Ae'rinus Unleashed

Cultural Bits from Dirulea circa 1430s

2010-01-12T23:24:00.002-05:00

As I worked my way through editing the first pass of the Shadowman project, I began collecting various bits of cultural information that dropped into the story. Here's the first of what I hope to be several dumps of strange cultural oddities flowing forth from the project:

Sayings

King’s Coat – trans. What the hell? A very old local saying common among people of the common class and dissenters from the king. King Edward III was well known for having extravagant coats made of platinum, gems and the like when his subjects withered under one of the worst droughts of recorded history.
For the love of Jenks -- Rae'lan local hero similar usage to "for Pete's Sake." Jenks Filhaenny lived in southern Rae'Lan and successfully managed pacts between Rae'Lan and Scrattston to unite against Dirulea in the early days of takeover. During those times, Scrattston was interested in Dirulean alliance due to trade route possibilities, but Jenks managed to open more commerce between the northern and southern clans and end centuries' long feuds between the two peoples of the island.
The Sticks -- "Yah. Los inna wood. Sun settin. Hungry wolves at yer heels. Inna Sticks." To a city person, like Nigel (in his youth), The Sticks can be a pretty scary place. So comparing things to the sticks sets a pretty vivid image in most citydwellers' minds.
Ain't got squid - trans. ain't got shit. There are lots of small useless squid that come up in the fishing nets of fishermen in Portsmouth bay. They're very plentiful and useless. So if a fisherman ain't got squid, he's having a very bad day indeed.
Sweete Marion -- Heroine and martyr from countless Na'Claadi tales. Marion was a gypsy that stood against Dirulean (in older versions Scraeton) forces in order to protect children from their cruelties. She sacrificed her body to their perversions so that they would leave the children alone. A Venereal Disease, Marion's Mark, is also attributed to her resulting in a series of painful red lesions around the genitalia said to resemble lash marks from a whip or scourge. It is a disease that only manifests in males, leaving females as dormant carriers.

Cultural things

Elven Glowstone -- activated by Shishelae Neraia Faen. Chant words and rub stone's surface.
Red Pox – Venereal Disease affecting only women. Though to be curable with high doses of Mercury, but actually goes into periods of dormancy. Eventually leads to death. Symptoms include, fever, redness of the eyes, heavily bleeding wounds (due to thinned blood and damaged clotting mechanism), and splotchy red patches of skin. Men can act as carriers.
Clockstopper -- slang for bomb. Usually crude gunpowder bombs, they got their name for their notoriously short fuses and high explosive power. so the story goes a clockstopper went off once and blew out the clock mechanism four blocks away from the concussion.
Baldruican Mace-It was popular two hundred years ago before Black Iron was fully applied in armors. This particular Baldruican mace had at least one broken spine, but the other three jutted with rusty anger at ninety degree angles from each other. Part pick, part mace and now mixed with rust, completely deadly.
Springtime in Dirulea - cadet knights from Cardriff come up to down for R&R--kind of wreck the place for a 5 days
Some Herbs: wortsblood, bonnetgrave, starling nettle, asp gall

Acid Water: Traditionally served in a cold iron cup.
The Moonsong -- An Elven ship captured by the Diruleans in the 1420s and refit as a cargo vessel. Loaded with magic light rocks
McSweeney's Dagger -- fat single edge nearly a foot long backed in brass with a deeply cut and sharpened clip as well as a solid but nicked s-curve crossbar

Telling Time

12AM - 2AM: Dark Watch (Maritime)

12AM - 3AM 2nd Watch (Military)
12AM - 4AM: Deadman's watch

2AM - 4AM: Bleak Watch (Maritime)

3AM - 6AM: 3rd Watch (Military)

4AM - 6AM: Crow's Watch (Maritime)
4AM - 8AM: Shadow Watch

6AM - 9AM: 4th Watch (Military)
8AM - 12PM: Dawn Rise

9AM - 12PM: 5th Watch (Military)

12PM - 3PM: 6th Watch (Military)
12PM - 4PM: Midday watch

3PM - 6PM: 7th Watch (Military)
4PM - 8PM: Dusk Fall

6PM - 9PM: 8th Watch (Military)

8PM - 12AM: Darkman's Watch

9PM - 12AM: First Watch (Military)

Months (days per month)
1 Frostblade (30)
2 Knightsdeath (30)
3 Knightsbirth (30)
4 Flowerguard (30)
5 Risingguard (35)
6 Wardawn (35)
7 Midsummer (35)
8 Firestroke (35)
9 Redleaf (30)
10 Fallenguard (30)
11 Barrenwood (30)
12 Torchlight (30)

Days

1. Vecks

2. Aenner

3. Morden

4. Laertz

5. Sylvie

Figures from Nigel's Past: Robert McKee

2009-10-15T23:53:00.003-04:00

As work on the Shadowman project continues, here's a character sketch I did for Robert McKee--The man that teaches a young 9 year old Nigel to read (and yes, I am thinking in D&D stats [2nd ed though]).

Robert McKee--Male, human smuggler, lvl 8. Age 37 Ht 5'7" wt 128. Greying brown hair with a very scraggly beard. Has the beginnings of a bald spot and very rotten teeth--missing half of the teeth on the upper right side of his mouth.

He carries a broadsword, but not very accomplished with it--more for intimidation factor. He also owns an El Tierran wheellock horse musket, which he uses occasionally on high profile runs. He's a native of Darkepoole. Not married but very fond of Aerie, a 20 something whore from Lady A's brothel on Firth St who also waits tables at The Wall. He often talks of buying her permanently.

McKee is an outspoken heretic of the Dirulean crown--highly critical of the Dirulean Knights and King Edward IX.

He got his start into smuggling abetting in the transport of stolen tax monies to Scrattston and Rae'lan. Since then he has moved into smuggling liquor and documents. He's always looking for documents incrementing the state, and has an impressive library.

McKee belongs to a small guild of rogues and dissidents, The Knights of Darkepoole. While not quite organized enough to qualify as a thief guild, they are a very tightly knit group that works to free wronged people before execution, disrupt the Dirulean state, and attempt to overthrow the government in general. To do this they employ extortion, protection rackets, banditry, theft, trespassing, and even murder.

McKee acts as a sort of captain within the guild, and is largely in charge of liquidating all stolen goods. He has close contacts with several smugglers including: Alison Wash, Brendon Stark, Finian ApMordren, Chas Black, and Quick Jonny Quink.

