High-quality systemless books [+]
- Thread starter Autumnal
- Start date
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
Here's another possibility that just cropped up on DTRPG - A Voyage To Fomalhaut. Says its for OSRIC and may not be wholly systemless (there a couple of gold piece costs mentioned in the preview) but it also appears to be mostly a proper gazetteer for a sword & planet setting with a bit of the vibe Tekumel has - degenerate colony world, partially terraformed long ago, post-interstellar collapse and a bevy of new "gods" of various origins. Worth a glance, anyway.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
Please pardon me as I toot my own horn.
I've learned the hard way to do my campaign worlds systemless. I'm in the process of updating my personal home campaign world book (Amberos/The Dark Summit, replacing art and updating entries), but it's not ready yet. It's a kitchen sink fantasy world, but I have put a lot of work on it.
However, on DriveThruRPG I have Crimson Empire. It is a quasi-Arabic realm whose main kingdom (Eth-Authuram) stretched the continent until it was blasted by magical catastrophe. It is in the process of recovery, but is abound with city-states and break-away states trying to make their own way forward.
Map of the World
First few pages...
I've learned the hard way to do my campaign worlds systemless. I'm in the process of updating my personal home campaign world book (Amberos/The Dark Summit, replacing art and updating entries), but it's not ready yet. It's a kitchen sink fantasy world, but I have put a lot of work on it.
However, on DriveThruRPG I have Crimson Empire. It is a quasi-Arabic realm whose main kingdom (Eth-Authuram) stretched the continent until it was blasted by magical catastrophe. It is in the process of recovery, but is abound with city-states and break-away states trying to make their own way forward.
Map of the World
First few pages...
Voadam
Legend
Ones I have used
In addition to the aforementioned Pirate's Guide to Freeport which I really like (great themed international trade center island city state with a pirate past, Cthulhu mythos underbelly, and well done themed districts for a D&D type base type fantasy city (orc worker district, Wizard's Guild, Temple quarter with adjustable deities for your campaign such as the Sea god and the God of Knowledge, criminal factions, etc.), I really like the shorter (144 page versus 256 page) statless supplements for Cults of Freeport and Buccaneers of Freeport. Both have elements that tie well into existing stuff in the Freeport Trilogy and the Pirate's Guide, fleshing them out in helpful and flavorful ways, but also new stuff that fits in. I feel they maintain the feel and tone of the Pirate's Guide presentation of the setting, and it is a tone I mostly like a lot (sort of Army of Darkness level darkness and adventure you can interact with in a game in a fun way, usually without treading into Evil Dead over the top gruesome gore evil or ridiculous parody comedy).
I ran a long-term 1e Greyhawk boxed set campaign setting campaign for years going from 1e to 2e and I really like a lot of what it does. Years later my brother in law gave me his earlier 1e Greyhawk folio book which other than listing some NPCs as with class and level is statless. It is mostly pure narrative of the 40+ kingdoms and about the same couple paragraphs for each that is in the boxed set. It is brief enough for each that you can quickly get a decently usable handle on each of them in a way a 400 page hardcover going much more in-depth would make a lot more overwhelming. The folio also came with the absolutely fantastic Darlene map that I believe matches the boxed set one. On the downside the folio is completely missing any reference to specific gods for the setting other than the evil demigod Iuz who runs an expanding evil kingdom and the former Greyhawk mayor mad archmage who ascended to become a chaos magic patron. You can fill it in yourself and make it your own how you want, but on the downside you kind of have to if using just the folio and not later Greyhawk sources. Also the writing is setup a bit more for a wargame setup than I would like. The 200-page 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is a similarly low stat Greyhawk setting guide that is much more comprehensive with a list of gods (and 3.0 domains and deity status for stats) and filling in more of the gaps of the 1e boxed set such as connecting the many theocratic kingdoms to specific gods for things like the the arch clericy of Veluna worships or the Caliphate. It provides more lore, has significantly different populations than the 1e boxed set and is set at an advanced timeline after the 2e metaplot Greyhawk Wars and the late WotC 2e reversal of many really Dark Fantasy tone changes from the post wars From the Ashes era to be closer to the 1e boxed set and folio type of set up where evil was present but not as overwhelming and immediately oppressive and threatening most everywhere, though there are still changes from the Folio era with borders changing and some kingdoms having been conquered or split into successor states. On the downside, the writing is a bit comparatively dry compared to the original 1e high Gygaxian so it is more useful as a lore resource to be used for encyclopedia/wikipedia type spot look ups rather than reading through front to back to get an overview of the setting. Since I already had the 1e boxed set, 2e From the Ashes post wars Dark Fantasy toned advanced timeline setting, and the late 2e further timeline advanced reboot setting books and enjoyed each of them, I used it for more comprehensive spot lore look ups and it was useful for me for that purpose.
