Renaissance-tech, low-magic, non-high-fantasy Campaign Setting?

[RealMarkP]

I'm looking for a well-flushed-out setting to make up the backbone of my next campaign. I've done Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Midnight, Greyhawk prior, and I'm bored with the high fantasy genre. It's too cliche. I'd like to branch out into something that is fresh and interesting. I have Dark Sun slated for later down the road (mainly because a friend is running Midnight and I don't want to continue to push a distopian setting too much on the players). Though, I do like the authoritarian-ness of Midnight.

So what is there that is (1) highly detailed, (2) fairly large world on the scale of Eberron/Midnight, and (3) not super high-fantasy?

Here are some settings that have mildly tickled my fancy: Dawnworld, Iron Kingdoms, Deadlands.

[JoeJ]

From your list of worlds I'm guessing this is for some version of D&D? Have you considered Northern Crown?

[RealMarkP]

From your list of worlds I'm guessing this is for some version of D&D?

Well, any setting really. I don't care if the system is not compatible with D&D; I can remedy that easily. I'd like a setting with lots of fluff.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Why not use earth as a setting?

[JoeJ]

Why not use earth as a setting?

There was a series of historical supplements for AD&D to do just that. None of them focused precisely on the Renaissance, but A Mighty Fortress dealt with the Elizabethan period. I think they're all available at DriveThru RPG.

[Mechalich]

Renaissance-tech (which in game terms mostly means guns and cannon, the other stuff is fairly malleable) and low-magic, with a high level of detail. Hmm...

ASOIAF might be a good fit, actually. There's no guns, but certain areas have a Renaissance feel, particularly the Free Cities region of Essos, which seem to have been based heavily on the Italian city-states of the Renaissance - Braavos is fairly explicitly not-Venice. It's definitely a low-magic setting with a extraordinary amount of detail.

[RealMarkP]

Why not use earth as a setting?

Deadlands takes place in the wild west. It's probably the one thing that I don't care for and neither would my players. If I don't find anything that works for me, I might take the Deadlands narrative and plop it into another campaign setting. The US during that time had some interesting concepts that port easily to a fantasy campaign setting. Jim Crowe laws, for example, that target half-orcs living amongst human towns. The Underground movement where said half-orcs flee to a Canada-like nation. Spanish-US war. Confederation. Etc. Any idea which campaign setting something like this could work with?

Playing on Earth is a bit too... real.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Lamentations of the flame princess has no offical setting, but most adventures take place on early modern earth so you may want to take a look at "The god that crawls" or "Better than any man" books.

Ttheir official core rules book pdf (which has rules for late medieval early modern guns) is free.

[Kiero]

Why not use earth as a setting?

I was just thinking this. Why not go historical?

[Pleh]

Playing on Earth is a bit too... real.

Well, how about Assassin's Creed? Use an alternate history Earth, so the world is just as rich and vibrant while still having room to play D&D.

[hamlet]

I'll throw in a recommendation for Dark Albion. It's specifically for Swords and Wizardry/Old School type games and takes some real liberties with things, but it's set in a dark mirror of War of the Roses England. Very good if you're into dark fantasy and rather low magic fantasy at that.

[2D8HP]

Lamentations of the flame princess has no offical setting, but most adventures take place on early modern earth so you may want to take a look at "The god that crawls" or "Better than any man" books.

Ttheir official core rules book pdf (which has rules for late medieval early modern guns) is free.

+1 to that, the LotFP adventure book England Upturn'd is good.

Also, the setting for the 7th Sea RPG fits the bill, is grand, and I highly recommend it.

[Chad Hooper]

I'll throw in Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting for your perusal, early Renaissance/late Medieval by default (1200s default time period). Low magic as in not many people have it but those who do can become very powerful over time. You'll have to buy some books or PDFs to get the setting details, if you don't already have some of them.

Another possibility is Sanctuary, of Thieves' World notoriety. There was a book (or two?) published for D&D 3.5 I believe, possibly you could find a PDF online. Or you can just read a few of the anthologies if you're not already familiar with the place. Gritty, low-fantasy with a grim side to it.

[Libertad]

Deadlands takes place in the wild west. It's probably the one thing that I don't care for and neither would my players. If I don't find anything that works for me, I might take the Deadlands narrative and plop it into another campaign setting. The US during that time had some interesting concepts that port easily to a fantasy campaign setting. Jim Crowe laws, for example, that target half-orcs living amongst human towns. The Underground movement where said half-orcs flee to a Canada-like nation. Spanish-US war. Confederation. Etc. Any idea which campaign setting something like this could work with?

Playing on Earth is a bit too... real.

First off, Deadlands actually removes African-American racial issues from its alt-history, albeit it does so in a less than satisfactory way.

I'd recommend against making orcs an historical analogue to black people. It carries the presumption of comparing said people to violent Chaotic Evil monsters, and has actually been used by racists who play fantasy games to live out their prejudices.

