In the 3.5 era, there was a setting and cardcame released by Alderac Publishing called Warlords of the Accordlands. I've owned this 3.5 campaign for several years and have long wanted to run it. Think of it as a dark-fantasy world where many of the assumptions of D&D are reversed. Humans are an endangered species. Elves are short lived and evil. Orcs are regimented, orderly, and master engineers, and so forth.
I'm going to have to make a number of setting and mechanical adjustments to fit it to pathfinder. There are campaign/fluff expansions from the card game that aren't reflected in the books, as well as things that are mentioned and never developed, and the mechanics of course will have to be updated.
I own several copies of all these books. I have provided links below to pdfs of the 'player's handbook' (master codex) and 'campaign setting' (world atlas), which you can view, but not download or otherwise edit to prevent anyone who hasn't purchased the material from obtaining it inappropriately. This will give you a sense of what kinds of options there would be, though, as I mentioned, I'm going to be making some fluff and mechanical adjustments.
Warlords of the Accordlands: World Atlas
Warlords of the Accordslands: Master Codex
Here's the company blurb from when it was released:
Warlords of the Accordlands Overview
AEG proudly brings you the Warlords of the Accordlands roleplaying game! Based on the enormously popular Warlord CCG, this massive four-book collection offers a uniquely expansive setting and over 1,300 pages of unprecedented support material, immersing players into the ultimate fantasy role-playing experience!This ambitious product line provides fantasy players and DMs alike with thousands of new and re-envisioned tools, empowering them like never before. In our first book: The Master Codex, we present all the rules needed to play any character or design any challenge in the Warlord setting, all in one easy location. Our second book: The World Atlas contains an intimately detailed view of the Accordlands, including sections for every major city, with notes on their histories, economies, principal encounter locations, and more. The third book: Monster and Lairs takes the concept of random encounters to an entirely new level, featur-ing not only traditional descriptions for the many original species living at the fringe of society, but also maps and detailed location listings for forty of their lairs! Finally, the forth book: The Campaign Adventure Book brings all the material in the first three books to vibrant life, thrusting your characters into a desperate struggle against the vicious Medusan Lords, the Accordlands’ most dangerous enemies!
Twenty-five original interlocking adventures may be played independently or as one or more epic campaigns. Dozens of provisions to shift between adventures allow for unlimited customization and replayability! Guide your characters through many of the locations seen in the World Atlas (and more than a few encounters from Monsters and Lairs) before they penetrate the Lords’ front lines and face the setting’s greatest villains!
Each of the four books contains two poster-sized maps accompanying many maps and pieces of art to bring your role-playing experience to life.
This is not just another d20 product... It’s a roleplaying experience beyond anything you’ve ever played. This is the role-playing experience that you will remember with your friends for the rest of your life. Join the adventure... Live the legend...
Experience the Saga of the Storm!
The Saga of the Storm
Master Codex
At over 300 full-color pages, this is the only rulebook you’ll ever need to play in the Accordlands!A Complete Rules Encyclopedia!
"Did that feat come from the Player’s Handbook, the paladin book, or the fighter book?"
"Actually, it was from that module we ran last week."
If you’ve ever groaned about running or designing character for an RPG with dozens of reference materials, you’ve come to the right place! With literally every rule and every chart that you might ever use within this single volume, cross-referenced with a comprehensive and easy-to-use index, answering rules questions and looking up even the most obscure rules clause is a snap! Less time wasted generating characters and referencing rulebooks means more time playing the game.One Rule Book to Rule Them All!
The Master Codex is a fantasy tour de force, coupling hundreds of new feats, spells, items, prestige classes, and other character and DM options with the very best OGC material on the market today. This treasure trove of crunchy mechanics goodness can spawn countless characters and support endless adventure, whether you’re playing the official Saga of the Storm campaign or not. Inside this tome you will find more information than most Role-Playing Games bring you in their first ten releases!Bigger, Better, and a Whole Lot More!
Warlord is the highest of high fantasy, but it’s far from your "run of the mill" world setting. Not only does it take the familiar standards you love and turn them on their end, giving them a fresh new spin and a whole new attitude, but it also brings many entirely new concepts to the classic gaming arena.Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide classes are given an entirely new direction according to their place in the Accordlands. The paladin, for instance, is expanded to not only allow for the classic ethical paragon, serving the gods of justice, but also the holy warrior, pledging his allegiance to a god of the alignment of his choosing. Other classes, such as the necromancer and illusionist (traditionally specializations of the wizard class), as well as the scout and assassin (traditionally prestige classes), are pillars of the Warlord setting, and expanded as full 20-level core classes, available to characters at 1st-level.
