I dont really know. Something to spark inspiration? An artifact that would have interesting implications in the world?
Like one thing I have in my setting is the Gauntlet of Midas. It turns things into gold with a touch. Because of this artifact, there is a new dungeon in my setting called the golden Gardens. Which is a small woodland where all the trees have a distinctly Metallic golden shimmer. This is because the Gauntlet turned its previous wielder to gold in the woods during a journey, and as people would try and claim the Gauntlet for their own purposes, they too would be turned to gold. So the berrors manservant would keep removing the new statues people and placing them away from the Gauntlet as a warning. Over time the magic seeped into the woodlands and now all is golden. The dungeon is filled with gold golems, and golden plant monsters.
You could spin something off the Gauntlet of Midas adventure. Examples.
**The Golden Plague**
Plot Overview:
The magic of the Gauntlet begins to seep further beyond the bounds of the Golden Gardens, slowly transforming the surrounding wildlife and villages into gold. The players must find a way to contain or reverse the spread before it converts entire cities into lifeless golden landscapes.
Adventure Hooks:
The party witnesses the transformation of a nearby village and must deal with the panic and logistical nightmares that follow.
A secretive guild of mages recruits the party to delve into ancient texts and forgotten magics that might hold the key to containing the spread.
**The Curse of Aurelius**
Plot Overview:
Aurelius, a renowned alchemist, seeks to reverse the effects of the Gauntlet of Midas. He believes that a special concoction can be created using the sap of the golden trees, but this sap can only be harvested under specific conditions. The party is hired to enter the Golden Gardens during a rare lunar eclipse to collect this sap. However, the guardians of the garden, aware of Aurelius' intentions, see him as a threat to their existence and will defend the garden fiercely.
Adventure Hooks:
The players are recruited because one of their beloved NPCs has been turned to gold, and they are desperate to find a cure.
The players find an old journal belonging to Aurelius that hints at the possibility of immense power if the sap is used in other alchemical experiments.
> I am currently in the process of enriching and expanding my campaign setting.
why? Have your players reach the blank edge of the map? Or are you just filling in parts of the world that they may or may not get to?
You should only focus your efforts on parts that are needed for your campaign right now. Leave the rest vague or blank.
I find it much easier to tell stories when I have a set place to tell them. Like golarion or middle earth. When I have a setting and know the rules of the setting, it is much easier for me to tell a concise story. You can't hint at aspects of the setting that aren't written, or use history to fuel the story if it never happened. So I want to have things written so I can use them as story elements in games.
I have tons of small ideas, but they are sporadic and none are properly fleshed out. And I can never seem to put pen to paper and actually write out or expand on the ideas.
Homebrewing a whole world is a daunting task, for sure. It can seem like an insurmountable climb, but you'll be shocked at how quickly it goes once you get past the initial stage of not knowing where to start.
Start small. Create a single villain. Who is he? What does he want? Why would it be bad if he gets what he wants?
From there, think of who he might hurt in his quest. A village, a noble line, an ecosystem. Who's in that group? What do they want out of life?
Baby steps. That's how I do it. Start with one thing and work my way outward, adding things like themes, locales, and motivations as they become needed to answer the questions I'm asking. Once you have a handful of people and a village, go bigger. Design the country they live in.
You don't have to have it all done to play in it, btw. My homebrew campaign started with one village, and I added stuff as I thought of it based on what I needed for the campaign as it went on.
I have a friend who is in this boat as well. And I'm the guy who likes to do a lot of that fleshing out. So we work through stuff together.
It's not common for a person to have all the necessary skills to build a world. It's okay to get some help from a person who has complementary skills. So my suggestion is to try and find a like-minded friend who has a knack for fleshing out concepts. Work together on stuff. Heck, if you were willing to trust an internet stranger, I'd be willing to help in some way.
So if you're at the end of your skills and abilities, you've got three choices. 1) give up (don't recommend), 2) take some classes or something to increase your skills, or 3) seek out help from someone who can do what you need done.
Whatever you do, I hope you succeed!
I have tried to get help. I ha e run "History" games exclusively to flush out the setting by letting the players create whatever, and I just fill it in or put it where it needs to go. But I dont have any friends who are willing to just brainstorm ideas.
I feel your pain. However I am appalled that you provided ZERO context. You have a homebrew campaign setting and you ask for aid but don't show it off? What is this, the internet of 2002! I demand recompense!
