History TabletopGame / Banestorm

* OurElvesAreDifferent: Yrth's once-formidable elves have clearly fallen on hard times since the Banestorm, and are essentially a DyingRace. They survive in villages hidden away in the various forests of Ytarria, with their largest communities being in the two massive woodlands known as the Great Forest and the Blackwoods. They ''are'' a little more dexterous, smart, attractive, and magically talented (and physically weaker) than humans on average, though, and they can be extremely long-lived. One truly different variety, albeit a culture rather than a variant race, is the Dark Elves, who are notable for being anything but Drow; they are actually a faction within elf culture, calling themselves "The Purifiers", with a philosophy of genocidal xenophobia, first against orcs, and then against anyone who isn't an elf.

* SchizoTech: ThePowersThatBe suppress gunpowder, but many minor technologies and concepts have become common, including the germ theory of disease, some experiments in vaccination, heliocentric astronomy with elliptical orbits, the modern novel, stagecoaches with suspensions, sloops and brigs, fingerprinting, and the use of perspective in art.

* PatchworkMap: Yrth mostly ''tries'' to avoid getting too egregious about this trope, if only by sticking to the basic principle of "cold in the north, warm in the south" -- though the center of the continent seems fairly lush, while the deserts are more coastal, which seems a little odd. (Some of the deserts were blasted into that status by a magical cataclysm, to be fair.) However, that leaves Sahud, north of some bleak mountains and on a similar latitude to the sub-arctic Nomad Lands, which is kind of temperate, being similar to Japan or coastal China. ''Banestorm'' attempts to explain this by some handwaving involving a warm ocean current, but it's a pretty blatant kludge.

* MedievalStasis: Ytarria has been kept at a late medieval level of technology and social development. This is in part due to the Megalan Empire's Ministry of Serendipity, a secret police force charged with hunting down inventors, technologies, and other ideas which threaten the ''status quo''. The other nations of Yrth appear to have similar organizations.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Implied but then, as a twist, averted, in one of the snippets of FlavorText fiction at the top of a chapter:

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Implied but then, as a twist, averted, in one of the snippets of flavor-text fiction at the top of a chapter:

** For a subversion, there are the actual Knights Templar of Yrth. While they're a ChurchMilitant, they're very tolerant of nonhumans and exceptionally magical.

** WordOfGod [[invoked]] says that Yrth also has ''euryales,'' a small all-female reptilian race, whose eggs are fertilized by eating their dead, and ''sthenos,'' a much bigger all-female reptilian race, produced by a virus that infects human (or orc or elf) women, and spontaneously transforms them if they are violently injured.

** The Olybrians are a {{downplayed}} version. They're a mendicant order dedicated to preaching the gospel and opposing heresy, but this isn't limited to peaceful debate. Many are quite deadly foes with their [[SimpleStaff staves]].

* DumbMuscle: Ogres are bigger and smarter than gorillas, but not by much. Minotaurs and orcs likewise are thuggish, strong and not too bright.[[note]]Orcs are actually about as strong as humans on average - but they're tougher, and their culture ensures that they favor building some muscles.[[/note]]

* UniversalUniverseTime: The setting [[SarcasmMode totally coincidentally]] happens to stick closely to its sources' publication dates, having the same calendar as ours and a 12-month year. Strangely, Yrth seems to be using the Gregorian calendar, despite the fact that they where transported there before its institution and should really be using the Julian calendar.
** Although this could be explained as having been brought over by later arrivals (the Jesuits being the likeliest suspects).

* SwampsAreEvil: The Acid Swamps of Solfor first appeared in an earlier treatment of the setting. They are, as the name hints, dangerously acidic; they are also infested with acid-resistant monsters called "caustiguses". In other words, they are a bad place to visit.

* ElvesVersusDwarves: More in the sense of contrast between each race's preferred philosophy than in the sense of actual hatred. Elves prefer harmony with nature and dwarves emphasize craftsmanship.

* FantasticRacism: It rarely reaches the level of policy, but it exists. Dwarves and elves [[ElvesVersusDwarves don't get along too well]], and nobody likes orcs, ogres, or reptile men - though in human lands, civilized members of the latter races have legal rights. On the other hand, both major religions of Ytarria consider nonhumans to have souls - those races that are considered soulless, like gargoyles and medusae, are in ''deep'' trouble if caught in Christian lands.

** One notable instance was the group of reptile men who were told by the human emperor of Megalos that if they could conquer a certain island, they could keep it. They did, and subsequently provided his dynasty with a ferociously loyal CadreOfForeignBodyguards.

* GladiatorGames: Megalos is a [[EvilEmpire not-very-nice empire]] explicitly modeled, ''in setting,'' on Imperial Rome. Hence, it is completely inevitable that it will feature blood-soaked arenas hosting gladiatorial games.

** Lazarite Christianity in Abydos (or Lazarite heresy elsewhere), started by a heretical monk who supposedly discovered the lost books of Lazarus of Bethany, the Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. Those books, called "the Renewed Testament" supposedly extol the raising of Lazarus, expose Peter and Paul as revisionists, and exonerate Judas (St. Judas, to the Lazarite Christians.) Basically, the Lazarite Church preaches that raising the bodies of the dead to serve and aid the living is a righteous and holy act. While the mainline Ytarrian Church hasn't managed to expunge them, they've done their best to seal off the island city by wiping it off the maps and by denying its existence.

* HornyVikings. Invoked by some of the tribes of the Nomad Lands, which are in part descended from Norse settlers... at least, those tribes that aren't descended from Celtic warriors, that is.

* ALoadOfBull: Minotaurs look like outsize humans with bull heads, but [[ImAHumanitarian eat other sapient species]] and are extremely violent {{Blood Knight}}s who often go berserk in combat. Some, however, manage to overcome their brutal nature towards other lifeforms enough to instead turn PsychoForHire.

* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Yrth has fairly conventional (human/horse-like) centaurs. Loren'dil, their homeworld, has neither humans nor horses, so the mere existence of horses (initially seen as deformed or maimed centaurs) may confuse or horrify centaurs, and they dislike the paraphernalia of human horse-riding. They live in small nomadic herds across the plains of al-Wazif, al-Haz, Cardiel, and the Orclands. Most are brash, impetuous, footloose party animals, and not especially bright, but a few are highly intelligent and scholarly — thus reflecting both the Greek legends of thuggish centaurs (in toned-down form) and the atypical intellectual centaur Chiron.

* OurGnomesAreWeirder: These cousins of dwarves, noted for preferring the surface world, have more or less evolved into go-betweens between humans and dwarves, but are otherwise unremarkable as a race, harkening more to the pre-Dragonlance versions of D&D Gnomes then the modern gadget-loving versions. This is in part due to the [[MedievalStasis Ministry of Serendipity's enforcement]] of Ytarria's ''status quo''. Though it wouldn't be hard to imagine a hidden group of Gnomes experimenting with steampunk inventions...

* OurKoboldsAreDifferent: Banestorm kobolds are small-ish blue humanoids, related to goblins, who are not very bright, tend to live downtrodden and sordid lives — and are vicious practical jokers.
* OurOgresAreHungrier: The ogres are technically among the Elder Folk of Yrth, but are by far the least advanced race; even the orcs are cultured and intelligent compared to them. Their only saving grace is that they're stronger and tougher than pretty much every other species (except the big, rare races like giants and dragons).

* OurKoboldsAreDifferent: Banestorm kobolds are small-ish blue humanoids who are not very bright, tend to live downtrodden and sordid lives — and are vicious practical jokers.