http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2010/10/lotfp-to-release-geoffrey-mckinneys.html?zx=95469cc8093c5c8e

Wondering if there's anyone that has been using Isle Of The Unknown as their campaign setting.

I'm editing the player's map with my own roads, names...etc on computer to soon introduce some Pathfinder/Tolkienesque players to old school gaming and good ol' hex crawling via S&W WhiteBox and Isle of the Unknown as the setting. I'm also planning limit players to Fighter/Sorcerer human PCs much like Carcosa but without the skin differentiation.

My favorite hex right now is 1806 a.k.a. "The City Of Singing Flame" by Clark Ashton Smith

There's been much talk about Carcosa and for good reason. I'm hoping to see the same efforts for Geoffrey McKinney's Isle of the Unknown. I think the silent brilliance of the setting comes from what is NOT added. To me, it instructs to get out their creative caps and build instead of expecting a full thought out setting to memorize and/or dissect, much like building from FFC or Wilderlands possibly.

Has there been anyone else who has or is using Isle of the Unknown as their setting?

Haven't read it. What's the elevator pitch?

Hexmap island, with one special encounter per 86 square mile hex. It's in the lotfp line, so it's big on weird. Lots of reclusive magic users, crazy magical beasts, magical statues, and scattered human towns and cities.

I've been reading it and I'm going to try and run a hexcrawl it in a few months - I'd have done it already, but the holidays always manage to kill game time for me

I have the hardback and it's excellent in terms of production quality. Haven't used it in-game yet though. I doubt I will ever put it in my current campaign, but it would be cool to do campaign on the island sometime.

It's just been a great revelation with this book. I, like some others, balked at the monsters and the fact that nothing mundane was written, or hardly.

Then it dawned on me while looking at the "players" map in the front of the book. I was to make a world up completely on my own. What was done for me were things/situations extraordinary. All i had to add or wrap around was my various planned situations for players to experience. And then I saw what Geoffrey was talking about when saying that it was an old school hex crawl like Wilderlands. And so i now find this book to be priceless. Thank you, Geoffrey.

My players spent about nine sessions of the current campaign on the island, having reached it through a magical door. I incorporated the island into my milieu by having it be the isolated island-prison of Merlin- yes, that Merlin. The great wizard had been imprisoned on the island by his jealous lover after indiscreet dalliances with a mermaid. The "great sea worms" mentioned here and there in the book were conjured by said jilted lady and destroyed any ships coming to or from the island.

I used very few of the monsters from the book- I consider them largely uninteresting compared to creatures from AD&D's monster books.

I used plenty of the magic-users- the Ice Wizard, the Chromatic Master of Hues, the Loremaster, and a number of the zodiacal magic users whose demesnes ring the island were consulted for knowledge or fought for gain.

Several of the clerics made appearances, as allies or enemies. The gardener, the herbalist, the fellow who never misses with a weapon, and the Bishop (mentioned but undetailed in the book), all featured as allies. One session revolved around foiling a double assassination plot against the island's king, in which the scheming vizier and the diabolist from hex 2411 were at cross purposes.

Relatively few of the statues or other weird locations of the island ended up being used despite very liberal encounter rolls on my part- the island is just so small that moving through a given hex happens quickly rating only one check if using the rules from the DMG. Then again I am rather handwavey with such rules.

I provided my own names for the zodiacal mages and for the island's rulers and important NPCs.

My players did eventually find and free Merlin, who got them off the island and enlisted their help in resurrecting and restoring King Arthur to greatness. In truth they could have left the island at any time by using the key that got them there in the first place. It just never occurred to them.

I found it way too random and pointless.  It made no particular sense.

I liked it as an idea mine or a "weird" overlay onto something more mundane. it's sparse enough that the players are actually really unlikely to encounter much of the weird stuff unless they seek it out.

Every encounter aside from the villages and towns will show up only as a *special* result on the encounter table. I'll fix the location of any landmarks, caves, dwellings, statues and such at the point they are rolled. To do otherwise imo would be a giant grab bag and kind of silly - oh we've traveled 10 miles, time to find another statue or reclusive magic user.

This is the second most disappointing RPG product I've purchased in the last 5 years.

My elevator pitch would be: "If you like giant, flaming parrots with four legs then you'll love the Isle of the Unknown!"

Full review over here.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;709714This is the second most disappointing RPG product I've purchased in the last 5 years.

My elevator pitch would be: "If you like giant, flaming parrots with four legs then you'll love the Isle of the Unknown!"

Full review over here.

I will not deny that the monsters can use some lessening...that I can generate some on my own. I wonder if it was done to promote the fact that one should spawn their own? i have no idea. But the rest of the setup has become quite useful to me. Gimmie half of the monsters and i would be in awe.

Since this has degenerated a bit in to a general Iso of the Unknown thread, I'll point you towards my review of the various major hex crawls: Geoff (Isle, Carcosa), Stater (NOD) and Bledsoe (Wilderlands.) [Sorry Conley! Maybe next time!]

Isle felt very static compared to Stater and Wilderlands. Just THINGS doing nothing. "There is  12' tall bird in this hex." The other did more. "There is a 12' bird in this hex terrorizing a village of 3' tall orange vikings who are desperate to trade with the dwarves in the next hex."

I think "weird new world" is a much better LotFP product for this sort of thing.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;709981Since this has degenerated a bit in to a general Iso of the Unknown thread, I'll point you towards my review of the various major hex crawls: Geoff (Isle, Carcosa), Stater (NOD) and Bledsoe (Wilderlands.) [Sorry Conley! Maybe next time!]

Isle felt very static compared to Stater and Wilderlands. Just THINGS doing nothing. "There is  12' tall bird in this hex." The other did more. "There is a 12' bird in this hex terrorizing a village of 3' tall orange vikings who are desperate to trade with the dwarves in the next hex."

There are some connected hexes in the Isle of the Unknown like your example.

But other than the challenge from the cartoony monsters (which for me has started to spark some great creativity for how to use them), The isle to me is just a skeleton hex crawl that you build from.

Let's say i don't use the Isle but want to create my own setting, with this book, much is already done. So i can now take my story/situations/mundane stats and fill the isle up. What i'm getting from the book is exactly what is explained in the intro:

"To aid the Referee, only the weird, fantastical, and magical is described herein. The mundane is left to the discretion of the campaign Referee, to be supplied according to the characteristics of his own conceptions or campaign world."

I don't understand why some across forums deny the use of this book unless it's proof that we are still in the epoch of having everything laid out for the ref to memorize. If i just wanted the spontaneous creativity of a published RPG writer, i'd have to take on a bloated setting and use 10% of the publication...e.g. Erde, Greyhawk, Valus, d20 Blackmoor...etc. I'd rather have the "meat" of the creativity and so fill it up fill in my proposed campaign.

Quote from: mannclay;710697I don't understand why some across forums deny the use of this book unless it's proof that we are still in the epoch of having everything laid out for the ref to memorize. If i just wanted the spontaneous creativity of a published RPG writer, i'd have to take on a bloated setting and use 10% of the publication...e.g. Erde, Greyhawk, Valus, d20 Blackmoor...etc. I'd rather have the "meat" of the creativity and so fill it up fill in my proposed campaign.

Some of the folks who don't like it are people who have posted plenty of things that show they are willing to write their own content. So it's more likely that it is not clearly differentiated from products like Majestic Wilderlands or Weird New World.

I am going to use the book to run a campaign based on the Murthe story by Vance - a cabal of magicians from the last days of earth flee back in time. The decayed and chaotic nature of the dying earth brought through has infected the local world, causing it to begin to rot.