Back to the Old School!
Saga of the Storm captures the excitement and glory we all experienced when we first picked up a 20-sided die, returning fantasy roleplaying rules to their time-honored roots. Our barbarians, for example, possess anti-magic abilities. Terrain specialties define our rangers rather than their favored enemies. And our rogues are less inclined to backstab than slip through the shadows and steal things (though they still retain some sneak attack bonuses).New Depth for Races!
Not only does Saga of the Storm offer an entirely new storyline take on dwarves, elves, and orcs (nothrog), but it backs up this alternate vision with race-specific spells, feats, abilities, and other character options. Hundreds, if not thousands, of unique feat and ability combinations are now possible for each race, opening up new levels of character design for the serious gamer! Competitive players will enjoy finding combinations of spells and feats to obtain varied effects, where story based players will enjoy making characters that are radically different from those of their fellow players. Although your party may contain two rangers, you may find that those two rangers are as different as your wizard and barbarian.Everything you need... EVERYTHING!
Character creation is only the beginning. Additional rules are included in this landmark release for mass combat, chases, poisons, called shots (including special critical hits that cleave limbs and produce other nasty effects), and much more, and the book is topped off with a huge master index for all four Saga of the Storm books!World Atlas
Direct from the minds of the Warlord Story Team - Chris Burns, Dana DeVries, Andrew Getting, and Rusty Priske - comes over 300 full-color pages detailing the war-torn Accordlands in all their savage glory!All the Answers, None of the Hassle!
The Warlord CCG opens the floodgate into an incredible world beyond imagination, but it leaves much to the minds of the fans who build the world through interactive tournaments and exclusive events.If Syneri says this Ablung guy’s a nutjob, why does she still work with him? How is it that Deverenia used to rule the known world, but now it only lords over a tiny corner of it? What’s the link between the Arioch Paladins and the Black Sun Knights, and what drove the Arioch out of the alliance between them? Why did Gahid attack Myreth forest when he couldn’t even hold onto Phrygai? What in the name of Amoudasi is up with those guilds, anyway? This book finally answers all the questions you’ve been asking since the beginning.
The World Atlas is an exercise in total immersion. Critical events in Accordlands history are provided, offering insight into current events and untapped adventuring options. Major and minor NPCs are described and given statistics. Insert any or all of them into any campaign without preparation. Important locations and cities across the continent are brought to life, and a giant section is dedicated exclusively to the capital city of Baraxton. Exotic artifacts are detailed, from the Blade Excessus and Morghen’s missing bits to the legendary faction weapons, over which sweeping wars have been fought and untold blood has been shed. The many religions of the Accordlands are explained and compared, illustrating why people worship Neus now when Ishara was the mainstay a hundred years ago and what separates the Yscarite Heresy from the Cult of Baraxton. Rules and storyline support is even included for creating your own Nothrog totem! The darkest and most terrifying secrets of the Storm itself are finally laid bare!
No More Secrets!
You might have noticed that the last item above promises the secrets of the Storm itself, but that’s only the beginning - we’re pulling out all the stops for this release, and making sure that DMs learn all the setting’s secrets. After reading this book, any DM can run the entire Warlord meta-plot without worrying that he’ll conflict with any part of the official campaign. After this, the only secrets will be those the DM keeps from his players!Strongholds of Light!
After the bloody Assassin’s Strike, the Accordlands needs able and willing recruits to fight back the hordes of darkness. This book provides your characters with loads of instant entry points into the world - join the struggling Free Kingdoms into their own, overcoming internal strife and a crashing wave of enemies, or fight along side the nothrog legions against the rebellious Merrick rebels. The world book contains the details your players need to bring them into the world and give them the feeling of living the adventure, rather than just playing it.Legions of Evil!
It’s no secret that the Warlord CCG is based on Alderac Entertainment Group CEO John Zinser’s infamous D&D games of yore, or that he’s one of the most deviously inventive DMs ever to host a table. His creation abounds with warring factions bent on each others’ absolute destruction, but the truest evils lurk in the shadows, waiting for the moment to seize power and grind the forces of good beneath their iron heel! The Master Atlas details all these villains - the Abyssals and their cunning plots, the Bascarites and their wanton cruelty, the Nothrog vying for power in Baraxton, the miscreants of Misearis, the religious conquerors of Deverenia, and even the ultimate forces of evil in the land, the Medusan Lords!Personal Details, Living Characters
Beyond the true history of the world are the true beliefs of its citizens and religions, the closely shielded mysteries of magic, the long-awaited stories behind blackiron and ironcloth, and an exploration of the planes, from the dreaded gifts of Bascaron to the terrible shadowy tides of the Storm. Just a few of these cultural details can breathe fresh life into even the most basic character concept, and instantly spark campaign options for any party of adventurers.Monsters and Lairs
Over 300 full-color pages of detailed monster and lair descriptions - the ultimate encounter compendium!Creatures Old and New!
