A Gaming Perspective on Éran
From Eran
GURPS Rules for The World of Éran.
On ruins and treasures of former ages
Contents |
An Overview of the World of Éran
Millenia ago, Éran was ruled by a mighty empire of powerful sorcery kings and archwizards. They created unfathomable wonders, powerful items even new lifeforms to illustrate their glory. Eventually, their ambition became their undoing and Éran was torn apart in a cataclysmic magewar. Today, they ruins of this once all-dominant empire are spread across the wilderness of Éran, the monstruous races they controlled roam freely across the land and the civilised races and dwarves and elves meddle little with humans affairs, wary they should rise to the same catastrophic peaks of power.
Humanity is still the dominant civilisation of Éran. Humans are the race with the most widespread and established civilisations. Enclaves of dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes are dotted across the west but with a few exceptions are too small and insignificant to merit mention. The blackfolk can match them in numbers but lack the organisation and development to establish actual civilisations of their own.
Although humans are the dominant civilised race, it should not be assumed that civilisation is the dominant feature of Éran however. In all but the most central heartlands of the mightiest kingdoms, civilisation ends at the village border and savagery often threatens to encroach on these too. Blackfolk roam the lands in great numbers often preying on villages and towns lacking sufficient protection, the wilderness is dotted with monsters of great strength and savagery for whom humans are little more than hunting spoils. Even common bandits often prey on the roads for easy victims where monsters and blackfolk are known not to be roaming.
In Éran, tales of forests of darkness few return from are to be taken literally. The forests and hills are often home to mischievous phaeries who make hunting difficult, blackfolk, trolls and monsters living off ancient ruins. The wilds are often highly dangerous places for most people. The local hunter relies as much on knowing which tracks to avoid as which to follow for his success in the wild.
Kings and nobles may lay claim to vast tracts of land, but their effective rule often extends little more than a day's travel beyond their own keep. Travel is generally periluous business. Only the biggest and most important trade routes are routinely kept safe from raiding parties and monsters looking for prey. Local roads may be safe one day's route from major towns and keeps, but only the main roads. Depart the beaten track and danger often beckons. Travel distances beyond the local area and you best be sure you bring your own protection.
Humans are usually safe behind the fortifications of the local town where the armed milita can provide protection from incursions, but many hamlets don't even have that. They rely on on small bands of rangers and scouts who can preempt dangers in advance, hoping for reinforcements to arrive or discouraging raids through hit and run attacks.
To make do with anything more than just surviving, sometimes even just that, Éran needs heroes. This is a world that seeks to nurture and encourage the few who show exceptional talent to make use of it to overcome the perils outside one's doorstep. Merchants will be looking for the skilled to protect their caravans, local mayors and lords for those with bravery beyond the usual to go out and extinguish threats to their communities. A bold thief may be granted a pardon by the local baron in return for taking a mission no one else would dare. A skilled fighter offered a knighthood for organising a defence no one else would know how to.
Such heroes are far and few in between, but can also expect great adoration and rewards when they rise above the call of the common people and make a stand for humanity to strengthen its footing in a savage world, mixed in with scoffs at the foolhardiness and sheer insanity of defying such danger.
As travels is rarely safe, news tend to travel slowly in Éran. Most communities will know little of what happens beyond their own local area in their country, much less the world at large. Wandering minstrels and bards are often treated to warm welcomes as they bring news, stories and tall tales from places both near and far.
In Éran, the concept of 'professionel adventurers' seeking out excitement and danger is not often found. Rather, dangerous adventures is what inevitably befalls those that dare leave their homes and travel the once widely trotted roads of Éran. A wandering blacksmith plying his trade on the road, from simply having learned how to defend himself well, can rise to achieve reknown as a great warrior when a local community are in need of the skills he has learned in the course of such journeys. A travelling minstrel can become famous by simply surviving his travels throughout the world and live to tell the tales of places further away than any other talespinner. A wizard can attain mastery by being bold enough to travel to new places of knowledge and learning. A merchant can earn his fortune by carrying goods to places few others would dare. A soldier of fortune can find wealth by braving the periluous wilds and uncovering the lost secrets and treasures of the ancients.
