Empire of the Undying Sun - 5E and 1E

Empire of the Undying Sun is a 450+ page hardcover campaign guide fully compatible with 5E or 1E fantasy roleplaying games.

It's built for GMs and players who want long-form storytelling, challenging choices, and a world where the line between myth, nightmare, and reality constantly shifts.

This is a complete campaign from level 1 to 10, filled with hex and dungeon crawls, horror-themed rules, large-scale conflict, and unique mechanics like dreamwalking, wargaming, pressure mechanics and talent trees.

Campaign Overview

Empire of the Undying Sun is a massive, horror campaign guide and setting by Rising Phoenix Publishing. It details a campaign setting of South Bay, an up and coming town rife with cults and crime syndicates and the focus of wizards, the Great Ocean a terrifying stretch of water where unknown monsters live in the depths while pirates prowl the surface, and The Empire of the Undying Sun a desert nation so old its history is lost to time, worshipers of a single god who demands blood sacrifices and an old-school megadungeon: the dreaded Black Pyramid. 

Each major area is designed with flexible play styles to accommodate a storyline play approach, like the classic Dragon Lance series or a total sandbox complete with hex crawls and wandering monster tables. Each area has unique creatures, puzzles, treasures and dangers.

In total, the campaign guide is estimated to be 450-500 pages of incredible horror adventure! The book is gorgeously illustrated with traditional black-and-white interior artwork by a team of talented industry professionals including: Peter Gilmore, Rod Luper, Ang Hor Kheng and Yang Yan Zhao.

In order to enhance game play there are twelve adventure modules all set within the Empire of the Undying Sun’s lands. These modules are optional within the setting and each includes around 3-6 hours of game play.

Special guest writers on Adventure Modules include:

• Bill Silvey aka The Dungeon Delver (module writer for Gary Gygax)
• Viktor Gorchev aka The Scrying Dutchman (Ennie award wining author of Black Light and Modern Necessities)
• Rob Alderman aka Pulphummock Press (Ennie award winning author for the Gods of the Forgotten North series)
• And More!

Main Campaign Objectives

This Kickstarter campaign supports two main objectives:

• Release an AD&D 1E version of the world.
• Raising funds to cover more art work

This campaign is a catch up for anyone who missed last year’s campaign 5e (2014 and 2024) compatible version or were unable to back the additional game play modules. 

This year’s campaign also introduces an AD&D 1e compatible version of Empire of the Undying Sun. The adventure fits in easily into all classic AD&D settings and the new mechanics extend the play into new realms.

Empire of the Undying Sun serves as both a campaign guide and setting for a horror campaign where players must make difficult choices that will affect the fate of their world. Designed to give the feel of classic D&D adventures.

In a world long plagued by war faces a return of ancient conflict that shook the world. The gods now marshal their forces choosing heroes who can protect the iniquities of the current world or bring back the horrors of the old.

A calendaring system is used to keep track of the "adventure path," but there are random tables and plot hooks, perfect for playing a sandbox style game. Players need not strictly follow the story, and instead can pursue other threads and personal quests in the downtime between predetermined events, or even during them.

This book covers wild forests and swamps around South Bay. Levels 1-3 focus on growing tensions and strange happenings in the town along with its settlements, cultures, factions, and religions. Players start to dream where spirits speak to them of impending doom, and players will learn to travel the Dream Realm.

Level 4 reveals the fate of a mage's desire to defy the order of the gods and its consequences on every living soul. South Bay itself is designed and every building mapped so that the entire town and its sewer systems will become a giant battlefield when the undead rise find their master's desire in the town in Level 5.

The party will have swashbuckling adventures on the high seas as the head towards the Empire of the Undying Sun in Level 6. Death ever stalks them as they avoid a mad wizards experiments, pirate slavers and their own nation's navy.

The capital of the Empire, is a way point where the party runs afoul of the Priory of the Ram as some its members are confused for deities in level 7. They must then venture out through scorching desert, and sweltering jungles searching ancient cities for clues to the creation of the ingot. Level 8 continues with the hidden underground of the Drow. Level 9 is the maniacal megadungeon, The Black Pyramid. Its layout changes like a Rubik's cube. Players must choose which of the strange creatures that live in the pyramid to ally themselves with or go it alone They must align the pyramid in a decision that will affect the fate of the world forever. In Chapter 10 things come full circle in South Bay. Should the party raise an army to retake the town? Enter stealthily? Do they bring down the barriers between worlds or cement them in place forever?

Hex and Dungeon crawls

All of the outdoor areas in this campaign guide are fully mapped out in a traditional hex grids while dungeon maps are in classic 1in squares. Random encounter tables and numerous factions with conflicting goals make this a rich environment for lovers of early style hex and dungeon crawls.  There's even one megadungeon shaped like a pyramid that transforms.

Wargaming Rules

Dungeons and Dragons was originally an offshoot for the Chainmail tabletop wargaming rule system. We're bringing that back. As players level up in the campaign they will take on increasing responsibilities in the world around them. This will require the employment first of hirelings and later of units for combat. By levels 9 and 10 players will be able to send military units to seize territory, attack opponents and fortify allies.

This system can be used as much or as little as the players and DM likes. With random tables the process can be automated if players prefer a "hands off" approach.

