Tell me of Kingdoms of Kalamar

I managed to acquire a copy of the KoK Player's Guide. After a cursory look, the setting seems to have some potential. i am curious what ENWorlders familiar with the setting think of it.

If Eberron is quintessential pulp fantasy, and FR is quintessential high fantasy, what's KoK? Sword and Sorcery? Low? Traditional?

It seems that there are a lot of adventurs for KoK. Are they any good? Are there any longer, mini campaigns? how hard is it to use other modules, say Dungeon mag stuff or Necromancer stuff, in the setting?

How are the mechanics for the setting? Balanced? Generic? Flavorful? Is there anything really unique, mechanically speaking (ex: Artificer for Eberron).

What are the best sourcebooks? I see there are lots of race specific books, but not too many other kinds.

Would you recommend the setting?

The main setting sourcebook is very, very dry, but the setting itself is interesting enough - it is definately one of the most realistic settings out there. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to hold my interest.

Reynard said:

I managed to acquire a copy of the KoK Player's Guide. After a cursory look, the setting seems to have some potential. i am curious what ENWorlders familiar with the setting think of it.

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I'm going to be running a campaign in it soon hopefully. I was really impressed by the thoroughness of the setting material and the common-sense approach of its design and layout. For the example, they released an atlas for the world that is top-notch and detailed yet leaves room for DM tinkering.

Reynard said:

If Eberron is quintessential pulp fantasy, and FR is quintessential high fantasy, what's KoK? Sword and Sorcery? Low? Traditional?

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I'd go with high fantasy still, perhaps with touches of S&S. It is pretty much a standard D&D world that doesn't shy away from issues like racism and slavery.

Reynard said:

It seems that there are a lot of adventurs for KoK. Are they any good? Are there any longer, mini campaigns? how hard is it to use other modules, say Dungeon mag stuff or Necromancer stuff, in the setting?

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I have quite a few of the adventures and they seem decent, although I haven't had a chance to run them yet. There is a 3-part adventure series that starts with The Root of All Evil; it is decent intro to the setting. There is a couple of books that compile a number of small adventures of similar theme and a few larger single adventures. As for dropping stuff in, I'd say it wouldn't be any harder to do so than into FR or GH or such; the setting has its own flavour but mechanically is standard D&D.

Reynard said:

How are the mechanics for the setting? Balanced? Generic? Flavorful? Is there anything really unique, mechanically speaking (ex: Artificer for Eberron).

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Nothing really-it is pretty much standard D&D. The core campaign book is pretty much all setting info. There is a Player's Guide that has setting-specific feats, PrCs and core classes. Nothing really different like artificers or warforged, but some neat classes and so forth. I believe the Polyglot feat appeared there before it made its way into WoTC material (can't remember which book I saw it in offhand).

Reynard said:

What are the best sourcebooks? I see there are lots of race specific books, but not too many other kinds.

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The Atlas and Player's Handbook are pretty good. The book on Geanavue was written by Ed Greenwood and is a wonderfully-detailed city setting (I'll be using it for the base for my campaign). Loona-Port of Intrigue and the Pekal Gazeteer flesh out the world a bit more. Dangerous Denizens has new monsters for the setting. There is a pirates book too that is decent (available on the Kenzer site in .pdf for a nice low price).

Reynard said:

Would you recommend the setting?

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As long as you are looking for a solid, straight-forward D&D setting then yes. If you are looking for something different then go for Eberron or something like that. The only other thing to be aware of is that while Kalamar started with great support and lots of products, Kenzer's release schedule seems to have slowed down somewhat. I believe they have some good stuff on deck though so you should have new product to pick up by the time you've caught up on the allready released stuff. I'd recommend heading to their website for more information; it gives a pretty good rundown of the setting.

Good Luck!

The Kingdoms of Kalamar is a terrific setting. It's built around 5 human cultures along with the usual D&D assortment of creatures. It's built upon the premise of doing what I consider the "drudgery work" of GMing for you. Nations, cultures, languages, geographic features, etc. are done very well. As a GM, I'd rather spend my time on adventure plots, ground-level detail of villages and towns, and NPCs than trade routes, political structures, cultural details, etc.

