Some world events/complications to consider based on setting it in 1236...

Middle of Reconquista in Iberia/Spain... which brings up the specter of real world religious conflicts.
Sixth Crusade, ditto.
Holy Roman Empire... dit.to.

Mongols in China (Jurchen Jin, but whatevah...) and moving west as well.

Good News: I can completely ignore Australia and 'the New World'.  Fuckem, they're gone! Poof!  I got Yaun-Ti in Africa clashing with the Kingdom of Mali, and Orc-Mongols rampaging across Russia and I'm probably going to go totally racist-nuts on the Ainu (like I just did with the Mongolians.... my work for evil is never done...), but whatever.

Thoughts on handling of this.

First, I'd already decided to de-emphasize but not eliminate Christianity, as a fantasy world where objectively provable gods are real (vs the 'take it on faith' of the real world), and so forced conversion is a lot messier, and the appeal of the more monotheistic Christian faith would be reduced.   Simply give the same treatment to Islam, reducing it to regional players rather than two monolithic faith-blocs fighting for control over the world.  Ideally I should just remove them entirely, but I've enjoyed too many 'fake catholic churches' from Anime to give up now!  Of course, thirteenth century catholics... meh.

This means that the Reconquista  and the Crusades are not holy wars between Christianity and Islam, but regional political fights, possibly involving other religious (pagan) forces. More so the Reconquista than the Crusade.

Holy Roman Empire is not fighting the Papacy. Name change perhaps?  Teutonic pagan religion?

Mongols as Orcs?   Actual real world mongolians may not like it (and I've known a few, but not well enough to say), but the idea has its appeal.  Related I'm tempted to make the Jin into a non-human kingdom, or predominantly non-human (Asian Elf?) kingdom, but its too early to say.

Also leads to question of Byzantium. Heavy Atlantean influence? Obviously post-diaspora, but as a major population group? Last hurrah of the old guard?  Not feeling it, but worth a look.  

Major thought is that most 'kingdoms' are regional polities, rather than ethno-states, so the large question is more who is the ruling class made up of, rather than 'who is the state made up of'.  Gah, that's an awful sentence... anyway...

Crude Ideas... make that Rough Ideas...  the Sidhe Elves are most populous along the northern and western parts of continental europe, but are not a dominant power in any of the major kingdoms (seeing as their own kings and queens live in the Fae Realms), but are common mostly in the british isles and northern France and Spain, while farther east they compete with the southernmost reaches of the Alfar, and to the south-east the Sylvain, who are spread across transylvainia (accident, I swear!!), or if you like Hungry and Bulgaria, with their own city-state in the region.  

Byzantium as largely dwarvish?  Makes some sense, what with teh walls and all, but still not feeling it. Heavy dwarven influence?


The idea that most of the world is predominantly Human kingdoms with heavy populations of fantasy races  (and scattered pocket kingdoms), with all sorts of wild lands filled with 'monster races' does have appeal, but also seems to be missing opportunity.  May take a breather during research phase and focus on 'building up' races and such that I've sidelines. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs (mongols? Steppe Riding Nomads is a nice change from the usual...)... plus Dwarves and such like.  I may just grab my PHB and 'handle' the races in order, at least in a gloss unlike the 'big works' I've already done, if only to get the brain juice bubbling.  Hmm... time to open a new word-doc?  Yes, I AM brainstorming 'aloud' as I type. So? You got a problem with that???! Well, DO YA?!


Yanno? I don't think I would have set myself up deliberately to deal with things like Mongol invasions and what not... I was more or less aiming at gutting the 'real world' for Fantasy Real World, now with 50% less Ren-Faire mideval fakery! (TM, yo), but now that I've gone and done it... I'm looking forward to it!

Of course, I MAY need to play time-cop and move my historical slider back to the past so that I can 'evolve' up to the state of AD 1236... but since I want to get stuck in now that I've made up my mind, I may settle for risking a bit of retconn re-write down the line instead.

As an example of the complexity of the task I have set before me, consider tiny little Portugal...

In 1236 the southern part of Portugal was still part of Al-Andalusa, and would be for another 13 years.   Its 'tractable history' goes something like Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths and Ummayids.

Now, its pretty much been Portugal as we know and love it since 1249, and despite the Ummayid/al-Andalusia thing, been recogonizable since 1128.

So: Do I keep with King Sancho II of Portugal, fighting whatever replaces the Ummayids in the setting?  Do I pop some made up king?   What sort of fantasy influences do I pull in to make it more than a dry trip through history, now with Elves!

Who were the Carthaginians in this alternate setting? That's important stuff since the Romans only invaded to keep Porto Cale mines from Cartheginian hands during the second punic war...  With names like Hasdrubal should they be a fiendish Tiefling kingdom?  What about the Celts? Are they a predominant elvish peoples, Human? Something else?

So many questions.  But like Xander Cage said... "I LIVE For This Shit!"

I mean: Once I start solving those questions, the passage through the regions of Europe goes pretty quickly until I get into the wild and wooly eastern europe and russia, much less passing south into Africa or the middle east.


And NONE of that has even touched on the role the Catholic Church played in Sancho II's death, etc.... a role that has to be completely unwritten or re-imagined with regards to this alternate, fantasy version...