I enjoyed the Grand History of the Realms which made the time line fun to read cover to cover (for me) and I felt I had a better sense of the setting for it and had history elements I could enjoyably steel for my homebrew mashup setting that is more Golarion and Ptolus and heading towards Eberron but with a few FR elements like the FR pantheon as a New Gods pantheon in the setting contrasted with Greyhawk Old Gods pantheons still being worshiped.
I really like monster books that flesh out monster narratives and I enjoyed the statless Practical Guide to Dragons series of books that WotC put out for kids (I got them for my young son at the time, but also for me
) Good art, a friendly narrator, and narrative descriptions that were good fun intros for the monsters to engage young people who were a bit D&D curious but also pretty good narrative descriptions to functionally use as a DM.
For Things I have gotten because they looked good but I have not dived into yet:
I got similar books for monsters such as the Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors and The Anatomical Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors, as Lovecraftian stuff seems to keep entering my games but I have not dived into them yet.
I also have a bunch of Frog God Games statless setting books (Lost Lands, Tehuatl, Borderlands, Reme, Norse Saga player guide, etc.) that look pretty fantastic but I have not made a lot of Lost Lands directly part of my mashup setting and I have not gone in depth on the PDFs as yet. The Lost Lands one in particular is huge with an overall Hyborian type vibe and a viking area which are very much up my taste alley but so gigantic it is a bit intimidating to dive into over other stuff if I am not expecting to be running something like the Complete Norse Saga or their Set megamodule (both of which I was considering strongly multiple times for future games but never quite fit the moments).
In addition to the aforementioned Pirate's Guide to Freeport which I really like (great themed international trade center island city state with a pirate past, Cthulhu mythos underbelly, and well done themed districts for a D&D type base type fantasy city (orc worker district, Wizard's Guild, Temple quarter with adjustable deities for your campaign such as the Sea god and the God of Knowledge, criminal factions, etc.), I really like the shorter (144 page versus 256 page) statless supplements for Cults of Freeport and Buccaneers of Freeport. Both have elements that tie well into existing stuff in the Freeport Trilogy and the Pirate's Guide, fleshing them out in helpful and flavorful ways, but also new stuff that fits in. I feel they maintain the feel and tone of the Pirate's Guide presentation of the setting, and it is a tone I mostly like a lot (sort of Army of Darkness level darkness and adventure you can interact with in a game in a fun way, usually without treading into Evil Dead over the top gruesome gore evil or ridiculous parody comedy).