Nigel Caedman Character Bio and Brief History

2009-10-13T22:28:00.004-04:00

I wrote this, mmm, probably back in 2002ish and it became the impetus for a series of vignettes called the Fractured Tales. The original idea, which I'm now currently re-envisioning for the novel project, was to write stories of others' telling about Nigel's life--very much ala Chuck Palahaniuk's Rant (except I thought of it long before Rant was published or I knew who Palahaniuk was). In the interest of the current project, I've added some detail through most of Nigel's timeline to current.

Homeland: Darkepoole Dirulea
Birth Date: April 8, 1429
Appearance:

Eyes: Brown, discolored, blue left eye, with large scar running from about center of forehead through eye and then down to about even with bottom of his nose.
Hair: His hair ranges in length, but is usually short or close shaved. Often peppered with silver nowadays.
Apparel: He usually dresses in black, but has been known to wear red or white tunics from time to time.
Other Identifying marks: He walks with a swagger. He usually wears a black bandanna. Black goatee, and usually a few days' stubble. He has a slightly twisted nose. In 1594 or 1595 his left hand was reduced to blackened charred bone, almost to the elbow--from then on he wore a glove to cover the wound. Sometime in the early 1600s, Layil healed his arm back to its original state.
Accent: One of his key gameplay features is his accent, which originally was modeled on a sort of Americanized Hollywood cockney (I was about 15 when I first created Nigel, and modeled his accent off [I can't belive I'm going to publish this] Kano from the freaking Mortal Kombat movie), but then through lots of practice and endless watching of Snatch modulated into more of a Alan Ford, Bricktop style cockney, where I've tried to start incorporating actual rhyming slang as well. On Ae'rinus, Nigel's accent is a sort of mash between standard Dirulean and the Na'Claad dialect (a gypsy clan hailing from Rae'lan).

Nigel is perhaps one of the oldest existing NPCs on Ae'rinus. As mentioned above, I think I was about 15 when I created him. Originally he was an NPC to be rescued by Nek Nitram when the Solostarathan sent Nek to Avernuss (to die). The main NPC that Nek was travelling with at the time, Meythallis of Dark Skye (a Shallis Elf fighter/mage, I think), was a total dud. And I remember whipping up Nigel to give a jolt of Energy to the campaign. It worked. Nek ended up pushing Meythallis to the background, and Nigel and Nek became very close travelling companions. For many years Nigel considered Nek and the Wolf Pack (Nek's Party) as one of the best times of his life.

Let's Start with the history (mind you I am rewriting and expanding some, so if Nigel told you different, he was drunk at the time).

Birth and Childhood: Nigel was born in the early 1400s in a rather large fishing and trade town called Darkepoole in southern Dirulea. His father originally was of a higher ranking position, Head Guard of the North Gate, until he was removed and tried for treason, but released. His father quickly descended into the bottle, and left young Nigel, his two brothers, and their mother to fend for their own on a measly stipend earned from the rotting beet plot they owned just outside of town.

By Nigel's 9th birthday, his father had been in and out of Common Jail numerous times, and ceased visiting the family. His mother had descended into whoredom to deal with the whole situation, and passed away some few months later. His other two brothers William, and Owen, fought constantly, and Nigel had little patience for their constant insolence. He left his two brothers to fend on their own one month after the death of their mother.

Stealing to all Dirulean youths within the cities was second nature, so Nigel had little trouble keeping himself fed during the following years. He kept to the streets until the next summer, where he signed onto a transport galleon servicing Rae' Lan Island. Though he rather enjoyed the sea life, the captain had him removed from the ship after only one voyage for 'constant drunkenness.

Around this time, Nigel began to become keenly aware of the political mess that Dirulea resided within. Being smarter than your average Dirulean, Nigel never quite bought into the tales and stories told to him at a young age about the superiority of the Dirulean state. He began to look around and very soon noticed the massive depths of corruption in every entity of the city. Citizens were practically banned from all manners of intellectualism, and private ownership. The government ensured that any upstarts, free thinkers, or entrepreneurs were quickly put down. He taught himself the written Terrak language, as well as various methods of entering buildings without using doors. Soon, after poring through various judicial log books, he began to understand the massive scope of Dirulean abuse.

By the age of 15 his contempt for the government had grown to great proportions, great enough to have guards called to his attention. He spent three months in jail the summer of 1444 for "plotting against the Government." He escaped shortly before his would be execution.

Around this time, he decided it imperative to teach himself some manner of protection, since he was quickly becoming a wanted criminal. He stowed away on a ship to Rae' Lan island, where Dirulean officials were not as observant, and began to travel about with the Na' Claad gypsies. The gypsies were a well known for their political assassinations, and ability to avoid arrest.

He spent about two years with the gypsies, during which he entertained a short blissful time with a girl by the name of Faye. The girl was a servant to a Dirulean Governor's wife, and was tortured and scarred by the governor, after her tryst was discovered (servants were not allowed to mingle with outsiders). Enraged, Nigel exacted the same scarring to the governor's wife, and torched his estate. Plagued by Dirulean Knights, Nigel boarded a ship for Darkepoole, on Spring Equinox 1447.

Back in Darkepoole, Nigel came across a document stating that his father had been removed from his position due to the mere whim of a higher ranking knight. Around this time Nigel began to organize an underground movement to eliminate the corruption within Darkepoole as well as it's sister town, Carraughton in Rae' lan. He along with five others, Mary "Black Ivory" Duckett, Jonas Harrold, Timothy "the blade" MacDerny, Joshua "The Mark", and Marlowe Ambrose began a faction known as the South Dirulean Trade Agency (yes a fictional company), and began querying local nobles and other members of power for various backing possibilities. They embezzled some estimated 200,000 gold before they were shut down in 1449. Nigel and Marlowe were the only two members who survived the raid on their south shore complex. During its period of running, Nigel had developed close, lasting relationships with both Mary and Jonas, and furthermore, their deaths drove Nigel to the brink of insanity, which would eventually lead to his well known nervous tick whenever talks of killing come up.

Marlowe parted from Nigel after the dissolution of the company, under terms of mutual agreement, and died in 1480, a very rich man.

Nigel, plotted for vengeance. He began to case each mansion, each estate, each townhouse, of every noble involved with any manner of lawmaking in the city. In August of 1449, he began his Murdering spree, known as the Blood Rains of Darkepoole. Through the summer of 1450, he killed over 45 government officials, some 30 Dirulean Knights, and nearly 20 supporters of the Dirulean Government. He was eventually arrested in July of 1450, and sent to the lowest levels of Cadamire Dungeon, the country's most nefarious prison. He was deemed too horrible to be given the honor of a quick death, and therefore allowed to rot with the rats for the rest of eternity.

