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It is a time of change…
These are dark times. Decades of war and strife have shattered the great kingdoms into pale shards of their former potency. Sprawling cities that once upheld the tenants of truth and justice have fallen into ruin, a gangrenous sore upon the land. Armies of common folk who fought against any odds for their freedoms have decayed under the leadership of petty warlords interested more in keeping their coffers full than aspiring to the greatness of their forefathers. Once proud citadels of relentless order have crumbled before the inexorable might of political squabbling and failed judgment. Even powerful nations that prided themselves on their strength of arms and cunning in battle have become little more than manged dogs nipping off the scraps that slough from the corpse of society.
The Fall began over six decades ago. None at that time realized the chain of events that would lead to these dark times and certainly none could prevent it. In distant Donnegal, peace was established between the Great Empire and the Gaels of the south when a dark army swept across the region, threatening to destroy all in their path. Heroes came forth, as they often do in times of strife, and helped bring two dissonant people to agreement. The dark horde was defeated and man coexisted peacefully in the region. But as with so many men who must rise to the clarion call of conquest, the Great Empire only used this peace to redirect their attentions northward, towards prodigal Koramia.
Koramia had finally achieved the union it had sought for so long. Under the banner of Vortumnus and the Greysword lineage, it seemed destined for the glory of ages past and, for a brief flicker in time, it achieved that former greatness. Then the red-sailed ships came. With Koramia again prosperous and conflicts in the Empire settled, the Legions returned to reclaim their former colonies in the north. Few realized then, least of all the Emperor, that this one war would not only cost the Double Dragon its claim on the North, but lead to the final destruction of the Empire as a whole. Even fewer realized that its destruction would come from within.
A native born of Koramia, the Mageking of Lun Dorak, Lucasa, wrested control over the Empire and urged it further into the war with Koramia. Dubbed “the Heretic,” Lucasa ruled the Empire with an iron fist, enslaving its population to the whims of his mages and pushing ever harder for victory at any cost. Only through the intervention of the Dragonknights and the unexpected death of the Mageking in the wretched throws of disease did his mad scheme fail. But now, those who recollect look back and wonder if his rule would have been preferable to the times that lay before us now. For the Heretic Emperor had not only succeeded in throwing Koramia into ruin, but left behind a vacuum in the Great Empire, which quickly succumbed to their Fourth, and likely last, Succession War.
Then in the east, an evil greater than any this world had known rose from another world and buried his sword deep in all of us. The Manslayer incited the armies of Thet to march recklessly on its neighbors, encouraged Bakal to take back lands that once were theirs and caused countless petty conflicts and civil wars to arise, all in the attempt to obfuscate his horrific plans. In the final moments before his plan reached culmination, the Manslayer was defeated by a band of heroes and the world saved from destruction.
But the damage was done. The Manslayer’s broken schemes and forgotten provocations shook many cultures to their very core. Society, already fragile from over a decade of conflict, crumbled beneath their own weight. Even those nations who were not disrupted directly by the Manslaer’s plans fell pretty to bickering when trade began to slow and, in some places, cease to exist altogether. Kingdoms shrank and Empires crumbled, leaving large tracts of wilderness where the corrupt or the bestial could lay in wait to prey on the remains of society. Creatures never before seen on the face of Gallorea, or beneath it, ravage its people and raise their lands. Though the Manslayer could not succeed in conquering our lands, his legacy is the chaos that still marrs the lives of our people.
It is indeed a time of change. From this chaos, as in times long past, heroes shall rise to rebuild our world. They shall bring order to the chaos and justice to its people. The Third Age of Mankind has died at last. And all creatures…indeed, the land itself, marks time for those who shall rise from its worm-ridden grave to found a new era.
The Fourth Age is coming. As are its heroes…
Welcome to the Feyworld Campaign Setting. Feyworld has been through a lot over the years and I’m starting to feel how professional authors feel when a place “lives” for them. Since Feyworld’s birth in 1996, I’ve run many different games, but I always return to Gallorea to explore some as yet undiscovered corner of this world with my fellow players, who deserve as much credit for the richness of this world as I do.
Feyworld was originally designed for use with the Dangerous Journeys Multi-Genre Role Playing Game, written by Gary Gygax. My first journey through this world took place back in 1996 in the kingdom of Koramia. The campaign ended with the defeat of the Empire and of Lun Dorak in a dragon-borne raid on the Dorakian capital of Davalor. After a hiatus while I re-worked some of the finer points of Mythus, Dangerous Journey's fantasy genre rules, I started a new campaign in 1999. This time the setting was the Great Empire, far away from Koramia's troubles. In the Mabean Marches, the adventurers were forced to deal with a coven of witches undermining the government and ended up bringing peace to the region. The campaign ended abruptly with a large tribe of orcs rampaging across the countryside.
After the Mabean campaign, Mythus was starting to lose its appeal to me. The game system was extremely good and fit my style of gaming, but the editorial errors mixed with the fact that it was no longer being published eventually dragged me away from it. I ran various games and Feyworld started to collect dust. Then Wizards of the Coast published the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Filled with the sort of stuff I’d come to love when I first started role playing, 3rd edition brought me back into the D&D fold. After running a couple of campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, I decided that it was time to convert Feyworld over to D&D.
For my third Feyworld campaign, I moved the action to the eastern half of the continent, in far off Valduran. An old enemy from many previous campaigns, the Manslayer, had risen on Feyworld and was hatching a plan to conquer it as he had conquered so many campaign worlds before. Numerous NPCs and former PCs came to Feyworld, if not as major players, at least making cameos in the group’s adventures. The campaign concluded with the death of the Manslayer. A villain who had foiled PCs in my campaigns for over a decade was finally dead. Many, many storylines, some even from those previous campaigns in other worlds, came to a close.
This, then, would be my fourth campaign in Feyworld. A little over sixty years have passed since the first campaign and the world has changed drastically. As was foretold in that first campaign, the Third Age of Mankind has come to its conclusion. Each of the three previous campaigns focused on an ending. Though Lun Dorak and Lucasa were defeated in the first campaign, it was at the cost of noble Koramia. Though the witches were overcome in the second, the legacy of peace between the Gaels and the Empire would lead to its fall as well. Finally, though Manslayer was defeated, his actions signaled the end of several kingdoms of the east, not the least of which was the disastrous civil war in Eeridia and the war that ravaged Valduran and Thet alike. As the old storyteller says above, the world needs its heroes, and those heroes will come.
So as always, strap on your sturdy broadsword, memorize your arcane incantations and give homage to Orchus for good fortune. This campaign promises to be a good ride
