Kingdoms of Kalamar
Kingdoms of Kalamar is the first in a line of licensed products for Dungeons & Dragons from Kenzer & Company, whose most famous production to date is the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. Kingdoms of Kalamar (KoK) is a hardbound book detailing Tellene, a fantasy campaign setting.
This is not the first edition of the Kalamar setting. Kenzer & Co. published an unlicensed "generic" version of their fantasy game setting in the days of AD&D second edition. This time around, they have actually licensed the Dungeons & Dragons product trademark from Wizards of the Coast for use with this book. This gives them one thing to set them apart from the cacophony of D20 System vendors.
A Look Inside
The Kingdoms of Kalamar book is a 272-page hardbound book priced at $34.95 US. The cover is a brown color similar to that of the 3rd edition D&D PHB, though other design details are different. The front cover bears the Dungeons & Dragons logo in addition to a stylized title and an image of a rampant lion that is made to appear as a carving or inlaying.
The interior is mostly black and white. Some pages are colored – most prominently the spreads at the beginning of the chapters. The remainder is black and white, with art sparsely adorning the pages. The sides of the pages have a stone motif, with an illustrated tab that denotes which chapter or appendix you are currently perusing.
KoK is divided into 10 Chapters, 7 Appendices, and an integrated glossary and index. Two pull-out color maps are also provided.
Chapter 1: The Humans of Tellene
The first chapter describes the general nature of the 6 major human cultural/ethnic variations of the Tellene setting: Brandobian, Kalamaran, Fhokki, Dejy, Reanaarian, and Svimohz.
Each human "subrace" has a 3-paragraph section briefly detailing each culture's physical appearance, cultural tendencies, and use of language. The chapter goes on with overviews of general religious tendencies and climate in the setting, and runs down the format used for city and town descriptions later in the book.
Noticeably lacking (as the title implies) is anything about races other than human. Tellene seems to be a humanocentric game setting, but as later section of the book show, some other races do figure prominently (such as hobgoblins); some perspective on these other races would have been useful. Also notable in this vein, the KoK book uses the term "demihuman" to refer to nonhuman PC races, a term that is no longer used elsewhere in D&D 3e.
Chapters 2-7: The Regions of Tellene
Chapters 2 through 7 describe the 6 regions of the Tellene game setting. The chapters/regions are Brandobia, Kalamar, the Young Kingdoms, the Wild Lands, Renaaria Bay, and Svimohzia. These regions correspond roughly, but not exactly, to the 6 human ethnicities.
Each chapter contains a general description of the history of the region, the prominent nations of each region, a overview of each major city in the region, and concludes with a section describing the topography of the region. The city format is standardized; each city contains details on population, an "at a glance" description, government, economy, military, temples, mages & sages, interesting sites, and special notes.
The material in these chapters is largely descriptive with only occasional rules related blurbs, all offset in boxes. This should make the campaign setting useful for other game systems if D&D 3e isn't your cup of tea.
Chapter 8: Independent Organizations
Chapter 8 describes a number of organizations that exist outside the confines of nations or religions. This includes such things as the Golden Alliance (a guild of rich and influential merchants), Sentinels of the True Way (a band of magic-phobes), anti-monarchist, anti-slavery organizations and so on. Some of the organizations are of questionable campaign value, but most DMs should be able to make use of many of them in some capacity in the plots of their games.
Chapter 9: Major Languages
Chapter 9 is all about languages. The chapter contains details on common names and alphabets of each of the human races as well as elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and hobgoblins.
Chapter 10: Gods of Tellene
Chapter 10 details the creation myth and deities of Tellene. The interesting thing about the deities of the Kingdoms of Kalamar is that they are not assumed to differ according to culture or race. All deities are described in generic terms ("the Knight of the Gods", "the Holy Mother," "the Speaker of the Word", etc.) and then given proper names that the deity is known as for each human culture. This lends the deities a more authentic feel than other campaigns I have seen. The deities are assumed to come before the cultures, not after, yet each culture has its own version of each divinity.
There are two noticeable omissions from the chapter, however. First off, no game information is provided regarding which clerical domains each deity grants (though Kenzer & Company has provided a free downloadable PDF with this information) and no mention is given about how nonhuman creatures view the pantheon. Looking through the chapters in the book reveals that the other races do, in fact, use the same pantheon, but more information should have been provided in this chapter.
Appendix I: Celestial Bodies & Calendar
Appendix I describes the constellation of the night sky as well as the calendar of Tellene and a timeline describing major historical events of Tellene. The appendix is understandably brief as the items addressed require little further attention, except for perhaps some historical items in the timeline that might have been further explained.
Appendix II: Cities
Appendix II presents a generalized rundown about what cities are like in the Tellene setting. Of perhaps more use is a quick reference chart of all cities detailed in the book.
Appendix III: Code of Law
Appendix III contains a brief legal code that applies through many nations detailed in KoK. Considering the breadth of cultures described in the book, the chapter seems surprisingly brief and straightforward. It promises to be a useful but uninspired reference if PCs in the game run afoul the law.
Appendix IV: Armies of Tellene
Probably one of the better-considered and more useful appendices, this appendix details the motives, makeup, and major figures of the various military forces of the various nations of Tellene.
Appendices V-VIII: Other charts
The remaining appendices are merely charts, though useful ones. Appendix V is a short chart describing the countries of Tellene, including capital, population, ruler, and resources of each. Appendix VI breaks down the cultures and regions of Tellene, giving the primary cultural residents of each region, and the names given to people and goods coming from each region.
Appendix VII is the NPC reference chart, alphabetically listing many (but not all) of the NPCs described in the preceding chapters of the book. The only statistics given for most NPCs is their race, class, and level, as well as the location where the named NPC is to be encountered; the details are left up to the DM.
Glossary and Index
The last section of the book is an integrated glossary and index. To its benefit, this is an innovative resource, giving a brief description of each entry before sending you off to the section where it is describe in more detail.
However, as an index it is much less exhaustive than it needs to be. When I first picked up the book, I was looking for game details of half-hobgoblins. The index was of no assistance.
Summary and Conclusions
Kingdoms of Kalamar is about details. The kinds f details that are missing from most campaign settings are in this book. Every nation and city of the continent is detailed in a fashion that will allow the DM to run a very detailed game.
However, this is a curse as well as a boon. The book serves as a very thorough set of DM's notes. However, it also reads like one. The details are very thick and learning the more general concepts and conflicts of the setting could require some very thorough reading. The book could use a lot more writing flair, some better presentation, and some more synopses of the conflicts and concepts inherent to the setting.
If you like your settings very detailed, such as the famed Harn setting, then Tellene may be a good setting for you. Those out to merely plunder the book for ideas may find that the considerable price of the book (nearly $35 US) makes the value of such secondary use of the book questionable. The city layout and solid approach to deities may prove interesting material to draw inspiration from, but the books primary value is for the thorough campaign detail it provides.
Another drawback of the book is that it dwells too much on humans of the settings and gives all other races – PC or otherwise – an all too meager level of treatment. The designer is obviously enamored with his well considered human cultures, but to sell a product of this detail and omit many important ones is somewhat of a disservice to those who purchase the book for its details.
Overall, if you are shopping for a campaign setting that is more human in scope and more detailed than the typical D&D 3e campaigns, the Kindgdoms of Kalamar book will provide the DM with enough material that few questions about the setting go unanswered, and it will make for a strong campaign setting. However those who buy settings merely for inspirational value may find that the value they get out of this book is somewhat minimal, even given its considerable amount of detail.
-Alan D. Kohler
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