World of Empire Players Handbook: 2020 Edition

The River is vast... miles wide, thousands of miles long, winding back and forth along its huge valley like an enormous blueish green serpent. The cities along the River have only recently emerged from savage and barbaric anarchy; civilization is a thin veneer over ten thousands years of a cruelly rapacious 'culture' where the highest form of authority was the Boss who controlled the building you lived in, or maybe as much as a whole city block. Eighty years ago, a woman named Jeressa, known as Commander Crimson, captained a mercenary company called the Crimson Cohort. Invited by a council of Bosses to take charge of their city to defend it from an invasion by the Church of the One True God, she fulfilled her contract... and then decided to keep the city for herself. Now the Realm founded by the Crimson Queen stretches east and west, north and south along the banks of the River, but the Reformed Church, the Sottle Merchant's Council, the Empire of Man, the Demon Queen Morgraine, the thousand year old Undead crimelord Nom Wayish, and the godlike necromancer Yan-Goth the Black all scheme to bring Jeressa's kingdom to an end, or bend it to their own will.Among palace intrigues and temple conspiracies, surrounded by shadowy enemies, exploring treacherous wildlands holding monster haunted caverns, crumbling ruins full of curses and treasure, angry Wild Jeopards and Tree Frodds, and ancient tombs, your character will seek wealth, fame, power, and perhaps even redemption. The original rules system imposes no artificial or arbitrary limits; you can be a warrior who picks locks or casts spells, a rogue who has also mastered two swords, a mage who wields battle axe and shield, a River College scholar who uses telekinesis and clairvoyance, a priest who summons lightning from the skies. Among human races you can be a Thark, Sottle, Durshi, Sothark, Romaine, Swamp Man, Northark, or . Non-human options include the winged Aven, the catlike Jeopards, the thick skinned Stone Giants, or the four armed Frodds. Are you equal to the challenge? Beware, would-be hero! The River is a dangerous place. Your dice will betray you. Monsters will eat you. You will lose all your possessions, and perhaps all hope. You have been warned.