The Annwyn
The land beyond the mists, where the ten events took place.
Arnesse
The world of EldritchNine great houses
The Kingdom of Arnesse lay at the far edge of the known world, worn down by centuries of war. Nine great powers contended for it while old institutions schemed among them, and in 763 a new land opened in the mists beyond its coast.
The Great Houses
The Everfrost
House Hale
A frozen waste beyond the Barrier Mountains, held by clans and their oaths.
The Shape of the Kingdom
The Age of Kings began in fire. Three hundred years later, its kings were still fighting over the ashes.
Before the monarchy, the Magistrat Council ruled Arnesse. In 440 a blast killed most of its members, and the blame fell on radical followers of the Eldra faith. Prime Consul Edric Bannon declared martial law, banned religion, and raised the great houses against the gods themselves. The Old Gods were bound to physical form and killed with enchanted weapons. Houses Athan and Aragon took the field to stop it, and in the last days of the Great War they and House Rourke summoned the magics that caused the Eldritch Cataclysm. Magic vanished, and a dark age followed.
Edric was murdered at his coronation, and his daughter Catherine built the monarchy by force. Her grandson Richard I divided the kingdom into protectorates under Lords and Ladies Paragon, and Arnesse has been governed that way since. A new faith arose under Magnus Blayne in the seventh century, and the Aragons took the throne for a short time. Then came the Brother's War, the Bastard War, and the reign of Giles I, who ended on a pyre for witchcraft at the hands of his own son.
When the story of Eldritch opened, Giles II had reigned for twelve years, and his devotion to the Aurorym had alienated nearly every old ally. Then the Day of Mist came.
Lore of the Kingdom
Law, class, trade, faith, and the calendar of Arnesse.
The Guilds
The Cirque and the Apotheca, and the power they held beside the houses.