Midgard Setting released

[kronovan]

I'll ditto others about the quality of Open Designs work for the world of Midgard . I want to adapt Midgard to True20, but decided to start with a baby steps approach and 1st adapt the Midgard-Northlands setting and parts of the PF Midgard Bestiary. I was fortunate enough to pick up both of those real cheap in a LGS sale last week and quite honestly I've been blown away by the quality of it. The quality of Northlands convinced me to immediately put in a order for the Midgard Setting softcover. Just from what I've seen of Northlands (just 1 of a number of realms in the Midgard setting) I can see where the setting could be a very good fit for AGE - it's certainly an excellent fit for True20.

Having read the AGE stuff I think there is an opportunity for someone, or a group of someones, who is familiar with both AGE and Pathfinder to go through and write some more spells for other schools of magic such as Demonology, Illusion and Necromancy (both Black and White). A Spirit Pact School and Speciality written for Avvar magic could probably work well in Midgard as well.

I agree it would be well worth the effort for DAGE fans to milk the PF content for all its worth. In addition to filling out magic, I noted in the dtrpg Midgard preview that the AGE content got the Northland's Khazzaki, Reaver Dwarf and Trollkin backgrounds, but didn't get the Donneren, Skraeling, Trylleri and more importantly the way too cool Dayborn and Nightborn Hyperboreans. Understandable they're not all there as Northlands is a 110 page companion setting and including much of its content would kill sales for it. That said, I'm a bit surprised they chose Khazzaks and Trollkins over the Hyperboreans. My exercise of adapting them from PF to True20 backgrounds may be of help to someone wanting to convert those to AGE.

In the Midgard preview on dtrpg I can't see any details on the magic schools - did they include Rune Magic as 1 of the schools for AGE?

[Pytorb]

There were certainly runes in the Set 3 playtest...

[kronovan]

There were certainly runes in the Set 3 playtest...

I was referring to the Rune Magic in Midgard-Northlands, not having the Midgard Campaign setting yet, I'm not sure if it's there even for PF. The Northland's Rune Magic goes quite a bit beyond that which was featured in DAGE Playtest 3. Like DragonAGE you can imbue items with them to enhance them for various effect, but it also entails the player performing a sacred trial quest to unlock all their full potential. They also align with associated magic powers, so even someone from a non-Adept role/Non-Mage class can learn to evoke a few of those. The Norhtland's Rune Magic is also based upon the historical Elder Futhark runic system, so its really more of a mythical/historical fantasy treatment of an ancient system. As well there's the full 24 runes from the Elder Futhark, so there's a lot more variation and depth to it.

To be honest I was quite disappointed with the treatment of Runes in the DA video games and Playtest 3 didn't convince me there'd be that much more to it in Boxset 3. The system in Midgard-Northlands is much more along the lines of what I envision a runic system of magic to be.

[Pytorb]

There was certaily no Rune Magic like that in the AGE appendix and they certainly do sound more exciting that the standard Runes in Dragon Age.

[kronovan]

There was certaily no Rune M agic like that in the AGE appendix and they certainly do sound more exciting that the standard Runes in Dragon Age.

It‘s a shame they didn‘t include it in the AGE appendix, as some GM‘s may have been able to leverage it to really enhance the Rune crafting that‘s coming in DAGE Boxset 3. I can respect Open Design‘s decision to not include it - adapting it to True20 is quite a challenge and its magic system is much closer to PathFinder.

[Inschskye]

I've been interested in finding out more about the Midgard setting for a while now so I was really interested in the posts here.

It seems a shame that it isn't a bit more AGE specific, but I may still try to get a cheap copy of it if I can as I'm not really running a 'real' DA campaign, though I'm using a lot of the setting. The stuff in the book sounds like it would be for world building.

[NickMiddleton]

Has anyone looked at converting the scenarios in Tales of the Old Margreve to AGE?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[kronovan]

Has anyone looked at converting the scenarios in Tales of the Old Margreve to AGE?

I don't have it, but I am currently adapting the 8 adventures in Streets of Zobreck to the True20 system and once completed I plan on exploring what it would take to make them compatible with AGE. I just finished adapting the Northlands setting to True20 and it was much more effort -to no surprise- than I originally anticipated. I do plan on eventually getting Tales of the Margreve since it's in of the 2 regions of Midgard I want my campaign to eventually branch out to, but we've got months of adventuring in the Northlands to do for now.