Kobold Press’ ‘Campaign Builder: Castles and Crowns’ Wants to Put Kingdoms in your D&D
Coming soon from Kobold Press, Campaign Builder: Castles and Crowns, a splatbook all about kingdoms and running them in 5E.
There is always a certain subset of players, typically those prone to being the GM in their group, that end up thinking it would be a lot of fun to run their very own kingdom in a game of D&D or one of the other RPGs in that ilk. There’s something about fantasy adventuring and making your own little place in the world that appeals. Maybe it’s because one of the more aspirational parts of older versions of D&D was that section of the book where your characters earned a title.
Once you got to 9th or 10th level, your character could build a castle or tower or abbey or other class-appropriate venue, and settle in with some kind of related title of authority that would become more exciting as you got higher in level. You might be a Hero or a Swashbuckler or a Myrmidon or a Lord, for instance.
And with a castle came followers. And with followers came a little place on the map that you, the player, put there. Now, Kobold Press hopes to give you a way to reignite that feeling with their new splatbook, Castles and Crowns, which will be compatible with D&D 5E and Tales of the Valiant.
Campaign Builder: Castles and Crowns – A Guide to Making Your Own Kingdoms and Running Them
Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns provides a majestic homebrew toolkit for your tabletop game! Create legendary rulers, mythic kingdoms, opulent palaces, and imposing fortresses down to the last detail with a host of tables and guides to enhance your world.
This book is full of advice on making your own kingdoms, whether you’re players or DMs. And it has rules for “kingdom-level” play, where you give your kingdom a character sheet with details like your customs and laws, or your defenses, or the overall state of your nation, and engage in sort of dynastic turns.
But even for those who aren’t interested in kingdoms, the castles part sounds exciting. Rules for making “functional castles, manors, and palaces” promises to give GMs more exciting locales for PCs to adventure in.
Here’s an overview of what you can expect:
- Transform a dynastic game by awarding royal titles, creating factions, making war, and forging peace
- Create detailed NPCs to populate your kingdoms, including rulers, courtiers, generals, jesters, and many more!
- Enhance your kingdom-level campaign with interesting and functional castles, manors, and palaces
- New player options, magic items, sample kingdoms, and spells for courtly characters
- Record everything for posterity using downloadable kingdom character sheets!