The Accordlands is a big place, populated by all manner of dangers. From men to monsters, from tiny homunculi to the awesome power of the Abyssals, from mystical gargoyles to mighty dragons, hundreds of terrifying and wonderful creatures walk the land. As with character options, Saga of the Storm’s monstrous races include new designs (like the Jackals of Mourn, the beasts of Thune, Signon’s Disciples, and even that thing on the Summon Imp card), as well as innovative spins on the classics - enough to challenge even the most jaded fantasy roleplayer!Forty Monstrous Lairs!
Beyond mere statistics, the most useful random encounter aids are lair descriptions. So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to give them to you - 40 of them, each a completely mapped mini-dungeon, fully described and stocked with adventure! Use them as quick dungeon crawls or incorporate them into larger adventures (or even larger dungeons) of your own design.Classic d20 Design...
Though each of our writers - both here and in each of the Saga of the Storm companion volumes - has taken great pains to make the Saga of the Storms RPG unique, the basic underpinnings of the d20 system remain intact. Anyone familiar with d20 can hit the ground running with this product, as each monster is presented in the same clear and concise format used in the Monster Manual, and every effort has been made to ensure the highest level of play balance and presentation quality....Wild New Direction!
The Warlord CCG offers a healthy number of original monsters, only a fraction of which are named. Have you ever wondered exactly what Gethseme Steelhard is riding? Think you know the beast pinioned beneath Lady Tornhawk’s blade? What the heck is a Jacarra? And just what is that thing on the Summon Monster card? The answers to all these questions and more await you here.A Little Something Extra...
Beyond the classic retakes and CCG imports, the Monsters and Lairs book brings you many all-new creatures that will make their way back into card game releases in coming months as well.Player Character and Template Monsters!
Joe wants to play a lizardman shaman? We’ve got him covered. Ellen loves the idea of a centaur paladin? You bet. Many monsters featured in this book are fully converted into playable PC races, available at the DM’s discretion.We’ve also got a bunch of monster templates ready for you - ways to twist the beasts in this book through sorcery, slavery, or other conditions, leaving them changed - new threats your party will never see coming! Templates include beasts of pure shadow, celestials, Abyssals, dire animals, nothrog slaves of all species, and more. This equates to one thing: Time saved. Every minute saved, means one more minute you and your player will spend living the game.
Human Predators!
Some of the most savage monsters are actually human! Whether you need some quick thugs for a bar brawl, extra enemies to throw into a fight when things have gotten a little too easy on the heroes, or the statistics for every member of a Deverenian phalanx, the Monsters and Lairs Appendix has everything you need. Sample combatants are offered for all races, classes, and levels.Campaign Book
The legendary 400-page campaign that you and your group will never stop talking about!There’s Never Too Much Adventure!
This struggle to defeat the mysterious Medusan Lords is designed to take characters all the way from their humble beginnings at 1st level to their ultimate prime at 20th, and draws from and expands upon all three other Saga of the Storm releases. With no less than twenty-five fully mapped and detailed interlocking adventures, this is the largest, fiercest module collection on the planet!
A World Without Heroes!
The adventure begins on the night of the Assassin’s Strike, as the world’s heroes are stricken down in one night of bloodletting. The PCs soon find themselves drawn into a web of intrigue and danger that spans the breadth of the Accordlands, with one chance to rebuild what’s been lost - to return justice to civilization and bring vengeance to the enemies of peace. Along the way, they’ll forge epic final battles against each of the hated Medusan Lords and might even become Warlords themselves, with the power to shape and guide entire nations!Spotlight the PCs! Highlight the Cameos!
The adventures closely follow events in the CCG, taking characters through the Assassin’s Strike, the Abyssal Attack, the Assault on Kcal’den Fortress, the Siege of Baraxton, the Dragonlord, and finally the Medusan Lords. Along the way, you can expect them to encounter more than a few of other favorite CCG characters, including Kcal’den, Morghen Dythanus, Modred of Carcius, Sceth Hellbringer, Sorscha, the Terror of Sharn Keep, Tepheroth, and the Dragonlord, to name just a few. Familiar characters excite the players; excited players lead to more exciting play.One Campaign, Endless Adventure!