The default assumption written into the campaign setting is one of low- to moderate- levels of magic. This is not a "High Fantasy" setting by default. Kenzer Co. wisely realized that it's easier to amp up the fantasy/magical elements than it is to pare them back. It leaves the setting open for the PCs to be the center stage heroes. There are no Elminsters or uber-NPCs in every kingdom, city, and village.

The setting is also strong in an area that most settings are weak: maps. There is a Kalamar atlas that is a GM's dream of setting map detail. Accurate distances, roads, major settlements, resources by region, etc.

Often described as "Greyhawk done right", Kalamar allows for easy importation of just about any D20 adventure. I replaced the default pantheon of gods (which is very well done) with the pantheon from the Book of the Righteous without any issues. There are two kingdoms which are feudal realms common to the default Middle Ages-with-magic of most D&D products. There is also a region of city states that support a more free-booting, swashbuckling style of play. There are also enough tweaks to keep it fresh and different. The setting's namesake, for example is a feudal realm of Middle Ages technology but depicts a Roman-like state where the empire didn't fall into (total) decline.

What Kalamar is not, however, is sexy. This is the root of the "very dry" comments you'll see when Kalamar is discussed. Almost every page of the campaign setting has plot hooks for a GM to utilize, but they don't have the layout or artwork that cause them to jump out at you. Kalamar has multiple themes and supports multiple campaign styles. This breadth can also be its weakness in that it doesn't have a central theme for a GM to latch onto.

As a setting, Kalamar can easily support low-magic, swords-n-sorcery, or historical fantasy out of the box. I use the Conan OGL rules for my Kalamar campaign. It could easily support A Game of Thrones, Iron Heroes, Grim Tales, or True 20 campaigns. High magic campaigns can be done, but the GM has to bring those elements to the setting.

Azgulor

Kalamar Kicks Ass

I bought the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting hardback (the 1st printing that declared itself "An Epic Ass-kicking World" on the back cover) and I ended my 18-year Greyhawk campaign to switch to Kalamar soon after. I've been a hardcore Kalamar fan ever since. IMO, Kalamar is a high-fantasy, late iron-age setting where only the stongest nations and city-states know the mystery of steel and most ancient treasure hordes will have bronze tools and weapons.

The pantheon was one of the main reasons I switched to Kalamar. The gods are brilliantly written and there are only 47 of them—compared to the hundreds found in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. The difference is that there are no racial deities. The gods of Tellene are worshiped by all the races, but in different ways and by different names. There are also no ranks among the gods of Tellene. There are no demigods, lesser gods, greater gods, etc and so on. They are all created equal and they use their followers on Tellene to try and get an edge on their rivals.

Just run a campaign in Kalamar and you'll be hooked, especially if you use the campaign setting book as it was intended and mine it for inspiration—you'll find it on every page.

I think what a good number of people fail to realize is that KoK is a very detailed world. The details are in what is detailed. They detail climate, culture, language, money systems, histories, etc... IE all the stuff DM's die of boredom working out for themselves. Except DM's like me who buy MMS: Western Europe, Gaygax's World Builder books, etc....


So when you get KoK your getting a setting that has all the details that will help you to make your world much more like a real life world simulation. I mean even weather patterns and elevations are detailed.

So if you think having that kind of detail done for you as your campaign back drop sounds cool/awesome then your going to love KoK.

IF not, your going to find a lot of it dry and useless.

Reynard said:

I managed to acquire a copy of the KoK Player's Guide. After a cursory look, the setting seems to have some potential.

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I'd like to think so.

Did you pick up the 3.0 or 3.5 (PDF/POD) version?

Have you been to the intro page?

Pretty traditional D&D with an emphasis on lower level ("high level" NPCs hover around 10th or so--low teens, anyway) and logical, methodical world design. If you appreciate old school traditional fantasy and tend to roll your eyes at settings that assume a high level of "wahoo" then Kalamar is probably right up your alley.

I love Kalamar. Great world, wish I had time to run a campaign of it. Buy it all, it's all good stuff.

Mark Plemmons said:

Did you pick up the 3.0 or 3.5 (PDF/POD) version?

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3.0 -- at our annual mini-con we do a book swap and the PG was one of the things I snagged.