World of Farland

The World of Farland is a fan-made Campaign Setting for Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder that has been around for over 18 years, having spanned every edition from 3.5 through 4e to 5e. Whilst it began as an online project, and still can be found online, it has recently begun selling its work in hardcover physical books through the website DriveThruRPG, with these books boasting new content exclusive to them and never seen on the webpage before.

Setting Lore

As a setting, the World of Farland is characterized as a Dark Fantasy, taking your standard Heroic Fantasy world and adding elements of both Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. Similarly to Midnight, or arguably to 4e Dark Sun, Farland presents players with a world conquered by evil for many long years, but where hope has recently dared to rear its head. Most of the world is ruled over by one of seven Lords of Sin, powerful sin-fueled champions of the dark god Vornoth, but a rebellion has broken out and freed several once-conquered kingdoms in the West. Whilst these points of light are teetering on the brink of collapse, and an all-out war against the dark powers is looming, the players are heroes who have a chance to tip the balance in the favor of the Light.

There is also a spin-off "prequel" setting called War of Immortals, which is set in the distant past of Farland and presents a world where the great elf and dwarf civilizations battle against the orcs and goblinoids of Stor-Gris, whilst humans and halflings are but simple tribal folk, still huddling in caves.

Splatbooks

There are currently five splatbooks for the World of Farland; the Campaign Setting, the Player's Guide, the Dungeon Master's Guide, War of Immortals, and Realms Under Shadow.

The Campaign Setting is, of course, a strictly lore-centric splatbook that examines the setting as a whole. Everything from racial lore to geography, climate, detailed cities and towns, cultural notes, the local pantheons, campaign advice, etcetera.

The Player's Guide is all about PC-focused material; racial crunch, new class options, new backgrounds, etc.

The Dungeon Master's Guide provides new DM-centric lore and mechanics for the Farland setting, such as new monsters and an outline of the setting's cosmology.

War of Immortals contains lore and even some mechanical stuff relating to this "prequel" setting, including new PC races and new monsters.

Finally, Realms Under Shadow expands the overall world of the Farland setting by examining its equivalents to Asia, Africa and India, with lots of new races, class options, monsters, gods and other such goodies to make running campaigns in these lands or crossing them over with the "core" lands possible.

Races

Farland's races run the gamut from the classic to the weird. The Player's Guide presents the full list of core 5e races as part of the "default" Farland adventuring setting/region; Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Tieflings and Dragonborn. There are three major divergences from the 5e "norm" here, though.

Firstly; when taking a Human race, players have the option to either use a core 5e human, or to use a new racial statblock representing the region/ethnicity of their human, which can give all kinds of weird bonuses. For example, the Kalias ethnicity, which is a rough-and-ready frontier nation from the westernmost reaches, grants +2 Dex/+1 Con, free proficiency in Athletics and Nature, and free proficiency with light armor and bows - which they swap for free proficiency in the Survival skill if they gain these proficiencies from their class instead. Or you could (theoretically) be a Jilan, from the brutal nation-state of Jilas that was built on the back of mass-slavery of the native goblins, which grants you +1 to Str/Dex/Wis, free proficiency in Animal Handling and Intimidation, and Advantage on all Charisma checks against "slave breed" Dark Folk (that is, goblins, kobolds, and orcs of the Snog caste).

Secondly, Farland uses unique subraces for all of its corebook races.

Finally, in the Player's Guide, the player is given the option to play as a "Dark Folk" - an orc, goblin, kobold, hobgoblin, or a variant half-orc descended from the Oluks, a species of Uruk-hai inspired "super-orc" which, weirdly, are not presented as a PC option anywhere so far. All of these except the half-oluk have subraces as well.

The splatbook War of the Immortals simply adds new historical human ethnicities and dwarven, elven, gnome and halfling subraces to the list, as it's set way back before humanity really came to power and elves & dwarves were the ones running the show.

This was followed by the Realms Under Shadow splatbook. Whilst most of the book's new "races" are new human ethnicities, as described above, there are also a smattering of new races that have no precedent in 5e core:

• Rasilhi: The rasilhi'in are a human subspecies hailing from the land of Ishia, which is the setting's Egypt analogue. Touched by divine energies in the womb, they were born on a day sacred to one of the local gods, causing them to manifest as anthropomorphic examples of that god's sacred animals.
• Snow Gnome: A gnome subrace from the frigid Mongolia-esque steppes of Cadocia.
• Lost Rasilhi: A result of interbreeding between a bovine-featured clan of rasilhi'in exiled from their homeland and an unknown breed of ogre-kin, creating a race torn into two aspects; the demon-touched small-but-belligerent Asterians, and the larger but gentler minotaurs.
• Ferekkin: A race of ratfolk that were once evil, but who changed their ways after their attempt at conquest was beaten back, forcing them to re-evaluate themselves and their culture.
• Risarvinni: A race of Half-Giants descended from a mingling of human and Fire Giant in the Greatwall Mountains of Eruna.
• Nemedene: A race of Half-Giants descended from a mingling of elf and Stone Giant in the Greatwall Mountains of Eruna.

