Eon

Eon is a 1996 Swedish Fantasy RPG set in the world of Mundana, which is essentially a Standard Fantasy Setting, but with a surprising amount of nuances. Every race, nation, and individual described has a perfectly reasonable explanation for what they do, and no-one is ever in it For the Evulz. There is no good or evil, there are just sides. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons Eon relies heavily on world description and story hooks rather than rule expansions, and there are very little "crunch" in all but the core books. This has over the years resulted in a very detailed and complex setting that can't quite decide whether it wants to be down-to-earth or High Fantasy; in practice, it's a mix of both, somewhat like A Song of Ice and Fire. The rules are vaguely BRP-based and very detailed and gritty with a lot of bookkeeping, and a common complaint is that combat resolution takes too much time, although later editions has made the rules much more stream-lined and introduced various options for simplifying stuff. An unusual feature is the "scientific" system for how magic works, with the rules corresponding closely to a broad range of "magic theories" in the intellectual traditions of the gaming world. The rules in particular make Eon somewhat like a hot potato on the Swedish gaming scene; it's a love-or-hate thing.

For Greg Bear's novel Eon, see The Way Series.

Tropes used in Eon include:

• Abusive Precursors: The Kamorfs, a race of über-intelligent Lizard Folk.
• All Genes Are Codominant: Averted in the case of half elves. Humans and elves are the only main races who can get offspring together. The main difference between elves and humans is the elvish curse and a half human child has exactly 50% chance to inherit the curse, making it elvish, or not, making it human. That said, elves with one human parent tend to be slightly stockier and have more body hair than elves with two elvish parents, and vice-versa.
• All Trolls Are Different
• Exclusively Evil: Averted; capital-E "Evil" does not exist in Eon.
• Ancient Conspiracy: "The Society", "The Order of the Star", "The Path of Illumination", "Priori con Sabriean", "The Council of the Lily" and many, many more.
• Anyone Can Die: The rules for pain and injuries are, generally, very unforgiving. Eon uses a system of "unlimited dice" where any roll of a 6 is rerolled with two new dice which may in turn be sixes and thus rerolled with two new dice each, which makes certain that even dragons may die from a single wounding hit, although it is extremely unlikely. (It has reportedly occurred at least once in the game's existence).
  • A note here, the "6" doesn't STAY a six, it's converted to two new dice, so you don't easily get numbers in their hundreds even with dozens of'em.
• A Storm Is Coming: Very much so. In Eon, civilization exists in cycles of 10,000 years, whereupon The End of the World as We Know It occurs by way of demon invasion. The game starts in the year...10000.
• Automatic Crossbows: The Dwarves have semi-automatic versions of these.
• Barbarian Tribe: The Kragg, the Rauns, the Tiraks and many others.
  • In the case of the Tiraks, only the Frakk are really true barbarians. The Marnakh live and work in human cities, and the Bazirk are generally out at sea most of the time. Sure, some Bazirk might settle down and start tribes on the island of Takalorr, but for the most part they're just merchants, fishermen and pirates.
• BFS: The abovementioned Kragg tribe use 180 cm, massively heavy swords as their signature weapon. Then again, the average height of a Kragg is two metres. Then there's the lyfali, the Absurdly Sharp Blade of the Sanari elves. It's basically a 170 cm razor with a diamond core. Common users of these swords include two-metre elves.
• Boxed Crook / You All Meet in a Cell: The beginning of the adventure De Fördömdas Sista Hopp.
• The Butcher: The former Grand Prince of Damaria Pelgrin the Butcher and his son, Pelgrin son of the Butcher.
• Church Militant: The church of Daak has multiple orders of Warrior Monks and Crusader Knights. The Samori faith has the Order of Zorián. The temples of Cirza and Imay both have special temple warriors.
• Civilized Animal: The Ulvs are a race of direwolves who differs from regular wolves by their huge size, intellegence and possesion of a soul. Their mentallity and culture is stil rather wolf-like.
• Contemptible Cover / Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game: "De Fördömdas Sista Hopp".
• Covers Always Lie: Well, not always. But in many of the earlier modules the covers featured fantasy art not specifically drawn for the modules in question, such as covers made by Keith Parkinson for The Elenium. Even if they are not directly irrelevant or contradictory to the material in the books, you occasionally need some imagination to make them fit the text within.
• Cursed with Awesome: The elves call themselves "the people of the curse", which refer to the magical effect that all elves have that differentiate them from humans. The curse grants them longer lifespans, the ability to sense if someone is watching them and to stop their own bleeding if they get hurt. However, the fact that elves starts to experience the passing of time more and more intensely as they grow older and usually become clinically depressed and catatonic sometime around 200 to 300 years of age explain why they consider this to be a curse.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Daak faith and to a more limited degree, the Samorian faith.
