Orden & The Timescape

You folks already know this, but our game uses the Timescape, a collection of worlds including Orden, a classic medieval fantasyland, as its default setting. So the book should probably explain what all that is, right? :D

Well that's what James thought! So he gave me the task of writing up a brief overview of the major settings-within-the-setting of Vasloria, Capital, and the larger Timescape. I figured you folks would get a kick out of reading this early draft.

Of course, we would like nothing more than for you take take these rules and adapt them to your world, or adapt your world to these rules, or something in-between! We use Orden because its the world featured in the Chain of Acheron livestream as well as all of MCDM’s other products. That makes it easier for us as designers to marry our design with real examples from a real (imaginary) fantasy world. 

We also think this makes it easier for you to customize these rules and make them yours! By providing you with names for places, languages, gods, we’re giving you nouns you can replace or be inspired by. We may reference some hero or villain, saint or god that makes you think “well, I don’t have that in my setting.” If we do a good job, you may be inspired and think “Buuut, that makes me think….”

So everyone should feel free to use or discard, ignore or adopt, and otherwise tweak this setting to your heart’s content. If it doesn’t excite and inspire you? Replace it with something that does! We encourage you to treat all the history and details you read in this game like the real history of an imagined world. And, like the real history of this world, historians do not all agree. Some myths turn out to be history, some history is discovered to be mythological, and all narrators are unreliable.

On with the show! This is a very early first draft, the wording and names may change!

Orden & The Timescape

A new game demands new worlds! Welcome to The TIMESCAPE! A collection of worlds spanning high fantasy, dark fantasy, even space fantasy!

Our tour begins on the world of Orden, the Prime Manifold, where humans share the world with elves, dwarves, orcs, and dragons. But human civilization and politics dominate here. Especially in the great city of Capital, a hotbed of urban fantasy intrigue. 

Orden contains seven major regions, largest of which is Vasloria.

Vasloria

A forested, medieval, feudal land. There are few cities, just towns and villages. Western Vasloria, including most of Aendrim and Corwell and parts of Graid, was until recently ruled by Good King Omund. His draconian knights, The Dragon Phalanx protected the weak from the strong, dispensing justice throughout the land.

Omund died 13 years ago and so died the rule of law. Now the forest claims the towns and roads once held safe under his rule. The woods are dangerous. Their only law. . .tooth and claw.

Omund was betrayed and his castle fell to Ajax the Invincible, now called the Iron Saint. His wizard Mortum unlocked the secret of the ancient Sky Elf flying cities, and raised the Chrysopolis, Ajax’s city-fortress in the sky. 

It was Mortum who used the secrets of the ancient Beast Lords of Kham to make the Body Banks, granting immortality to those nobles who voluntarily submit to Ajax. Those same Body Banks produce Ajax’s War Dogs, his brutal, patchwork-soldiers who owe their new lives to the Iron Saint and fight for him fanatically.

Ajax abolished all faiths and temples. He executed the dukes who served King Omund loyally. Leaving only the far flung baronies to try and hold human civilization together. Once these people were loose allies, there was trade between humans and elves and dwarves. 

Now there is only suspicion.

The High Elves of the Fallen City pay tribute with ancient artifacts they plunder from the fallen Sky Elf city of Irranys. The Wode Elves of the Orchid Court, lacking any centralized government or cities, refuse to bow to Ajax.

The Dwarves of Kas Kalavar pay tribute in prisoners they abduct from those foolish enough to travel the roads unescorted. Prisoners who serve Ajax as forced labor, or are fed into the Body Banks. Brooding under the mountains in their fabled Hanging City, the stone dwarves do not like this deal with the Overlord, but lack the power…or the will…to rebel. 

The Hawklords of the High Aerie now act as Ajax’s royal guard. Mounted on their giant hawks, they project Ajax’s power, enforce his law and extend his influence into every corner of the wilderness. Their mastery of the air means any revolt or rebellion is seen and crushed quickly.