However, fortunately (depending on how you look at it), the Solostarathan had caught wind of Nigel's feats, and sent in a squad of elves to break Nigel out of the clink. They escorted him to Gwendollewen where he was received as a national hero. Mind you that Nigel, being much more liberated than your average Dirulean, was still no giant fan of the elves, but mainly because they had "piss poor alcohol, and their women were a bit waifish." so anyway, Nigel was inducted as one of the first non-elven members of the Solostarathon in over 50 years.

Of course, there were many within the society that thought ill of this induction, and one in particular, Anton Silvestri, was particularly against the idea of non-elves participating in the society, and had Nigel shipped off on a mission to Avernuss. Nigel would spend two years there before he was rescued by Nek and Meythallis of Darkskye.

After Nek took care of the Silvestri element, Nigel was inseparable from Nek. The two of them spent the next few years traveling together, in the legendary "Wolf Pack" party, with other big names as Cain Braellic, Gwenith Oemorium, Mar' ii Nitram, Steele Firehammer, and Straker Decorum. Nigel participated in the coming of the gods prophesy in 1454, and subsequently disappeared from Ae'rinus until 1590.

In 1590, Nigel appeared, disoriented and worse for the wear on the south eastern coast of Ikathia. Shortly after his reappearance, Layil claimed Nigel as her chosen one, and over the next couple years he was seen wandering all over the continent, ending up in Resbon in 1592.

In 1592, Nigel surfaced in Malise as the patron of Layil and compatriot of Tokogau Ito. He aided Tokogau in removing the Falcon Knights thief guild from the city, asserting Sharde's control of Malise. Nigel hung around for a bit and then traveled onward, partly in search of Nek, and partly to find his life again.

After the events that had separated him from Nek and the others, Nigel found himself greatly alone, and without a true ideology. The first year or so was ok, since he was under the direction of Layil, but once Tokogau ceded the position, he found himself in a large world, massively changed from its former days. He still harbored distaste for the Dirulean empire, but he had no drive to return to that wretched country to do anything about it. He had little care for Maxwell's often obscured motives, and therefore no reason to return to Gwendollewen. He made a couple trips to Riversedge, and talked to Cain, who had settled and opened an adventuring guild. He also did some traveling through Drachmaar, Liel, Maridia, and finally back to Resbon, a country, that he had taken quite a liking to. During these years of travel, he found himself in contact with many adventuring parties. He often tagged along with them, whether they liked it or not, for something to do, another voice to talk to.

In 1598, Nigel found himself in Malise yet again, where he met off-worlders: Cersee Nailo, Talon, Illiania, and their wolf Okami. Nigel took a liking to the stubborn half-celestial Cersee, and began following them. Shortly after, they fought a pack of demons in Reshe and decided that the demons under Drevissh needed to be stopped. At that point, everyone broke up and Nigel headed to Riversedge to investigate rumors of expanding Tuergeon influence.

In Riversedge, Nigel, Nek and their Adventurer's guild (founded by former Wolf Pack member, Cain Braellic), helped organize the merchants guilds to stand up against invasion when the Brendian government collapsed.

Shortly before the summer solstice of 1600 (the day that Magic fell and the sky burned), Nigel regained his favored status by Layil when he defeated Averon's attempts of possessing another of his travelling companions, Stormchaser. During this confrontation, Nigel's left arm was charred to the bone nearly to his elbow. He would wear this scar for several years before Layil tired of his disfigurement and healed it.

Around the time of the 1600 solstice, the first of two successive Gods' wars began. And, as a chosen one of Layil, Nigel was subjected to many waves of assassins from Terrasond.

By 1601 Nigel and Nek help Riversedge achieve independence, founding itself as a free city-state.

In 1602 Nigel, Nek, and Cersee defeat Tokogau Ito in Malise, Resbon. Afterwards, Nigel and Cersee marry and establish a residence in Rae'lan.

After Cersee and Nigel Married, the two became involved with a number of things from the 2nd Gods' War, to raising children, to establishing a guild, The Phoenix Moon, to protecting Dirulea's stability under King Philip, to finally ascending to the ranks of the gods themselves.

This man has little societal loyalties, can kill in an instant, but is greatly devoted to anyone who will spend a dime, buy a drink and hear his story. He's a traveler, assassin, thief, rogue straight through. Prior to Cersee, he has had every love of his life systematically and irrevocably ripped from him, yet he continually searches for another person, another brother, sister, wife, lover, to be a good ole chum and buy 'im a drink.

For fun, here are Nigel's Character stats circa 1598
Character Stats
Level 17, HP: 68 AC 2 (Mithral chain hauberk, dex)
Str 18/50
Dex 17
Con 14
Int 17
Wis 10
Cha 10
Nigel is considered a Grand Master at Daggers
Languages: Terrak (read/write as well), Calic, Nieven, Dräk, Braek, Roslic (read only)
Nigel is the current "Chosen One" of Layil. He is bestowed the following abilities based on that status:
full night vision (off-color eye glows)
Line of Sight Teleportation 2x/day
Invisibility in shadow at will
Unlock any door 1/day
Items of Interest:
Teeth of Drammarr (function as daggers +2 impaling)
Sword of Souls (destroys regenitive abilities, charged by Layil, can smite (slay) 1x/month)
Mithral Chain Hauberk (AC 5)
Straker's Belt of Everfull Daggers (stolen from Straker) Daggers cause little initial damage, but do cumulative damage until removed, when they actually do real damage (i.e. dagger left in for 3 rnds will do 3 dmg on pullout)

Oh Hai! Sorry for the delay

2009-10-11T01:53:00.002-04:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted here, but as mentioned on my primary blog, I'm in the process of building up the state of the Ae'rinus estate in preparation for the novel about Nigel.
Speaking of,

Here's an old story written about Nigel shortly after his Bloody attack on Darkepoole.

Quiet was that morn, three buildings still ablaze.
Those roads, stood thick, silent, half-drowned in mid-summer’s mud,
while slate cloth whipped at the mailed guards of th’ gate.
Six they stood, yet five more laid to rest,
giving their lives over to that greedy mud.
Only their families will notice an absence at the dinner table, but to what end?
Their palates certainly harden; mold becomes a viable necessity,
while father sleeps on duty.

