The world of Andrus is a high fantasy role playing game setting. It provides most of the expected fantasy setting themes with variations in cultural focus and dominant cultures. There is a broad history, a robust heritage list and a significant number of locations available for finding adventure.

What makes Andrus unique as a role-playing game setting?

Andrus departs from the standard fantasy tropes by exploring unique cultures and their interaction across multiple eras. The setting is not human focused, actually they are the most recent arrivals on the world.  There are no elves, dwarves, gnomes or halflings specifically. Andrus also does not feature any of the traditional humanoid or goblinoid cultures like orcs, ogres, goblins, bugbears or hobgoblins.

Sentient cultures based on various animal species are the aboriginal inhabitants of this setting. They had many generations of conflict to establish their realms and territories. Then the Elemental Kin arrived through elemental breaches fleeing the perpetual conflicts of the elemental powers. They negotiated space to call home and settled in for several generations. Finally a world gate opened and flooded human cultures into Andrus to carve out their own realms and press the other cultures into smaller territories. The world gate closed leaving the humans to establish their story on this new world after several generations.

In what rule system is Andrus designed to be played?

Andrus began back in the 90’s. 2nd Ed and then 3E were the go-to core systems at that point. However, those systems and all the related legacy systems are very mechanic heavy or ‘crunchy’. I felt like it would be better to focus on the storytelling instead of bogging down the game with piles of rules and rule books.

I recently settled on Gallant Knight Games‘ “Tiny Dungeon 2e” as the core mechanics for Andrus because their rule set does not impede storytelling within the setting. Instead of reinventing the RPG wheel I want to focus on the setting, history, cultures and associated conflicts.

At a minimum, you will need the Tiny Dungeon 2E core rule book to explore Andrus. Expanded source books from other authors are cited as appropriate for your convenience. (See the Disclaimer below)

All that said, the setting is built in such a way that you could adapt it into any rule system you prefer.

Inspiration

I take inspiration from everything in my now half century of experiences. A healthy fascination with mythology began my journey so many years ago followed closely by books, movies, history and of course games. As I began to formulate the setting, I was running the Arabian Adventures setting in Forgotten Realms (AD&D 2nd Ed era). My motivation in developing this setting was to avoid becoming just another clone by reusing the standard D&D fantasy fare.

DISCLAIMER

This site references rules and information presented in content owned and authored by other creators. Our citation does not imply ownership of nor endorsement by any of these original authors and owners. Whenever possible, we will provide links to the original material found on DrivethruRPG.com.

Advanced Tiny Dungeon, Tiny Dungeon 2e and TinyD6 are trademarks of Gallant Knight Games. Copyright © 2018 by Gallant Knight Games. All rights reserved.

Bestiarium Vocabulum: A Tiny Dungeon Bestiary and Heritage Composer are copyright © 2022 & 2019 by Fat Goblin Games

Micronomicon: A Compendium of Magic for Tiny Dungeon 2e and Other Games is copyright © 2021 by Exploding Seed Press

World Map created by Tad Davis of Iconic Maps. Used with permission.