Welcome to the fantasy world of Atelon, the setting for our new game Shatterlands™, with other games to follow. Atelon, where magic and technology are locked in perpetual struggle for dominance, in a world inhabited by four cultures, three races and two sentient species. For good measure, Atelon also contains a smattering of other worldly creatures consecrated to the service of E'lani, the dominant god.
We began the Atelon project several decades ago, and as it grew in scope, realized that its stories were too numerous for any one group of storytellers to write. We have long toyed with the idea of making the Atelon project an open source gaming world, and realized that a Wiki would be the ideal vehicle to accomplish this. We aren’t sure if anyone has done this before, but if you know of others, please tell us.
What exactly does open source mean to us? Briefly, we at Stonegate Forge have begun creating the Atelon world. We have drawn small scale maps of the principal continent, identified and described its prominent races and nations and narrated the watershed events of a few millennia of its history.
We have built a Wiki on our website at http://www.store.stonegateforge.com which we hope will become a central repository of all knowledge concerning Atelon. The Wiki contains a lot of basic information, and now we’d like to fill in the details and we want your help. Pick any element of Atelon that strikes your fancy and add to the body of our knowledge by submitting a Wiki article or adding to an existing one. If you want to map the Gornarod quarter of the City of Korslik, have at it. If the regimental history of the Fifth (Thistle) Rhyde of Sivas is your thing, write it. If you always wanted to write a travelogue about floating down the Inari River, share it. Please contact editor@stonegateforge.com to register as a user.
You might think that all of the places will be described and all of the stories told within short order. Not so. This is a whole world covering a time span of thousands of years. We could spend several lifetimes just mapping the civilized part of the world and still not locate and name every settlement, road, river and battlesite, let alone tell the stories associated with those places.
The foundation of this open source project is that your work must build on the knowledge that has already been published. But within that framework, the level of detail possible is virtually limitless. For example, if you want to explore Korslik, but someone else has made a middle scale map of the Gornarod Quarter, drill down. Map Armory Lane, where the black market in weapons and armor is conducted. Tell us about the shops, their owners, their specialties and reputations. Every contribution will add to the depth and richness of a world that each and every one of us can use as a setting.
The rules of this open source collaboration are simple:
- Stonegate Forge owns the copyrights to the World of Atelon and the material posted on the Wiki.
- Material posted on the Wiki may be used royalty free by other creators to build derivative works that incorporate materials on the Wiki, provided that the derivative material is also posted on the Wiki.
- We would love to have the Wiki include original literature and artwork set in Atelon, so would be pleased to discuss copyright retention by the creator on a case by case basis. Please contact editor@stonegateforge.com to discuss.
- Additional information for Creators who wish to set their games, literature, music, and art in the World of Atelon can be found at Rules for Creators.
Please join us in this project. Atelon cries out for a thousand more of its settings to be described and ten thousand more of its stories to be told. We welcome you to our journey and eagerly await your contributions to our knowledge of Atelon.
