AD&D 2E Jakandor

[haakon1]

Back in the day (1997 or 1998, around the TSR bankruptcy), I was vaguely aware this product existed.

Apparently it’s a large island that can be a campaign or a part of a larger setting, where a society of barbarian invaders fight a society of necromancers.

Anyone use it? Any opinions on it?

Jakandor, Island of War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[R_J_K75]

Anyone use it? Any opinions on it?

I saw it in Media Play when it came out and it never sold, it sat there until the two sequels came out, both of which never sold either. I never read or played any but it might be a cool setting in 3 books and worth checking out.

 

[haakon1]

It sounds interesting, but yes, I never saw the inside of those books either.

 

[R_J_K75]

It sounds interesting, but yes, I never saw the inside of those books either.

I think they suffered from the same thing as the other Odyssey setting Tales of the Comet. 2E already had too many settings, they were pretty different and with TSR being bought by WotC or bankrupt at the time (I forget which) people probably saw that 2E was on its way out sooner than later. Those were two settings me and my friend used to laugh at then and the thought of actually buying them never even crossed our minds because we had invested so much money and time in other settings already.

 

[Staffan]

Jakandor was a cool concept that I never got around to actually using. Both the Knorrmen (barbarians) and Charonti (wizards) had interesting cultures The Knorrmen seemed to take a lot of inspiration from native Americans rather than "traditional" viking/Germanic barbarians, with many of them being part of "totem lodges" that had fighting techniques inspired by various animals, and with individual honor and accomplishment being paramount. The Charonti on their part had a very community-focused culture, to the point where they don't think twice about reanimating their dead so they can keep serving the community. In that way, they served as a way to present a Chaos vs Law conflict in a way that didn't involve cosmic forces. They also had an interesting twist where the Charonti, despite being the wizard-focused culture, had very limited spell lists – they were the remnants of a vast but fallen empire, and much knowledge had been lost in the fall and much of what they still had was segregated among different wizard guilds (matching the schools of magic).

But it probably suffered quite a bit from being a setting that deliberately cut out large parts of the core rules (e.g. races and some classes, not to mention using a highly curated monster list), and unlike Dark Sun which did the same didn't really replace it with anything. It was also an attempt at "culture gaming" in D&D, and that generally hasn't been D&D's strength.

 

[R_J_K75]

Jakandor was a cool concept that I never got around to actually using.

To this day I have never met anyone who ever owned, DM'd or played this setting.

 

[Alzrius]

I posted some thoughts on the Jakandor modules back in this old thread, with several other posters chiming in.

 

[timbannock]

I picked up the 3 books and worked it into my sort of "grand unified setting" experiment.

• Faerun/FR -- specifically the Sword Coast through the Hordelands -- was the western portion of a super continent.
• The Hordelands was geographically the same, but was basically the Sundered Empire (3E-era Chainmail setting).
• Greyhawk was the eastern part of that super continent.
• Isle of Dread was south of the Flanaess.
• Seas of Vodari was flipped vertically and replaced Al-Qadim.
• Returned Abeir simply replaced Maztica.

...and that brings us to Jakandor, which sat way in the southwest, below Returned Abeir, but mostly just cut off from the rest of the world.

I found that the timeline of the Charonti kind of worked out such that they were a colony of Imaskar, but got caught off by the mysterious plague that befell the Imaskari and toppled their civilization. So the Charonti were like one "house" of Imaskar that was stranded, doubly so when the whole Karsus thing happened. So they kind of lost some of their history, and thought they were alone in the world. Meanwhile the Knorr were instead viking-style peoples from the Seas of Vodari setting, so they were a bit more mercantile and aware of goings-on in the world, which shocked and scared the Charonti for different reasons.

Anyway, I quite liked the setting's tonally "gray" morality, was interested in how remote it felt, and loved the sort of "dueling mechs" aspect.

I never got around to running anything there, though.

 

[sevenbastard]

You had me at necromancer vs barbarian.

Jocks vs Nerds, the eternal struggle.

 

[Tonguez]

The thing about the Charonti is that they arent the typical evil Necromancers, rather they are a Community focussed Wizard-culture that honours their ancestral dead by raising them to work for the community so the living can study magic. The Knorrman religion considers necromancy and thus the Charonti to be an abhorent
The Charonti are also descendents of the original occupants of the island so arguably have greater native rights despite the Knorr having been told to claim the island by their god.
Those invesrions of standard tropes were part of Jakandors charm, even though the first book focussed on the Knorr, the Charonti werent the bad guys and both factions had their pro and cons for the PCs to respond to

You had me at necromancer vs barbarian.

Jocks vs Nerds, the eternal struggle.