Maztica Campaign Set

Contents

The Maztica Campaign Set draws from the novels Ironhelm, Viperhand, and Feathered Dragon. It is divided into three books. The first, Journey to the True World, is 96 pages and covers Maztican history and setting details. The second, Maztica Alive!, adds terrain and climate, regional descriptions, travel routes from the Sword Coast, the afterlife, a short adventure, and four new monsters.

The final 32-page book, Gods and Battles, provides rules for the Maztican deities and maps. This setting belongs to the Forgotten Realms and is loosely inspired by ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures. It introduces two independent magic systems: Pluma, from the god Qotal, and Hishna, from Zaltec. Journey to the True World includes rules for creating Maztican characters, with races like desert dwarves, halflings, and humans.

It also features the Eagle Knight and Jaguar Knight warrior kits, which grant special armor and access to low-level Pluma or Hishna spells. Only artisans, a new rogue class, can learn the highest levels of these magics. The book also describes Maztican currency, armor, weapons, and spells.

Publication history

Douglas Niles and Tim Beach created the Maztica Campaign Set together. The original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set from 1987 had hinted that other continents existed on the world of Abeir-Toril, but gave no specifics. Niles had long pushed for a Mesoamerican-themed supplement for the Realms, a natural fit given his earlier work on the Celtic-inspired Moonshae Islands. It took him two years to get the green light.

First, he wrote a trilogy of novels about the discovery of this new land: Ironhelm, Viperhand, and Feathered Dragon. The Maztica Campaign Set came out three months after that trilogy ended. The continent itself is called Maztica, a blend of the names Maya and Aztec. Niles claimed the book was thoroughly researched and historically accurate, based on his visits to archaeological sites like the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, Tchitchin Itza, and Uxmal, plus multiple trips to Mexico's National Museum of Archaeology.

He deliberately included crusaders from Faerûn as a fantasy stand-in for conquistadors, saying he always thought conquistadors were the closest real-life equivalent to a D&D story, and he wanted to give that story a better ending. A PDF version of the set was released on the DMsGuild in 2016. In July 2020, Wizards of the Coast added a sensitivity disclaimer to digital sales of legacy products. This disclaimer appears twice on descriptions of books like Maztica and Al-Qadim that feature content resembling real-world cultures and races, acknowledging that some older content reflects prejudices that were wrong then and remain wrong today.

Reception

Back in 1992, Keith H. Eisenbeis gave the Maztica Campaign Set a 3 out of 5 in White Wolf. His final take: great for role-players, okay for problem solvers and action fans, but a letdown for power seekers. Years later, Scott Taylor of Black Gate looked back and felt the author, Douglas Niles, had a tough job blending a Mesoamerican land into the Forgotten Realms.