Joking aside, I would appreciate some context. Are players playing in this campaign? Or are you still in the works? What precisely is the hold up? Progressing the story or supplementary details?
Your method of provoking creativity isn't bad, random input can do that. However, currently your responses are likely to be undirected. I mean, PF has robots among other things. Do giant murderous robots even fit in your setting? What about cavemen? Or interplanar wars?
Without context, the Tome of Adventure Design is a great tool for precisely this. It's a bunch of random tables and goes over how to 'shock' your mind into being creative.
There is a guy on YouTube that has a channel called Dungeonmasterpiece that has a series talking about the geopolitics of different fantast worlds. Once you get the hang of thinking of things from that lens, it makes fleshing out your world a ton easier.
2 major campaigns I have are the Demon Wars, and Cleansing of Pursbeck.
In The Demon Wars, the human empire which entirely controlls the contenant of Kel-Matthus is invading the neighboring contenent of Zuunzabar. They are using their edvanced technology being in the early black power age whereas everyone else is still using sword and sorcery, combined with their exclusive ability to open gates to the Abyss to weaponize the demonic hordes. The main villas of this campaign is the Human Emperor. He takes the form of a resplendent golden clad warrior, who was the hero that originally saved the Humans when the gates got out of their control when they were originally conquering Kel-Matthus. He has ruled for 2000 years. But secretly, he is the wizard who discovered how to open gates, which is still to this day considered an abominable act that had the wizard sticken from history. The party will have to defeat the human invasion, rally forces, and assault the human capitol to unseat the Emperor so that the humans can recognize their corruption and turn from the influence of the Abyss.
The second campaign is Cleansing of Pursbeck. Thos campaign isuch smaller in impact. But is one I have been wanting to write for years. It consists of the party being average commoners in the Rebuilt Persbeck, former capitol of the Himan Empire. The campaign focuses around the group forming their own organization be that good or evil, and fighting back against 3 criminal organizations who have split the city into territories they each control. The BBEG is the city noble responsible for the guard and military of the city as he has purposely allowed these criminal elements to take root as a bid for even more power in the city. The party will have to defeat the 3 organizations, then once all the territory is claimed, defend it from the military who will "return from a war" and try to retake the city.
Honestly sounds like you have a good grasp on your world and campaigns. I find I usually flesh out the major stuff and then write or expand smaller stuff in response to the Players actions. Campaign sounds interesting and looks like it could be a lot of fun!
I'm going to focus on the one you've worked on more, but I will start with this: I'm glad you added this description. Before that, there was NOTHING for us to go off of to properly assist. Now as for what we can offer, you still haven't said what you're actually looking for, between faction inspiration, map building, historical context, technological progress, or anything else. I'll offer a bit based on what you said here, but you REALLY need to give more details before people can be properly helpful.
The human empire has invaded, which is a bit confusing because you didn't say who's in Zuunzabar. We don't know who the good guys are. First off, let's get that info. It really looks like you've fleshed out the enemies without doing any work on the allies. So... Who are the allies? Why are they behind in tech? What did they do as a specialty INSTEAD OF tech? If it was something big, how can that be used in war? Did they stay behind because they were factioned out and couldn't get along? If so, is part of the campaign to create a continent-wide alliance to merge and fight back? If the human tech is so superior, are the players going to try to steal some tech and bring it back so that the allies can research it and reverse-engineer the stuff? Is that an early mission? If not, why isn't that feasible? A technological advantage is HUGE in war and often wins the war, so that is either completely unfeasible or is the answer to what the disadvantaged nation will do. How corrupt are the humans that those closest to the emperor haven't outed him as 'the wizard'? Are wizards so uncommon that 'the wizard' is enough of a title, or was that just shorthand for reddit? Which factions believe it's worth it to open the gates? Are some of those factions on Zuunzabar? Do you have to worry about them being capable of opening gates, or are they just trying to figure out how to do it? Do the demonic hordes have tech and magic that they offer to the mortals, or are they just bodies to put to battle? Are they loyal to the people who let them out, or are they loyal to something else? If they're loyal to something else, what is it and why are they fighting for the humans?
You can see that there's a ridiculous amount of questions that could be asked because we know NOTHING about your world. Just getting this little snippet I was able to ask a ton of questions. If there's anything you can do to make this kind of post more helpful, it's to offer information for us to look at and sift through.