So for the first regional lookie-lo, I figured I'd go with Iceland and basically leave Greenland as a footnote if mentioned at all.

In the real world Snorri Snurlsonn has gone to Norway the previous year (1235) to be recruited to make Iceland a part of Norway, which is part of an opening gambit that leaves Iceland (in a few years) to become a pretty violent place, by Icelandic standards, and eventually does see Iceland become a 'part' of Norway.

Interesting.  Also: Awesome. This is setting gold, Jerry!  We've got a period of relative calm just before a big political storm and factional infighting, which will include Iceland's only naval battle and their single bloodiest battle.  

I see no reason to muck with the political situation whatsoever, and in my typical modern american arrogance I'll assume that the Icelanders do go a viking in this era, because of course they do!  Do they? Don't care: Vikings are cool, and Sagas are being written. (Snorri, more famous for his Epic Saga, will be murdered over all this noise in five years, so... yeah! Sagas, bitches!).

Now, were I doing this as a professional sourcebook or something I'd point to the Godar, the quarters, the roles of cheifs, but this is a big project done on a lark on a forum, so go wiki up some shit for yourselves, ya lazy bums.

The big change I have here is that the Icelanders are all Half Elves, or at least predominantly so. I imagine a bunch of human vikings and alfar settled here getting away from the noise of Harald Fairhair's drive for kingship, and of course on viking raids took a lot of really pretty sidhe elf-maids back to Iceland (Seriously: Icelanders tell me they're all a bunch of pretty, pretty people because they always took the best slaves back in the viking days. Is it true? Who cares!), which results in a pretty solid intermixing of Human and Elf in their isolated community, resulting in what is (circa 1236)... half elves.

While there are still plenty of pure blood Alfar and Sidhe on the island (seeing as they can easily live the 400 odd years since the settlement of Iceland, we're mostly talking first generation here), there are virtually no more pure blooded human families left, only various degrees of human-elf mixing.

Now, beyond that Iceland is pretty boring from an Adventuring point of view. None of the monsterous races we usually think of as problems are found on Iceland, and so far as that is concerned, the "Big Monsters" are the ancient red dragon that lairs on one of the many volcanos (Pick one...), and the younger chromatics  (many of them Blue or White) that lair on the island, as well as the natives of Nidvallr (Dokkalfar and a race known as Black Goblins (until I get to them for a work up, anyway) who are unrelated to the surface Goblins in any meaningful way, who frequently interact with the locals.

No, the big 'monster' or 'adventure' issues for Iceland lies in the waters off the coast.  The Icelanders are experts at dealing with Kraken, Sahagin, murlocks (um.....) and others, and not in the 'invite them over for tea' sort of way.  If ya got Aquatic Elves you want at your table, they can be found in the coastal settlements of Iceland, dealing openly with the locals, even putting in a bit of dry-land settling of their own if that's yer bag.

So the Kingdom of Norway.  

Just got done with a big ass civil war caused by some asshole forgetting to write down the rules for inheriting the throne.  Not even kidding. One hundred years of fighting, ski-lifted babies, dudes getting their eyes put out and feet cut off for daring to wear the crown...

Good stuff.  Pretty much ended because everyone was fucking sick of the whole show, and this Hakkon guy was just hanging about with this awesome story about how he MIGHT be the son of the last great contender and had to get skiied out of enemy territory as a faaking baby.  Moses in a basket levels of divine providence and whatnot.

Oh, and he actually seems pretty bad ass at this whole political thing. So make him king.

Boom. End of the Civil war, and by 1236 yer looking at 20 solid years of peace, stability and, oh my faaking god prosperity.  Russian kings are offering to give territory to Norway to marry into the Norwegian Royal family, the IRISH of all goddamn people are offering the High Kingship to Haakon if he'll just slap the English around once or twice for 'em.   Its good to be a viking in 1236, eh?  Hell, the god damn POPE is trying to make Haakon the fuckign Holy Roman Emperor, which, by the way, the current dude with that title is NOT happy with.  

And the King? He's turning 'em all down. Mongols, doncha know.  He sets up shop in Europe proper, never mind Russia, and BAM! He'll have Mongols to deal with. Hell, he doesn't even want the Irish, and they're farther from the Mongols than he is.

Well...

I mean. Irish.  Whaddya gonna do?

On the other hand hes got ALL of teh ships, so maybe not such a great time to be a Viking.  Sure, its great to be Norwegian and shit, but he's not exactly letting his people run off with a valuable ship and go get money and fame and babes an shit. Might try to buck his reign, and frankly everyone in Norway is heartily sick of that shit.  


So. What do we change?

Well. The Irish thing and the Pope thing. I mean they're nifty but they don't quite stand up where the setting is going with all the fantasy shit.  I mean, we just undersell it until it goes away. Maybe some Irish did offer him the High Kingship, maybe they didn't....  

Politically Norway is in the exact same boat (120, apparently. In the Norwegian Navy of the 13th Century...).  Newly peaceful, powerful, feared and respected and with a solid king making political deals on the world stage.  

For adventurers there is less political stuff... probably plenty of scores to settle between the balgers and the... um... skiing guys (Sorry, teh name of hteir party is like thirty letters long and reads like a bad case of bronchitus), but that's chump change.  

