Introducing Heirs of Argax - Fantasy Adventure Campaign

Over the past 12 months I have fallen further and further down the rabbit hole of original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons and it has become my old-school D&D system of choice now. It culminated in starting a home campaign with my own house ruled version of OD&D that I had been referring to as Hawkmoor. That name has now been shelved for a variety of external reasons, but the campaign lives on and is flourishing. It has been some of the most fun I have had both in terms of running a campaign, as well as worldbuilding. So much so that I have decided to take this home campaign world and begin a publishing project dedicated to it. From it is born the Heirs of Argax Fantasy Adventure Campaign.

My goal is to present a vibrant setting that is imminently playable; a landscape of adventure. I wish it to be engaging for players and referees alike, with a main emphasis on emergent sandbox campaigning. To create such a setting requires certain elements in my opinion.

1. The setting needs a rich background, but not a burdensome amount of lore to parse through or convey.
2. It must be moldable to make every campaign feel unique and individual.
3. There need to be the quick and easy-to-use tools for running an emergent sandbox campaign without the need for hours of prep.
4. The hook to adventure, the "why are we here" as it were, needs to be immediately self-evident.

These core design principles are not easy to achieve, but do not require a change in focus from me since it is how I run my TTRPG campaigns anyway.

The first question I posed myself was whether or not I would tie the setting to a system or present it as a system neutral "OSR" setting that can be used with anything. I reached out to a few designers I know and poked around on some community Discord servers. Overall the feedback was to not make it system neutral. Setting it up as such would lead it to flounder in the broad sea of generic OSR content. So after a lot of back & forth, I picked the system for which it will be designed. Since this setting is born out of an OD&D campaign, I ultimately chose Swords & Wizardry.

Why S&W? The quick answer is that it's an OD&D "clone" and I'm running an OD&D world, so the translation is minimal. But it goes beyond that simple fact and that I really love Swords & Wizardry. The tone of the game and the style of campaigns it facilitates fits perfectly with this setting and my tastes. Despite my love for Old-School Essentials and the popularity of Shadowdark, those systems simply aren't the perfect fit. That being said, designing the setting with S&W in mind as the baseline doesn't limit it in anyway. Any good OSR system or classic edition of D&D will translate perfectly into this world with very minimal adjustments needed. Other reasons to pick Swords & Wizardry are also very practical. The market for settings and supplements isn't flooded like it is for some other systems. The author of S&W, Matt Finch, also provides an extremely generous license policy to create third party content for his game and utilize the information he has provided.

Now that's all fine and good, but what is the theme of this setting? I wanted to capture a certain Appendix N flavor in this setting, which is a clear homage to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, but I didn't want another Conanesque sword & sorcery setting. I wanted to capture some of those elements for sure, but grounded in an early medieval world (to a degree). 

Of all the Appendix N books, this world carries with it a lot of the thematic elements and inspirations from The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson.

I have also put in a lot of my historical research knowledge on medieval societies in the timespan of the 7th to 11th centuries. A world before there were guilds, but with the remnants of a fallen golden age. A world in turmoil, where adventurers not only can make their mark and become legends but where they must do so.

In the coming weeks and months, I will be posting regular design & development diaries, especially on my Substack (you can subscribe for free HERE). I will be displaying the "Judges Guild style" hex maps of the setting (I'm drawing more and more every week), discussing regions, design choices, religion & mythology, history, NPCs, society, and more. Eventually I will have the setting book completed. I also plan on publishing a rules supplement booklet for Swords & Wizardry to use with Heirs of Argax and really any OSR type TTRPG.

I hope you will join me on this journey of uncovering the Heirs of Argax Fantasy Adventure Campaign.

I will also be posting downloadable content on my Patreon (find it HERE) at the Adventurer of the Realm tier ($5) and above. Patrons will also be included in setting discussions, polls, naming of NPCs, etc. Any and all support for my work, in particular sharing it, is much appreciated.