Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Frank Mentzer's Empyrea

Hey Greyhawkers. Most you by now have seen the news about an upcoming Kickstarter for Empyrea, Frank Mentzer's home campaign that was nominally supposed to be set to the west across the Solnor Ocean in the World of Greyhawk. Even better this will be a boxed set and the announcement promises much more, check it out:

"Frank Mentzer's Empyrea begins on Monday 02 October—a Kickstarter for a boxed campaign set usable with multiple fantasy RPG systems.

This set is the first big step, created with the help of many friends. Watch for details coming throughout September.
The core set has a lot to cover, and must be brief. The ambitious Empyrea product line will eventually include adventures, novels, details of all cities and major areas, and other supporting products.

Empyrea Online is a future Community project, where many fans can design the details of the Realm. We hope to make parallel-world Empyreas available for most popular RPG systems. We'll need your help describing it… that’s a lot of real estate! The gateway has opened; throw your hat in the ring at http://worldofempyrea.com/.

This is thrilling! Lots more news to come. Thanks very much for your interest.

—Frank Mentzer"

I'm anxious to see how old school and Greyhawk-ish they can make this without the obvious entanglements. For example check out this story snippet from the official Empyrea group on G+

FROM THE EMPYREA JOURNALS OF FRANK MENTZER

—About the Voyage... a word from history—

Krazandol, 230 B.H

Almater Pudin, Lord of the Land Below, sits with Prince Carin.

"No, that Voyage story that you know is wrong. Listen up, kid…”

"I still remember. Grandpa said, 'Those humans are at it again. War's coming, again. It always ends like this. We gotta get out of here.’”

"The Great Solnor Migration is a legendary event in the annals of history. Within a single month, and with little forewarning, a flotilla of hundreds of boats left the eastern shore of the homeland. Olve, Noniz, Hobniz, and even some of our Dwur left by the hundreds, braving the vast sea to find Life, and leave War behind. And the Lords of the Sea came, and helped us along the way, but you're too young to learn about that.”

"They helped, and most of us survived. What we found left us astounded, and awed…”

"This—not the war-torn lands overrun by humans, THIS continent—is our original homeland. All of us came from here.

"But son, it is time to prepare, for the Humans will come. They always do."

Looks good! I'm also optimistic about the community building aspect since that type of fan-focused crowd-sourcing is what really set Greyhawk apart in the 90's early 2000's. Will I throw my hat in the ring? Hard to say. Time will tell.

Update 6/20/2021: Spoiler. Something goes wrong, not talking about it here, but this project doesn't see completion. 

3 comments:

Sean Robert Meaney said...

I would not mind seeing this pay for setting specific short fiction and publish it in novels. That opens it to fanfic in a better way.

Yourbuddy75 said...

You're not the only one. Frank usually writes great stuff, useable for any table with minimal work. Just read his stuff, you understand almost immediately what's going on.

Yourbuddy75 said...

I wanted Empyrea to make it to the books. I was ready to buy it, wouldn't really matter what edition it was for, it's easy to convert if you are used to it. Sad that Frank had the bs happen, too. I wonder how he is doing, now.