Ich wollte mal wieder den Blick auf Jörðgarð richten. Ein offenes Rollenspielprojekt aus Deutschen Landen in englischer Sprache das Woche um Woche weiter wächst. Gucks dir mal an.

What is Jörðgarð?

Jörðgarð is:

· A campaign setting, that is, a world in which one can run fantasy role-playing adventures.

· An RPG environment that is rooted in but not fanatically adherent to several real world mythologies.

· An open source, open gaming product. It is an open gaming product in the sense that it is being released under the Open Game License Version 1.0a. It is an open source product in which all texts and maps will be available not only as PDFs but also in editable form to make it possible for game masters and game developers to modify all elements to fit their own campaign desires and their own product designs.

· A gaming world in two versions, one that will run hand-in-glove with our own free open game, open source Dungeons Daring™ RPG and a second version that will be compatible with the OGL 3.5 system used by such popular RPGs as Pathfinder® from Paizo Publishing® LLC, True20™ from Green Ronin Publishing LLC and Dungeons & Dragons® Version 3.5 from Wizards of the Coast® Inc.

Technically, the Jörðgarð World will have some aspects not common to most campaign settings:

· All texts will be offered in Jörðgarð Reference Documents in the fully editable ODF Open Document Format of the free open source products Open Office.org and Libre Office.org. This format also can be opened in Microsoft® Word 2007 and 2010 as well as Word 2003, if the free converters for Word 2003 have been installed.

· All maps will be offered in their native Fractal Mapper™ 8 formats. This will give each game master licensed for FM8 the ability to modify and/or expand upon the official maps. To do so, the game master will need the Fractal Mapper 8 program.

· The maps also will be designed to serve game masters and gaming groups who are involved in online campaigns or who run tabletop campaigns aided by a digital projector or a laptop LAN system.

· Game masters who do not have access to Fractal Mapper 8 will have no difficulty using the campaign setting. They merely will not have the ability to edit, modify or manipulate the original maps in their native format.

· The Jörðgarð setting will not use drawings of bikini warrior maidens, comic book style pictures or other exaggerated graphics. Our illustrations for the most part will be photographs of actual sites in the real world that are ideal representations for a fantasy RPG setting.

· Jörðgarð is being developed in part based upon mythologies in various areas of the real world. Several areas are based upon the Eddic or Norse mythology, the Celtic Tuatha de Danaan as Sidhe, the Finnish Kalevala and Slavic mythologies. This does not mean that the world will replicate these mythologies. Rather, it will attempt to adapt their elements to make them suitable for good RPG campaigns. The world also will be developed to allow reasonable and logical travel between areas with varying mythological roots.

· Material from the history of our own world is being used and adapted as the basis for several totally fictional lands within the Jörðgarð World.

· Jörðgarð will attempt to combine the best elements of static and dynamic worlds. The end release documents will be current to the Vintyri Year of 1406. Timeline information will be provided for official events which will occur in the years 1407-1416. This will give game masters who want a dynamic world a 10-year span of defined change. As of the Jörðgarð Year 1417, the world will be static. There will be no official Jörðgarð definitions for events beyond that time, giving game masters a free hand to develop their own futures.

Publication of the Jörðgarð World under the Open Game License will give all gamers worldwide the right to develop additional unofficial Jörðgarð World material and to distribute it as they wish, free or commercially, without royalty payments to us or restrictions other than compliance with the Open Gaming License.