O Darkened morn, the type not even the most blottered ‘d venture.
A morn so dry of life, th’ fires on Bilk St., Amber St., Arc St. seem all the less cold.
So soddin’ dry that th’ clink clink an’ th’ rough calls fro’ that dread party
did split the smoggy skies, split as if ‘twere th’ sun (not that it is oft seen),
split us all with that blasted, fearful axe of oppression.

Six knights about one white pawn dress’d black
and bearing th’ wooden pile ‘cross ‘is back.
No deft hands shall loose th’ bonds ‘round his bony wrists.
No brave sod’ll free that barrow man; those briny bloods,
deftest at th’ draw, bars of “justice,” said haughtily, him surround.
Birds of a feather, birds of a feather, why not flock together?
Where for art that bloody boxman?
Boxman, boxman, break that lock.
Slide swift forward, sharpen sweet spines,
still their thirst in that bloody brine.

But yet no bird did squawk, not finch, not swallow, not wren,
but to their nests didst they fly.
Go Hide! Go Hide! Was their cry.
Go hide, go hide, oh, ye knaves of little faith.
Ye knights of the post, gallows birds, sops, nappers, ark ruffians, and filchers.
You cracksmen, foists, made men, moon cursers, and anglers.

Do ye not see what ‘e did for thee?
Why then do you fly, go hide, while e’ll be thrown in the wooden ruff,
dragged of to th’ queer ken, tort’red and beat?
What will you say when ‘e catches hempen fever?
Will ye understand then, what this white pawn done?

None but silent eyes heard that mud-sotted pawn
led by the slate clothed myrmidons,
the rusted bars of “Justice,” a hollow triumph for this oak stripp’d hamlet.
Methinks ye blottered birds, soon realize the shiny trappings
that lie unguarded under these smoke ridden docks.
And who doth ye attribute for this extra clink?
Yea none but that barrow pawn, that noble blood,
for whom ye owe newfound wealth,
for whom ye owe this shaved hierarchy,
shaved by that verray pawn,
barrow man,
blood,
to whom ye didst not help.

How dare ye sit to gain fro’ ‘is loss?
‘Tis life, ‘tis said. ‘tis as crying beef to your brother,
your flock; would ye dare that misfortune?
What repugnance faces yon wretches?
Wretched birds. A pox upon your flock!
May yon upright man find his wine too sweet this night!
For I find no ken in this wretch no more!
Yon place in the deadbook is reserved, may’t be a pleasant entry.

-Marlowe-
-Posted upon the door of Arcan Mather’s Thief Guild, Mid-summer 15, year 1440.

Moving Onward -- with Timelines

2006-04-18T07:46:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've been doing a lot of work over on the Ae'rinus Wiki. And in doing so, I found myself updating the Running Timeline for Ae'rinus from about 1609 into the 1660s. Granted, adventures have pretty much littered bits of that timeline up into the early 1650s, but adding additional years, for me, felt pretty liberating. I guess this needs a little more backstory to make sense.

When I first Built Ae'rinus, it was under a different name, Nedidith (we're skipping the Meredridith part, since that map was about as horrible as my DMing at the time). I started adventures on Nedidith in the 1450s I think. Back then, adventures really didn't follow the timeline, and we didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the months, but we gamed on that version of the world for about 4 game years, while I worked on the revision of the map. Originally, I had wanted to hold off on releasing the new map until it was finished, but that was a silly idea from the get go, so once Ae'rinus got released, it came with a new timeline, which jumped into the late 1580s. The time jump here was mainly inserted to give the continent a sufficient amount of time to recover from its crash landing onto a new prime.

With the new world and the new timeline, I began working far mor dilligently in fleshing out the countries and lands of Ae'rinus. Histories were fleshed out, and I began looking at the polotics of everything in addition to just adventuring. Everything began to fit into a global perspective, so I began taking more careful note of the progression of time.

We probably ran seven or eight campaigns that started in 1593 and advanced onward. The two most successful of them eventually dovetailed together to form the world changing events of 1600, as they documented the Rise and fall of two great villains: Drevissh and Tokogau Ito.

Once 1600 hit and had passed, campaign start times became more erratic. I took the characters' backgrounds into account and tried to decide whether having them live through the fall of magic would be more impacting to the world than living through its aftermath.

When I began playing with starting timelines in this manner, I started to realise that knowing what's going to happen on a global scale ahead of things is a pretty nice thing. Granted, your players will also know what will happen, but all my players are vetran role players, and none of them use metagaming tactics to benefit their characters.

So when I was updating the timeline yesterday, I put in a few extra years worth of world activities, and I'm sure in the upcoming campaigns, this extra bit of history will prove to develop quite a nice world story.

Ae'rinus Wiki Created

2006-01-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

Today marks the launch of the new Ae'rinus Wiki . It will be the source of all new Ae'rinus Material and hopefully promote more updates from my end. Check it out.

Ecological Development

2006-01-19T10:50:00.000-05:00

The last few issues of Johnn Four's Roleplaying Tips have run a little piece on building histories for various critters that you don't normally think about building histories for when you're worldbuilding. The example they gave was for orkish history, which got me thinking a lot about the ecology of the less civilized critters on Ae'rinus.

Ae'rinus, being the turbid world that it is, has seen massive changes in location and magic over the last two millenia. Therefore, the world is still largely in a state of flux in regards to its ecological stability. Humans and elves have prospered and covered much of the surface land, and intelligent humanoid monsters are comparatively rare. The goblinoid races, though still plentiful enough to worry about are largely in decline due to their inability to adapt to the harsh environmental changes that have occurred upon Ae'rinus (Prime Material Plane -> Ethereal Plane -> New Prime Material Plane. Also the Age of Terror, destruction of Que'Taan and Arconia, and the recent fall of magic in 1600 all are key factors). Most Goblinoid races have pulled as far from civilized society as possible; they live in the deep dark forests, hills, wastelands and mountain passes that fill the space between countries. Goblinoids do have potential to rise up to a more powerful position if they were to unify. Unity nearly happened in the Balok mountains near Drachmaar during the late 1590s; however, the demonic insurgance brought on by Drevissh sundered most of the tribes, killing many to near extinction.

Since the fall of magic, there have been an increased occurance of magically altered beings, especially hybrid creatures. Many wizards were physically transformed by the fall of magic, and those that survived the transformations have begun to reproduce, creating new races and "monster" types throughout the land. The wild lands west of Ikathia, particularly, are full of such abominations. About 35% of the new "monsters" retained their intelligence (with others becoming animalistic in their behavior), and may or may not be reasoned with.

