Trid is a fantasy world based on the "implied setting" loosely described in the classic B/X game rules. As such, it relies on two pillars of old-school settings: a dependence on random results to populate the environment, anf an appropriate lack of detail about how those results affect the player characters. Together, these provide each referee a solid framework to support their own creative preferences and style of play.
It's helpful to view Trid as a sandbox of sandboxes, each with its own set of environmental conditions, challenges, and rewards. Referees may isolate these regions or connect them through whatever common threads they wish to devise. Though Trid is vast, action plays out at a local scale—referees can add their own populations, magic, monsters, patrons, treasures, and power struggles to any sandbox with minimal effort or disruption to the (loosely coupled) whole.
World Hooks
While Trid is a sandbox of sandboxes, there are a few high-level concepts common to all. The history above teases out a few unifying hooks:
The Far Paths
A network of dimensional portals through which one may travel great distances across Trid in very little time. Portals to the
Far Paths dot the Continent, each protected deep within stone ziggurats. Scholars agree they are the Dim Ages, but are split on their origin: most believe the saurians used their formidible arcana to build the Far Paths, while more provocative scholars insist the pyramids predate the saurians, who only
discovered the Far Paths and somehow figured out how to use them. Regardless, the saurians used the Far Paths to great effect while expanding their
empire, but the network was irreparably damaged when the saurians were defeated. Today, they remain largely unused, operating at diminished capacity, or not at all (though there are frequent tales of functional portals, much to the interest of arcane practioners and entrepreneurs alike).
Elven Roads
The loss of the Far Paths prompted the elves to connect the
Ardic Republic's trading centres with sturdy, paved roads. Built of magically shaped stone, the
Elven Roads have resisted weather, erosion, time, and traffic, and are in continued use today. In addition to facilitating trade, travel, and defence, the roads serve as
de facto borders for the major Continental territories and, consequently, the general boundaries of the dominant human cultural divisions. The one culture almost defined by the Elven Roads is the
Traders, an itinerant people who use the roads to make an annual circuit of the Continent, buying and selling wares along the way.
The Ardic Curse
When the elves raised man to civilisation, the one bit of knowledge they witheld was arcane magic, thereby ensuring they would dominate the alliance. Throughout the Age of Fable, elves perfected their arcane craft through spells, items, and artefacts, but the prize they desired most was the Far Paths. Eventually, their research suggested a means of repair, but their botched execution struck
Opho with a surge of magical energy whose force dislodged the moon from its orbit. Opho began emittng its own arcane pulses, disrupting Trid's magical field and casters' ability to wield spells. This loss of arcane control became known as the
Ardic Curse, and it negated the leverage the elves had over man.
The Fall
The elves always felt superior to humans—it was, after all, the elves who dragged
them out of the stone age—so when the elves lost their arcane dominance, the resentment they had earned for generations swelled into sedition. When the elves' draconic response was enjoined, that swell became a wave of rebellion. The
Fall of the Republic changed the course of Trid's future. As factious humans reclaimed their homelands for themselves, they pushed the elves back to
Alfland and tentatively discovered the elves' arcane secrets along the way. When the humans pressed Alfland's borders, the remaining elves surrendered their ancient territory to the half-elven
Alfmen and departed Trid for the
Fey Realm, ending not only the Republic, but also the Age of Fable.
Glitterpits
Though the dwarfs disappeared below Trid's surface in the Dim Ages, their existence has not been forgotten. The first dwarven treasures were retrieved from abandoned halls in the
High Waste. These crumbled vaults, stuffed as they are with gold, gems, silver, and magic, are known collectively as
glitterpits. While this term originally referred only to collapsed dwarf outposts, as were occasionally discovered near the surface, it now includes any subterranean ruin or cavern network wherein treasure might be found. Glitterpits are considered entrances to (or extensions of) the
Deepreach, sought and explored by adventurers all over the Continent, usually at the behest of some power broker intent on the riches within. Naturally, exploration is dangerous, as glitterpits invariably teem with humanoids, monsters, and traps.
The Silent Nobility
It's no secret that the elves' departure created significant power vacuums. The Age of History is marked by man's struggle to establish order in the new wilderness, whether through the law or by the sword, and power brokers across the Continent compete relentlessly for territory, wealth, and control. Rumoured to oversee this sqabble, manipulating events, is the
Silent Nobility, a cabal uniting the elite among these power brokers—the rich, the cunning, and the most influential within populations of consequence. Their assumed goal is power over all the Continent, or maybe just enough to enrich their status and legacy, or perhaps they're nothing more than rapacious profiteers, seeing opportunity in every crisis. Regardless, their means are unknown, and the Silent Nobility are baselessly cast as the antagonists of any calamity whose cause is unclear.
Running Games in Trid
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Conflicts are Prosaic
World-spanning battles between good and evil are the stuff of religion. Trid's conflicts are motivated by more immediate and tangible prizes: territory, wealth, and power. Of course, some power brokers couch their ambition in altruism, but rarely do their goals serve the common good better than themselves. Conversely, adventurers may have aspirations to change the world, but they advance through the accumulation of riches and go where the money is. A side effect of these banal motives is that actions tend to play out on a local stage, and it is rare for conflicts in one region to influence significantly the conditions in another.
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