The How & Why of the Creation of Éran
The world of Éran came about from the irrepressible urge I imagine most roleplaying enthusiasts are bound to have to some degree: Finding the ideal fantasy world. A setting like Forgotten Realms (FR), for all its diversity and high adventure, I found to be simply too overpowered and unrealistic with its abundance of adventurers, dungeons, random monsters, treasures and magic; Dragonlance, as much as I loved the general 'feel' of the setting and rich history, I found to be too narrow in scope; Shadow World I found intriguing and though highpowered, more realistic I thought than FR, but ultimately too narrow in scope as well, as it truly is the highpowered ones that dominate the world; settings like Dark Sun, Ravenloft and Planescape, though fascinating in their own right, had no room for classic fantasy and therefore not applicable. At the end of the day, a setting like the World of Greyhawk was the one I found most in tune with my idea of fantasy. A rich and diverse world, not overpowered by magic, room for politics and with some realism in that as well. And yet it was its adherence to classic fantasy that I also found limiting, as it doesn't have room for the high fantasy of the Forgotten Realms or the twists of more unconventional settings. I wanted a world open for all of that.
The proccess of actually going about that was (and is) much harder than envisioning it though. Finding a suitable name for the world and continent alone took ages (throughout most of the creation proccess, the world was called Titan and the continent Cerrasia). My quest for the ideal world started out with a brainstorm of ideas that I liked and found appealing from any game world I knew, regardless of whether I wanted to use them in any way in my own world. From there, I made a wishlist writing up the elements I wanted to include in my world and linking the various elements together. With this extremely broad view of what I wanted my world to be like, began the incredibly long proccess of trying to make all that come together in a sensible way. I started out writing up the ancient history of Éran, up to a point where I didn't need to know the exact locations and cultures of what I was describing as most of these would not exist today. After writing out the ancient history I found I came upon a stumbling block as the modern history required me to know more about the particulars of the present-day world. Though I could write some of it, as I wanted an 'ancient' perspective on the modern history as well (in order to make the ancient world truly ancient and a thing of the past), the closer I came to the present day, the more vague I had to be. I needed to flesh out the geography and political scene of the world and there I was completely stuck. I drew out a number of maps and discarded them as soon as I tried to place some of the central countries in them. I was anxious to make sure that I would have room for everything and also ensure that the various places were situated appropriately to each other (what kind of nations would I want to be threatened by the dark power? how isolated were the elves etc.). I was completely stuck at this point, as I knew any placements that grew into something unsatisfactory could mean having to redo the whole thing. Eventually however, I realised that I needed some way of dividing the continent into different regions and came up with an east/west model, with the west representing the civilised world and the east the wild uncharted territories where the ancient lands of the demihumans also lay. This eventually eveolved into a west/northeast/southeast model as I found I wanted a settled region of a bit more alternative fantasy. With this model in mind, after sketching out the various regions of the west, I found it much easier to draw out a a satisfactory map that would ensure room for the things wanted there and also spaced properly in relation to each other, although the map of course underwent numerous smaller changes along the way. From there, it was a question of fleshing out the various regions in this east/west model, first finding out what I wanted in each and then figuring out how I wanted each region to relate to the other, beginning to slowly flesh out how the various countries in each region would be like and then place the regions on the map, following up with experiemental borders for the nations in the region as well.
Over the course of all this, my vision of the world and what i wanted in it and how changed, in some ways radically. As I began to flesh out the political scene, I ran into a major problem with my history section as I had fallen for the temptation to have the third magewar revolve around a person and his quest for power, with ramifications of these events still presenting themselves in the modern world (as well as being intimately tied to the second magewar) - a small draft for the a future novel perhaps. I had made the "Dragonlance Mistake" and limited the focus of the world too much. The point of this world is not to make a great history with some cool themes and a detailed background but to make a world rich and open-ended enough to contain such stories. The focus had to be the setting of the world, not any potential storylines of the setting, even if they were pivotal to the development of the world. I likewise for a long time wanted a continent-spanning order of wizards not unlike to Wizards of High Sorcery of Dragonlance to regulate and control the use of magic to prevent another Magewar from erupting (idea was that it grew out of the rebel wizards from the second magewar), but found that no matter how I put it, it would restrict and narrow the scope and diversity of magic I wanted on Éran. The concept of powerful guilds who regionally controlled the use of magic (sometimes with conflicting aims) eventually proved to be a much more functional model and also provided a much more plausible scenario for the unfolding of the Third Magewar as a conflict between the increasingly powerful guilds, rather than just 'evil Zoryl and his evil compatriots against the lawful and good order of wizards who want to preserve the balance'.
Throughout this I was never adverse to stealing with hand and foot (since this is supposed to be my ideal world it has to contain the elements I most like to see in it), though sometimes this became perhaps a bit too pronounced: For instance, when creating my 'traditional adventure land' in the vision of Abanasinia of Dragonlance, the Dalelands of FR, eastern Palladium, the Nyr Dyv, and wanted it situated on one hand next to a more solid kingdom, yet not removed from the more wild adventure lands and also needed an explanation of why after many centuries this was still relatively unstable lands. The idea of it being former elven lands who stopped the migration of humans seemed like an ideal solution and also provided numerous possibilities for exploration and adventure. By the time I had it all figured out, I discovered that I almost completely copied the Dalelands of the Forgotten Realms! (which sits in the heart of the old Elven Court and is neighboured by the old Kingdom of Cormyr) Not exactly ideal, but nonetheless I felt the dynamics of this place, as the borderland between the civilized and uncivilised world, a relatively settled land in a frontier region, was quite different from its FR counterpart and went with it anyway.
Other considerations to take into account in all this and which are crucial to the feel of the setting is the cosmology, not just with the deities but the cosmological principles the world is based around. I found myself habituated on many occasions to develop things within the scope of the classic D&D alignment model of good/neutral/evil/ and /lawful/neutral/chaotic. I decided to do away with these themes in order to get a more realistic and complex world, while at the same time being mindful of not straying too much from my initial vision of classic fantasy.
The magic system is based on GURPS Magic, but can with a little work, or ommisions, be easily adapted to D20. It's a system that makes sense to me, a system that, if I were to write novels, would make sense as well. It makes magic a mystic science with many options and means to power, some of them with quite devastating effects. I particularly like the idea of how magic is a gift available solely to the denizens of Theras as part of why such a world should be coveted by beings from other dimensions. My system also provides a plausible place for wild magic/sorcery in a fantasy world as a primordial, but highly dangerous, form of spellcasting and thuis also accounts for why the standard, and safer, form of arcane spellcasting was developed.
The Fantasy of Éran
Èran can be grossly divided into three main regions. Western Éran is the more traditional fantasy area. Here human civilization has been the dominant one for over 2500 years, and thus the region has a rich history to it. Here, the heroes can get involved in the political struggles of the empire of Brennèl where the balance of power is constant flux, pursue grand campaigns in chivalrous Errion, engage in military warfare in the Steel Lands, Polar journeys in the northern frontier, traverse the independent lands of the Calmír region, the eastern frontier of old Brennèl, and even help forge kingdoms in their own right in the lands unclaimed in the Campi. The Calmír Region is intended to be the quintessential classic fantasy region and the place most adventurers would start from.
The north-eastern region of Éran is more high fantasy. This is the ancestral lands of the demi-humans and here their civilizations have resided for untold millennia. It's an inhospitable and unfriendly land, as adventurers will have to traverse the greatest mountain range in Éran, or cross the Great Forest, itself larger than great Errion! Sparsely populated, these lands are teeming with monsters, secret realms, and strange magics. The human realms that do exist here are fantasy with a twist, as they have had to adjust to co-existence with strange races and struggling to hold their own lands in the battle against terrific beasts and unfriendly terrain. It's a place of exploration and discovery, traversing locations untouched by human hands, for those bravehardy enough. The wonders and secrets this land holds promises great possibilities for those with the skill to survive its dangers.
Southeastern Éran is definitely fantasy with a twist. Here are lands ruled by mages, druids, psionicists, even a god, coupled with a great number of various independent city-states that all have their own quirks, such as Arsam famed for its huge monstrous labyrinth under the city run and cultivated by its lord, and Kahah the city of traps, a place with no known rulers where as a consequence every citizen have devised their own way of ensuring their survival, earning the city its nickname. It's history ties back to the harmonious Solman Empire destroyed in the Third Magewar and though the region is fractured now, its culture of openness survives in the rugged and unforgiving cultural climate. Here an elf and an ogre are as likely to share a beer in a tavern as they would be to draw swords against each other. The rule of law is, with a few exceptions like Sûlron, generally looser in the east than the west, making life a whole lot more unpredictable for adventurers, but also offers possibilities like nowhere else in Éran.
