Oh man, not going to lie, I am overwhelmed. I knew how much D&D has grown, but I didnt realize how diverse, intricate, and personal you could make it. Was hoping my broke a$$ could make a guide for my bf for his bday, but I dont even know where to begin. Your campaign guide looks amazing.
I love this! I’ve never thought of writing one myself, but I can see it being useful in so many ways, even though my games are set in “pre-existing” worlds from published modules. It also just greatly pleases the note taker in me 😍
Something like this is useful for published settings too because you can present your version of that world and highlight the differences between the published setting and your version.
Just finding this now and THANK YOU so much!! I have a very complex world with a lot of story that I have just started bringing to the tabletop. While it's easy for me to play and exist in my own world, I have been looking for a way to help export Neferoth to others so they can also feel at home in the setting! This is so helpful!
This is very impressive! As a dungeon master, I appreciate the effort that goes into making a product like this, regardless of presentation, but as a player making that extra effort to create such a clear and beautiful document would absolutely take my excitement to the next level, and the information you provided would be invaluable for creating the perfect character for your setting. Excellent work! As someone who would like to get into crafting similar products (homebrew, custom settings, adventure/encounter modules) I would love to see more information about the resources you used to make this. The recommendation of templates is helpful, I’m aware you’ve made videos on software like mapmaking and note taking tools, but perhaps a brief guide to basic things like pdf editors, WotC-style formatting, and how to find/use quality artwork (preferably legally) could be very helpful to people like me who want to up our games to your level :) Keep up the great work!
Beautifully done. I like that your setting guide doesn't overwhelm your players with too much information but gives them just enough details to pique their interests. This also makes life as a GM easier because you don't need to have all of your world fully fleshed out to begin with. You really only need to have extensive content in their starting area, and then you can add more detail to whatever areas they've traveled to in between sessions, while still having enough material to get through the current session.
Happy Friday folks. I am going to be live on Twitch tonight at 10pm UK / 4PM Central US doing some worldbuilding in Ashk using suggestions from the chat. Come hang out twitch.tv/icarusgamesuk
Great content as always! I love the passion that went into designing your campaign setting guide and getting it professionally printed! I've been meaning to make one for my homebrew world for a long time, and this video will surely be of great aid :)
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed. Like I said in the video, going the extra mile with design and printing isn't necessary, but it makes the players feel special and gets them excited to play.
I'm writing my own universe right now, I will be very interested by a world construction tip video. Anyway, keep it going you're doing great job and helping people like me !
@@IcarusGames actually I'm trying to make a city. It has plenty of quests, several NPCs, a particular ambiance but I'm not quite satisfied yet. It doesn't feel enough "alive" to me. So if you have some tips I will be glad to hear it.
I will add a video to my pool of ideas on making the world feel more alive, but in the meantime my homebrew campaign series has videos on lots of different topics that should help :)
This is more like one of those traveler's guidebooks than a full on setting guide. Which I think is a really good idea. I'd definitely make them as small as possible for players. They *never* need to read a book to get into your campaign. But something like this can be short and simple, engaging and interesting. And having it printed makes it look like more than just a stack of your notes.
I sent them all physical copies in the mail before we started the campaign via fantasy grounds. And they still reference the physical copies every couple of sessions or so.
Anto, can you go over the process of creating the printed version? Including the printing service you used. I'm a graphic designer, but I've never designed a full book. I'd love to learn more about how you did this in particular. (This is likely to differ from my process.) And of course print house options and such. Love to know more about that.
Hey Sam. I would love to do a deep dive video on my writing and design in the process in the future, but it will be months before my schedule is clear enough so let me give you the cliff notes: I used a desktop publishing program to do the design. I used Serif page plus, but affinity publisher is my current favorite. I got a lot of the assets like the page folio from r/UnearthedArcana and their excellent google drive resources. For printing, I used a local print shop and just sent them the print ready PDF (X-3 format I believe) The best way to get a look at my process is probably Twitch. I have just started streaming this week, and I will be doing some design streams in the future where I build some products live.
@@IcarusGames - Thank you so much, Anton. That gives me a good starting point. I think I will see what I can do with this as a personal project here soon.