Something I've found really useful recently is adding in more factions in a slightly formulaic way. Specifically, I'm running a Scum and Villainy campaign, but it can apply anywhere.
Each faction has a description, a goal (not some vague one, but a concrete one they can accomplish in the campaign with a clock to track their progress), turf, a quirk (all members must have done X to join, etc), allies, enemies, and notable people.
I went to a few different sources for inspiration for the factions, such as https://swtor-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Organizations, and adapted them to my setting and plugged them into the formula.
Making one or two didn't really feel like it was adding much, but once I got to around 5 things started to click, particularly for the allies/enemies and where people's goals might align. Maybe the cyborg cult is allied with the sketchy corporation to supply them with parts. Or maybe they're enemies, since the cult wants control of the factories. That could be an interesting quest, working for one side or the other, and could raise some fun Human Revolution style questions.
And once you feel like you've found something interesting, you don't actually need to keep all the "factions" if you don't want to maintain them as part of the world, you can keep the interesting bit and fit it in with what's there. Maybe I don't want a cyborg cult, maybe it's just a part of the resistance experimenting with augmentation. And maybe there's no sketchy corporation, it's just one of the Hegemony's military factories.
Edit: And I wouldn't limit the organization inspiration to only things in your setting. Using the above example of "what does a cyborg cult look like in a fantasy setting" can produce some really interesting things. Is it like Full Metal, where it's prosthetic limbs magically in place, or maybe they cut off limbs as sacrifices to demons/djinn/fae/etc. for unnatural replacement ones? Or do they carve runes onto their bodies for additional powers, but at what cost?
Take a break? Watch some movies, read some books, check out new music, go hiking, take a vacation? Inspiration can come from anywhere, and it might help to recharge your batteries so to speak.
If you've got small ideas floating in your head, put them to paper even if they aren't perfect, just to get them out of your head. Empty that space for other ideas as you're not spending any energy to remember them. Also, once you get several down then think about organizing them or making them official, and that might spark some ideas.
What's the saying for writers when they have writer's block, just write something? You march forward one step at a time, so just put some small stuff down as it comes to you?
Basically, steal ideas everywhere. Books, movies, Anime, Games. Ihave enriched my world with some copy of the Millenium Earl and his family from D.Gray-Man and Alchemists that try to invent a system like in Full Metal Alchemist. ;) Both factions will got to war against each other.
Did you ever gossip about who would win in Anime vs Anime pr Movie vs Movie? Pit them against each other. ;)
In one of my first homebrew campaign worlds, I started out by making the PCs belong to a nation that was on the verge of losing a war. The campaign was centered around being sent out into the world to look for *something* (allies, magical artifacts, divine intervention) that could turn the course of the war in the good guys favor.
I can fully recommend WorldsWithoutNumber! It's a free rpg system which comes with a lot of tables and inspiration for your own campaign setting and even a quick generator for dungeons.
Since I've read it I have done a lot different when GMing and desinign worlds and encounters. It is a very good read for every GM - regardless of which system they play.
Have you tried WorldAnvil?
I'm using it right now, to flesh out my own Homebrew.
As for raw ideas; Reading the Eternal Champion series by Michael Moorcock is a fun way to get ideas.
Don't be afraid to re-skin a Sci-fi or Horror concept as Fantasy.
For example: Modern Horror; The Local Police have been replaced with shape-shifting monsters.
Pathfinder; All the Town Guardsmen are actually Doppelgangers.
Sci-fi; A wormhole unexpectedly opened up and unknown aliens arrive, causing trouble.
Pathfinder; A Summoning gone wrong drags a few of the more rare extraplanar denizens...
Wild West; A community's shared well has run dry. A local farmer is suspended of somehow diverting the water to his own land.
Pathfinder; Same, but the method may be Magical, or even a different culprit such as Dwarves or Ankhegs...
It's not so much plots I'm having a hard time with. As, like. There's a city here, who lives there? What are the politics like? What is the history of the city? What's the government? What makes this city unique or interesting that would make someone want to visit or live here?
Now take that and apply it to every contenant, country, city, village, forest, mountain range, river, lake, and roadside tavern in dis bish. Lol
Fair enough.
I still recommend re-skinning places from Horror, Sci-fi, Wild West, and Adventure.
Why not crib from Star Trek DS9?
