Lands of Mihrne: A History?

A Possible History?

Art by Calvin Chua

As with everything mentioned about Mirhne, all information must be taken with a grain of salt. The people of Mirhne are well known to tell stories among themselves, with travelling artist and priests alike telling many tales. Some are nothing but children fairy tales while others are morality plays whose true meaning have been lost to time and the change in culture, leaving only lurid tales of monsters and gruesome ends. Not only that but each region of Mirhne has its own gods, its own monsters and its own creation myths. Anyone trying to glean truth from these matters is bound to go insane even without a hint of some eldritch abomination in sight.

The Lands of Mirhne has many Gods, but few truly can be said to have name and faces worth remembering. One out of universe reason for this vagueness is not every player has an identical level of desire to invest in fictional beliefs and mythologies: indeed, some players actively avoid it due to being staunch atheists (even if that's a debate for another day one I'd rather have people leave at the fucking door). Trying to understand deeply rooted theme and ideas of culture is ultimately more work than its ever worth. As such, Mirhne's deities are fairly simple to grasp and understand, with the very important caveat that unlike other settings there is little to not proof of their existence and these myths tend to hide a more bloody or alien reality. Any detail in a myth which is true is likely to lead down a path of awful revelations. That said, the Gods of Mirhne are indeed 'real' in so much as belief in them can have real, tangible benefits to human society. Of course, faith offer diminishing return the more one digs into the awful truth. Praying at altars and participating in rituals (of the non eldritch kind) can help restore sanity and offer a buffer against madness and corruption. It still has its limits, of course.

Mirhne's current era is one of rebuilding after decay, war and pestilence. The last centuries have been relatively quiet, beyond the usual wars between petty kingdoms and tribes. While the Lands of Mirhne never had a massively urbanized or advanced civilization (to anyone's knowledge, anyway) there are many large ruin sites (by the standards of the land) which show that stone and wood cities did exist in lands which have been retaken by the wilderness. These are the usual and typical dungeons one expect to find in a sandbox environment but in Mirhne each is also a mystery. Some travelling storytellers speak of a great curse and creeping hubris of the ancient kings and warlords of Mirhne who sought to extend their power, prestige and understanding of the world far beyond the limitations of what is allowed for mere mortal men and were punished for it. Others speak simply of diseases from many generations ago which reduced the population drastically while others tell that these cities are haunted and cursed by the attempts of Priest-Kings to awaken dark powers and claim them for themselves. There are those who believe that some of the subhuman haunting the further lands are descendants of those cursed and broken people.

Ultimately, Mirhne's history is somewhat irrelevant to starting characters. The key elements of a OSR-derived sandbox and implied setting are there, minus demi-human and overt magic of classes like the Cleric and Magic-User. It is a somewhat more down to Earth take on these simple, tried and true concepts and expectations with the only difference being a stronger bent toward Swords & Sorcery and pulp elements

• The various creation myths and folklore of different regions of Mirhne form a backdrop to the game and make for easy, if mysterious, plot hooks in their own right. Trying to find out the truth about a legend can lead to some true insight (or madness and death).
• Playing a 'priest' is possible, but one need to understand these aren't D&D Clerics and don't come with spells. Rather, Priests are generally Experts who are gifted in esoteric matters as taught by their mentors, such as herbology, medicine or writing.
• Praying at a temple can help restore a character's sanity and/or even remove minor corruption (that aren't mutations) as the calm and centered mind can regain a small measure of control. This is less efficient the more corrupt an individual is.

Mirhne as a Kelipah

One very likely explanation for the nature of Mirhne is that it is some form of Kelipot as described in Silent Legion, a Sine Nomine game about eldritch horror and investigation from which Lands of Mirhne take its Sanity and magic system. Under this logic, Mirhne is an inherently unnatural place albeit one whose eldritch nature is quite subtle and not readily apparent. As a particularly stable and static Kelipah, Mirhne operates mostly under what we would recognize as natural laws and its people are biologically human or close enough. Even as a Static Kelipot there would be dark forces at work on Mirhne which fundamentally changes reality on a subtle level which may not be readily apparent. If Mirhne is indeed a Kelipah then it is one which may not have been visited by the 'real world' for eons.