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I'm still a big fan of Freeport and Redhurst. Freeport has a lot of support, between the republished original trilogy (which is now more than three adventures), Hell in Freeport, Black Sails Over Freeport, the forthcoming Crisis in Freeport, the DCC module (and Bloody Jack's Gold, which also fits in well) and several PDF adventures, not to mention actually adding in other island/pirate adventures to the setting (like Maiden Voyage).
 

irdeggman said:
Dark Sun (2nd ed setting) has been updated to 3.5 at the fansite (Athas.org)
Birthright (2nd ed setting) has been updated to 3.5 (mostly) at the fanstie (Birthright.net)

You missed one... http://www.planewalker.com

The sages and grey beards say, that there used to be a time when nothing existed. Everything floated in a void of potential, something simular to what we would call the etherial plane, and nothing existed, save burning bejeweled Sigil. A hidden place, with sealed doors and sealed secrets.

Then there was a spark of heat at the center of things. Fire, followed by a rush of Air, and Earth, and Water to quench the flames and sooth the heat of all. And so the Inner planes, those realms of physical reality came into being. And so there was light, and the Inner Planes were born.

The Positive and the Negative arose, sending the Inner planes into flux - and a mixing, and churning of the waves brought forth the Material Plane. Time passed, and the Prime spawned. Potential grew, and from the silvery void, what we would call the Astral, *ideas* came forth. People arose on the Prime, and with those people their thoughts and beliefs. And so, thousands of mortals were born.

The mortals looked apon their worlds of mountian, storm, seas and plains, and saw that it was great, and built upon it. Believing such good couldn't only be made by unknown hands, they rose temples to gods, punished and rewarded themselves as they saw fit. They birthed their gods, their demons, devils, and angels, and gave their newborn dieties homes in Heaven, Hell, Chaos, and, Law. The gods, grew, and looked upon their worshippers, and gave forth to them powers and belief. And so the Outer Planes were born, and the doors of Sigil opened.


The above was the intro and moodsetter I've used in my own Planescape PBeM. Planescape was one of the last settings produced by TSR before the company folded and was later bought out. It's since been updated at Planewalker to 3.0 and 3.5. The emphasis of Planescape was not in the idea of a normal dungeon crawl but rather a more personal and philisophical approach to story and plot. Planescape has a wide scope - allowing for characters from any number of Prime Worlds (such as Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk), or any number of places on the infinate planes. Belief has a powerful effect on the planes, so far as managing to make them and the races of them in fact. Belief, quite simply, is power. If enough people believe in somethign at the same time it becomes reality. In Planescape many of the alignments become a shade of grey, and combined with the complexities of factions and philosophies can begin to reach the complexities of belief that we see in the real world. One major change through in Planescape, from the usual TSR product is that the emphasis tends to be on the struggle of Law vs. Chaos - not Good vs. Evil.

Planescape is a game of ideas, patterns, and intellegence along with the usual adventuring elements of dungeons and fighting the bad guys. Even on the planes, with all their oddities and mystism - there are normal guys as well, normal animals and conflicts that have nothing to do with the planes and everything to do with regular living.

(No. I'm not biased in the least. Really... ;) )
 

DragonMech (Goodman Games) is a very unusual, compelling setting. Imagine "Rocks fall, everyone dies" was turned into the premise for a standard D&D setting rather than the a fate reserved PCs. Now imagine it was changed to "rocks fall, everyone dies - with mecha!" and you have the basics. Except it's played straight. Lots of great fluff and crunch in the core book alone, and a nice range of supplements if you're looking for more.

The Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press) is, as mentioned before, a grim, gritty steampunk setting in every sense of the phrase, although PP doesn't like said phrase. :confused: It has even better fluff than DragonMech, but the crunch is... questionable. Privateer is the true heir to 2e TSR (but with a really fine miniatures game and, presumably, better management): a great setting, beautiful illustration, good writing, a strong (and much better than TSR's) metaplot and, oh, yeah, this is supposed to be a GAME, isn't it?

Mindshadows (Green Ronin) is a nice little softcover peripherally related to the Freeport setting. It's essentially fantasy India in the Kara-Tur/Rokugan tradition of "like the historical setting, but different." It's a very psionics-focused setting that, unfortunately, requires some minor updates to 3.5 due to the much-improved psionics rules, but it's otherwise 3.5-compatible and comes with its own extremely high-quality monster book (Monsters of the Mind).

Nyambe (Atlas Games) is to Africa what Mindshadows is to India or Kara-Tur to the orient - a fantasy veneer with standard D&D races 'gone native.' It's 3.0 and hard to find, and the crunch problems of the Iron Kingdoms are also present here, but like Mindshadows it's a great setting covering something you don't often see.
 

To match your criteria:

Oathbound, without a doubt.


Might not be to everyone's taste, but it was put together well, it's certainly different from every other setting out there, and it's basically fully compatible with D&D 3e.
 

Oathbound.

Wildwood is 3.5 and designed to be the campaign setting in one book focusing on the feral Wildwood domain while the CS is 3.0 and focuses on the urban Penance. Arena is an Oathbound desert continent setting in 3.5.
 


SteelDraco said:
I really don't think this group would like Midnight all that much. That's just my personal opinion; they've liked Iron Heroes more than I expected, so maybe I'm mistaken. I just don't think people would like the unrelenting grimness.

The other setting I mentioned, Dawnforge, is in some ways the opposite of Midnight. PCs are the heroes in a legendary age of heroes. Campaigns are supposed to epic and larger than life. It's awesome.
 

Scarred Lands - the land is torn asunder, reeling from a recent conflict of divine scale. I just revisited my old books and renew my conviction that the setting is awesome. It's more, erm, fantasy than most D&D settings.

Oathbound/Wildwood - a somewhat alien, wild & wooly setting with bizarre races. A lot to be said for it.

Second World - One I tried for a while. It's nifty because its a "crossworlds" setting and you can mix it up with forays into modern. The fantasy world is a fantasy version of Earth, so a lot of things that are baffling in traditional D&D make sense (like why riddles rhyme in English...)
 

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