Iomandra

[SparqMan]

Iomandra and the Dragon Sea, the homebrew campaign setting of Chris Perkins, is a fun concept that I would like to try for my next campaign. I have collected all of the information from his official wiki as well as blog posts by some players, and I'm curious if anyone here has tried it. I'm aware of a single Obsidian Portal campaign that borrowed much of the setting and a single blog that posted a couple of times about their own version but never again.

Anyone given it a shot as player or DM?

 

[Maro]

I haven't, just looked to see what this thread was about...only posting because it's good to see VA representin', Yo!

 

[SparqMan]

Always good to see another VA player.

Surprised that no one has given this a shot.

 

[Saagael]

Sorry to say that the most I've used from his campaign setting is the huge list of NPC names he's got set up. It's seen much use, and is top 5 on my D&D bookmarks folder.

 

[CStevenRoss]

I ran a Heroic Tier campaign based on a watery world with a lot of inspiration from Iomandra. We had a lot of use out of the idea that isolated islands were points of light set against the vastness of the seas and an oppressive empire. We also had a lot of fun exploring the world. I had a mostly blank map, 32"x40" paper. At the start of the campaign, each player got to describe where a particular island was. During the course of the campaign, the players found clues as to where other long-lost locales where located. For simplicity (because this method definitely doesn't work in the real world) the directions between islands would take the form of a direction (split between the 12 zodiac signs) and a distance. So, for example, the players knew where Korth Island was, and then they would discover notes telling them that the underwater ruins of Vor Rukoth were located 500 miles in the direction of Capricorn, and then 300 miles in the direction of Saggitarius. The players really digged it and it was a cool way to do some exploration in the world. By the end of the campaign, that whole damned mao was nearly filled up with sketches of islands, notes, doodles, etc. that had organically been jotted down.
The last thing we did that was specific to the water world concept was have a pseudo-skill challenge system integrating ship-to-ship naval combat with the traditional square-by-square tactical system of 4E. It made some pretty epic naval battles with ships being wrecked in the middle of imperial marines boarding and pirates threatening to swing on board. I have my notes here here and here.

 

[SparqMan]

[MENTION=86428]CStevenRoss[/MENTION] -- very cool. You have any notes from your campaign setup?

Iomandra itself is a cool setting, but I'm also interested in the wide story arcs that move across the campaign based on the various villains and factions.

 

[SparqMan]

I'm going to keep any of my work updates in this thread.

In free time I have been sifting through the episode guides, wiki docs and old player blogs for world details and entering them into the Encylopedia for a MasterPlan file. So far the focus has been on people, places, ships, factions, etc. Of course the particular elements of the Perkins campaigns may not jive with yours, but I think it is important to first break down what Chris has done.

One point of curiosity is the world map.
1. Chris posted four images but they don't fit together to form a complete map, which seems intentional based on his attention to detail on maps. Below are the images. C and D fit together nicely, there looks to be a small gap between B and C, and then there is obviously a large gap between A and B. Someone brought this up on the WOTC Iomandra Public group, but it was after Chris has stopped responding to any messages.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Iomandra_World_A_72dpi.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Iomandra_World_B_72dpi.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Iomandra_World_C_72dpi.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Iomandra_World_D_72dpi.jpg

2. I'm also wondering the best way to "project" this map onto a globe surface (in terms of models, not actual 3D projection). We know that the Black Curtain has closed off large chunks of the map, so it would make sense for this map to not form a full globe on its own. Do the Eye of Io and Frostfell cover the entire poles? If so, shouldn't they appear on each of the map segments? Or based on the position of the poles on the map, should we be able to tell what percentage of the globe is hidden by the Black Curtain?