Midnight
A blatant ripoff of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" set in a darker and less deterministic grimdark universe, Midnight by FFG uses the highly successful d20 core of 3rd and 3.5 editions of D&D to enable you to a path of slow-paced agony of role-playing and game design.
A hit or miss design for the most part, Midnight features a skimmed core of classes from the players handbook, by also enabling additions called Heroic Paths from its own core. By the grace of lack of Divine and wide-spread Arcane magic, the Heroic Paths launch martial classes to the stars while driving magic users to episodes of sub-psychotic rage and eventual hospitalization. The fact that there are monsters bound to the Dark God that can "smell" magic from miles away doesn't help much either.
Also don't let your DM's lies deceive you; The elves are the true evil guys of the setting. You heard it here first! *FWIP*
Blatant lies. The elves are there to help you beat Izrador.
Classes
- Barbarian, Fighter, & Rogue remain mostly the same.
- Monk & Ranger are replaced by the non-magical Defender & Wildlander, respectively.
- Spellcasting classes are all replaced by the Channeler, which chooses an archetype based on what spellcasting ability score you want.
Races
- Humans can be one of three different ethnic groups, one of which is a hybrid of the other two.
- Two kinds of Dwarves: underground & civilized, or surface-dwelling & barbaric.
- There are four kinds of Elves: Jungle, Sea, Snow, Wood - each of which is adapted to different kinds of forest.
- Gnomes are riverboat people, and can hybridize with Dwarves.
- Halflings can be agrarian or nomadic, and can hybridize with Elves.
- Orcs are *big surprise* mostly soldiers of the Dark God, but are playable (and can hybridize with Dwarves
Links
- Midnight System Reference Document - Remnants of all the Open Gaming Content, posted online.
- Against the Shadow - Main fansite. Plenty of additional fan content. Especially good if you think the core material isn't grimdark enough.
- They made a movie! Why did they make a movie?!? Because there was a surplus of RennFest dweebs that were friends with the devs.
| Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings | |
|---|---|
| Basic D&D | Mystara (Blackmoor) • Pelinore • Red Sonja |
| AD&D | Birthright • Council of Wyrms • Dark Sun • Diablo • Dragonlance • Forgotten Realms (Al-Qadim • The Horde • Icewind Dale • Kara-Tur • Malatra • Maztica) • Greyhawk • Jakandor • Mystara (Hollow World • Red Steel • Savage Coast) • Planescape • Ravenloft (Masque of the Red Death) • Spelljammer |
| 3rd/3.5 Edition | Blackmoor • Diablo • Dragonlance • Dragon Fist • Eberron • Forgotten Realms • Ghostwalk • Greyhawk (Sundered Empire) • Ravenloft (Masque of the Red Death) • Rokugan |
| 4th Edition | Blackmoor • Dark Sun • Eberron • Forgotten Realms • Nentir Vale |
| 5th Edition | Dragonlance • Eberron • Exandria • Forgotten Realms • Greyhawk • Ravenloft • Ravnica • Theros • Spelljammer • Strixhaven • Radiant Citadel |