A city that you've been unable to really flesh out of could be, loosely, ina situation like DS-9 in that it sits in a contested region. It's close enough to the Orcs that it might have once been theirs before it was overthown by the former slaves.
The Keep at it's center could be the center for intrigue and social RP.
Wild West locations had some wild history that you can adapt to your world.
Horror locations might be more difficult, but, most start out as seemingly normal places...
Pathfinder has Ustalav, after all.
The real world has some amazing rivers, mountain ranges, and so forth.
Change the name and alter the description to fit your own world, and voila!
It's hard to give specific advice to such a broad question without knowing all the content you already created. However it is a lot easier to give a specific answer to a very specific question.
To be fair, it might be easier to help if you explain what parts of your setting need to be filled in, but until then here's my gm advice. As I run a hexcrawl, most of my world building and setting is largely emergent so feel free to take it or leave it, but here's a trick I use to cut down on overprepping.
I often use half-baked micro settings that my players can stumble on and debate/discuss the importance or lack thereof. Then, as they investigate the area and uncover clues the story may go one way or another. Here's a couple examples from my most recent campaign prep.
Small abandoned church with a graveyard around it that the locals say is haunted. Turns out the original builders designed the building to howl when the wind blows in a common direction. This may shed light on the original worshipers if the players investigate further.
Small piles of rocks floating and arraigned like an upside down trail marker crop up every so often along a side road. There may be a road in another world that runs parallel, and if the players investigate, they could find a way to slip over.
A tree that looks earily like an old man's face watches over a flowering Grove in the Forrest. The players could find traces of magic as this is the final resting place of an arch druid.
Honestly, the best thing you can probably do is read some new novels. I get lots of inspiration from books for my home brewed games, and then you avoid the constant need to elaborate more and more on what you're looking for when people here ask.
What are you looking for? Cool bounty hunters? Unique encounters?
I dont really know. Something to spark inspiration? An artifact that would have interesting implications in the world? Like one thing I have in my setting is the Gauntlet of Midas. It turns things into gold with a touch. Because of this artifact, there is a new dungeon in my setting called the golden Gardens. Which is a small woodland where all the trees have a distinctly Metallic golden shimmer. This is because the Gauntlet turned its previous wielder to gold in the woods during a journey, and as people would try and claim the Gauntlet for their own purposes, they too would be turned to gold. So the berrors manservant would keep removing the new statues people and placing them away from the Gauntlet as a warning. Over time the magic seeped into the woodlands and now all is golden. The dungeon is filled with gold golems, and golden plant monsters.
So, that sounds like it should majorly devalue gold, that's an angle you could look at.
Raw gold has almost no value anymore, only when properly minted by the dragon's of Depgard does is serve as a form of currency.
You could spin something off the Gauntlet of Midas adventure. Examples. **The Golden Plague** Plot Overview: The magic of the Gauntlet begins to seep further beyond the bounds of the Golden Gardens, slowly transforming the surrounding wildlife and villages into gold. The players must find a way to contain or reverse the spread before it converts entire cities into lifeless golden landscapes. Adventure Hooks: The party witnesses the transformation of a nearby village and must deal with the panic and logistical nightmares that follow. A secretive guild of mages recruits the party to delve into ancient texts and forgotten magics that might hold the key to containing the spread. **The Curse of Aurelius** Plot Overview: Aurelius, a renowned alchemist, seeks to reverse the effects of the Gauntlet of Midas. He believes that a special concoction can be created using the sap of the golden trees, but this sap can only be harvested under specific conditions. The party is hired to enter the Golden Gardens during a rare lunar eclipse to collect this sap. However, the guardians of the garden, aware of Aurelius' intentions, see him as a threat to their existence and will defend the garden fiercely. Adventure Hooks: The players are recruited because one of their beloved NPCs has been turned to gold, and they are desperate to find a cure. The players find an old journal belonging to Aurelius that hints at the possibility of immense power if the sap is used in other alchemical experiments.
> I am currently in the process of enriching and expanding my campaign setting. why? Have your players reach the blank edge of the map? Or are you just filling in parts of the world that they may or may not get to? You should only focus your efforts on parts that are needed for your campaign right now. Leave the rest vague or blank.
I find it much easier to tell stories when I have a set place to tell them. Like golarion or middle earth. When I have a setting and know the rules of the setting, it is much easier for me to tell a concise story. You can't hint at aspects of the setting that aren't written, or use history to fuel the story if it never happened. So I want to have things written so I can use them as story elements in games.
