Where: You begin in the city of Astmoor. It is located in an area known as the Free States. This is a collection of baronies; Church owned estates, and free towns. Because of this, laws vary from fief to fief and characters should keep their wits about them. The major roads, however, are patrolled by an organization known as the Warders. This organization is funded and supplied by the Church, the free towns, and some of the barons.
 

Currency: In the live version of this, I have several types of money, but for simplicity, I am using the currency of Frencia, a nation to the north of the Free States. In this world, everything is on the silver standard and my currency works out like this:
 

Racism and Its History: At one time, there was a multi-racial Empire that spanned this continent. As with all empires after a time it began to crumble. There were many reasons.... a humanoid invasion, political corruption, religious differences and so on. A major point of dissention was between the humans and the elves in the populace and in the government. They couldn't agree on how to handle things and prevent the collapse of the Empire. Eventually this lead to an outright civil war. Then with the final collapse, most of the elves returned to their eastern homelands and the humans and the other races were driven west by the humanoids until the human and elven peoples were separated for the most part. The few elves in the west were now trapped in the chaos of the west. Well, you can guess the humans were looking for a scapegoat and the western elves were handy. Many of them died at the hands of vengeful mobs in those years and they were forced to live in the newly formed nations of the other demi-human races. Some 1500 years later, this human resentment is still felt, but it is not the active hate it once was. The other demi-humans faced some resentment, but not on the same scale as the elves, or for the same exact reasons.
 

Magical Persecution: In this time, mages and other spell casters (this does not include clerical magic) are often treated with mistrust and superstition. During the Empire, many commonday activities....communication, information, and transportation services to name a few, were handled by magical means. Well, as the stability of the Empire collapsed, so did this magical framework to society. As a result, many common everyday things became luxury items or were not available at all. Famine and ignorance became commonplace and the surviving wizards were often persecuted. Much magical knowledge and technology was lost and current wizards are pale shadows of the masters of the past.

As a result of this persecution....which occurs to this day in some areas, mages altered their schooling somewhat. In an effort to blend in, younger neophyte mages often train in their youth in arms and armor, bearing these items and using their magic but rarely. When they have progressed to a certain point, they must relinquish the common so they might move further into the supernatural. However, their new skills do not desert them.
 

Religion: This is a touchy one. I don't want to alienate anyone or generally anger someone. The religion in this campaign is based VERY loosely on medieval Christian religion. So there is only one deity...here referred to as the AllFather or PaterOmni. This doesn't imply that clerics have to use real prayer or anything. If they want to sound like clerics from Monty Python's THE SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL, NO PROBLEM. I'm not doing this to be sacrilegious. I just like the mediaeval feel of the religion in that time period....Gregorian chant, cathedrals, and all that.

Also, you must realize, if there is an AllFather, he has to have an opposite.

Anyways, the religious character classes are hooked up in this big hierarchy. At the beginning of the game, they are generally ordained into the service of the church, but they have no assignment of affiliation with any organizations in the church. Clerics may be asked to enter into the militant or non-militant orders of the Church at some point. The paladins will go into a militant order of some sort. A Cavalier/Paladin will probably end up in a Knight Militant Order. If you want more of an idea what this means, write me and I'll describe the differences.
 

Chivalry: For the Cavalier types. You will have no heraldic devices on your shields; except for a cavalier/paladin who'll have a cross....showing service to the church. You will be, in other words, black knights. You will receive or be allowed to design one when you either swear fealty to a lord or are brought into some knightly order.
 
 

Hopefully this clears up the cast of characters for the time being.

Asher
 

Authors Note (5/26/1999): This document was originally posted January 30-31, 1993 when the campaign was in its infancy. The party had replied to two narrations and things were still pretty fuzzy about the world and who was actually in the party. This was intended to start clarifying the situation.