The Dragon Phalanx are broken. Ajax placed a high bounty on their heads. Some folk still see Omund’s knights as symbols of justice, heroes of a lost age before might made right. But in every town, every village, there are always desperate people willing to collect the bounty, summon the hawklords to pluck any dragon knight foolish enough to travel without a disguise away to the Chrysopolis.

Dalrath, Bedegar, and Tor, the human baronies isolated and outnumbered, desperately fight a losing battle against the encroaching wilderness. Law dies. Chaos thrives.

Capital

The Greatest City in This or Any Age! The City of the Great Game! Located west across the Bale Sea from Vasloria, on the eastern coast of Rioja, Capital is not only the largest city in Orden it’s the largest city there has ever been. Larger than the fabled Steel Dwarf capital of Kalas Valiar, larger even than Alloy, the City At the Center of the Timescape. Capital is the exception to many rules.

It is a city of playwrights and opera, of spies and sorcery. Famed throughout the world as a city of high magic where flying tapestries act as taxis, the reality of living in Capital is somewhat more mundane. Only the very wealthy can afford such luxuries.

The Great Houses, ancient noble families, reluctantly share power with the upstart Guilds who think vast wealth entitles them to rule. The Great Houses are very proud of their great city. They believe anyone, from anywhere, should be able to come to Capital and earn a living, own property, expect justice. They just don’t think anyone else should be able to rule. 

The Guilds, by contrast, are more egalitarian, more democratic, and largely obsessed with accruing wealth, city be damned. 

The Great Game is espionage, and House Alvaro are the best players in the world. Led by Duke Prospero, House Alvaro sponsor the Imperial University, the greatest center of learning in the world. Nobles from across Orden, including Vanigar send their children to learn diplomacy and statecraft at the University. While the greatest spies in the world are all graduates of the Actian School, one of the colleges in the university, which doubles as the prince’s intelligence agency.

House Vorona run the city’s navy, the largest military organization of any kind in Orden. Their engineers perfected the secret of blackpowder, and guard it jealously. The Imperial Navy’s canons protect trade across Orden, placing Capital at the center of international affairs. Vorona’s Far Mariners, aka the marines, are the closest thing to a city-wide law enforcement organization. Each great house is expected to police its own district. 

Duke Marco Vorona sponsors the Imperial War College, also known as The Academy. A prestigious institution rivaling any college of the Imperial University, the Academy boasts graduates among all the noble families in Orden. This widespread allegiance creates a vast informal network in the city referred to cynically as the Old Class Ring that gives Vorona access to intelligence other factions can only dream of.

House Navarr, oldest of the Great Houses, enforces the church’s law, which they call justice. Led by His Grace Orsino, Duke Navarr, Archbishop of the most powerful church in the city—the Church of Saint Ysabella the Pitiless—House Navarr consolidates a vast network of different churches and knights across the region under one elaborate system of patronage. 

Arguably the most powerful great house, House Valetta controls the Arbitros Fiat, the tax collectors. Valetta is led by the Duchess Lenore who, in mourning for her assassinated husband Maximo, opened the codex mortis and spoke the ritual which should have returned her love to life. Instead, she brought about the Lilac Night which transformed everyone in her district, including herself, into deathless Revenants. Now, the Duchess Lenore is an immortal vampire queen. A dead lady, ruling over a dead city.

After the Lilac Night, when the prince was no longer able to rely on House Valetta to deliver the taxes they collected, Lady Shirome bought Great House status for her guild, along with two others. 

Lady Shirome runs the city’s assayers guild, The Fulcrum. The guild controls the Trade Integrity Board, which sets lending rates and leads trade negotiations between Capital and other governments in Orden. It was the Fulcrum that convinced the Prince to switch the city to paper money. As a result, Capital is the first and only city in Orden to have a robust monetary policy. 

The Broadsheets, formally known as The Font publish the thrice-daily news sheets everyone in the city reads. Guildmaster Inān al-Adwiyya uses a vast network of young people called the Paperfeathers to deliver and sell the broadsheets throughout the city. Lady al-Adwiyya knows almost everything happening anywhere in the city.

