Northern Crown - Fantasy Adventuring in Europe's Colonization of North America

[dougmander]

How much information is included on the Aztecs (or their fantasy equivalents)? Also, is a southern New World continent mentioned?

Does this book assume normal D&D magic levels?

Yes, the spells are flying along with bullets, but science is rapidly catching up as an alternative to magic. Not real science, of course, but Baron Munchausen stuff, much more fun!

The continent is called Southern Cross, but is not described in detail. That would be a book in itself. In brief, the Aztecs and Inca, armed with impressive arcane and divine magic, haven't given the Spanish much ground, even after 100 years of trying. Their realms remain largely opaque to Europe (but would make a great expansion to the game world, something I'm already planning).

 

[Tonguez]

PS who is Mike Fink?

 

[dougmander]

PS who is Mike Fink?

He's a frontier legend on par with Daniel Boone. Here's a quick summary:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5581029/

 

[Krieg]

I couldn't get the link to work, but never fear, the secret silver lode of the Shawnee is already in the manuscript. Ha!

Oops that's what I get for linking to a geocities page.

FWIW I spent a good chunk of my childhood crawling all over Glen Helen & Clifton Gorge looking for the mine.

 

[scourger]

PS Doug will you be putting out modules like the above?

I would also like to know about modules. Adventures are the thing that get me to buy & play an RPG. Free downloads can get me to buy, too; if there are adventures.

It looks like an interesting product. I especially like the part about keeping it as portable to the standard D&D rules as possible. This feature allows people to easily take what they want and leave the parts they don't want. I have been interested in a game set in The Colonies for a while (there was one I found on the web that was removed for publication--is this it?).

Anyway, I'd appreciate any follow-up information, especially about modules. This could go on my short list of stuff to buy this year.

 

[JohnNephew]

I would also like to know about modules.

I have to be honest and tell you that we're not likely to publish modules. Our plan at this point is simply to publish the setting in the form of the two hardcover books, and that's it. If the books did extraodinarily well, we might reconsider, but that would require sales much greater than what I realistically expect in the current marketplace. (However well the basic two books do, we'd have to assume that adventures would only sell a fraction as many.)

Of course, the great value of using the d20 system is to allow people to easily adapt other d20 products. You could plant your favorite traditional dungeon under an ancient mound in the Ohio valley, or a gateway to the lower planes, for example. Also of course, we also hope that fans of the setting will share materials online. (And for that matter, it would be easy for other publishers to produce compatible material simply under the terms of the Open Game License.)

 

[scourger]

I have to be honest and tell you that we're not likely to publish modules. Our plan at this point is simply to publish the setting in the form of the two hardcover books, and that's it. If the books did extraodinarily well, we might reconsider, but that would require sales much greater than what I realistically expect in the current marketplace. (However well the basic two books do, we'd have to assume that adventures would only sell a fraction as many.)

Of course, the great value of using the d20 system is to allow people to easily adapt other d20 products. You could plant your favorite traditional dungeon under an ancient mound in the Ohio valley, or a gateway to the lower planes, for example. Also of course, we also hope that fans of the setting will share materials online. (And for that matter, it would be easy for other publishers to produce compatible material simply under the terms of the Open Game License.)

I appreciate your candor. Portability is important to me. I'll give these books a look and see how easy (or difficult) it would be to run existing modules in this setting-probably from Dungeon but a couple of other possible sources are out there. I've done this with some success in the past, but it usually means that I have to opt out of the crunch and keep the fluff of a new setting. It varies as to how "worth it" it is on a case-by-case basis.

On the other hand, I want the books to succeed; so the course that suggests itself is just to buy them anyway. The premise is just too cool.

 

[dougmander]

I have to be honest and tell you that we're not likely to publish modules. Our plan at this point is simply to publish the setting in the form of the two hardcover books, and that's it.

I just wanted to pipe up and say that independently I would like to release a free Northern Crown module in PDF form concurrently with the release of the books. I know that whenever I purchase a campaign setting, I also like to have at least one module to try out the game. I have campaign settings sitting on my bookshelf that I never did anything with, because I didn't have any modules to play with.

I should also say that the NC Gazetteer does include many adventure seeds, even if they aren't in module form. I like John's idea of adapting other d20 modules to Northern Crown -- I did this recently in my own NC campaign, using Bloody Jack's Gold from Goodman Game's Dungeon Crawl Classics series of modules. Worked great!

 

[nopantsyet]

Congrats, dougmander! Glad to see this is finally going to hit the streets. I'll definitely be in line to pick it up. I recently stumbled across my notes from your game I played at the ENWorld Boston gathering a year and a half ago. It was great fun...

Appropriate to a day of gaming, I showed up with no voice to speak of. So I chose a Mohican, thinking that he would have less need to speak than the French dandy or the Wollstencraftian-feminist scientist. Superstition and suspicion were on overdrive in the New England bleakness. I was on the edge of my seat expecting a stern and sinister Mather to jump out of the abandoned cottage and call me to repentance. We fought undead from the sea, witches, Tories, and Calvinists. (Okay, not Calvinists....) My arrows didn't stack up well against firearms, but I seem to recall doing something with fire that was good at knocking the broomstick-mounted hags from the sky.

The vividness to me might be attributed to having spent most of my life in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, steeped in colonial history. But it seems that the inspiration for adventures can be as broad as colonial America itself. It was a much less homogenized place back then than it is today, and adding fantasy to the mix creates so many options.

(sign) So may games, so little time...

 

[Desdichado]

Wow, hey, that's pretty cool! I've long been interested in fantasy something or other like this, but set earlier; Vikings in the New World. It looks like all that New World info, at least, would still be applicable. I may have to check this out.