Erce is most fundamentally a setting where mundane people can leave behind their regular homes and enter a dark and chaotic mythic wilderness. In the human dominions of Law, the gods rule and they have ordered the lands and made them relatively safe. Beyond the divine dominions, in the wilds, Chaos rules and all bets are off. Here one may encounter bloodthirsty elves riding with goblins in wild hunts; troll sorcerers abducting babies for their thaumaturgic rituals; woodlands that are larger on the inside than the outside and paths that can not be retraced. Conversely, one may also meet with an elven champion of life, song and laughter who arrives to save villagers from undead incursion, a cunning giant wizard who will trade ancient spells for a small favour and demonic imps who wish only to show you the true meaning of free will. Hildebrandt captures a lot about the feel of Erce. The champions of humanity who enter these mythic lands are inevitably touched by the gods an...

Erce started out as one of those teenage love affairs – A setting to end all settings, that would have room for all the fantasy elements I loved and wanted to see in a world – When only this setting was fleshed out, I would have a world that I could run any campaign of any kind I'd ever want to. A perfect and inclusive vision of everything fantasy meant to me! And also keep alive those most precious glimpses of vital nostalgia from my emergent adolescence. Small task indeed. It started out in my mind as a sort of Dragonlance + Greyhawk mix, but with 'better done' Tolkien inspiration. And stayed like that, mostly dormant, unpolished and wholly unfinished, for a long time. Fast-forward a decade or so, and I began to re-visit my old notes. Only now, my fantasy inspirations had broadened quite a bit – The Sword & Sorcery of Conan (and Red Sonja too, I like comics), Thieves World and Jack Vance; the terrible mediaevalism of A Song of Ice and Fire; the hodge-podge gonzo ...