Introduction
As a setting for stories and role-playing games, Nahast has a few peculiarities
that separate it from other settings, least of them are the new character
classes and races available, as well as new feats, monsters, spells and
equipment. All of these take time to develop and you will be seeing some
of them in here as they are close to a ready form or when they appear
in the comic. Amongst the stuff you can expect are the race write-ups
for a few beastfolk races, rules for fighting styles and martial schools,
geomancy, shamanic and special divination magic, the Dreamlands and there's
a very big idea in planning that I won't mention right now, but has something
to do with Nahast's cosmology.
What
is this d20 System?
It's the core rules of the D&D game, kindly released to public domain
of sorts in the System Reference Document. This allows other companies
to publish products that can be flawlessly integrated in any game that
uses the d20 system. By sticking to the rules, everybody can potentially
use what everybody else is doing to put together a unique game.
What this means for Nahast is that you can use anything we release as
gaming material in your own games. And if you're doing your own rules
and expansions, you can filch whatever we release as Open Game Content
and use it for your own
as long as you credit us, of course. You
can read the legalese for using Open Game Content and the d20 System here.
And
what is Dungeons & Dragons?
It's the grandfather of all role-playing games.
So,
what is Nahast like?
Dangerous, to say the least :). The standard D&D game world, not to
mention many fantasy worlds, are based off medieval Europe, which is nothing
bad in and of itself, but we wanted to do something different. We took
a look at cultures that were seldom used as fantasy backgrounds and started
blending and mixing until we came up with Nahast. The cultures of Nahast,
or at least the part of the world in the map, are inspired by cultures
like the prehispanic civilizations of Meso and South America, such as
the Toltec, Mayan, Aztec and Incan; also thrown into the mix are the major
and popular Asian cultures of Imperial China and Japan during the Sengoku
and Tokugawa eras, but with a lot of neighboring Korean and Indonesian-like
nations. The mythical India of the Vedas is also represented somewhere,
as are the South Pacific cultures of the Maori. Going further inland you
will find inspiration drawn from Sumeria and early Egypt, with some Spartan,
Etruscan and Phoenician sources for good measure. At the edges of Nahast's
known territories are people resembling the Mongols and the Moors, suggesting
that if you go westward, you will find a more traditionally Celtic-Norse-Latin
world.
For more detailed info, go to the About section.
What
about elves? And dwarves?
Yes, there are elves, dwarves and Halflings, although frankly we couldn't
find a place for gnomes. In any case, they are not exactly like you are
used to seeing them.
And
dragons?
Of course there are dragons! :) In fact, dragons play a very important
part in Nahast's mythology. Expect them to look a little differently too,
but not too much.
So,
is the comic based on a campaign?
Not really. The story in the comic is totally original, which means that
nobody played Derrexi, Yanti or anybody else. The story takes first place,
and the game elements take a distant second, so you may see some of the
characters doing things that the d20 rules do not cover, just because
it was dramatically adequate at the moment. |