The world of The Meidlands is modeled after our own. It has different geography, magic, and monsters, but was designed specifically to reflect both grounded fantasy and the what if.
What if a single god sealed away the others and was the only god? If worshipers of the other gods only received a trickle, while one faith, objectively, had a virtual monopoly on miracles?
What if continent-spanning Empire, the Church, and the magical/scientific establishment were all close, if uneasy bedfellows? How would that shape certain cultural fixtures and assumptions of our world in theirs?
The Meidlands is set in an eponymous kingdom that is a province of a nearly unbroken Roman-like empire, known formally as the Holy Falcian Empire. Where the central regions of this empire have a 16th and 17th century Germanic flair, and the other provinces have close resemblances to other European powers of the time, the Meidlands – Meid, Valia, and Albia – draw deeply from the cultural and folklore traditions of Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, in particular.
The Western Lucian Church represents itself as the principle instrument of the Maker (the Only Lord, the Wounded God, Creator of All Things), but in fact harbors ancient cults to the old gods. The Inquisition, although outwardly understood as principally interested in heterodox teaching and weeding out error, in fact are supernatural damage control. Faith is a powerful thing. Faith without proper ritual or proper purification can call divine power down in ways that can alter things. They call it Physical Sin. The other cults call Deviance, Filth, or Incongruity, but it describes a specific phenomena: divine power warping and twisting the material world, often in horrendous ways.
With the cracking of the Sealing during the events of the Battle of Altun Plain, some 20 years prior, the old gods have been able to whisper to their agents and grant them real power, but so to did power flow into those old village rituals, long forgotten in origin, but always performed. Suddenly, old cradle blessings and harvest dances carry grave and otherworldly power. And without proper harnessing, breed dark things.
The Meidlands RPG is chock full of opportunities for horror and adventure, all teetering on the border of grounded historicism and dark fairy tale. Players can face (or be members of) ancient hidden cults, wield diverse magical powers, investigate cosmic horrors one day, then be entangled with pixies the next. All while wearing ruffs, feathered hats, and carrying a pistol.