" We were told that once we lived in peace. Civilisation and culture were everywhere and vast cities were filled with a contented populace who made art and wrote verse. People visited the temples on the holy days, leaving offerings and empty prayers. Then one day generations ago, the stars fell from the heavens streaking to earth through the night sky, and nightmarish creatures tore their way through the veil of reality, killing and destroying.

Now we live in a fractured world where small settlements of survivor’s cling together for safety, though most of the demons who slew the old world have dispersed and seem content to defend the territories they claimed. Some have even become part of the communities, putting their skills toward the collective survival.

Ancient buildings from before the fracturing share space with strange and alien architecture, structures which appear to have merged.

The colleges and universities are long gone, you learn from anyone who will teach you or from the experiences that failed to kill you. Where a quill, paintbrush or lute may have graced the hand of your predecessors; a spear, axe or bow is more likely to be found in yours."

I am planning a fantasy setting, the plan is that the characters are on a fantasy realm called Aeriwyn. It is several generations after the gods fell from the heavens due to a lack of worship and the devastation wreaked by the creatures which appeared and attacked.

History

When the gods created Aeriwyn it was over the remains of the previous failed attempts. With no real effort they imprisoned their failures away from their new perfect world and began their work. And it was perfect, Aeriwyn was beautiful and bounteous and the people were long limbed and strong. These new creations learned from the gods and with their guidance they grew. Aeriwyn flourished and became a great civilisation, but in so doing they slowly moved away from worshipping their creators. So slowly that even the gods failed to notice before it was too late, the peoples worship fell so low that the gods power failed and they vanished. The world fractured and the gods fell from the heavens, and the creations that they imprisoned broke free.

Aeons of imprisonment had caused them to crave revenge and to become corruptions of themselves, and they rampaged through the Realms throwing down what had lasted Millennia in mere weeks, before dispersing. Years later the Realms are a hodgepodge of small settlements trying to survive. Some alliances have come and gone, torn down by the demons which devastated Aeriwyn while some fell due to betrayal and greed.

None knew of the worlds created before Aeriwyn or of the origins of the demons which had devastated the cities though those demons who joined the settlements told the little they knew, but few still remember the time before the fall.

Now, the ruins of the old world lie alongside the ruins of the previous worlds and are inhabited by both the peoples of the new world and the old ones.

Although the fracture was a period of madness and death, some of those who came out of the imprisonment have integrated with and live alongside the people of the Realm.

Magic:

Edit: Following further work on this, I have edited the below information.

Due to the fall of the civilised government on Aeriwyn; the great colleges of the arcane and monastic colleges of the divine magic no longer exist, and so now Wizards and Clerics are now unknown. Magic is still available however, many people learn a smattering of magics which may range from the ability to see in the dark like cats or to move small objects with the power of the mind.

Magic effects will be available as Talents; the basic version of most spells will be Tier 1, with upgrades acting like higher ranks of the same Talent.

I am still working on the magic system and the below is what I have in mind

In order to use these effects the character must:

1. Take at least one rank of the non-career skill Magic (Will) and one Talent of a spell.
2. Spend one strain per dice of basic difficulty, plus either one additional strain per upgrade being used or one setback per upgrade (this can be mixed and matched taking one point of additional strain and one setback dice to the casting roll for example).
3. Successfully roll versus the difficulty.

Example spell :

Animal traits - Basic effect (Animal Senses, either UV or IR)

• Upgrade of Agility of the Beast (+1 Agility)
• Upgrade of Might of the Beast (+1 Brawn)
• Upgrade of Defence of the Beast (+1 Soak per 2 successes rolled for one round)
• Upgrade of Armoury of the Beast (Animal Natural weapons (Claws, Sting, Horns etc.) doing Brawn damage + 2 (vicious) + 1 per success in spell casting roll {Minimum Tier 3}
• Upgrade of Movement of the Beast (Jumping, Climbing, Swimming) - being able to travel to one additional range band.
• Upgrade of Range (Increase range of spell by one range band per Range upgrade bought).

Duration has been changed to maintaining spells. This is achieved by commuting the base strain spent to cast the effect (not strain cost due to upgrades). While this strain is committed the spell will continue to run and cannot be recovered in any fashion. If the spellcaster is damaged they must roll a successful Discipline check to prevent the effect from dropping.

I have a selection of spells but I am still working through them.

Archetypes:

My intention is to have Archetypes more along the lines of the Average, Intellectual etc. rather than race. I will be using those Archetypes in the Corebook plus others built along the same lines for the other Attributes.

Though players can play non humans, the player should use the main Archetypes purchasing any racial abilities (Wings, Amphibious or similar) using starting experience.

Careers:

Though I have not yet put together the Career list I will be working along the lines of Healer, Hunters, Scoundrel, Soldier, Tradesmen etc.

I still have work to do but will update this and try to put together a proper setting document to make available.

Demons:

The 'Demons' are not the infernal creatures from the lower planes they are instead Orcs, Dwarves, Beastmen and Insectoids. Basically they are the previous creations of the gods, some of whom have been corrupted during their imprisonment. There are a fair few which have joined the settlements of the survivors but a great many still raid from their strongholds, attacking settlements and caravans.

My apologies for possibly watering your parade, but: Causality? If the gods' existence/power depended on their creation's worship, where did the gods/power come from, in the first place, before having created aforementioned worshippers?

The amount of godly energy needed to create a world and populate it is probably going to be quite high. They will recoup energy from worship but as that drops the cost to keep the previous versions locked away would drain reserves. Also, plot ?

Also this has never been seen as an impediment to real world creation myths.

Ah, I see now; inconsistency for realism!

Oh, that was disappointing. I logged in to see if there were any responses and the only one was not particularly constructive.

I will post more once I have put some more together.

I am slowly putting things together for this, and as I am planning this to run for a specific group I have pulled the details for specific careers and archetypes from the core book.

I am planning also to make it available, but how do people deal with the issue of artwork for setting books? I don't have sufficient funds to commission professional or even semi professional artists to do pieces for me. And I have no drawing skills. Do people pull art from other sources like the internet? At least with the Rocketship Empires setting I have been putting together I am friends with the guy who made it and so he can let me know what art is free to use.