Talent trees

A talent tree system that creates bonuses to skills in AD&D 1e and replaces feats (in 5e) in order to facilitate roleplaying. The tree allows players to choose enhancements to their skills which are based on their class choices. For example clerics may be skilled in religious matters may choose one of three paths: The Prophet, Inquisitor or Heritic. Choosing the Prophet gives bonuses to someone trying to convert others to his religion. The Inquisitor knows the ins and outs of religions opposed to his god. The Heretic has secret knowledge from his god to help him achieve his god's goals.

A new character class

The Empath is a class which has few powers of its own, but receives powers from creatures around it. An Empath regains hit points automatically each round. She is able to heal others by taking a wounded person's injuries onto herself. This ability grows as she increases in levels. Starting with simple wound healing she will eventually be able to cure poisons, restore missing or maimed body parts, cure diseases and even take on curses.

An Empath is also able to take abilities from others. By touching another creature it can steal an ability for a short time, for example taking a fighter's second wind or a dragon's fire breath. As the Empath increases her levels she will be able to copy abilities instead of stealing them.

Rules for the Dream Realm

Everyone goes to the Dream Realm when they sleep but often forget when they wake. It is possible for one creature to enter the dream of another. Gods often speak to people in their dreams. Not all dreams are pleasant though. Nightmares occur when creatures try to do you harm in your sleep.

The Dream Realm is a rule based system that allows for creatures to become your players' "Freddy Kruger" or allows your players to become someone else's boogiemen. These interactions can bleed over into the waking world.

Pressure System

This mechanic is used by DMs to ratchet up the tension and pressure on a party.

New monsters, items and more!

Empire of the Undying Sun boasts over 100 new creatures, numerous new items and spells.

Maps

All dungeons have black and white battle maps that are easy to print from the book or a separate downloadable "map pack" which can be imported into VTTs. There are battle maps for the entire town of South Bay and its sewer system. They are artful world maps for the area around South Bay, Firfaralas, and The Empire of the Undying Sun as a whole. Hex map versions of the world maps are also available for "hex crawl" style gaming. Every map is hand drawn.

Errata

There are also optional rule enhancements for grappling, tables for quickly creating deities and what players must do to worship them, delineations for arcane, divine, nature and science magics, adding levels of difficulty to play, optional rule changes to resting and dark vision and more to enhance your games.

Pledge Tiers

There are three tiers for this campaign: all digital, print and Adventure modules.  Each version will have the option for the D&D 5e or AD&D 1e edition.

Stretch Goals

• $20k upgrade poster sizes from 11"x17" to 18"x24"
• $25k New cover by Richard Witters (former art director for Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons).
• $50K a 13th Adventure module available to all backers.
• $60k Players Guides will have a print version for those who back print campaigns.

Adventure Modules

All of these are independent adventures meant to be 3-6 hours of table top fun. All of these adventures exist in the world of The Empire of the Undying Sun, but do not require any special knowledge or play mechanics. These adventures can easily be transferred to other settings. The adventure modules are all available in digital. Pdf format.

Some of these will be written by the author of Empire of the Undying Sun, but others are written by guest authors. The first three modules will be Faery Hill, The Willow Sisters and Rat King. These were written by Bill Silvey, aka The Dungeon Delver, who wrote modules for Gary Gygax. Others guest authors include Ennie Award winners Robert Alderman (Gods of the Forbidden North) and Viktor Gorchev (Modern Necessities, Amo Box).

Modules include:

• The Rat King lvl 2-4 (Bill Silvey)
• The Willow Sisters lvl 3-4 (Bill Silvey)
• Raid the Wizard’s Tower lvl 10 (Yang Yan Zhao)
• Wager at the Gilded Hippo lvl 7 (Yang Yan Zhao)
• The Isle of Women lvl 6-10 (Yang Yan Zhao)
• The Haunting Wastes lvl 8-9 (Yang Yan Zhao)
• The Grim Forage lvl 6-7 (Yang Yan Zhao)
• More to come!

Shipping and Fulfillment

We aim to start shipping the digital and physical versions by the summer 2026.

Digital Rewards

Digital rewards will be distributed through our Shopify account. There backers can download campaign guides, maps and adventure modules (if applicable) and any updates to those files.

May need more technical jargon on how this works with Shopify

Physical Rewards

Physical rewards will be shipped to the backer when the digital rewards go live.  We anticipate shipping to start in summer 2026.  The delivery time for each package will depend on the backer's location.

About Us

Rising Phoenix Publishing focuses on bring old school sensibilities to modern gaming. We are a publishing company whose goal is to give a classic sense of adventure, action, fun and even a bit of romance to gaming, comics and books.

Rising Phoenix Publishing is a division of Rising Phoenix Enterprises LLc.

Empire of the Undying Sun is written by Yang Yan Zhao (founder of Rising Phoenix Publishing). Yan Zhao has been many things over the years including designer, small business owner, professor, kung-fu master, and doctor. He has yearned to make games since his first attempt to make a board games with a friend at 16. Thirty some years later Empire of the Undying Sun was born. And yes he does look like Imhotep.

INTERVIEWS WITH Yang Yan Zhao

Check out the latest interviews about Empire of the Undying Sun with Rising Phoenix Publishing's, Yang Yan Zhao, at the links below: