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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4650656" data-attributes="member: 54707">Every real world historical, literary and religious source I could find or read (I have a personal theory that not only did Byzantium spur on the Renaissance, but also that it was the forerunner to much of how the United States developed). I even used a few game supplements like Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate.But the game, while taking place in the Empire, and the Basilegate Team - traveling everywhere from the Frankish Empire and Britain, to eastern and northern Africa, to the Near East, to secretly infiltrating Persia - is really most interested in the legend of Prester John.In the setting Prester John (they think he might be) is real, not myth, and lives on another world that is geographically an exact copy of Earth (our world is the setting for the game) but is different biologically (different animals and creatures inhabit it) and culturally. On that world Elves and Eladrin and Giants (though I don't call them that) and so forth are real.On that world magic is real but very dangerous (can even cause magical mutations, which is where most monsters come from) and some of the inhabitants, like the Priest King (an Elf) of the largest and most well developed nation, want to find a replacement for it. He has sent agents to our world to study it and see if thaumaturgy, or miracle working (Divine magic) could be a possible replacement for their arcane magic. Many there have also become interested in human religion, though some are violently opposed to anything from the human world. So there are pro-human, anti-human, pro-Divine magic, pro-God, anti-Divine magic, anti-God factions on that world. And some who just want to retain arcane magic regardless of what happens with other kinds of magic because eon that world they rely upon arcane magic in the same way we rely upon technology in our world.Some people in our world know of these other creatures visiting our world and some consider them very dangerous, deceitful, or that they may even be demons, agents of Satan, or forerunners of the Apocalypse. Some think that the Elves and others are actually the people of Prester John and want to make alliances with him, considering him a possible military and political ally too valuable to ignore. Others don't really know what to make of him, or his people.But as these two separate worlds have become secretly entangled then not only have agents made it to our world, but so have monsters, and enemy agents who are seeking to make alliances with the enemies of the Byzantines, like Persia, and the Bulgarians. A few enemy agents have even appeared in India and China. And other strange things are happening like a lot of earthquakes, new plagues, animals and humans being kidnapped or disappearing (taken to the other world to be experimented upon by anti-human factions), even apparently graves breaking open and the dead sometimes walking the earth. As far as the populations are concerned most of these activities are kept secret or explained away as natural disasters or acts of God. But they keep happening, and not just in the Empire, but all over the known world.So the Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople formed up a team (the Basilegate - The Emperor's Legate) to go out and investigate these occurrences, fight monsters they encounter, try to make contact with the people from the other world, and see who they really are and what they really want. Meanwhile "Prester John" has formed up his own team (a different set of players, called the Caerkara) to go to our world and see what they can discover. Eventually the two teams crossed paths and now they even work together cooperatively on some missions. It has worked real well as a setting for over ten years now. There is now even an African team and an Oriental team of human explorers/investigators/adventurers, and occasionally they work with the Basilegate too.And then you've got the anti-teams, like the Anti-pope and the Dragoons who are out to hunt down and annihilate the Paladins, Rangers, and Cavaliers, and the groups from the other world who are out to kill humans or use them or experiment on them, and underneath that you have angels and demons secretly operating in background, and you got a lot of good stuff to keep players hopping and guessing as to what is really going on.It's the best setting I've ever found or developed.Yes, a lot of high-personality intrigue (the Romans would have never let an Alciabides run wild for long, they were to interested in law and order) and frontier's action. That's what makes Greece superior to me as a campaign and milieu setting.</blockquote>

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