This article is spoiler free, only providing specific information that the original books describe as safe to share with players as part of setting background.
Birthright is an interesting setting, and frankly not discussed much in my abet limited experience in the hobby. On ENWorld I've seen its fanbase called "small but vocal." It is small indeed, with much of the community residing on a fan website that has existed for roughly two decades and a more recently created discord server. For me personally, I didn't hear about Birthright until I heard it mentioned in passing in a video by Matt Colville. Appearing later in the life cycle of 2e AD&D, it seems as though Birthright never got as much attention as other settings like Planescape and Spelljammer.
It's also of note that as older materials, the Birthright Campaign Setting and other supplements, available on DriveThruRPG, include the disclaimer that "Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today." Those interested in exploring this setting should keep this in mind and use player safety tools.
The setting and rules of the original box set is laid out in three books. Let's take a look at them.
Atlas
Really interesting overview, providing the meat of the setting lore. It is written from an in-character perspective, by a chamberlain waiting for a wise emperor to rise and rule the fallen empire once more. I found the narrative style less annoying personally than when it was used for the Planescape 2e sources. The lore sets the continent of Cerilia up as a land that has been settled by humans, in a generally low magic setting. There still remain untamed frontiers to explore, which seems a major idea for some regions (there are some potentially problematic themes of colonialism as elves, dwarves, and orog peoples lived in Cerilia before the arrival of humans).
The background of the setting is that a thousand years or longer before the present timeline there was a massive battle between the forces of evil and good, in which the gods also participated and destroyed one another. Their energy created new gods from some of the combatants and also diffused amongst those who survived on both sides, creating powerful magical bloodlines amongst the humanoids and also creating the dark antagonists, the awnsheghlien. These adversaries are functionally immortal and are natural bad guys for your adventures.
There is a mystical element to the awnsheghlien, particularly as these are unique monsters, which I think is sometimes lost in D&D. So while normal versions of monster stat blocks might easily be used for some of them, it would also make sense to make modified or legendary versions of some (like a modified medusa stat block for the Gorgon).
Then the setting takes the bloodline theme and combines it with the divine right of kings to create a feudal system of rule. After the battle an empire arose that unified much of the continent, but it fell as the ruling bloodline weakened. The seeds of a plot that could be as radical as reuniting the empire, or as small as dealing with the local politics and the threat of nearby neighbors emerges. The rules presented in the rulebook then support this different style of gameplay. I like the fallen empire trope, and already planned to employ a similar theme in my own world. The world is distinct and interesting, and I’d definitely consider a campaign here.
The descriptions of the various lands are interesting, and I think you could do worse than using Cerilia without the domain system as an adventuring setting alternative to others like the Forgotten Realms.
Rulebook
Character Options
It’s always been interesting considering the class and character restrictions based upon ancestry which are included in older sourcebooks. Honestly seems rather silly at this point. However, I do appreciate the brief sections on each people that detail their culture and what makes them unique.
Domains
The domain system is what really makes this setting unique and cool. It will not be for everyone. There's a lot conceptually you need to take in and understand to effectively use the system. The GM really needs to be an expert, and it is more akin to a strategic simulation game than a roleplaying game. It's the intersection of these two styles of games that makes Birthright truly shine though.
First, you really need this beautiful stitched together map of Cerilia to understand this system. If you want to use another setting with this system, you'll need to figure out how to divide up the map according to provinces, which according to the book should be between 1,000 and 1,500 miles square, or about 30-40 miles per side if you are doing rough squares. The book notes the exact dimensions aren't important, but if you want to maintain some of the verisimilitude in ability to communicate and travel quickly within the area then this is a good rule of thumb. You don't need to do the entire map necessarily though, just the area you are interested in running your campaign. Then you can follow the principles of spiral campaign development as your players venture further afield, then detailing the provinces and new regions they are going to.
