Coolest campaign settings


Product Discussion


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So I enjoyed having different campaign settings in 3.5. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Arcanis (3pp, Paradigm Concepts) were all very different places and I liked playing in each.

I like Golarion, but what are some other, cool, campaign settings for Pathfinder out there?


Lucky for you we have a list of campaign settings I maintain.
Here is the link and here is the thread where we maintain it (slow as of late).

I'm sure people will tell you about all the cool ones that have, thus far, come out.


My favorite campaign setting is Ponyfinder/Everglow. (The first setting book was published as Ponyfinder, but Everglow is the name of the world proper.)


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Personally, I consider the following campaign settings pure awesomeness. Only settings with multiple supplemental products/continued support count.

Relatively traditional (but thoroughly awesome) settings:

Midgard by Kobold Press - Dark fantasy goodness with a Germanic/Slavic focus and excellent adventures and supplemental material.

The Lost Lands by Frog God Games - Home of legendary books like Slumbering Tsar, Sword of Air, Raüüan Athuk, Northlands Saga...and a superb darker tone of fantasy.

Aventyr by AAW Games - Somewhere between Northern aesthetics, fairy tales and the like, Aventyr has continuously been shaped by the great modules and has seen A LOT excellent modules set in it.

More far out (and also glorious) settings:

Necropunk by Little Red Goblin Games - Necromantic transhumanism, social oombat and absolutely glorious cultures.

NeoExodus by LPJr Design - Babylon 5 as a fantasy setting, with uncommon races and superb adversaries; the revised and expanded core book is coming soon.

Thunderscape by Kyoudai Games - Basically, a cataclysm has rocked the world; now the magitech/steampunkish world is recovering/trying to stem the tide of weirdness.

Veranthea Codex by Rogue Genius Games/Mike Myler - Post-modern fantasy with steampunk, WuXia and Dieselpunk. Yes, that actually works and is interesting.

Lands of Porphyra by Purple Duck Games - Best patchwork-style world I've seen; exemplary for the vast amount of races organically supported.

Settings with less books released/hiatus/no core-books to come:

Shadows over Vathak by Fat Goblin Games - Lovecraftian dark fantasy; had a rough start, but since John Bennett took the reins, I'm very excited about the upcoming new releases!

Obsidian Apocalypse by LPJr Design - The good guys lost, the world is done for; Do-it-yourself toolkit that allows you to make your own apocalypse, though each also works as an iteration of the setting. Think of it as a campaign-template that could be applied to all other settings or run as stand-alone.

Kaidan by Rite Publishing - Japanese Horror setting; I'm eagerly awaiting the core-books; the modules and supplements released so far have been excellent

Lands of the Jade Oath by Rite Publishing: Rite's WuXia setting. Superbly written supplements, but not too much support. I'd combine it with Little Red Goblin Games' Dragon Tiger Ox's crunch to run such a campaign.

Questhaven by Rite Publishing: Pretty much every book by Rite that is not part of another setting is tied in with this one. A city run by adventurers that makes sense is the goal and I've been eagerly waiting to get my hands on a full setting for ages...

Third Dawn by Dreamscarred Press: So far for Pathfinder only represented in the first modules of the AP. Interesting psionics-only setting. I wished the AP had a more frequent release schedule.

Suzerain Continuum by Savage Mojo: World-spanning collective; basically, a planes/realmswalker-approach. Pretty excited to see what comes out of the planned conversions of the unique worlds contained in this meta-setting.

I have yet to read the Player's Guide for Drop Dead Studios Skyborune. Pure Steam also deserves mentioning, but so far, there's only the core book out and it alone is a bit meager regarding setting info. I reviewed most of them, should you require further information. (And if I haven't reviewed them yet, I will do so in the future...)


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Wow, there are more than I realized!

Thanks!

Scarab Sages

I'm quite fond of Taladas, a continent in the Dragonlance world that was introduced in a TSR box set called Time of the Dragon. For those who don't like kender and tinker gnomes, they're fairly easy to trim from a Taladas campaign.

I like this world because it draws inspiration from different real-world cultures than most fantasy settings. There's a human/minotaur empire inspired by the Romans. Gladiatorial trial by combat is a cornerstone of their justice system. Another portion of the continent is shared by Uyghar-inspired humans and elves patterned after Native American Plains tribes. Other groups are based on Inuit and Pacific Island cultures. This kind of diversity may not be startling in 2016, but it was pretty exciting when Taladas debuted in 1989.

The box set came with a great set of cardstock sheets that displayed cultural dress and artifacts from most of the major cultures. There were a few modules and expansion sets published for Taladas, but not many.

(Back to the oft-hated kender and tinker gnomes: The major group of kender here are dour and paranoid, rather than cheerful kleptomaniacs. The tinker gnomes still build overly complex devices, but theirs work correctly, as opposed to their hapless relatives on the main Dragonlance continent. They have plenty of metal to work with, too, because the gods hit this continent with a comet. What was once the heartland of Taladas is now a small sea of magma.)

Scarab Sages

Lately, I'm also intrigued by Planescape. The hub of this setting is the city of Sigil, which contains gateways to nearly all of the traditional AD&D Inner and Outer Planes. Why save planar travel for late in a campaign when you can start off-world on Day One? As others have pointed out, this setting was written using an extensive glossary of fictional slang. Like the kender and tinker gnomes of Taladas, above, the slang can be discarded if the GM and players aren't into it.


Midnight is amazing. Very dark, very cool. Spelljammer holds a special place in my heart.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Planescape is my all time favorite (non-homebrewed) campaign setting, bar none.

