The game world (or more properly, continent) is known as Paleastra by the humans, a word which means "arena" or "place of struggle" in their language. Humanity is in the minority here, the Faerie are by far the more populous and powerful people.

The Faerie are divided into two main factions, the Seelie ("light") and Unseelie ("dark".) Seelie Faeries include elves, gnomes, halflings and dryads. Unseelie include dwarves, goblins, orcs and ogres, although a Faerie of any race could theoretically be Seelie or Unseelie. There are four distinct Faerie cultures. The Alfar (elves and dwarves) are most similar to northern Europeans or even Scandinavian cultures. The Gaelic Faerie are comprised of the sidhe (high elves), cimbri (half-elves), gnomes and halflings, and are distinctly Celtic in their culture. The Sylva are what might be thought of as "classical" fey, principally centaurs, dryads, satyrs and the like. Finally, the Rolgulkan Faerie are most like eastern Europe in their culture, except that almost all Rolgulkan Faerie are Unseelie in nature, and hence somewhat dark and sinister, though not automatically "evil."

The game is set in the human empire of Iconium, a mid-sized, Byzantine realm partially carved out of lands held by the Cimbri around 400 years ago. Iconium is the only human empire in this part of the world, and is surrounded by the Rolgulkan kingdoms to the northeast and numerous Cimbri (half-elf) fiefdoms and kingships to the northwest.

Iconium is also unique in that it is a monotheistic society. Nearly all humanity worship the god Logos, who they revere as the one true god. The Faerie, with their many gods, demigods, and general druidic reverence for nature, find this concept of one lone deity and church to be quite odd, but then they find many aspects of the short-lived humans to be odd

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— Atrribution