In last night’s Dungeons and Dragons game, I left my heart — and my seventh-level Fighter — in Xen’drik.
Xen’drik, for the uninitiated, is a continent in the fantasy world of Eberron. While the default “players start here” continent is full of high magic, international politics, and the exciting complexities of civilization, Xen’drik is a wilderness full of pulpy delights:
- Volcanoes housing ancient lairs? Check.
- Lost cities hidden in the vast desert? Check.
- Steaming jungles populated by giant four-armed apes? Check and check!
As both my character and I fell in love with the continent, I realized it was because nothing is mundane on Xen’drik.
No matter where we went, there were discoveries to made, ancient mysteries to solve, and strange new creatures to encounter. None of it was anything we’d seen before. It was all marvelously exotic.
…Which got me thinking about the exotic and the mundane in world-building. This is something I’ve pondered, in a general sort of way, while working on Karthador (a setting that oozes exotic from every pore). But as the Xen’drik campaign comes to a close, and I start revisiting Karthador, I think it’s a topic worth examining in a little more depth.
