Fantasy Role Playing

Dungeons and Dragons

I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons in 1975 by Mark Swanson, who invited me to play in his recently created Goree campaign. I immediately sent off an order to TSR and bought the original 3 volume rules set and started my own world called Murdesia. As a campaign, Murdesia lasted for two years of intense play. There were aspects of it that I didn't like however, so it was abandoned in favor of a new world called Nolaria (now you know where the web site name comes from). Many years of gaming have resulted in a style of play that we are very comfortable with.

Nolaria

Nolaria is the name of a mid-sized continent on a unknown planet far off in the Primary Material Plane. Initally, play has focused on this continent,which I currently mapped to a 20mi/inch scale. Particular places of interest are mapped down to a 50'/inch scale, which can show individual buildings.

This campaign is largely focused on the interactions between politics and religion. I have been interested in how religion shapes culture (and vice versa) since I was a kid. In the process of this exploration, many opportunities for interesting gaming have arisen, including epic quests, entaglement with religious plots, pollitical intriques, strange places and defy reasoning, etc.

Politically, there are two main power groups in Nolaria: the kingdom of Norberg , and the Mernian Empire. There are lesser states, including a collection of small kingdoms in the southeast. Each of these power blocs is alligned to a religion: Norberg follows a pseudo-christian mythos called Omiism. Mernia has a pantheistic religion called Nolarism with sub-cults devoted to individual gods. The Nolarists incidentally created the martyr named Omi. The small kingdoms follow a muslim-styled religion called Moamedism. Think of Norberg as England or France in the Middle Ages. Mernia is late Roman Empire (more information available).

Technology is very diverse. One tends to see local places of advancement which are not dispersed. This is largely due to the influence of magic and the tradition of keeping magic techniques secret. Magic secrecy is eroding however, largely due to the introduction of printed material about 300 years ago (from the present play date). This came about from the intense competition for books on magic of any sort. Technology is the flip side of magic: science and phsyical forces used to good purpose. In the minds of the inhabitants of Nolaria, however, there is no difference between the two. There is no distinction between electricity and magical lightning. This has led to some really interesting blends of science and magic, especially in constructed devices. The dwarves and gnomes of Nolaria are engaged in research of this type.

Religions in Nolaria

As in our own history, religion plays a very important role in providing a context for man in his surroundings. For this reason, I believe that religion is an essential part of any role playing games, especially those with a mideaval setting.

The religions in Nolaria parallel those of many others scattered throughout the multiverse, including our own. Omiism is modeled on the Catholic Church with its heirarchy of Bishops, Cardinals, and Pope. Nolarism is a classic pantheistic religion with a father and mother god figures, along with a multitude of greater and lesser gods and goddesses associated with various natural phenomenon (the sun, the moon, wind, life, death, etc.). Druidic cults of various sorts exist throughout Nolaria. Druidism is less cohesive than is defined in the D&D rules. Moamedism is a prophetic religion based on the revalations of mystics. These visions have been collected into various holy books that form a cohesive mythos. In addition to these major belief systems, there are literally dozens of other religions in the Nolaria campaign. Many of these are particular to various sentient non-human races such as dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc.

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