This is cool! I just did a video about taking inspiration for a campaign setting based on the anime Demon Slayer. I think getting out of the European medieval setting is a good idea to start with for making something more exciting. I am currently running a campaign in Forgotten Realms following up Phandelver and I am getting kind of burned out on using this overly complex but also vaguely defined world.
Some kind of investigation, maybe looking through books in an old library, or consulting a local occultist to find out what pieces of esoteric lore they have.
@Icarus Games How did you go about professionally printing the document? It's got more pazazz than a classy dungeon made of jazz instruments. It looks so crisp, so clean, so much so that I just took a +10 Wisdom buff to the mind.
I sent the PDF off to a local print shop who printed and bound it. Came to a couple bucks per copy, but I think i was worth it for the impact it made on the players. I'll have a video doing a deeper dive into the process coming out October 16th.
I feel like you have been inspired by the wheel of time for this setting because of the magic being feared, and the long gone empire breaking apart into different culturally distinct zones
Having a printed version is nice. We primarily play online but I still wanted to send the players printed copies to go that extra mile and get them excited for the new campaign.
I love your content. I’m working on a setting guide and find your videos ridiculous informative. Thank you. One quick question. I know this was years ago but do you remember what size this particular guide is? I like that it’s not a full letter size booklet but can still handle a two column text layout.
Great video and thanks! I particularly like the way it's all laid out. Sorry if I missed it in the video, what templates did you use for the guide, the map and the calendar? Cheers.
I made it all from scratch. The guide was made using some resources from the r/UnearthedArcana subreddit (fonts, colours etc). The map was made is Wonderdraft (which I have a whole playlist on) and the calendar was done in photoshop. I have a blank version of the cosmos map available on my patreon too!
Great video and that campaign setting book looks amazing! Im currently trying to build up my world and just got though creating the calendar. It currently just looks like the doodles of a mad man and I would love to know how/what you used to create the one you have in the campaign setting? Also was wondering if you are planning on making more videos regarding wonderdraft?
I made the image of the calendar in serif page plus, but I currently use Affinity Designer and publisher for making things like this. There are going to be more Wonderdraft videos for sure. I'm going to be making a new ice themed region map before the end of the year.
Thanks for the video. I had never really thought about making a guide, but now I really want to. Couple of questions: Is your pantheon of your own creation? What are those books on the shelf under the Mandolorian helmet with the matching spines?
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. The pantheon is of my own creation. There are a couple videos about my process in my homebrew campaign playlist. The books are the Harry Potter books.
Awesome guide, thanks a lot! 👏🏻 How would you handle such a campaign setting where most of the PCs come from different parts of the continent or even totally different ones who would know practically nothing or very little about the place they are in right now? I went on by giving each player a description of their home but nothing more besides worldshaking events in the past... should I seed more information?
Unless you are playing in a setting where you already know about every part of the world, if the player comes from a different nation, I let them tell me about where they are from. Most of the details included in my Ashk guide are things even foreigners would pick up very quickly after arriving, so I probably wouldn't do things much differently unless one of the themes I was going for in the campaign was the players exploring a completely unknown land.
@@IcarusGames thanks a lot for the answer. Of course not every part of the world is fully fleshed out but the PCs homes are mostly and I know a thing or two about every major location. The human samurai comes from the hidden village Asasunai on Tanjū, my asian-themed continent. The tabaxi druid lived in a clan in the southern djungle of Ucuàn, was sold on the market of faces in Kaimal, on the island Skyil Whos, and eventually raised by a half-elf couple near Sylmar, the elven capital, on the main continent Aerora. The gnome ranger lived most of her life in the eastern gloomneedle forest in Middle Aerora, where sometimes the feywild and the material planes overlap in certain areas. The half-elf bard wandered the lands of Middle Aerora around Ravencrown, a human capital city. The gold elf sorceress was raised in the inner high-society circle of Ashar, the jewel of the desert, a capital in the South on Ashar. A human now paladin plotted the assassination of his father, the king of Stormwell set in Western Aerora - a plot nobody except him and me know about. All met in a prison near Stormwell on the isle Last Hope for different reasons when they got to Stormwell to await their final judgment. I know you didn't ask for it but you may see my problem here with seeding enough and too little information. 😅 But I suppose we'll figure it out. I will have a personal discussion with each to flesh out their backstories a bit more before the next session anyway.
