Iron Kingdoms, Part 1: Capturing My Attention

Iron Kingdoms Charter Guide Cover by Matt Wilson

 

In the winter of 2004 I picked up the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide for the first time and fell in love. The setting was so vastly different from anything that I had ever encountered that it was like a revelation. Up until I picked up that book I had always limited my games to what I considered the classical fantasy tropes. Knights fought dragons and rescued princesses who never seemed to buy enough security guards to kill the god damned dragons that kept kidnapping them. 

Everything changed for me in November of that year when I discovered the Character Guide. Just picking up the book and looking at the cover had me holding my breath. I wanted to play those characters. I wanted that metal beast covering my back; but more than anything else I wanted my games to have that sort of gritty feel that the cover projected. 

I spent the $40.00 for the nearly 400 page book and raced back up the mountain to start reading one of the best role-playing game books I've ever purchased. In the coming weeks I would buy the World Guide, Liber Mechanika, the two Monsternomicons, Five Fingers: Port of Deceit and pray for more books to come out. Unfortunately for me the miniatures line based on the Iron Kingdoms role-playing game would take off and come to dominate Privateer Press' efforts; eventually leading the company to relaunch the line in 2012 with their own rules system forever disentangling the system with the Dungeons and Dragons system.

My love for the setting and the wonderfully nuanced world of Immoren has not been diminished by the publication of the new editions of Dungeons and Dragons or Privateer Press' own system.  Instead it seems to have only intensified. Over the course of the coming months I'm going to be working my way through the Character Guide, the World Guide, Liber Mechanika, a whole slew of supplemental articles from the Privateer Press website, Monsternomicon I, and Monsternomicon II steadily building a unified understanding of the game as I first encountered it and fell in love with the setting. Along the way I'll be updating the classes for Fifth Edition and making the setting work the way I need it to for my games, and hopefully for yours as well. 

Click here to read part 2: 

The Philosophy Behind the Iron Kingdoms

Feel like you're missing something?

Part 1: Capturing My Attention

Part 2: The Philosophy Behind the Iron Kingdoms

Part 3: The Orgoth

Abbreviations

CG - Character Guide

WG - World Guide

LL - Lock & Loaded

LM - Liber Mechanika

MM1 - Monsternomicon v1

MM2 - Monsternomicon v2

WFT1 - Witchfire Trilogy 1

WFT2 - Witchfire Trilogy 2

WFT3 - Witchfire Trilogy 3

NQ# - No Quarter Issue#