[SETTING] Introducing Adamiir

What's in a name, anyway?

I’ve decided to move away from the name “The Shattered Isles” for the dark fantasy setting I’ve been working on for over a year. Instead, I’m cribbing the name from an unrealized project I was working on long ago:

Adamiir (AH-da-meer)

The decision for this came about for a few reasons:

1. “The Shattered Isles” is a pretty generic name, admittedly. Someone on Reddit said it sounded like ChatGPT spit it out (which nowadays feels like one of the worst insults you can receive about creative work).

   As an aside, I feel like the days when you could add “Shattered,” “Broken,” or “Forbidden” to some other noun and call it done are sailing away. Another casualty of the robot uprising.

2. With more worldbuilding, I’ve found some cultural inspiration outside the traditional Western fantasy angle most settings take, leaning toward more Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian touchstones. “The Shattered Isles,” as a name, doesn’t feel like it plays into those ideas much at all.

   Another aside, Adamiir doesn’t seem to be well established in any major languages and that’s on purpose. I definitely don’t want to appropriate any cultures or ways of life with my work, so any inspiration I take from the aforementioned regions of the world are merely that: inspiration. There will be no analogues to real-world cultures in the setting.

A System and a Setting

Part of the trouble I’ve had the past month or two for Adamiir is that I’ve run into a question of “system.” Basically, who is this for? Initially, I handwaved it away and said something about it being for games with “old-school sentiments,” but that feels cheap.

Additionally, I’ve always wanted any mechanics the text provides to help reinforce the story the setting tries to tell. In other words, I don’t want to make something because it’s the popular aesthetic or the “right” way to design it——I want the book to be fully cohesive. That means, in some cases, something needs to be weirder than what other systems could produce.

So, long story short, Adamiir is now a setting guide and a ruleset. Right now, I’m internally thinking of it as a hack of Wolves Upon the Coast, but I’ve already added so much stuff to it that I’m not sure if that’s accurate anymore. In either case, the newest draft will include the rules I’ve written so far, which include Creating a Character, the Core Mechanic, and a few appendices.

As you can see, I’ve also decided to go artless from here on out——opting for a LaTeX-style, more straightforward presentation that allows me to write without getting hung up on the layout design.

This has saved me a ton of time, which inadvertently has caused me to spend more time on rewrites of previous content that, in some cases, are completely changed from prior drafts.

Then again, if anything should be given extra time, it’s the writing.

Big thanks to UnderwaterOwlbear for inadvertently serving as the inspiration for this during our IRL get-together the other day.

My goal with the system (and setting) is to offer a very lived-in world and rules that support generating a character wholly from that world. A friend and I recently critiqued how it's difficult to determine where the common ground for players and DMs is in some games—even in things that ostensibly should work together.

We mentioned how Mothership——while nailing sci-fi horror——purposefully doesn’t have a set cultural touchstone that all adventures are written. Some Mothership games feel like “Alien,” and others feel like “BLAME!”. This is purposeful and has led to some awesome adventures in that system.

But with Adamiir, I want to provide a game that produces characters, stories, and moments that feel like they could only belong in that world. That means diving deep into culture, language, and even coinage to give less of an implied setting and a much richer one.

Is all of this necessary? Absolutely not. You can play the entire game without referencing a language’s structure or knowing the difference between a glint, a shimmer, or a green lepton. But it will be there, in case you want a little more and—mostly—so I can write with more lived-in intention.

The Great Question of “When”

I hope Adamiir will have its first area, the Mistlands, written by the end of the year. That means I’ll need to produce the following:

• The full character creation rules

• ~30 or so hex locations

• Appendices

  • A: Attunements

  • C: Coinage

  • E: Equipment

  • L: Languages

  • P: Proficiencies

  • R: Rules

  • V: Vocations

Along with those will be several joinable factions (called Covenants), their progression trees, a small bestiary, and treasures to be found——quite a bit to get done with only a quarter of the year remaining.

This is, of course, one part of a very large project. I don’t know if I’ve ever shared the scope of it before, so here’s a look:

When I say 30 hexed locations, several factions, etc., it should be noted that I’m talking about everything in that white, highlighted box in the bottom-right corner. I’ve already made mention in previous drafts to the Crystal Fangs (the mountains you can see north of the highlighted box) and the Taklani Empire (the capital of which is located on the far western shores of Adamiir, nearly the opposite side of the map).

It is an exciting time for Adamiir and fans of the Shattered Isles, and I’m excited to see where it takes me. Please give it a follow over on my itch.io and watch the blog for future updates and previews.

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