Hardened mercenaries fight their way through horrors in the depths of an ancient ruin, hunting the corrupted machine that made them, seeking coin and glory. Intrepid explorers venture beyond the edge of the map in search of a lost city of shapechangers hinted at in dusty tomes, and the secrets and power it holds. Cunning thieves creep through the shadows of a sorcerer’s manor, searching for the arcane words she uses to master the fundamental forces of the world.
Aeldos is a world of stories, a place where heroes and misfits alike use cunning, steel, and charm to carve their own dominion from the space between monster and man alike.
Each story is a piece of a tapestry, woven from a multitude of characters, creatures and places. From perilous ruins crawling with hungry monsters to luminous eternal cities filled with technological wonders and political intrigue, to outposts on the wild edge of civilization beating back a dangerous frontier, Aeldos is a diverse and dangerous world.
In a world filled with monsters and mysteries, there are many opportunities for heroics. And such a world has much need for heroism.
Aeldos is not a naturally hospitable world. Aeldans must contend with a wide array of hazards, from voracious fauna and noxious flora, to crazed outlaws and wild folk, and an assortment of organic and mechanical horrors left over from previous eras. Most people survive in fortress cities, armed outposts, or via able guards and large caravans. High walls, priceless knowledge, and strong arms on bow and sword are essential to civilization as it exists across Aeldos’ multiple human and quasihuman cultures.
It wasn’t always this way. Humanity once ruled Aeldos. In an age long passed the precursor culture called the Urul Imperium tamed the world with machine and magic alike, but their gilded rule was ended by disaster. A hundred forgotten cataclysms fractured the Imperium, leaving only fragments of the elder age in their wake. These fragments come in the shape of ruins, vaults, sleeping technology and lost arcane secrets lingering in distant or hidden places. Discovering or deciphering a single fragment can be enough to elevate or destroy an entire culture, and raise those responsible from obscurity and into the annals of history.
Your story starts in the age of such discoveries. A long age of darkness has ended and a new age of humanity dawns. Slowly, painfully, what was lost is being found, what was wild mapped, what is dangerous pushed back. Monsters catalogued, ancient machines revived, forgotten secrets recovered. The effort is difficult, and many have been lost to it. There is much left to be done in the reclaiming of the world.
What role will you play?
What is all of this?
This is the website for a fictional world called Aeldos and an associated storytelling game system called Praxis. Pages and articles here detail everything from the cultures, creatures, technology, and religion of this fictional world to the rules and tools useful for running a role-playing game in that world.
Who made all this?
No one special. Just someone who likes making things and telling stories.