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AD&D 2nd Edition Birthright Campaign Setting
Birthright Campaign Setting
A king stands in the high turret of his castle, squinting at the distant hills. He can just make out the figures of his troops engaging the enemy in battle. As a damp breeze whips at his cloak, he contemplates the war. He has culled the best generals, captains, and troops from his land. His court wizard wields powers that unnerve even the most seasoned warriors. Can the forces he commands hold the enemy at bay? Or will the king awake at dawn to the pounding of battering rams and showers of deadly arrows?
From the tower, the battle is impossible to judge. The ruler twists the royal signet ring on his finger nervously. Then, a ragged messenger races up the stairs behind him, clutching a stained parchment. "Word from the general, your majesty," he pants. The king takes the message in trembling fingers and slowly reads…
Experience the thrill of playing rulers of legend who command mighty armies and wield the power of kingdoms! The Birthright campaign setting for the AD&D game makes this possible as never before. Role-play warriors, wizards, priests, and thieves descended from royal bloodlines, command imperial powers, and control the destinies of far-reaching lands. But be prepared to battle enemies who are equally as powerful, as well as millennia-old monstrous abominations that will stop at nothing to steal your kingly power.
Inside this box, all in full color, you'll find:
* The Atlas of Cerilia: 32 pages detailing the history and features of the continent.
* The Birthright Rulebook: 96 pages of information on royal-blooded characters, governing kingdoms, and the Cerilian pantheon.
* The Ruins of Empire book: 96 pages describing kingdoms waiting to be conquered.
* Two poster maps illustrating the lands of Cerilia.
* A Battle Mat and 112 War Cards for resolving all types of military clashes, plus a custom-designed War Chest for storing the cards.
* A four-panel DM Screen specifically for Birthright campaigns.
* Twelve card sheets packed with handy reference material and descriptions of major enemies.
From the tower, the battle is impossible to judge. The ruler twists the royal signet ring on his finger nervously. Then, a ragged messenger races up the stairs behind him, clutching a stained parchment. "Word from the general, your majesty," he pants. The king takes the message in trembling fingers and slowly reads…
Experience the thrill of playing rulers of legend who command mighty armies and wield the power of kingdoms! The Birthright campaign setting for the AD&D game makes this possible as never before. Role-play warriors, wizards, priests, and thieves descended from royal bloodlines, command imperial powers, and control the destinies of far-reaching lands. But be prepared to battle enemies who are equally as powerful, as well as millennia-old monstrous abominations that will stop at nothing to steal your kingly power.
Inside this box, all in full color, you'll find:
* The Atlas of Cerilia: 32 pages detailing the history and features of the continent.
* The Birthright Rulebook: 96 pages of information on royal-blooded characters, governing kingdoms, and the Cerilian pantheon.
* The Ruins of Empire book: 96 pages describing kingdoms waiting to be conquered.
* Two poster maps illustrating the lands of Cerilia.
* A Battle Mat and 112 War Cards for resolving all types of military clashes, plus a custom-designed War Chest for storing the cards.
* A four-panel DM Screen specifically for Birthright campaigns.
* Twelve card sheets packed with handy reference material and descriptions of major enemies.
228 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 29, 2023
Domain play was an important aspect of the high-level D&D gameplay, way back then. I think it was a mistake to clump it all into a whole setting of its own: it has some good guidelines and the occasional table, but other than that, it's pretty wordy and not terribly imaginitive, and like basically all settings of the 2nd edition, relies on a gimmick that you could go without.
Probably would've been way better off to take the setting guidelines and apply it everywhere.
Probably would've been way better off to take the setting guidelines and apply it everywhere.
March 8, 2013
Back in the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, getting to higher levels was a huge thing, because that was the level where the characters attracted followers, and could build strongholds, carve land out of the wilderness and gain titles, and so on. AD&D 2nd edition kept the idea of gaining followers at higher levels, but didn't really have any system by which you can do anything with them, other than get them killed too attacking the dragon's lair. Birthright is a setting entirely about ruling kingdoms, fighting with armies, cutthroat diplomacy, and so on.
It does this by adding a kingdom-ruling layer on top of the typical kill-orcs-for-their-pie D&D gameplay. Without getting into the backstory too much, there were some gods, one turned evil, they fought, the gods blew up, and a bunch of people absorbed god power and now have the literal Mandate of Heaven. Including the part where if someone dies, they obviously have lost the Mandate of Heaven--literally, because their killer can steal some of the divine power in their blood. "Regents" (the term used for those with divine bloodlines) can bond with the land and use their powers to improve both themselves and their holdings, and there's a big system dedicated to this involving Domain Levels and Holdings and Regency Points and Bloodlines and so on.
