Karthun needs heroes

Karthun is a world torn nearly apart by ageless conflict, where men and gods wage wars that tear across lands and skies. Adventure waits in forest, desert and tomb alike, with ancient artifacts waiting for rediscovery, provided perilous traps can be braved.

Karthun needs you

Karthun is a system-neutral setting for your campaign. Any system. Any table. All Karthun. It needs adventurers to walk its lands and explore its dungeons. It begs for discovery. This land, where Sehad the World Warden, patron of humanity has been murdered by Felicos the Betrayer, is on the brink of destruction. Nations squabble. People panic. The Age of Making, where six distant gods forged the world into a prosperous one has been scorched by the World Fire. Where six gods began, five now remain, though they are lost in divine obsessions and rivalries. Karthun sits at the edge of oblivion.

Your heroes

Your stories

Your world

Karthun is a lore-rich world, suitable for any system, a throwback to the great RPG books of our youth, packed with rich content and lustrous art. As a 320 page, full-color 8.5 x 11 hardcover book, it's a book that warrants a place of pride on your shelf, or at your gaming table.

We've designed Karthun to be system neutral, this way you can explore the Lands of Conflict no matter what game you're playing.

We're Exploding Rogue Studios, and this is our project. It's ambitious, but we're committed to producing the best product we can, and we're holding ourselves to a high standard.

With your help, we'll be able to produce 1000 hardcover books, and we've got loads more content queued up in stretch goals, including even more material for a variety of systems like 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and 13th Age.

We're Brian Patterson and Tracy Barnett, and we want to share Karthun with you.

Unlocked! - The Karthun GM's Guide

We've come a long way, but we've got more in store.

We're making Karthun: Lands of Conflict a system-neutral setting. But we know that every one of you has a favorite game system that you want to use Karthun in. We hit $25k, so we're going to commit to writing a PDF GM's Guide to Karthun! We'll bring on some extra talent (listed with each system below), and we'll write adaptations, rules and suggestions for how to run Karthun in:

13th Age - Quinn Murphy

Fate Core™ - Tracy Barnett

Pathfinder - Tracy Hurley

Dungeon World - Rob Donoghue

Savage Worlds - Shoshana Kessock

-and-

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Brian Patterson

Unlocked! - Double the Page Count

This one's simple: if we hit $35,000, we'll double the page count of the Karthun Core Book. That means more of everything!

We did it! This stretch goal has been reached, which means the Karthun Core Book will now be 320 pages. Thank you!

Stretch Goal 3 - Poster Map of Karthun

If we make it to $40,000, we'll include a 24"x36" poster map of Karthun in every hardback copy of the Core Book. As well, every backer that gets the Core Book PDF will get a PDF of the map. This is not an add-on, we'll just make the book even better if we hit 40k!

Stretch Goal 4 - Print GM's Guide

This would be amazing. We'd offer a print copy of the hardcover, full-color, 160 page GM's Guide (the same size as the original Core Book) as an add-on. It would be $35USD for Domestic backers, and $45USD for International. Hitting this goal would blow our minds.

How This Started

Brian is a cartoonist with a lifelong love of gaming. His strip, d20Monkey, has hinted and highlighted Karthun for some time now, and now it's time for everyone to share in the world.

So he partnered with Tracy Barnett, ENnie award winning game designer, to create Exploding Rogue Studios, and take Karthun out of the comic and into print.

Together, we'll produce an amazing worldbook for your campaign.

The Team We've Assembled



To help us bring the pretty and the awesome, we've built a talented team of professionals.

Brian Patterson handles writing and illustration.

Tracy Barnett handles writing and project management.

John Adamus, awesome editor on many ENnie award winning games, makes sure the words are in their best possible shape.

Daniel Solis, legendary layout artist and designer, makes sure the book looks its absolute best.