The Lost Lands: A New Campaign World for Pathfinder

The Lost Lands: A New Campaign World for Pathfinder

LostLands_StoneheartOn the opening day of Gen Con 2000, Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons was unveiled. That same day, Necromancer Games released The Wizard’s Amulet, more or less the second OGL/D20 adventure (that’s another discussion).

Necromancer, working with other companies such as White Wolf, Judges Guild, and Kenzer and Company, became one of the most successful d20 companies. Their mega dungeon, Rappan Athak, is one of the best known Third Era adventures.

However, the advent of Fourth Edition spelled doom for Necromancer. Co-founder Bill Webb founded Frog God Games, a clear successor to Necromancer, and they published products for Paizo’s Pathfinder. Frog God produced new items and also updated old Necromancer goods as well, Pathfinderizing them.

With the advent of Fifth Edition D&D, Frog God is now publishing for both lines (in addition to retro-clone, Swords & Wizardry). Necromancer and Frog God adventures and supplements had loosely been connected in that they took place in Webb’s personal campaign world.

Frog God is currently putting out that campaign world under the moniker The Lost Lands. It is going to incorporate nearly everything produced by Necromancer and Frog God Games. Some products, such as their Judges Guild updates and the Hex Crawl Chronicles, belong to other folks and won’t be included. But if you look at the long list of products, there’s an awful lot, including Gary Gygax’s under-appreciated Necropolis.

LostLands_RazorCoastWhile the actual campaign book is due out sometime in 2015 (I believe), they’ve been releasing Lost Lands modules, such as Stoneheart Valley (which contains my all-time favorite adventure, The Tomb of Abysthor) and The Lost City of Barakus through Kickstarters. Recently, one of Necromancer’s long rumored projects, The Sword of Air, was funded for The Lost Lands.

Meanwhile, newer products such as the kickstarted Rappan Athuk (for Pathfinder), the epic Slumbering Tsar series and the ill fated but ultimately successful The Razor Coast, will all be part of this world.

There are several campaign worlds for Pathfinder, with Paizo’s own Golarion and Kobold Press’s Midgard two of the most popular. But with the back catalogue of Necromancer available, added to the impressive output of Frog God Games (check out the Northlands saga), The Lost Lands looks to be awfully meaty.

Though some of it is a bit dark for me, I’m a big fan of Necromancer/Frog God: especially the history they’ve built into their products. And because one can never have enough monsters, you should check out their Tome of Horrors Complete: all three of their third edition Tome of Horrors books, Pathfinderized, with over 800 pages of monster goodness….err, badness.

John has written about Necromancer’s outstanding updating of Judges Guild’s Wilderlands of High Fantasy here.


You can read Bob Byrne’s ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column here at Black Gate every Monday morning.

He founded www.SolarPons.com, the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’ and blogs about Holmes and other mystery matters at Almost Holmes.

And he’s been an RPG fan since the seventies.

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Martin Christopher

For anyone interested in Sword & Sorcery campaign worlds, I also recommend “Primeval Thule”. It’s a continent in the world of Kulls Atlantis and Conans Hyborea, set on tropical Greenland. It has it it’s own distinctive character and has close ties to the Old Ones and creatures of Lovecraft that Howard only occasionally hinted to. Quite well done and clearly worth a look.

Scott Taylor

Both Frog God and Necromancer are incredible companies, and Bill Webb is a great designer, person, and RPer. I can’t say enough good things about them.

[…] they make RPG products for Pathfinder, 5th Edition and Swords & Wizardry. Way back in 2014, I wrote here about The Lost Lands, the campaign world that would synthesize almost all of the Necromancer and […]


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