Dorning · A World for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Dorning
A world where the usual order of fantasy is turned on its head — and humanity is the one on its knees.
In Dorning, the Elves and the Dwarves are the old, entrenched, “civilized” powers — wealthy, literate, deeply allied, and utterly convinced of their own superiority. Humanity is the defeated underclass.
A little over a century ago, three human kingdoms united under a single Emperor and marched on the Elven and Dwarven lands. They very nearly won. They lost. In the aftermath the Alliance razed the human kingdoms to the ground, stopped just short of extermination, and herded the survivors into a supervised frontier the civilized races dismissively call “Pig Land.” There the remnants of a once-proud people are meant to farm, behave, and be grateful.
What the Codex Holds
Alignments, currency, classes and multiclassing, races, and ability scores — everything a player needs to make someone worth following into Pig Land.
Three great pantheons — of the People, the Sky, and the Ground — alongside the monotheistic gods who reject them. Faith is politics here.
Millennia of reckoning up to the present day — the rise of the Alliance, the human Emperor’s doomed war, and the razing that made the world as it stands.
Kingdoms and peoples, cities and villages, ruins best left alone, and the geography that shaped who rules and who serves.
The starting hub, mapped street by street — its points of interest, its factions, and the notable folk who might help you or hang you.
The tongues of Dorning and the player-facing knowledge every survivor carries — the world as its people understand it.
A campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, by James Robert Haller · A personal, unofficial work
Want to Walk the Frontier?
Dorning is being rebuilt in the open. Ideas, questions, or a desire to play in it — bring them to the realm.
Talk Dorning in the Discord