Welcome to Shadowcrest:
Disclaimer:
Let’s start off, this is a medieval-esque fantasy. I do not claim that any of this is historically accurate. I don’t even have this set in a real-world place. The story involves magic, time-travel, and other bits of fantasy fluff. I hope that you can take these with something of a grain of salt, but if you can’t then you’re probably reading the wrong blog.
I do not like and definitely do not subscribe to the “brown is real” aesthetic. I think all one really has to do is look at illuminated manuscripts and tapestries and paintings from the real middle ages to know that the medieval period was full of a lot more color than we would tend to think of it as. Think of this: Some of those paintings are close to twelve hundred years old. And there are still bright colors to be found. I take that to mean that these people probably didn’t just dress in brown and live in a brown-and-gray world, but there are a lot of people who don’t agree with that. Which is another reason Shadowcrest is not set in the real world.
I very much admire people who do a lot of research and tie that into their game, but, well, I’ve got the same 24 hours in my day that anyone else has. At least three quarters of that is tied up in things away from my computer and/or game. If I have three hours to do stuff for sims in a day I would rather spend 15 minutes researching and the rest playing, than the reverse. Call me lazy.
Last bit in this disclaimer: there may be wee bits of adult content, references to sex, violence, disease, death, drugs/alcohol, all types of abuse, mental illness, profanity, etc. around this blog. It’s definitely PG, if not PG-13, I don’t mind that when I’m reading and I’m not going to censor myself when I’m writing. If we’re talking real: The sky might have been neon purple in the middle ages for all we really know on the subject, but we can more or less all agree that people had sex, (the species would have died out if they hadn’t) did violent things to each other (*cough-war-and-conquest-cough*) and died (too many graveyards and not enough people old enough to know if there was a King Arthur.) So, look at it as my place to adhere to realism.
I’m not going to make this a Quentin Tarantino film, but I won’t shy away from it if the story calls for it.
If you’re willing to look past all that, then welcome to Shadowcrest, I hope you enjoy the ride.
Now that that’s out of the way, perhaps a small, introductory FAQ.
- Shadowcrest is a country set in a place somewhat like medieval Europe. It’s a small country on a plateau in the middle of the mountains. There’ll be a map when I get around to drawing one. The capital of Shadowcrest is Shadowhaven, a small town on the edge of Lake Haven.
- About eighteen months before first post is set, a mysterious virulent plague swept through the country, decimating the population. No one is sure what caused the plague and no one knew how to stop it. As the dust cleared, thirteen men lived.
Breakdown of Shadowcrestian society:
- Shadowcrest is a monarchy.
- Under the king there are four noble houses, four merchant houses, and four peasant families.Which really is mostly for convenience of labeling because everybody, at this point, is living about the same. The king help weeds his own garden and sometimes cooks, no one in Shadowcrest is living high on the hog at the moment. Money is relatively useless, sure gold and gems are pretty to look at, but people gotta eat and money doesn’t help there. For the most part, if you don’t work, you don’t eat.
- You’ll note I said thirteen men. No, that doesn’t mean that this story runs on Mpreg, while I’m sure that that could be a good story, it’s not this one. There is another “type” in Shadowcrest. What could be called magic order brides.
- I’m hoping to cover some of this more in the future and in more depth, but for the sake of having it in one place: the king, who is a powerful wizard, cast spells to find the other half of the equation (namely females) to bring to Shadowcrest. He has located thirteen women to help rebuild and repopulate the country. They are a mixed bag, between sixteen and thirty years of ages, of widely varying social and economic backgrounds. What they have in common is they are all unhappy in their current lives and hold skills that Shadowcrest will find valuable.
You can find out more about the inhabitants of Shadowcrest on the character pages.