Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
I was just reading the latest Behind the Curtain article on the Fantasy Flight Games website. You GOTTA read this! This sounds so cool. 
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8/16/2002 - Greg
Publishing for the d20 System is a tricky business. On the one hand, it’s a huge market. Far more people play D&D than any other roleplaying game. Access to that audience is an extraordinary opportunity for a company the size of FFG. On the other hand, there’s a lot of competition-scores of companies want to take advantage of the same opportunity.
Ever since we started publishing d20 System products, we’ve considered doing a fantasy setting. But here’s where things get tricky. Traditional fantasy settings have the broadest appeal for our target audience, but they also have the most competition. D&D players, as a general rule, really like their Medieval European-inspired fantasy settings. The further away you get from that, the less likely your setting is to be successful. But there are already lots out there to choose from. So the challenge is to do something that is both familiar and unique. You need something that’s more of the same, but with a cool twist that sets it apart.
To some extent, that’s what we did with Dragonstar. In many ways, it’s a pretty traditional D&D setting, with the standard elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, and magic. The twist is that it’s a whole universe of these worlds, and that it’s dominated both by magic and by high technology. Put simply, Dragonstar is D&D space opera.
As high-tech space opera, though, Dragonstar strays a fair distance from that Medieval European tradition that so many players love. It’s even more challenging to develop a setting that stays closer to home, but still has that unique twist that sets it apart.
In terms of the basic concept, Dragonstar is nothing new. Gamers have been mixing D&D and space opera for years-Gygax and Arneson were flirting with these themes when D&D was born. Likewise, there’s always been a close connection between D&D and Tolkien’s work: Hobbits are called “halflings” these days, but the influence is still there, rooted deep in the foundations of the game. And fans have been asking the question, “What if Sauron won?” even longer than they’ve been mixing fantasy and space opera. This is the point of departure for our new Midnight campaign setting.
In the world of Midnight, the spirit of a fallen god, Izrador, holds dominion over the land. The henchmen of the Shadow in the North, called the Night Kings, are charged with rooting out and destroying the last bastions of resistance, chiefly the elven forests and subterranean dwarven cities where the desperate defenders are dug in and prepared to fight to the bitter end. The realms of men, by and large, have fallen under the Shadow. The preview’s cover art shows one of the last monarchs surrendering his crown to a legate-one of the Shadow’s priesthood-who is in turn offering the trophy to a Night King.
Midnight is a world where all the odds are against the heroes-and they’re much more heroic because of it. The list of obstacles and challenges facing characters in this setting is a long one, but I’ll touch on a few of the major ones.
* No clerical magic: When the gods severed Izrador’s spirit from his physical form, he corrupted their magic and in the process severed the celestial realm from the mortal. The gods of light can’t talk to their mortal children, and vice-versa. If a spell is listed as available to clerics only, PCs don’t have access to it. Because Izrador exists in the mortal realm, his servants are the only ones with access to cleric spells (including restoration, raise dead, and resurrection).
* No planar access: For the same reason, there is no way to travel to or communicate with the outer planes in Midnight. Among other things, this affects the way summoning and conjuration spells work. If you summon a celestial being in Midnight, for example, it’s a specific entity, with a name and a personality, which has been trapped on the Material Plane ever since it was severed from the celestial realms.
* Rare magic items: In Midnight, magic items are extremely rare. High-level characters won’t have all their “slots” filled, with backups waiting in a handy bag of holding. Magic items in the world of Midnight are rare, precious items of great power that are worth fighting and dying for. As a general rule, characters in Midnight will have fewer items than normal, but they will all be unique and interesting rather than generic.
* The Shadow: The greatest obstacle facing the heroes in Midnight is that the world itself is against them. Izrador and his Night Kings reign supreme, and they make life very difficult for those who would oppose them. Magic is banned and its practice is punishable by death. The legates are charged with identifying and persecuting mages, and they are aided by nasty spirits they call “sniffers” that can actually smell magic and those who wield it. These spirits possess animals, so you never know where they are.