On the other hand, Norway is a great place to set D&D adventures involving monsters!  Me? I'm perfectly happy to turn the Sami people in Goliaths, and put goblins, or xvarts, whatever floats your boat, in the forests and mountains.  Dragons of course and other critters that like the cold, and all that civil war bloodshed means putting Gnolls in Norway actually makes sense based on their new write up.... but I do miss the Flind-bars.

Now, cutting into Norway's stability is the Alfar that  mostly live in their own communities.  Some may have taken sides in the civil war, and thus in the united Norway, but others will see the human politics as beneath them... and that sort of thing ain't cool, yo.  That's exactly the same attitude of various chieftans that needed to be put down to make Norway a country in the first place. You've got Dwarven Clanhalls and access points to Nidvallr all over the damn place, and then there is the fact that having the worlds strongest navy means jack and shit in a world full of under-sea civilizations that could, at any moment, make a mockery of all you've built.


So for all his apparent power, Norway is actually pretty rough. Lots of independent powers inside his realm, his main source of international power is horrifically vulnerable.   His best bet is to treat at least the Dwarves and the realm of Nidvallr as foriegn powers with actual borders, but for now its actually just 'ignore them and worry about other things', like getting the Alfar communities in his territory to at least pay lip service to the crown and protecting his fleet from undersea powers... by cutting deals with OTHER undersea powers!  

And you know who is up for a little underwater diplomacy?

Adventurers. The correct answer was adventurers...

Okay, so a quicky.

In 1236 absolutely nothing of interest is going on in Sweden or Finland geo-politically.  I mean, the Swedes are a-viking their asses off, but they don't really get their king thing on for another 13 years, and the fins?

Well, I mean first the Sami to the north are pretty much their own entity, and the big question of the day is if they'll pay taxes to Russian taxmen or Norwegian Tax Men. The southern fins are getting into international trade, but won't actually catch up culturally until the swedes get a king and decide to conquer their lazy butts.... which in the real world meant 'bring christianity to these heathen dogs... with a side of increasing my personal power and wealth'... here its just, really, the power and wealth thing.

Now this is good and bad. Good because that means the entire area is pretty much Adventure Heaven, but the 'bad' is that pretty much nothing important needs to be said.  Humans, Alfar, dwarves, dragons monsters, points of light, yadda yadda.

And I'm sticking with my totally racist decision to turn the real world Sami people into Goliaths.



I do suppose it is interesting to note that Finnish is not a P.I.E. language, which means we can rule out any major Atlantean influence on their culture... going way way back (though if I read it correctly... the Finnish language group may have SUPPLANTED a PIE language sometime around 2000 BC?   That's... interesting. Not terribly useful right now, but interesting)

I'll just assume that the Goliath/Sami have pretty good relations with the Finns, and probably don't much like the idea of being taxed, but... well... aside from a good iconic woodcut, you just know that the number three fella in the universe was the Taxman, right after the Prime Mover(God) and Death.

Ok, so I was doing some thinking while I was at work.  Next on my schedule (so to speak) is the british Isles, which should be dead simple and speedy... maybe a single post for the lot of them... but... but...

Well, here's the thing. I sorta have the idea that Ireland is pretty much the domain of the Sidhe Elves, but I haven't really done anything to EXPLAIN what makes the Sidhe different from the Sylvain or the Alfar, so that's a thing... and I'd really like to get on that "Black Goblin" thing from earlier (Deep Gnomes? Repurposed Deep Gnomes? Damnit, where's my monster manuel...), but that's a distraction...

See, I ALSO was thinking of the Tuatha de Danaan and the Milesians as more 'Race of Men', and frankly, having Ireland be almost entirely Elf pretty much puts a kibosh on that, and anyway I'm totally filching characters from the de Daanan as it is for 'elsewhere' so.

Which brings me around to the last point. I'm not UN-happy with what I've done so far, but frankly it feels a bit like a 'why bother', since I'm just riffing through history pages on Wiki and salting a few fantasy races here and there. No... IMPACT if you will, and at the moment certainly no Atlantis. I mean: Sure, right now I'm sort of outside their practical reach, seeing as how they're merely slightly jumped up stone-age psuedo-empire... but, well..


So I'm gonna hold the geography for a bit and focus on building up the elements for the next few posts.

Nidavellr:

To start with, Nidavellr is NOT the underdark. It is, rather, much like the Feywild, a separate realm or dimension that overlaps the Material Plane significantly.  However, the mistake is easy to make, as the most common places where Nidavellr can be reached are underground.

Like the Feywild the true size of Nidavellr is unknown, but it is believed to be as large as the Earth itself, if not larger, but geographic oddities and differences in terrain can allow one to traverse Nidavellr 'faster' than the same trip on the Material Plane in most cases, leading many to assume it is smaller... a similar 'trick' of movement exists in the Feywild, but there the difference is due to entirely different 'laws' governing the reality.

Nidavellr is, by all accounts, a dry and rocky place... though it has been suggested that only the borderlands touching Earth are so described.  More notably, however, it is dark. Very, very dark. There are no stars in the sky, no moons.  By human eyes nothing in the entire realm gives off light unless it is brought in by outsiders.

