Common Knowledge

The Known World
The Known World stretches from The Great Ocean in the east to the Great Wastes in the west. Its Southern Forest forms an effective border to the south and the frozen Dragonspire Mountains cut off exploration to the north. Although it is known that there are people living beyond these borders, no reliable witness has ever traveled there and returned to tell their tales. Those who have claimed to return from travels beyond these borders are generally thought to be liars, crazy or both.

The known world is split into three major regions; The Tawdonian Empire, The Confederacy of the Eastern Woods, and The Frontier.

The Tawdonian Empire, or just "The Empire" stretches from the edge of the Great Wastes to the shores of the Northam Sea and then south through the Rocklands, along the coast of the West Hurn Sea to the Southern Forests. The Tawdonian Emperor from his throne in the Imperial City rules these lands.

The Confederacy of the Eastern Woods is often shortened to The Confederacy. It stretches from the Great Ocean west encompassing The Isle of the Dead, The Great Woods, the Spirit Forest and The Thunder Mountains. The area is in the control of the Confederacy of the Eastern Woods, a loose political grouping of a three of powerful tribes and a number of smaller tribes.

The Frontier marks the lands that lie in-between The Tawdonian Empire and the The Confederacy of the Eastern Woods. Geographically, it is centered on the region between the Sea of Storms, the Sea of Aerie and the East Hurn Sea. Control of this area has been in dispute between The Confederacy of the Eastern Woods and the Tawdonian Emperor for the last 300 years. Presently, governments vary from community to community. This is where Carreg Wynn, the town our game is played in, is found.

The Imperials and the Confederates have been at war on and off for over 300 years. Most Imperials consider Confederate peoples to be primitive, dangerous savages. Most Confederates consider the Imperials to be arrogant, power-hungry expansionists.

The Great Plague
The Great Plague ended 80 years ago, and killed about ninety percent of the population. Until the Plague hit, magic and Fey Folk were just legends.

No one knows what caused The Plague. The Confederates believe it was their ancestors crying out in outrage and shame at the way the current generation was behaving. The Empire believes that it was because Sim held dominance in NOS and in society for too long. The Fey believe a variety of things about the origin of The Plague. Some say it was a ritual gone wrong. Some say a ritual gone right. Some say that Faerie is responsible. Some think Dragon played a trick on the world. Some don’t care.

Despite The Plague, humans still make up the majority of the population of the Epoch world. Both the Imperials and the Confederate cultures are struggling to recover after The Plague and the emergence of both magic and the Fey races into the world.

In addition to making people sick and killing them, The Plague has been known to change people, plants, and animals in strange and terrible ways. The biggest impact was the ability to come back from the dead, one or many more times. The Great Plague was never cured. No medic, shaman, priest or wizard could ever find a way to get rid of it. It just went away. Which means it could just as easily come back.

The animal hardest hit by the plague was horses. Effectively, all the horses died (although rumours exist that the Emperor might have a breeding pair or two). Donkeys and other related animals suffered a 99% mortality rate.

Human and Fey Relations
From the point of view of the humans, magic, the Fey Folk and mysterious resurrections have only been around for about two or three generations- ever since the Great Plague subsided. A few people have “mastered” magic and societies are coming to grips with what multiple lives means spiritually and legally. To the average human these things are still strange and wondrous. The average human has probably not yet met a member of every species, let alone been briefed in full on the workings of their society. It is commonly rumoured that the Fey peoples come from the Mists, a place of mystery and magic. Most human societies regard the Fey peoples with fear and suspicion.

For more information go to: Peoples of Epoch.

Magic
There are two types of magic in the Epoch world.

Cast Magic
Cast magic involves the manipulation of magical energy (mana) into a magical act. There was no cast magic in the human plane prior to The Great Plague. It continues to be rare in many areas. There are many humans who have never seen a spell cast. Many more do not trust magic and may not trust those who use it.

A cast spell is made up of two elements: the mana and the spoken spell. Both of these elements must be correct or the spell simply fails to work.

Ritual Magic
Ritual magic pre-dates The Plague. However, it was extremely difficult and often dangerous to learn. It was only practiced by an elite group of academics working on behalf of an even more elite group of patrons.

Awareness of mana has proven to be a great tool in learning and understanding ritual magic. As a result, it has become more common to use ritual magic now than it was before The Plague. However, ritual magic continues to be less stable than cast magic. Where an incorrectly cast spell simply fails to work, an incorrectly performed ritual can have undesirable side effects.

Psychic Auras
When a psychic looks at another psychic, they see a purple aura surrounding them. The strength and intensity of this aura varies based on how many psychic states the person has at the time. When a psychic state is used, the aura increases for a moment then dims. There is no way for another psychic to know what state was used except to observe the effects.

A non-psychic has no way of telling if another person is psychic. When they use one of their skills there is no visible effect.

The Mists
The Mists are the homeland of. All the Fey currently on the human plane either came there from the Mists or are descended by those who made the journey. Fey who have been to the Mists have found it extremely hard to put a description of them into words. The best most are able to come up with is, “Like here, only better.”

The Mists are also the home of Faerie and the True Fey. Faerie is a powerful and unpredictable god. It is Faerie who created the Fey. The True Fey are the first of these creations, considered more perfect versions of the fey species, with stronger powers and longer lifespans.

Theories as to why the Fey left the Mists vary. Some believe they were sent by the Faerie to conquer the humans. Others believe they were sent as either a punishment or a reward. Still others, say that it was to relieve the over population of The Mists by allowing them to take up space vacated by the death of most of the humans. And then there are those who believe it is part of some larger cosmic cycle.

The name, The Mists, is derived from the blue mist that emerges through the portals opened between the two planes.

The Land of the Dead
The Land of the Dead is the place where the souls of the dead go when they leave the body. It is a vast and strange place. Many rules of time and space do not seem to apply here. A spirit may dwell here for a short time or may linger there longer. Some spirits return to the human plane to be resurrected, others travel though the swirling portal to the Land Beyond.

Different cultures have different understandings of what lies in the Land Beyond. But that journey appears to be one way, as none have ever returned to tell of it.

Carreg Wynn


Carreg Wynn is the town in which Epoch LARP takes place. It is a small town in The Frontier, that likely most have not heard of. It is a neutral ground between The Empire, Tor'Jadin, and the Confederacy.