...in the spring of 2019, I met with the owner of my favorite local game store to ask what I thought was a simple question:

“Would it help local business if I started an in-store D&D campaign?”

This is far from a new idea. There is no shortage of incredible Game Masters who run immersive stories for their communities, but I specifically wanted to build a different kind of experience. I wanted to address many of the issues that prevent players new and old from approaching the game table in their local store. World building is a lot of fun, but before a single dice would be rolled, feedback from our local GMs determined that this project would need to focus on some very clear goals:

1. Be inclusive to players who would typically be afraid of playing a TTRPG with strangers.
2. Allow players to actively shape the world, drive narrative, and determine the course of the story.
3. Break some of the tropes within existing TTRPGs we felt were harmful, or acted as a hard barrier to entry for inexperienced but curious gamers. 
4. Deliver a ‘traditional’ tabletop experience, complete with battlemaps, minis, and lovely crafted terrain.

With these clear goals in mind, I set to work building a world that would perfectly suit our needs...

What is Teldramir?

Teldramir is an ‘Open Play’ world setting compatible with D&D 5th Edition, built from the ground up to be an inclusive setting for experienced players and tabletop beginners alike. If you’ve ever participated in a unique campaign setting before (probably at home with your friends), then you’ll be familiar with a lot of what Teldramir has to offer.

Within Teldramir: The Northern and Southern Stillwilds is a small portion of an expansive world designed to be used fully standalone, or placed alongside an existing world setting. This campaign will focus on printing the experience we’ve cultivated over the past two years. To keep things simple, we’ve broken down the setting into three books:

Teldramir: The Northern and Southern Stillwilds is a primer for GMs who wish to use the Stillwilds as a campaign setting in their local community. Within this book you’ll find the history of this region and the heroic figures who call it home. You’ll also find subclasses, spells, unique items, magical flora, and a bestiary to cover all your adventuring needs. This book includes:

• 34 Magical items & weapons for adventurers to use and discover as they explore Teldramir’s fragmented past.
• 16 unique spells, providing new options for spellcasting classes at every tier of play.
• A menagerie of 29 creatures native to the Stillwilds.
• 10 subclasses and 2 unique backgrounds that provide character options and combat styles unique to Teldramir’s communities. 
• Descriptions of magical flora, environmental poisons, helpful potions, and specialized ammunition to help adventurers survive an untamed wilderness.
• Character art and creature illustrations crafted by artists with a passion for TTRPGs.

Teldramir: Stillwilds Adventure Collection is a gathering of adventures following the narrative campaign run for my local community. This book contains multiple adventures balanced for 5th Edition. Each adventure can function as one-shot sessions, but work just as well feeding into a greater narrative for a community of players.

• 10 adventures have been selected for this collection, and are intended to cover Session 0, followed by levels 1-3. 
• Additional adventures may be added depending on crowdfunding stretch goals.

Trailblazers Coalition Guide to Open Play is a handy resource for any community of gamers looking to try an Open Play campaign setting. This guide will be released for free for digital download, and will regularly be updated to ensure everyone can benefit from our team's ongoing experience.

We want local communites to play together more. Contained within this guide are resources on how to run sessions for multiple player groups. This includes advice on how to run games for strangers, suggested guides for how to maintain game balance, and an example of how to plan story sessions within the natural chaos that is a tabletop game community.

This resource builds heavily off of the content in Teldramir's Northern and Southern Stillwilds guide - but owning the guide isn't necessary to using these resources for your own local sessions.

‘Open Play’ campaigns (often referred to as West Marches) are designed for players to drop in and out of at their leisure. West Marches campaigns are traditionally stylized on military formations and political machinations between warring nations - but Teldramir’s focus is on adventure. 

Players are encouraged to form groups with friends and strangers, united by a common goal to explore an unknown wilderness. Whether participating in the overarching community story or following side quests that only concern the goals of individual players, every decision made, every NPC met, and every action players take will actively shape the history of the world. 

This is, of course, a TON of work for a GM to keep track of. Tracking the choices made by multitudes of player groups is a lot of information to follow, so our small team of GMs have put together a few resources to make things easier. Released alongside the world guide for The Northern and Southern Stillwilds will be the Trailblazers Coalition Guide to Open Play - which is exactly what it sounds like: A guide to how we run an ‘Open Play’ campaign in our local store! 

This will include handy breakdowns of how to track player data, crafting items, downtime activities, and the best practices for managing the balance and health of your game world.

You can choose to take this resource and simply apply it to your own sessions at home. This is a world settting, and you're free to use this world as you wish. With that said, Teldramir truly shines as a setting for multi-group campaigns. Crafted from the ground up to be friendly for players of mixed skill levels, Teldramir is built for large groups of players to make a direct impact on.

Alongside the completion of this crowdfunding campaign we’ll be opening a Teldramir specific Discord server where players and GMs can swap ideas and help grow any ‘Open Play’ community.

