Asn an avid 3rd edition era fan of Oathbound, I am really excited to hear that the campaign setting is making the transition to Pathfinder.
Asn an avid 3rd edition era fan of Oathbound, I am really excited to hear that the campaign setting is making the transition to Pathfinder.
Awesome!
I've seen used books of Oathbound at Half Price Books, but knowing that it will see a Pathfinder release has deterred me from said purchase. For those unfamiliar to the campaign setting, could someone provide a brief bio?
Basic run down of it's original incarnation*:
HISTORY
A god grew so powerful that the other gods teamed up and locked him away with his 7 most powerful followers bound as the 7 "locks". (Hence "oathbound"). Each ruled a different realm of a world formed around the imprisoned god. However, they are not willing guards and soon discovered that they could reach into other worlds and pull people and items into their realm. The end result was an unstated plan that "Hey, if we keep pulling in powerful adventurers who then come into conflict with each other, eventually some of them might get powerful enough to overthrow us and free our god." So basically, they pull high level adventurers into the setting and hope that someday each will be defeated and released from their oath.
THEME/FEEL
Overall, the setting is jacked up. As written, it was for levels 10 and up, and is described as your every sense is increased. Seasons for crops are only a month long. Fertile areas are massively overgrown forests or jungles. Wastelands are completely hostile to all life. Basically, a world that has more in common with the Outer Planes than a traditional fantasy world.
Each of the 7 realms has a very different personality from the overrun forests of Wildwood to the desert battleground of Arena. Also since every setting needs a major city, Oathbound has Penance which has been built on top of earlier ruins over and over for millenia and is now a massive plateau with ruins layered underneath. (However, apparently in the soon to be released update, Penance is involved in a bloody war and a new city is arising.)
That help at all?
* I co-wrote the intro adventure and was a general design lackey early on, but Greg Dent and Todd Morasch created the setting. So take this as someone who was a fly on the wall during some of the process. I claim no credit to the great ideas they came up with. I'm also not involved in the update (although I wish I was! Hint hint, Greg.).
So, it definitely isn't for those who wants to start out an Oathbound campaign at beginning level, I take it?
So, it definitely isn't for those who wants to start out an Oathbound campaign at beginning level, I take it?
It wasn't originally written with that in mind, but there's not really anything preventing it. The default assumption is that PCs will adventure on their own world, build a rep, and then get pulled into the setting. But that's just the default and the setting works fine from level 1 - going with either the "saw great potential so they were pulled" angle or being born and raised on this world.
Sweet, I LOVED the Oathbound settings. It has a Planescape feel, plus since the 7 bound beings can pull in essentially anything from a variety of worlds. You can use any of your books and it make sense.
And the Prestige Races I thought were a good concept also.
Asn an avid 3rd edition era fan of Oathbound, I am really excited to hear that the campaign setting is making the transition to Pathfinder.
I'm already drooling -- I had promised myself I was going to lay off of 3pp for Pathfinder (so much juicy material is already being put out by Paizo, after all), but this is definitely going to test my willpower! (rolls d20)
Oathbound Seven has been pushed to July and will be PDF exlusive.
Now, I'm ticked! I don't mind PDFs, but I want them to complement a paperback or hardcover release.