Best Biomes For A Campaign Setting In DND

Summary

• Sub-Zero Tundra – Survival is key in this icy biome, perfect for a survival-based campaign.
• Megacity – Navigate autocratic rule and a crowded realm, suitable for futuristic or sci-fi campaigns.
• Endless Ocean – Venture on seas with ships as cities, ideal for exploration campaigns.

The world of Dungeons & Dragons is nearly limitless, and that means there are plenty of places for you to take your adventuring party. Beyond just pastoral farmlands and medieval kingdoms, many sourcebooks offer dozens of varied locales worth visiting. Plus, you can always homebrew your own biome or environment that’s completely unique to your table.

So, if you’re trying to break out of your comfort zone as a Dungeon Master and explore every unnamed nook and cranny of the multiverse, look no further than this list. Here are some of the most unique environments you can use for your campaign.

10

Sub-Zero Tundra

Think of this biome as a perpetual Ice Age. The world is covered with frost, ice, snow, and hardly any large settlements. Survival and harvesting of food and water is the name of the game in this unforgiving landscape.

Setting a campaign or a campaign arc within a sub-zero tundra can allow DMs to introduce catastrophic environmental effects like freezing temperatures, snowstorms, and more. If your table is interested in playing a survival-based campaign, extreme environments are the most surefire way to achieve that goal.

9

Megacity

Imagine a realm with no farmlands, no greenery, and no open space at all. Instead, this kingdom is sprawled out as one large megacity crammed with millions of people. The party must contend with autocratic rule and a crowded, restless citizenry throughout their journey.

Megacities offer a great challenge for DMs in terms of mapping and designing a homebrewed world. But they also have a lot of flexibility in terms of time and place. You can set a megacity campaign in more of a futuristic, sci-fi campaign or even explore what a medieval fantasy megacity might look like.

8

Endless Ocean

Long ago, perpetual downpours submerged all of the largest landmasses in the world, and now, people live on the seas in perpetuity. Ships are cities, and abandoning one of these safe havens means venturing out over rough and rugged seas with only your crew at your back.

There are plenty of ways to customize an endless ocean setting to your liking. You can even have small archipelagos pop up now and again to give your party a break from swirling seas. Regardless, for tables looking for a full pirate-themed campaign, this setting could prove perfect.

7

Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

The world has been irrecoverably damaged by warfare. Magical superweapons have wiped out crops, livestock, and entire cities. Now, the survivors of this horrific war are left to scavenge over whatever’s been left behind. Sadly, there’s not even that much left to scavenge.

This is another great option for survival-based campaigns, or fans of any post-apocalyptic-themed content. Have players band together to survive, roaming from ruin to ruin to live off of the scraps of their ancestors.

6

Land Of The Spellplague

Magical contagions offer a fun wrinkle to pepper over your campaign. Consider using a spellplague, in which magic is severely weakened, limited, or even killing citizens, as the catalyst and environment for your campaign. This is similar to Tomb of Annihilation but can be tailored to your liking.

Perhaps the party must seek out the cause of this spellplague and eradicate it. Or, maybe the people have decided they’re better off without magic, and an anarchist cell is working from the shadows to make sure the spellplague keeps up.

5

A Wild Magic Sphere

Campaigns can also be set in environments where magic is abundant and overflowing. A medieval landscape, for example, can be blessed with a Wild Magic Sphere or a spell that causes magic to explode and interweave with itself in chaotic, unexpected ways.

Spellcasters should be warned in such a campaign that their magic may not always go as planned. Perhaps their non-magical party members might have an unexpected upper hand in certain situations where magic is not called for.

4

Parched Desert

A desert is one thing, but a desert without so much as an oasis? That’s another story altogether. Challenge your party to survive an endless, sprawling desert without a drop of water in sight. This means they’ll have to find a way to harvest and preserve water from desert flora and fauna or even other living things.

Think of this as being similar to Arrakis in Dune, where water is the most precious resource, over gold or magic. You can also have a lot of fun using water or other resources as a barter-like currency rather than relying on silver or gold pieces.

3

Labyrinthine Underworld

The Dungeons & Dragons multiverse is no stranger to prison planes. From demiplanes like Barovia in Curse of Strahd to Carceri in the Outer Planes, there are plenty of options to choose from. Or, you can go with a labyrinthine underworld from which players must escape.

Consider why the adventuring party exists in this prison plane in the first place. Why is anyone placed here? How do people escape? Can people escape? Or is that just a myth, lost to the annals of history?

2

Cloudtop Canopy

High in the sky above the material plane lies an interconnected series of landmasses that float high in the clouds. These landmasses play host to cities, farmlands, and all manner of locales. Navigable only through flight-based means, a whole host of adventures await the party beyond the clouds.

This biome is probably best suited for a shorter arc in a larger campaign but can be made into an entire setting all its own with the right amount of details. Perhaps the earth beneath the players’ feet was once solid, but a cataclysm of some kind forced landmasses into the sky, creating the realm they now call home.

1

Mysterious Ruins

Long ago, a whole host of ancient civilizations called this land home. However, mysterious circumstances caused entire populations to abandon their ancestral homes. Now, new settlers have come, searching for answers.

The world is filled with ruins, and a looming question: where did everybody go? It’s up to the party to find out what happened to the early cradle of civilization in this realm and whether or not they should be trespassing on this land at all.