Theme
From Mizahar Lore
Mizahar's Theme is in essence a pure fantasy world, without advanced technology, rife with magic and violence. The game is set 509 years after a major world altering cataclysm called The Valterrian that changed the entire face of the world and killed several million people. Gods freely roam the land, while culture is struggling to survive and pick up the pieces of a world that has been almost lost to madness.
The Theme - What Exactly It Isn't
One of the most commonly asked questions of any fantasy world is, simply put, 'What is the theme?' Every game world has its own theme, and unfortunately many people tend to get stuck in the Tolkien-inspired commonality of elves, dwarves, giants, faeries and halflings fighting an epic magical struggle against some unspeakably horrible foe. Mizahar has attempted to steer clear of this cliche by designing a dynamic world with a complex history, then populating it with unusual or non-stereotypical races facing conflict of a more potent, dynamic source - the very environment, the gods, and their fellow survivors. With a damaged, relatively young world full of diversity and beautifully flawed personalities struggling within epic circumstances, Mizahar sets the stage for equally diverse, less cliched stories that deal with important issues, all designed to build character and challenge the hearts and minds of both readers and writers.
The Theme - What Exactly It Is
Mizahar was the home of a set of once-thriving twin empires, Suvan and Alahea. The constant struggle for dominance, trade and military might took its toll on both empires. War broke out, washed over the land, and left one Empire the victor (Suvan) and one the defeated (Alahea). But victory was short lived and taken with less than the humility it deserved, for Suvan forgot the most important lessons of all. Nothing is as it seems on the surface and love knows no boundaries. On what should have been the pinnacle day of Suvans victory over Alahea - a celebration to rival all celebrations that had been or ever were - instead turned into the single most destructive event in Mizahar's history; The Valterrian. The Valterrian lead to a divine war that reforged the world, killed most of its population, and forced the survivors underground to attempt to live through the ice age that followed the enormous volcanism and floods that swept the land.
To say that Mizahar is post-apocalyptic would be technically true, but spiritually inaccurate. The setting is key to the stories Mizaharians tell. The world has passed beyond the initial days of death, passed beyond the ice and storms of the premature and prolonged winter, and has finally passed beyond the time of rebirth where the denizens emerged from their hiding to repopulate the fresh new feral world. Then, it was the struggle to survive. Now, however, the story is about rebuilding, redesigning, and finding a way to interact with unknown and sometimes frighteningly different races that were born in the flames of destruction. Humans still dominate the landscape, making up more than 200,000 of the total 250,000 of the population remaining after the Valterrian and its consequences. Gone is the old world of politics and power struggles. Gone too are the vast resources of wealth and magical technology, and the luxury of indulging long-term desires to 'know' and having time to 'find out' answers. The new world is dangerous. Populations are still carving out niches and staking out their territories. Food crops are finally being planted and harvested with regularity, allowing cities to be built or rebuilt because food is less of a problem than it once was.
Life has been given a second chance. Mizahar is about that second chance.