Welcome to Khulan – A Christian Campaign World

What is Khulan?

Khulan is a Christian campaign world. Correction: Khulan is a campaign world in which Christ is never far away. Think somewhere between Tolkien and Lewis. I will be using the Systems Reference Document v5.1 based on Dungeons and Dragons® (which is getting ever-more popular…there is even a pretty decent movie, Dungeons and Dragons – Honor Among Thieves, out now) to flesh out the world, but you can easily transfer most of this to any system you choose.

Khulan is a dynamic world.

Khulan is a world that evolves differently every time your gaming group plays through it. I suggest that you start each new campaign in the Stone Age. Doing so will allow each table to create something special that reflects the glory of Christ anew. Of course, if you find an age with specific characteristics that everyone is enjoying, you can play there again and again. But the real fun is fulfilled in playing all the way through.

Played as written, the player characters (PCs) begin in a Stone Age world. They believe they live in an unfallen world. Umjor the Lifegiver walks among them and death is only known as a joyful completion of time among friends and family. All of humanity celebrates death because all know that it is only a transition to always walking with Umjor the Lifegiver. Adventure begins when the PCs find out that parts of humanity have fallen.

The players and the GM build Khulan collaboratively.

The choices they make regarding their character class, the true and skewed “facts” their characters believe, the classes they choose – to include how they play those classes – and the way they customize their human race on the character sheet have effects when, after 5 levels, the game jumps ahead millennia to the Bronze Age. The players will then create descendants of their Stone Age characters. At least one major characteristic of their previous character, by rules, must carry over to the new PC. It could be race or class, perhaps even background if the gamemaster (GM) approves of it. It is also strongly suggested that some part of the personality makes the transition, too.

Cosmological events occur in the interim that force an evolution (or mutation?) among humanity. Some fallen Stone Age humans now have Bronze Age descendants that are orcs or goblins. Others have become dwarves or halflings. Still others might have been forced into a change by supernatural forces that may be doing the will of Umjor the Lifegiver – or may be actively working against him.

The evolution of the world is yours to collaboratively create.

There are a few things that happen by chronology. That is, they happen if left unchecked and unaltered. But how each race evolves and which classes are predominant, what a culture thinks of Umjor the Lifegiver, magic or other cultures and races, and so many other things are open to the evolutionary playing at the table.

By the time the play reaches 16th level and the Post-Technology Age, your Khulan will not be the same as any other Khulan. As the PCs face Cosmos-level challenges in this Age, their choices will heavily flavor gameplay.

What to expect moving forward.

I can’t wait to see you back here each week. You will find posts about:

• Whether or not running a Christian campaign world is right for your table;
• How I’ve run different Ages;
• New classes, items, races, monsters, items, backgrounds, spells, and more;
• Modifications made for gameplay in different ages;
• And much more.

Legal attribution.

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, LLC.

System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.