BIRTHRIGHT Box Set (1995): Collector Guide to AD&D’s “Kings” Campaign

Before TSR’s precipitous collapse in 1996, there was a lucid period of sheer creativity. A number of AD&D’s most interesting modules and campaigns released in the prior couple of years. Among them was BIRTHRIGHT.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons conceived a high level campaign as “Domain Play”. It was assumed that name level player characters would establish strongholds and territories, half-retired from adventuring. The Players Handbook set out rules by class for castles, towers, & guild halls, which would in turn attract followers. The Dungeon Masters Guide further developed this for the DM, with guides to building fortifications and clearing territories of monsters.

I suspect that only a fraction of players fully-engaged in this type of high level campaign. But domain play was an integral part of the RPG nonetheless.

Birthright – much as the Night Below campaign brought the Underdark to low-level players – made domain play central to its campaign world. The PCs could be Kings in a world where a noble’s “bloodline” was an actual thing. “Blooded” rulers had special abilities and the very real authority of divine right to rule their domains.

Though demihumans and monsters existed, Birthright was centered on the humans. It was a version of D&D closer to the medieval source material.

The Birthright box was an elaborate (and expensive!) production

Richard Baker relates at his blog:

I more or less took on the lead writer role. Among other things, I’m a history buff and I played a lot of historical board games. The Domain Rules were heavily influenced by our office lunchtime games of the old SPI game Empires of the Middle Ages. I also had an unpublished fantasy world (my first attempt at writing a novel) which became the Anuirean Empire in the setting. Colin took point on the other cultures and filled in a lot of the Ruins of Empire book. Many other people pitched in with ideas or helped with playtesting—for example, Jeff Grubb suggested the idea of gods dying and leaving behind divine bloodlines. Tony Szczudlo created that epic cover painting. Editors Anne Brown and Sue Weinlein wrangled the sprawling manuscript. And it all came together. The Birthright Campaign Setting wound up winning an Origins Award in 1995.

One of the strange things about Birthright is that the boxed set was stuffed with components … including things that Colin and I struggled to find a use for. We had cardstock reference handouts, a card deck, even a folding box to hold the cards that we didn’t know what to do with. No one seemed worried about the cost of goods, so we shrugged and did our best. I created the Battle Card system (a miniatures game in disguise) to use the cards and give the DM a way to play out big battles. But I wouldn’t have included them in the boxed set if anyone had asked me.

We learned later that the lavish components made the boxed set unprofitable. Why our purchasing department didn’t throw up a red flag, I couldn’t say. The Birthright Campaign Setting had a print run of about 45,000 copies (or so I heard), and each one was printed at a small loss. A Dark Sun-sized print run might have reached a better place with the cost per unit, but that didn’t happen. The run sold out, and because it was unprofitable TSR never printed more—we just don’t know how many they could have sold.

There are indeed many parts ‘n pieces to the Birthright set. Sometimes they’re missing, or cards from the Birthright accessory sets mixed in. With a nice set passing through the shop, it was time to document everything in photos.

Birthright Campaign Setting [BOX SET]

CONTENTS:
• The Atlas of Cerilia: 32 pages detailing the history and features of the continent.
• The BIRTHRIGHT Rulebook: 96 pages of information on royal-blooded characters, governing kingdoms, and the Cerilian pantheon.
• The Ruins of Empire book: 96 pages describing kingdoms waiting to be conquered.
• Two poster maps illustrating the lands of Cerilia.
• A Battle Mat and 112 War Cards for resolving all types of military clashes, plus a custom-built War Chest for storing the cards.
• A four-panel DM Screen specifically for BIRTHRIGHT campaigns.
• Twelve card sheets packed with handy reference material and descriptions of major enemies.

1995 … L. Richard Baker III & Colin McComb … TSR 3100 … ISBN 0786901438

Check Wayne’s Books Inventory

Noble Knight | Amazon | DriveThruRPG (PDF)

Birthright has a surprisingly large product line. See the full catalog over at my classic RPG Reference site.

Box

Atlas of Cerilia (TSR 3100XXX1901, 32 pages)

Note the full-color pages. This was uncommon for an RPG of the 90s.

Rulebook (TSR 3100XXX1902, 96 pages)

Ruins of Empire (TSR 3100XXX1903, 96 pages)

Maps

Continent Map (3100XXX0701)

Region Map (3100XXX0702)

Battle Mat (3100XXX0703)

Cards (112)

The card sheets do have TSR coding from 3100XXX0601 to 3100XXX0614.

If your cards are punched, fortunately for you, they are numbered. And if some of those accessory set cards are mixed in, they have their own coding.