Dark Vision works fine in Nidavellr, but more importantly the denizens and creatures of Nidavellr appear to invert their own perceptions, seeing the vast unbroken darkness as 'well lit' and sources of light as patches of dark... though perhaps this is merely a poor metaphor.

Nidavellr touches upon the Shadowlands and other places of elemental darkness, and many of the creatures that may be found there are creatures of shadow, but not all.

Three races are known to dwell in Nidavellr specifically.

The Dokkalfar are the acknowledged masters of the Realm, though again the truth of this may not extend past the lands that border the Material Plain.  They live in vast stone fortresses that are the gatherings of entire clans of Dokkalfar, and engage in a perpetual war of politics and assassinations against each other.

The Myrkalfar are not native, but have excellent Dark Vision and travel the borderlands, trading with the natives and returning to the Material Plane from time to time to collect exotics.  Each caravan of Myrkalfar must be dealt with separately, though familiarity and friendships with the Myrkalfar may help when dealing with a new caravan. May, being the operative word.

The Svirfneblin:  In the northlands they are often called Goblins, and to diferentiate themselves from the gobliniods, they may call themselves Black Goblins.   They have vast clan holds in the rocks of Nidavellr, but many interprising individuals may be found all over the Material Plane, often as merchants.  Unlike the Dokkalfar they do not struggle with the Light, though they still prefer dark places.


While there is little, if any, evidence that Atlantis had any dealings with Nidavellr, the Svirfneblin and the Dokkalfar both have been known to 'produce' artifacts from Atlantis from their vaults. In the former case there is an equal possibility that said artifacts are forgeries, though their quality is superb.  On the other hand, it is known that refugees from Lemuria did come to Nidavellr and stay for an unknown length of time.  It may be suggested that Nidavellr has access to the Moon as well as Earth, but this remains unproven.

Since time immemorial the Sidhe Elves had lived alongside the Celts throughout Europe very nearly as one peoples.  The coming of the Roman Legions, driven by the Atlantean, Lacan, broke the ancient covenant, dispersing the human tribes and killing many of the Elves, driving them back into the Feywild from which they had come.

To this day the Sidhe may be found in hidden places all over Europe, but only living openly in Ireland (Eire) and a few other places in the British Isles.  They no longer live alongside Men of any sort, and their dealings with them are cruel and high handed.

But the Sidhe had always been cruel and high handed, so perhaps not much has changed. The Men who lived alongside them in the old days were treated as a lower caste of Elf, not equals as some would have it, and the Men who live among the Sidhe today in places like Ireland, often live in fear of the capricious whims of their masters.  Despite being mostly scattered and hidden the Sidhe have weathered the viscissitudes of history quite well, and why should they not... for they do not call the Earth their home, but rather view their holdings here as mere colonies of their true homes in the Feywild.

Indeed, the rulers of the Sidhe have never been known to set foot on this realm, and it of those worthies we shall speak for the moment.

Sidhe politics are divided into four realms, each with an absolute sovereign leader, and two 'Courts'.  The four realms are named after the seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, which are not mere names but reflect the character of the Realm and its sovereign as well as the climate of its region of the Feywild, while the Two Courts are Seelie and Unseelie, and may be found in some numbers in each of the four realms.  It is not entirely inaccurate to claim the Seelie as 'good' and the Unseelie as 'evil', though perhaps 'Light' and 'Dark' are better divisions.  All of the Fey races agree to these divisions, though not all the Fey claim allegiance to the Four Realms, and indeed, the Sidhe Elves are the defacto aristocrats of the Fey, but only within those four.

It is common to refer to four realms as 'courts' as well, though this is a translation error and one that can lead to some difficulty for the incautious.

The immortal, semi-divine rulers of the four realms are:

Spring: King Lugh, also King of the Seelie Court
Summer: Queen Brigid
Fall: King Gwynn ap Nudd, who reportedly has not been seen in an age, and whose court lies empty
Winter: Queen Morrigan, Queen of the Unseelie, known to Men as the Cruel Queen

The Sidhe do maintain cordial relations with the Alfar elves, treating them as equals and dignitaries in their realms, but otherwise have little to do with them. The Sylvain they call 'the Lost', and generally disdain them, but the do acknowledge Llothlorien and Ur-Sylvanus, and have been known to refer to the ruler of the Sylvain (currently Prince Nuada of the House of Oberon) as the 'former ruler of the realm of Earth'.

The Sidhe generally worship their soveriegns as Gods, when the subject of divinity comes up, and acknowledge no others.   All Sidhe Elves consider themselves Nobles, though the rules of etiquette for dealing with a Sidhe are quite obscure, and often rely on knowing which Realm and Court holds the vassalage of the Elf in question.   Sidhe elves are tall, with slightly elongated ears, and an almost alien beauty, touched as they are by the Fae.  Normally they do not use forged arms and armor, but rather items 'dreamt' into being, powerful in the right hands, but delicate and useless to others.  The Sidhe generally disdain archery and the woodcrafts of the Sylvain as 'beneath them', yet disgraced Sidhe have been known to take up such arts, honing their skills in the Feywild.

