Kalamar - first published 4e setting?!?

[mhensley]

4E Kingdoms of Kalamar PDF campaign setting released
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/showthread.php?p=678068#post678068

501 page pdf! GSL or not?
http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_26_33&products_id=625

By this cover, I'm guessing not.

 

[Vayden]

Intriguing. Can I get some background on KoKalamar from someone who's played in it before? General theme/feel?

 

[mhensley]

Intriguing. Can I get some background on KoKalamar from someone who's played in it before? General theme/feel?

It's a very detailed and realistic medieval fantasy setting. I found it to be a bit dry for my tastes.

 

[Vayden]

It's a very detailed and realistic medieval fantasy setting. I found it to be a bit dry for my tastes.

Bummer. Not my cup of tea.

 

[Voadam]

Intriguing. Can I get some background on KoKalamar from someone who's played in it before? General theme/feel?

Detailed ethnic and language groups (including an africanish analogue), they worked hard on having geography make sense. Hobgoblins are a huge important civilization.

Tons of gods (but no racial deities, one pantheon for the world) and groups and kingdoms.

Fewer high level casters around than Greyhawk. They are there but not omnipresent.

Timeline deliberately does not advance in products, nothing in the base book gets invalidated by later supplements.

 

[Voadam]

None of their 3e Kalamar stuff was under the OGL, correct?

 

[mhensley]

None of their 3e Kalamar stuff was under the OGL, correct?

Most of it was done under license as official D&D product iirc.

 

[Ktulu]

That's surprising considering the amount of 4e bashing Kenzer&co has delivered in WotC 4e's direction. Really ironic, too, seeing how Kalamar is to become their official Hackmaster setting when they eventually put out 5th ed Hackmaster.

I'd have to take a look, but I'd bet they just removed the 3.x magic items and class references from the book and released it as a 4e product.

I own every Kalamar product put out in the 3.x era and, despite my not nice words about the company, I really enjoyed the setting and I'd have to say it's been one of my favorite worlds to run/play a game in for years.

Ktulu

 

[Shroomy]

Yeah, I didn't exactly get the idea that Kenzer was going to immediately support 4e.

 

[Vanuslux]

Looking at the preview, it looks like it will have maybe a Dragon article's worth of 4E material with the other 495 pages of the $25 PDF taken up by an amalgamation of the KoK setting fluff and the KoK Atlas.