Lore Codex
Read Menfelled in smaller, useful slices
Start here to understand Aldar, Ignal, Etnar, Hela, Avar, and why Menfelled is still arguing with its own birth.
Founding Story
Menfelled was saved from flame and then claimed by the people who saved it
World spine
Avar
Menfelled was saved from flame and then claimed by the people who saved it
The land was once called Aldar, a fog-locked realm of elves, dwarves, and gnomes. Drugar greed unearthed the blood gem prison of the illithid lich Fhaul, whose manipulations opened the way for Ignal, the Fire God. Etnar and the black-sailed human fleets came as saviors, Hela and Avar ended Ignal, and then Hela refused to give the land back. Six centuries later, Menfelled still lives inside the argument between rescue and conquest.
Ladders of Gold uses gladiator management to introduce the wider role-play setting: houses buy prestige through blood, cities turn contracts into policy, and every public victory teaches the crowd what kind of order your banner represents.
Current Circuit Lens
Current lens: Avarran pressure
Avar rewards polish, magical competence, and deniable corruption. If a banner looks elegant here, the houses assume it can be bought.
- House Graives and House Neralis profit from public confusion.
- Brasshearth and the prison hills turn spectacle into politics.
- Crown of Fire rumor spreads fastest when a noble needs a new obsession.
Founding Truths
What still shapes the game world now
Founding Scar
Aldar was ancient, isolated, and ruled by peoples who measured history in centuries.
Founding Scar
The Drugar doomed the old order by freeing a mind clever enough to use greed as a weapon.
Founding Scar
Humans arrived as an emergency and became the permanent political fact of the land.
Founding Scar
The Mountain of Kings is both a monument to salvation and the wound at the center of succession law.
Founding Scar
Arena contracts in Menfelled teach local politics as much as they pay out gold.
Timeline
A concise path from Aldar to the present day
Before Menfelled
Aldar beyond the fog
Aldar lived apart behind ocean and unpassable fog, shaped by elves, dwarves, gnomes, and older lineages who had never seen humankind.
The Blood Gem
The Drugar unseal Fhaul
Deep dwarves chasing wealth unearthed a phylactery containing the illithid lich Fhaul, who steered them toward a portal to the elemental planes.
Two centuries of flame
Ignal breaks the old world
Ignal rose from the mountains, burned through the Drugar first, enslaved the gnomes, and forced elves and dwarves into desperate wars of attrition.
The Black Sails
Etnar lands with the Primal Fleet
Fallen paladin king Etnar crossed the sea with an entire people, dismantled his own ships for fortifications, and changed the speed of history in a land that had never seen men.
The Ring War
Hela and Avar bring Ignal down
Hela starved Ignal of support while Avar learned the truth of the golden control band. Riding with Virithimus, he stripped the ring as the Fire God hardened into stone.
The Naming
Aldar becomes Menfelled
When the ancient races expected the humans to leave, Hela refused. They could govern under her or live as conquered peoples. The land was renamed Menfelled by decree.
Age 600 After Ignal
Hela IV inherits an uneasy peace
The Council of Avar still hunts the Crown of Fire, the Helation Empire still clings to divine legitimacy, and old races still remember the day men decided to stay.