I have been worldbuilding the last few months instead of actually gaming. The Glimmermark still does not feel ready to actually play in, I am still trying to figure out how to fit the building blocks I have into a coherent whole.
One of the core building blocks is this principle: there’s only going to be one of each.
Which means there will not be oodles of huge monsters just walking around.
The Glimmermark is supposed to be your archetypal borderland (the center even a version of the famous keep), an empty land that once could have been called one of the heartlands of the old empire, before it fell, or rather slowly disintegrated, eating itself up in a series of long lasting conflicts between the aristocracy and local tribesmen.
So there’s not much left. But there’s also no huge realms of monsters. There are some scattered settlements of humanoid tribes (being slowly united by the lone dark wizard of the region), there are some lairs of huge beasts, the odd eldritch god or so lurking in the depths.
But there are no huge amounts of them. Sure the big monsters are in other places, but in the Glimmermark all of the big HD ones are the single local example. Like the Tarrasque, just on a regional scale.
You are not killing a manticore, you are killing Thrak the Dark Minion of Set.
Now this is not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a design principle I try to use when making this setting. If I come up with an idea, is there already a monster like this? Can I just use another monster? Does the first one need to be the type?
Examples:
- There is one (red) dragon. Her name among people is The Old Fire. She has been there for a very long time. People used to worship her, but that has faded away. Not that she cares.
- There is one Vampire. Well, there are a few lesser vampires in his employ, but he’s the head honcho. They call him the Baron. (Yeah, this is supposed to be a distillation of tropes, of course it’s Strahd)
- there is a single tribe of gnolls. They are in multiple locations, but they still are a single tribe.
- there is a single lich, he’s called Xiximanter. No nickname for him, people would freak if they knew how close he is (The Tomb of the Serpent Kings is in place of the Cave of the Unknown)
- there is a single minotaur family, one rules in the palace inside the Caverns of Thracia, the other schemes against his/her father in the Caves of Chaos