  • The Mhîm's law religion could be seen as a Crystal Dragon Allah, but the similarities between the religion and Islam is almost completely "cosmetic", it's theology almost being closer to certain forms of Hinduism.
• Cute Monster Girl: Female gûrds (the smallest race of tiraks) have claws, fangs and some fur but are considered a lot more attractive and intelligent than other tiraks or male gûrds by humans.
• Darkest Africa: Notably averted; there are highly civilized black cultures in Eon, who even send missionaries to the whiteys.
• Deadly Decadent Court: Many of them, but the imperial court of Jargia and the court of the notoriously paranoid Grand Prince Thamas of Damaria stands out.
• Dragon Rider: Some elves and humans ride the relatively small and unintelligent Heavé-dragons. Then there are the immortal Dragonguardians, who are soul-bound to a true dragon that they occasionally ride.
• Dream Land
• Dream Within a Dream:Ultimately, the universe exists entirely inside the dreams of Aeon, the Enity of Time. If he were to ever wake up then everything, including Aeon, would cease to be.
• Dungeon Crawling: The system does not really favor it, but many of the official adventures include at least some elements of this.
• Eldritch Abomination: Many demons and creatures from the Abyss.
• Eldritch Location: The Shadowland, the surreal home of the Fair Folk that might be located somewhere between the real world and the world of dreams.
• Elves vs. Dwarves: In this case, it is explained by the fact that the elves and dwarfs have fought five highly destructive "great wars" against one another. According to legend, the first one ironically started when the dwarfs accidentally made a terrible diplomatic faux pas by laying down their weapons in front of the elvish negotiatior. In elven culture, this is a declaration of war ("Now, the only thing that can be between us is arms!"). The conflict is easily fueled by the extreme differences in mentality and culture. Elves are famous for flowery language and long greetings. For dwarves, spoken language is for conveying information, and the subtleties are expressed with tone and body language.
• The Empire: The Jargian Empire and Menon-Aun have aspects of this. Thalamur is technically a magocracy, but still fits this trope.
• Expanded Universe: A number of novels taking place in Mundana has been published during the years:
  • "The Drakväktar trilogy" by Adreas Roman
    • "Drakväktare"
    • "Dräparen"
    • "Demonen"
  • "Vargen och kättaren" by Adreas Roman. Available for free on the author's homepage here.
  • "Korset och tronen" by Tobias Landström
  • "Stormens vandrare" by Dan Hörning
  • "Svärdsspel i Hadarlon" by Dan Hörning
  • The canceled video game "EON - The Face of Deception".
• Face Full of Alien Wingwong: The basilisk reproduces by turning other creatures into stone, laying an egg in the petrified persons mouth and then remove the petrification. Later on the baby basilisk emerges from the stomach of the host as a Chest Burster.
  • This is also the case with the Satyrs and the Minotaurs, two examples of all-male races, who can only reproduce with other humanoids.
  • Some Demons and Shadowcreatures can breed with humanoids, creating a Half-Human Hybrid (who usually end up mostly human).
• The Fair Folk: The Shadowpeople.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Obvious in many cases, but others less so:
  • Tokon = Scotland/Ireland
  • Consaber = England/France
  • The Jargian Empire = Roman/Byzantine empire
  • Rauns = Mongolians/Huns
  • Damaria = Romania/the Balkans
  • Soldarn = Scandinavia in many aspects (the politics in particular)
  • Mûhad = Arabia/Persia
  • Veddo = Yupik/Inuits
  • Ausians = Nomadic Native Americans
• Functional Magic: Taken to a mechanical extreme; magic is ingrained into the physics of the world, and is treated the same as the real world treats, well, science.
• The Federation: The semi-democratic federal republics of Asharia and Västmark somewhat fits this trope.
• Giant Spider: There is a number of subspecies.
• Grail in the Garbage: In the Drakväktar- trilogy of novels, a cutscene shows how the highly sought after artifact The Imperial Staff of the Colonian Empire currently lies on a beech, were it has become a plaything of some local children who completely fail to realise it's value.
• Grey and Gray Morality: And HOW! Gods exist, but are not measured by "alignment", instead different religions have different teachings, often seen as wrong and evil by the followers of other faiths, and judgment is based on that. Not even most demon- or death worshiping cults consider themselves bad people, it's the "good guys" that are wrong.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: One of the improvised weapons that have been given stats are Gûrds, a smaller species of Tirak. However, they are very heavy and don't do much damage, making them pretty useless weapons.
