Hey all. It’s been a long time since a new post, I know, and I apologize to my hordes of adoring fans. *crickets* I did want to drop back in, however, and share an update on one of the many reasons I haven’t been around much lately to tinker with Dragon Hack, which is the Midgard campaign setting from Open Design.

For those not in the loop, the Midgard campaign world is the personal campaign of one Mr. Wolfgang Baur, the mad wizard behind Open Design and Kobold Quarterly. Well, about a year ago Wolfgang decided to launch the largest Open Design project to date: a complete campaign guide to the world of Midgard, which only had been showcased in pieces before through such sourcebooks as the Zobeck Gazetteer and The Dwarves of the Ironcrags, and adventures such as Courts of the Shadow Fey and Tales of the Old Margreve.

Creating an entire campaign world has been an enormous task, and the Open Design patrons involved have really churned out some amazing stuff for the world Wolfgang dreamed up and we all helped make real. The world is ridiculously full of great campaign hooks and adventure ideas, and presents a fully detailed continent of sentient forests, ancient magic, warring kingdoms and meddling gods for your heroes to face.

So what does that have to do with your average AGE player? Well, back when Midgard was pitched, one of the first things the patrons had to decide is what rules set the campaign book would use. Conventional wisdom said it would either be Pathfinder, or the Fourth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Then something wonderful happened: The patrons voted, and with Wolfgang’s support, the second system chosen to be supported by the world was the Dragon Age RPG by Green Ronin. When it’s released next year, players and game masters alike will for the first be able to play the Dragon Age game outside the world of Thedas in an officially licensed, third-party campaign setting.

It may be a long time off before the Midgard setting is in our hands, but I wanted to wet your appetites with some of the stuff I’ve been working on for the last couple months, which is the AGE appendix that will appear in the back of every campaign guide. Because so much of the design is setting neutral, the decision was made to place what AGE players needed to play in the world as an appendix in the back of the world book, while the bulk of the book is written for the Pathfinder game. Again, it’s really mostly great descriptions of exotic locales and adventure seeds, so AGE players will still get a lot of mileage out of the book itself.

As for the appendix, I can finally tell you what’s included: The AGE system material in the Midgard setting book will include more than 24 backgrounds, covering a gamut of the peoples and cultures of the Midgard setting. Also included will be seven new specializations for your characters, including such iconic classes as the scriviner mage, the deadly harem assassin, and the mighty shapeshifting berserker. Finally, the book will include three new magic schools, with their associated talents and focuses, and 40 new spells for both players and NPCs alike.

To put that in perspective, that’s more backgrounds than are available in Dragon Age RPG sets 1 and 2 combined. Twice the number of spells that were available in the first set, and almost as many specializations as are currently available, just about doubling player options. It’s a lot of great material. And just like the Dragon Age products, all the new material is intrinsically tied to the game world, which makes for built-in roleplaying hooks in every decision players make during character creation.

I can’t wait for the AGE playing community to get their hands on this book, and I’ll ask Wolfgang about showing off a few teasers and previews either here or over at the Kobold Quarterly site (which I’ll then link to here, no worries) as we get closer to publication. In the meantime, dream of new awesome AGE material, and I’ll be back soonish with some new specializations for the Dragon Hack class talents, and we’ll get back on that train. Take care.