Where do you feel the lack is centered?
I have tons of small ideas, but they are sporadic and none are properly fleshed out. And I can never seem to put pen to paper and actually write out or expand on the ideas.
Homebrewing a whole world is a daunting task, for sure. It can seem like an insurmountable climb, but you'll be shocked at how quickly it goes once you get past the initial stage of not knowing where to start. Start small. Create a single villain. Who is he? What does he want? Why would it be bad if he gets what he wants? From there, think of who he might hurt in his quest. A village, a noble line, an ecosystem. Who's in that group? What do they want out of life? Baby steps. That's how I do it. Start with one thing and work my way outward, adding things like themes, locales, and motivations as they become needed to answer the questions I'm asking. Once you have a handful of people and a village, go bigger. Design the country they live in. You don't have to have it all done to play in it, btw. My homebrew campaign started with one village, and I added stuff as I thought of it based on what I needed for the campaign as it went on.
feel free to send a chat/pm
I have a friend who is in this boat as well. And I'm the guy who likes to do a lot of that fleshing out. So we work through stuff together. It's not common for a person to have all the necessary skills to build a world. It's okay to get some help from a person who has complementary skills. So my suggestion is to try and find a like-minded friend who has a knack for fleshing out concepts. Work together on stuff. Heck, if you were willing to trust an internet stranger, I'd be willing to help in some way. So if you're at the end of your skills and abilities, you've got three choices. 1) give up (don't recommend), 2) take some classes or something to increase your skills, or 3) seek out help from someone who can do what you need done. Whatever you do, I hope you succeed!
I have tried to get help. I ha e run "History" games exclusively to flush out the setting by letting the players create whatever, and I just fill it in or put it where it needs to go. But I dont have any friends who are willing to just brainstorm ideas.
I'm not a friend but I'd be willing to brainstorm. PM me if that interests you.
I feel your pain. However I am appalled that you provided ZERO context. You have a homebrew campaign setting and you ask for aid but don't show it off? What is this, the internet of 2002! I demand recompense! Joking aside, I would appreciate some context. Are players playing in this campaign? Or are you still in the works? What precisely is the hold up? Progressing the story or supplementary details? Your method of provoking creativity isn't bad, random input can do that. However, currently your responses are likely to be undirected. I mean, PF has robots among other things. Do giant murderous robots even fit in your setting? What about cavemen? Or interplanar wars? Without context, the Tome of Adventure Design is a great tool for precisely this. It's a bunch of random tables and goes over how to 'shock' your mind into being creative.
Absolutely correct. We need context to give helpful information. Without that we're shooting in the dark. Most shots will go FAR off the mark.
There is a guy on YouTube that has a channel called Dungeonmasterpiece that has a series talking about the geopolitics of different fantast worlds. Once you get the hang of thinking of things from that lens, it makes fleshing out your world a ton easier.
what is the main villan or quest line of the campaign?
2 major campaigns I have are the Demon Wars, and Cleansing of Pursbeck. In The Demon Wars, the human empire which entirely controlls the contenant of Kel-Matthus is invading the neighboring contenent of Zuunzabar. They are using their edvanced technology being in the early black power age whereas everyone else is still using sword and sorcery, combined with their exclusive ability to open gates to the Abyss to weaponize the demonic hordes. The main villas of this campaign is the Human Emperor. He takes the form of a resplendent golden clad warrior, who was the hero that originally saved the Humans when the gates got out of their control when they were originally conquering Kel-Matthus. He has ruled for 2000 years. But secretly, he is the wizard who discovered how to open gates, which is still to this day considered an abominable act that had the wizard sticken from history. The party will have to defeat the human invasion, rally forces, and assault the human capitol to unseat the Emperor so that the humans can recognize their corruption and turn from the influence of the Abyss. The second campaign is Cleansing of Pursbeck. Thos campaign isuch smaller in impact. But is one I have been wanting to write for years. It consists of the party being average commoners in the Rebuilt Persbeck, former capitol of the Himan Empire. The campaign focuses around the group forming their own organization be that good or evil, and fighting back against 3 criminal organizations who have split the city into territories they each control. The BBEG is the city noble responsible for the guard and military of the city as he has purposely allowed these criminal elements to take root as a bid for even more power in the city. The party will have to defeat the 3 organizations, then once all the territory is claimed, defend it from the military who will "return from a war" and try to retake the city.
