Setting
A basic premise of the setting is that magical banestorms pick up people and whole villages from other worlds (including Earth) and deposit them on Yrth. As a result many of the societies and cultures are reminiscent of a Crusades-era Earth, albeit with magic. One significant difference this brings is that, unlike many fantasy settings, Yrth has many of the major Earth faiths as its core religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and others.
The settings's official timeline syncs up with our own, so that a "normal" campaign would be set in 2005 or 2006. The Banestorm started about 1,000 years ago when a group of "Dark Elves" completed a magical ritual designed to banish all Orcs from Yrth. The spell backfired horribly, and instead brought people from other worlds. Although the majority of Banestorm strikes occurred shortly after the initial backfire, giving the world its fantasy-medieval flavor, occasional flare-ups have occurred since then. For instance, in the 16th century a number of humans were transported to Yrth from France, bringing with them dangerous knowledge of Protestantism, and gunpowder. The latter has since been suppressed due to concerns by the Empire of Megalos about too much technological progress.
Read more about this topic: GURPS Banestorm
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