Aldwynne

A faux late 19th-century world mimicking our own in many ways, but with a few technological differences—lack of viable/reliable gunpower (and related weapons, like cannons and guns) and more robust armor/city defenses, most notably—which stylistically mimics the classical era, having encountered its Romantic period chronologically later than ours.   Filled with ruins and marks of past heroes and kings, its rich history sits waiting to be discovered beneath blankets of soot, rot, and earth. The legend of three great—now fallen—empires looms large over the land's citizens, the scars left behind by conquest and imperial horrors are borne not only by the world but the people. They have not forgotten.   The once great clans of Elf fell to these beasts of steel and honed-magics, and their once great scholars now go on only in their descendants, the middle class of coastal cities. Their creations, the offspring of another world entirely, once slaves for sustaining the lofty island universities, now serve human and dwarven lords in the less savory arts.   A recent technological boom and a set of political shifts has drawn immigrants from the north, both poor workers looking for new opportunities and the rich elite looking to claim what little space is left to hold at the top. As Aldwynne enters a new era and friction increases between fully-grown nations, what changes are just around the corner?