D&D 5E Swashbuckling Musketeers type setting?

[GameOgre]

I want to make a setting with Swashbuckling Musketeers, Evil Sorcerers hell bent on destroying the kingdom, Evil cultists worshiping Dark Cthulhu with unholy sacrifices and rites that would destroy the world, Assassins and spys lurking in the shadows, Dragons that control vast fortunes and merchant empires, Orcs and other foil folk pushed far out of the civilized lands but gathering and growing out in the darkness.

A setting were the long sword and great axe are archaic and plate mail belongs in centuries past. Instead the rapier and the musket rule the day along with ships with canon.

Why is there no setting like this?

 

[Quickleaf]

Hmm, sounds like a great setting!

Click the link to "Spell & Crossbones" in my sig and enjoy

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[epithet]

Also, take a look at the Zeitgeist adventure path from EN Publishing.
More info in the document available here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1030

 

[Ezequielramone]

I believe freeport could fit easily for you with minor adds.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not a D&D setting... but musketeers, secret societies, insidious sorcery, creatures from beyond, that's precisely the setting of Theah from the game 7th Sea (from AEG). It's out of print, but you can still get the Player's Guide and Game Master's Guide off of Amazon.

AEG also released a d20 version of 7th Sea called Swashbuckling Adventures, which could be used for an easier adaptation over to 5E... although I am unsure as to whether the Theah setting material in those books are as comprehensive as the material in the original 7th Sea books. But the three d20 books to grab on that score would be Swashbuckling Adventures; Heroes, Villains and Monsters; and Swashbuckling Arcana.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Yeah, you've just described 7th Sea. Fun game, great setting, entertaining yet essentially broken system.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Or, just set the game in Renaissance Europe. Plenty of "setting information" in history books, historical fiction, movies, and Wikipedia.

You can easily reskin by changing all the names, then rotating all maps by about 130 degrees. With careful selections of cropping and scale--for example, don't ever show a map that includes the entire Mediterranean Sea, or the whole Iberian peninsula--your players won't catch on.

The only region you'll have to modify is Italy. But that's easy: cut the heel off the boot and push it out a bit to make an island. Connect Sicily, or shift it further out (keep the whirlpool as an elemental feature). That, plus the rotation, should suffice.

For bonus points, start with a non-Mercator map.

 

[Unwise]

I play in a near-earth setting just like this. It basically uses an earth map and is more about the shaky ceasefire along the Spanish-French border than about defeating some archenemy. The main threat to the known world is currently rising Ottoman nationalism and a political marriage linking Austria to Hungary to the Ottomans.

In the background is the Age of Discovery. Explorers are always coming back with wild tales of cannibal filled islands, cities of gold, sleeping dragons and forbidden cities. The Dragon Emperor of China is starting to make his vast wealth and influence felt too, now that he has build the great wall to keep the Orcs and Hobgoblins at bay.

It is just such a rich setting, I love it.

One thing that really helps is having mechanical reason to abide by the weapon and armor preferences of the time. Quite simply, what we do is say that firearms have a maximum To-Hit of 15. This means that having an AC over 15 is largely a waste against many enemies. You can see how a unit of knights is just not worthwhile in mass combat when a bunch of villagers with muskets can mow them down. An AC 20 knight is still a terrible combatant to fight, you better hope you have some firearms on you or you are in trouble.

I personally play a Dex based fighter who is a kings musketeer. My other character is a Str based fighter who wears half-plate and puffy sleeves/pantaloons and uses a Pike. He is a swiss mercenary in the pope's employ. Nobody thinks his choice of weapon is weird as it is a traditional weapon of his regiment. My friends play a playboy bohemian noble (bard) and a native american chieftain (ranger) who was taken to the spanish court as a 'noble savage' then abandoned once he was no longer found to be amusing. He just wants to go home.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Or, just set the game in Renaissance Europe. Plenty of "setting information" in history books, historical fiction, movies, and Wikipedia.

You can easily reskin by changing all the names, then rotating all maps by about 130 degrees. With careful selections of cropping and scale--for example, don't ever show a map that includes the entire Mediterranean Sea, or the whole Iberian peninsula--your players won't catch on.

Actually, the 7th Sea setting pretty much does this. All major European powers have their representations in Théah. Avalon (England), Castille (Spain), Montaigne (France), Eisen (Germany), Ussura (Russia), Vendel/Vestenmanavnjar (Netherlands / Scandinavia) and Vodacce (Italy). And most of Theah's history is lightly adapted from real European history, as well as famous fictional history of the time (the Three Musketeers, the Arthurian legends, etc.). There's the Inquisition, El Vago (Zorro), the Knights of the Rose & Cross (the Knights Templar), Derwyddon (Merlin), the Vaticine Church and the Objectionists (the Catholic Church and the Protestants) and many, many other mirrors such as that.

I found it personally very helpful to picking up the setting's history with it being reflective of real European history. Not as much explanation was required for me to understand what something was. I found the setting wonderful as all get out.