• The Grim Reaper: Dibuk, the god of death is often depicted like this. He even carries a Sinister Scythe and likes to play games with his intended victims.
• Harmless Villain: Driobutus the Diabolical, a boastful and arrogant necromancer who likes to dress in black, to spend his nights writing dark poetry and who has drunkenly claimed to be "the most evil man in Asharia". Beside once creating a zombie, he has constantly failed to do anything even slightly diabolical.
• Hidden Elf Village: Some of the more isolationist Elves and Dwarfs. Also, the empire of Menon-Aun.
• Hit Points: A rather unorthodox version. Pain, physical trauma, blood loss and rate of bleeding are tracked separately, as is exhaustion. Only physical trauma and blood loss can outright kill you, though, and you don't die "at zero hit points", but instead begin making saving throws vs. death after the damage reaches a certain threshold. The rules concerning broken bones, dismemberment etc. also don't factor in the hit points of the target, beyond the penalties it takes to saving throws. This can, naturally, get messy.
• Hive Mind: The god Xinu has multiple avatars in different parts of the world who are all part of him.
• Hobbits: The Misslas are the settings stand ins for hobbits. The main differences between them and Tolkien's halflings lies in their slightly "elfish" looks and incredibly cheerful personality.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Black Forest of Kirath, The Coast of Shipwrecks, the Dead Forest and others.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: The Elves are effectively immortal thanks to a inherent biotropic field (white magic). However, this field is weakened by pregnancy and compensates by reducing fertility. The Dwarves merely have a low sex drive.
• Kung Fu Wizard: The monks of Sung.
• Lady Land: Momolan and, to a more limited extent, the Tiraks.
• Law Enforcement, Inc.: Many, one example is the pirate-hunters in the Order of the Seahorses.
• Living Shadow: There are both demonic and undead creatures that looks like this.
• Lizard Folk: The Kamorfs and... well, the Lizard Folk.
• Loads and Loads of Races: Eight kinds of human, six kinds of elf, four kinds of dwarf, NINE kinds of tiraks... Justified since the different kinds are not only racial, but also cultural. For example, a human from a civilised, urban culture will have different stats from one from a civilized rural culture, who will both be entirely different from a barbarian nomad.
  • Also, one could argue that compared to fantasy RPGs in general and D&D in particular, there are very few races in Eon, since there are only humans, elves, dwarfs, almost-orcs, and hobbit-stand-ins as playable races, not stuff like gnomes, half-elves, goblins, snake-men, etc.
    • But then again, goblins, lizardfolk, insectoids, arachnidians and even the wolf-man race of Vulfen do exist, it's just that they don't have their own books... Yet...
    • And some of the Missla variants could very well act as stand-ins for fairies. The thing with Eon is that they're trying to follow a path of what seems believable in a fantasy world, so they constantly have to dance on a thin line between having lots of fantasy elements, and still making it all fit together, so we have all these races and monsters, but they rarely meet each other (and adventurers are not common at all, it's too dangerous and boring to trek for days into uncharted wilderness for some ruins, and then just find a spider's nest because someone has already looted the place) because of the huge stretches of nothing between settlements and nations, so for most people, bestial races or even elves/misslas (they get this the most) are considered fairy tales by huge populaces.
• The Magnificent: The mage Max Guilk who styles himself Maxander the Magnificent. He is the only one thinking so.
• The Magocracy: Thalamur, Ebhron and the Sanari Elves.
• Man-Eating Plant / When Trees Attack: The Skogsrå is a malicious, soul sucking monster that looks like a tree and who has the ability to create powerful illusions to ensnare it's victims.
• Medieval Stasis: Mundana suffers under a pretty extreme case of this trope. For the last 10.000 years, technology and science has moved forvard, but only from bronze-age technology to late medieval.
  • There is some logic to it though, as Magic is the stand-in for this world's physics, so scientists generally focus on researching magical fields and their effects on people instead of inventing new ways to harness electricity. Unfortunate, yes, but also reasonable.
• No Woman's Land: Most human nations are male-dominated, but often less so than many real-life medieval equivalents. There are, hovever, a few extremely patriarchal societys, for example Sindarea and Miam before the Aunurian invasion. Inverted by Momolan, which runs on what is essentially gender-flipped sharia law.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: They are short, stocky humanoids. Both sexes are bearded and they mostly live in great underground cities were they drink a lot of beer. They are honest, honorable, industrious, grumpy and really doesn't like Elves. However, the Drezin clan are mostly known for sorcery, reclusiveness, and clandestine alliances with the Orcs. Clan Zolod are known for living above ground and trading.
