they have some other name) was the Goblin homeworld, and that the Elves were not native to it, but came also as conquerors from a vast empire that spanned the stars and the darkness of the night sky. The Goblin fled the same hecatomb, countless millennia of war and hate fanned anew by the eldricht fires that consumed fair Arcadia.

Physiologically, Goblins are eusocial mammals like the naked mole rat. Unlike the mole rat, though, they display marked heteromorphism, with a worker caste (goblins), a soldier caste (hobgoblins) and holy-crap-look-at-the-size-of-that-thing caste (bugbears). Though some claim bugbears aren't "true" goblins, but a creation of the Elves that rebelled and found refuge in the warrens beneath Arcadia with the Goblin race.

Because long before the Elves set foot on Tellus, they had mastered the esoteric science of creating and transforming life. They could combine beasts and sentient life (never Elves, though, that would be crass) into strange new creations that all too often bred true. With them came the Chimaera, and Griffon, and Hippogriff (majestic steeds of ancient elven nobility), and their ruthless living weapons, their prized Owlbears.

The Elves settled the lands that came to be known as those of the Empire of the Emerald Throne, and the race of Man soon learned to fear and avoid their exquisite cities of rich alabaster and airy architecture. Only the Dwarves, then at the height of their own empire beneath the earth, braved the Elven fastnesses, traded with them, and even allied against the short-lived but prolific invading Goblins who burrowed their way into the Dwarven domains.

But conflict was inevitable, and in due time Elves and Dwarves marched against one another. It was then that veritable armies of hybrid man-beast soldiers were unleashed against the Dwarves, many bred from human stock such as the cold-blooded Lizard Men, the bloodthirsty Gnolls with their mocking laughter, and the mighty Manticore -- deadlier even than the Owlbear, with its rending jaws and venomous sting. But the most numerous and deadliest of all were the fierce Orc, created from boar and human stock.

The Elves lost their empire and their magnificent cities, and sought refuge either with the nascent civilization of Men, or in the ancient forests that first gave them shelter. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Dwarves, though, whose horrific devastation of the magnificent Elven cities made them abandon sorcery for good and led to the rise of a ruthless theocratic regime which ultimately drove their own sophisticated culture into stagnation.

Graver still was the problem of the Elves' monstruous armies, suddenly set loose upon the world, where they wreaked havoc amongst the embattled survivors from bothy sides. Pushed back into the wilderness with the help of the young kingdoms of Men, to this day they plague all civilized races.