D&D 5E (2014) The Chronicles of Aeres, a huge new high fantasy setting for 5E, is on sale all this week

[Accaris]

Good morning, if you haven't checked out my setting yet, the price is $7.99 until next Monday for 360+ pages of fully illustrated, old-school fantasy adventure.
Someone on TVTropes said we're Tolkien meets Redwall with a splash of the Dark Crystal, and I guess that's not far from the truth!
We recently went through and did a solid balance clean-up, particularly in chapter 3 (PC races.) However, Aeres is always going to be a relatively high-powered setting. Thanks for taking a look!

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Steampunkette]

Seriously, folks, if you can afford to drop a little cash on this, do it. It's a well thought out and interesting setting with some fun options for players and DMs alike that you can carry forward beyond the borders of Aeres. They also add in a fairly simple Aether Magic system that can act as a hard limit on spellcasting and/or evoke the old tropes of expending your character's life-force to power a spell. (It doesn't affect Cantrips, though, so baseline power remains for spellcasters)

The artwork in their video is also very Animal-People-Forward, but they've got Dragonborn (With tails), Half-Dwarves, and Kobolds as core races in the setting guide so, y'know... it's very fantasy. They also play up a general suspicion toward magic rather than an outright hatred of it like you might get in some settings, with a really cool narrative basis for it. And to capitalize on that, they've got a Witch Class with -actual- hexes and charms as a core class conceit rather than a couple of spells and a single class ability.

At $15 I highly recommend it. At $8 it's a no brainer.

Even if you never play it, you can mine the heck out of it for material for other settings, adventures, and characters you create.

 

[Steampunkette]

Oh, artwork. I meant to give that a specific callout:

Their Artwork largely comes in three flavors.

1) A lot of the chapter-heading or page-filling artwork has this pastels and charcoal lightly hazy feeling to it with indistinct edges that evokes a very dreamlike quality. Much more common in the latter half of the book as they establish the setting itself with descriptions of regions, map-segments, and these setting defining artworks, but the Deities/Pantheon section features it, too.

2) Straight up Animation Cell style artwork. There's this one great little piece of a Hinterfolk (halfling sort of) Knight protecting a child from an ogre that, I swear, could have come right out of a Cartoon. The eyes are alive, the colors are vibrant, and the action is super clear in a single image. This art style is mostly used for characters doing stuff in the book, but also introducing player races and classes, so it has a certain vibe that is really nice and shows how your character is active against the paintings that form the background of the world.

3) Hazy Sketches. A drawing of an elf with a bow, or a wagon, help to create that feeling of looking through someone's notebook in the moment, rather than checking out big bombastic art. Done in what looks like charcoal, they blend in a bit against big text sections but in a quietly comfortable sort of way, rather than a "Dyslexics will hate this" fashion.

There's also a few pieces of quasi 'photorealistic art', but it's mostly contained in the Organizations kinda section and there's plenty of cartoonish or dream art mixed in, there, too, so it doesn't have a specific... niche, I guess? Accaris actually uses one of the NPC Artworks from one of the organizations for their forum avatar.

Named, you guessed it! Theodric the Virtuous... okay. You didn't guess it. But, y'know. It's a thing!

 

[Accaris]

Thanks for the kind words! This was our first ever project of any kind, and we've learned quite a lot from it about layout, writing, and gameplay balance. I wanted to mention we've got an expansion out as well, a ratfolk-only adventure influenced by the Secret of NIMH and Redwall:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Mull Ponders]

Will there be more 5e modules/adventures released for this setting? I am reading through it now, very enjoyable.

 

[Accaris]

Will there be more 5e modules/adventures released for this setting? I am reading through it now, very enjoyable.

Absolutely, we're currently working on a pulp fantasy/sword & sorcery expansion! In addition to our ratfolk adventure and micro setting guide, mentioned previously.

 

[Accaris]

Shadows of Padfoot Alley is part of DriveThruRPG's "best under $5" sale this week. Criminally underpriced for the level of artwork we got! Check it out if ratfolk adventures interest you in any way.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Accaris]

The cover art for our next expansion. Sword & sorcery with a bit of Aeres high fantasy flair!

 

[Accaris]

We're going to run the sale until Labor Day, so if you haven't picked up our core book, I'd encourage it!

 

[Accaris]

We just put out a new lore video! Check it out