Thanks guys! What you may not realize is that I'm ethnically an Irish/Scot and half Japanese, so my first two settings were both inspired by my heritage. Kaidan - based on my mother's side, and a long love of Japanese ghost stories, and now Keld, my Celtic influenced setting.

I wanted to create a world that represented the Age of Heroes, the time when all the old cycles and sagas were born, tales like Sigurd, Beowulf and Cuchulain, even Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. The time before history when the old tales were oral traditions only. The Celts are a huge culture and language group that were identifiable from early Bronze age, up to the current era.

My first premise for a 'D&D' game what elements could I toss in to change the flavor to be more ancient in feel than a more typical medieval or renaissance flavored campaign world. Although Celts are educated and can learn to read, as a culture the religion forbids the recording of sacred rituals (including spells), clan/tribal history, the arts and sciences - which means the Celts are essentially illiterate.

No written word, means no spellbooks. Since the Celts did develop the Ogham rune 'writing' system, I decided to allow for a rune-casting wizard class, so I created a Runemaster class loosely based on the Pathfinder Witch. The bards of the setting use runes as well for spellcasting. I've also created a prestige class called the Myrddon who is an artificer in ink, he creates rune and knotwork permanent spells that can be 'activated' by its wearer or last continuously like magic armor - many magic items of the setting are tattoos placed by myrddon.

My big shocker is that Druid is removed from the class list. The setting definitely needs a Celtic Druid, but I felt that the 3e/Pathfinder Druid was much more a shifter, and much less a classic Celtic druid. So I'm using the Oracle class as the basis of the setting's druid. 'Druid' itself is now a Trait, acquired by all the 'educated' members of clan society to include: bard, oracle, myrddon, runemaster, sorcerer and witch. The oracle is the setting's only divine caster.

From the Celtic class lists I've also removed these: cleric, fighter, monk and paladin. The first two classes are represented by the Mycenaean/Etruscan city-states culture in the south, considered 'foreigners' to the Celts that populate the setting (player characters are Celts, not Greeks.) The latter two classes don't belong at all.

The fighter is replaced by the Clan Warrior who I consider a 'precusor martial class' having aspects of ranger, fighter and rogue in its design and ancestral bloodline powers. There are ? Celtic bloodlines each with its own set of Skill Focus bonus feats, new skills, bloodline powers of both extraordinary and supernatural abilities, as well as preferred weapons. Some fight as cavalry, some as pirates, some footmen raiders, while some have affinities with wild beasts, fey beings or oceanic beasts.

Most PCs will be family, being from the same clan - siblings, cousins, in-laws, or adopted family. Available races are Keld (Celts), Ceran (Greeks), ? (Germans), Pict (dwarves), Sidhe (elves), and Half-Sidhe. Halflings and gnomes exist but are considered fey beings and are not an allowed PC race.

Many of the other realms of the Celtic expanse are like the 2e Birthright setting with Awnshegh, which are the paragons of their respective monster races as rulers of monstrous domains, including a winter werewolf, a winter hag (ruler of giants and ogres), a fey princess and several others.

I'm planning on creating a full 6 module Adventure Path and a Setting Handbook, so this is very early in development, writing for the adventures might begin later this year.

GP