The abomination process seems to have been somewhat dependant upon the local terrain and the wizard's previous spell knowledge. One such area that has been the focus of particular study is the River region heading westward into Ikathia from Mercacci. Many took on the appearance of Naga, lizardmen, goblins, cockatrice, or living plant matter. Other variations have been noted. These races are new introductions to the river ecosystem, and, strangely, they seem to be living in perfect concert without destroying the surrounding nature. Sages believe that since magic was elven in creation, and thus tied closely to nature, when it fell out of the sky, it forced certain "nature friendly" modifications upon the landscape.

On Reviving Magic

2006-01-05T13:28:00.000-05:00

First a little history:
In the year 1600, the mainstay form of magic on Ae'rinus, Elven based magic, ceased to exist. Its delicate matrix of stability and support was quickly and permanently dismantled by a lich greatly wronged by elven magic. In the last forty years of Ae'rinus' history, thaumatergic magic has been virtually eradicated. Only a few small sects remain, and those remain only because they held on to the ancient arts of the Arconian Wizards, who were summarily destroyed in the late 1100s. In the meantime, divine magic, and faith in the gods on a whole has increased dramatically. Partially from the influx of now ex-mages in search of ansers that turned to Kaeleb, god of magic (among other things), and partially from a series of Gods Wars waging between the two dominating Pantheons of Ae'rinus and Terrasond respectively.

Although apparently gone, many sages and former wizards knew that the magic, though now stripped from the air, still remained somewhere in another form. Research on discerning the new form of magic went essentially nowhere until 1641, when a pair of researchers found that the so called "wizard rocks," as named by Helena, chosen servant of Halisos, could be used to create a particularly volitile reaction. This reaction, however, killed the researchers, and it would be another year before it was repeated with similar disasterous results. Once this reaction was verified, various sources around Riversedge began scrambling to be the first to create stable magic. In 1643, the Brotherhood of the Raven successfully mimicked a Light spell. In the process, the group learned much about how the fallout of magic affected the current generation of humans upon Ae'rinus. Many were bore with innate magic coursing through their veins; magic that they could bend and use to their advantage. By the end of the year, The BloodRaven school of Magic appeared in Mercacci, Ikathia.

Mechanics

I wanted to make the rediscovery of magic to be a very exciting thing, so I put a fair amount of thought into how it would get pulled off in gameplay. I started with the decision that I wanted my player to be very specific in all her statements regarding magical research. I came across some stuff on using task resolution instead of conflict resolution as seen in D&D on Treasure Tables (article here). The whole "What is your intent?" idea really helped both myself and my player figure out how to go about making magic work out of seemingly nothing. The key to the wizard rocks is that they have to be absorbed to be activated; essentially, they are solidified magic. So once you absorb said rock, you can theoretically push out any result as long as the rock had enough magic in it to accomodate.

To absorb a rock, the caster must know rudimentary channelling. Then until the caster got used to channelling the stone into her body, I gave a success percentage (starting at 1%, and increasing at a rate calculated by the player's wisdom score 1% + 1%/2points of wisdom above 11). Eventually, after a lot of practice, the caster could successfully absorb a rock after 10 minutes of meditation. Not useful for combat applications, but still, something from nothing.

After the channelling part was conquered, the caster could then go forward to creating a reliable spell. If the caster only knows how to channel, the result of the desired spell will be erratic at best. Creating stable spells requires a series of mental checks and balances to manipulate the spell's energy in a constant, even, and predictable manner so that the result of the spell will be as expected. This is where the primary usage of "What is your Intent?" came into effect. I payed very close to the player's intent, and we walked through a dozen or so half-working attempts, before the character started to learn how to put the pieces together and form a coherent spell.

By this time, the character had spent a couple hundred hours of study to get a functioning light spell with adjustable intensity, color, shape, and location after 10 minutes of uninterrupted meditation. The character then began researching a method to decrease the casting time for the spell. After another couple of weeks of work, she could cast the spell within 5 minutes of meditation. At this point she had reached her physical limit of channelling. Without proper channelling training, she is unable to break the five minute barrier. This is because, for a spell to be cast faster, it must consume some of the caster's own energy to help form the magic into a stable form. Without greater knowledge of channeling, this is impossible.

Moving towards actual application

In order to cast spells at speed, the character must learn how to channel her own energy into the spell. This will likely require a channelling expert to assist her with learning the flow. Either that, or moments of extreme stress, where the character doesn't really have any other option. Considering the currently light usage of spells (ie light spells and small cantrip-like spells), I doubt the latter will be much of a case.

To begin facilitating the revival of magic, I will move to the GURPS 4th ed rules governing magic. After reading them, I became immediately aware of how clunky, antiquated, and plain boring D&D style magic rules were--especially for use in the given situation. D&D makes the assumption that magic is an established subject, wrought with research and plenty of surrounding knowledge. This is made apparent by the necessity of tomes, named spells (ie Tenser, Melf, Nystal, etc), established schools, and the whole "must be memorized" bit. Granted 3ed sorcerers can get around a lot of that carved in stone mentality, but the idea here is that no one on Ae'rinus is an inherent mage, and while many folks may have inborn magical traits or abilities, those traits are no easier to use than the wizard rocks, and their overuse could lead to a quick death.

GURPS uses a skill based system, where the caster has skill in an individual spell, just like a proficiency. This works well for pioneering, because it doesn't assume spell levels, memorization, or other structure evident of an established system. In addition, spells are cast by expending Energy (Fatigue/constitution) or Health (HP). Again, in a pioneering field, it should be hard on the caster to create an effect. Thirdly, GURPS offers the concept of Mana levels, which determine the relative amount of magic in the area. Since all the magic on Ae'rinus is pretty much trapped in wizard rocks, or in a format that is undetectable by most, Ae'rinus qualifies for Low to No Mana across the board. Therefore, the only source of mana for spells comes from Wizard Rocks, which by default, are weak (functioning as low mana, and able to support 1 Cost spells). However, as Magic begins to rise, people will learn how to shape Wizard Rocks into more efficient creations, thus increasing their relative Mana rating and Cost storage. In addition, wizards will be able to craft manastones, powerstones, or even learn to draw granules of magic from the very ground they are standing on.

Granted, magic on Ae'rinus is a long day off from returning to its heyday, but in a few years, a lone wizard weilding the equivelant of Magic Missle will be a terror on the battlefield. And this is what I've been waiting to see for some time; magic that is mystical, powerful, and frightening all at once. A truly exciting time indeed.