If the quest to rid the world of fathomless evil isn’t enough to sate your players’ thirst for adventure, we include dozens of side quests and trigger events that evolve as the campaign grows and takes its shape.The campaign’s interlaced structure allows them to jump back and forth between locations and events as needed, and every decision the characters make changes the world, closing some doors and opening new ones. The book is designed to assist the DM in every way. If your players kill off a critical character that appears in a later adventure, the Campaign book will make sure that you are prepared to deal with the situation.
It All Ties Together
This book brings all of the books together. As your party travels from adventure to adventure, the DM will be able to throw an encounter from the Monsters and Lairs Book at them or have them stop over at one of the many detailed cities presented in the World Atlas. Players will not just skip from adventure to adventure, the DM will be equipped with the tool to keep them on their toes.
Our goal is to give the DM every single tool that we can dream up to empower that DM to new heights of Dungeon Mastering Greatness.Among those tools are maps. As previously mentioned, each book includes two full sized poster maps. Among the subjects of these maps is a HUGE two part world map, multiple city maps and detailed maps for use in some of the more critical adventures and lairs in the Monster and Campaign books. You like maps, we love maps. We love full sized, full-color maps even more. We want to bring you as many as possible. Furthermore the release of the game will feature all four books being released at one time. You will not need to wait for that third month to being playing; all four books will be made available at launch. Action from the moment of purchase - our promise to you!
That "One Campaign"
Most gamers have had that "One Campaign." The "One Campaign" that is seen as the pinnacle of their gaming lives. That "One Campaign" the will never be duplicated. This is your new "One Campaign." This is not just another d20 product; this is an experience. Most of us in the office can spend hours upon hours talking about that "One Campaign" that defined so much about our gaming lives. We are trying to take all that was good from those campaigns and wedge them into these 1300 pages, and we will succeed. We at AEG love gaming; it is our passion because of role-playing experiences like the experience presented in the Saga of the Storm Role-Playing Game. We look forward to sharing our passion with you.
If you decide to keep it 3.5 I would be interested.
If I do this it will have to be PF1e -- I've only ever played PF1e during the 3x era, my other major play period was 2e. I own a ton of 3.0, but not 3.5 books, and I'm very unfamiliar beyond generalities with the specific changes 3.5 made to 3.0, or how it runs differently from PF1e.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's much interest, or it might not matter anyway!
There's a wall of text above - likely a few people who looked at it didn't notice that 2/3 of the way down it mentions the actual campaign.
What's the focus of the campaign? Intrigue, hunting monsters, fighting a war, what? It's not clear from the description.
There's a wall of text above - likely a few people who looked at it didn't notice that 2/3 of the way down it mentions the actual campaign.
What's the focus of the campaign? Intrigue, hunting monsters, fighting a war, what? It's not clear from the description.
Its mostly site-based adventures -- there's an evil conspiracy the players have to thwart, and they travel to all the major locations in the world as they root out the plotters.
So in what ways is this going to be PF1?
I'm going to come up with rough mechanical equivalents for the fluff ideas. I'm just linking the master codex so you can get an idea of what kinds of character concepts are viable. The mechanics will all be Pathfinder.
Here are some examples.
elves = drow
deverenians (basically numenoreans) = Pure Azlanti
nothrog = ogres
So we would use Pathfinder classes and feats and skills ect.
yes
Campaign setting seems interesting.
Nothrog = Ogres or Orcs?
I think I'd use ogre stats b/c they're tougher, or do something to buff orcs. They're supposed to be a super soldier mix of orc/bugbear/hobgoblin/goblin/ogre
What level are you thinking? Any alternate rules or did you want to play vanilla?
Good luck guys. Lot's of moving parts here. Warlords was already a heavily modified version of 3.5, and now you're going to try to convert to Pathfinder with all it's options. Nothing I'd try... but if you've got lots of time I'm sure you can make it work.
Good luck guys. Lot's of moving parts here. Warlords was already a heavily modified version of 3.5, and now you're going to try to convert to Pathfinder with all it's options. Nothing I'd try... but if you've got lots of time I'm sure you can make it work.
I don't even own the 3.5 books, so I was never considering doing it in 3.5, for the reasons I explained above.
What level are you thinking? Any alternate rules or did you want to play vanilla?
The campaign starts at 1-2 and goes all the way to 20. This is supposed to be a grittier setting, so I will probably add in some modifications to combat like called shots. I think spheres of power and initiators would be appropriate.
