So I ended up going down a Youtube rabbit hole, and got on to one of the reptoid conspiracy theories... and I got thinking.

TL;DR - Which is cooler for the opposing kingdom, fire worshipers manipulated by the Efreeti Sultans, or a fake fire cult secretly run by Yuan-Ti?

I started the campaign intending it as a hexcrawl, so I mapped things out in a broad sense, filling in details like an old video game - it doesn't exist until the PCs put eyes on it.

Short version (as short as I can do easily) of the campaign setup:  

The long standing elvish kingdom (Blaenevon) was swarmed by a seemingly endless orcish horde who came over the northern mountains, armed with captured dwarven weapons and were beating the living hell out of them.

The elves fought their best, but were loosing desperately.  The Grand High Arcanist dismissed all but his personal guard, and did -something- that killed everything for miles around, and soon the wave of death spread, and the corruption seemingly continued.  Over the next centuries, the land itself died.  Most elves took to their ships, and vanished to the west.

I'm using the Council of Worms Pantheon - the dragon gawds are the official pantheon for most of the world, with high elves being either atheistic or having some sort of stylized ancestor worship, and a fair amount of the 'old faith' (druidic) worshipers scattered about all cultures.  [Side note - I may shift into a full Council of Worms setting - where the elves that sailed west found the 'official' CoW landmasses.  I'm currently running the party through a heavily modded Tyranny of Dragons, so when the horn is blown, there could be a metric ASSLOAD of dragons en route.]

Over the years, Braesenia grew into the void from a minor client state of Blaenevon (the current royal family is related to the elvish noble line).  Braesenia has a lot of half-elvish nobles, is seen as a puppet state to the (metallic) dragons that live in the kingdom as advisors, military generals etc.  Celtic and welsh flavor, with draconic themes.  The PCs come from here.

To the south, Marignon meanwhile grew into a powerhouse - the cult of the eternal flame rose to dominance, where the belief is that non-fire magic draws heat from the world, speeding its eventual demise, where as fire magic slows and can reverse the cooling.  Straight up ripped off from the Dominions series, they have a spanish/mediterranean flavor.  They're ruled by the flame cults, possibly Genasi (fire obviously) Efreeti and Salamanders are seen openly on the streets.  That's about all the PCs know about them, but they've also been hearing rumblings that they have also been settling the 'lost lands'.  

Well, recently it's been discovered that the lands of the former elvish kingdom have actually been coming back to life - what was thought (for the past five hundred years) previously a blasted wasteland is turning into a fertile prairie, with rumored pockets of super-fertile lands.  Having a blood connection to the ruling family of the former elvish kingdom, the King of Braesenia immediately claimed dominion, and issued land grants to any freemen that could take land in the territory.  The military being spread thin, they also issued guild charters, and set them to the task of protecting the west.

Yeah, very much old school, wild frontier (psuedo-idealized American Western) re-framed with purtian-esque halfling wagon trains, nearly MMO style guilds as 'marshals'.

They've learned that people have been living in the badlands, with a loose confederation of seven 'Sorcerer Kings' ruling over a small presumably oppressed populace.  (To help tie in any rolled up settlements, and give multiple bad guys to roll up on.)

Ugh.  So wall of text.  Thanks anyone that made it this far, I just wanted to set the scene.  Things being loose, I can play with things alot.  I have more details, but that should be enough to chew on.

So on to the silly reptoid idea; since the Mauries are loosely defined, I'm debating for the fun of it swapping in 'secret reptoid' rulers by way of using the Yuan-ti; where the flame cult is all just a sham to control the human populace.  

I never really used Yuan-ti post Monster Manual II, glancing at their write up, the human-looking ones are still at the bottom of their internal hierarchy; so the true secret masters would LITERALLY be underground.

If you haven't done a "snake illuminati" campaign, go for the Yuan-Ti. I've never done the Fire Cult with Efreet rulers idea so that sounds great to me. However, the idea of a fire cult being controlled secretly by Yuan-Ti has a cool aspect for the PCs to uncover, and would be fun to pull on the players.

I think open fire cult with secret reptilian overlords is just way cooler (figuratively) than the expected fire/elemental bosses like Efreet. Serpentmen posing as Efreet - use the 1e PHB cover image - "I am the Great God Oz! Worship my Fiery Name!"

You can have serpentman fire sorcerers using summoned/bound efreet too, so no missing out.

Yeah I'm loving the idea more I turn it around in my head, I was also trying to figure out a way to work in those I'm at work so the Name Escapes Me fire-lizard men have a custom Mount from fiend folio...

They literally spit Fireballs I can't remember what the hell they're called... having them as patsies allies or Servants of their Slinky cousins has slightly more appeal...

I appreciate the feedback positive and negative feedback (no negative yet) so I'm going to keep posting stuff about the world once I'm at a proper keyboard.

This is my first time home brewing a true World in about 20 years and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

Tenbones has me thinking the next campaign might be fantasycraft not 5e, but this world's going to have some legs if I have my say.

Apologies in advance for the rough posts that are done over the phone.

Quote from: LiferGamer;1139805Yeah I'm loving the idea more I turn it around in my head, I was also trying to figure out a way to work in those I'm at work so the Name Escapes Me fire-lizard men have a custom Mount from fiend folio...

They literally spit Fireballs I can't remember what the hell they're called... having them as patsies allies or Servants of their Slinky cousins has slightly more appeal...

Firenewts?

Quote from: S'mon;1139814Firenewts?

Yes by God fire newts that's exactly the thing I could not remember. I've been wanting to use them ever since I saw them win the fiend folio was a brand new book but I've never been able to fit them into a campaign.

I'm not at all interested in Yuan-ti, so the Efreet cult gets my vote.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1139903I'm not at all interested in Yuan-ti, so the Efreet cult gets my vote.

Yeah, I might be going overboard with cults being three layers deep... Secret cults have been a big theme in the setting... the devastation turns out to be the Grand High Arcanist ripping open the gateway to the Abyss they were siphoning [magic] power from.

Yes, the plot for Doom.  I'm a Hack.  

So there's tons of small cults running around with demon lords whispering in their ears to find a way to break the wards around the capital and set free their particular big-bad... when a far more organized, better funded cult started figuring out it'd be easier for them to 'dial the gate' to their big bad, Tiamat - which is how I segued into Tyranny of Dragons.

I'll move the campaign setting discussion/world building to Design, Development, and Gameplay