Ranger Games Publishing has released their new Dice & Glory campaign setting. It’s called Arvan: Land of Dragons and puts players in a realm that has several familiar, fantasy tropes, but also a bit of a spin on the classic, Tokeinesque settings. You’ve got things like Naga, unicorns, ratlings, and such. The .pdf version of the book is available now, with print versions coming soon.
From the release:
Arvan: The Land of Dragons centers on the Age of Adventure and a burgeoning international trade and era of conquest. As well as the reclamation of territory from the supernatural forces that have dominated it for so long and which had resulted from an extended Dark Age of Mad Mage-Lords and Dark Warlords. In the East an ancient empire struggles to slow its disintegration into smaller feudal princedoms as its central theocracy seizes power for itself also trying to focus the chaos on the empires former colonies in the West. Power is up for grabs for those willing to seize it.
The world’s technology level hovers between the late Iron Age and the High Middle Ages. No “Tolkienesque” classical player races exist with Arboreans (tree-men), Amazons, Fauns, Ratlings, Naga, unicorns, and Hill-Giants instead. Of course, there are still human beings. The world of Eu, the planet on which the setting of Arvan exists, has a healthy dose of dark mystery with patina of medieval grit with realistic underpinnings established of the fantasy of the world to exist on. Inspirations include ancient Rome, Greece, the ancient Americas, as well as Warring States Era China, with some influence from ancient Africa and the Celtic lore and history of Europe not to mention Ancient Greece.
The setting focuses on an “Age of Adventure” wherein the players and their characters can explore and engage the world with freedom and have a chance of making a mark on the world of Eu and its history should game campaigns run into the long term. The focus of the setting is adventure however that may be defined at the table be it raiding and pillage, thievery, monster hunting, dragon-slaying, establishing trade routes, exploration, or conquest.
This setting was nearly 10 years in the writing and evolved after several years of role-play. The history of Eu and its cultures were constructed to provide a deep background for fantasy games that may stay as standard and shallow as they please or take a deep dive into the people and places of the fantasy world.
Arvan: The Land of Dragons is a 300+-page book available in PDF format on February 22, 2017 and available in Print editions at the end of March or April 2nd at the latest. It is a world setting meant for the Dice & Glory ttRPG system.