Your Own Alabamia
How to make tabletop RPG campaigns set in your home state
A while ago, I ran a D&D campaign set in “Alabamia”—a medieval fantasy version of my home state. Why would you want to do something similar for your own state?
You like your state enough to run a game in it.
You have a good idea of your own local flavor: flora, fauna, cuisine, mores, terrain. This means you can be authentic and can improvise easily. You already know the lore.
You have (access to) detailed maps at all scales.
You have precise historical weather patterns.
(I did this several years ago; with the advent of LLMs, this would be way easier.)
Here’s how to make your own Alabamia:
Make the name. Just add or remove a vowel. Alabama becomes Alabamia; Nevada becomes Nevadia; Georgia becomes Gorgia.
Get the hardware. I used a big 3” 3-ring binder because I like to have hardcopies of everything to use at the table. If you can think of monsters that are particularly suited for your state, grab some of those. I made sure I had wolves and boars and spiders and bears; we don’t really have a famous cryptid in Alabama. If you do have a cryptid (like the Jersey Devil), make sure to get a decent mini for a climactic battle.
Find the Big Setting Problem. For every setting I make, I think in terms of the Big Problem everyone in the setting has. IRL, it’s death (that’s why religions are so concerned with suffering, shame, eternal life, etc.). In Dark Souls, it’s the fading of the first flame. That’s Really Bad Thing Zero. Figure out what it is for your setting, and that will help you worldbuild. Mythological Figure 1 tried Quest 1 to fix it, but that failed and resulted in Really Bad Thing 1. Repeat until satisfied. Put leads to possible solutions in your dungeons and libraries. You don’t need to know the actual solution yet.
Get the maps. You can search for a decent terrain and climate map of your state. Your local universities likely have detailed county-level maps as well. For each county you want to focus on, print out its map and put it in your binder. I photoshopped a few to include a square grid for journey tracking purposes. Here’s a selection of the ones I used, plus a sample dungeon (you’re welcome):
Decide the population. I just divided everything by 10. This makes for a lot more wilderness for adventuring while also being easy to calculate for towns on the fly. If your party heads east and you see that would take them near (real world) Gadsden, you now know exactly what the population is with a quick wikipedia check.
Get the weather. You can look up historical weather patterns for your area online. Save a site that has a quick lookup so you match up your game date with the weather in the corresponding actual day.
Make custom shops. Include some local flavor in your gear lists. Here’s an example from my campaign:
Make custom rules. If there’s a rule or situation or procedure you think would fit your state’s ethos well, put it in there. Mine was: Hold My Beer: gain inspiration when you do something risky.
Make a custom class. Or two. I made custom clerics, with the gods based on famous college football coaches. Here are examples of a few class enhancement writeups. These are based on 5e D&D:
Make a good name list. I made a d100 list of names for hirelings that suit the vibe of your state. Here’s my hireling generator:
Translate the hierarchies. Your state is already divided into a threefold hierarchy: state, county, city. That corresponds in feudal terms to: king, count, baron. And, in ecclesiastical terms: archbishop, bishop, rector (priest-in-charge).
Rustle up some grub. Have some local cuisine for (at least) your first session. Bring at least something yourself and ask the players to bring one reasonable thing. I can’t remember what we did for ours, but, if I did it again, I’d have: sweet tea, BBQ ribs, vinegar & white BBQ sauce, white bread, cornbread, collard greens, chess pie, etc.
Make food bonuses for your inns. Give each tavern a specialty food and drink that’s locally colored. Having the local specialty grants players +1 temp hp or +10 XP or whatever small bonus you wish to give out. I’d only give it out for the first time you have it to represent the fun the PC has in finding the local delicacies. Here’s an example I used (the ++ means advantage):
Really, it’s not very different than coming up with an entire world totally for scratch, but it’s a ton easier because you have all the maps and can improv the vibe. I may update this later with additional materials I unearth from my campaign, but I hope this has been useful.
