-NEW- Free AD&D Campaign Setting (OSRIC Compatible)

The World of Skybourne campaign books are now available as free .pdf downloads. Skybourne is offered as OSRIC compatible (meaning old school 1e and 2e) with customizations for character races, combat and magic.

The World of Skybourne is an eye popping homebrew campaign setting easily used as an add on to any existing fantasy campaign. It is offered in an early version of 1e with homebrew expansions to make it very easily forward compatible with any later version of the game or any other fantasy rpg game system.

Most of the content is invested into setting material, a rich history, plot, maps and everything needed for adventures in any game system. In addition the homebrew rules currently used for the campaign are offered in full detail for those interested in running a deep and compelling 1e or 2e game.

World of Skybourne - Mythos is immediately available for free download. Click the link in my signature to download. An early limited offering at several 1e fan sites has met with excellent responses and numerous requests for more.

World of Skybourne - Mythos contains an overview of the world and a detailed account of the setting mythology. A high resolution / high quality print copy is available for order. A beautiful full color map of the setting printed on CANVAS as a 18 x 24 print will be available in October (only a few weeks).

World of Skybourne - Magic will be available for FREE download in less than TEN days. I will post an update here when it is available. This book details spell expansions, rules for ley lines, magical nodes, rune work and details on all of the spell casting classes of the setting.

World of Skybourne - Skyography - the main campaign book for the setting full of maps, a detailed look at the City State of Sarpa and its surround floating isles, monsters and creatures and expanded write ups of all character races and classes will be available early in November 2007.

Mythos is out. Magic and Skyography are complete and merely awaiting their roll out dates.

Two additional FREE campaign books will be coming between November and the end of January in 2008. Later in 2008 an entire series of adventure modules and dungeon modules will be available both in print and for download for pay for the setting.

Congrats guys!

Thanks very much.

The Mythos book has been available for about three weeks and has just hit 500 downloads.

Not everyone is mailing back feedback but enough are sending positive feedback or are offering to send suggestions and positive emails that the experience has been very fun.

I am excited to see the other two books roll out soon.

Art

Well, I downloaded it yesterday but haven't taken the time to read it yet. All I can tell you is that being OSRIC compatible also means Castles and Crusades compatible (with mechanics changes so easy I do them almost without thinking nowadays) so I will be looking at it. Eventually. Probably sooner if I quit spending so much of my free time on message boards.

I'll be happy to download it and send some comments if you'd like. Maybe even a review, if you would be interested.

Sure Deuce. It would be snazzy to have a review. Sorry for the slow reply. I have had a couple of sick little boys to take care of during the day, working nights and trying to get the next book out the door.

So been a wee bit busy.

Art

I don't play AD&D or C&C, though I think that this may be a great setting for OD&D (1974) + Chainmail or BFRPG. Thanks for your hard work!

Thanks very much James and hello.

I am hard at work, my desk covered in artwork and maps and various oddments as I get the magic book ready to post. It should be available next week or as soon as I can manage it balancing my work and family life / etc...

Very best regards,
Edward

Review

Here is what I've come up with, although I did not post it yet. What is your publishing name, if I may ask? Is it Ed's Homebrew Product?

Review:

WOS1 - The World of Skybourne: Book 1

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WOS1 - The World of Skybourne: Book One - Mythos, by Edward Kann
An OSRIC compatible campaign setting

This is Ed Kann's free campaign setting meant to be used with the OSRIC system, and it is meant to give an overview of the fictional world from a historical, cultural, and
geographical basis. I'll use a format that will cover the quality of the scan and appearance of the artwork, organization and availability of information, connectivity of the
plot with the elements inside, imagination, and a summary.

Aesthetics

The book has a red front cover by Darryl Taylor with an image of several floating islands and winged lizard-like creatures flying among them, which instantly gives the viewer a
sense of the strange geography of Skybourne. There are little touches in this cover art that are important in the book, such as the fact that one of the flying creatures has a
rider and that there are several waterfalls pouring forth from the most prominent airborne island and into the unknown below it. My only complaint is that the front piece of
the .pdf does not have a matching back cover of equal value, but instead has a simple final page with an image of an older wizard in the lower right corner.

The artwork on the inside of the book was done by several artists, and because of this there is not much consistency in the artwork. This is not to diminish the artists, but
the style feels different from image to image. Chris Pickrell does several sketches of alien architecture in the midst of towns based on Europe of the middle ages, which I
found to be compelling. There was also some interesting art from an artist named Jonny Ledford which appeared to me as if he was influenced by a mixture of Rob Liefield and
Warhammer 40k and although it wasn't my bag he is talented and it will appeal to many. I could go on about the artwork of the other artists, also, which were all solid but
which had their own styles that were so diverse that they made it difficult to have a consistent visual feel to the campaign.

