Shattered Kingdoms 2020

This weekend I drove to Arizona from Oregon, helping my grandparents move. Since I was unable to go to Amgard I thought this would be a good time to talk about Shattered Kingdoms, the Amtgard Role-Play event I run.

What is Shattered Kingdoms?

Shattered Kingdoms is an Amtgard camping event sanctioned by the kingdom of Blackspire. The first event was in June 2015 and has ran every year since then. What sets Shattered Kingdoms apart from other campouts is its structure. It is essentially one long quest. The typical structure each day is a story driven battle game, that leads into open world exploration, ending in another story driven battle game. This structure allows players to explore the main plot, which connects all the elements, as well as several subplots.

Additionally each event is treated like a book set in the world of the Shattered Kingdoms. The books are grouped into four year blocks called Chronicles. Each year is a story that links to the next one. After the fourth year the Chronicle ends and new four year story begins. We are currently in the second book of the second Chronicle.

Another unique aspect of the event is the world that it is situated in. Shattered Kingdoms is an ever evolving world. Lore is added every year and the player’s interactions affect how the world evolves. I’ve been working on a wiki to store all the information for several years now. Later in this blog I will go into some of the lore of the event. You can see the wiki HERE if you’d like to browse through it.

The Lore

Aside from seeing how people interact with the story, my favorite part of Shattered Kingdoms is the lore. I love creating it. Being able to create a world that people are able to interact with is amazing and I’m glad I get the chance to do it.

I really began working on the world in earnest in 2017. Before the lore was basically just the story I wrote for the year and the accompanying subplots. 2017 marks the year that I did a lot of work before the event, setting up and sharing elements of the story before hand.

I was building up a confrontation between the Great Wyrms, semi-deity level dragon and I wanted players to know about them before going into the event. I set up a year system so I could tell some of the history of the Great Wyrms. I wrote about an event in the past where they once warred. All in all, I had a ten page document for players to read through before the event.

After the event in 2017 I started working on next year and decided I needed a different format to have people explore the world of Shattered Kingdoms. In August 2017 I decided to create the wiki we now have and I couldn’t be happier. It’s the perfect vehicle to explore the world.

Over the last few years I’ve continued to add bits of lore to the wiki and not all of it pertains to the next year’s story. Sometimes I’m just inspired to add to the world. Writing the lore does help me explore future story ideas and elements though. The past few months as seem me write quite a few pages of new lore.

One major element I added was the Calendar. It sets up months and days and I’m working on adding holidays. The naming of the months opens me up to future story telling by explaining the origins of the name of the months. I look forward to working on it over the next year.

Along with the creation of the calendar I created a connecting kingdom, the Manconian Empire. with roots dating back to 2017 when I wrote about the Great Wyrms. I really enjoy connecting previous lore to new lore. This then lead me to create the background story for one of the settings legendary heroes, Hadebrand, and the University he started, the Hadebrandian University.

I really look forward to expanding the lore for the setting in the coming years. As of right now I’ve been inspired and have added several pieces, as mentioned. I don’t think that creativity is going anywhere and I’ll be adding more over the next few months.

Previous Years

Shattered Kingdoms has been running for five years now, going into its sixth . I thought it might be a good idea to talk about some of the previous years.

The first four years where situated in the The Tiviana Chronicle. In this chronicle the goddess Tiviana was attempting to merge her plane of existence with the Shattered Kingdoms. This little bit of information wasn’t know to the adventures till the fourth year where they went to her realm, the Fey Wildes, and stopped her from carrying out her plan. You can actually read a summary of all four years on the wiki.

• 2015: The Fall of Zena’s Sanctum
• 2016: The Octavious Expanse
• 2017: The Cleansing Storm
• 2018: The Fey Wildes

Last year was the first year in The Undying Chronicle called, Onseuk the Forgotten. In that year they stopped an undead threat from overrunning the kingdom of Onseuk. At the end the king gave the adventures leave to set up towns of their own within the borders of the kingdom, in the Veilwood March.

This Year

This year is entitled, The Veilwood March. It takes place less than a year after the events of Onseuk the Forgotten. As mentioned the king has given the adventurers leave to set up towns under the kingdom in the Veilwood March.

I’ve actually devised a system in which the players will actually be able to build up their towns. It’s a mini game within the larger game. To do so they will need to claim land by adventuring out into the world, gathering resources and earning coins to pay for buildings to be built. This will not be as easy as it sounds however, as there are rumors that the forest is cursed. The truth of the forest will unfold as players adventure into its depths.

I’m excited to see how the players interact with the story this time around. It is a bit different that previous years and is more player driven.There is still an unfolding story, but it’s the exploration which will be driving them on.

Conclusions

I think Shattered Kingdoms is a unique event and I hope after reading this post, you think so too. I also hope you enjoy reading through the wiki. I wrote about 85 pages of the content, there are a few player written pages for groups and characters.

Even if you are not able to go to the event, if you are interested, you can follow along with the lore of the event by joining the Facebook group, Shattered Kingdoms.