I have started listening to The Adventure Zone. I decided to check out a folder of my homebrew "D&D" campaign ... it was based on 3.5ed (which might show you when I started playing, it was just out) and I did maps, a world map based on tectonic plates and geology (on a paper mache balloon), a small amount of mythology, and some written up adventures.
The main premise is that the veil between worlds has been extensively thinned on Eran, the reason is a certain amount of controversy between a god's curse or a mighty magic gone wrong. Or maybe right. Sentient beings are most likely to be affected but it's common for individual people or small groups to basically fall into Eran through doors, gates, magic portals, giant rabbit holes, or basically out of thin air. So I called it a "Rifts" adventure and advised people to make any kind of character they wanted (non-canon) at a certain level with points-buy for stats.
There be quest notices on a notice board. I'd like to mention this was done well before I played The Witcher, or even Skyrim, for instance. This was basically a "what adventure do you guys want to do?" I'm pretty sure they decided to check out the dragon.
Here's one of my animal illustrations pages. It would be totally cool to have some of these as animal companions or familiars. I'd like to point out there's also a small (relatively speaking) carnivorous version of a mammoth.
This is a nice charcoal pencil image of one of my characters, a half-drow, half-lycanthrope puma druid. He tends to pretend when forced to interact with people that his turning into a puma skill is just Wild Shape from his druidic skills. Pretty sure my adventuring group bought it for, I don't know, about a month.