The Feywild:

This is a seperate dimension close to, and touching the material plain, and is the native home to all manner of fey creatures. It is a land of wild spaces and chaos, and it is held by many to be closer to the Land of Dreams than the material plain.  The Feywild is endless and unmappable, for the landscape changes frequently, though learning its ways is quite possible. There are countless 'landmarks' and fixed places, such as the thrones of the four Sovereign Realms, that one can navigate to... but first one must learn the way, or engage in a local guide. Magic helps, but there are curious correspondences. Arcane magic tends to be more powerful, but is often unpredictable, producing Wild Magic results. Nature magic is quite easy, unaffected by the Feywild itself... but prone to 'seasonal taboos' in the Four Realms.

Fey Warlocks and Sorcerers, along with Bards of all sorts, may travel the Feywild freely in most cases. Even the wild beasts of the Feywild will not harm them unless provoked.  Those who have a demonic taint, however, should avoid the Feywild entirely, even those who have merely summoned a demon or have a demonic familiar should never trust the word of a Fey, for they despise Demons. Devils, on the other hand...

Cool story.

Not sure how to take that, as its half story and half dry as sand nuts and bolts fantasy politics....  







I do find myself trying to pare down the ideas when translating from 'head' to 'page', rather than getting lost in minutia.  I probably could have done another three paragraphs on the geography of the Feywild... and I honestly have no idea what the canon details of the Feywild are, since I'm 'just now' looking at 5E D&D, and I don't recall it being a realm before that.   I'm honestly tempted to skip the methodical tour of the world I'm currently doing to bounce between areas that I've actually got ideas for...  

Of course, all of this is procrastination...   I'll do more posts when I'm not ragged with sleep dep, but this weekend turned out to be a wash for writing.  I work outside, at night... and winter just hit for reals. I'm pooped.

We turn our attention then to Ireland. Originally I had planned to do all the British Isles in one post, but Ireland has always been... special.  Short-bus, window-licking special or the better sort, depending on your point of view.

So lets look at Real Ireland, circa 1236.

Unlike Stockholm (founded in 1241), Dublin exists and is well established, settled by vikings and conquered by the Normans, which for expediency we'll just call the English.  English control is fading slowly, then quickly in about 1261, then nearly totally collapses a hundred years later during the Black Death, but that's pretty much outside our relevent window.  This region around Dublin is known as The Pale, which I think has some interesting connotations for the phrase 'Beyond the Pale', which has fascinated me since I was 16 or so (For the curious there was a decent trio of Irish folksingers using that as their band name when I was about that age. They went semi-national then... I assume... were taken by elves or something...)

How does this translate into our existing fantasy model of Ireland?

Well, I'd LOVE to bring in the Milesians, the Tuatha de Danaan and all that, and I probably will in some way in later posts... but mind you I've already begun strip mining the Tuatha for 'characters' heavily, which is a nasty obstacle, and D&D already has their own rules for Formorians and Galeb Duhr, and I'd like to avoid anything that forces major rewrites of rules... not because I can't, but to keep this 'user friendly', if you like.

According to my map of the world in the 12th century, Ireland is divided into four regions/nation. Two are named, one corresponds to the Pale and the last is... borderlands?  Hey, you want better research, pay me.

Anyway: That works out reasonably well for the Four Realms of the Feywild, so I"m going to work that in.

So we have the Kingdoms of Aileach and Connaught, the Borderlands and The Pale.  I'm notionally assigning the Pale to the Winter Realm and the Borderlands to the Autumn Realm, and I arbitrarily don't care how the other two go, so Aileach is Spring and Connaught is Summer.  

Now, from what I can tell from looking into the Kings of Aileach, Aileach is actually a sort of confederation of smaller kingdoms and principalities, and I'm guessing (see earlier comment about free research) that Connaught was the same, differing only in the ruling, hmm... clan.

This works.

What also works is that the last high king of Ireland (for our timetable) died in 1198, when the English invaded.


So:

In 1236, Ireland is as it has always been, a wild and strange land, filled with strange folk.  In ages past the Sidhe and their Human retainers settled on the Island as one part of a vast and loosely arranged tribal federation.  Under constant press of the Romans, their domains in Europe, and eventually Britannia were largely shattered leaving Ireland as the last stronghold of the Sidhe in the material plane, and the last place their human retainers lived openly under their... benevolent... rule.  Waves of subsequent invaders and refugees inevitably succumbed to the powers of the fey and the Sidhe.

It should be noted, however, that while the Races of Men [Ed Note: I'm counting Halflings as a Race of Men, because I can...] are welcome to settle, provided they pay fealty to the Sidhe, the Elves have ever been less inclined to tolerate other races, particularly the monsterous races.  Ancient wars against the Formorians are well attested, but shining hosts marching on goblins and orcs and others happened with startling frequency throughout Irish History.

But some four hundred years ago a startling break in this common pattern occurred, when the Northmen began raiding Ireland in their Longships, setting up permanent trading posts on the coast, most notably Dublin.  Rather than swear fealty to the Sidhe they raided, and the Shining Hosts were expected to march to war, as they ever had...

And yet they did not. Because with the Northmen came the Alfar, and the Sidhe recognized these strange other Elves as kin of a sort.  For the first time in a thousand years the Soveriegns of the Sidhe reorganized their territories in the Material Plane, after long negotiations with the Alfar.

