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| I'm not a fan of the "rightous Christians, sinful Muslims" vibe of this image but it's the only depiction of it that I could find. |
In the Year of Our Lord 1189, Pope Gregory VIII calls the Third Crusade against the Ayyubid Sultanate, lead by Saladin, who had conquered the holy city of Jerusalem and looked poised to wrestle the entirety of the Holy Land from Christendom. Kings marched to the Holy Land; the situation so dire that even the kings of England and France called a truce in their war to march together to retake the lands from the Saracens.
In 1191, the long and brutal Siege of Acre is broken – the garrison surrenders. King Phillip II of France and King Richard the Lionheart triumphantly march into the city, taking the Muslim garrison into captivity. King Phillip leaves shortly afterwards, having to attend to a succession crisis within France caused by the death of an important duke while on campaign in the crusade. King Richard stays, intending to ransom several thousand prisoners in exchange for money to continue the crusade, important Christian captives held by Saladin, and a piece of the True Cross. Saladin stalls for time; he sends the first instalment of the ransom but draws out further negotiations, likely intending to raise an army to storm Acre and retake the city from the exhausted Christians. His hand forced, King Richard takes his advisers' counsel and ascends to the hill of Ayyadieh, in full sight of nearby Saracen encampments, and slaughters over three thousand Muslim captives.
In our world, the crusade continued on, resulting in a costly campaign for the Christians that ended with a treaty providing unarmed Christian pilgrims with the right to enter Jerusalem free from hassle or toll. This didn't succeed in ending the contention over the Holy Land, and the disastrous Fourth Crusade begun merely ten years later, resulting in the infamous Sack of Constantinople.
But what if the massacre unleashed something otherwordly?
Divergence
In GURPS Infinite Worlds nomenclature, Merlin parallels are generally worldlines that were close parallels to Homeline until some event caused a Hellstorm, releasing magic into the world. Hellstorms are usually the result of a magical ritual involving nuclear weapons. Merlin-4 is different – the Hellstorm was caused by the Massacre at Ayyadieh, where 3,696 captives were slaughtered. This number is sixfold the Number of the Beast (6 times 616), and tore the veil between Creation and other realms. It's also unusual in that the Hellstorm was destroyed afterwards, though this did not reverse the awakening of magic or banish the entities that came through.
From this rift in the veil, spirits, magical beasts, demons and devils poured out into our world. By uniting their forces, King Richard and Saladin drove the demons back and sealed the rift but they could not banish the forces that had already entered through it. The world was forever changed – spirits and faeries roam the land, gifted individuals can perform magic and demons lurk in the shadows of men’s sins.
The Present
It’s now the early years of the 16th Century. Continental Europe has remained largely unchanged; magic is a heresy. Only "divine" or "white" magic may be practised and this is strictly regulated by the church. Often bishops and cardinals are found to have been practising forbidden, black magic... though seemingly only by their political enemies. The problem has begun to seem so rife that the Papacy has sanctioned the Spanish Inquisition to root out and eliminate all ungodly magic. Of course, while the Inquisition's mandate is intended to root out the black arts within the ecclesiastical world, the Pope says nothing when they begin to purge the same heresies within the general citizenry. Magic is hidden, its proponents and practitioners fearing for their lives, banding together in covens or guilds to practise their arts in secret, always under threat of the Inquisition.
Except in the British Isles. Riven apart into an archipelago by the Massacre at Ayyadieh, the inhabitants of Britain have embraced magic, re-establishing the druids as a state institution. Tensions with the continent have been simmering slowly over several centuries. Scandinavia, too, has embraced magic somewhat. In the late 12th century, the Christianisation of the Norse was still in recent memory, with many people guarding the old ways, especially in the far north. With the resurgence of magic the closeted pagans were suddenly empowered and demonstrated their power, slowly reversing the tide of Christ in the north. Now Christians in Scandinavia are a rare sight, worshipping God in secret or having fled south to the lands of true believers. Several popes have been within a hair's breadth of declaring a Crusade against the Britons and Norse, but each time dissuaded by the great power of the British weatherworkers, who can cast great and powerful storms to repel any invading fleet, and the terrible Norse berserkers, who can transform into savage bears with the minds of men to tear through scores of men.
