INTRODUCTION TO MAELRIS

The Spirit of the Setting
We have all seen the typical medieval fantasy formula: a world of orcs, elves, and heroic warriors, with great necromantic armies and dwarven cities, dragons soaring high and mysterious forests haunted by trolls. This setting is meant to adhere to the spirit of such epic fantasy, yet approach it with a new and unique tone: not of medieval fantasy, but of Dark Ages fantasy. The focus of the setting is upon the continent of Kerlonna, a realm haunted by orcs and plague, its human civilisations scattered by terrible war. It is a land whose Golden Age has already passed, and is now plunged into a great uncertainty: where famine and winter are oftentimes more ruinous than any dragon, and simple human brutality can be worse than any fell magic.

This is not to suggest that Kerlonna is a hopelessly depressing setting from start to finish. There are some places where refuge may yet be found, and mercy and justice prevail over the struggle for survival. Heroes are still heroes, and the work they do truly matters. However, their heroics are all the more remarkable because the world in which they dwell so often seems only to reward grim self-interest. Which is more interesting: to be a hero in a realm where the hero’s victory is assured; or to struggle against grim circumstance and bring about good from a realm of darkness and doubt?

The other major aspect of this setting is an obsessive attention to historical detail, and a balancing act between historical plausibility and fantastic trappings. This is no world of human kingdoms that immediately border ghost-haunted deserts, nor is it one where all sentient beings blithely speak some “Common” language. Among the humans of Kerlonna alone there are dozens of languages and a vast diversity of technological sophistication, from stone-wielding Nrihatic hunter-gatherers to the towering cliff-cities of the Sea of Injil. Fantastic locales are not simply strewn about the landscape, but are either at the very heart of civilised cultures, or else are found deep in the unknown wild.

Magic, too, is not simply hurled around with blithe acceptance. Wizards are vanishingly rare in terms of percentage of the population, and not all of them survive (or remain sane) during their strenuous training. Sorcerers are perhaps more common among their own peoples, but the Nyadegtaan, kobolds, and dragons are not ubiquitous like the wizard-producing races (elves, humans, gnomes) are. Divine magic of clerics and paladins is miraculous and rare, and unlike arcane power, it cannot be traced through bloodlines or trained with study: divine power is drawn instead from the power of conviction and from the grace of the immortals. Resurrection of the dead, quite accepted among other D&D settings, is extraordinary enough for a cleric in Kerlonna with that power to become the founder of a new religion with himself as its god.

Yet… these fantastic things do exist. Do not assume that Kerlonna is designed to stymie one’s desires for glorious paladins, vile liches, and epic quests. They are all welcome aspects of this world. They, however, should be understood in their context: in this world, most often all a serf-boy can do is spend his long days toiling to bring bread from the hard soil. The possibility that he might leave behind his drudgery and become a dragon-slayer is that much more precious, than if it were one where humble farmer boys seem to be discovering their lost heritages and saving the realm with magical weaponry every other year.