It was a wise move on their part, for the Northmen, though never swearing fealty to the Sidhe themselves, quickly settled into the rhythems of Irish life, marrying into the existing families as settlers ever had, while their Alfar allies mingled with the Sidhe of the Winter Realm, and while the wider world opened up to the Men of Ireland, the Sons of Danu as they were known, life changed little despite the new coastal cities.

A little over thirty years ago, however, it was all upset when the English invaded and took The Pale, the material plain realm corresponding with the Feywild Winter Realm, pressing out into the lands beyond. The Northmen had come as raiders, but had become settlers, willing... even eager, to adopt themselves to their new homes. The English came as Conquerers, well versed in Fairy Magics, and conducting brutal rituals to bind and surpress the Fey influence in their lands.  The Winter Realm is virtually cut off from the Mortal Plain, though Queen Morrigan seethes on her throne, seemingly powerless but undoubtedly scheming.  The borderlands, the domains of King Gywnn ap Nudd are not quite so throughly controlled, but the court of the Autumn King is empty, the Throne dusty and bare, and none can say where he has gone, though his few priests have power still.

Without their true King, the Irish of the Borderlands seem helpless before these new invaders.

But where is the Shining Host?  Why have the Sidhe not ridden to battle, leading their wild and fierce human retainers to sweep the conquerers from the Island?

Ahh, the answer to that question lies in the ancient pacts sworn between the Four in a time before memory.  The answer to that lies in the office of the High King.

Ireland has ever had a High King, and the vast and scattered tribes of the Celts before them had one as well, though the office had been neglected during the age of the Romans, allowing them to sweep the Sidhe and the Celts from Europe.    

You see: the Four Soveriegns, and their Hosts, may not enter the Material Plain, the Waking World, unless they are specficially invited, and the only person who has that authority is the High King, who is viewed as a sort of junior soveriegn, perhaps a Lord Mayor (if the Sidhe used such terms....) for the Lands of Men.  

It seems the English have known this, for before their first ships landed upon Ireland's shores, taking Dublin and The Pale, a strange withering sickness took the King of Connaught, the High King of Ireland, and no other has been recognized to take his place.

Without that invitation, without a High King, the Sidhe may only make small raids and sorties, and then only after tense negotiations between the Four, as they are jealous and suspicious of their peers by nature.  And with Queen Morrigan and her realm cut off, and King Gwynn ap Nudd missing, such negotiations are especially difficult, and each of the Four may only act on their own 'territory', which is why the English have not pressed through the Borderlands to seige Connaught or Aileach.

Of course, the English are finding it a hard slog, as the entire Borderlands region seems to have partially merged with the Feywild, but the shocking lack of Autumnal Sidhe has also encouraged the Formorians to stalk the lands openly.  The English have responded by bringing large numbers of bound demons, warlocks and sorcerers with infernal connnections and engaging in vast ritual workings..

There is a mystic war crossing two realms (at least) for the Soul of Ireland, and dark magics at work in the land.







Edit: undid

The Rest of Ol' Britannia:

As even a rudimentary grasp of history will remind you, the Normans (NORM!) under William the Conquerer invaded in 1066, only 170 years before the 'setting date'. For perspective, that's just about as recent as the Civil war (For Americans in the audience, anyway...).   The Norms have been spreading out and slowly but surely conquering all of the Island.  I'm not sure they ever got anywhere on the Isle of Man directly, and frankly that's so marginal I... I don't actually care to know.

Now, in 1236, Wales was pretty much entirely under English Control, English meaning Norman, with Norman Castles ringing the place and the title 'Prince of Wales' already more or less in Norman Hands, though the big legal decree preventing the Welsh from ruling themselves is still a good... say 50 years... from being enacted.  

Scotland is, well, the redheaded stepchild here.  Rulership of 'the Kingdom of Alba' has fallen rather naturally (through marriage and inheritance) to a Norman from France, and he's imported a bunch of Norman customs to the Noblity of Scotland, rather than conquest, but curiously Scotland is claimed by Norway of all damn things, though they won't try to enforce that claim for another 20 years.  The Highlanders are a thing, and will be for another 500 years more or less, but make no mistake... they are more or less stone age barbarians who only have steel because their neighbors aren't, and they will be for another 500 years. Kilts and Tartans as we know them do not exist and will not for... you guessed it, another 500 years.  The Lowland Scots are vaguely English, but with less Norman influence, and largely engage in Reiving, which is basically a rather sporting take on cattle theft, only with real bloodshed.  William Wallace has not yet been born.


So, how does Fantasy Britannia look?

Well, the Island of Man is just filthy with Hobbits... er... I mean Halflings. Yes, the Manxmen are all midgets. Suck it, I'm too lazy to care.

The Highlanders are pretty much all Half Orcs, the last 'native' orc tribes on the Island having been absorbed and bred out.   I leave it up to individual GMs to determine the presence of Dwarves in Scotland... my take is 'no', but what do I know?   There are some Sidhe scattered around the Scottish highlands as well, thinning out as you reach the Lowlands and almost entirely absent from England proper, though there are a lot of half-elves in Wales. Seriously: Have you seen Welsh names? Tell me there are no elves in Wales.

