Dunromin University Press
Dunromin University Press is a small, UK based publishing company specialising in products for their own Barnaynia game world, including the city of Dunromin, capital of the Land of the Young.
Overview[edit]
Written originally for 1st Edition AD&D but later re-written for OSRIC, the city of Dunromin is the capital of the Land of the Young, one of the most advanced societies on the World of Barnaynia. This is a fairly mid-fantasy game setting featuring a pseudo-medieval society with lots of changes brought on by the ubiquity of magic. The landscapes and other species and civilisations are worked out and mapped, all are described at least in general terms. The whole is ready to go as a game-setting for a player's own adventures or pretty much any published adventure they happen upon. The whole idea of Dunromin and Barnaynia is that it's the setting that is the key, not the game mechanics. At its most basic it is a book of new ideas that can be used in any FRPG game world, but it is also a serious, flexible and comprehensive game-world setting with a lot of new ideas, races, civilisation and monsters.
The key unique selling point of the World of Barnaynia is that it is not a normal, spherical planet and does not exist in a standard solar system. Rather it is a shaped like a flattened banana and exists in a vast sphere. Its Sun and Moon are small bodies orbiting around the end of the banana and the whole ecology and geography of the world is modified appropriately. The banana is so massive that this is of little concern to the low to medium level adventurer if they don't go looking for serious peril, but high level adventurers will find a lot of new and unique opportunities. The huge outer sphere is completely filled with air so space travel is relatively easy. There is an asteroid belt around the world in which live dragons and storm giants, amongst many others. There are even civilisations living on the edge of the banana that have built in their unusual position to their way of life or even use the strange gravitational edge-fields for sport.
History[edit]
Dunromin was originally created by Simon Miles in 1987 as a fantasy city setting for a new AD&D (1st edition) campaign. It rapidly developed into a whole world which, due to some impromptu character improvisation during a game, is banana shaped. This world is called Barnaynia. Over the following decades the game world was played with a number of different groups, slowing growing in complexity. These complexities, along with many house rules and new ideas, were brought together with the idea of putting it all into a published book in about 2010. This took a long time to sort out, including a re-write for use with the OSRIC version of OSR FRPG as licensing for the product under the AD&D mantel was too complex and expensive. The web-page www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk was set up in 2019 and the first products made available through DriveThruRPG.com.
The name "Dunromin University Press" was chosen as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Terry Pratchett creation of the Unseen University, but also to give a logical, single banner under which the various publications could be collected. The conceit is that all the publications are presented as if written by researchers in the University of Dunromin, so anything relating to the World of Barnaynia can be given a common brand. The logo was designed by Simon Miles and is based on his own concept of the coat of arms of the Lufthearts; the current ruling Royal Family of Dunromin but with an open book on it to become a kind of University coat of arms.
The first publications were styled with a blue-cover and lay-out to resemble 1st generation legacy D&D classic products from the TSR era. The first products were SM00 A Traveller's Guide to Dunromin and the Land of the Young, SM01 A Players' Guide to Dunromin and SM02 A Games Master's Guide to Dunromin. SM00 was always intended to be free; it is a collection of maps of the land and city about Dunromin, partly as a taster for customers to sample the quality of the product at no risk but also so that the maps were separate to the guide books and could be referred to without constantly leafing backwards and forwards int he book. The two guides, the players' and GM's versions, are both over 200 pages, double column works with original artwork. Some of the artwork is done by Simon Miles but most was donated by and old friend of Simon's; Gareth Sleighthome from his own collection musings and sketches.
SM07 The Warren was the next publication, being a fairly standard mid-level scenario set close to the Land of the Young. The Warren was originally written to be published through the And Magazine label but delays there allowed Simon to retrieve it and release the work through Dunromin University Press, although one of the And Magazine editors, Bryan Fazekas, is also credited as Consulting Editor on the Warren.
SM07 was quickly followed by SM03 A City Guide to Karan (the second city of the Land of the Young), SM12 The Trials of a Young Wizard (a collection of three low-level scenarios based around a starting level Magic-User set in the Land of the Young) and SM04 The Gazetteer to the Land of the Young. All these publications mimicked the classic TSR scenario format but were low-priced and high quality.
At this point Dunromin University Press decided to change their pricing policy. With little advertising and few reviews, not many sales were being made. The philosophy of the company is not profit based so it was decided that all the supplements would be changed to Pay What You Want except the core Guides, although the Players' Guide was reduced in price too. This was a tactic to increase circulation and sharing of the key ideas of the setting, which was the objective, but still generate enough revenue for the venture to pay for itself.
In August 2020 SM05 the World Guide to Barnaynia was released a little later than hoped. The publication was ambitious and featured over two hundred pages again and detailing the physical, magical and social make-up of much of the planet. The areas around Dunromin are detailed best with information becoming more broad-brush the further from the main focus of action the reader gets. That was deliberate as it gives a structure for the whole world and lots of new ideas to inspire the reader to develop the world and make it their own, but also to allow the publication to be published as detailing any more would have delayed publication even longer.
List of Publications:[edit]
All available through DriveThruRPG.com
SM00 - The Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young, May 2019 (free) SM01 - The Players' Guide to Dunromin, May 2019 SM02 - The Games Master's Guide to Dunromin, May 2019 SM03 - The Cityguide to Karan, January, 2020 SM04 - The Gazetteer of the Land of the Young, March 2020 SM05 - The World Guide to Barnaynia, August 2020 SM06 - The Warren, July 2019 SM12 - The Trials of a Young Wizard, December 2019