I really like the emphasis on philosophy and "belief is power" conceit. I really like the Outlands and its Gate Towns, but especially Sigil and its factions.


Planescape had some of the finest art in RPG's too. I never got to play there but it always set my imagination running wild.

Specifically for settings with pathfinder support I like Open Design's Midgard and Frog God's Lost Lands so far.


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For *classic* settings...Ravenloft will forever be my one first true love; Planescape will be my perfect exotism - fun, creative, different and versatile; Dark Sun is the wonderful rough and alien;

For 3.X-settings: Midnight and Scarred Lands. Have everything for both; both are mechanically deeply flawed, but GLORIOUS settings.


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Planescape is gorgeous, beautiful, evocative, flavorful...

... and a pain in the backside to run. :)

Liberty's Edge

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Endzeitgeist wrote:

Personally, I consider the following campaign settings pure awesomeness. Only settings with multiple supplemental products/continued support count.

Relatively traditional (but thoroughly awesome) settings:

Midgard by Kobold Press - Dark fantasy goodness with a Germanic/Slavic focus and excellent adventures and supplemental material.

Midgard fans should be on the look out ... there just might be a pretty major new hardcover coming ... :)

Sovereign Court

Scarred Lands has just began an update for Pathfinder and 5e.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

JGray wrote:

Planescape is gorgeous, beautiful, evocative, flavorful...

... and a pain in the backside to run. :)

How so? I found the often ephemeral nature of portals perfect for fencing in where the PCs could explore.

But I only ran homebrew adventures; I didn't run any of the modules.

In one memorable encounter, the PCs killed a giant blade-feathered wannabe roc and used its carcass to sled down one of the volcanoes of Gehenna. The tiefling used his randomly-rolled opposable toes to steer.


Mad Alchemist wrote:
Scarred Lands has just began an update for Pathfinder and 5e.

Really?

I have a lot of Scarred Lands 3e stuff.


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SmiloDan wrote:
JGray wrote:

Planescape is gorgeous, beautiful, evocative, flavorful...

... and a pain in the backside to run. :)

How so? I found the often ephemeral nature of portals perfect for fencing in where the PCs could explore.

But I only ran homebrew adventures; I didn't run any of the modules.

In one memorable encounter, the PCs killed a giant blade-feathered wannabe roc and used its carcass to sled down one of the volcanoes of Gehenna. The tiefling used his randomly-rolled opposable toes to steer.

I always thought the specialized vocabulary that essentially became an entire other language (the cant) made for a barrier. Plus, I found the rules to be cumbersome and prohibitive but I thought that about AD&D in general.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

The Cant wasn't too hard to deal with. It was (or at least should have been) sprinkled lightly throughout conversations for flavor. If a sentence was made primarily of The Cant, then it sounded a bit nuts.

Like all of the nuts.

It did have some wonky rules, like clerics losing caster levels as they traveled around the Wheel, or magic items losing plusses when separated from their planes of origin. Fortunately, some of those rules could be ignored in homebrew campaigns.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I like running Eberron using the Pathfinder rule-set; it's a great world with plenty of room to campaign in. I've run Forgotten Realms too, but lately I've grown bored of the Realms. I'm still looking for a science-fantasy setting but haven't found one for Pathfinder just yet.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

What do you mean by science-fantasy? Star Wars? Barsoom? Those settings that are so far in the future, they've returned to Dark Ages technology, but there are still ancient artifacts scattered around, like bomb shelters and guns and holograms and cell phones?


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On a related note, we did a conversion of Barsoom called "A Dream of Mars" as a mini-setting.

Scarab Sages

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My homebrew is the coolest campaign setting.


A few more to add...

Razor Coast by Frog God Games

Freeport: The City of Adventure by Green Ronin Publishing

Parsantium: City at the Crossroads by Ondine Publishing

The Great City by 0one Games

Coming Soon...

Aethera Campaign Setting by Robert Brookes


To be an insufferable smartypants prick: Razor Coast is officially part of The Lost Lands.

But yeah, the city settings you noted, Haladir, are all pretty much AWESOME. In particular 0onegames' Road to Revolution AP is still my city-AP-gold-standard. (Seriously folks, check that one out - It was one of the reasons I got into reviewing in the first place and #2, The Bloody Fix, is the best haunted house module since the second Ravenloft module...) :)


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Shadows over Vathak is coming out with the BIG book. Its taking some time because Rick's pretty much doing all new art. Yikes! But its written. :)


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...and I'm soooo excited about that one!!!

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
SmiloDan wrote:

What do you mean by science-fantasy? Star Wars? Barsoom? Those settings that are so far in the future, they've returned to Dark Ages technology, but there are still ancient artifacts scattered around, like bomb shelters and guns and holograms and cell phones?

Something similar to Rifts or Numenera. I like the far future science-fantasy settings.


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And of course, as mentioned in the other thread:

The World of Xoth


The Known World/Mystara


Finishing layout this week on Hypercorps 2099.

Just need to get the f#($% printer to accept the file!


MikeMyler wrote:

Finishing layout this week on Hypercorps 2099.

Just need to get the f#($% printer to accept the file!

Digital rewards for this start getting fulfilled this week and it should be available for purchase soon! :D


Marc Radle wrote:


Midgard fans should be on the look out ... there just might be a pretty major new hardcover coming ... :)

Wait, WHAT?!?

Unless, it's just a 5e version of an existing book. Then it's "eh, good for them" but not a "TELL ME MORE NOW" trigger.

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