Class Options

Both the Player's Guide and Realms Under Shadow contain an assortment of new subclasses for the various core classes of 5e.

The Barbarian has the Path of the Rage Channeler in the Player's Guide, which is a Third Caster subclass ala the Fighter's Eldritch Knight, and the Path of Ruination in Realms Under Shadow, which is a barbarian who focuses on using sheer Rage to smash through even the toughest defenses. The Player's Guide also has five new totems for the Totem Warrior to use; Bull, Caribou, Lion, Seal and Serpent.

The Bard also has two new Colleges; the College of Medicine in the Player's Guide, which is all about increasing the bard's healing abilities when using the Medicine skill or an herbalism kit, and the College of the Mortuary Chapterhouse, a bardic mourner who specializes in seeing the souls of the departed make their way to the afterlife, from Realms Under Shadow.

Clerics? Yep, they get two new Cleric Domains in the same way. The Player's Guide offers the distinctly evil-flavored Malice domain, which is all about wielding poison and inflicting destruction. In contrast, Realms Under Shadow's Monuments domain is all about the preservation of memory through creating, restoring and even animating edifices and constructs.

Druids only get the one subclass, with Realms Under Shadow giving them the Circle of Civilization; an Urban Druid subclass that has features that literally get more powerful when used in urban environments that they've been hanging around in for at least 8 hours in the last 24.

Fighters, in comparison, get lots of love. The Player's Guide has two subclasses; the Pikeman is a master at the use of a polearm, whilst the Witch Slayer specializes in battling magic-using foes, obviously. Realms Under Shadow adds a new Fighting Style, the Bloodied Ratel, and three new subclasses; the Horizon Archer (a Zen Archer type, able to attain impossible feats with a bow), the Iron Guard (an ultra-tough warrior who focuses on defense over mobility), and the Lion Hunter (a hardened survivor specialized in battling big beasts and monsters).

Monks get two new subclasses, both from Realms Under Shadow. The Fivefold Path Tradition has a monk choose one of the five virtues they wish to master (Duty, Integrity, Justice, Perseverance, Serenity) and gains features based on that virtue, being essentially five subclasses in one. The Sentinel of Sorrow Tradition is... well, it's basically a vigilante assassin, who deems a specific group of adversaries to be their Antithesis and focuses on getting better and better at killing them.

Paladins get two subclasses, again with one in each book. The Player's Guide gives the Council Sentinel, a paladin bodyguard sworn to the tenets of Service, Courage, Honor and Duty. Realms Under Shadow presents the Sacrosanct, a paladin who doesn't worship the gods but instead gains their power from their unwavering dedication to Doing The Right Thing(tm). This means they don't gain any Channel Divinity powers or bonus spells, but their Wisdom and Charisma go up, and they become living weapons against fiends and the undead.

Rangers get three subclasses between the two books; two in the Player's Guide and one in Realms Under Shadow. The former two consist of the Longbowman (a self-explanatory archer), and the Shadow Walker, an elf-founded (and thus in-setting elf-exclusive) organization of border guards trained in the use of Shadow Magic to bolster their martial and woodsman's skills. The latter is the Wyldling, a ranger/sorcerer hybrid with an affinity for fey and elemental magic.

Rogues get only a single subclass, and it's found in Realms Under Shadow; the Shinobi, a ninja-themed rogue which is supernaturally sneaky and adept at evading detection.

Sorcerers also have only a single Realms Under Shadow-located subclass; Kitsune Ancestry, which also doubles as a generic Fey-blooded sorcerous origin, with increased charisma when interacting with fey, more spells than normal, some minor shapechanging shenanigans, and resistance to magic.

Warlocks have the same deal as rangers; two subclasses in the Player's Guide, Ghost and Sin Lord, and one in Realms of Shadow, the Flesh Host. Ghost patron warlocks are, obviously, a necromancer-warlock hybrid with a small array of ghostly abilities, including possessing others. Warlocks sworn to a Sin Lord have taken one of the seven sin-themed megabaddies of the setting as their boss, which means their precise powers depend on who they're allied with. The Flesh Host is a variant fiend or great old one warlock who allows their patron to dwell within their own body, turning them into something in between Venom from Spider-Man and a Stand user from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Wizards gain the Mortuary Arcanist in Realms of Shadow, which is a variant Necromancer that is slightly better at dishing out necrotic damage and who focuses on empowering its own undead minions rather than seizing control over the wandering undead.

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