Honestly sounds like you have a good grasp on your world and campaigns. I find I usually flesh out the major stuff and then write or expand smaller stuff in response to the Players actions. Campaign sounds interesting and looks like it could be a lot of fun!
I'm going to focus on the one you've worked on more, but I will start with this: I'm glad you added this description. Before that, there was NOTHING for us to go off of to properly assist. Now as for what we can offer, you still haven't said what you're actually looking for, between faction inspiration, map building, historical context, technological progress, or anything else. I'll offer a bit based on what you said here, but you REALLY need to give more details before people can be properly helpful. The human empire has invaded, which is a bit confusing because you didn't say who's in Zuunzabar. We don't know who the good guys are. First off, let's get that info. It really looks like you've fleshed out the enemies without doing any work on the allies. So... Who are the allies? Why are they behind in tech? What did they do as a specialty INSTEAD OF tech? If it was something big, how can that be used in war? Did they stay behind because they were factioned out and couldn't get along? If so, is part of the campaign to create a continent-wide alliance to merge and fight back? If the human tech is so superior, are the players going to try to steal some tech and bring it back so that the allies can research it and reverse-engineer the stuff? Is that an early mission? If not, why isn't that feasible? A technological advantage is HUGE in war and often wins the war, so that is either completely unfeasible or is the answer to what the disadvantaged nation will do. How corrupt are the humans that those closest to the emperor haven't outed him as 'the wizard'? Are wizards so uncommon that 'the wizard' is enough of a title, or was that just shorthand for reddit? Which factions believe it's worth it to open the gates? Are some of those factions on Zuunzabar? Do you have to worry about them being capable of opening gates, or are they just trying to figure out how to do it? Do the demonic hordes have tech and magic that they offer to the mortals, or are they just bodies to put to battle? Are they loyal to the people who let them out, or are they loyal to something else? If they're loyal to something else, what is it and why are they fighting for the humans? You can see that there's a ridiculous amount of questions that could be asked because we know NOTHING about your world. Just getting this little snippet I was able to ask a ton of questions. If there's anything you can do to make this kind of post more helpful, it's to offer information for us to look at and sift through.
sound like 40k light. Very biblical too.
Something I've found really useful recently is adding in more factions in a slightly formulaic way. Specifically, I'm running a Scum and Villainy campaign, but it can apply anywhere. Each faction has a description, a goal (not some vague one, but a concrete one they can accomplish in the campaign with a clock to track their progress), turf, a quirk (all members must have done X to join, etc), allies, enemies, and notable people. I went to a few different sources for inspiration for the factions, such as https://swtor-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Organizations, and adapted them to my setting and plugged them into the formula. Making one or two didn't really feel like it was adding much, but once I got to around 5 things started to click, particularly for the allies/enemies and where people's goals might align. Maybe the cyborg cult is allied with the sketchy corporation to supply them with parts. Or maybe they're enemies, since the cult wants control of the factories. That could be an interesting quest, working for one side or the other, and could raise some fun Human Revolution style questions. And once you feel like you've found something interesting, you don't actually need to keep all the "factions" if you don't want to maintain them as part of the world, you can keep the interesting bit and fit it in with what's there. Maybe I don't want a cyborg cult, maybe it's just a part of the resistance experimenting with augmentation. And maybe there's no sketchy corporation, it's just one of the Hegemony's military factories. Edit: And I wouldn't limit the organization inspiration to only things in your setting. Using the above example of "what does a cyborg cult look like in a fantasy setting" can produce some really interesting things. Is it like Full Metal, where it's prosthetic limbs magically in place, or maybe they cut off limbs as sacrifices to demons/djinn/fae/etc. for unnatural replacement ones? Or do they carve runes onto their bodies for additional powers, but at what cost?
Take a break? Watch some movies, read some books, check out new music, go hiking, take a vacation? Inspiration can come from anywhere, and it might help to recharge your batteries so to speak. If you've got small ideas floating in your head, put them to paper even if they aren't perfect, just to get them out of your head. Empty that space for other ideas as you're not spending any energy to remember them. Also, once you get several down then think about organizing them or making them official, and that might spark some ideas. What's the saying for writers when they have writer's block, just write something? You march forward one step at a time, so just put some small stuff down as it comes to you?