How I Fell Out of Love with D&D

2005-12-14T08:48:00.000-05:00

I started into the whole Tabletop RPG hobby right around the Height of AD&D 2nd Edition's existence. At the very impressionable age of 12, I was reading every DragonLance book I could get my hands on, and buying Every single Player's Handbook "Complete" guide I could find. And at that age, I could afford all of it, because there wasn't anything else that I needed to buy or worry about. So very quickly, I amassed hundreds of dollars in TSR's finest Roleplaying materials, most of which coming from the only major source for books and gaming supplies in town: Waldenbooks. Since there wasn't much in the name of RPG competition coming out of Waldenbooks (Primarily I remember Shadowrun, and StarWars), my Impressionable mind told me that TSR was the top dog, and that idea stuck in my head for nearly a decade.

Even after I tried a couple different game systems, (namely Shadowrun and a strange superhero game called Villains and Vigilantes), I still considered AD&D the game to be. I kept buying the books and boxed sets clear through the days of Planescape and RedSteele. But around that time, (maybe 1996 or so), I noticed things were changing at TSR. The novels were being rereleased without the "good" covers by Easley and Elmore, and the new setting being pushed out, Birthright, seemed to lack the sort of oomph that I had been used to. The rereleased core books had a kind of shaky (this isn't a 3rd edition, but we know we need to do something else) feel to them, and the Players Option books seemed to really show that TSR was reaching for some hook to keep its fanbase. I bought the Birthright box, and after reading through it a couple of times, all I could think of was, "My campaign world is way better than this, and it's still in its infancy." Then the book sales started dropping off. Then the whole Waldenbooks fiasco happened, TSR was bought by WotC, and my heart sunk.

I was one of the kids, who hated Magic: the Gathering when it came out. Not that I didn't eventually get sucked into the game, but I saw it as an evil force coming into the RPG world, and WotC as an evil company looking to scarf up all the surrounding competition. Not that there's any real proof of that, or that sort of thing actually happened, but as for as this podunk town goes, that's the kind of vibe I got. I've never seen much of a gaming community here, so when MtG exploded, I kinda felt like all us Tabletop PnP players were getting pushed back to the "old timey" room. Anyway, I kept on playing D&D all along through the MtG heydays (all my friends quit Magic about the time the Homelands set came out, because the cards started getting rediculus), and to this day, I'm grudgingly still using a core of AD&D 2nd edition rules, but I'm definetly not happy about that constrainment. But as the nineties drew to a close, I began to wonder and worry what would happen to the tabletop RPG niche. I love game, and will never quit, but I was worried that this sort of thing wouldn't exist for future generations. I knew that WotC needed to do something to the gaming scene to bring tabletop back; they needed to launch a third edition of D&D.

I was pumped when I first heard that a third edition was in the works, but then I saw that the "A" had been dropped. They were making a 3rd edition of classic D&D, not an improvement of the classic 2nd Edition rules I had come to love (albeit feelings of growing constrainment and age). I started out on classic D&D, and found it to be terribly boring. I never liked the dungeon crawl, and really, D&D isn't much more than that--fights, dungeons, treasure. My hype-level on the new edition dropped to the minimal level, even though the media was buzzing about all the "fantastic" additions to the new system, like Assassins, Monks, and prestige classes. All I could think about while folks raved about being able to be an assassin was, "they already have that in 2nd edition--it's a character class kit from the complete thieves' handbook."

Fortunately, my standard gaming group was about as excited for 3rd edition as I was. Sure, we were all planning on looking at the books, and I knew that I'd eventually buy them for the inspiration aspect gained from the art and maybe a few weird interesting facets, but none of us were planning on making a conversion.

Then I transferred to another college, and moved down to a new town for a few years. While I was down there, I was happy to find a thriving gamer/anime community, which I became a part of very quickly. However, I was shocked to see that everyone down there had completly fallen for the new 3rd edition rules, which had just been released. Granted, this was my first real experience with gamers outside the microcosm that I lived in my hometown. All my friends became gamers because of my influence, and I taught myself how to play, so our play style evolved into something weird and nonstandard. For the first time, I found myself in a group of standard gamers; a place where the fabled min-maxers, petty GMs, dungeon crawls, and lack of roleplaying existed and were more part of the norm than the fringe (until this point, I had only 1 min-max player).

Once I had gotten to know some people enough to want to run a game for them, they were shocked and appalled that I was against 3rd edition. "It's so much smoother," they decried, "it's not as cumbersome as 2nd edition," "there's more options." Well I wasn't conviced, but I let them make 3rd ed. style characters and tried to run the game on 3rd rules. The storylines I ran made the players really happy, but all of us hated the rules for different reasons (though the players liked them more than I did). Battles took forever, and I felt like all the dynamic description and cinematic style action that I was used to was lost in constant checks and dice rolls. I hated making arbitrary DC numbers for skill checks, and I didn't even begin to unravel the mess of mob creation with the difficulty ratings and checks and balances. But we clunked along until summer vacation. Over the summer, I switched everyone's characters to 2nd ed versions, retaining all gained skills. When play picked up the next year, things went a lot more smoothly for me, and the players quickly got into the more streamlined style of play that 2nd ed allows for. Dice rolls dropped, and roleplaying increased. The only problem: 2nd edition has a very inconsistant rule set; there are way too many different rolls, and all the players had a hard time remembering if they needed to roll high or low.

By this point, I had been running on the same rule set for more or less 10+ years. Sure, I knew just about everything inside out, and if I didn't, I generally knew page numbers off the top of my head. But as I encouraged my players to new levels of roleplaying, and as the plots continued to build and twist, I started to see the stress marks and holes that plagued the 2nd edition set. I've been struggling since this realization to modify the rules somehow to open up for more roleplaying, less dice rolling, and more unique character design.

In the last couple of years, I've struggled with this once magestic system, turned haggard crone. I've explored options of creating a classless character creation system, percentile based rolls in order to unify the high/low difficulties, new rules such as Channeling (as in drawing essences from one source and tranferring them), alternate magic rules, and various limited combat modifications. While I've had some very good ideas, I'm not particularly good at rule writing by myself. And currently I don't have any players with the time to vest into creating a wholly new system with me. So after spending a good chunk of this past summer wrestling with attempting some sort of facelift on the rules I know, I've decided that I should be doing something that I probably should have done long ago: look to other game systems.

My search for other game systems, has opened me to a nice little microcosm of Gamers and gaming blogs such as Treasure Tables, Roleplaying Tips, and others that have fueled my ideas and led me to picking up GURPS and thinking about lots of new things like conflict resolution and paying closer attention to my own GMing habits.

