The idea for a new campaign setting has been germinating for a long time. I probably first began to think about what would become Eyliarenn around mid-2006, and it was prompted by a frustration with fantasy fiction. I was annoyed by the reliance on magic as a tool for making a central character or characters "special" before they've even done anything. I came to think of it as the "Potter Effect", until I realised that a whole bunch of other folk have their own take on what "Harry Potter Effect" means. Personally I don't think a coming-of-age novel is best served with the protagonist being declared bettert than everyone else he's ever known before the action really starts.
As you may have gathered, I began thinking about this new world in terms of a backdrop for fantasy stories - novels or short stories, the kind of stories I wanted to read. About the same time I began my first tentative steps into the world of role-playing games after a protracted break of over twenty years; I started to buy some old rules sets off eBay and . It took more than six months from the time I began making notes on Eyliarenn, but eventually I came to the conclusion that writing it up as a campaign setting would help to give the whole thing a coherent structure, and then I might have something publishable at the end of it.
In September of 2007 I played my first session with the "Inappropriately Named Tuesday Night Pizza and Gaming" group; innappropriately named because they moved it to Wednesday nights (from Thursdays) to accomodate me, and they ate at a local pub first instead of ordering pizza. I've been with the group since then, GM'd a handful of games and played a lot more.
So the last three years I've been concentrating more on creating a game-world than a ficton setting. I do have a novel that I pull out, work frantically on for three or four nights, then put aside again while I work on some detail about Eyliarenn that I realise I haven't covered yet in the notes. So each supports the other, although I'd like to be at a playtesting stage in a year or eighteen months.
I set out intending Eyliarenn to be a systemless setting. I'm now coming around to making it some ways system-specific, simply because some things really need mechanics for them to work. I'm trying to make it as open as possible; if people like it enough they can no doubt trick it up to fit their favourite rules-set. Another option would be to release it in two or three versions for different rules-sets. This has its own appeal, but I want to get the first version out before I think too hard about that!
Anyway, this post is just by way of introduction to me and to the idea of another fantasy setting coming onto the market (yes, if I'm putting this much work into it, I want to try to sell the damn thing). I'm hoping I can mix this up enough to make even the the most recalcitrant, unreconstructed OSRIC player at least a little curious.
I'll be posting two kinds of article; material about the Eyliarenn setting, which will make up the bulk of the content, and short, "designer's notes"-style pieces as appropriate. I invite anyone who thinks what I post here to tell me how bad you think it is, but you better have a good reason it sucks or a good sugestion on how to make it un-suck (make it blow?!), otherwise your just wasting my time and chewing through your own bandwidth. Compliments and messages of support will be greeted with suspicion, but ultimately welcomed.
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