Adventuring In Teldramir

In designing a world setting intended for an extended campaign I’ve found that, for new players, the biggest barriers to entry were rooted in the unfamiliar - so my first idea was to create an entirely new setting completely unfamiliar to anyone.

New players have a laundry list of things that may make them feel hesitant to approach the table. The intimidation of learning a new hobby, of meeting new people, of learning foreign rules and trying not to feel out of place for not knowing the lore or history of an entire franchise. Teldramir isn’t the cure for any of those barriers, but it was designed with them in mind. 

For the Game Masters:

Teldramir is set hundreds of years after a global catastrophe that has devastated a once prosperous world of magic and myths. The gods who ruled it have long fled, leaving mortals to find their own way in a land now rife with wild magic. Civilization has only just begun to re-emerge. With it comes a new generation of explorers and adventurers ready to plunge into the ruins of history in search of treasure and glory.

As a GM, you’ll find Teldramir especially handy if you’re looking to add the following elements to your gaming community sessions:

• Foundational lore, ready to be expanded! A tremendous part of building a story within your community is knowing the lore - but high fantasy lore can often be difficult to digest. In Teldramir, every player begins on the same page. Each new expedition you embark on will reveal more about the past, allowing everyone to gather (or hoard) the history they uncover for the benefit of the community.
• A wilderness filled with wonders both strange and familiar! The Stillwilds are littered with the ruins of a bygone era, encouraging both traditional dungeon delving exploration and community resource gathering. From the colossal vermin of the Blackbarrow Forest to the frigid ghosts of the Longscar Mountains, Teldramir’s dangerous environments will give players plenty of opportunities to test their survival skills.
• Premade adventures that help guide exploration! I’ve spent the past few years working to make this world setting as accessible as possible to TTRPG beginners and veteran adventurers. For GMs that need a bit of extra help guiding their stories you’ll find no shortage of narrative hooks in our Adventure Collection. 

For the Players:

Valorfall isn’t simply your city, it's the only city left in the world...as far as you know. Your home is the final bastion of civilization against a dangerous and unpredictable wilderness. Playing within Teldramir means having a sandbox to explore and build in as you see fit. As a character in Teldramir’s setting, your GM will take you through:

• A dangerous, untamed, and unpredictable wilderness! Pushing through the Stillwilds is no simple feat. Sessions in Teldramir are designed to be challenging and fun. High risks often yield tremendous rewards. Whether you’re following the main story or chasing after your own goals, there’s plenty to uncover within Teldramir as long as you’re willing to take the risk.
• Unique classes born from a land of exploration! Scale any surface as the roguish Blade Artist, channel fate through the scattered tarot of the Fortune Favored barbarian, use medical knowledge to aid your allies and punish enemies as the Frontier Medic, or learn from the wisdom of the dead through the bards College of Lost Instructors. Each class has been given options that are reflective of the setting while providing fun gameplay opportunities not found in other reference guides.
• A story you impact directly! Unlike narrative campaigns tied to major product lines, Teldramir is intended to be a story told by your community. NPCs can rise to fame or vanish from the world depending on player actions. Failing to save a village as a community may mean it’s disappearance from the world map - but new settlements, resources, tombs, and hideaways are ready to be explored.
• Role Play with minimal commitment! Can’t make it to every session? That’s ok! Teldramir's 'Open Play' design is intended to allow players to drop in and out of sessions so that the narrative can progress from month to month. You may miss out on some story, but there’s no bad feeling of holding back your fellow adventurers if the real world keeps you too busy. Just re-join the adventure when you’re ready to play next!

This is a print campaign, which means the only thing you’re funding is the physical release of this book. I’ve spent the past few years working on this project as a labor of love, and can assure you that:

• There are no AI articles involved in this project.
• 100% of the resources crafted for Teldramir was created by human beings. Everything from the lore to item descriptions come from hours of collaboration (and a number of energy drinks) spread out over two years of hard work. 
• There is no AI art in this project.
• 100% of the art used in this project were created by independent artists with a passion for fantasy. Artists contributing to this project include Angela O’Hara, Art Ikuta, Brook Large, Courtesy of Cat, Isabela Duffles, Jade McGilvray, Jose Villarroel Amaya, Jordyn Leigh, Lu Reynolds, Mac Teg, and Mike Zawacki. 

What about Future Editions?

TTRPGs evolve over time. There’s a great chance that by the time this campaign releases and books are printed that a brand new version of D&D will have been released.

That’s totally fine. We’re used to that around here.

Teldramir’s adventures are currently balanced for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, but we’re extremely open to rebalancing or adjusting this world for other tabletop systems. The ultimate drive behind this world setting is to be an inclusive and fun experience for local communities - and should our players (or other communities) request a change, we’re happy to make it. While this current printing will be exclusively focused on 5th Edition, digital editions for Pathfinder’s 2nd Edition (or other systems) aren't out of question.

At the end of the day, we chose 5th Edition for Teldramir because it was the most accessible to the most inexperienced members of our community. If accessibility for our newest, youngest, or most uncertain members of our TTRPG community ever necessitates we make a change, we'll make it - and offer it to you in the future.

