low magic settings

[roscoe]

Hi,

I am looking for input on d20 game setting that are generally low magic. I am tired of the FR and Greyhawk craziness with a mage on every corner, iron golems for city defense and so on. Thanks.

 

[Davelozzi]

I'm sure lots of folks will tell you Kalamar, and that's probably a pretty good recommendation, although I'm still trying to plow my way through the campaign book. It's good stuff but the writing is dry so you have to make an effort to get into it.

If you have access, I would recommend Birthright. It's second edition and the rules focus on ruling your own domains (kingdoms, churches, guilds, etc.) but if you're just looking for a campaign world, you can ignore all those extra rules and just use the setting materials. It's an excellent world, low magic, gritty and realistic, and handles the interaction between different cultures very well. There are five major human cultures, each of which is broken up into lots of smaller nations. The demi-human cultures stand apart from the humans more so than in other worlds and there is often lots of friction between the races (especially between elves and humans).

 

[kenjib]

Check out Kalamar. It works very well as a low magic setting. There are some other low magic settings in the works I believe but for now that's about it among the currently available and well supported settings. Harn has some d20 stuff but it's not well supported at all.

EDIT: Oops I forgot to mention Birthright and I meant to. It's another one but it's not supported in 3e at all at the moment. If you're willing to do more work on your own you've got more choices.