What are these settings?

[Inhuman Bot]

First off: I can't look at wikipedia, or google, unless I'am given a specific page, as my internet sucks.

So, I've heard of a few settings, and want to know: Does anyone know about them? what are they like?

They (and all the details I know of them) are:

Dark sun: Set in the world of Athas, it's a grim place, ruled by Witch-Kings and epic psion/wizards called "athasian dragons"

Mystara: I got nothing.

Al-Qaidam: It's an arabian magic-technology setting.

Dragonlance: It seems well known.

Planescape: Same with this setting.

Oerth: Again, nothing.

Also, do they have 3.5 rules?

Please and thank you!

[Dhavaer]

Oerth is the planet/plane Greyhawk is set on, just as Forgotten Realms in set on Toril.

Dragonlance is a setting with a lot of knights. Much more on the idealistic side of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Vs Cynicism

Planescape is set in Sigil, the City of Doors built on the ring that floats over the infinite spire on the Outlands.

[Amiria]

http://www.planewalker.com/ is probably the best site for 3.5 Planescape meaterial.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Dark Sun - post-magical-apocalypse D&D.

Mystara - one of the original campaign settings compiled out of individual campaigns, alongside Greyhawk.

Al-Qadim - Arabian Nights-themed campaign setting later rolled into Forgotten Realms.

Dragonlance - campaign setting based on a series of bestselling novels based on a campaign some guy ran with his friends and decided to novelize.

Planescape - Turn A D&D. If that's too obscure, vaguely Victorian setting focusing on interplanar travel, rather than a specific campaign world. Was originally a crossover between pretty much every campaign setting, though with the discontinuation of the product line and the changes made in the planar cosmology, it was sort-of-retconned into just being around Greyhawk's Planes.

Oerth: is the name of the planet that the Greyhawk campaign setting is on.

None of these except Al-Qadim, which was rolled into Forgotten Realms, survived into 3.x. And Oerth, which being Greyhawk, is the 3.x generic setting.

[Drascin]

Actually, mister Nerdo, given I've personally read Dragonlance's 3.0 manual, I would like to contradict that last paragraph of yours .

Yes, there is 3.x Dragonlance material. It's just hard to find lately, and not really that good anyway, but it's there.

[Magnor Criol]

Yeah, I've seen 3.0 Dragonlance and Dark Sun books (and PDF counterparts, which may or may not have been legal).

[Satyr]

Dark Sun is a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting with more distance to the more classic fantasy stereotypes (for example the common distrust of everything the looks similar to an Elf) and it tends to be a more plausible game from the moral point of view (or a more cynic one if you prefer). It is probably one of the grittiest D&D setting and is far away from romantic chivalry and nice idealism.
But it has cannibalistic halflings and magic that kills the planet.

Everything you need to know about the setting can be found here and there is also a semi-official 3rd edition conversion, but in my opinion the setting is actually too precious for the limiting and too flashy style of D&D and works better with a more 'realistic' system. I personally would suggest All Flesh Must Be Eaten. It works much better than the original AD&D rules or the conversion above.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Dark Sun / Athas:
Athas is a the world of dark, red sun. Mighty sorcerer-kings (wizard/psions) on their path of transformation into dragons have sucked the life out of the world with their magic, and now rule over city-states in the desert wastelands. All arcane magic is powered by the sun (although all but one magic-user get the energy indirectly, from plants and - in the case of some terrifyingly powerful spellcasters - from living beings), and defilers - wizards who take power from the land without regard for the consequences - leave the land behind them barren, turning life into ash.

The creatures that survive in this age are terribly dangerous and strong, and in most cases - due to the meddling of the ancient psionic halfling flesh-benders - psionic. Iron is the rarest resource, even more precious than water, and the climate is too harsh for most characters to even wear the bone, leather, chitin, and wood armors.

Mystara:
Setting of the old, old Basic Set D&D (although the world was only really introduced in the Expert Set, I think). It's really very cliche. Think of any old D&D tropes, and they're probably there.

Al-Qadim:
One Thousand and One Nights. No technology here, really. It's a world of djinni and magic lamps, desert sands and oases, kalifs and palaces, heroes on flying carpets and bandits on camels.

Dragonlance:
The setting of the Dragonlance novels. The setting is dramatically different in different Ages (editions). Paladine, the paladin god, and Takhisis, the Dark Queen of Dragons, fight epic wars through mortal intermediaries and dragons. Wicked draconians, annoying/hilarious kender, riding dragons into massed battle, flying fortresses, a kick-ass death knight, human/elven/dwarven weakness and arrogance and heroism, endless romantic subplots, and creepy-hunky Raistlin.

