The Land

A vast continent, full of soaring mountains, burning deserts, ancient forests and sprawling cities. Heroes and villains work great magics, craft cunning objects, defeat their enemies and advance their causes. The sun, the moon and Charon – a black moon visible only when its passage obscures the stars – cross the sky every day.

Like most epic fantasy stories, the main setting of Renewal could, if you squint a little, resemble a medieval Europe (or broadly medieval – inspiration for the various factions ranges from bronze-age to late Renaissance) joined by people out of folklore, with pointed ears or ram’s horns, blue skin or fangs. “Realistic” soldiers, blacksmiths and priests rub shoulders with more fanciful sorcerers, alchemists and summoners.

In recent years, the people of this continent have made contact with other lands across the western sea, home to very different cultures; and rumours hint at further lands to the east or south. And this is not the only world – other mundane worlds exist, with their own nations, peoples and histories; as do supernatural worlds, home to demons, undead and stranger creatures, whose very nature is alien to the world of mortals.

It is a world of gods. In some nations, the gods are coy, revealing themselves only in dreams and visions, while in others the gods walk the earth, confronting their worshippers directly to bestow blessings and dispense punishments. Either way, none can doubt their existence.

It is a world of discovery. Much is known about the world, but much is still to be revealed: new lands to reach and peoples to meet, new magics to unlock, new inventions to devise.

And it is a world of mysteries. In the cities the world may seem almost familiar, but for the presence of magic; but out in the wilderness, trees walk and buildings appear and vanish, stories take form on the earth and strange creatures enchant people’s minds. Not everything can be explained or predicted, or even fully understood.

The Name of the Land Neither the continent nor the world in which much of Renewal is set have names, in common tongue; until recently, they didn’t need them – they were all that most people knew! The fae, of old, called the continent The Land, a term that can also be applied to all lands everywhere; fae have a strange way of seeing, and not all of them draw any distinction between different places. People sometimes call the lands to the west the “Western Continent” (in the west, of course, they call their counterparts the “Eastern Continent”), although the people of those lands have begun to call it Kabourashi. Students of magic sometimes call the world the True Plane – “true” in its oldest sense of “level,” this world being the one where the three spheres of magic are most closely balanced. In the coming years, names may arise for the lands and worlds and gain general acceptance, especially as the new age takes shape…