The Farrier’s Guild. popularly known as The Rasp control transport throughout the city. Led by Lord Kashimir, a heliox from Alloy who introduced the flying tapestries that metaphorically shrank the city, allowing the rich and powerful to cross the 13-mile wide city in just a few minutes. He created the Kites couriers famous for getting a message anywhere in capital in only a few hours. His monopoly on importing flying tapestries from Alloy gives him enormous power, and he is not shy about wanting more.

The Myriad Worlds Of The Timescape

Orden is only one world in the Timescape! Each star in the night sky is another world, though this fact is not known to most people living on Orden. Higher worlds are more energetic, affording access to alien technologies.  Great starfreighters ply the spacelanes, knights wield psionically powered hard-light blades dueling against star pirates with hard-light blasters. 

The lower worlds lack the energy necessary for such extraordinary technology to function, and so rely on magic to break the rules.

On Axiom, the Plane of Uttermost Law, the memonek live on a world teeming with complex, inorganic life. UNISOL, the Universal Solar League ensures and protects trade across the upper worlds, defending the starfreighters from pirates like the Time Raiders and the infamous Starchasers on their legendary ship The K.R.A.D Fearless. 

Meanwhile, on Proteus, the Sea of Eternal Change, the formless Proteans rebelled against the Synliiroi who once ruled the plane of uttermost chaos, exiling the Voiceless Talkers to the World Below. Now masters of their world, the Proteans take to the stars in their living Changeships, hurling their small fleet against the tyrannical unquestioned might of UNISOL. 

On Quintessence, the lowest of the Upper Worlds, proteans and memonek alike rub shoulders with devils, fire dwarves, even humans in Quintessence’s capital city of Alloy, The City At The Center Of The Timescape. The Free City of Alloy, also known as the City of Brass, is the gateway to the Timescape. People travelling to or from the upper and lower worlds meet here to trade goods and information, free from the inflexible law of UNISOL. 

Traveling downward from Quintessence one arrives on Orden, the Plane of Gods & Sorcery, highest of the Lower Worlds where magic rules. The gods, forbidden from interfering directly in a world with such a low energy state, rely on Saints to enact their will. The technology from the Upper Worlds does not function down here, unless powered by a strong psionic mind, or the miracle mineral prismacore. 

Almost coterminal with Orden is its sister-plane, The World Below, The Dark Under All, a plane of exiles ruled by A Lie Cloaked In Star’s Silver, the Queen of Winter, first of the Three Sisters Below. The World Below is a land of vast caves, and sunless seas. There are no stars here, no sky, only endless caves and warrens, some vast enough to hold entire cities, like Or-Mazaar, City of The Black Star from which the Queen of Winter rules. 

The power of the World Below wanes, while the power of Equinox rises. A smaller, parasitic manifold ruled by the exiled Shadow Elves, the Queen of Shadows, third of the Three Sisters Below who plots to return her people to their homeland in Orden, and escape the twisted, fairy-tale, shadow world also known as DUSK.. 

The last plane of law, The Seven Cities of Hell is among the lowest of the lower planes. A land of devils proud of its civilization, each of the Seven Cities is ruled by an Archduke who schemes to ascend to the Throne of Hell. A world of bureaucratic law, the devil denizens of Hell have little interest in the other planes. Life is so much more interesting down here.

The seven dukes of hell conspired together once; agreeing to create the Order of Desolation also known as the Illriggers to extend their power into the timescape, and defend Hell from the horde of demons below….

The Demons of the Abyssal Waste, the lowest plane, claw and scramble over each other, competing for souls in this heat-blasted desert under a baleful, giant orange sun. Mindless collections of organs, claws, and teeth, demons collect souls until they reach sentience and gain identity and the blessing of memory. These demons will do anything to escape upwards, out of the Waste Land, less they lose their collected souls, lose their identity, and fall into that mindless state called Lethe.

At the center of the Abyssal Waste lies the Necropolitan Ruin, the Last City, a city of the dead, ruled by Khorsekef, once the Infinite Pharaoh of Khemhara, now the Ultralich. Khorsekef intends to return to Orden and sit once again on his throne in the Heliopolis. And he has a plan….