Organization

This 49-page .pdf starts off with an explanation by the author in regards to how his setting came into being. He follows this up with a mixture of geography and early
Skybourne history, which is important since Skybourne is a world covered with water in which airborne islands float above this uninhabitable surface. As you may have guessed,
the world was not like this until after a cataclysmic event that is covered by the rendition of the early history. The next few pages explain the main races such as the Tsong
(humans), the Skeld (night elves), the Midge (halflings), Dwarves, the Trolls (half-orcs), and the Silmare (half-elves). These racial descriptions also explain some of the
missing history that was not covered in the first few pages and tell of how each came to the campaign world as almost all are not native to Skybourne. There are a few more
pages that deal with arcane magic, sorcery, and divine power in the game world before the next twenty pages which are dedicated solely to the different religions of the
citizens. The last pages are dedicated to an appendix that briefly discusses the mixture of magic and technology in the world, airships being an important example.

There were some grammatical errors made in the document that could have been easily corrected, such as a word that appeared as aGMit instead of admit. You know the author must have used a spell checker to change all the 'DM's to 'GM's in his initial document, but then didn't notice this error while proofreading. Also, the artists are given copyright
protection by having their names placed over their work, but because these text boxes are sometimes poorly placed and since the text looks the same as the text in the rest of
the document this can cause problems for the reader. These are not common errors in the document, however, and the columns of text are just the right size and consistent.

Finally, the author has a conversational with the reader and uses a lot of 'I' and 'We' in the document, although this is more of an observation than a criticism.

Connectivity

Skybourne is a world whose initial races were the Trolls and then the colonizing Tsong, but their land was shattered and covered by the ocean. The gods saved these races by
ripping much of their planet out of the doomed surface, creating floating islands. Later, other races came to Skybourne by manufactured portals and brought new technology and
magic into the campaign world. The magically advanced Skeld started an empire through the use of their amazing powers which lasted for centuries. Their power would not last,
however, and a sorcerer by the name of Gavrun absorbed the power of the portals into himself and became a nearly immortal despot. This had the negative effect of also trapping
all the colonial races in Skybourne as they could no longer travel to their homeworlds. Gavrun started a new state religion and then one day disappeared, and in the chaos that
followed the empire gradually was diminished until a civil war broke out that Skybourne is still recovering from.

So now we have a planet of destroyed and forgotten underwater cities, various races each with their own important and competing religious cultures, magic that is stronger in
some areas and non-existent in others, flying lizards, airships, black powder weapons, a spirit world, floating islands in the sky, minor gods that like to travel the world and
meet their people, and unseen major gods that are so powerful and distant that they are alien to the very people who worship them. And yet in a large way it works. The
history makes sense as do the differing cultures. My only real criticism is that some things do not fit together as well as they could and that there are gaps that could be
better filled. For instance, there seem to be two religions existing without much strife among the remnants of the empire, one being the deification of ancient Imperial heroes
and the other being a militant version of the Catholic Church whose followers worship a being called the One. I didn't have the sense that these two Imperial religions could
co-exist peacefully, and even sects within the One's church seemed as if it would be more likely that they would fight amongst one another rather than cooperate. Finally,
while some of the minor deities have interesting backstories there are a number of others that simply get an organizational description which makes them less interesting.
Then again, I'm a firm Catholic so there is the possibility that my criticism for the One's Church is more personal than rational.

Imagination

The imagination that was involved in creating Skybourne makes this campaign world and I would recommend the downloading and reading of it simply because of the fantastic ideas
that can be found. I'm not a big fan of airships, pirates, or maritime adventures and yet I found enough in this work to keep me interested and wanting more. The best part of
the campaign so far was the new renderings of the major races with elves becoming more arcane city builders, half-orcs as noble warriors with a code of honor and affinity with
dragon kind, half-elves as their own unique race that just happen to look like a cross between elves and humans, dwarves as implied worshippers of fire and earth elementals,
and halflings as fawning over the missed good-old days of despotic rule under the emperor.

Overall

This first book for the campaign world was difficult to rate due to the fact that it was free and that it is an incomplete work that will only be finished when the entire
series is published. If this was to stand on its own I would have given it 3 out of 5 stars since it brings up information that is incomplete such as on the use of magical
nodes and magically dead areas, the way that a mortal can become a god through gaining worshippers, existing territories and cities, and airships. However, the author starts
this document explaining that this book is only meant to give a rundown of the races and culture of Skybourne and that more books will be forthcoming. Despite its errors
(which are less common than in many .pdfs you would actually have to pay for) I find myself compelled to read more of Skybourne and so therefore give it four out of five stars
for doing such an excellent job of sparking my imagination.

Thanks for the kind review. As a brand new writer I am very encouraged by the largely positive feedback.

As time permits i will certainly fix some of the spell check / replace errors that seem to have slipped past. Thankfully those were few and far between.

This is a great review as it gives me a better understanding of what I need to focus on to communicate the setting more effectively.

As Deuce mentions this is just one of a series of books. WOS 2 The World of Skybourne - Magic is pretty close to finished. I want to give it one or two more reads and pass it around to some friends before posting it. It should be up in a few days.

WOS 3 Skyography is coming in November of this year and between the three books (400 some pages of material) readers should have everything they need to run the setting as it was intended (should they choose to). Otherwise it should be a fun source to pull ideas from.

Best Regards and many thanks,
Edward