One of my biggest problems as I read this is that I kept comparing it to Crusader Kings II. It isn't really a fair comparison, because Birthright was written over a decade before Crusader Kings II came out, but I spent the entire book thinking that it would make an excellent Crusader Kings II mod, and a computer would do a way better job of tracking the shifting alliances between regents, each regent's Regency Point and Gold Bar totals and what they spent them on, the movement of armies, and basically all the paraphernalia the game demands. The book explicitly mentions that keeping track of too many rulers at once will drown the GM in paperwork, and the best way is to track 2 or 3 in any given domain turn (another concept) that are important.
Other than that, it works. I mean, it's complicated, but it does what it sets out to do. Another problem I have with it--and I know it's AD&D 2nd edition, so this also isn't a fair comparison--is the randomness. Each player randomly rolls the strength of their bloodline, randomly rolls their powers, and then randomly rolls the points used to build their kingdom, so it's entirely possible to have a group where one person rules the Holy Roman Empire and another rules Liechtenstein based on the dice rolls. I don't necessarily object to this, but there should have been a point-buy system included to prevent the guy who lasts one turn before being steamrolled by their neighbors.
There is one neat point whereby characters can use their downtime during ruling to improve their hit points up to the maximum they could have rolled or their proficiency scores through training. I think random hit points are terrible, and the proficiency system was always tacked on, so both of those are definite pluses for me.
There's a sample adventure, but it's a bunch of horrible railroading crap with the possiblity of PC death by assassination unless the assassin fails to sneak. Literally:
And it's kind of random, but barons outrank counts. Since the rest of the political layout of the depicted governments is based on the English feudal system, this really leaped out at me, but it's just a throw-away reference that never shows up again, so it doesn't really affect anything.
What I really like, however, is the world background. Birthright has multiple human cultures who are obvious ripoffs of historical cultures (English, Germans, Arabs, Norse, and Russians), and while it does lead to a few uncomfortable moments, like when it talks about how the Vos (Birthright!Russians) worship evil gods and are savage, it does provide an easy hook for a player to hang their character on, and--more importantly for me--prevents the generic fantasy name problem almost completely. A lot of names are Irishish (if that's a word) because they have an elven derivation, but the different cultures have names based on the appropriate historical culture.
Also, psycho elves who literally mount up and go out hunting humans are the best elves.
The awnsheghlien are also a great concept for bad guys. Basically, people who have the bloodline of the god who turned evil can end up mutated and end up in iconic forms, so there are creatures out there called the Spider (a half-goblin, half-spider centaur thing), the Leviathan (a giant sea monster), the Gorgon (a person whose skin has turned to stone), and so on. It's a great way to create unique bad guys while cutting down on the number of additional civilizations of sentient creatures who somehow manage to maintain a breeding population.
If you like generic high fantasy but think Forgotten Realms is ridiculous and makes no sense, Birthright is a good alterate choice. If you don't like high fantasy, you probably shouldn't be looking into AD&D 2nd edition supplements.
It does this by adding a kingdom-ruling layer on top of the typical kill-orcs-for-their-pie D&D gameplay. Without getting into the backstory too much, there were some gods, one turned evil, they fought, the gods blew up, and a bunch of people absorbed god power and now have the literal Mandate of Heaven. Including the part where if someone dies, they obviously have lost the Mandate of Heaven--literally, because their killer can steal some of the divine power in their blood. "Regents" (the term used for those with divine bloodlines) can bond with the land and use their powers to improve both themselves and their holdings, and there's a big system dedicated to this involving Domain Levels and Holdings and Regency Points and Bloodlines and so on.
One of my biggest problems as I read this is that I kept comparing it to Crusader Kings II. It isn't really a fair comparison, because Birthright was written over a decade before Crusader Kings II came out, but I spent the entire book thinking that it would make an excellent Crusader Kings II mod, and a computer would do a way better job of tracking the shifting alliances between regents, each regent's Regency Point and Gold Bar totals and what they spent them on, the movement of armies, and basically all the paraphernalia the game demands. The book explicitly mentions that keeping track of too many rulers at once will drown the GM in paperwork, and the best way is to track 2 or 3 in any given domain turn (another concept) that are important.
Other than that, it works. I mean, it's complicated, but it does what it sets out to do. Another problem I have with it--and I know it's AD&D 2nd edition, so this also isn't a fair comparison--is the randomness. Each player randomly rolls the strength of their bloodline, randomly rolls their powers, and then randomly rolls the points used to build their kingdom, so it's entirely possible to have a group where one person rules the Holy Roman Empire and another rules Liechtenstein based on the dice rolls. I don't necessarily object to this, but there should have been a point-buy system included to prevent the guy who lasts one turn before being steamrolled by their neighbors.
