WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS - A CAMPAIGN INTRO

Below is what I wrote as the intro to the setting of my upcoming Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Before you crucify me for running 5e, it's my second campaign ever as DM, this system is what I learned on, and yes, I did buy the books for The Epic of Dreams, Whitehack, Bastards., Rogueland, and such - and I'll stop making excuses as well. For all its issues, I like 5e pretty well, and it's what my players like playing too. I assure myself by making sure I do a lot to make it more than just another D&D game, and have pulled a lot to make it more rules-lite and evocative (thanks in no small part to learning from The Epic of Dreams' character imagination and Saga mentality).

I believe it was Strider who said "A day may come when I get my friends into the OSR, but it is not this day."

In any case, after having a lightbulb moment in a casual Instagram DM chat about Shel Silverstein several months ago, I started plugging away on this incomplete, but full-of-potential setting. Nearly everything is homebrewed, piecing together a patchwork of names, locations, creatures, concepts, and  flavor drawn from, basically, a wild combination of

• the absurd and heartfelt poems of Shel Silverstein, and
• the world-rending powers and light-amid-so-much-dark of Elden Ring.

I'll get more into my inspirations in a future post, and maybe one day we'll see this campaign setting actually released (!?) but for now I'll stop needlessly defending myself and just give you the description.

...

Hidden in a valley between the worlds lies a secret and unique land - a reality between realities and land between lands, unreached by even the gods, the bounds of which escape all but myth and fable - which is known by only a few sages of our realm as the place...

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS.

Time draws nigh on thirty-three years since this land was shrouded in darkness. THE GIVING TREE, which once stood bright and proud over the realm as the lifesource of the land, was destroyed in THE UPROOTING, a calamity of cause unknown, and its shards were taken by beings who craved power.

Clerics and paladins of The Tree, now few in number, walk the land in hiding, holding on to what little life the rooted earth still holds, blaming the greed of humanity for the fall of the tree.

Magic users, other than the POWERFUL ONES who hold the shards of the tree, are harder still to find. The ones that remain are those with magic in their blood, those in tune with the dwindling natural world, and those who've learned to manipulate THE STATIC energy of the universe.

Mercenaries, outlaws, and would-be heroes often travel from place to place, finding work in small villages or in FALLINGUP, the last remaining city.

Rumors say there is yet a shred of untainted life deep in the YELLOW WOOD, though most attempts to find it never return.

Other strange beasts and folk wander the wilds of the STRAWBERRY FIELDS and MUDGLUMP SWAMPLANDS, but few save the truly powerful (or truly strange) dare venture close to the CIRCLE ROAD which surrounds the desolate crater in the continent's center, or too near to the menacing CASTLE OF NOW in the north.

AMID THE OVERWHELMING CHAOS, A SHRED OF ORDER REMAINS, AND BENEATH THE BLIGHTED EARTH, A SPARK OF LIFE YET GLITTERS.

TIME DRAWS SHORT, AND PRECIOUS FEW REMAIN WHO HAVE THE HEART TO TRY TO BRING THE WORLD TO RIGHT.