As for settings, there's probably GURPS books to suit your needs, in that they have all sorts of settings. But I'd have to ask my GURPS-loving friends for help on that front.

[JoeJ]

As for settings, there's probably GURPS books to suit your needs, in that they have all sorts of settings. But I'd have to ask my GURPS-loving friends for help on that front.

You can go right to the source. Steve Jackson Games has the list of worldbooks on their website.

[FreddyNoNose]

I'm looking for a well-flushed-out setting to make up the backbone of my next campaign. I've done Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Midnight, Greyhawk prior, and I'm bored with the high fantasy genre. It's too cliche. I'd like to branch out into something that is fresh and interesting. I have Dark Sun slated for later down the road (mainly because a friend is running Midnight and I don't want to continue to push a distopian setting too much on the players). Though, I do like the authoritarian-ness of Midnight.

So what is there that is (1) highly detailed, (2) fairly large world on the scale of Eberron/Midnight, and (3) not super high-fantasy?

Here are some settings that have mildly tickled my fancy: Dawnworld, Iron Kingdoms, Deadlands.

Harnmaster rpg from columbia games.

[Nifft]

I'm looking for a well-flushed-out setting to make up the backbone of my next campaign. I've done Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Midnight, Greyhawk prior, and I'm bored with the high fantasy genre. It's too cliche.

I feel like some of the settings you've used might be suitable to other genres, if you could generate player buy-in. (If all your players think that each of those settings is exclusively high-fantasy, though, then I totally see why you'd want to exclude them.)


Eberron and Greyhawk can be run as NOT high fantasy, and in my experience their default isn't high-fantasy.

Eberron seems to default to a more noir genre, and seems like it could be made compatible with Renaissance-tech tropes as adapted to magi-tech. Ebberon is described as wide-magic, but not high-magic.

Greyhawk spans Renaissance (e.g. Paladins with blackpowder revolvers) to gritty Howard-esque sword & sorcery, to Lovecraftian horror, to mercenary Leiber-ish low-fantasy / sci-fi mashup -- and also to Tolkien-like high-fantasy, if you want. But you don't want, so consider just not doing that and doing all the others instead.

-- -- --

I have heard good things about Iron Kingdoms in terms of tech, but it appears that it's marketed as a high-fantasy setting.

My suggestion would be to roll your own, because that's worked really well for me -- is there a specific reason why you want a lot of pre-defined, published detail?

[Mr Beer]

Warhammer Fantasy RPG is renaissance tech and definitely not high fantasy.

There's quite a bit of magic around but it tends to be highly dangerous and everyone is suspicious of wizards because they are worried that demons might appear out of thin air and murder everyone, which is absolutely a realistic concern.

High fantasy heroes and wizards are a feature of the Warhammer Fantasy wargame but the RPG is explicitly different and the rules reflect it.

Also it's a very good setting with bags of flavour. You can also easily tweak the flavour on the various scales e.g. heroic -> gritty -> grimdark, dangerous/action-filled land -> crapsack world etc.

[RealMarkP]

is there a specific reason why you want a lot of pre-defined, published detail?

Predefined detail gives me room to customize the setting rather than starting from scratch. Creating a world from scratch is a big undertaking which I've done before. Generally, since we play each week, I was under the gun to create story in addition to adventure and battle maps. So, instead of coming up with everything myself, I started stringing together published adventures and making tweaks so that the setting was consistent. Also, premade settings give me ideas for my own setting.

[Eldan]

Warhammer Fantasy RPG is renaissance tech and definitely not high fantasy.

There's quite a bit of magic around but it tends to be highly dangerous and everyone is suspicious of wizards because they are worried that demons might appear out of thin air and murder everyone, which is absolutely a realistic concern.

High fantasy heroes and wizards are a feature of the Warhammer Fantasy wargame but the RPG is explicitly different and the rules reflect it.

Also it's a very good setting with bags of flavour. You can also easily tweak the flavour on the various scales e.g. heroic -> gritty -> grimdark, dangerous/action-filled land -> crapsack world etc.

Warhammer Fantasy is what I was thinking of too, yeah.

That said, be careful in which sources to consider. Games Workshop varies wildly between over the top parody, relatively restrained dark sword and sorcery and just over the top. Generally, the newer the source, the more over the top and less self-conscious it will be. Better stick with third party material and maybe a few of the older novels for inspiration.

[RazorChain]

Warhammer Fantasy RPG is renaissance tech and definitely not high fantasy.

There's quite a bit of magic around but it tends to be highly dangerous and everyone is suspicious of wizards because they are worried that demons might appear out of thin air and murder everyone, which is absolutely a realistic concern.

High fantasy heroes and wizards are a feature of the Warhammer Fantasy wargame but the RPG is explicitly different and the rules reflect it.

Also it's a very good setting with bags of flavour. You can also easily tweak the flavour on the various scales e.g. heroic -> gritty -> grimdark, dangerous/action-filled land -> crapsack world etc.

I second this. Great setting, just disregard the novels and the wargaming material.