There is one neat point whereby characters can use their downtime during ruling to improve their hit points up to the maximum they could have rolled or their proficiency scores through training. I think random hit points are terrible, and the proficiency system was always tacked on, so both of those are definite pluses for me.
There's a sample adventure, but it's a bunch of horrible railroading crap with the possiblity of PC death by assassination unless the assassin fails to sneak. Literally:
Unless the character has a bodyguard in the room, he has only one chance to survive this encounter: Terem must fail his move silently roll.No note on what happens if the PCs not only have bodyguards in the room, but also order the other people who have to get assassinated guarded, of course. Not really surprising after the note at the beginning of the adventuring chapter about
luring the player characters into an adventure of [the DM's] own choosing, rather than allowing the party to go haring off on personal quests.Even if you rule a country, the DM still wears the Viking hat! The less said about this crapfest of an adventure, the better.
And it's kind of random, but barons outrank counts. Since the rest of the political layout of the depicted governments is based on the English feudal system, this really leaped out at me, but it's just a throw-away reference that never shows up again, so it doesn't really affect anything.
What I really like, however, is the world background. Birthright has multiple human cultures who are obvious ripoffs of historical cultures (English, Germans, Arabs, Norse, and Russians), and while it does lead to a few uncomfortable moments, like when it talks about how the Vos (Birthright!Russians) worship evil gods and are savage, it does provide an easy hook for a player to hang their character on, and--more importantly for me--prevents the generic fantasy name problem almost completely. A lot of names are Irishish (if that's a word) because they have an elven derivation, but the different cultures have names based on the appropriate historical culture.
Also, psycho elves who literally mount up and go out hunting humans are the best elves.
The awnsheghlien are also a great concept for bad guys. Basically, people who have the bloodline of the god who turned evil can end up mutated and end up in iconic forms, so there are creatures out there called the Spider (a half-goblin, half-spider centaur thing), the Leviathan (a giant sea monster), the Gorgon (a person whose skin has turned to stone), and so on. It's a great way to create unique bad guys while cutting down on the number of additional civilizations of sentient creatures who somehow manage to maintain a breeding population.
If you like generic high fantasy but think Forgotten Realms is ridiculous and makes no sense, Birthright is a good alterate choice. If you don't like high fantasy, you probably shouldn't be looking into AD&D 2nd edition supplements.
May 8, 2021
This was probably my favorite AD&D setting back in the day. It takes the D&D endgame and makes it the main focus, with players taking on the roles of rulers or guildmasters. It even has a mass battle system played on a map with cards (which, admittedly, wasn't super good. I think if I played this now I would incorporate a different mass combat system).
The lore of the world was also really interesting. Bloodline abilities, elves that never sleep, and entire domains lorded over by vicious monsters all give the setting a bit of a fairytale feel.
The lore of the world was also really interesting. Bloodline abilities, elves that never sleep, and entire domains lorded over by vicious monsters all give the setting a bit of a fairytale feel.
October 17, 2007
For those who find that the horror of their lives is beyond the simple escapism of being a 6'9 barbarian with a charisma of 16 comes the setting where you are a 6'9 barbarian with a charisma of 16 and political clout. Better hope INT wasn't your dump score.
October 1, 2022
Let’s be honest here - AD&D 2nd Edition wasn’t good even for its time. That being said, it had some ridiculously good settings: Dark Sun, Planescape and Birthright. Birthright was the last of the 2nd Ed settings and contributed to TSR’s fall given the absurd production values of the books at the time.
A setting based more upon reality, specifically War of the Roses, than traditional fantasy, Cerilia is a precursor to Game of Thrones. The throne is even called The Iron Throne. Characters are based around rulers of small nations all struggling to survive and even expand. Rather than kill monsters in ancient ruins, the players engage in complex politics and intrigue.
The boxed set itself is absolutely brilliant, but is trapped in the horrible system that was AD&D 2nd Ed. Thankfully, much of the material is system neutral and can be used with any good system (I recommend Green Ronin’s Chronicle system or Fantasy Flight’s Genesys).
A setting based more upon reality, specifically War of the Roses, than traditional fantasy, Cerilia is a precursor to Game of Thrones. The throne is even called The Iron Throne. Characters are based around rulers of small nations all struggling to survive and even expand. Rather than kill monsters in ancient ruins, the players engage in complex politics and intrigue.
The boxed set itself is absolutely brilliant, but is trapped in the horrible system that was AD&D 2nd Ed. Thankfully, much of the material is system neutral and can be used with any good system (I recommend Green Ronin’s Chronicle system or Fantasy Flight’s Genesys).
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews