Erden

Welcome, weary travellers, to Erden: a dark fantasy setting for a number of DnD campaigns. The skalds and soothsayers teach us that it was the hubris of elves that cursed us. For our continent is a grim and ancient place, haunted by the machinations of baleful deities. Our land has witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted realms, an endless cycle of achievement, strife and ignorance that has turned for ten long millennia.   Long ago, the high elves created a god in their own image: Sanguine. But in her they poured their arrogance, their malice, and their lust for power. Though the elves overthrew her and thought her defeated, she retreated into the deep places of the world and became a god of blood and rage, even as the world was plunged into a terrible Age of Ice and the mortal races were pushed to the brink of extinction. Over the long millennia that followed, Sanguine wrought havoc on the world time and time again, being defeated each time, but also becoming stronger with each Cycle. New gods rose and fell with the turning of the millennia.    In recent memory came the End of the Cycle - the time of Sanguine's return. After decades of vampiric and undead uprisings across the continent, Sanguine returned. All the world held its breath in what many feared was our final hour. Yet far to the west, Sanguine was defeated by a coalition of mortal realms and the spirits of long-dead adventurers from ages past, some say for good. It is now the New Era, an age of hope. Or is it?   Long have men and mer been at war, and it seems that in the wake of Sanguine's fall mortal folk have returned to their old ways. Fey deities long spurned long to fill the power vacuum left by Sanguine, and pull the strings of mortal hearts. Seeds sown during the old wars bear grim fruit, as the mighty Holmgardian Empire has been seized by a religious cult aimed at world domination. The decadent high elf realm of Lumeris threatens to collapse in on itself, the cackling laugh of jealous Fey its funeral dirge...   Only time will tell whether the New Era proves to be as bloody as the last.