The Realms of Aorlis Fantasy Setting is game system agnostic, and you may run whatever system you prefer when you are the gamemaster. This type of setting is also called System Neutral. Essentially, you decide which game system to plug in. The setting is late Medieval, so everything in Aorlis corresponds to the basic elements of all fantasy roleplaying systems.
The distinction, as I see it, is you either run a game system, or you run a campaign. If you want to make your setting truly system agnostic, then the RPG system you choose merely is a lens through which the gamemaster has to focus his adventures and campaign.
Popular Games
If you wish to use
Chivalry and Sorcery from Britannia Game Designs Ltd.,
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay by Games Workshop,
GURPs from Steve Jackson Games, then any of these may be used to run adventures in Aorlis. This remains true for
D6 Fantasy from West End Games,
Fate/Fudge by Evil Hat Productions,
Ars Magica by Atlas Games, and many more. Most of these rulesets call for very little adaptation. While not totally plug-and-play, it’s usually only the specific cultural or game terminology that changes.
Dungeons & Dragons
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the elephant in the room,
Dungeons and Dragons by Wizards of the Coast, and all the D&D-like games around it. As of 2024, this is still the most popular game system by a long shot. The basic system comes in many flavors from many publishers, and they are all fine. Good examples are:
Castles & Crusades by Troll Lord Games
Level Up Advanced 5th Edition by EN Publishing
Pathfinder by Paizo Publishing
Basic Fantasy by Chris Gonnerman
Tales of the Valiant by Kobold Press
Almost all OSR games
Dungeons and Dragons has been published in multiple editions down through the years, and while 5th Edition is the most popular, any version will work well.
Using D&D for Aorlis
If you play D&D in Aorlis, here are suggestions I would make to keep the gaming experience in tune with the Aorlis setting. You don’t have to follow these notes, of course.
Character Class
In contemporary Aorlis, there are no monks or druids. There are monks or monk-like characters in distant lands far beyond the Known World, but at this stage in history, those far-away characters have not yet visited Aorlis. Likewise, there used to be Aorlisian druids a thousand years back, but they are long gone, and their religion is poorly remembered because Pagan peoples didn’t write down the tenants of their belief. So, your players might encounter modern Pagans, or forgotten druidic groves, but the druids themselves are extinct. Bards are type of druid, but they survived into the modern era because they converted to the Faith, or the Universal Church.
Character Races
There is no Halfling or Hobbit race in Aorlis. Never were. Orcs likewise are non-existent. The reason should be obvious—these races, as currently presented are based loosely on the writing of J. R. R. Tolkien. Aorlis is not the
Lord of the Rings or Middle Earth. The same prohibitions apply to other Tolkienesque elements like mithril, balrogs, and other such things specific to that fantasy epic. Note, none of this is meant as a slight to Tolkien and his work—I’m a huge fan, and have been all my life. Elves are different. Aorlis draws upon older, European mythology, not on J.R.R. Tolkien’s version of them. So, while faeries exist or once existed, they are not a player character race. The faeries of Aorlis are dangerous, alien, and do not play well with humans. Some characters may have faerie ancestry, but that’s best kept secret. There also is no drow race in Aorlis. The same goes for dwarves.
Dungeons & Dragons style dwarfs are non-existent in Aorlis. They can be found in mythology, but actual dwarves are from Faerie and were referred to as Kobolds or Trow. Gnomide hybrids are a rough analogue to
Dungeon and Dragons dwarfs, but they are vanishingly rare.
Monsters
Aorlis has an extensive bestiary of creatures to draw upon, and most are drawn from European mythology. There are none of the D&D specific creatures like mind flayers, purple worms, owlbears, and the like. These creatures are iconic D&D creations, and that is another world. Dragons are alive and well, if very rare, in Aorlis. Aorlisian dragons are sourced from medieval European legend, as seen through an Aorlisian filter. There are no dragon breeds based on chromatic colors, metals, or gems. Most Aorlisian dragons are green or brown, and if they have breath weapons then they breathe fire, poisonous gas, or plague.
Cosmology
In Aorlis, the spiritual world is much closer to that of Dante Alighieri’s
Divine Comedy. There are no planes of existence in Aorlis like those of D&D.
Summary
What if you cannot live without elves, monks, druids, metallic dragons, and mind flayers? No problem. How you make Aorlis and its setting your own is up to you. Your version of The Realms of Aorlis Fantasy Setting does not have to match my “official” version. It’s a wild multiverse out there, and which version of this world you choose to run ultimately is up to you. Be creative and run the game you want to run.
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