 Though a complete time line of the history of the Dark Fate world is given, for the deepest tension, heroes will want to adventure on the continent about 100 years after everyone in the city of Amtal died in one night. Since that mysterious event, the dead have raised a new city, a Necropolis with undead inhabitants who, it should be plain to see, are very, very bad to have around. Yet, the five nations of the continent have barely reacted to the undead threat. So preoccupied are they with their petty struggles and long-held grudges, they seem oblivious to the painfully obvious. Worse still, the deities of the world have taken the Celestial Oath, a bond forbidding interference with the mortal world unless all act as one, a fairly rare event since each god and goddess holds sway over its own sphere of influence. Only Gwyanna, Goddess of Death and Life, seemed to have been able to convince her fellow beings to join her in meddling with the mortal world. How? All it took was a bit of twisted logic. You see, it was Gwyanna who devised the plan to kill everyone in Amtal and to raise them as the living dead. Gwyanna’s
argument was, to her, simple. For too long, the pantheon had championed
the cause of Life. Death, too, needed a place in the Divine Plan. The
Necropolis made that possible. The others acquiesced. So, in a world where gods are damning souls in a compromise to a specious argument, where a well-intentioned theocracy remains isolationistic while evil grows, where a military nation attacks everyone around them except the greatest threat of all, and where magic has been awkwardly reinvented as a science after the death of a goddess, is it any wonder that heroes are needed very badly? This is the stuff of great drama! For a hero to truly rise up in Pontad or Dunir or Novarion, he or she will most likely have to first come into conflict with the very nation that has raised that hero. For example, if a cleric of Amaron strives to become a Warrior of Faith, is such a title worth any value if that cleric buys into the isolationism of the nation? And what would it take for a Legionnaire of Pontad to stand up to his superiors and declare the country’s aggressions misguided? Such a crisis of identity makes for brilliant storytelling, and whenever a campaign setting can offer that kind of opportunity, it is certainly worth a visit!  Of course, Dark Fate
could be played straight – kill monsters, take treasure, and go home –
but that would be a waste of Paschoalin’s wonderful attention to detail.
The nations, their history, their people, and their cultures are
intricately described, giving players so much from which to draw that
creating anything less than powerful character studies would be a
terrible disservice. Dark Fate is not simply a challenge of men
versus monsters; it a world where the hero’s conflict is as much with
his or her own society as it is with the forces of evil. Irony abounds in this world, and, for a storytelling game like World vs. Hero, that’s a bonus! Take the Crimson Order, for example. This brotherhood of sorcerers had the potential to become a great force of magic after re-learning the mystical arts virtually through force of will. However, after a necromancer’s attack, the Order pathetically fragmented, and small, individual covenants now roam the land, unable to get past their own rivalry of one another to unite and further the power of good over evil. Could a hero rise out of this group of shortsighted spellcasters? It’s worth a shot! And in Dunir, the honor-loving, illiterate citizenry obsess over who will marry their unattached Queen. Meanwhile, a rival nation commandeers their land and the undead devour the hamlets on their outskirts. Who will wake them up before it’s too late? In the end, Dark Fate’s title isn’t simply a composite of two ominous words that sound cool together; it is a symbolic reference to the inevitable oblivion of nations that become too self-absorbed for their own good. That’s what makes this world so different. Heroes need to be real heroes – mavericks, even – in a place like Dark Fate’s continent. For here, the battle truly begins at home. For more on Dark Fate, check out the official site!  |