Creative World Building

[PlotHolio]

This is going in Chit Chat because it's not what you think.

My friend wants me to design a fantasy world for his D&D campaign because he knows I'm awesome at that (Dost thou toot thine own horn? You do indeed, sir!).

My only question is, how many creative liberties should I take with it?

He gave me very basic guidelines:

--3 Kingdoms of Men
--2 Kingdoms of Elves
--1 Kingdom of Dwarves
--1 Tribe of Werewolves
--Small sub-continent

I can do a lot with that, but his exact words when asking me to do this were "Think Australia," which I take to mean small round-ish lump of land with no discernible geographic features.

I'm not saying Australia is boring (or a sub-continent), but when looked at on a map, it does have relatively few "unique" geographic features besides Ayers Rock and the Great Fence of Rabbits (one of those has no place in a fantasy setting, and I'm not counting the GBR because it's technically in the ocean).

 

[Saigonnus]

So jazz it up some more with some unique geographic features, make the races unique and go to town on the world building.

 

[Subcreator]

If you're going more for Australia's climate, I'd put the elves in Canberra region (northern subtropical), but that's partially because I put my own elves in a Carolinas/Georgia climate and made them, well, not your typical elvish culture. Basically, elves and dwarves are a pretty good fantasy template, which I think you can have a bit of liberty with. If not, I'm screwed.

As for the region itself, another idea for an Australian flair is to include elements of the Dreamtime. I've never done anything with it, but being a U.S. American, I've had other cultural considerations. I could see elves really having something to do with it, and if you make werewolves more than simply the bestial monsters that some make them, perhaps even the race that's connected with the Dreamtime, (which is animistic by nature) that would be really interesting.

Dreamtime on Wikipedia

 

[PlotHolio]

The issue is I don't know if he means that he wants to keep it basic or not. He may have already figured out the races and just wants me to make a landmass and slap some nations on it, but he's notoriously impossible to find on campus so I can't ask him myself.

Basically what I'm asking is, if you were a DM, what would you want me to do with this?