England is pretty much entirely under Norman control, meaning you have a 'lower class' of native Anglo-saxons, and a mostly french speaking viking nobility ruling over them.  Its mostly peaceful, but only just. William may have conquered the old fashioned way, but his decendants rule through superior mystic knowledge and contracts with dark powers. Lots of warlocks and sorcerers and a few mages, along with priests of dark (infernal) gods, fighting a war for the soul of Britannia against the Anglo-Saxon Druids and 'Elf-lovers'.   This means a fair amount of tieflings are found in England, both 'Norman' and unfortunately among the Anglo-Saxon natives.

The Island as a whole, but especially the English part of it, is absolutely swarming with Halfling Holes, as the pint-sized people claim Britannia as their native land, and all the 'tall folk' as invaders, though they are rather lugabricious about the state of affairs.  What did I just say? Never mind.

I'm about to turn my attention to the mainland of Europe, which I've been both anticipating and dreading, so I thought I'd do a little thinking aloud here.

As I've moved 'forward' with the geography I've tried to up my game as far as making a more "fantastic" earth, but so far its pretty much been human dominated, with small outposts of other races.  That would be fine if I were working from my usual 'runequest/generic' style, but I'm aiming this at D&D, and its not quite doing it for me.  Sure, I've pointed to Orc Hordes replacing the Mongols and all that, and I'm certain the Hobgoblin Assyrians (rather, their descendants) will give me a wealth of Fantastic if I focus on it properly, but that's tinkering on the margins.

Of course, hitting the mainland does present me a problem that I've mentioned before. Both Christianity and Islam are minor players in the setting due to the reality of the various pagan gods, which makes a lot of the conflicts of European History quite a bit... warped.  

The problem with simply swapping out various Muslim forces with random monster races, which might be thematically valid, is that it reduces complex, fully rounded cultures with 2d 'baddies', which is a no-no in my personal writing guide.    Insofar as that goes, for example, the 'Orc Mongols' should be as well rounded and interesting... even cosmopolitan... as the Real Mongols. But that leads to simple palette swapping, and that is part of what, I think, has been boring me about this project.  I'm sticking with the palette swapped mongols, because the idea speaks to me, but I'm trying to go a bit farther. I want to make parts of the setting both eerily familiar and alien, and thats a tall order.

Now: I've always loved the Gith races, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on (though the cover art of the Fiend Folio was bad-ass...), and my intent is to ground them in the setting.  The are wasted (in my opinion) as trans-dimensional nomadic raiders.

To bring those two threads together, my intention in my next post is to bring in the Gith (which group is the question...) as the Al-Andalus/Almohades... completely divorcing them from the real-world Sultanate. I may do the Gith Almohades (with the Taureg  being folded in) before I hit Iberia properly, to set the stage better.



To be honest I'm thinking this sort of Fantasy 13th Century D&D Earth might have been better as a stand-alone concept, since tying it to my Holocene Atlantis is, well, a weak thread, and I'm constantly thinking out little of that Atlantis I am using.  Luckily as we move geographically 'inwards' I can weave them together a bit more.

Scope:  I intend to 'touch' at least the 'whole world' excepting Australia and the Americas, not because I have no ideas (which, eh, maybe...), but because, simply, they don't really interact with anyone else in the scope of history at this point.  They might as well be an alternate setting for all anyone cares.... though in my schema at least two (three?) of the Atlantean Lords are found in the Americas, but for the main I've been ignoring them.


Related, I realize I need to be pulling up the Monster Manuel a bit more.  Dinosaurs in Africa is easy, and extra-dimensional gribblies can be found anywhere, but what about Beholders?  That leads to questions about pre-human civilizations and ruins in the wild places of the world and then we could talk Illithids and Aboleths. Frankly, while there is an Underdark (and I'm not talking about Nidavellr), I'd like to de-emphasize it as 'Big Game Monster Preserve', meaning moving some of those gribblies to the surface.  Hmm... I may take my MM to work with me. Feels like HighSchool all over again...

'

The Gith:

Natives to the northern and western reaches of Africa, particularly the Sahel, the Gith have ever been the target of wrath of Empires.  In the earliest days, when the Gith were one people, they found themselves beset to the East by the fringes of the Atlantean Empire, a minor conflict on its face, as Atlantis had grown greater than it could manage, but acerbated by the presence of exiles and renegade slaves, particularly the powerful and aggressive Amazons, who were driven into Gith territories by their need to escape the long arms of Atlantis.

But it was the Illithid empire growing to their south, one that seemed far more advanced than the Atlantean Empire, that was the true threat, and the Gith found themselves slaves in their own lands, forced to breed in vast numbers and used as foot-soldiers by the Illithids as they began to expand.

The Gith found themselves thrust onto the spears of three mutually hostile forces, the Yaun-ti, who were themselves exiles from Atlantis but had grown strong on the coast of Africa, their Illithid masters, who were cruel and voracious, and Atlantis itself, who found the strength for one last mighty war before it eventually turned inwards and collapsed.

The War raged for centuries, and the Gith bled and died in countless numbers, but they also grew strong.

