Kingdoms of Kalamar: Ask the Emperor!

[Alzrius]

Mark, a few somewhat immaterial questions on the setting:

Do the gods have ranks of power listed anywhere? I mean like demigod, lesser, intermediate, greater.

Is the KoK campaign considered official D&D? I'm not at all sure on this, because while it does have the D&D logo, it's not published or produced by WotC, and they don't seem to acknowledge it at all, as though it were completely third-party. Would it be wrong to call KoK a second-party setting?

Is there anything detailing the campaign's cosmology?

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Was Kingdoms of Kalamar the home campaign of the original creators (ie. David Kenzer)?

Hmmm... I think I can only answer that one halfway. They certainly played in it, but whether the campaign setting grew from games, or whether the world was built first, THEN gamed in, I'm not sure.

Still, I think the world was designed first, then played in.

If so, what RPG system were they using way-back-when for the campaign?

I believe it was AD&D, but it MIGHT have been D&D. I heard the story when I was first hired, but my memory sucks. That's why my desk and computer are filled with notes and spreadsheets - I have to write everything down.

If the setting was the home campaign of the creators, are they still playing in that same campaign to this day?

That would be pretty cool (almost mythic), but that campaign's been over for a long time. With our heavy workload and very small staff, we generally just run short campaigns for playtesting, so new characters are pretty frequent.

Still, some of the names have continued. One of Dave's old email addresses began with "thedorus." [In the history of the KoK setting, Thedorus was a petty Kalamaran lord who got the secret of making steel from the dwarves. Eventually, Thedorus became Emperor Thedorus I. Probably the most popular emperor. Died peacefully in his sleep.]

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Mark, a few somewhat immaterial questions on the setting:

Do the gods have ranks of power listed anywhere? I mean like demigod, lesser, intermediate, greater.

Definitely not. One of our personal dislikes is giving gods statistics. They're simply so different, and so far above everyone else that they can't be classified, much less harmed. Some gamers like seeing the statistics for gods, but it's just one of our little quirks that we don't. So no god stats.

Is the KoK campaign considered official D&D? I'm not at all sure on this, because while it does have the D&D logo, it's not published or produced by WotC, and they don't seem to acknowledge it at all, as though it were completely third-party.

Ah, the question... Lots of fans/non-fans of KoK have different opinions on this topic, some of them pretty harsh. So I'll try and keep my reply clear, concise and fair.

The KoK campaign setting is definitely an official setting. That's the only way we get the D&D brand logo on the front cover. Of course, some official settings (like Forgotten Realms, for example) obviously want to heavily promote the Forgotten Realms brand, so they use the D&D logo in other/smaller locations on the book. But both are official.

Being official also means we have some more freedoms, but also some more restrictions, than the SRD/OGL d20 publishers. For example, everything we publish with that logo is sent to WotC for several stages of approval. That's text AND art.

As for WotC not acknowledging it... Well, they will mention major press releases that affect both companies in some way - such as when the setting was first released. Otherwise, I'd guess they prefer to focus their time and resources on their own products/settings, as most companies probably would.

Would it be wrong to call KoK a second-party setting?

Um... well... I dunno. That might be technically right. I prefer "official," though.

Is there anything detailing the campaign's cosmology?

No, there is nothing yet, other than the basic cosmology from the DMG. If I recall correctly, we did have a freelancer working on a religion supplement, which probably would have included that. Unfortunately, something happened to him or her, so that got canned until we get someone else for it.

Except for a handful or two of known locations, the inhabitants of Tellene don't have a lot of contact with other planes. I'd say demons/devils, elementals, shadow creatures and gith would be the most common. It's really left open for the DM, if you want to go really heavy or really light on this kind of thing.

Of course, the "Sentinels of Providence" are a secret order designed to combat the intrustion of evil onto Tellene from other planes. So I'd say that there's definitely enough contact to be dangerous.

 

[Darklone]

Definitely not. One of our personal dislikes is giving gods statistics. They're simply so different, and so far above everyone else that they can't be classified, much less harmed. Some gamers like seeing the statistics for gods, but it's just one of our little quirks that we don't. So no god stats.

Aren't some of the stats in the Hackmaster Gawds & Demigawds?

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Aren't some of the stats in the Hackmaster Gawds & Demigawds?

Even though both are high-quality products, HM and KoK are definately different settings, and I can state that w/o Gawds and Femigawds.

 

[johnsemlak]

Can someone give me a general description of what lies beyond the eastern portion of the KoK map, beyond the desert that is near the Rheanarian Bay?

 

[Desdichado]

Why is being "official" important? Can't any d20 setting that's well developed do as well commercially, and be essentially the same thing in every other way?

 

[johnsemlak]

Why is being "official" important? Can't any d20 setting that's well developed do as well commercially, and be essentially the same thing in every other way?

Among some people I game with (a very small number admittedly) 'official' carries a lot of weight. Some people just wont' bother with 'unofficial' material. A DM of mine only accepts 'official' material in his campaigns, and he allows Kalamar stuff.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Can someone give me a general description of what lies beyond the eastern portion of the KoK map, beyond the desert that is near the Rheanarian Bay?

There's mention in the campain guide that the desert is roamed by undead, originating from a city deep in the desert or something. The specifics are left to the DM, as far as I can tell, for anything that isn't on the Tellene map.

There's also mention in the Setting that the city of Dynaj does some trading with civilizations to the east.

This is what I've done with the area in my mind (the players are a long way from that region). The mention of zigarruts to house the dead in Dynaj got me thinking along Egyptian lines, so I decided to make Dynaj the westernmost outpost of a once-great pseudo-egyptian empire. The capital of this empire is the legendary city now full of undead (located in a lush river valley of course). The priests of the Harvester of Souls had an experiment go awry once, and thus the fall of the empire and all the undead. The trade mentioned for Dynaj is with other small, surviving outposts of that empire.

 

[MerakSpielman]

No, there is nothing yet, other than the basic cosmology from the DMG. If I recall correctly, we did have a freelancer working on a religion supplement, which probably would have included that. Unfortunately, something happened to him or her, so that got canned until we get someone else for it.

Except for a handful or two of known locations, the inhabitants of Tellene don't have a lot of contact with other planes. I'd say demons/devils, elementals, shadow creatures and gith would be the most common. It's really left open for the DM, if you want to go really heavy or really light on this kind of thing.

Of course, the "Sentinels of Providence" are a secret order designed to combat the intrustion of evil onto Tellene from other planes. So I'd say that there's definitely enough contact to be dangerous.

This is what I came up with for a customized-for-KoK cosmology/multiverse, if anybody's interested. I got sick of the "standard D&D multiverse" that's been around more or less forever, and I strongly suspect that anything WoTC "accepts" from Kenzerco would have to follow it, in order to sell more MotPs. I posted a thread about it: here.