Aidan Krott

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 2014, around the release of 5^th Edition. I was 16 at the time, and little did I know that this would become a hobby that has shaped my adult life thus far. In 2017, after running the Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure that came with the 5E starter set, and a handful of one-shots from Kobold Press’s Prepared and Prepared 2, all set in the same generic, numbers-filled off-fantasyland, I decided to take some time to develop a setting of my own. That setting would become Antharis.

Secondly, to build on that, I wanted my world to draw inspiration from both history and fantasy properties I already love. The Witcher, the Elder Scrolls, and Star Wars are my big three (though I might do a full Appendix N post at some point, going into more detail and noting additional inspiration)

In designing Antharis, I had a few goals- Firstly, I wanted a world that drew on the things I loved in TTRPGS and fiction in general. I love narratives with political struggles, wars, and other such conflicts, so I needed kingdoms and factions to fight those fights. I love mysteries and lost civilisations and mysterious dungeons, so I needed a world with several fallen empires to have left these ruins.

Finally, I wanted to create a world in which I could comfortably run most existing content without too much extra work. I needed a big city to run adventures like Dragon Heist, a northern, arctic region to run adventures like Rime of the Frostmaiden, and a tropical jungle for Tomb of Annihilation, and everything in between. Granted, I’m very happy adjusting existing content- I didn’t want to take Waterdeep and wholesale place it in my world, but I wanted a city to fill a similar function- The free city, trade hub type.

I started running Antharis, in its earliest iterations, in 2019. In the past half a decade or so, I’ve refined, reworked, and come to something I really love- Antharis is a setting I love making, and GMing, and my players (seem to) love playing in. Over the new few posts, I’m going to be sharing resources I’ve created for myself and my players, mostly because this is work I’m really proud of, but if it inspires anyone reading, or provides something you might like to steal and use in your home game (because gods know I’m guilty of mining blogs for my D&D prep), then all the better.