BRCS:Forward


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On behalf of the Birthright community, I'd like to welcome you to the d20 BIRTHRIGHT CAMPAIGN SETTING. It's been almost five years since Wizards of the Coast decided to stop publishing BIRTHRIGHT game products and novels, but you folks, the community of BIRTHRIGHT fans, have kept Cerilia alive during that long, cold, night. I am always astounded by what a relatively small number of dedicated fans can do to keep an old world alive. And, to tell the truth, I'm a little humbled. I might have had a hand in the start of things, but the sheer love and creativity that the fans brought to the world far outweigh the contribution I made.

It's been more than seven years since I first started work on the BIRTHRIGHT Campaign Setting. Since that time, I've gone on to work on dozens of other game products and I've written half-a-dozen novels, but Cerilia still remains one of my proudest moments in this career. Looking back on it, I recognize a handful of things I would have done differently (most of them issues of mechanics), but BIRTHRIGHT represents one of the best pieces of work of which I was capable. Given more time, I could have told some great stories and presented some fine games based on this world.

If I were the sort of person to hold a grudge (actually, I am), I suppose I would harbor a lot of resentment over the fact that Wizards cancelled the BIRTHRIGHT line without trying to fix it. But, as I look back on things with the distance of five years, I find that I'm not really upset or angry over the way things went. Peter Adkison and Wizards of the Coast saved D&D when they acquired TSR, don't let anyone tell you differently. BIRTHRIGHT wasn't financially healthy because D&D wasn't financially healthy back in 1996. And even if BIRTHRIGHT wound up being on the wrong side of some hard decisions at the time, parts of the game have survived here and there in official product. And, of course, thousands of BIRTHRIGHT fans have derived hundreds of thousands of hours of entertainment from the BIRTHRIGHT product they already had.

If you want to see my best attempt at capturing the feel of the world, you can go online to wizards.com and download a PDF of The Falcon and the Wolf, my first BIRTHRIGHT novel, for free. The Shadow Stone, my second book, originally told the story of the High Mage Aelies of the Erebannien, and I was able to thinly disguise the tale and convert it into a FORGOTTEN REALMS novel. Even as recently as eighteen months ago, DRAGON magazine asked me to write four very brief articles based around one map each set in the world of BIRTHRIGHT, so I dreamed up kingdoms and histories for the northern shore of Aduria, where a merchant of Anuire sailed.
There's still more to say about this world.

Anyway, I'm delighted to see that you, the fans, are taking matters into your own hands. The day might come when someone can publish BIRTHRIGHT again under some kind of license with Wizards of the Coast. Until that day, this is your campaign setting, and I encourage you to fill it to the brim with everything you want to add to this world. It?s yours now.

Richard Baker
 
This article is a Birthright Campaign Setting (D&D 3.5/D20) page
The BRCS Document is a comprehensive toolbox consisting of rules, races, classes, feats, skills, various systems, spells, magic items, and monsters compatible with the d20 System version of Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast.
 

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