Ars Nova

Ars Nova is fantasy world based on 14th century Europe. Generic fantasy elements such as magic, elves, ghosts and monsters exist alongside real-world history, historical religions and even historical people. It is the late middle ages, the crusader kingdom has fallen, the Golden Horde has conquered most of Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire is rising, The Travels of Marco Polo is becoming popular, the Inquisition is busily eliminating the Cathar sect of Christianity, and the Pope has moved from Rome to Avignon.

PCs can be normal humans or mortals, or they can be witches, wizards and magical creatures who live in the shadows of normal human or mortal history. Behind the scheming and conquests of mortal men and women, elves, trolls and other creatures insert their own agenda. Some work to protect their own kind from mortal expansion, others want to influence the development of the emerging renaissance culture and some seek to subvert mortal civilization and rule over humanity as gods.

PCs can also be undead ghosts or revenants who have stayed in or returned to the mortal world. The famines and plagues of this century are transforming the normally peaceful world of the dead into a crowded, contentious place.