Yes, another game setting post.

I've often written about the Edge, that place where adventures happen. Because happy, secure civilizations don't offer much in the way of opportunities for epic quests and great battles. The Edge can be in an underworld where the heroes are dealing in illicit activities and goods, like in Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun, but I'm looking at epic fantasy here, the metagame that drives the larger plot.

Throughout history, we see how events beyond the control of man can change the course of civilization. A volcano in Iceland probably caused the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the Fertile Crescent. This wiped away the old nations and paved the way for the new kingdoms of the Iron Age. Slower changes can produce great effects, as we see with the desertification of the Sahara, once a garden of flowing rivers and lush grasslands.

There have also been human events that created large-scale revolutions in history. The rise of the Roman Empire changed Europe. The Migration Age brought new peoples pouring off the steps and eventually reshaping the maps. Temujin, Genghis Khan, single-handily remade the world; and Mohammed changed it again with Islam.

So great adventures happen in times of great change. As always, stealing from history is best. Rather than volcanic ash causing a collapse, make it a plague of dragons that scoured the world for decades before vanishing. The Black Death is caused by an evil cult spreading death as sacrifices to their dark god. Adventures set during the recovery would be tales of exploration and rebuilding.

Which is why I always loved the setting of Earthdawn. When the world's magic reaches a cyclic high, Lovecraftian Horrors enter our world to ravage and remake the world in their terrible image. Forwarned, many cities were carved into mountains and the population hides in their magically-locked Kaers for the long decades until magic begins declining and the Horrors are forced back into exile.

The campaign begins as the Kaers have opened and begun rebuilding. Scouts are needed to explore the reshaped world, try to contact nearby Kaers, and redraw the maps. But the scars of the Horrors remain. Warped creatures and men, weird magical artifacts from a legendary age that were awoken by the high cycle of magic, and the old gods have fled. Many Kaers failed and fell to horror and ruin. The world itself has changed.

"Percy, what does the old map say this is?"

"Happy Valley. Pleasantville should lie on the banks of the Laughing River about a league south."

"Hm. Does the map show the giant smoking mountain with a skull carved at the summit or the fields of impaled corpses?"

"No, not really. Nothing like that at all."

"Right, mark the changes, and let's see what this is all about."

What's not to love? The best thing, to my mind, is that everyone starts out ignorant. Humans, Dwarfs, Elves, Gnomes, everyone knows the four races. But the horrors twisted things, and many of the abominations that came with them remain. Characters might hear rumors of wild bands of pig-men and goblins grown to monstrous size. But there will be no "oh, that's an ork" because they've never seen one before.

I might just do this. Set the game in Anatolia, given that there are entire cities carved into the ground in Cappadocia. Make the Black Sea a new feature, drowned cities and watery horrors! Start the characters off in the Nineveh Kaer, one of the first to open after over a century underground. Say, 20 years after opening, enough time to get agriculture, canals, and a city going. Now the king has called for brave explorers to venture forth and claim new lands for the new empire. Those who are successful will be awarded lands and titles. Those who fail . . . well, maybe they will learn where the gods have gone.

Since the gods have scampered off, they'll be no clerics or paladins to start. Druids will be allowed. Part of the long game is rediscovering the gods as they slowly reveal themselves. So taking levels in cleric later might be an option.

This piece took off in a direction I wasn't expecting, but it works. I can start doing some research and world building now, but my schedule is crazy busy through Labor Day. That's when I'll start wrangling players. I'd strongly prefer face-to-face, most likely at Game Kastle here in Santa Clara or in Mountain View, but if I can't get four or five local players, I'll run it online.

I welcome feedback and suggestions on the setting.