  • A notable difference between Eon-dwarves and most dwarves is that while Eon-dwarves generally don't like magic, seeing it as unpredictable and dangerous, they have a huge amount of respect for wizards. The way they see it, anyone brave enough to dedicate their life to harnessing something as dangerous and unpredictable as magic and intelligent enough to learn how to do it and get it right most of the time without dying in the process is clearly worthy of great respect.
• Our Dragons Are Different: They're subtly based on the Vorlons and Shadows of Babylon 5, with one kind, Lumian, being benevolent and intellectual, and the other, Mortuach, chaotic and brutal, but both kinds work in their own way to salvage the world from The End of the World as We Know It.
• Our Elves Are Better
• Our Fairies Are Different: The Shadowlandpeople.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: The Tomte.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Very much so, the settings Orc stand-ins are the Tiraks, a race of cultured politicians and merchants mixed with fishing- or pirate villages ruled in a violent form of matriarchal democracy, combined with very primitive tribe societies working with a philosophy similar to natural selection. The entire race consisting of three separate sub-races (Gûrd, Tirak, Trukh) and three different "families" (Marnakh, Bazirk, Frakk), all having extremely different views of life and existence. Completely possible to be played as savage nobles, psychotic assassins, farmers, priests, dockworkers or traders without anyone raising an eyebrow as of why. But they do excel in warfare, however.
  • It's worth noting that the basic structure of the races has more in common with the Dungeons & Dragons goblinoids than anything else, where goblins and gûrds, hobgoblins and tiraks and bugbears and trukhs correspond quite closely to one another in their societal roles and behaviour.
• Our Souls Are Different: They very much obey a Cartesian model of souls, that is, most animals lack souls and only humanoids and certain other creatures such as ulvs have them. A trained medium can make her soul leave the body and try to possess other creatures or drive the soul out of another ensouled being. Without a soul, an ensouled creature die, but shamans use tame souls who temporary possess their bodies while they are away. Creatures without souls can still be intelligent and have feelings, but their personality and memories stop existing at death. When a soul leaves the body, it travels trough the plane of spirits, which is also the home of unmanifested demons, gods and ghosts.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Lamias are quasi-undead and mostly female servants of the mysterious goddess called The Queen of the Night, who constantly whisper in the ears of her undead followers. They create new vampires by ritually bleed the recruit to death and then feeding them the blood of other Lamias. All loyal lamias belong to one of three religious orders who worships their goddess. The non-loyalists mainly hang out in the underground desert cities of Momolan, keeping slaves and living nobles' lives.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They are a race of savage humanoids who can change between a human and a wolf/human hybrid form at will. Their most obvious giveaway is their inability to speak human languages.
• Petting Zoo People: The Wulfen, the Lizard Folk, the Minotaurs. Arachnids and Insectoids might also count, but you most certainly don't want to pet them.
• Planet of Hats: Used straight at first, but just as quickly subverted. The game supplies a stereotype for every nation and racial group, then goes out of it's way to provide you with exceptions.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The Vrakylak.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Due to how the magic system works, healing any undead neutralizes some of it's necromantic energy, effectively damaging it.
• She Is the King: The title of the leader of a dwarf stronghold is always translated into non-dwarven languages as "king", even if the ruler in question is female. This is mostly the result of the dwarven language lacking grammatical gender, the fact that dwarves fail to see a reason to differentiate between male and female rulers and of the problems non-dwarves has when it comes to recognize the gender of any given dwarf.
• Shout-Out: Delenn and Kosh are both words in elvish, meaning ambassador and riddle, respectively.
  • The most common incantation for casting a fireball is apparently "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul."
  • A common curse in Consaber is "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!"
• The Von Trope Family: Most of the noble houses of Damaria in general and the van Culnar family in particular.
• Überwald: Damaria has some tendencies of this, especially the countship of Culnar.
• Warrior Monk: The White Monastery, the monks of Sung and some of the orders in the Church of Daak.
• Whatevermancy: The magic system is based around 21 magical aspects, like Pyrotropy (Fire), Ataxatropy (Chaos), Heliotropy (the Sun) and Psychotropy (the Mind). There are also additional scientifically un-proven aspects like Oneirotropy (Dreams) and "anti-aspects" to some of the established ones.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Immortality is generally seen as a pretty bad thing that slowly makes people go mad from depression and boredom. The most obvious example are the Elves, who because of their immortality call themselves "The People of the Curse". Other examples include the Lamias, Emperor Jargius and Koch Katre.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The Helm massacre and the War of the Dead in Chadarian.