Granted, I haven't severed my link to D&D, but the love and respect I once held for "the one" system has diminished greatly; I feel as if the mask of obscurity has been lifted, and hopefully in time, my gaming sessions will feel a lot more like I want them to feel, and they'll play with a lot less hassle, headache and rules-checking.

Life as a Soloist GM

2005-12-12T08:12:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned earlier in my What I'm Playing Now article, I'm more of a soloist style GM, and having been this way for much of my GMing career, Its led me in directions that generally aren't as easily recreated with a group of gamers. In this article, I'm going to explore what I see as the roots behind a solo game.

One of the key factors of a solo game is that there is only one player, and that player's character is full on in the spotlight for the entirety of the campaign. At first, this notion may seem to players to be the ultimate best situation; no competition from any other player, save NPCs. But I've found that this style of playing doesn't seem to work for every player. It requires a definetly strong sense of the character and a great internal drive to realize the character's long term plans. PCs that don't have very detailed backgrounds or Players that are indecisive, I've found, have a very difficult time making a solo campaign last beyond the first few adventures.

In order to build an adequate solo game, the GM needs to spend a little extra time with the Player upon character creation. Work a little closer with the Player and ask as many questions as possible to ascertain as many aspects of the character's personality, goals, and whatnot before starting play. I generally use the following template as a basis: Ae'rinus Character Creation Notes. From there, I can get the starting point for the campaign (both location and time), as well as the general overall "feel" of things.
Here's an example of the setup process: Recently, my wife came to me and said she was kicking around a new idea for a character--a dhampiel. I gave her the ok on the concept, and she came back to me a couple of days later with her background. The dhampiel's name was to be Vera and she has been sealed in a stone sarcophagus for over a year. She has amnesia and only remembers a few things from her past: a dark man giving her the necklace she now wears, that the dark man told her to feed only from animals--drinking blood from humans was bad, an image of an evil lady that was friends with the dark man--she taught her things of the occult and drank blood of humans, and an image of a young boy named Donovin, who was her friend in a garden and they fenced together.
From there, I interviewed Sue on all aspects of Vera's personality. And this sort of interviewing continues as we play (It's a lot easier to plan stuff for the character when you understand what emotions are ripping through the character). Vera is a sort of manic depressive that displays an almost faux "happy daredevil" outer appearance to cover the anger, confusion, and grief underlying everything (especially moreso now that she remembers her past). We both agreed that the feel for this campaign would be slightly tilted more towards cinematic than realistic; and it's been working out very nicely. The advantage of going to a more cinematic playstyle is that it emphasises Vera's natural superiority to most of the people around her. She may have started out at first level, but as soon as she fed on blood to recover her stamina, she was faster, stronger and meaner than just about everything around her. If the campaign were played with more rules and realism, I think a lot of Vera's Dhampiel edge would be lost and along with it would be interest in playing.

Another requirement is that as a GM, you must be prepared to control many NPCs and run them in a way that they have separate personalities, goals, and intelligences, which, to say the least, is a monolithic task. One of the key factors that helps the flow of a solo campaign are the character's companions. Usually I'll try to limit the companions to one or two others, because any more than that begins to get difficult to manage and roleplay (I'm still not fond of having NPCs talk to eachother--I usually screw up one of their accents/speech patterns and end up breaking tension). For the Vera campaign, I decided that she would meet her first companion in a prison colony called The Cauldron. His name is Esteban and he was thrown into The Cauldron fourteen years ago at age 10, for being "cursed by the gods." Essentially, he's one of the many people affected by the magical fallout resulting from the destruction of Elven Magic on Ae'rinus in 1600; however, he had the horrible misfortune of being a native of the religiously fanatic Barony of Ganto, and having his innate magical pollution manifest as demonic looking growths. He's big, has horns, hooves, a tail and a big black claw arm. But underneath he's a sweet little boy that doesn't know much about the world. In a lot of ways, he's very similar to Vera (trapped and without a history to call his own), but at the same time, he's managed to maintain an incredible amount of innocence in respect to having almost no anger over his inprisonment. His similarities and differences allowed for some really great interactions between Vera and Esteban and gave Vera a really good reason to not allow herself to descend into a deep depressive and violent trough. And when the two of them break out of The Cauldron, they collectively are beginning a new life together, and leaving the solitary life behind them.

From there, you now have a clean slate (sort of) to work from. They don't know any antagonists, and haven't really made any enemies yet to date. In order to create more interaction with Vera, I created a hook before she was sent to The Cauldron. She was aware of the sarcophagus being opened and a man calling himself Corvin looking at her and saying that if she got out of The Cauldron to seek him in Riversedge. When they eventually found Corvin, they were given the opportunity to join a semi-secretive guild, from which multiple interesting NPCs were brought about. Rather than having Vera travel in a traditional party, which doesn't really fit her personality, she usually travels with no more than two other specialists. This allows me to flesh them out, develop personal histories and backgrounds, as well as maintain a good roleplaying flow without buning out on having too many NPCs tooling around together at once.
In addition to the planned associates, Vera has made her own connections through her personal angendas, such as a blood doll (her source of clean blood), an accountant (to manage her estate, and go out on dates with her when the need arises), and her former quartermaster. Each NPC needs to be a little more fleshed out than your standard NPC because the PC is relying more heavily upon their input than input from other members of a traditional group-style game. As a GM, you need to keep this in mind, and dole out information carefully. All the PCs clues end up coming from the GM's mouth ultimately, so you have to be somewhat careful in controlling tension; if you let something slip too easily, then the player doesn't have much of a challenge on solving a problem. On the other hand, if you don't help the player enough, she'll get frustrated with the problem at hand. Basically, the best plan of action is to try to get your player to diversify who she talks to as much as possible, so that she has a wide knowledge base to make her decisions from.

The third piece that comes into play moreso than a group campaign is continuity. Nearly all of my solo campaigns have progressed on a day to day basis, with only a few short spots where the PC will be "doing nothing but research for the next week." Generally, the PC's actions are motivated either by personal goals or plot elements that I drop in her face. And this is the point that really will make or break your solo-campaign. All the background, NPCs and good interaction in the world can't save a solo-campaign when the PC becomes complacent with her position. What you need is a division of goals between both GM and Character. The Character needs to have certain personal goals aside from whatever plot the GM is currently running. These personal goals, add tension when time constraints are brought into place, and provide excellent rich filler when between set plot elements, or a certain amount of time needs to pass before the next plot element moves. Personal goals also provide the GM with a great fresh sense of action; you don't necessarily know what the character wants to do, so when she announces that she's going to spend some time trying to force the magic in one of those magic stones to work, you end up with a very interesting unplanned sidequest. These sidequests are the meat of my entertainment, because they're usually the place where characters grow the most, mainly because they're persuing activities that they're generally interested in, not forced into through circumstance. And as a result, the sidequests usually provide a nice little creative charge that tends to boost up the interest in your active plot elements.

