The People:
This world is a humano-centric fantasy world.  There are no elves, dwarves, etc.  Or, if there are, they haven't been developed yet.   As this is a game to run the Fate Core rules through the gate, let's keep things as simple as possible, and keep it human.  The less add-ons and extras we need to throw into the mix the less confusion we need to deal with.

This game is an off-shot of a setting that is in active development in my other game: The Veiled Hand.

The Setting:
Aroen is a land south of the Mondat mountains.  There are two distinct peoples, though they are all "Human".  All the land south of the mountains was once one kingdom.  In a King Lear-esque move, the king at the time divided his lands into three and made his three sons king of each land, each with it's own special gifts and climes.

The Kumlaren are people from the Kingdom (crown republic) of Kumlar.  It's more a collection of city-states now than it was when it was founded.  This is the basic "default".  Within Kumlar, there are a range of peopel, still, from The Tarenti--riders of the Northern plains (think North American Indians), to the Cyreni--people of the Eastern Islands (largely sailors, fishermen, and, of course, pirates).

The Khune are people from the Kingdom of Khune, a rough and terrible land that's mostly desert and scrub-lands.   It is a tough land with tough people, and tales of dark sorcery and theft-of-magic abound.  Most notable in this setting is that Khune is held in some horror by the Kumlaren because of he practice of human slavery and of human sacrifice.  While there are very good reasons and cultural history behind it, those not involved don't see it...

There was a third kingdom, Khadid, that was the center of arts and culture.  The Guilds of Javid were building what might eventually have become a university, but then the great war came upon the world of Aroen, and Khadid was leveled.

The Great War
What, precisely, happened hasn't actually been defined.  The enemy--called the Mondain--swarmed down from the Mondat mountains, crossed the plains of Taren and laid siege to Khadid and Kumlar.  Khjune, most distant from the Mondat mountains dealt with considerably less of the Mondain.

After years of strife, the magicians and wizards, sorcerors and mages gathered in Javid, to work a magic so powerful that it would bind the Rathok the Unmaker beneath the mountains.

In the ancient mythologies, Rathok the Unmaker was one of the Gods, and as such, was from beyond the world. It could not be destroyed, but could be bound...  Even the name "Rathok the Unmaker" is barely uttered these days.  For the swell of time has lulled all into a sense of reverie, that the past was but stories told to frighten them as children, and that reality is different from a child's fantasy.

Something, of course, went wrong.

While Rathok appeared to have been turned back, perhaps bound, definitely not seen again since, the unleashed magical energy leveled the Khadiden city of Javid, corrupted the lush valleys, some say, infected, the people with a malaise and a curse....  Khadiden refugees fled the years of drought and pestilence, flooding into Kumlar and Khune both.  Now, Khadid is... not a wasteland, but a a corrupted place.

Many travel to Khadid, to plunder the ruins, fight the twisted monstrosities that live there.

The great war happened hundreds of years ago.  So long ago, that none exist who remember it first-hand.


For everyone knows that there is no entities beyond our world.  There are but the three planes (the living, the dead and the dream).  The prevailing scholastic belief is that the creators of the worlds have a compact with one another to never directly intervene in the worlds themselves.  This does not, preclude the possibility of them influencing a prophet or "chosen one"...


And it is a tenet of this game & setting that there is no external forces at work.  You simply cannot summon demons, djinns, angels, etc. etc...  They just aren't a thing.

Rathok the Unmaker is a foundational concept in some of the earliest Aroen mythologies.  And is a convenient excuse for the waves upon waves of Mondain that swept across the land in the time of the Great War.

Of course,  as players, we know that the Unmaker is very, very real..

One curious development of the Forbidding--the great work of magic that destroyed Khadid and bound Rathok the Unmaker beneath the Mondat mountains--is that a new kind of magic emerged.

The world of Aroen has always had magic.  And it wasn't just the province of magicians and wizards, sorcerers and mages.

anybody can perform magic.  It just requires a ritual.  Typical rituals involve the drawing of a circle, the gathering of will and the statement or focus on intention.  The world is absolutely rife with magic!

However, among the generation born after the Forbidding, a very few people found that they could call upon elemental forces without the need of a ritual.

These "Evokers" (or fast-casters) are certainly in-demand, but are also potentially very very dangerous.