Planescape:
The war of Chaos and Law (and, sure, a bit of Good and Evil, but they're very secondary) in the Outer and Inner Planes. In the middle of the vast, endless plains of the Outlands rises an infinitely high mountain, and atop it sits the ring-shaped city of Sigil, built on the ring's inner surface. Ruled by the ineffable Lady of Pain, the City of Portals is the hub of the Planes, with magical portals that lead everywhere. Demons and devils rub shoulders with angels and, more amazingly, each other. The bizarre happens every single moment, and once you step out of Sigil and into the Planes, the really weird crap begins.

The Blood War rages in the the Upper and Lower Planes both, fought primarily between the demons and the devils, but dragging the entire Planes into it. But the conflict of ideologies is not limited there. Sigil is home to numerous - probably countless - factions, most headquartered elsewhere on the Planes, who war not for the souls but for the beliefs and thoughts of followers. If you tilt the balance far enough in one direction, a village in the Outlands can shift into the Abyss or Mount Celestia - that's how powerful thoughts and ideas are.

Oerth:
Greyhawk's setting. Classic D&D; a bit lower-powered than the Forgottean Realms, but otherwise pretty similar. It's pretty similar to almost any D&D setting, in fact, since it's the default and the baseline.


Dragonlance has 3.5 books published. Planescape has Planewalker.com, and Dark Sun has Athas.org. For the others, you're out of luck - unless you love having a crapload of AD&D material to use for background and ideas, and just coming up with your own rules where they are really that necessary.


Edit: Are you familiar with Ravenloft and Spelljammer, or have you just not heard of them?

Edit2: Man, describing Dragonlance as idealistic is... whoah. In the original trilogy, almost all of the "good" Knights of Solamnia are either corrupt or terminally arrogant. Humans have long since lost all faith to the gods - good, evil, or neutral - and are, in fact, incredibly embittered toward them. The elves, who still believe in Paladine, are mostly Lawful Stupid (and gleefully and brutally enslave their "dumber" wild elf cousins). The dwarves are isolationist and suspicious. The heroes are all individually flawed and fallible. There's a big undercurrent of hope, and the heroes - being heroes! - eventually pull through and overcome their weaknesses. Except, you know, the ones who die, the one who becomes an overweight depressed alcoholic, the one who goes on to try to conquer and end the world... and so on.

[sonofzeal]

There's also Eberron that should be in this thread.

Eberron is probably most accurately described as "magepunk". It's an attempt to show a least a bit of what the presence of magic would do to a civilization eventually. It's not particularly "High Magic", in that there's no real mageocracy, and high level spellcasters are exceedingly rare (rarer than most settings I know of short of Dark Sun), but low level magic abounds. Expect streets lit by Continual Flame streetlamps, postoffices which use "Sending" as a sort of telegram service in every major town, and the occasional airship.

Oh, and there's all sorts of stuff about dragons being obsessed with this ancient prophesy which nobody (even they, I think) actually know fully. And there's halflings riding velociraptors. Good times.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I think the point was that everyone familiar with 3.5 probably knows Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Shem (that's the correct pronoun for Slaaneshi, right? I've got my Middenheim book somewhere around here...) was asking about a bunch of more obscure settings.

[sonofzeal]

I think the point was that everyone familiar with 3.5 probably knows Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Shem (that's the correct pronoun for Slaaneshi, right? I've got my Middenheim book somewhere around here...) was asking about a bunch of more obscure settings.

....Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Planescape, Greyhawk? I'm not sure "obscure" is the right word. "Ubiquitous" maybe, at least as much so as Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Case in point - I personally know next to nothing about Forgotten Realms, and would be more comfortable talking about Planescape or Greyhawk.

That said, I don't know much about half of those myself, as I generally don't use published settings (mostly just Santhil these days, which is a work-in-progress by some friends and I). I'd say there's better odds on him simply having forgot them from the list, than being an expert on them. I could be wrong though.

[EvilElitest]

al quriem is an amazing setting, like one of the best, i with they had more detail
from
EE

[Fostire]

Mystara:
Setting of the old, old Basic Set D&D (although the world was only really introduced in the Expert Set, I think). It's really very cliche. Think of any old D&D tropes, and they're probably there.

I recall seeing ads for this setting in the 2ed books (as well as forgotten realms, ravenloft, dark sun, planescape, and dragonlance)
Also, dark sun is an amazing setting that unfortunately I never got to play in.

[EvilElitest]

is this core D&D settings only or can third party settings be included as well?
from
EE

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think it's the settings that the OP asked about, EE.

