The World Prior
Novos, the setting outlined on this page is relatively new. Seeds of it were planted decades ago with earlier TTRPG campaigns like Bound Spark and Green Earth, but the current iteration is less than a few years old. Prior to that my attention was solely dedicated to the world of Ældos. Here's the intro from the quickstart guide I made for it:
Hardened mercenaries fight through horrors in the depths of an ancient ruin, hunting the corrupted machine that created them, seeking coin and glory. Intrepid explorers venture beyond the edge of mapped territory in search of a lost city of shapechangers, following hints in dusty tomes toward secrets and power. Cunning thieves move through the shadows of a sorcerer's manor, searching for the arcane words she uses to command fundamental forces.
Ældos is a world where survival demands cunning, steel, and charm. Heroes and opportunists carve out their place in the dangerous space between civilization and wilderness, between human and other.
The world spans extremes; perilous ruins crawling with predators, luminous eternal cities filled with technological wonders and political intrigue, frontier outposts pushing back against the wild, industrial cities built with blood, sweat, and iron. In a world dense with monsters and mysteries, there is much to be gained by the curious and the bold.
Ældos does not welcome the unprepared. Ældans contend with voracious fauna and noxious flora, with outlaws and wildfolk, with organic and mechanical remnants from previous eras. Most people survive within fortress cities, armed outposts, or well-guarded caravans. High walls, preserved knowledge, and skilled hands on weapons—these are the pillars of civilization across Ældos' human and quasihuman cultures.
It wasn't always this way. Humanity once ruled this world. The precursor culture known as the Urul Imperium tamed Ældos with machine and magic, but disaster ended their gilded reign. A hundred forgotten cataclysms fractured the Imperium, leaving fragments: ruins, vaults, dormant technology, lost arcane formulae hidden in distant places or buried deep beneath the risen world. A single fragment, discovered, deciphered, activated, can elevate or destroy an entire culture, and lift its discoverers from obscurity and into legend.
Your story starts in the age of such discoveries. A long age of darkness has ended and a new age of humanity dawns. Slowly, painfully, what was lost is being found, what was wild mapped, what is dangerous pushed back. Monsters catalogued, ancient machines revived, forgotten secrets recovered. There is much left to be done in the reclaiming of the world.
Why?
Ældos was the result of both a desire for my own fantastical setting and growing aversion to fantasy tropes. I wanted a setting where I could explore myths, legends, magic, culture, adventure, heroism, outside the shadow of Tolkien. I love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, they were my introduction to fantasy and I owe JRRT much, but after decades of Elves™, Dwarves™, Wizards™, Barbarians™... It feels like this sort of fantasy default has arisen, from D&D in particular. I understand it as comforting common entry point for most, a shorthand that lets people access the fantastic without feeling lost, but even the subversions seem predictable at this point. Don't get me wrong, I can see why it appeals, how it eases people into fantastic stories or gives them a sense of direction, makes the whole thing less intimidating or frustrating.
But for me, classic/high fantasy increasingly feels like stagnation, creative cowardice, or simply laziness.
With Aeldos I tried to make new things. New gods, new species, new structures and relationships between magic and technology. No elves, dwarves, orcs; no zeus or odin analogs; no heaven and hell. I started from a gnostic creation myth of an evil elder god and triads of new gods, the Ayr, and I built the world from there. Whenever I came up against a fantasy trope I tried to either reinterpret it or recreate it in the context. I pulled from sci-fi, from cosmic horror, from real world history, from lesser known myths. I tried to make something original and while I'm sure I failed as often as I succeeded, the result is a setting that is mine.
((ADD LINKS TO AELDOS CONTENT))