Enter The Lands

I am excited and it is an unusual kind of excitement. Normally one gets excited by anticipating things to come. In this case I am excited by something now past. I have finally finished my fantasy adventure setting The Lands.

It is more comprehensive than complete. I could always focus in on particular aspects of my world and expand on them (indeed this may happen if I run adventures in it). However what I have written provides both a framework and a sufficiently complex texturing to satisfy me that I can now share it with others.

I am somewhat sensitive to giving the impression that I am one of those who spend way too much time putting elaborate things onto the Internet. In my defence I want to stress that this has been under development for a very long time and much of what is on the site began as word-processed documents. The site itself has existed since 2006 even if the content has expanded and changed. Nonetheless it is true that I have put a lot of hours into it lately. Living in the bush capital between jobs has given me the chance to finally finish something that seemed like it would never be done.

The Lands began in the late 80s as the setting for a short story – The Death Of Erilore – which I never completed. This childish story and likewise its setting was totally derivative of Lord Of The Rings. It even involved a quest to get rid of a treasure. The greatest attraction for me of Middle Earth was its complexity – the notion of a fictional story having a faux non-fictional swath of supporting notes was a tantalizing one for me. Naturally I drew a map for my story which has been redrawn a number of times till it became the one presented here and here. And – yes – like Middle Earth it has an ocean in the west and a north-south running mountain range dividing it in half.

By the 90s The Lands had been converted into the setting for fantasy role-play games (RPGs). The Lands changed accordingly from a misty-grey habitation of legends into the more colourful setting one expects of modern pulp fantasy. The diversity of inhabitants grew markedly to better fit the expectations of players. Mind you it has always annoyed me just how very crowded such worlds seem to be. The word 'kobold' is just German for 'goblin' (and vice versa) and yet key fantasy role-play games have described two rather different monsters to fit those two words. I have reversed the process somewhat so that they are one kind with two names. Likewise I have given geographic and historic context to various forms so that any one place-and-time is only as crowded as it should be.

My background as a humanities student has impacted on The Lands significantly. There is a lot more exposition on the politics and culture of its inhabitants than would be expected of a fantasy RPG settings. It is this aspect of writing that I have enjoyed the most and which characterizes most chapters.

Much of my text describes The Lands themselves and is original – or rather it is derivative of many things rather than just one thing as it initially was. However towards the end of the site I have adapted older game rules. Most are moderate changes to those I am familiar with. However in the case of magic the changes are larger. The long lists of very specific spells has been replaced by fewer but more versatile spells – in a sense I have shifted from a digital to an analogue take on spell-casting.

All sorts of things have had an impact on the content of The Lands. This includes classical to medieval history in the western half of the Eurasian landmass (but in the best tradition of occidental adventures I play fast and loose with that subject matter). Old World legends mutate into modern fantasy. Even some very basic biology creeps in (hence I feel obliged to provide explanations for why some vertebrates have more than four limbs). Overall I have attempted to produce a fictional setting that is different but still recognizably one we could imagine living in.

All-in-all I have had a lot of fun devising and revising this stuff but am also relieved that it is done. Any comments and observations are welcome and I hope a few others enjoy reading about The Lands as I have enjoyed writing about them.

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Eventually I started running a game in The Lands as described here.