[Banestorm] How different is your Yrth?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

My Yrth is... not very different.

I really like Yrth as-written, and find it more tempting to flesh things that are already there out than to make sweeping changes. My last Yrth game (warning: high school GMing performed with head completely inserted into rectum) took place in Sho'joor, which captured my imagination enough to receive a few pages of extra description. The biggest change is that I tend to feature Goblins and de-emphasize Elves as a matter of personal taste. My Orcs Are People, Too. So are my Muslims.

I'd like to run that one again (only better!) with my current group someday, or some boarding school drama involving students of the College of Battle Magic at Azer, or some so-high-they-call-it-Your-Highness fantasy in the Arabian Nights mold in al-Wazif, and maybe something featuring Abydos and/or the Nomad lands, plus an idea I've had kicking around for a while involving the Shark Men as protagonists, dealing with the Octopus Folk, the Merfolk, the Sahudese, the Shark Men's own gods, and other alien creatures. Sadly, enthusiasm for fantasy in general and Yrth in particular is... lukewarm, at best, among this bunch, but I maintain hope.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Racial templates basically consist of "Fur[1], Acute Smell 2[4], Sharp Teeth[1], Blunt Claws[3], Temperature Tolerance 1[1]" in addition to whatever else would be there: the DF racial templates.

This begs the question of whether the groups were anthropomorphs when they were brought through -- or whether the Banestorm changed the humans (and other species) that it kidnapped from other realms. (Much to the foxelves/kitsune's horror!)

What do the Siamese, er, Sahudese think of Kitsune Elves, for instance?
(And anyone thinking of Cats' "Growltiger's Last Stand" gets a fish-cookie.)

[simply Nathan]

Elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and ogres were native to the setting. Assumably, the humans were either brought from an anthro alternate Earth(such as the one detailed in the Animilia thread) or were changed by the Banestorm. I really don't care about origins so much as I do about the finished product.

[Astromancer]

I think the coolest variations of a classic fantasy setting is to introduce change itself as a factor. Most high fantasy settings are meant to be unchanging, or in process of changing back to an earlier blessed state. One of the thinks that makes The Lord of the Rings so epic is the fact that we are in the grip of irreversable change. Middle Earth will be changed and know great loss no matter what happens, the victory is gaining the best change and the least loss.

I think having great changes going on, changes that people don't necessarily welcome, makes for drama. This that you have loved you will now lose, but you have a choice about how you will lose it and what others will lose by its loss. Tragedy and comedy come from these things.

[oldgringo2001]

My version of Yrth has an interesting Magician's Guild called the Grey Company. They were the ones who arranged for the first Jumper from Homeline to return home. They're very secretive, harder to find than the Assassin's Guild.
The Founder of the Grey Company is even harder to find, although he can show up anywhere for any reason or none. (That is, whenever the GM thinks it would be entertaining.

The Company's real specialty is the Gate college. The Founder is actually the mage who crafted the Great Bane. He's half-demon, half (dark) elf. For all that, he's more or less a good guy. "Grey" symbolizes a commitment to fairness and reason--and mutual profit.

The Founder and his Company are one reason why gunpowder weapons haven't come to Yrth: It's his homeworld, and he doesn't want to muck it up worse than it is. This doesn't mean that he doesn't pack a pistol or three!

I made up The Founder about twenty years ago. He's mostly inspired by the good wizard in Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. He appears in some of my Sailor Moon fanfics.

[Diogenes]

Sounds ab bit as if the Founder tries to atone for his Great Sin by Conspiracy ... A bit unusual, but interesting.

By the way, my Yrth, if I ever would GM something there, would not differ much from the book as written. It is well-rounded.

[combatmedic]

I don't actually run Yrth, and haven't run it, but in case I ever do:

There is no overarching plot to stop/squash all technological innovation or diffusion. Instead, mana interferes with high-energy density technologies. Machines that use power sources other than human, animal, wind, water, etc tend to break down catastrophically , or else fail to function at all.

In most countries, advanced technologists are viewed as potentially dangerous crackpots, but are not actively persecuted.

The Ministry of Serendipity is a secret police force/intelligence service concerned with interrogating outworlders, spying on foreigners, quelling dissent, suppressing dangerous ideas, etc.
The same is true of the Silver Hands and similiar groups in other lands.


The Muslim holy city of Geb-al-Din, located in a no mana zone, is protected with numerous bronze cannon. The cannoneers wear green turbans.


A number of free settlements, petty states, strongholds of robber knights, etc have grown up along the edges of the Great Desert, on the Western fringe of Caithness and the Muslim countries. The promise of treasure from Elvish ruins, freedom from great lords, cheap land, mineral wealth, etc keeps people coming in to the frontier country.

Sahud is moved to some distant island group. I'm not sure what I'd put in it's place.

The Nomad Lands is home to a number of peoples, including horse nomads/semi-nomads and wagon-riders. Think Cossacks, Sarmatians, maybe Rohirrhim.

No simple 'feudal system'- but that's because I don't think it really existed in the first place.


Megalos doesn't have slaves battling to the death in the public arenas. No, those are sham fights, like pro wrestling with swords and funky armor. The real stuff is found on the underground pit fighting circuit.