(Major aside: Khorvaire in Eberron, and Midgard are good settings to potentially look at for this. Khorvaire would function well if you wanted to play out the Last War, and Midgard has this type of intrigue and warfare baked into the setting already. The Forgotten Realms works less well because the Sword Coast is primarily city states, and the nobles aren't as tied to geographic holdings in the lore outside of those cities).
Provinces are assigned a level (the book essentially suggests these will primarily range from 0-9). The level assigned generally reflects the population, and through that the economic and political potential of the province (the book says importance and prosperity, but words from actual scholarship are much more descriptive and helpful to us in conceptualizing these). A major city of greater than 40,000 people is at least level 7 (i.e. a province containing Ptolus would be 7 or 8).
Within a province you have four types of holdings:
- Guilds (Associated with the 2e Thief class)
- Law
- Sources (Sources of magical energy derived from the land itself)
- Temples (Centers of divine power and influence)
There are a number of slots for each of these holdings within a province equal to its level (except for sources, they have other rules later). There is also a limitation based on the size of the province for how many regents (rulers) those holding slots can be divided between (for instance, a level 3 province can only have one regent per type of holding. This is true even if the holding doesn't use all the available slots. Meaning this province can have a level 1 temple holding, but no other regents can take those slots.
Next the various types of assets that a regent can have are discussed, which is essentially anything other than a holding, including armies, money, and more.
Reading this, it becomes very apparent that some sort of digital ability to manage data is necessary—those folks who did this by hand in the ‘90’s deserve a round of applause. A CSV file might suffice, with holdings nested under provinces and listed with their respective levels and regents. Regents' assets need to be tracked too. There's also the added wrinkle of tracking the interrelations of regents, scions, and their bloodlines. The type of hyperlinking available in Foundry or other non VTT document management tools also could be a way to provide lists of provinces, the holdings, and regents, along with their associated resource gain each turn.
In addition to all of this, there are the procedures for running domain turns and a skirmish battle game with cards for units (wait this sounds familiar). These rules provide some parameters that to me make them more usable that the more amorphous domain rules that Kingdoms & Warfare provided, certainly inspired by this previous product. Though you definitely need digital tools to keep track of everything, the procedures follow a certain logic, and some lists and flowcharts nicely demonstrate how everything ought to flow. The domain rules also explicitly are designed to work alongside adventures and guidance is given on how to advance time and interweave the domain turns with adventures—a degree of specificity that I find more helpful than the tired “make it up as you go” advice that I've also seen. The framework allows for deviation better than having to haphazardly create something on the fly.
Ruins of Empire
This book is densely packed, providing the domain data for a number of NPC regents and domains in Anuire, which is essentially a European fantasy themed portion of the setting. The level of detail included in this and other Birthright supplements (which we'll also take a look at in future posts)
Final Thoughts
This setting offers a type of play not everyone is interested in. That’s okay, but I’m glad that people still continue to think about domain management and building kingdoms as part of the fantasy TTRPG hobby. This is an interesting setting from a historical point of view and offers one example of how to approach this problem. Various aspects of Birthright could be drawn from or combined with other systems—for example, division of a map up into regions is very similar to A5E’s exploration mechanics. If I were to run this setting, I might make use of the exploration encounters from A5E in this way to do pointcrawls with regional nodes.
You can also see how Birthright emphasized an ideal of generational play, with characters developing their holdings, perhaps gaining control of a province with regency, and passing on their power to a trusted heir. I like this idea in other works I've seen it in, like the much more recent Broken Weave. Similar mechanics from games like Pendragon could be adapted too.
There are also obvious different styles of play available in Birthright. For example, each player a ruler of a kingdom, which would focus significantly on the domain level game, and potentially include conflict between player domains. There's also the ability to place an NPC or a player in charge of a kingdom, with the others acting as vassals, promoting both cooperation, or providing a smaller scale for intrigue. There's also the option of simply adventuring in the setting with no players acting as scions or regents, but getting to interact with the politics and intrigue.
I would love to try out this campaign setting one day. For more reading and reflections from an older fan of the hobby than me, check out the blog post from Grognardia on the setting.