Just a heads up but you should link your twitch in the description! I tried searching for it but I could not find it, searched twitch but found a random other channel. I did end up finding the link on your twitter though.
Thanks for the reminder! Setting it up in the new defaults will be easy, but manually going through older videos to update it will take some time. I'll block some time in on my calendar to sort it though, thanks :)
I ordered them from a local print shop, I just sent the PDF I had made (homebrewery and gm binder are great free tools for making thematically appropriate documents) and they printed them for a couple of bucks each.
Okay, so, not a bad video, not bad at all. Just a little disappointed. I had hoped this would be a video that would provide info on making a setting guide, something that I think needs touching on for a lot of DMs. This video sorta does that, but not in the good way of providing generic advice that could be applied and used for any setting a DM would write about. Again, video is good, Ashk seems good, and if I was interested in it I would totally be interested in this book. However the title misled me and instead of getting advice it felt more like I was listening to an audio overview of Ashk and an advertisement for the book and the Patreon. Sure, you could read between the lines and take the format used for this book to write setting guides for the worlds you've made a DM, but then again you could also do that for any of the other official setting guides for of the other games. Good video, just disappointed.
Thank you for the honesty and feedback, I totally understand why you feel that way. Something I didn't communicate strongly enough in the video I think, is that I have an entire playlist dedicated to making Homebrew campaigns that focus on the specific elements of the book and how I approach making locations, pantheons, or central tensions. This video is like a high level overview of the kinds of things I include in a setting guide, with the rest of the playlist offering all that depth on the how for each specific section.
@@IcarusGames Makes sense. I actually started working my way through that playlist earlier this week and didn't see that this video was included in it. So far the playlist has been excellent in provided that previously stated generic advice, it's just that the advice that can be found throughout the web on making settings vastly outstrips the advice for writing them into comprehensive guides, which was the main cause of getting my hopes up.
That makes sense! If it's something people are interested in, I can't totally do an in depth guide on writing something like this the next time I'm making something.
Just found you today, started writing my setting guide last week, and now this. You beautiful, beautiful man you.
Welcome to our lovely community. I hope you enjoy your time here and I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
@Tomas Leland Yup, I've been using InstaFlixxer for years myself :)
Your printed version looks so crisp, now I want to do something like that too!
Oh man, not going to lie, I am overwhelmed. I knew how much D&D has grown, but I didnt realize how diverse, intricate, and personal you could make it. Was hoping my broke a$$ could make a guide for my bf for his bday, but I dont even know where to begin. Your campaign guide looks amazing.
I love this! I’ve never thought of writing one myself, but I can see it being useful in so many ways, even though my games are set in “pre-existing” worlds from published modules. It also just greatly pleases the note taker in me 😍
Something like this is useful for published settings too because you can present your version of that world and highlight the differences between the published setting and your version.
Just finding this now and THANK YOU so much!! I have a very complex world with a lot of story that I have just started bringing to the tabletop. While it's easy for me to play and exist in my own world, I have been looking for a way to help export Neferoth to others so they can also feel at home in the setting! This is so helpful!
That's detailed enough to be a DM Guild product, as an overview for DM's to run with.
Thanks! I do have some plans bubbling away for how to get Ashk out there as a setting for folks to use.
This is very impressive! As a dungeon master, I appreciate the effort that goes into making a product like this, regardless of presentation, but as a player making that extra effort to create such a clear and beautiful document would absolutely take my excitement to the next level, and the information you provided would be invaluable for creating the perfect character for your setting. Excellent work!
As someone who would like to get into crafting similar products (homebrew, custom settings, adventure/encounter modules) I would love to see more information about the resources you used to make this. The recommendation of templates is helpful, I’m aware you’ve made videos on software like mapmaking and note taking tools, but perhaps a brief guide to basic things like pdf editors, WotC-style formatting, and how to find/use quality artwork (preferably legally) could be very helpful to people like me who want to up our games to your level :)
Keep up the great work!
