This post is the first in a while, but it is intended to be considerate of the changes that affect Dungeons & Dragons in its latest revision. The core game itself focuses on streamlining, improvement, and some restructuring to keep things current and uniform across the board. However, as one may intuit, these changes can prove to be a bit disruptive for players of the prior version whose games are steeped in older rulesets. As such, I felt that I should address how the game revisions for the 50th anniversary version of the game would impact a homebrew setting such as Iorth.
First and foremost, the design of Iorth was meant to help minimize the impacts of different game systems, editions, or the like on the game setting. I did not want to have large disruptive in-game events present to explain the severe changes in How Things Work in the campaign, especially as experienced by the Forgotten Realms (ala 2nd ed., 4th ed., etc.) and Dragonlance (SAGA system) settings in prior years. Firsthand memories of such seismic shifts did guide my homebrew design process, as noted:
- The organization of the religions of Iorth, focused on a philosophy instead of a specific entity, were meant to enable valid character builds and choices regardless of edition. For example, the current revision does not cover the Tempest domain, which would be a prime choice for a cleric of Thor, for example. I would not care for a player to feel like they have to somehow use or convert older material to remake their main concept in a revised ruleset. As it is, divine and primal characters simply select one of the 4 major religions, have a generally appropriate alignment for said religion (non-Evil for Path of Light; Neutral-based for Path of Awareness; any for Path of Nature; or any Evil for Path of Darkness), and go from there. It makes things so much easier to use across editions and rulesets than a homebrew that hews close to a specific edition of a specific ruleset.
- The major peoples of Iorth are more or less grouped into a primary category (humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, etc.), rather than necessarily going down the rabbit hole of very specific subtypes. Once again, this stems from rule changes over the years, though also adapting the homebrew from one ruleset to another also introduces issues. The last thing I want to have anyone do is figure out how to stat up or have available something like psychic deep snow gnomes in a game system that wouldn’t accommodate them well or at all, and make it a mandatory thing by having said gnome variants be a keystone part of the setting and game system.
- Magic systems often get big changes in game system or editions. As somewhat noted when mentioning religions earlier, having a larger system that can accommodate multiple versions or interpretations of How Things Work is intentional. Other than the major distinctions between arcane, divine, and primal magics, there’s no real specification about those major categories in the setting, generally. This is to make it easy to include or remove systems in the setting based on the game system used.
- Having specific levels of magical and technological ability available is also meant to set the tone of the setting. For example, other than a personal preference not to have firearms in my campaign setting, the general logistical challenges and dangers that firearms pose in a world that has much more readily available access to volatile elements such as magical fire makes that technology more of a liability instead of an asset. Whereas in the real world, armies generally don’t have to worry about regularly experiencing events that may ignite or detonate large amounts of gunpowder or explosives in an instant, a fantasy world like Iorth does with its fire-magic using inhabitants and creatures. (As it is, having a firearm in the Elemental Plane of Fire seems doomed to a particular fate.) I’ve softened to a degree where such things can exist for one reason or another, but the benefits they provide in the real world are curbed by the imaginary world’s unique or novel possibilities.
I’ve been creating homebrew settings since the rise of 2nd ed. AD&D decades ago. I’ve reinvented the wheel more times than I’d like to admit, much less remember. As such, when my homebrew ideas finally started to shift into the form they have now, the 3.5 edition of the game was around, and its relative glut of character options was proving cumbersome on top of a system where the math could easily get out of hand. I wanted to have a creation that I was invested in, and that granted me the authorial license that playing in someone else’s sandbox (like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc.) didn’t grant me.
(To be fair, I still enjoy games set in others’ sandboxes, ala Star Wars and Marvel. However, it is the specific qualities of those settings that appeal to me, and there is more than enough wiggle room in both for me to create something without it either clashing against the underlying core structures of the setting, much less feel constrained by lore or by player knowledge and expectation of lore. For a lot of fantasy settings, I cannot say the same.)
The phenomena I am trying to avoid has been well documented in recent years. The best examples I can think of in recent years are looking at the development of Critical Role and its setting over the years, along with reviewing the start of Acquisitions, Inc. in comparison to its last/latest manifestations. With Critical Role, it was the jump from two similar yet different systems, while edition and setting changes are what impacted Acquisitions, Inc. I still recall the big shifts in the game, and how it was implemented in the settings with the edition changes of D&D. I also remember the excessive accumulation of in-setting lore and in-game systems that made running such stuff a mess, as well as managing player knowledge and game lore a bit of a nightmare.
I have updated a few posts with some changes to reflect the content of the 2024 edition of D&D. However, my genuine goal is that this setting is malleable enough to use with many systems, and not just D&D. While I still enjoy the game, I know those who prefer something else, or who have opted to embrace an older version or alternative interpretation of the system or its settings.
In addition, I would like for Iorth to be available to players of other systems, and not just other editions of D&D. Hopefully someone who prefers Pathfinder could use this material just as much as someone who uses Castles & Crusades or Old School Essentials. I’d like the core ideas and elements to be relatively system-free, while retaining some elements that are iconic to fantasy in general because of D&D and all of the material which inspired it.
Iorthbound 