The Gith named themselves after the one who freed them, Gith, a Slave-soldier of uncommon skill.  It was she who negotiated in secret with the Atlanteans, and then, during a vital battle turned on the Illithid Masters, and alongside the Atlanteans, crushed their great cities.

But it was that alliance with the Atlanteans that led to Gith's downfall. Perhaps.  Gith was no friend to the Atlanteans, nor the Yaun-ti, and she commanded a mighty army.  Gith intended to lead her people to war once more, not as slave-soldiers, but as conquerers.

It was Zerthimon, a former 'house slave' who confronted her, accused her of being a traitor to their kind, of being a pawn of Atlantis, having taken their 'gifts' in return for power.   The two fought, and though the outcome is not in doubt (They both died), the meaning was contended by followers of both, and the Gith, free for the first time in millennia, found they had nothing to bind them but the philosophies of stronger peoples.  Rather than bow to others, they gave themselves to the teachings of either Gith or Zerthimon, and in time came to be known as Githyanki and Githzerai, and for the next several thousand years they would fight each other frequently.

Despite this, the Gith remained one of the most advanced races on Earth, having kept the secrets of the Illithids and many secrets of the shattered Yaun-ti kingdom, as well as some of the gifts of Atlantis, including a variation on the old Atlantean 'Liquid Stone', which they use to forge their 'silver' swords.

But their fractious natures kept them disunified, unable to band together, so they fell prey time and again... to the phonecians, the Cartheginians, the Egyptians, the Hellenes, and the Romans.  Each time the Gith race would survive mostly because their true strongholds lay far from the coasts, deep in the Sahel, where only the hardy nomads thrived.

In the Seventh Century, however, the Prophet of Zerthimon, Zaerith Menyar-Ag-Gith, himself an Immortal who recalled the days of Gith, made alliance with the Lich Queen Vlaakith, and united in an uneasy peace between the Githzerai and the Githyanki. Seizing on the weakness of Rome (the fact that the Atlantean Lord Lacan had 'recently' abandoned the City/Empire for greener pastures was undoubtedly a factor...), they swiftly conquered the whole of the Maghreb, and in AD 711 had gained a foothold in Iberia, conquering pretty much the whole joint in only seven years.

It should be noted that the Almohades, as they called themselves, were primarily Githzerai, with a strong force of Githyanki warriors providing ground forces.  Many Githyanki refused to have anything to do with the Githzerai, and remained in the easter Sahel, while more 'pure' Githzerai, espeically those who did not follow the Prophet Zaerith Menyar-Ag-Gith, remained in the Western Sahel, to the coast.

Despite this strong division, and the violence that accompanied it over the next five centuries, the Almohade Civilization proved in many ways to be the dominant culture of all Gith, achieving heights that the smaller nomad tribes and isolated monasteries could not hope to match, but quickly copied and adapted.

Queen Vlaakith remains in the Sahel, having only given her blessing to the Prophet, rather than her full support.  Some say she intended to, and perhaps even did, betray him... for he has not been seen for over a century... but his project, his vision of a Unified Gith people continues without him.

The Githzerai who remain are the god-haters, who viewed the worship of any god, even the Spirit of Zerthimon, and his philosophies, as an abomination. The Gith were slaves, and worshipping is a thing of Slaves.  Despite the predominance of the Githzerai in Almohades, in Al-Andalus, it is the Githzerai of the Sahel who hate the Almohades the most, while the southern Githyanki look upon their wayward cousins with something akin to malicious bemusement.

And yet, defections from both groups to the Almohades continues, even as Al-Andalus collapses, reducing the power and glory of the Almohades to a rump in the Maghreb.

So I'm conflicted. I really want to get on with the work, but since I've been reading the Mabinogi, and all the related wiki searches that leads me down, I'll be damned if I don't want to really dig deep back into ol' britannia.

Plus I'd like to do up some Artifacts (again, thanks to the Mabinogi for pushing my thoughts in those directions), maybe D&D up some classic pagan gods... ok, maybe not that one. Do it for your own table, brah.

But then too, the few feedback posts I've gotten have been 'great story, brah', and that makes me want to knock out some other In Setting myths and legends....

Odd... usually I'm mentally way ahead of the typing on projects of this sort, but at the moment my 'things to do' list is growing faster than my imagination...

So time to take a note from my older posting habits and actually lay down a sort of roadmap of posts that I can follow...

First, I'm going to get that Iberia thing knocked out, which will perforce include Morocco and hopefully will give me a bit more pizzazz on the Gith Post.
Then I'll do... Hmm... I think I'll knock out the the "races of Men' expansion... hopefully I'll do a better job than I did with the Elves one (which ballooned swiftly until I truncated it...)
THird? Return to England, I think... fill that in a bit more.
Fourth: Artifacts....  Probably just a short list thing, rather than full stat-blocks.

I'm avoiding France for the moment... I really don't have any ideas yet, and that problem persists as we move east across mainland europe. I SHOULD have ideas, but I've got too much tinkering on the margins... but since I've got to do it, that'll be project five.

Then... THEN... I'll give y'all another story.  Hmm... I'm half tempted to stay focused on the Gith, but I always worry that I'll overdo it.




Also: Here's the Map I've been working from.  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/East-Hem_1200ad.jpg