Thank you! I'm glad it inspired you! A lot of folks want to see my design process so I will definitely make a video on it!
I realize this is 2 years old but, this is some great information. Thank you
Glad you found it helpful!
You have the dedication of a teacher. Nice project and interesting setting.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm always happy to help folks.
Beautifully done. I like that your setting guide doesn't overwhelm your players with too much information but gives them just enough details to pique their interests. This also makes life as a GM easier because you don't need to have all of your world fully fleshed out to begin with. You really only need to have extensive content in their starting area, and then you can add more detail to whatever areas they've traveled to in between sessions, while still having enough material to get through the current session.
Exactly! Give them enough to hook them, and then focus on their immediate area.
That's an amazing guide Anto. I'm jealous of your players.
Thanks, Aviad! They really enjoyed it :)
you even printed it out for them?! What more could they Ashk for?
Happy Friday folks. I am going to be live on Twitch tonight at 10pm UK / 4PM Central US doing some worldbuilding in Ashk using suggestions from the chat. Come hang out twitch.tv/icarusgamesuk
Great content as always! I love the passion that went into designing your campaign setting guide and getting it professionally printed! I've been meaning to make one for my homebrew world for a long time, and this video will surely be of great aid :)
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed. Like I said in the video, going the extra mile with design and printing isn't necessary, but it makes the players feel special and gets them excited to play.
This is extremely beautiful. It's inspiring me to create these when I start a new campaign setting.
I'm writing my own universe right now, I will be very interested by a world construction tip video. Anyway, keep it going you're doing great job and helping people like me !
I'm glad you're finding the videos helpful. If there are any topics you'd like to see in the future, let me know!
@@IcarusGames actually I'm trying to make a city. It has plenty of quests, several NPCs, a particular ambiance but I'm not quite satisfied yet. It doesn't feel enough "alive" to me. So if you have some tips I will be glad to hear it.
I will add a video to my pool of ideas on making the world feel more alive, but in the meantime my homebrew campaign series has videos on lots of different topics that should help :)
@@IcarusGames that songs cool ! Otherwise, do you know some nice gm's discord to speak and share about tips ?
I do! We've got an Icarus discord where you can hang out with other DMs and get tips and ideas, the invite link is in the video description.
Super useful information! I need to do this for my current game!!!
Brilliant and beautiful!! I especially love the cosmos map (and including it in the guide!).
This is something I have wanted to try and make. It's pretty interesting.
Funny I was wanting something like this.
Hopefully this helps inspire you :)
This is more like one of those traveler's guidebooks than a full on setting guide. Which I think is a really good idea. I'd definitely make them as small as possible for players. They *never* need to read a book to get into your campaign. But something like this can be short and simple, engaging and interesting. And having it printed makes it look like more than just a stack of your notes.
wowza! that stuff is really cool! hope you ended up sending the players these guides digitally and ended up playing over group call or something
I sent them all physical copies in the mail before we started the campaign via fantasy grounds. And they still reference the physical copies every couple of sessions or so.
Icarus Games awesomepawsome 👏🏼 good to hear that
Anto, can you go over the process of creating the printed version? Including the printing service you used. I'm a graphic designer, but I've never designed a full book. I'd love to learn more about how you did this in particular. (This is likely to differ from my process.) And of course print house options and such. Love to know more about that.
Hey Sam. I would love to do a deep dive video on my writing and design in the process in the future, but it will be months before my schedule is clear enough so let me give you the cliff notes:
I used a desktop publishing program to do the design. I used Serif page plus, but affinity publisher is my current favorite. I got a lot of the assets like the page folio from r/UnearthedArcana and their excellent google drive resources.
For printing, I used a local print shop and just sent them the print ready PDF (X-3 format I believe)
The best way to get a look at my process is probably Twitch. I have just started streaming this week, and I will be doing some design streams in the future where I build some products live.
@@IcarusGames - Thank you so much, Anton. That gives me a good starting point. I think I will see what I can do with this as a personal project here soon.
Wow
This is SO AWESOME!
Thank you for this!
This is cool! I just did a video about taking inspiration for a campaign setting based on the anime Demon Slayer. I think getting out of the European medieval setting is a good idea to start with for making something more exciting. I am currently running a campaign in Forgotten Realms following up Phandelver and I am getting kind of burned out on using this overly complex but also vaguely defined world.