In our playtest campaign, one of the characters managed to kill a sniffer’s wolfhound body-only to have his own animal companion turn and attack him on the following round. The elder races (elves, dwarves, and gnomes, primarily) are being hunted to extinction. It’s illegal to carry martial weapons (unless you have been conscripted into the Night Kings’ armies), and even literacy is punishable by death. The common folk live in constant fear, and they are unlikely to welcome even the most well-meaning band of would-be heroes.
Despite the odds that are stacked against them, heroes in Midnight do have a few things going for them. Magic, while rare, illegal, and dangerous, is an even more powerful force in this setting than in most. There is no distinction between arcane and divine magic: Spellcasters have access to both low-level cure spells and the offensive spells that are the traditional specialty of acane casters. Furthermore, the ability to cast spells isn’t tied exclusively to certain classes-any character can potentially learn to cast a few spells, though they’ll of course have to make sacrifices in other areas (and they’ll risk attracting the attention of sniffers!). On the other hand, it is perhaps more difficult to become a true master of magic, especially when all of the masters were slaughtered during the Last Battle a hundred years ago. The ability to cast “flashy” evocation and conjuration/summoning spells is especially challenging.
Midnight will be a very familiar setting that, hopefully, will also seem fresh and new and offer a lot of cool stuff for players and DMs to explore. You’ll have redesigned core classes, such as the channeler described in the preview (wizard, druid, and other spellcasting classes are prestige classes in Midnight). You’ll also have heroic paths, leveled options that give your character the unique and legendary abilities so common in epic fantasy literature. You’ll get new rules for learning and casting spells that will allow you to say goodbye to spell slots while still using all the existing spells from the core rules and third-party sources. You’ll also get some full-page artwork from Andy Brase, the amazing artist who did the illustrations of the ironborn and channeler in the Midnight preview.
I’m really looking forward to Midnight, and no doubt you’ll be hearing a lot more about it here.
----------------------
8/16/2002 - Greg
Publishing for the d20 System is a tricky business. On the one hand, it’s a huge market. Far more people play D&D than any other roleplaying game. Access to that audience is an extraordinary opportunity for a company the size of FFG. On the other hand, there’s a lot of competition-scores of companies want to take advantage of the same opportunity.
Ever since we started publishing d20 System products, we’ve considered doing a fantasy setting. But here’s where things get tricky. Traditional fantasy settings have the broadest appeal for our target audience, but they also have the most competition. D&D players, as a general rule, really like their Medieval European-inspired fantasy settings. The further away you get from that, the less likely your setting is to be successful. But there are already lots out there to choose from. So the challenge is to do something that is both familiar and unique. You need something that’s more of the same, but with a cool twist that sets it apart.
To some extent, that’s what we did with Dragonstar. In many ways, it’s a pretty traditional D&D setting, with the standard elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, and magic. The twist is that it’s a whole universe of these worlds, and that it’s dominated both by magic and by high technology. Put simply, Dragonstar is D&D space opera.
As high-tech space opera, though, Dragonstar strays a fair distance from that Medieval European tradition that so many players love. It’s even more challenging to develop a setting that stays closer to home, but still has that unique twist that sets it apart.
In terms of the basic concept, Dragonstar is nothing new. Gamers have been mixing D&D and space opera for years-Gygax and Arneson were flirting with these themes when D&D was born. Likewise, there’s always been a close connection between D&D and Tolkien’s work: Hobbits are called “halflings” these days, but the influence is still there, rooted deep in the foundations of the game. And fans have been asking the question, “What if Sauron won?” even longer than they’ve been mixing fantasy and space opera. This is the point of departure for our new Midnight campaign setting.