I ran a long-term 1e Greyhawk boxed set campaign setting campaign for years going from 1e to 2e and I really like a lot of what it does. Years later my brother in law gave me his earlier 1e Greyhawk folio book which other than listing some NPCs as with class and level is statless. It is mostly pure narrative of the 40+ kingdoms and about the same couple paragraphs for each that is in the boxed set. It is brief enough for each that you can quickly get a decently usable handle on each of them in a way a 400 page hardcover going much more in-depth would make a lot more overwhelming. The folio also came with the absolutely fantastic Darlene map that I believe matches the boxed set one. On the downside the folio is completely missing any reference to specific gods for the setting other than the evil demigod Iuz who runs an expanding evil kingdom and the former Greyhawk mayor mad archmage who ascended to become a chaos magic patron. You can fill it in yourself and make it your own how you want, but on the downside you kind of have to if using just the folio and not later Greyhawk sources. Also the writing is setup a bit more for a wargame setup than I would like. The 200-page 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is a similarly low stat Greyhawk setting guide that is much more comprehensive with a list of gods (and 3.0 domains and deity status for stats) and filling in more of the gaps of the 1e boxed set such as connecting the many theocratic kingdoms to specific gods for things like the the arch clericy of Veluna worships or the Caliphate. It provides more lore, has significantly different populations than the 1e boxed set and is set at an advanced timeline after the 2e metaplot Greyhawk Wars and the late WotC 2e reversal of many really Dark Fantasy tone changes from the post wars From the Ashes era to be closer to the 1e boxed set and folio type of set up where evil was present but not as overwhelming and immediately oppressive and threatening most everywhere, though there are still changes from the Folio era with borders changing and some kingdoms having been conquered or split into successor states. On the downside, the writing is a bit comparatively dry compared to the original 1e high Gygaxian so it is more useful as a lore resource to be used for encyclopedia/wikipedia type spot look ups rather than reading through front to back to get an overview of the setting. Since I already had the 1e boxed set, 2e From the Ashes post wars Dark Fantasy toned advanced timeline setting, and the late 2e further timeline advanced reboot setting books and enjoyed each of them, I used it for more comprehensive spot lore look ups and it was useful for me for that purpose.
I enjoyed the Grand History of the Realms which made the time line fun to read cover to cover (for me) and I felt I had a better sense of the setting for it and had history elements I could enjoyably steel for my homebrew mashup setting that is more Golarion and Ptolus and heading towards Eberron but with a few FR elements like the FR pantheon as a New Gods pantheon in the setting contrasted with Greyhawk Old Gods pantheons still being worshiped.
I really like monster books that flesh out monster narratives and I enjoyed the statless Practical Guide to Dragons series of books that WotC put out for kids (I got them for my young son at the time, but also for me
) Good art, a friendly narrator, and narrative descriptions that were good fun intros for the monsters to engage young people who were a bit D&D curious but also pretty good narrative descriptions to functionally use as a DM.For Things I have gotten because they looked good but I have not dived into yet:
I got similar books for monsters such as the Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors and The Anatomical Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors, as Lovecraftian stuff seems to keep entering my games but I have not dived into them yet.
I also have a bunch of Frog God Games statless setting books (Lost Lands, Tehuatl, Borderlands, Reme, Norse Saga player guide, etc.) that look pretty fantastic but I have not made a lot of Lost Lands directly part of my mashup setting and I have not gone in depth on the PDFs as yet. The Lost Lands one in particular is huge with an overall Hyborian type vibe and a viking area which are very much up my taste alley but so gigantic it is a bit intimidating to dive into over other stuff if I am not expecting to be running something like the Complete Norse Saga or their Set megamodule (both of which I was considering strongly multiple times for future games but never quite fit the moments).
Voadam
Legend
Very Greyhawk Baklunish evocative with their great empire being blown up in the Twin Apocalypses and now being multiple successor Baklunish states and a lot of the former empire lost to the Sea of Dust with unknown on the other side (though Greyhawk is a good time period later from their apocalypse it would seem).
Kind of neat to make the fantasy Moors have a past glorious empire name evocative of King Arthur.
Autumnal
Bruce Baugh, Writer of Fortune
That sounds very appealing to me. I’ll be checking it out.
If I had anything approaching that kind of organization, I’d be tooting. Nifty!
Your descriptions are great, and really helpful. Thank you!