The Ashk guide is so well done and professional! I am attempting one myself. How would low level PCs have access to info on "Rare Religions"?
Some kind of investigation, maybe looking through books in an old library, or consulting a local occultist to find out what pieces of esoteric lore they have.
I would like to know more about the nuts and bolts of formatting the guide and getting it printed, the costs, etc.
@Icarus Games How did you go about professionally printing the document? It's got more pazazz than a classy dungeon made of jazz instruments. It looks so crisp, so clean, so much so that I just took a +10 Wisdom buff to the mind.
I sent the PDF off to a local print shop who printed and bound it. Came to a couple bucks per copy, but I think i was worth it for the impact it made on the players.
I'll have a video doing a deeper dive into the process coming out October 16th.
I feel like you have been inspired by the wheel of time for this setting because of the magic being feared, and the long gone empire breaking apart into different culturally distinct zones
I've never actually read wheel of time!
My name is Khalifa and it's a derivitive of Caliph so thought that was pretty cool.
I've never made that connection before, but now you've said it - of course! That's cool :)
Damn that print version looks great - really makes me want to print mine. Sadly I do online, so it doesn't have the same weight of having a nice pdf.
Having a printed version is nice. We primarily play online but I still wanted to send the players printed copies to go that extra mile and get them excited for the new campaign.
I love your content. I’m working on a setting guide and find your videos ridiculous informative. Thank you. One quick question. I know this was years ago but do you remember what size this particular guide is? I like that it’s not a full letter size booklet but can still handle a two column text layout.
Glad you enjoyed!
This particular guide was A5 sized and handled 2 column text just fine 😊
@@IcarusGames Awesome thanks so much for getting back to me.
Great video and thanks! I particularly like the way it's all laid out. Sorry if I missed it in the video, what templates did you use for the guide, the map and the calendar? Cheers.
I made it all from scratch. The guide was made using some resources from the r/UnearthedArcana subreddit (fonts, colours etc). The map was made is Wonderdraft (which I have a whole playlist on) and the calendar was done in photoshop. I have a blank version of the cosmos map available on my patreon too!
Honestly, I’d just use this to Set up a Module Adventure. Either for D&D or Fabula Ultima.
Great video and that campaign setting book looks amazing!
Im currently trying to build up my world and just got though creating the calendar. It currently just looks like the doodles of a mad man and I would love to know how/what you used to create the one you have in the campaign setting?
Also was wondering if you are planning on making more videos regarding wonderdraft?
I made the image of the calendar in serif page plus, but I currently use Affinity Designer and publisher for making things like this.
There are going to be more Wonderdraft videos for sure. I'm going to be making a new ice themed region map before the end of the year.
How 'd you make the layout for you calender, photoshop?
I used the affinity suite of programs, which are an equivalent of Photoshop and other Adobe products.
@@IcarusGames Awesome, thanks man, appreciate your videos and your knowledge
Thanks for the video. I had never really thought about making a guide, but now I really want to. Couple of questions:
Is your pantheon of your own creation?
What are those books on the shelf under the Mandolorian helmet with the matching spines?
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. The pantheon is of my own creation. There are a couple videos about my process in my homebrew campaign playlist. The books are the Harry Potter books.
how about a direct link to the place you got all those templates? ive looked and looked and cant find it
thanks brother
If its not too much trouble, where did you make you're calendar. I think that's a cool idea and would be a great addition to my campaign guide
I came up with the day and month names myself, and then laid the calender out using the same program as the guide itself!
@@IcarusGames The same program? Meaning photoshop or does UA have a template?
Who did you use to print your booklet?
I just sent the PDF to a local print shop. DrivethruRPG would be an option if you don't have anything convenient nearby.
Awesome guide, thanks a lot! 👏🏻
How would you handle such a campaign setting where most of the PCs come from different parts of the continent or even totally different ones who would know practically nothing or very little about the place they are in right now? I went on by giving each player a description of their home but nothing more besides worldshaking events in the past... should I seed more information?
