Description
Adventure In a Dark World of Deep Magic!
It is an age of war. Civilization slowly gives way to encroaching wilderness, and once-mighty empires now lie beneath the waves. Only magic and the warmth of hope keeps lights aglow when dread things prowl, and priestly wardings are bent by demonic rage.
The omens are dire. The roads to the shadow realm are open again, and the fey have returned to claim their ancient tribute. In the north the giants prepare for Ragnarok, while the goblins in the west grow restless. In the Crossroads, the shadow of the vampire princes falls across the land. The World Serpent is stirring—and not even all-knowing Baba Yaga can say what will happen next.
Now more than ever, Midgard needs heroes to stand against the dark, driving it back with spell, steel, and cunning!
The 460-page Midgard Worldbook includes:
- Detailed description of Midgard’s empires, cities, and kingdoms, with associated heraldry, rulers, and adventure hooks for each state, large or small
- Characters from Baba Yaga to the lords of the Dragon Empire, from the honest folk of Zobeck to various elven holdouts of Dornig and the vampire lords of Morgau
- Full lore on the pantheons of the Northlands, Crossroads, Elves, and others, including divine domain lists, rituals, divine demands, and the various masks and sacred texts—plus rituals and ambitions of the Dark Gods, for the GM’s eyes alone!
- Revised and expanded lore of the planes, history, calendars, and conflicts of the world
- Forbidden lore of blood magic, void magic, and various dooms and items not meant for players’ eyes!
- And much more!
Ross Young –
I love Midgard and I do like this book, but it has some problems that make it seem a little bit rushed. For starters, if anyone has the older Pathfinder Midgard wordbook you’ll see that a lot of the text from that book has been copied over wholesale and this continues throughout the book. Many of these regions have been expanded which features new text and the timeline has been advanced so there are changes throughout showing the political and culturally changes that have occurred. If you didn’t own the first book this isn’t so much a of an issue but its worth pointing out.
There are also quite a few typos scattered throughout. This isn’t uncommon for the first run of a book and I imagine they’ll release errata like they would for Tome of Beasts which will be updated in the PDF copies, but its worth bearing in mind if you went for a Print or Print+PDF bundle like I did.
Finally omissions and weirdness. There are some strange things that seem to have been lost in translation between the two books. For example, the windrunner elves are not mentioned at all in the section on Elves either in the world book or the Midgard Heroes Handbook, but are mentioned from time to time in paragraphs that seem to be from the old book. It almost seems like they decided to remove the Windrunner elves from Midgard, but since they copied text wholesale a few references were left in. The Shadow Realm is also not listed under “Planes” in the opening section of the book but the Shadow Realm is mentioned constantly in texts relating to the Shadow Fey. Considering it was listed in the Planes section in the first Midgard book this just seems like an oversight.
It also includes some rules and options for both 5th Edition and Pathfinder. I’m not sure why these are here, as both 5e and PF have a separate book including new rules. In the case of 5e, some of the options from Deep Magic are split between these two books. Its a little strange but not really a problem. The options are all generally pretty cool though I suspect some would be very powerful so use your discretion when permitting them in your game! I love having special setting specific options though as it really helps immerse you in the world.
That’s pretty much it for the bad stuff. Despite those few hiccups, the book is great. The artwork is some of the beast I’ve seen in a Kobold Press Book and a lot of it is on par or better than WoTC art. The whole format and style of the book is top notch as well. It looks great and professional and easily read. Midgard itself is awesome. Its a familiar fantasy world with a few twists that make it interesting. It has Dwarves and Elves and Humans in a Tolkien esque sort of way, but then a heavy dose of Eastern European mythology and history, plus dashes of lovecraft and other cool stuff. The included full color maps are beautiful and really help you find your bearings. Its focus on a mid to eastern Europe setting, plus a late medieval level of technology with some steampunk and other influences really invokes a bit of Warhammer Fantasy for me, so if you’re a fan there you’ll probably like this. All in all its a great product and a fantastic world, with just a few publishing and writing quirks that I hope will be addressed in updated material. If this is your first introduction to Midgard, its a great place to start!
codybrower –
I cannot say enough good about this book! I sling it on Facebook so much that people are probably starting to wonder if I actually work for Kobald Press! 🙂 I am running a campaign in the Northlands right now and my players are loving it. However, this World Book has so much content I could run campaign after campaign and never dust off all of the content provided here.
This book contains everything you need for incredible campaigns. Kobald Press have populated it with campaign hooks literally throughout the book. You could run adventures that are urban, rural, in the wilds, on the desert, the steppe, northern adventures, medieval themed adventures – you name it.
The only warning I would give is that the depth of the material is dense. There is a history of the world, a history of each part of the world, political affiliations, geography, additional magic systems, etc. My recommendation would be to pick the area that sounds most interesting to you or your players and begin your campaign there. The beginning of the book gives a great intro to what the world is about. Then, as long as you study the area you are campaigning in, you can get a good grasp of things and go from there. As your story progresses, you can digest the material from different areas.
My initial concern was that this is basically a “Viking” campaign setting. While the Northlands are quite vikingesque, the world itself is not themed that way, at all. In fact, the world is so vast that you will find many different cultures, the vikingesque culture of the North just being one of many.
I would also highly recommend the Heroes Handbook. It makes a wonderful companion to the World Book, however, it is not required. Mostly, it gives you some great detail about many of the races that inhabit the world of Midgard.
Seriously, buy this book!
gregandrade –
Quite simply, this is the best campaign setting sourcebook ever produced for Dungeons & Dragons. No other resource has ever packed so much original, inspirational and comprehensive content into a single volume. Midgard is unlike any other setting. It takes its inspiration from many real world cultures and mythologies that you rarely see depicted elsewhere. It builds on these unusual influences as well as some of the best fantasy tropes, and it adds creativity and innovation to produce a truly unique and groundbreaking setting. Ley lines, shadow roads, void magic, a dragon empire, infernal evil gnomes, a vampire kingdom, an empire of ghouls, shadow fey, dust goblins, wind lords, gearforged, trollkin, and bearfolk. These are just some of the many new and fascinating concepts, locations, races and intrigues you’ll find in Midgard. It’s darker, grittier, and more fantastic than many other D&D settings, yet it provides backdrops, ideas and plot hooks for everything from sword-and-sorcery to high fantasy. There is something here for virtually any DM and campaign, whether you’re running a game in Midgard or gathering ideas for use in another setting. It’s also an excellent gateway to other Midgard 5E rulebooks and sourcebooks, which add everything from new playable races and schools of magic to new feats, backgrounds, magical items, spells, and much more. The Worldbook is not only a phenomenal gaming resource but a fascinating read, and it delivers value far beyond its price. I give it my highest recommendation.
Kiriaki Tsichita –
This is a very rich setting, that combines all classic rpg settings in one world. There’s so much lore you can use for your adventures and hooks to create stories for your players. An unlimited source of inspiration. My favourite area, The Wasted West!