The Magic of Éran
Éran is considerably low-magic compared to for example The Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. Though in ancient times, its level of magic was superior to both (about level with the ancient Netheril/Suel in those settings), magic on modern Éran is not an everyday occurrence.
In Western Éran, Magic is governed and regulated by the magic guilds, present in virtually every country and most can trace their roots back to the old imperial guild of Brennèl. These have throughout modern history preserved the use of arcane spellcasting and provided means to train new mages as well as regulate the use of magic: Eliminating those who would abuse such power, hunting down active wild mages and renegades and ensuring that too much magical power doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
The Mage Death which followed the Third Magewar some 800 years ago and lasted for 500 years saw the death of many a prominent wizard and likewise made it a lot more difficult for coming generations to master the arcane arts as magic was not only outlawed and the teachers of it killed and exiled, but countless tomes were also burned and those few who did take an interest in it, had no place to go to study it. About 300 years ago, the extreme civil tensions surrounding magic easened somewhat and the guilds slowly began to re-establish themselves, though they have never been allowed the same kind of influence they held prior to the Third Magewar. Today, magic is still distrusted by the general population and outlawed in some states as well. Most countries have severe laws to restrict and control the use of magic in order to prevent it from getting out of hand. The various guilds are very active in enforcing this to ensure their continued survival in the civilized world. Though mages need not neccesarily conceal their identity in most parts of western Éran, publically displaying ones powers, especially for own gain, is a sure way of earning the enmity of the local population - uprisings to kill off too flamboyant wizards are not uncommon, should the authorities not apprehend the wizard beforehand in those lands where public use of magic is restricted. In most places, being a wizard is a social stigma and they are often considered a social class of their own, irrespective of their standing in society otherwise. The guilds' primary goals today subsist in ensuring their survival through service, mindful that too much presence could easily incur the distrust and wrath of the general population, and re-discovering the knowledge that was lost during the Third Magewar and the following Mage Death. Recovering the knowledge of ancient Isandor is generally considered the stuff of dreams for most mages and with good reason: Even the few texts that have been recovered are easily beyond the reach and mastery of most modern mages.
In Northeastern Éran, magic is received differently. The dwarves have little love for it and those mages that visit their strongholds would do well to keep a low profile. Among the elves, magic is an integral and highly respected part of society, but this respect is reserved for elven magic only. The magic of the humans is considered crude, raw and perverted - that humans have started all three magewars is something not forgotten by the elves and the general opinion is not to repeat the mistakes of the past and keep their secrets safely out of human hands from now on.
In Southeastern Éran, the general view of magic is somewhat more pragmatic than that of their western counterparts. Magic is seen as a tool to be freely used. Such an attitude would be conducive to a more advanced level of magic but for a number of factors: The southeast suffered more than any other region in Éran during the Third Magewar due to the onslaughts of the demonic forces that brought down the Solman Empire, and they did a sterling job of wiping out all magic-users they could find quite swiftly. The survivors were even fewer than in the west and left few people to pass on their knowledge to others. Furthermore, the practise of magic is not organised as it is in the west with their guilds, and consequently, there is little organised effort to systematically train new wizards and make knowledge available to these to ensure the continuity and progress of the arcane arts. Most wizards will only take apprentices if their see substantial benefits for themselves in this and few see any reason to share their higher knowledge with anyone at all. Consequently, though wizards are far more tolerated in the southeast, they face an uphill battle in acquiring even the basic skills of their craft, making magic much more elitarian and competitive than in the west.
Magic items are generally much more rare on Éran than on most other D&D worlds, where they can be found lying around in plenty a random dungeon. Most magical items that exist on present-day Éran are unique. The only times magical items have ever been serially produced in Éranni history were during the Elfwars and the First Magewar. A large number of the magical items created in Isandor likewise have simply become defunct over time. Due to the great cost in power to make such items permanent, many items were enchanted to last for at best a few centuries. Only the elves have consistently had the foresight to make their enchantments permanent and they have always taken great care to keep their items safe in elven hands and if not, make sure they return to elven hands as soon as possible. Apart from these, only items crafted as true works of art or as family heirlooms, and of course the great artifacts of that era, were usually of a permanent nature and every single one of them have been created for a strong purpose and is bound to have a rich history. Enchanted items have been created in modern times as well, but with far less regularity and likewise not neccesarily permanent. What is more, those that have been preserved have been guarded well and coveted. The Mage Death furthermore saw the destruction of many magical items and radically reduced the potential for new ones to be created in that period. Magical items and weapons are still being created today but these are rare events and will usually only be manufactured for extremely wealthy and powerful clients with the power to guard them or kept in great secret by those who make them. One thing is certain about magical items and that is that those who flaunt them rarely keep them for long.