I'm not planning on making a document with a comprehensive conversion -- instead, I'm have a list of available sources, and I'm content to let players pick how they want to represent different fluff concepts with different builds. Like, I can see a Deverenian Paladin of the Black Sun as an antipaladin, or a cavalier, or some kind of warpriest or cleric/fighter, etc. I think there's usually more than one way to mechanically reflect a fluff idea. I'm open to ideas for equivalents.
Well I got some ideas if this takes off.
For balance sake I would just use Half-orcs or hobgoblins for Nothrog, using ogres, bugbears, and goblins to represent bloodlines that have been fully assimilated.
I will probably roll up a Fighter (viking) focusing on anti-magic stuff to replicate the Barbarian from the book.
Let's talk about potential rules a bit more to save some work for a potential recruitment thread (I still think we need a tad more interest expressed to make a game).
I'm going to have to remake the stat blocks anyway, and some of them are honestly ridiculous/hard to justify in terms of being WAY too weak for the purported CR, so I'm open to 3pp. and gestalt or some kind of half gestalt.
Here are some ideas I've been thinking about:
For martials -- all of them would get the archetypes which give initiator maneuvers and spheres of might spheres for free, to give some needed buff to try to lessen the martial/caster disparity.
One thing I have see for "Half-Gestalt" is picking one aspect of a class and increasing it by one step. Example: If you have a rogue you could increasing one save from weak to strong, increase you hit die from d8 to d10, or your BAB to full. If you have a fighter they could increase skills from 2+int to 4+int, hit die from d10 to d12, or a weak save to a strong save.
There is also free VMC option, free Archetypes (as you mentioned), or full gestalt although I'm not sure if full gestalt narrows the gab between martial and caster that much.
I kind of like the free archetypes method b/c it customizes the base chassis with some distinctive abilities without going whole hogg such that it dilutes the concept of the base class.
I think gestalt depends -- if everyone is a caster/full bab class, then that's balanced b/c everyone is the same, but what fun is that? On the other hand, it can make it worse if you have something like a summoner/skald that can basically be a party by themselves.
So playing around with it right now, I think giving martials the SoM Archetype for free is the best way to go.
I've played a few games with the "free archetype" method as a replacer for newer players for a more complicated system (my friends sometimes run games with my Freeform Class Selection homebrew). It seems to work very well, though of course the power of some archetypes are considerably juicier than others.
I’ve browsed through atlas and codex and it started the creative juices flowing…. So I’d submit a PC if you choose to run this.
As far as balance between maritals and casters goes I agree that the free archetype or free vmc approach would be more interesting than gestalt.
I'm looking at this again -- this really is a mess -- the bard has like no class features, for instance!
I'm still figuring out how I want to do the classes and races, or what appropriate equivalents might be.
I'd also be expanding the setting a bit -- the campaign setting references areas that are not on the map like the Land of Monsters and an ocean to the east. There was also an expansion pack for the card game after this rpg material was released that inserted a group of sumerian-inspired diabolists into the setting, and I'd probably use those in some fashion as well.
I'm looking at this again -- this really is a mess -- the bard has like no class features, for instance!Hey 6 class features are totally more than none. Gods the games have come a long way since Master Codex.
It's a shame the books are so, so bad, because the setting was wonderful and the fiction was absolutely amazing. Andrew Getting was the primary fiction author (IIRC) and he did wonderful work.
I'd also be expanding the setting a bit -- the campaign setting references areas that are not on the map like the Land of Monsters and an ocean to the east. There was also an expansion pack for the card game after this rpg material was released that inserted a group of sumerian-inspired diabolists into the setting, and I'd probably use those in some fashion as well.The Chosen. It's worth noting that they were on a different planet, and AFAIK people from the Accordlands just kind of got sucked up and sent them willy nilly (and a few did manage to travel on their own steam).
The bard for FFd20 has 75 -- yeah, that's a bit different!
I was trying to look around for more information on Thessyria again -- I can't tell if this was speculation, but someone posted that the masters of the Chosen were elder gods slain/conquered by the Dragon, and are sort of like the yozai from Exalted. That seems like a pretty good explanation, even if it's just speculation. Was there ever a map of Thessyria, or any additional information besides on the cards? I might try to work the concepts and areas, if not the exact plot points of the portals, into the campaign. The shattered lands region is big enough to have the territory of the Chosen somewhere in the middle of it.
I don’t recall ever seeing a map. I have just run a couple of different searches on the internet and came up with nada. I’ll keep searching and let you know if I come up with anything.
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yes -- this definitely isn't a recruitment yet, and I'm not ready at all for people to start rolling up characters, I'm just tossing around ideas.