[Dreamscarred Press] Third Dawn Campaign Setting

Bacris · 4th February 2008, 08:46 PM

Welcome to a world where there are no gods, only godminds; a world where the maenad corsairs control the high seas, and the arcane and divine magics of the ancient world are gone, replaced by the power of the mind. Welcome to a world where city-states struggle to survive on their own, having thrown off the bitter rule of the fallen empire of Alyria. Welcome to the Third Dawn of Ksaren.

Dreamscarred Press, the definitive source for new psionic material, has decided to take on its biggest endeavor to date. The company that brought you Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics, High Psionics Compilation: Volume I, and a host of other psionics products is hard at work on an all-psionics campaign setting titled Third Dawn.

Set in the world of Ksaren, a world rocked millenia ago by The Impact, Third Dawn explores a world without arcane or divine magic, a world where the power of the mind has risen to fill in the gap left by the departure of the magic of the ancient world.

With a planned release date of June 2008, the Third Dawn Campaign Setting will be a 100 page book detailing the world of Ksaren, from the races that make Ksaren its home, to the geography of the world, to the nations, cities, organizations, and monsters that can be found. In addition, details will be given on how to survive in Third Dawn without the traditional magic-based classes. The initial plans are to release Third Dawn rules for the d20 3.5, True20, and 4E rules systems - licenses allowing.

dmccoy1693 · 4th February 2008, 10:50 PM

Oh very nice Bacris. Nice to see somone have a different take. Good luck.

DragonBelow · 5th February 2008, 12:52 AM

I have always wanted a setting like this, and now I won't have to do it myself, nice!

Bacris · 5th February 2008, 02:22 AM

Thanks, guys!

It's been something that's been stewing in my mind since before we started Dreamscarred Press. It finally seems like the right time to do it.

In other news, we will be working with Rick Hershey of Empty Room Studios Publishing, to do the cover and interior illustrations - he did the amazing cover art for High Psionics Compilation: Volume I, along with a multitude of other interior art for us, along with a cartographer to do the maps of the campaign world.

We're going all-out with this project and hope folks have as much fun playing in it as we're having creating it!

Man-thing · 5th February 2008, 03:34 AM

Bacris,

Will you be rolling out adventures to give life to the setting? I always find new campaign settings gain a lot of mental traction with me once I see them used in adventure.

Bacris · 5th February 2008, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man-thing

Bacris,

Will you be rolling out adventures to give life to the setting?

Absolutely yes.

We wouldn't be doing this setting justice if we didn't release an adventure.

HalWhitewyrm · 5th February 2008, 07:03 PM

Dark Sun lives.

Pozatronic · 5th February 2008, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HalWhitewyrm

Dark Sun lives.

Well, not really. Besides the psionics and the city states, this doesn't really seem Dark Sun ish to me, which is a good thing; Dark Sun's great, but we don't need a duplicate. Magic was a big big part of Dark Sun, this setting seems to be magic-less (or is it?).

Bacris · 5th February 2008, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pozatronic

Magic was a big big part of Dark Sun, this setting seems to be magic-less (or is it?).

Correct. We don't need no stinking preservers / defilers / templars.

Of course, 2E psionics had its own issues that needed those classes to exist

Angellis_ater · 5th February 2008, 11:04 PM

We both hope that Third Dawn will feel unique, drawing on psionics as a main theme, but providing a world rich with intrigue and adventure. :-)

Sitara · 6th February 2008, 01:18 PM

Only problem is that we wont be able to play this with 4e out of the box, since 4e official psionic rules wont come out until 2009.

Furthermore, we also don't know how this affects classes which don't cast 'spells' (powers) but have heavy sorcerous themes. Examples include paladin, warlock. Will these classes be disallowed completely?

Psion · 6th February 2008, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sitara

Only problem is that we wont be able to play this with 4e out of the box, since 4e official psionic rules wont come out until 2009.

Follow this to its logical conclusion.

Bacris · 6th February 2008, 03:53 PM

We recognize the problem with 4E psionic rules - and we're planning to accommodate that. I can't really say more until we know what the 4E GSL allows / doesn't allow / compatibility with 1.0a of the OGL / etc.

Regarding sorcerous-themed classes, we'll be covering which classes work, which don't, which need tweaking, etc. Now, non-OGC classes, we can't discuss. The Warlock from Complete Arcane is Product Identity, so our book cannot discuss it by name. However, magic in Third Dawn does not exist, so draw your own conclusions.

Either you'll need to rework classes to use psionics instead of magic, or use one of the many psionic class options available - and we have new classes in development to plug some of these holes.

However, some holes will simply not be filled. There will not be, for example, a psionic necromancer, since necromancy as an art really doesn't fit with psionics. There may be reasonable substitutions using living-but-mindless creatures controlled by a manifester, but "undead" will likely be limited in scope in a world without the ability to create them anymore.