D&D 5E What sword & sorcery books & supplements are out there for 5e?

[vivsavage]

Sword & sorcery is a subgenre of fantasy typified by Conan, Elric, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, etc. With the exception of Primeval Thule and the World of Xoth, I'm unaware of any 5e-derived sword & sorcery products. Are there any more? Specifically, S&S game books that include the rules, rather than requiring the PHB.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm considering writing a 5e version of my S&S game Red Mists, but wondered if there would be any sort of interest (however small) for it.

 

[tommybahama]

Are you sure you have the right link? When I click on the link it goes to a kickstarter for The Bone Age, which doesn't remind me of Conan at all.

I prefer s&s to high fantasy but I think people like us are in the minority.

 

[xoth.publishing]

Are you sure you have the right link? When I click on the link it goes to a kickstarter for The Bone Age, which doesn't remind me of Conan at all.

Not to distract from the main topic of this thread, but "The Bone Age" looks awesome, too! Love the concept, the artwork, the weird/gonzo feel. Not sure it needs its own rule system, though, I would prefer if it used 5E as that would make it easier to get players on board.

 

[CapnZapp]

The same question was also asked over at rpg.net with some additional replies.

Cheers

 

[jayoungr]

I assume you've seen this thread, since it's also on the forum's front page at the moment:

D&D 5E - Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

The Player's Guide to the World of Xoth is a free PDF with more than 60 pages of sword and sorcery material for fifth edition that allows you to play in adventures inspired by the stories of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Venture in the footsteps of Conan the Cimmerian, Satampra Zeiros...

www.enworld.org

 

[GlassJaw]

There some decent S&S resources (including the ones that have been mentioned) but I haven't seen one that tackles the biggest challenge to reproducing the S&S feel: the magic system.

Thule has virtually zero rules at all (which was a big disappointment for me). Xoth "partially" addresses it but still keeps the core mechanic intact (which I don't feel is the best fit for S&S). Darker Dungeons is worth a look because it has mechanics for making magic dangerous to use.

For the d20 system, the best S&S ruleset I've seen was the Conan RPG by Mongoose Publishing (which is now out of D&D/d20 publishing entirely I believe). To be honest, I would heavily salvage that and convert it to 5E.

You really need to cobble together from multiple sources to pull off S&S using a level-based d20 core mechanic. Conversely, a system like Savage Worlds has multiple - and extremely good - supplements that capture the S&S feel: Beasts & Barbarians, Solomon Kane, and Lankhmar immediately come to mind. And there are probably more.

 

[tommybahama]

I assume you've seen this thread, since it's also on the forum's front page at the moment:

D&D 5E - Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

The Player's Guide to the World of Xoth is a free PDF with more than 60 pages of sword and sorcery material for fifth edition that allows you to play in adventures inspired by the stories of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Venture in the footsteps of Conan the Cimmerian, Satampra Zeiros...

www.enworld.org

Nope, I get forum posts in my rss feed and go straight to the post if it looks interesting. I rarely notice the front page. But thanks for pointing it out.

 

[jayoungr]

There some decent S&S resources (including the ones that have been mentioned) but I haven't seen one that tackles the biggest challenge to reproducing the S&S feel: the magic system.

I wonder if you could hack Adventures in Middle-Earth for a Sword & Sorcery game? It's got the reworked classes and low magic, but the flavor of Tolkien is pretty different from S&S.

 

[GlassJaw]

I wonder if you could hack Adventures in Middle-Earth for a Sword & Sorcery game? It's got the reworked classes and low magic, but the flavor of Tolkien is pretty different from S&S.

Flavor-wise there are some similarities but not much. The similarities have to do with low-magic/magic is dangerous and monsters are rare and scary. But the feel for the genres is quite different.

AiME is a great system but it's so heavily rewritten that I'd think you spend much too much time trying to squeeze on things you could use for a S&S game. Heck, AiME doesn't even have a magic system.

Tangent: I've been brainstorming on a low-magic "toolbox" book with a variety of options and mechanics. Threads like this make me want to actually invest some real time in that.

 

[vivsavage]

Are you sure you have the right link? When I click on the link it goes to a kickstarter for The Bone Age, which doesn't remind me of Conan at all.

I prefer s&s to high fantasy but I think people like us are in the minority.

Whoops! That is indeed a mistake! I accidentally linked to my Kickstarter. The link has been fixed. Thanks for the heads-up!