Introducing Mistgate!

I'm no stranger to world building. In fact, it is a hobby that I've spent a lot of time on; from creating worlds for table top role-playing games, settings for novels, movie scripts, and video games. I've worked as the sole creative mind on some of these worlds, and I've collaborated with friends on others. Mistgate is simply another endeavor in this space. Unlike other efforts, however, Mistgate was approached differently from the beginning. With Mistgate we approached it not just as a product, but a brand and a franchise, that would be shared with audiences beyond the dining room table of our Saturday gaming group.

The inception of Mistgate began with a few of us deciding that we would collaborate to design and build a campaign setting that we could all use in our games. This would allow the creation of a shared narrative. Those of us involved had gamed together for years (decades, even) and have occassionally collaborated on other visions of shared settings. Despite this, there was never really the sense of shared ownership.

You may recall a series of previous posts which I had written discussing the early stages of an unnamed campaign setting that I was collaborating on, and a follow up to that article indicating that stewardship of the project had changed from a collaborative effort to something more of an independently directed nature. That project, if you haven't already guessed, is Mistgate.

Today, the foundation of the Mistgate setting has become well established. With numerous adventures having been run in the setting. With each adventure we develop the setting further and introduce more players to the world. There have been sustained lore building efforts, and we also continue to further clarify and refine the setting's narrative, defining characteristics, and overall feel. I've also begun soliciting more creative input from friends and former collaborators, hoping to grow the setting beyond what I can reasonably do alone. As a world and a setting I feel that Mistgate has so much potential: from serving as a backdrop for your weekly D&D game, to milieu of novels, comics, and other media.

What is Mistgate?

Mistgate is, at its core, a well-defined entry into the genre of science fantasy. The world's history (which is growing day by day) is charactererized by several significant events, most recently a cataclysm of apocalyptic scale. I have spent a lot of time considering many aspects of this world-defining event among others, and the impacts they would have upon the following decades, centuries, and milleniums.

Typical fantasy elements, such as magic, have also been reflected upon, reworked, and given more tangible and integrated explanations to the world. Thus allowing them to feel more probable all without losing the awe that makes them appealing. Rod Serling once described the science fantasy genre as "making the impossible probable", which is what Mistgate attempts to do with its more fantastic elements.

Mistgate is designed to be flexible. Stories might focus on the macro conflicts that arise between nations; discovery (or possibly rediscovery) of secrets buried by the past within ancient ruins, including technologies otherwise thought lost; exploration of the unknown; and those of a more personal nature. These tales may be framed on one level as something simple, like the struggle between good an evil, yet when examining them more closely reveal more complex subjects such as the nature of those forces—forcing the audience to question their own views along with the characters.

The Mistgate setting is divided between two worlds: the world of Theia, which suffered a cataclysmic event a few thousand years in the past, and the Mists. The Mists represent the multiverse in the setting of Mistgate. An innumerable number of, typically, fractured realms whose realities bleed over to the world of Theia during magical events known as schisms. I won't go into much detail on schisms in this post, but suffice it to say that schisms are storms of an unpredictable nature fueled by chaotic and uncontrollable magical energy. Although the schisms provide a means of trvaersing into the realms of the Mists, they are unreliable and dangerous. There are other, safer, and more dependable ways to reach the Mists, which I will introduce later.

Throughout the year the team behind Lorecall and the team behind Mistgate will collaborate to release play test material and other game materials revealing more details about Mistgate and its setting.

Adventure and the Mists

A core foundation of Mistgate is adventure, as you might expect from any role-playing game. While there is no formula or mandate for what an adventure in the Mistgate setting should include, many focus on the exploration of ancient ruins and the Mists. Discovering the unknown or things lost from the past is a common refrain in the tales of Mistgate.

The world is largely divided between three localities: the Known World where most of the setting takes place, the frontier, and the imperial lands. Depending on what region of the world you're exploring can dramatically effect your experience and the types of stories you participate in.

On the eastern seaboard of the Known World are the Shattered Coasts, where the land was sundered during the cataclym of the past. The Shattered Coast is a collection of small archipelagos formed in the wake of the destruction wrought by the events that reshaped the world. Compare and contrast the naval and high seas adventures of the Shattered Coasts with the Guild Marches to the north and west. The Guild Marches are a, mostly land-locked, loosely federated collection of city-states and the hub of technological rediscovery. Being located in the heart of the Known World and with access to some of the most advanced technology in the setting and an abundance of ley lines, magical conduits, the Guild Marches are one of the setting's preeminent powers.

There are regions where magic is abundant, and areas where it is still scarce. Regardless of where you are, since the cataclysm, the natural world does not regulate magical energy the way it once did. Sometimes too much energy builds up in an area and spawn magical storms, or schisms, that are just as destructive as a tornado. These schisms can manifest quickly, and are tears in the fabric of reality leading to any one of the infinite number of realms in the Mists. More than a few people have been lost to the Mists or killed by the violent eruption of magical energies. In addition to their evident dangers, the Mists also draw the attention of monsters.