Unless you are playing in a setting where you already know about every part of the world, if the player comes from a different nation, I let them tell me about where they are from.
Most of the details included in my Ashk guide are things even foreigners would pick up very quickly after arriving, so I probably wouldn't do things much differently unless one of the themes I was going for in the campaign was the players exploring a completely unknown land.
@@IcarusGames thanks a lot for the answer. Of course not every part of the world is fully fleshed out but the PCs homes are mostly and I know a thing or two about every major location.
The human samurai comes from the hidden village Asasunai on Tanjū, my asian-themed continent.
The tabaxi druid lived in a clan in the southern djungle of Ucuàn, was sold on the market of faces in Kaimal, on the island Skyil Whos, and eventually raised by a half-elf couple near Sylmar, the elven capital, on the main continent Aerora.
The gnome ranger lived most of her life in the eastern gloomneedle forest in Middle Aerora, where sometimes the feywild and the material planes overlap in certain areas.
The half-elf bard wandered the lands of Middle Aerora around Ravencrown, a human capital city.
The gold elf sorceress was raised in the inner high-society circle of Ashar, the jewel of the desert, a capital in the South on Ashar.
A human now paladin plotted the assassination of his father, the king of Stormwell set in Western Aerora - a plot nobody except him and me know about.
All met in a prison near Stormwell on the isle Last Hope for different reasons when they got to Stormwell to await their final judgment.
I know you didn't ask for it but you may see my problem here with seeding enough and too little information. 😅 But I suppose we'll figure it out. I will have a personal discussion with each to flesh out their backstories a bit more before the next session anyway.
Just a heads up but you should link your twitch in the description! I tried searching for it but I could not find it, searched twitch but found a random other channel. I did end up finding the link on your twitter though.
Thanks for the reminder! Setting it up in the new defaults will be easy, but manually going through older videos to update it will take some time. I'll block some time in on my calendar to sort it though, thanks :)
I guess I have to like and subscribe
Just found you today!
I am wanting to make a setting of a large city with different districts so I will attempt to use some of this in that.
Can i have the link to the drive pls?!
I wish you explained what program or templates you used for how you actually constructed the book
Program is affinity publisher, templates were from the resources in the video description.
@@IcarusGames Thank you so much for the replay this really helps!
where/how did you get it printed?
I used a print service in the UK called Mixam.
Thanks
How much would these guides cost to make and who makes them?
I ordered them from a local print shop, I just sent the PDF I had made (homebrewery and gm binder are great free tools for making thematically appropriate documents) and they printed them for a couple of bucks each.
@@IcarusGames Thanks for the reply
Im 100% stealing the city of glass idea
I feel like I was inspired by a 3rd or 4th edition location initially. It's a super cool concept.
Okay, so, not a bad video, not bad at all. Just a little disappointed. I had hoped this would be a video that would provide info on making a setting guide, something that I think needs touching on for a lot of DMs. This video sorta does that, but not in the good way of providing generic advice that could be applied and used for any setting a DM would write about.
Again, video is good, Ashk seems good, and if I was interested in it I would totally be interested in this book. However the title misled me and instead of getting advice it felt more like I was listening to an audio overview of Ashk and an advertisement for the book and the Patreon.
Sure, you could read between the lines and take the format used for this book to write setting guides for the worlds you've made a DM, but then again you could also do that for any of the other official setting guides for of the other games.
Good video, just disappointed.
Thank you for the honesty and feedback, I totally understand why you feel that way.
Something I didn't communicate strongly enough in the video I think, is that I have an entire playlist dedicated to making Homebrew campaigns that focus on the specific elements of the book and how I approach making locations, pantheons, or central tensions.
This video is like a high level overview of the kinds of things I include in a setting guide, with the rest of the playlist offering all that depth on the how for each specific section.
@@IcarusGames Makes sense. I actually started working my way through that playlist earlier this week and didn't see that this video was included in it. So far the playlist has been excellent in provided that previously stated generic advice, it's just that the advice that can be found throughout the web on making settings vastly outstrips the advice for writing them into comprehensive guides, which was the main cause of getting my hopes up.
That makes sense! If it's something people are interested in, I can't totally do an in depth guide on writing something like this the next time I'm making something.