The Black Campbell

I love me some Greek mythology, so when I saw a Kickstarter for Odyssey of the Dragonlords for D&D 5E, I jumped on it. I had already gotten a copy of the similarly themed Arkadia, but Odyssey is a real step up.

The packages came in a few days ago with the main book, a smaller Player’s Guide, a GM screen that has important setting related information, and two dozen maps of the world. Some of these are city maps, others orthographic-style maps of the islands, there’s a pair of world maps, and also a constellation guide to the night sky of the setting, Thylea.

The maps are lovely, but they’re nothing compared some of the internal artwork.

That’s just a taste…

The setting is rich, and like Arkadia, does a riff on Greek mythology without pulling straight from them. There are fewer gods, and there are a trio of “titans” that are the scenario bad guys. The book is broken up in quests that string together to form an epic campaign. It’s good stuff, with detailed maps and writeups of the cities you should visit and the people you will meet. You could get away with throwing a lot of this out and just sandboxing the world, and still get a lot of use out of the material presented, should you wish to ignore the campaign.

The artwork and the flow of the campaign outline feel very much like this was a pitch for an RPG video game that the authors — some of them from Bioware (creators of Mass Effect).

Is it worth it? I paid $75 for the entire set with maps, screen, and the two books and feel i got my money’s worth with room to spare. The entire project is fabulously pretty, well-bound on good gloss paper, and well worth throwing money at the ubiquitous Mödiphiüs. (As of this writing, I hadn’t seen it pop up on their website.) You can also make a late pledge at Kickstarter.