Although we haven't talked much about them, the Mists are one of the elements of the setting that I'm immensely proud of. They give me, as a story teller, the flexibility to include characters and creatures into the world that I would otherwise have difficulty explaining. The Mists also prove a source for an infinite number of adventures, and entire games could be run with the characters never stepping foot on the earthly soil of Theia. For me, the possibility that the Mists introduce to the game are boundless and I truly believe that they will allow any story teller to really make Mistgate their own.

As alluded to briefly above, accessing the Mists would be perilous if the adventurer had to wait for the opening of schism, admittedly some thrill seekers might pursue this. Other, more sensible, explorers prefer the use of the Mistgates. The Mistgates are an ancient technology, recently recovered, left behind by the civilization that flourished prior to the cataclysm. They present a more stable and safer means of travelling between Theia and the Mists. When the antecedent civilization collapsed during the cataclysm and magic waned, most of their technology—including the Mistgates—was lost or stopped working. It is only recently that one of these gates has been rediscovered and its installment into the capital city of the Guild Marches has assisted in making the Guild Marches a powerful force throughout the Known World.

Magic, Guns, and Swords

Mistgate is a mixture of science and fantasy. Many of the cultures in the setting are largely based on a stereotypical, heavily fantasy-inspired, view of medieval life. Others might be more reflective of a romanticized vision of European Renaissance culture. Still, some regions like the imperial lands, are harsher and with less magic have an almost industrial revolution-like feel to them. However, these serve only as points of reference and as a starting point for how we build the surrounding regions. Across all of them science, technology, magic, or a combination of all of these things can be seen gradually impacting the cultures of the world

The setting is currently undergoing a magical renaissance, having begun relatively recently with the rediscovery of magic. Ancient technologies, whose operational principles are based on magic as a fuel source, have also begun to be rediscovered. These discoveries create an even starker contrast between low-technology and high-technology in the setting. In regions marked by high concentrations of ancient ruins, and those with densely populated urban areas, the people of Mistgate enjoy more luxuries and comforts that you might expect to find in a more modern settings: street lamps, trams, automobiles, etc. In some cases it also translates to more social welfare and, at the very least, access to education and skilled labor. Most of these modern marvels require magical energy to operate, and therefore only exist within the confines of region with a well-established magical grid, either natural or artificial.

This magical renaissance and the ancient technologies being rediscovered has also created something of an arms race between nations. As a catalyst for conflict, nations compete for control of recently discovered ruins and crystallized forms of magic that can be used to fuel these techno-magical devices.these advances have also served to transform some urban areas into more modern-day societies, offering many of the comforts and conveniences we take for granted in our everyday lives.

Mistgate is very much influenced by my love of fantasy, science fiction, comics, and video games. In particular my familiarity with Japanese role-playing games ([JRPGs][wiki-jrpg]), Japanese [anime][wiki-anime], [manga][wiki-manga], etc. Video games have had one of the largest influences, collectively, on the setting. If you've ever played games in SEGA's Phantasy Star series, Namco's Tales of... game series (e.g. Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Vesperia, etc.), or even a few of Square Enix's more recent entries in the Final Fantasy series, you'll find some elements of the Mistgate setting familiar.

Faith and History

One of the aspects that I feel makes Mistgate stand out as special, and sets it apart from other settings, is how it treats divinity, religion, and faith. A lot of fantasy seeks to manifest divinity in physical form in their worlds, an emulation of old world beliefs, such as those held by ancient Greeks and Romans, that saw their gods in all things. These worlds use the incontrovertible divine as an explanation for the rise (and possibly the fall) of the sentient races and their civilizations.

Mistgate, on the other hand, treats the divine in a more nebulous way than traditional high fantasy. Divinity in the world of Mistgate is a truer exercise of faith. The religions and cultures of Theia and the Mists believe that their icons are real, therefore to them they are real. However, not unlike our own history and experience with faith, these beliefs can't be proven scientifically. This creates an opportunity for a multiplicity of views where religion, and divinity, is concerned. Each culture is able to develop its own views on faith independently, or to have been influenced by other cultures that they have been conquered by, traded with, or had some other interaction with.

One of the reasons I like Mistgate's handling of relgiion is it creates a more nuanced narrative around a more realistic representation of religion in the world and setting.

One of the biggest impacts it has had on the setting is that it forced us to rethink the origin of sentient species in the setting. Not just their scientific and fact-based origin that we, as game designers, sought to understand, but also a culture's own understanding of their origin through myths and legends. Different cultures can have their own origin myths, world creation myths, and stories about the divine. After all is said and done, however, you can usually find a familiar thread in some of the stories. Maybe that thread is not just fiction, maybe there is some truth to all of the stories being told?

Stay Tuned!

There is so much more that I want to share with you about the Mistgate setting, and will over the coming weeks and months. More articles about Mistgate will be published here, on Lorecall. We announce new articles on Twitter and Facebook, at least until we add more functionality back into Lorecall. So if you're interested please follow Lorecall on Twitter @Lorecall, or on Facebook.

If you're curious to find out more about Mistgate, or are interested in finding out how you can help, please reach out to me, Sean Quinn, directly on Twitter @seanwquinn.