Greetings from the edge,
I’m on a lot of painkillers right now, so putting words on the page is proving difficult. I get days like this from time to time. As a small glimpse behind the curtain, I’m on some fairly strong medication for a chronic pain condition, and there are days when the words simply refuse to come. Mostly because my head feels full of static and cotton wool.
Still, I persist.
I thought it might be a good time to tell you a little about my D&D setting, Lore. The ambition is for it to eventually grow into something on the scale of the great fantasy settings like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or even Ravenloft.
The main continent contains a dozen nations, each with its own distinct feel. There are oppressive kingdoms ruled by mad kings who have outlawed magic, ash deserts filled with hard-bitten frontiersmen riding velociraptors, and everything in between.
The part I want to tell you about right now is called Valtheraine.
Valtheraine is a land of high adventure, dangerous politics, and wildly unpredictable magic. It is a place where swashbuckling heroes duel on the decks of airships, spies trade secrets in candlelit taverns, and noble houses scheme beneath painted ceilings and velvet banners.
At first glance, Valtheraine looks like a fantasy version of Renaissance Europe. Its great cities are filled with inventors, merchants, artists, explorers, and ambitious nobles. Reputation matters. Bloodlines matter. A sharp tongue can be just as deadly as a sharp sword.
The nation is rich, proud, and outwardly civilised, but beneath the polished marble and golden chandeliers lurk corruption, rivalry, and old grudges waiting to erupt.
The capital city, Clifftop, captures the spirit of Valtheraine perfectly. Half the city sits atop vast cliffs overlooking the sea, while the poorer districts cling to the docks and streets below. Kobold-powered lifts haul people between the two levels like rattling iron veins running through the cliff face.
Its streets are crowded with colourful markets, political conspiracies, spies, guilds, and adventurers looking for work.
Magic in Valtheraine is not neat, safe, or entirely understood. It behaves more like weather than science. Even the smallest spell carries a chance of spiralling into chaos. Mage Storms darken the sky with blue clouds and purple lightning, unleashing strange miracles and terrible disasters: frogs falling from the heavens, people transformed into beasts, entire districts twisted overnight.
Valtheraine is a place of duels, secrets, monsters, lost ruins, and impossible wonders. A world forever balanced between glory and catastrophe, where every triumph risks becoming a legend and every mistake might become a disaster whispered about for centuries.
That’s what I’ve been working on so far.
Why am I telling you all this?
Partly because it is the project currently living rent-free in my skull, but mostly because it has become the place where everything I love collides: fantasy, horror, politics, monsters, strange magic, grubby taverns, noble courts, ruined castles, spies, pirates, and the sort of people who somehow keep going even when the odds are stacked against them.
Valtheraine is still very much a work in progress. There are gaps in the map, missing cities, half-finished legends, and more than a few monsters that currently exist only as vague shapes shambling around in my notes app.
But it is growing.
Slowly, stubbornly, one strange little idea at a time.
So if my head is full of static and painkillers right now, at least some of that static is full of kobolds, airships, spies, dragons, and Mage Storms.
Could be worse.
See you in the margins,
Leave a Reply