Description

It is the Darke Age and darkness abounds. In a time before the unleashing of Black Powder the third epoch in Valon's history is if anything more disjointed and scarred than the subsequent Age. Morgana the Empress of the Crystal Elf Empire sits upon the Peacock Throne with her younger son Mordred at her knee, she has ruled a thousand years and in her resides the best chance to halt the decay.

Maelstrome is a fantasy mass combat system based in part on the famous Slaughterloo game and it features many of the same races and creatures that players will already be familiar with, though they are much changed. Alongside the Crystal Elves, progenitors of the Ferach, are the Krautan Dwarves members of a League encompassing hundreds of small baronies and thiefdoms. The Krautans are next in strength to the Crystal Empire and more powerful than the Cities of Man that have appeared across the central continent. Other organized states try to hang onto the vestiges of a disappearing civilization but it has not been easy for the Undead led by the sinister Necromancers and the Dragon Children or Dracci have rampaged across Valon embroiled in their own huge war that decimates all who fall in its path.

From the frozen north the shambling Undead have crumbled many societies and created free booters and mercenaries who sell their swords to the highest bidders, among them the Gnome Legion and the Dogmen of Stasia. It is in Alevia a former province of the Crystal Empire that the mighty Elf regiments make their stand against the Undead and the Dracci. It is from the vast sea in the south beyond Ibe-Herra that the Dragons came bringing carnage to the Goblin Principalities behind their wooden walls and forming an alliance of convenience with the fawning Lizardmen. Savage Orc tribes migrate across all these battle torn lands bringing more pain, though as always their enemies loose flights of barbed arrows upon their approach.

Choose your side carefully in the Maelstrome for though you may admire the remorseless Necromancers or the fury of the Dracci the other races have much to offer. March with the Imperial Elf Regiments or the Regiments of the Wood Elves not forgetting the armies of Man or the Orc Tribes. All can hire warriors from a common pool of fighters, entire units of Ogres, Mountain Orcs even Gnomes who kill with hundred tiny blades. Do not forget of course that your army must have a powerful Mage to wield Wylde Magick in a nimbus of power to pour on your foes each race sports different lethal incantations. Also you can use a Beast Handler to control huge savage monsters that are the doom of a multitude of soldiers, War Trolls and Corpse Monsters assembled from piles of the recently dead.

Once this army of yours is assembled and stands ready uniforms bright or armour rusted and well used you must select a Warlord and special leaders to drive your units forward. In the Maelstrome all must fight for their own ends and alliances seldom last out a season.