Rediscovering My Roots & Latest Update The Known World & Raging Swan Press The current year for our homebrewed campaign setting is set during 672 CY (Common Year). Inspired By Gary Gygax

I’ve decided to call my new homebrewed campaign setting the Known World, using the Duchy of Ashlar and the surrounding lands developed by Creighton Broadhurst and Raging Swan Press as its foundation. What appeals to me is how well it supports the kind of D&D I enjoy: detailed towns, dangerous wilderness, ancient ruins, and plenty of opportunities for exploration.

There is enough established material to give the setting a strong identity while leaving room for my own additions. That balance makes it easy to imagine building a long lasting campaign here. Our campaign will begin in Dulwich, with Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands as the opening adventure. I absolutely love this adventure and how much it offers within a relatively small area.

The keep’s history, competing inhabitants, hidden locations, and connections to Dulwich give the players plenty to investigate. I especially appreciate the opportunities to negotiate, explore, and approach problems in different ways. It is exactly the sort of adventure I want at the beginning of a campaign, with enough depth to help establish the characters and their relationships with the surrounding area.

The setting has a strong old-school fantasy feel, which is one of its biggest attractions for me. Settlements offer a measure of security, journeys require preparation, and abandoned places give adventurers reasons to take risks. Information, supplies, and good judgment can all matter when the party heads beyond town. I enjoy a game where the players have to consider their options and where their decisions have consequences. Ashlar’s dangerous borders and layers of forgotten history provide plenty of material for that style of play.

I also like the attention given to everyday life and local concerns. Businesses, temples, guilds, and political rivalries help make a town somewhere the players can get involved with over time. A dependable stable owner or a familiar innkeeper can become an important part of the campaign, especially when the party regularly returns to the same community.

Dulwich gives me a strong starting point for building those connections. As the characters develop friendships, obligations, and reputations, their adventures can have a meaningful effect on the place they call home. Creighton Broadhurst and Raging Swan Press are doing an outstanding job fleshing this world out. I appreciate the care put into NPC personalities, settlement details, local history, and adventure hooks that I can actually use at the table. Their material gives me ideas while still allowing me to adapt things to suit my players and campaign. The connections between individual locations and the wider setting are particularly useful, making it easier to expand outward as the group explores. It is the kind of development that keeps me interested in seeing what they release next. I’m especially excited about the upcoming campaign setting map, which I understand may arrive during Q4 of 2026 or possibly Q1 of 2027. Seeing how the developed regions connect will help me plan journeys and consider where our adventures might eventually lead beyond Ashlar.

I enjoy following a setting as it grows, particularly when the existing material already provides so much inspiration. Between my enthusiasm for Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands, the quality of the setting material, and the freedom to make it our own, I can see the Known World supporting our campaign for a long time.

The Racism Behind WotC/Hasbro The Known World & Raging Swan Press The current year for our homebrewed campaign setting is set during 672 CY (Common Year). Inspired By Gary Gygax

This guy touched on a lot of stuff he pulled from Twitter and one thing I want to make clear, all of these people I am about to highlight are affiliated with Hasbro/WotC in one form or another . . . some are editors, writers, executives and content creators. They publically say stuff that is pure racist and WotC/Hasbro lets them get away with it, and as a matter of fact Hasbro/WotC does its best to go along with these people and what they say. It's disgusting and embarrassing.

These are just a few of the tweets that were found on Twitter. Dominique Dickey posted a couple of tweets here and here. How much of a racist can someone be?

Then you have Sadie Lowrie who assisted as a writer for Call of the Netherdeep making tweets like this. I send her a tweet asking her about her tweet and this is the reply I got from her. Instead of explaining herself, she blocks me. Typical racist hiding from what she has done. The exact same thing happened with Sarah Madsen . . . when I sent her a tweet about these tweets that she made and I got another reply just like I got from Sadie Lowry.

Lets look at Makenzie De Armas "a senior game designer at WotC lmao" with her tweet or how the one and only Christopher Perkins tweeted this and to think, it pretty much all started with this from Kyle Brinks. What about how WotC removed the Half Elf and Half Orc races or half ANYTHING from D&D because it's racist and now they are pushing zipper titties on us? Fuck you WotC! I have been playing D&D since 1977, and I've never been this disgusted with a game, it's people and it's company than I am right now.

With that being said, I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I'll never buy another product from WotC. You know, back when we played classic Dungeons & Dragons, we didn't have all this drama, it was all about the game and we had one community that stuck together. It's simply not like that anymore. We are now 100% a classic D&D group.

Ready, Set, Go! The Known World & Raging Swan Press The current year for our homebrewed campaign setting is set during 672 CY (Common Year). Inspired By Gary Gygax

I have some things that I would like to touch on with those of you that are first time readers on this blog. The first thing that I kind of want to get into is what many call the "Matt Mercer Effect". I think one thing we all can agree on is Matthew Mercer is ranked in the top level of Dungeon Masters.

The man knows his stuff, but it isn't just about Matthew, his players bring a huge part of what makes Critical Role special to the table. To quote an old saying ... "it takes two to tango", or in this case, it takes a Dungeon Master and a group of players to make a game special.

One thing I very much want to emphasize on is "I am not Matthew Mercer" and if you expect me as a Dungeon Master to be like Matthew Mercer then I would say "go find you another campaign to follow" because I am not on his level, nor will I even try to be and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if the world has a Dungeon Master that even comes close to his level of story telling "well maybe but I have yet to see one". I try to run a good game where my players have a good time (plain and simple) and in the past my players have all had a great time so I guess I am doing something right.

Critical Role is a staged game, with some scripting involved - Matthew and his players are all voice actors. When you watch his campaigns, this is not what Dungeon & Dragon games are really like. His campaigns are strictly constructed to bring entertainment to his viewers.

What we try to do here is get together as friends (this is important) and enjoy our time playing Dungeons & Dragons like it was played 35-40 years ago. We don't bring anything from the real world to our table, we simply get together as friends and enjoy this beautiful game called Dungeons & Dragons in all its glory.