This post has gone on for a little longer than I anticipated, but I hope that it provides some sort of interesting information regarding the art of solo-GMing. It can be a lonely path, but at the same time, I regard all of my best campaigns to have developed their roots within the lonely road of the solo adventurer.

What I'm playing Now

2005-12-09T13:54:00.000-05:00

Currently I'm running two sessions, both using a heavily bastardized version of AD&D 2nd ed.

The first game, which is roughly weekly, is with three players, and fairly straight forward vanilla style adventuring. This particular game is serving as the gateway drug to my friend, who is thirteen and has never played D&D before. His mother, an avid nerd and gamer from days of yore, and my wife are the other two players. The group has bonded very well with each other over the last few months, and somewhat surprisingly, they all like and care about each other a lot (which seems to usually be lacking in most of my gaming groups). This group's particular campaign is set in the 1620s of Ae'rinus' history against a backdrop of a growing backlash of monstrous dissention in the arrea surrounding the Great Inner Sea of Drachmaar.

The group has been dealing with an epic level invasion of goblinoids coming down from the mountains to the south. The town of Südenberg, where they all first met, is now largely in ruins, and until recently (last gaming session), the nearby Untergeist Forest had been taken over by SeveredLimb (troll immune to fire) and his three BrokenTusk Ogre commanders; they were using captured druids to fortify the forest as their base of operations, which was pretty successfully outstripping all the trade around the Inner Sea.

The campaign itself is more of your traditional hack n slash type game, but as the group games together more often, they have begun to develop some very good roleplaying. And now that they've begun to grow as characters, I think they're getting ready to break into some very interesting storyline opportunities.

The other game I'm running is a solo game with my wife and I. I'm very much the type of GM that is more used to Solo games than larger groups, thus rarely have I ever had a gaming group with more than five people participating (largely because when I started playing the game, I could rarely get more than one friend over at a time, so we all kind of got used to the solo gig). In this game, my wife is playing Vera, a dampiel, who until recently, had a pretty rotten case of amnesia. The gameplay here is very dark, fast paced, and somewhat surreal in regards to character power. The effect has created a somewhat unbalancing character in Vera, but since the game is solo, that sort of problem is only limited by the surrounding NPC perceptions, and she tends to travel with the freak train anyway, so there's really not a problem. In this campaign, particularly more than any other campaign, I've been forced to do far more homework than I'm accustomed to; mainly because my wife, Sue's, thirst for "What happens next" is so great that I can't get a way with saying I don't have any new content for her for more than one night a week.
The plus side of this, of course, is that the story line has had a lot of openings and twists to the point that Vera's story is both rich, nonlinear, and in my opinion a pretty good plot for a book (which is exactly what Sue plans to do with all those session notes she takes).
The story takes place largely in Riversedge, the largest city on Ae'rinus, and revolves around Vera's action with a semi-secretive guild known as the Brotherhood of the Raven, of which she is a member of an elite subset of that group known as "The Murder." Since she's part of The Murder, she has been simultaneously helping progress three separate plotlines in addition to her own desires and goals.
The only problem with the Vera campaign is the rules; d&d rules have no ability to really generate the play and feeling I want to go with on this campaign, so its led me to searching the net for more interesting info, and finding a scad of new resources, mostly in the form of other gamer blogs and forums, hence spurring my own desire to start something up with this blog.
My current plan of action regarding the rules, will likely involve picking up a copy of the GURPS basic set with my birthday/christmas money, and begin considering a paradigm shift.

Introductions

2005-12-09T12:56:00.000-05:00

Since as far back as 1995, another world has been writing, rewriting, and living its life within my head. The whole situation, however, has been a lonely one with less than a dozen people in that time getting any sort of minimal access to it, so in an effort to perhaps grow this world out of its traditional grounding, I'm starting this blog as a place for ideas, nuances, and other data that I think is pretty neat. Call it an egomaniacal persuit. I sure do.

Ae'rinus is a RPG campaign setting originally created for the D&D ruleset, but as I've matured as a GM over the years, I've come to the decision that D&D itself cannot sustain the richness of experiences that potentially could be happening on Ae'rinus. Since the release of D&D 3rd ed., which shattered my long standing love affair with D&D, I've been passively looking for new platforms/looking for ways to create my own system that would allow for the type of heavy roleplaying with minimal dice rolls and high levels of excitement that I've come to envision as a requirement for my game sessions.

I've been playing, and GMing D&D now since about 1992, and in that time, I've come to realize that my style of play doesn't really fit with the standard dungeon crawl vision of D&D fame; my players, too, have often praised the lack of twisting tunnels, prolonged fights, and video game style play.

So with this blog, I'm hoping to make it as a resource for folks interested in running Ae'rinus as a campaing world, as well as provide a forum of sorts for discussion relating to developing working methodologies towards running successful, ongoing storylines that focus upon roleplaying and dealing with difficult moral decisions rather than just hack n slash.

A large portion of this blog will probably be narrative descriptions of various small nuances of Ae'rinus as I try to begin fleshing out the lesser bits. Currently, the setting is in the year 1643 (general play started in 1454, so there's a lot of PC created history around to draw from), and the world is in a relative state of peace for once. It's a world of growing technical knowledge (much of it would be considered Early Renaissance, though Medieval Era areas are still common) and more importantly growing political and national influence. There are two pantheons of gods, both of which aren't particularly fond of the other as well as a second layer continent, Terrasond, existing beneath Ae'rinus. Ae'rinus itself is a relatively new continent having only 1600 years or so of recent history as a result of considerable cataclysmic activity, as well as much recent turmoil including a gods' war and semi-permanent disruption of wizardly magic. It's a world chock full of ideologies and beliefs; and as such, nearly all conflict results around belief structures being undermined, attacked, or destroyed.

There's a fair amount of information regarding Ae'rinus over on my website: http://aerinus.houseofspears.net but I don't have a lot of time to keep that data up to date.

If anyone is interested in more information than what is currently available, I would be happy to divulge. However, please keep in mind that, ultimately, it is my gameworld and none of the Ae'rinus material may be reprinted without my permission.