--
From a Fate Core perspective, a ritual is an excuse to use a skill in a manner that is perhaps not directly applicable to the skill itself.  For instance, one may Use the Notice skill to scry at a distance that the human eye cannot see, or use the Physique skill to move a load of wood without actually lifting a finger...

However, there are limitations...  These rituals serve to provide an excuse to use skills  where not always applicable...  But one cannot exceed the bounds of their own skills.

For instance, if one has a Physique rank of two-dots, they can apply a 4dF + Physique roll to the task at hand, but cannot boost their physique to, say, six dots...  Naturally, because this is magic, there are ways around this... but this is a rule of thumb for the common people.



In Kumlar, the emergence of Evokers caused great concern.  And, because the people were still reeling from the destruction of Khadid, the Kumlaren monarchy fathered the brightest and best mages and created the College of Mages.

Every subject of Kumlar who shows even the slightest evidence of Fast-Casting is press-ganged into attending the college, where they will learn how to control their magic (which typically means control their emotion).

Every Kumlaren College student and alumni has the responsibility to ensure that any new Evokers they run into are taken to the College for training.  Usually, this is seen as a great honor, but not always.

A lesser known responsibility of College alums is the need to police "forbidden" rituals.   Practically, one cannot stop someone from developing a great ritual that might turn the rains to acid or overrun the city with a plague of locusts.   But that kind of ritual takes a very long time to develop and power.    If such a working is discovered, it is required that such written work be confiscated and the perpetrator brought before the College to answer for his or her work (although it sounds ominous it isn't always).   In this way, the crown hopes to prevent the destruction on the scale of the Forbidding from ever happening again.


Magic as a system is very similar to how magic is described int The Dresden Files RPG & Dresden Files Accelerated. 
This message was last updated by the player at 08:09, Tue 13 Oct 2020.

During the Great War, Pennryn was a small keep on the Eastern border of Kumlar, responsible for upkeep of the Pennryn Tower, the first of a series of signal towers to warn the kingdom of impending waves of the Mondain.  The tower stands to this day, although the signal-fires have not been lit for over a century.

Now, Pennryn Keep stands in East Pennryn, and it has experienced hard times as of late.

Foul creatures from the Mondat Mountains have always been an issue.  The Duchy is well garrisoned.  But in the past decade, the sheer number of monstrosities that have been coming out of the hills have been increasing dramatically.   Towns have been razed, pa lot of people have died.  And each year, the Forces of Pennryn have beat the Mondain back.

Each year, Duke Churthen and Duchess Jaelle traveled to Druviv, the capital city of Kumlar, to petition the kingdom for aid, warning that the Mondain were marshaling their forces and that the attacks were becoming more and more vicious.   And each year little aid was forthcoming, little more than a pittance received.   At one point, King Dorian told Churthen that if he needed people to man his walls, then he needed to find them himself.

Thus the Shadow Caravan came into existence.

Duke Churthen has pout out an offer, through back-channels and word-of-mouth.   He has recruiters all throughout Kumlar, Khune and the Siren Islands.  If you want to start anew, leave your past behind, come to East Pennryn.   Your sins will be forgiven, your slate wiped clean.  All he asks is that you fight the Mondain.  For the first Signal.  In exchange for honest work, you will receive land and a new life.

Now, several years in, recruiters have brought escaped slaves from Khune, escaped criminals, exiled Tarenti...

It's not a promise of an easy life.  It's not even a promise of a little fighting and then you're done.   There will be fighting every year.  But it's honest work and the Wall must be manned.

With King Dorian sick in bed and under very strict guard, and the Heirophant in ritual seclusion for a year and a day, the entire weight of the crown hangs on her shoulders.

The Kings Guard have their own "secret service" but it's much more military oriented.  "The Veiled Hand" stared as a loose network of attendants and former attendants to the Queen.  Many who have served as a veiled attendant were relocated and resettled (the symmetry with Churthen's creation of the Shadow caravan is intentional).   They are provided with a regular stipend from the crown in recognition of their service.

Conventional wisdom says that the veiled attendants serve for seven years, but these closest to the Queen know that this varies on attendant.  Some have served a bare six months, others over a decade.  As a network of informants spread across the land The Veiled Hand is the Queen's personal eyes and ears.

However, until recently, there has never been a formal active cell in this medieval spy-network.  The kidnapping of the Liam and Lucas, the Crown Princes has driven home the need to have some within her direct control that she can dispatch on more sensitive and discrete missions of import.

Thus, this group was bound together for this cause...