[Myth & Magic] The Albana Chronicles (WIP)

[AslanC]

Tonight something magical happened at my gaming table.


We sat down to start a new Myth & Magic (infamous AD&D 2e neoclone) campaign, with plans to play in the world of Hârn and all my players seemed less than enthusiastic. When we started discussing it, the feeling was that Hârn is an AMAZING setting, but it's level of detail, realism, alongside fantasy just was too dense for us. Too much information. We all had read, me more than them , bunches of documents and realized it just wasn't for us.


So we decided as a group to build our own setting for the campaign. Normally I make the setting, they play, but tonight we made the setting and came together in a way that just blew me away.


We used random roles, random name generators, and then edited to get there.


We all agreed that we wanted an island, I suggested instead of mimicking the British Isles, we look at Japan. That led to us deciding to have a right-justified map instead of the bog-standard left-justified one.


Then the story unfolded and here is what we came up with. Note that the map is a BIG TIME WIP and I will try to develop it here with you all. The greyblue lines on the map represent mountain ranges btw.



Click for larger


Nations of Albana


• Athait (a-th-ate) – Former power player. Last king died heirless 300 years ago. Infighting for succession
reduced them to near savages. Warlords, wilds, danger.


• Brucca (brew-ka) – Infernalists. Devil worshipers. Monsters and demons roam loose. Giant volcano in
the middle.


• Davon (dav-on) – Most chivalric. Landlocked. Good king but no heirs make many think of Athait and
its' fate.


• Drale (duh-rail) – Former Efrana homelands. Invaded by giantkin from the Aegos. Strong warrior culture.


• Ecthalien (ek-thall-ee-ann) – Pagan holdout, rejects the Church brought over from the continent. Very rural and rustic people with lots and lots of forests.


• Eskaine (es-cane) – Imperial holdout. Safe on island. Home of the Last Legion. Warm currents make
good wines.


• Guilea (guy-lee-ah) – Former province of Pelabria. Won independence in Civil War. Most cultured,
civilized, and advanced kingdom on Albana. Home of the Guilean Codex, a book of science and
knowledge.


• Oscait (oss-kay) – Merchant clans and money lenders. Controls the Pelabrian Peninsula. Best sailors/fishermen around.


• Ostraad (oss-tra-dd) – Monotheistic backers of the Church. From the continent (Aegos). Conqueror nation. Took Urydae in
holy war.


• Pelabira (peh-lab-ree-ah) – Former major kingdom. Lost Guilea in a civil war. Couldn't pay back Oscait,
got annexed for debts.


• Urydae (Yuri-day) – Former northern reach of Pelabria. Gained independence in civil war. Refused to
accept God by Ostraad. Conquered by Ostraad.


Other Notes


• Aegos – Western Continent
• Aglesh – 2nd immigration wave to Albana
• Austor – Origin nation of the Ostraad conquerors
• Efrana – Indigenous peoples of Albana, now gypsies. Used to control the lands now known as Drale
• Erdaine – Elven forest city
• Manu Plevra – The Hidden Hand. Secret order of wizards who police magic to reduce witch hunts from the Church
• Othais – Aegosian nation from which Oscait descends
• Tulemar – Dwarven mine city


Characters were made this session.


A Sellsword (Fighter) from Davon with dreams of being a Knight (very Captain America style in the "I don't like bullies" and "I can do this all day!").


A Merchant (Thief) and spy from the Merchant Clans of Oscait who seeks to make a clan for himself while reporting back to his family.


A mage (Wizard) who has spent his life hiding with the Elves from the Manu Plevra and has had a vision that has compelled him to finally step back out into the world.


I'll post more as it comes along.

 

[AslanC]

Been working it since and have updated stuff... which is as follows;

So the first people to arrive on the island of Albana were the Beastmen, primitives who's relation to humans is as valid as their relation to animals. They say that there are STILL tribes of Beastmen living in the caves and valleys of Brucca.

Then the Efanna came, ending their mass exodus from the Aegosian continent. They pretty much went straight to war with the neolithic Beastmen, but their knowledge of bronze gave them the edge and they took most of the island from the Beastmen.

Then, the Empire came, and with it came iron. The Efranna were conquered or driven to the edges much like the Beastmen before them, but eventually the empire fell and the Efranna began to repopulate their isle.

That was when the Aglesh invaders came and either drove out or bred with the Efranna, except in what is now Drale where the Efranna resisted and held out.

As the Aglesh began to form a society and culture, a new invader from Aegos came, the Baruzen tribes, who brought steel with them. The Aglesh were easily, and some suggest willingly, conquered and thus the Angle-Baruz kingdoms were formed, coming to be known as the Aglbarish Age. Over the years their languages would mix and meddle, and eventually become the common tongue today, also know as Albarish, which is also where the island gets it's name Albana (Island of the Albarish).

There would be a later invasion by the Othais via the Oscait islands, brining some of that culture into the south-western part of the island, the Gathmen (Giantkin in Drale) brought their culture to mix with the Efranna in the north-east, and the Ostraad invasion by Austorian forces brought that culture to the North-Western part of the island.

The Guileans, who never crossed bred, but stayed on their island, slowly lost their swarthiness turning to a pale-skinned people, but not their black hair and dark eyes. They are essentially "romani-goths" in the modern sense of things.

Note that there are no elves, dwarves, orcs, etc... and like Hârn which inspired it, monster will tend to be unique and less "species" like traditional D&D.

Also having the map redone to me wider than it is longer as that works better for my mind.

More to come as I have it.