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Shadow World 4th Era Project: Initial Books

As many of you already suspect, I’m further along on this project than just concepts. I’ve fleshed out the first 3-5 supplements that could be brought to market as a cohesive RMU 4th Era launch. Arguably having several books ready to go creates more momentum and incentives player buy-in of the setting. Of course, any new users for SW would likely want the older material from Terry as well giving the entire product line a great boost.

I’m not getting into too much detail, but here is my working list.

  1. SW: 4th Era Addendum. I’m not sure it should be called a Master Atlas since it doesn’t need to rise to that level of detail and/or it would include some redundancy. Nonetheless, this is the essential primer for the new setting that would include a “history” (I’m starting this on year 20 after TBotNE) that establishes the current state of affairs, politics and power and high level topics. 150 pages. Plus Map Gazatteer.
  2. A Grand Adventure: “Rise of the Loremasters”. I’m envisioning this as a fusion of the Druid narrative from Sword of Shanara, and Star Wars sequels. The Loremasters, decimated by the final battles, are absent from the affairs of Shadow World. Worse still, Karilon has been quarantined by powerful magic and inaccessible. Starting with the “Search for Randae Terisonen” this multi-part campaign has the group seeking out surviving Loremasters and eventually helping restore the order. 60 pages.
  3. A Dungeon Crawl. RM and SW has never had a tradition of dungeon adventures, but several expansive facilities were abandoned at the end of the 3rd Era. Are they still occupied? What evil resides in these remote places. The players are tasked with gathering intel, recovering or destroying a powerful talisman or artifact. 50 pages.
  4. A Wilderness Adventure. Without the aid of Navigators, the group must traverse a land ravaged by a last battle. Now overrun by XXX, the players are tasked with connecting to a remote enclave in a traditional hex or wilderness crawl. 35 pages.
  5. A City Supplement. With Eidolon destroyed and Norek drowned in a cataclysmic tidal wave, a new city has arisen as the center of commerce in Emer. 120 pages.

I see most of the focus still on Emer and Jaiman but with clear development guidelines, third party authors could start utilizing and/or developing other parts of the hemisphere.