Vote Up a Campaign Setting

Vote Up A Campaign Setting is a project started on the Giant in the Playground forums to build a campaign setting designed by audience vote. Originating in November 2008, the project was released beginning on November 24, 2010, two years to the day that the voting concluded. The second iteration of the project launched on June 17, 2011 under new old leadership, and can be found here.

Though originally interesting just for the premise of the project, the discussion threads took on a life of their own as details of the setting took form and information began to leak out. It also helps that the threads are presided over by a pleasant, even-tempered PR representative who releases and discusses setting information.

The first completed VUACS setting is posted.

Vote Up A Campaign Setting 2 is now in progress.

The original and subsequent discussion threads contain the following tropes

 * All There in the Manual: Basically, we're all waiting for the setting release to fill in the blank's between afro's tidbits.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Or rather, decapitation.
 * Berserk Button: Hourglasses, and later salmon.
 * Don't forget plants and animals, he got really mad about that too.
 * To be fair, there are only so many times one can say "If the flora/fauna being asked about is native to the actual geographic regions that this setting is based off of, then it's in the setting" before one goes crazy.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: He's even admitted as much himself.
 * Now comes in in-setting flavor!
 * Comedic Sociopathy: afro's ranting and sarcasm are some of the best parts of the threads.
 * Dragon-in-Chief: Zeta Kai started VUACS and is still apparently the project leader, but afro seems to have full power over the discussion threads and generally acts like he's in charge.
 * He is now.
 * Fan Nickname: The Build Team for the three creators.
 * Generic Guy: Shadow Elf is the third member of the team and in charge of all the Fourth Edition coverage, but he rarely posts on the threads and isn't generally as noticeable as afroakuma. Zeta don't post as much either, but banters with afro and did the original vote tallies in the first thread.
 * Jossed: Often appears to be afroakuma's favorite pastime, though sometimes the audience won't let him.
 * Magnificent Bastard: afro somehow linking a random Cirque Du Soleil clip into the history of the setting.
 * Memetic Mutation: YOUR HEAD CUT OFF
 * Off with His Head: For a long time during the early days of the discussion threads, this was afro's reaction to any mention of.
 * Only Sane Man: Zeta Kai, the project leader, also the only person with any power to stop afro's madness.
 * Power Trio: The Build Team.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: Zeta Kai.
 * Small Name, Big Ego: afroakuma. In a good way.
 * Stockholm Syndrome: The only reason the audience keeps coming back, given afro's overt malevolence.
 * Word of God: afroakuma stated in one of his rants that one of the factors in choosing questions to answer is that all of his answers are intended to fall under this trope.
 * Xanatos Gambit: afroakuma's Cirque Du Soleil video, which turned out to be, as he said, entirely relevant to the setting.

The setting itself contains the following tropes

 * Arabian Nights Days: The chosen theme for the setting, as voted by the audience.
 * Belief Makes You Stupid: Since all the gods don't exist and are really represented by Zihaja,
 * Big Bad: They posted the outlines of several possible ones with the names blanked, so far nothing else has been released on them.
 * Bilingual Bonus: So far, the setting uses Arabic, Farsi and Sanskrit. Whether that will be true on release remains to be seen, but one poster recently picked up on the meanings of Siraaj, Najmah and Kamala.
 * Complete Monster: Ghuls, supposedly, though afro has banned any mention of how they're born or made.
 * Dark World: Najmah, where it's always night. The map they released shows that it has a different color scheme from Siraaj, too.
 * Devil but No God: The religions presented so far for PCs and most of civilization are all essentially fake. We've already got confirmation that the demons and demon lords are very very real.
 * The Don: New NPC crime lord Fazul.
 * Dungeons and Dragons: The setting is for both 3.5 and 4th edition D&D.
 * Five Races: Not all that clear-cut, since they ditched the Player's Handbook races.
 * Genie in a Bottle: It's Arabian Nights, so probably. We know there are genies.
 * "What do you mean, junk? We've been looking for Father for the past five years!"
 * God's Hands Are Tied: Supposedly the reason for things such as Johoum's continued existence. What exactly constrains the only god in the setting hasn't been explained yet.
 * Lizard Folk: One of the races voted in to replace the core D&D races.
 * Masquerade: Half-genies living as ordinary people, and Zihaja operating ten false gods.
 * Mysterious Past: So far, most details on the distant past are still under wraps. Zihaja's original identity is also being kept secret... for now, we hope.
 * Our Ghouls Are Different: "Ghuls" rather than ghouls, and based on Zeta's picture they're far scarier. See Demonic Ghouls on the trope page.
 * Our Gods Are Greater: The overgod, Zihaja, who masquerades as ten different aspects and is the only real god in the setting.
 * There are a few gods that aren't actually aspects of Zihaja, but they're either: a) directly subordinate to Zihaja, or b) racial gods of races which will never show up in most games (the dwarves living on the south pole have their own pantheon, for example). They were deliberately let in by Big Z, though.
 * Schedule Slip: The original estimated release period was over a year ago.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: The real Johoum.
 * Shifting Sand Land: It's a desert setting, what did you expect?
 * The X of Y: The setting's formal title is Hourglass of Zihaja.
 * Title Drop: Averted, afroakuma has stated loudly and repeatedly that there is no such thing as the Hourglass of Zihaja in the setting.
 * Villain Sue: Going by recent banter on the thread, afroakuma snuck in a self-insert character who more than likely fits the bill.