In the world of Midnight, the spirit of a fallen god, Izrador, holds dominion over the land. The henchmen of the Shadow in the North, called the Night Kings, are charged with rooting out and destroying the last bastions of resistance, chiefly the elven forests and subterranean dwarven cities where the desperate defenders are dug in and prepared to fight to the bitter end. The realms of men, by and large, have fallen under the Shadow. The preview’s cover art shows one of the last monarchs surrendering his crown to a legate-one of the Shadow’s priesthood-who is in turn offering the trophy to a Night King.
Midnight is a world where all the odds are against the heroes-and they’re much more heroic because of it. The list of obstacles and challenges facing characters in this setting is a long one, but I’ll touch on a few of the major ones.
* No clerical magic: When the gods severed Izrador’s spirit from his physical form, he corrupted their magic and in the process severed the celestial realm from the mortal. The gods of light can’t talk to their mortal children, and vice-versa. If a spell is listed as available to clerics only, PCs don’t have access to it. Because Izrador exists in the mortal realm, his servants are the only ones with access to cleric spells (including restoration, raise dead, and resurrection).
* No planar access: For the same reason, there is no way to travel to or communicate with the outer planes in Midnight. Among other things, this affects the way summoning and conjuration spells work. If you summon a celestial being in Midnight, for example, it’s a specific entity, with a name and a personality, which has been trapped on the Material Plane ever since it was severed from the celestial realms.
* Rare magic items: In Midnight, magic items are extremely rare. High-level characters won’t have all their “slots” filled, with backups waiting in a handy bag of holding. Magic items in the world of Midnight are rare, precious items of great power that are worth fighting and dying for. As a general rule, characters in Midnight will have fewer items than normal, but they will all be unique and interesting rather than generic.
* The Shadow: The greatest obstacle facing the heroes in Midnight is that the world itself is against them. Izrador and his Night Kings reign supreme, and they make life very difficult for those who would oppose them. Magic is banned and its practice is punishable by death. The legates are charged with identifying and persecuting mages, and they are aided by nasty spirits they call “sniffers” that can actually smell magic and those who wield it. These spirits possess animals, so you never know where they are.
In our playtest campaign, one of the characters managed to kill a sniffer’s wolfhound body-only to have his own animal companion turn and attack him on the following round. The elder races (elves, dwarves, and gnomes, primarily) are being hunted to extinction. It’s illegal to carry martial weapons (unless you have been conscripted into the Night Kings’ armies), and even literacy is punishable by death. The common folk live in constant fear, and they are unlikely to welcome even the most well-meaning band of would-be heroes.
Despite the odds that are stacked against them, heroes in Midnight do have a few things going for them. Magic, while rare, illegal, and dangerous, is an even more powerful force in this setting than in most. There is no distinction between arcane and divine magic: Spellcasters have access to both low-level cure spells and the offensive spells that are the traditional specialty of acane casters. Furthermore, the ability to cast spells isn’t tied exclusively to certain classes-any character can potentially learn to cast a few spells, though they’ll of course have to make sacrifices in other areas (and they’ll risk attracting the attention of sniffers!). On the other hand, it is perhaps more difficult to become a true master of magic, especially when all of the masters were slaughtered during the Last Battle a hundred years ago. The ability to cast “flashy” evocation and conjuration/summoning spells is especially challenging.
Midnight will be a very familiar setting that, hopefully, will also seem fresh and new and offer a lot of cool stuff for players and DMs to explore. You’ll have redesigned core classes, such as the channeler described in the preview (wizard, druid, and other spellcasting classes are prestige classes in Midnight). You’ll also have heroic paths, leveled options that give your character the unique and legendary abilities so common in epic fantasy literature. You’ll get new rules for learning and casting spells that will allow you to say goodbye to spell slots while still using all the existing spells from the core rules and third-party sources. You’ll also get some full-page artwork from Andy Brase, the amazing artist who did the illustrations of the ironborn and channeler in the Midnight preview.
I’m really looking forward to Midnight, and no doubt you’ll be hearing a lot more about it here.