 The goal of this campaign is simple: printing physical books! 

• GOAL MET! 2k CAD - Northern & Southern Stillwilds Print Run
  • Once we hit this goal, we can officially print physical copies of our core world book, Teldramir: The Northern and Southern Stillwilds.
  • This printing will be a 8.5 x 11 softcover in full color.
  • Bonus - Once we hit our goal, we'll develop a unique character sheet to help newly made characters track 'Open Play' adventure progress!

• 4k CAD Stretch Goal - Stillwilds Adventure Collection Print Run
  • Once we hit our stretch goal, we can print physical copies of our Teldramir: Stillwilds Adventure Collection
  • This printing will be an 8.5 x 1 softcover in full color.
    
    • 4k+ Bonus - We have over 2 years worth of adventures written - but can only fit 10 adventures in our current run. The more we stretch over our goal, the more we can work with our publisher to fit additional one shots.

Book Status

At this time the bulk of the content in these books has already been completed, and as a supporter you won't need to wait long to get what you've paid for.

• Teldramir: The Northern and Southern Stillwilds is practically complete!
  • Elements of the cover are still a work in progress.
  • 3 creatures in the bestiary are in need of art.
  • Books would be set for print by mid-March.
• The Coaliation's Guide to Open Play needs refinement!
  • All of the content for this resource has been finished, but we're constantly reviewing it to ensure it's up to date.
  • This resource will include a unique character sheet, and a Google Drive folder featuring the tables we use to run adventures in our community.
  • This free resource will release alongside our print run of the Northern and Southern Stillwilds campaign setting. 
• Teldramir: Stillwilds Adventure Collection needs editing!
  • We've held onto all of the quests our community has enjoyed, but need time to gather and format them all. 
  • This number of adventures contained in this book will depend on us reaching our print stretch goal, but we're confident this book should be set for print by mid-April as the content for these adventures has largely been completed.

Campaign Fufillment & Shipping Details

The goal of this campaign is to print books, and we'll be working with the wonderful team at Marquis to fufill orders once we hit our goal.

• Printing costs are covered by the price you pay in the pledge manager.
• Due to variations in shipping costs internationally, shipping costs are calculated separately from printing and will be charged after the campaign has been completed and books have been ordered.

Writer / Design - Adam Ma

Adam is a writer, editor, dog lover, and amateur minis painter with a definitely-not-obsessive passion for tabletop games. He's also the creator of Teldramir, and primary author behind this project! His work includes rebuilding realms and constructing subversive horror for Pathfinder’s official Tian Xia World Guide & Character Guide and designing a whimsical murder mystery for Lionforge’s Rolled & Told publication series. Fans of indie comics may recognize him as the author of Folklore; his proudest achievement outside of anything he does as a professional GM.

Editing - Hunter Lowe

Hunter Lowe is an avid writer (mostly horror and sci-fi), editor, Dungeon Master, and all around nerd. He published his first short horror story, The Envoy, a few years back and is constantly running or playing in multiple D&D campaigns. In his free time you'll most likely find him chasing his daughter around, catching up on his favorite shows with his wife, checking out the latest games, and working on his latest story.

Teldramir has always been a passion project. Our team has spent the past two years running adventures in this world setting with the hope that we could bring friends and strangers together at our local game store. We reached out and asked our players to share their thoughts on the adventures we've had together. Here's what they've had to say about the adventures we've run as a community:

"The Teldramir setting stands as a testament to the versatility and depth that a Dungeons & Dragons setting can achieve. It is a playground that welcomes all types of characters, gameplay styles, and player experiences. For those looking for an immersive and dynamic world that evolves with the players, Teldramir is a must-explore realm that promises countless hours of enjoyment and storytelling inspiration." - Shane (Pelt, Lv 7 Rogue/Artificer)

"This experience has changed how I feel about D&D 5E. Great setting, fantastic stories and memorable NPCs have made for an extremely fun couple of years." -Rob (Bawb, Lv 7 Cleric)

"As a completely brand new TTRPG player Teldramir was the perfect place for me to jump in. Monthly Main Quests allow new players to start adventuring at any point and the community is very welcoming and patient. You often find yourself adventuring with different companions from month to month which only adds to the already fantastic immersion created by the wonderful team of DMs. First, it allows for some fantastic role play as your group dynamic changes with every session. Secondly, with every new player character you meet in your travels, it feels like one more living, breathing citizen you know in Teldramir." -Geof (Finn, Lv 5 Ranger/Rogue)

"Teldramir has been a tremendously fun and unique experience. Uncovering the dangers and history of this mysterious world has been chaotic, surprising, and a challenging experience! The characters and tales within the land has been gripping, and I have already filled two notebooks with mad scribbles to uncover the forgotten secrets of Teldramir."   -Troy (Isri, Lv 6 Warlock/Sorcerer)

"Until Teldramir came along we've never seen customers so furiously purchase entry into a regular monthly event before. The player base clearly loves this world!" -Tim (Store Owner, The Game Chamber)