Jürgen Hubert
First Post
GURPS Banestorm is the rerelease of Steve Jackson Games old fantasy world of Yrth. In many ways, it is a fairly "standard" fantasy world, but it does have a couple of twists.
A long time ago, Yrth was only inhabited by elves, dwarves, and orcs. The dwarves and elves occasionally warred or traded with each other, but mostly left each other alone, while the orcs fought everyone, including themselves. Then, about a thousand years ago, a cabal of elves had enough of this constant warfare and performed a mighty magical ritual to cast a "great bane" upon the orcs. Their ritual failed... catastrophically. Or perhaps it did suceed - it is hard to say now.
The resulting magical backlash not only shattered elven civilization, but also weakened the barrier between the worlds, and a large number of beings were transported from other worlds - including medieval Earth. Small in number, it took the newcomers a long time to recover - but eventually, they founded their own kingdoms, discovered magic (sometimes with the help of some friendly elves), and gradually explored the continent and drove the orcs into the remaining wilderness.
And thus it came to be that in the Year of the Lord 2005 there are still crusades by the Christian kingdoms against the Muslim nations...
For the most part, the book is setting information - there is little in the way of rules. It should be pretty easy to use d20 for it, though magic needs some adjustment - there is no true "divine magic" (wizards can cast healing spells instead), and those who do have magical talent tend to focus on it exclusively instead of being some sort of "hybrid spellcasters" (though there are exceptions). Some variant of the Midnight magic system would probably work well, though perhaps with faster energy recovery and earlier access to damaging spells...
Anyway, I suggest you check it out if you are interested in new fantasy worlds - especially if you are bored of the "same old, cliched fantasy religions"...
A long time ago, Yrth was only inhabited by elves, dwarves, and orcs. The dwarves and elves occasionally warred or traded with each other, but mostly left each other alone, while the orcs fought everyone, including themselves. Then, about a thousand years ago, a cabal of elves had enough of this constant warfare and performed a mighty magical ritual to cast a "great bane" upon the orcs. Their ritual failed... catastrophically. Or perhaps it did suceed - it is hard to say now.
The resulting magical backlash not only shattered elven civilization, but also weakened the barrier between the worlds, and a large number of beings were transported from other worlds - including medieval Earth. Small in number, it took the newcomers a long time to recover - but eventually, they founded their own kingdoms, discovered magic (sometimes with the help of some friendly elves), and gradually explored the continent and drove the orcs into the remaining wilderness.
And thus it came to be that in the Year of the Lord 2005 there are still crusades by the Christian kingdoms against the Muslim nations...
For the most part, the book is setting information - there is little in the way of rules. It should be pretty easy to use d20 for it, though magic needs some adjustment - there is no true "divine magic" (wizards can cast healing spells instead), and those who do have magical talent tend to focus on it exclusively instead of being some sort of "hybrid spellcasters" (though there are exceptions). Some variant of the Midnight magic system would probably work well, though perhaps with faster energy recovery and earlier access to damaging spells...
Anyway, I suggest you check it out if you are interested in new fantasy worlds - especially if you are bored of the "same old, cliched fantasy religions"...
(And GURPS Powers when it comes out.)