In short magical items are not things adventurers would just stumble upon on their quest. They are the aim of great quests. Most will be unique have a name of their own. They can however take heart, that should they manage to come across items from ancient Isandor or even from the Foundation Age, they will more likely than not be highly potent creations. On the negative side, should it be discovered that they possess such, they can be certain that others will do their best to ensure they do not possess them for long.
Adventuring in Éran
Generally, the 'professional adventurer' class as found in many fantasy worlds does not really exist in Éran. Those that do go travelling for high adventure and excitement will be rare and usually skilled in areas of more use in ordinary society as well in order to make a living as they go. Fighters cannot always rely on their combat skills being needed in unknown lands and may be skilled in a more practical crafts such as blacksmithing and such. Wizards would specialize in more conventional fields of knowledge to offer their expertise. Others will have experience with trade to survive on the road. If someone were to ask a regular adventurer what it is he does and he responded 'I am an adventurer' he would probably reply 'ok, but what is it you DO?', as if he were on holiday or something similar. Those that do qualify as 'adventurers' in Éran (what else should the player characters do, after all?) can be crudely divided into six categories:
1. Mercenaries
Most in the 'adventuring' profession are employed according to the needs of the society, i.e. as warriors and scouts employed by state or trade companies to resolve security issues.
Most wandering adventuring bands will probably be mercenaries out of job looking for the next good pay (some of questionable morality. Others not). These are also the ones most likely not to have an alternative profession as skilled swords-for-hire are rarely in low demand.
2. Treasure Hunters
Dungeon crawling is not deemed terribly profitable, when weighed against the high risks (the clichéed phrase "no one has ever returned" used around old ruins and dungeons is proof of the high mortality rate) and general scarcity of unexplored ruins simply lying around full of treasures, making treasure hunters in search of gold and glory quite rare and often viewed with suspicion.
Wizards are known to go dungeon crawling in search of lost magic and will often take companions for protection or hire bands to do the job instead. Even these are rare however, as magic is rarely practiced compared to most fantasy worlds and even fewer wizards have the ambition to endanger their own lives in search for lost power. Those with the wealth to do so have been known to hire others to retrieve items of magic for them. For the poorer wizard without access to exclusive and expensive libraries ot hiring bands, dungeon crawling is an option for those ambitious enough in their pursuit of arcane mastery not to be deterred by the high mortality rate.
3. Explorers
A somewhat more common branch of adventurers than treasure hunters are the exploring kind. Those who travel to discover new cultures and sights, either for own benefit or because they have been hired to obtain such information, often acting as ambassadors and diplomats on behalf of their lords. Wandering bards even base their profession on being able to tell stories of distant lands and cultures and some may prefer to be able to tell firsthand accounts.
4. Traders
Similar to the explorers (and often combined with it) are the traders. These travel all over the world selling and exchanging goods (or knowledge) and are often accompanied by fellow travelers to provide protection. Some are sometimes driven to places of danger in pursuit of objects or secrets of particular high value, but such are the exception to the norm.
5. Missionaries
A fifth and rarer branch of adventurers are those with a mission. Examples include some knights who will go in pursuit of evil forces to vanquish in accord with their vows, priests seeking to spread the doctrine of their god(s), or even the visionary/deluded few simply in pursuit of heroics deeds for honor and glory. Of the more unusual kinds, it is known to a rare few that the elves have secret orders trained to move among men to retrieve objects not meant to be out of elven hands, and somewhere in the east, a secret order of men exist to wipe out magic altogether. Others may be driven by different motives as their mission takes them to places of danger no ordinary men would pursue.
6. Perfectionists
A sixth one, not unrelated to the fifth and second branch (wizards anyway), are the ones driven to travel in pursuit of excellence. To be the best in their chosen craft. An archer might travel to distant elven realms to learn from the greatest masters, while a thief might want to seek out the most notorious guilds to receive the proper training not available elsewhere.