[afroakuma]

Dark Sun: Nothing more to be said, really. Doesn't participate in Planescape and Spelljammer crossover settings though.

Mystara: Not current, again not compatible (ostensibly) with PS or SJ. Extrapolation of Arneson's Blackmoor setting, also known as the Known World. Unique in that there are no gods, merely Immortals (if I've read it correctly) and probably the least supported of any product line.

Al-Qadim: FR in Arabia. Features more Egyptian themes, and also adds real Arabic flavor to things like genies. Has an odd habit of doing stupid (read: zaratan) things.

Dragonlance: The first developed campaign setting. Probably has more books than the Bible. As was said, flavor varies depending on which Age you're in; originally set to be high heroic fantasy in a war-torn world. And forget the failing heroes; you're most likely to die heroically. It's very important.

Planescape: Much awesomeness; I'm currently doing a series on the Planes over in homebrew. There is a ton of material online for this.

Oerth: As has been said: It's your Greyhawk. Your base D&D setting.

The two you missed:

Spelljammer: Recently covered in another thread, Spalljammer is quite literally D&D in space. Unique flavor, decent design and development, terminal product line. It has potential and is a great counterpart to the Planes.

Ravenloft: D&D's gothic horror, an inescabable demiplane split into fiefdoms ruled by the multiverse's most evil.

[EvilElitest]

I think it's the settings that the OP asked about, EE.

can we ask about other settings then?
from
EE

[Nerd-o-rama]

can we ask about other settings then?
from
EE

No. You will be beaten and jailed by the Thread Police.

[sonofzeal]

No. You will be beaten and jailed by the Thread Police.

Heed the warning of my example! Tread lightly, lest ye too be smote for bringing up information merely tangential to the OP request!

[EvilElitest]

No. You will be beaten and jailed by the Thread Police.

no, not the box
from
EE

[afroakuma]

What setting did you want to ask about, EE?

Bear in mind, Kalamar means flensings.

[EvilElitest]

What setting did you want to ask about, EE?

Bear in mind, Kalamar means flensings.

Does anybody know what Birthrite is? Its been bothering me for a while now
from
EE

[afroakuma]

Birthright: On the world of Cerilia, the old gods' blood has been passed down to mortals. Of the gods of good, their issue has become the nobility, preternatural leaders of the mortal races. Of Azrai, god of darkness, have come the awnsheglien, demonic beasts, once men, who lead the creatures of shadow to devour the bastions of mankind. Kingdoms rise and fall as bloodlines are annexed, giving power to those most pure.

[Meat Shield]

Birthright: On the world of Cerilia, the old gods' blood has been passed down to mortals. Of the gods of good, their issue has become the nobility, preternatural leaders of the mortal races. Of Azrai, god of darkness, have come the awnsheglien, demonic beasts, once men, who lead the creatures of shadow to devour the bastions of mankind. Kingdoms rise and fall as bloodlines are annexed, giving power to those most pure.

If I remember right, it also used the Battlesystem mechanics for army vs army fighting, in addition to normal PC rules. Battlesystem was something TSR came up with and needed a setting to put it in and I think Birthright got volunteered.

[afroakuma]

I actually own at least one novel for every major 2.5 setting... except Greyhawk, oddly.

Weird.

[EvilElitest]

Birthright: On the world of Cerilia, the old gods' blood has been passed down to mortals. Of the gods of good, their issue has become the nobility, preternatural leaders of the mortal races. Of Azrai, god of darkness, have come the awnsheglien, demonic beasts, once men, who lead the creatures of shadow to devour the bastions of mankind. Kingdoms rise and fall as bloodlines are annexed, giving power to those most pure.

Can you go into some more detail please?
from
EE

[afroakuma]

Um... as in...?

What sort of detail?

[EvilElitest]

Um... as in...?

What sort of detail?

a bit more about what is about in terms of story, back ground, events ect ect
from
EE

[afroakuma]

That's a fair summation right there - the old gods fought a war on Cerilia alongside their forces against the evil god Azrai. All of the gods were slain in the fighting; the remainder of their power passed down to their mortal servants. The most endowed became the new gods, while lesser servants or those close to the blast acquired divine bloodlines. The power of a divine bloodline is the right to command, among other benefits, and so is eagerly sought by those with the special weapons necessary to extract it. Wars are fought over ideals, bloodlines and territories, while trying to protect humanity/elvenkind/etc. from the predations of awnsheglien such as the Gorgon, the Hydra et. al.

[JaxGaret]

Since I haven't seen the link yet, here you go: 3e Dark Sun.

EDIT: Upon closer inspection, these are loafers I see that Tsotha-lanti already posted it.