Nightmares from the New World is a fantasy roleplaying game set in the ruins of Atnia, once a small but proud magical kingdom in the middle of the great continent. The elders remember the night of magical catastrophes when the sky ripped open and hordes of arcane monsters slaughtered all in their path. Eighty years have passed since that horrible night, and much has changed. The kingdom that once occupied this land is no more, and few dare to brave the roads. Small outposts of survivors have developed independent cultures in the intervening years, unable to contact one another. Today, the roads are just a little safer. Monsters still abound, but with careful planning bands of adventurers can explore the changed landscape seeking fellow survivors, the secrets of what happened to the world, or the magical treasures of the old civilization.
All who survived this long had to make difficult choices, and have developed independent cultures and beliefs around their environments. Once citizens of the same nation, the bands of survivors in Atnia are now foreigners, sharing only language and vague memories of an older history. Among the most prominent and prosperous of these factions are The Old Watch, The Knights of Redemption, The Salt Alliance, The Fifth Legion, and The Forsaken.
The Old Watch is a small keep in the mountains of southern Atnia, surrounded by layers of walls. During the apocalypse the peasants of The Watch revolted. Now the keep is ruled by a legalistic peasant democracy, with harsh laws to punish those who steal or hoard resources that could be used for survival. Superstitious and mistrustful of magic, practicing magic or even wearing the clothing of nobility is grounds for revocation of citizenship in The Watch. In the outer walls and further beyond in Tower Inkblood, an ecosystem of exiles and allied foreigners and mages maintains a tense symbiotic relationship with the peasants of the inner wall.
The Knights of Redemption hold the truest claim as the successor state of Atnia. The city of Pax Nova rests on a lake in the north, defended by several glorious orders of knights and protected by the hero-queen Eudoxia – a minor relative of the king and paladin of the god Lug who alongside her companions saved who she could when the world ended. Now that the gods cannot be contacted and their power only drawn from their remaining relics in the world, The Knights of Redemption have adapted to support their limited divine power with arcane power and martial skill. While prior to the apocalypse orcs were second class citizens, they always have a home in Pax Nova due to the heroism of the hero Gakt, and The Order of The Torch follows in his footsteps to this day.
The Salt Alliance was a ragtag band of guerilla fighters, criminals, and natives of Atnia prior to colonization. They were the most equipped to survive the apocalypse, and have expanded greatly and have many cities and outposts in the secluded places of the world. The Salt Alliance embodies a wealth of cultures from Atnia and surrounding regions, including ogres from both near and afar, indigenous humans and orcs, and a large population of goblins.
The Fifth Legion, sometimes known as the ‘coward’s legion’, is the one surviving fixture of Atnia’s military. Rather than standing in reserve when the apocalypse happened, the commander of The Fifth Legion ordered a retreat, abandoning the other legions for their own survival. Now lacking in a coherent identity and roaming the lands in search of food the legion stands at the crux between a group of bandits, an organized military, and a society of nomads.
The Forsaken believe that the gods died with the apocalypse, or have abandoned the world, but that this is a good thing. Freed from the chains of the gods and the old civilizations the mortal races finally have a chance to build something truly new. What that ‘new’ is is a point of much disagreement, and The Forsaken tolerate it all as a faction, using dream magic and the tears between the waking world and the land of dreams to ensure their own survival and to help those they choose to protect.