I wanted to continue my series on classic boxed sets, but I had run out of sets. Luckily, readers chimed in and offered to contribute. So today we are going to look at Hollow World, kindly presented by reader (and now contributor!) Christopher. Remeber, if you have an old boxed set you’d like to snap pictures of and send my way, I’ll gladly publish it.
Hollow World was an interesting boxed set, because it was actually published for the D&D game (as opposed to AD&D, although it claimed compatibility with the 2nd Ed. AD&D game. It was released in 1990, and it was written by Aaron Allston, who also wrote the much beloved D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I would guess that this boxed set was released as a companion setting for that book.
Now, Hollow World, presented by Christopher Pitts:
The concept of Hollow World is that the known world is actually hollow and contains an entirely separate world inside. It has its own interior sun, so there is no night, and completely different races and cultures.
While mainstream D&D is based on Medieval European culture, Hollow World introduces races based on Native American, Aztecs, Ancient Romans, and Vikings. Each of these cultures is spread throughout the interior continents and are unaware of each of other, as they are separated by large mountain ranges.
I haven’t read everything in this set yet, as I mainly wanted it in hopes of taking my 4e home group to an adapted version of Hollow World, but it seems like a great set. The ideas are great and everything is put together nicely. Great set.
Box Contents:
Player Book: 64 page book for players to build a Hollow World native. There are a few changes between outer world races and classes and their inner world counterparts. These changes include spells that don’t work or work differently or tweaks on what races such as elves can do.
Adventure Book: 32 page book containing some summaries for adventures, including some suggestions of how to get outer world characters to the inner world. This book also contains stats for new monsters to use such as dinosaur-like creatures and other beasts.
Maps: 4 large, full-color maps showing the make-up of Hollow World, a map of the entire world and details of the continent of Iciria.
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Tiorn
December 2, 2011
I owned the Hollow World boxed set back then. Never did run a campaign in it, but it was interesting to consider. I certainly did read much of the included material and remember a lot of it.
There are no undead in Hollow World… at least none that have normal activity cycles at night anyhow. In fact, the introductory adventure has the party joining an expedition to find out what the opening to Hollow World actually leads to. They soon discover, on their journey as their ship approaches their destination, that there is a stowaway on board: a new type of undead, a sun wight, created specifically to survive the constant daylight of the hollow world.
As far as the races/cultures of Hollow World goes, yes, they are different from the norm on the outer world. They are meant to be different because they represent races/cultures that are extinct in the outer world. When such a race/culture was dangerously close to an extinction event in the outer world, they were whisked away by the gods and placed in suitable locations in Hollow World, with the great mountain ranges dividing them and giving them a chance to replenish their numbers.
That’s about all I remember about the boxed set. There are orc mercenaries that I believe are not limited to one location, but roam around instead. And then an ancient Native American culture (Aztec/Mayan/Inca) with a crude game much like basketball, which is based upon a real, ancient game (in which the losers were executed). Other than that, I can’t add any more.
Josh
December 2, 2011
Ah, nostalgia… I ran my brothers through a Hollow World campaign way back in the early 90’s and it was great… I think I played a lizardman cleric.. I remember not being able to find a legend with distances on it and couldn’t decide if each hex on the map was 1, 5, 10, or 20 miles and kinda hand-waved our travel … (note I was about 13 and my brothers were 11 and 8)… I actually just finally got rid of a lot of my old basic D&D adventures, gazetteers, and hollow world supplements after keeping them safe in various basements and attics for the last 20 years… but I did keep the Rule Cyclopedia and a lot of the 1″ square maps from the adventures (even though the rooms are all so small compared to current games)… my current gaming group has been talking about doing a throw-back either 2nd edition or basic D&D game at some point so looking forward to dusting off the Cyclopedia!!!