Fresh Campaign Setting Sought

[Jürgen Hubert]

Does it need to be a d20 setting?

If not, I'd recommend GURPS Banestorm, an interesting fantasy setting with all the usual tropes (elves, orcs, magic, etc.), but with an unusual twist: Most races came originally from other worlds and were trapped in this world by a massive failed magical ritual conducted by a group of elves.

And one of the races that was humans - from the year 1050 A.D..

So now you have a bunch of Christian and Muslim states that exist in a world where magic works and that co-exist with elves, orcs, dragons and even stranger creatures.

It makes for a rather fascinating setting, since this allows you to import all sorts of interesting tidbits from real world history and mix it with fantasy elements. The book is pretty rules-lite and should be easy to convert.

One snag is that there isn't really any seperation between "arcane" and "divine" magic - magic, including healing spells, is all secular (though there have been a number of priests of a multitude of religions who have learned wizardry). So you'd need to figure something out for this, without making wizards overwhelming in power.

(On the other hand, forcing wizards to use up precious spell slots for healing spells might be limiting enough on its own...)

But apart from that, conversion should be relatively easy...

 

[Turanil]

an interesting fantasy setting with all the usual tropes (elves, orcs, magic, etc.), but with an unusual twist: Most races came originally from other worlds and were trapped in this world by a massive failed magical ritual conducted by a group of elves.

And one of the races that was humans - from the year 1050 A.D..

So now you have a bunch of Christian and Muslim states that exist in a world where magic works and that co-exist with elves, orcs, dragons and even stranger creatures.

CRAP! It's what I am doing for my own homebrew setting! I am slowly designing my setting in which Christian humans were drawn from medieval Earth because of a large summoning ritual performed by dragons...

 

[Yair]

CRAP! It's what I am doing for my own homebrew setting! I am slowly designing my setting in which Christian humans were drawn from medieval Earth because of a large summoning ritual performed by dragons...

That's totally different, man. Your'e using DRAGONS, they're talking about ELVES.

Sheesh.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

An additional possibility would be Birthright, an old AD&D setting. Magic (beyond divinations and illusions) is rare, since only people who are members of certain bloodlines can learn it. While the default assumption is that the PCs are rulers of their own domain, you can easily ignore that and use it as a "standard" fantasy setting...

 

[Aus_Snow]

An additional possibility would be Birthright, an old AD&D setting. Magic (beyond divinations and illusions) is rare, since only people who are members of certain bloodlines can learn it. While the default assumption is that the PCs are rulers of their own domain, you can easily ignore that and use it as a "standard" fantasy setting...

Excellent call, sir. Excellent. Not necessarily 'low magic', but a rather different take on D&D fantasy? Oh, definitely.

I'm not sure if you have to register in order to download their free 3e conversion PDFs, but even if so that's also free (and harmless.)

Likewise, if you like other reincarnated 2e settings, there's Dark Sun. A free 3e conversion is available there too.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Excellent call, sir. Excellent. Not necessarily 'low magic', but a rather different take on D&D fantasy? Oh, definitely.

I'm not sure if you have to register in order to download their free 3e conversion PDFs, but even if so that's also free (and harmless.)

Likewise, if you like other reincarnated 2e settings, there's Dark Sun. A free 3e conversion is available there too.

While Dark Sun is excellent indeed, it's probably too much of a deviation from "standard" fantasy, since it takes place in a desert wasteland world with cannibal halflings and all.

Birthright, on the other hand, has most of the D&D tropes people are familiar with, and magic is both less common and feels a lot more mythic than in, say, D&D.

 

[Voadam]

I would also suggest the old GURPS Conan for a gritty, warrior heavy, low magic setting with depth that could be used with Iron Heroes rules.

Mongoose has a ton of region support books for their d20/OGL Conan rules system, but I feel the GURPS book has enough to provide the world on its own with a kingdom by kingdom gazetteer if I recall correctly (haven't looked at it in years though).

 

[CaptainChaos]

I think you should give Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay a try. Gritty setting for sure, few starting PCs have access to magic, and continuing support of a very rich world.

If it must be d20, Black Company is excellent.

If you don't mind hunting a bit, you might try digging up some old Harn books too.

 

[BeholderBurger]

Warhammer for sure. I just read through the main rules, bestiary and armoury books and can't wait to play this again. It's so similar to the original edition ; gritty, bleak but epic as well yet with nice new elements. The bestiary is in 2 sections, the first is for everyone and is purely descriptive from the perspective of the peoples of the world and the creatures themselves (if intelligent enough to hold an opinion on themselves) and the second is the statistics, just for the GM. This is a breath of fresh air to DM's who constantly battle to stop players claiming theIR rightful access to the MM, particularly magic users and their penchant for shapechanging.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Great suggestions, one and all !!
Do any of the Publishers of the settings mentioned thus far not deliver to the UK, if I am unable to purchase PDF versions?

Dark Seraph,

If you decide to take a look at the D&D: Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting, you can purchase directly from our online store.

While all that's required to play in the setting is the KoK campaign setting sourcebook (and the three core WotC books of course), you may want to check out our 3.5 PDF update to the old print version of the KoK Player's Guide, now called the [/url=http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.php?cPath=62&products_id=368]Player's Guide to the Sovereign Lands[/url].