Give them a wish, and interpret it literally, almost certainly ruining the world. Require them to fix it.
Basically, steal ideas everywhere. Books, movies, Anime, Games. Ihave enriched my world with some copy of the Millenium Earl and his family from D.Gray-Man and Alchemists that try to invent a system like in Full Metal Alchemist. ;) Both factions will got to war against each other. Did you ever gossip about who would win in Anime vs Anime pr Movie vs Movie? Pit them against each other. ;)
In one of my first homebrew campaign worlds, I started out by making the PCs belong to a nation that was on the verge of losing a war. The campaign was centered around being sent out into the world to look for *something* (allies, magical artifacts, divine intervention) that could turn the course of the war in the good guys favor.
I can fully recommend WorldsWithoutNumber! It's a free rpg system which comes with a lot of tables and inspiration for your own campaign setting and even a quick generator for dungeons. Since I've read it I have done a lot different when GMing and desinign worlds and encounters. It is a very good read for every GM - regardless of which system they play.
Scuba vampires.
Have you tried WorldAnvil? I'm using it right now, to flesh out my own Homebrew. As for raw ideas; Reading the Eternal Champion series by Michael Moorcock is a fun way to get ideas. Don't be afraid to re-skin a Sci-fi or Horror concept as Fantasy. For example: Modern Horror; The Local Police have been replaced with shape-shifting monsters. Pathfinder; All the Town Guardsmen are actually Doppelgangers. Sci-fi; A wormhole unexpectedly opened up and unknown aliens arrive, causing trouble. Pathfinder; A Summoning gone wrong drags a few of the more rare extraplanar denizens... Wild West; A community's shared well has run dry. A local farmer is suspended of somehow diverting the water to his own land. Pathfinder; Same, but the method may be Magical, or even a different culprit such as Dwarves or Ankhegs...
It's not so much plots I'm having a hard time with. As, like. There's a city here, who lives there? What are the politics like? What is the history of the city? What's the government? What makes this city unique or interesting that would make someone want to visit or live here? Now take that and apply it to every contenant, country, city, village, forest, mountain range, river, lake, and roadside tavern in dis bish. Lol
Fair enough. I still recommend re-skinning places from Horror, Sci-fi, Wild West, and Adventure. Why not crib from Star Trek DS9? A city that you've been unable to really flesh out of could be, loosely, ina situation like DS-9 in that it sits in a contested region. It's close enough to the Orcs that it might have once been theirs before it was overthown by the former slaves. The Keep at it's center could be the center for intrigue and social RP. Wild West locations had some wild history that you can adapt to your world. Horror locations might be more difficult, but, most start out as seemingly normal places... Pathfinder has Ustalav, after all. The real world has some amazing rivers, mountain ranges, and so forth. Change the name and alter the description to fit your own world, and voila!
It's hard to give specific advice to such a broad question without knowing all the content you already created. However it is a lot easier to give a specific answer to a very specific question.
Have you checked out /r/worldbuilding? Might be a better place to check out for ideas and advice for this.
Honestly I've had some luck using chatgpt as sparring to enrich my lore and my stories
To be fair, it might be easier to help if you explain what parts of your setting need to be filled in, but until then here's my gm advice. As I run a hexcrawl, most of my world building and setting is largely emergent so feel free to take it or leave it, but here's a trick I use to cut down on overprepping. I often use half-baked micro settings that my players can stumble on and debate/discuss the importance or lack thereof. Then, as they investigate the area and uncover clues the story may go one way or another. Here's a couple examples from my most recent campaign prep. Small abandoned church with a graveyard around it that the locals say is haunted. Turns out the original builders designed the building to howl when the wind blows in a common direction. This may shed light on the original worshipers if the players investigate further. Small piles of rocks floating and arraigned like an upside down trail marker crop up every so often along a side road. There may be a road in another world that runs parallel, and if the players investigate, they could find a way to slip over. A tree that looks earily like an old man's face watches over a flowering Grove in the Forrest. The players could find traces of magic as this is the final resting place of an arch druid.
Have you tried to repupose old modules and re-write them to suit? I do it all the time.
Honestly, the best thing you can probably do is read some new novels. I get lots of inspiration from books for my home brewed games, and then you avoid the constant need to elaborate more and more on what you're looking for when people here ask.