In the east, Byzantium still stands – the course of history that lead to the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople was diverted. As the epicentre of the crisis, the Holy Land and the Middle East were sent into disarray, the Ayyubids fracturing into localised kingdoms and emirates following the Massacre at Ayyadieh and the subsequent invasion of otherworldlies. As such, the Ottomans never rose to power and never deposed the eternal Roman Empire. Istanbul is still Constantinople.
The site of Ayyadieh itself is a blackened, blasted wasteland. The city of Acre was abandoned long ago, not even braved by looters lest the evils that had issued from the Rift lair there. The landscape around is twisted in dark, Satanic mockery of what it once was, desert sands turned to ash, scrubs and trees burning eternally and rain falling turning to blood. The site of the massacre is now a Very High Mana area, and large portions of the Middle East are also High Mana areas, so any magic is inherently risky and dangerous. This has lead the Muslims to be the most magic-fearing of all peoples; mages are executed on the spot if they do not renounce their Satanic powers. Not even what the Europeans call "white magic" is allowed; Allah decreed that the Veil between worlds was so, and all who break the Will of God by seducing things from beyond it invite all manner of evils into the world. They are sinners most vile.
In northern Africa, the pagan Moors and Berbers threw off Muslim rule and are press against southern Iberia, barely decades after the fall of Al-Andalus and the completion of the Reconquista.
To the west across the great Atlantic Ocean, the Americas have been discovered. But the lands are strange, filled with natives who consort with spirits. Though the natives refuse to embrace the teachings of Christ and worship pagan gods, they are peaceful and willing to trade and share knowledge of their land and their magicks. But when their wrath is provoked, their warriors are terrifying to behold, transforming into aspects of primal rage, bears and wolves and coyotes with the intelligence of men. The Aztec Empire to the south is unimaginably worse, their terrible magicks driven by human sacrifice allow them to reshape the land, sky and sea to their will. Aztec vessels stolen from the Spanish Conquistadors have sailed east, conquering Cape Verde to use as a port for further voyages to the northwestern coast of Africa, raiding the Muslim kingdoms for slaves and sacrifices for their infidel gods. Jihad has been called and all of Islam marches to drive the Aztec back across the sea. The Europeans fear that they will be next, should the Muslims fail.
Nota Bene: I normally try to be very inclusive and global with my alternate history settings, rather than caring only about Western Europe and North America. But this time my relatively exclusive focus on the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa is intentional; it's intended to reflect the values and worldview of the time, where the world east of the Holy Land or south of the Sahara was terra incognita to Europeans. Playing in this setting in China or southern Africa works against the theme, though you're obviously free to do so if you want to do the research and figure out how the changes might affect those regions.
Mechanics
My recommendation for playing in this setting would be to use Ritual Path Magic, possibly with altered or custom paths. RPM toes the line between unknowable mystery and barely-understood science, which perfectly suits the Renaissance period of the setting. Other than that, the setting is straight up TL4 European Renaissance, so your go-to books should just be the Low-Tech series and Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic. Another fantastic resource would be Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence if you want to focus the campaign in one particular place, or start the players off in one of the cities characteristic of the era.
Infinite Worlds
Merlin-4, 1537
Current Affairs
Europe fights and squabbles amid a changed Renaissance, with magic and demons bubbling under the surface, hunted ruthlessly by the Spanish Inquisition. Conquistadors and colonists try to carve out a place in the Americas among the significantly stronger indigenous peoples, while the Islamic world scrambles to deal with brutal slave raids in north Africa, perpetrated by Aztecs with stolen Spanish vessels.
Divergence Point
20th August, 1191 AD; the Massacre at Ayyadieh destroys a number of human lives equal to sixfold the Number of the Beast, completing an ancient and profane ritual that fractures the veil between worlds. The rift is closed by King Richard the Lionheart and Saladin joining forces but the damage is already done – magic has entered the world.
Major Civilisations
Western (multipolar), Orthodox (empire with satellite states), Islamic (fragmenting multipolar), Meso-American (empire with satellite states)
Great Powers
British Empire (dictatorship, CR3), France (dictatorship, CR4), Spain (dictatorship, CR4), Grand Duchy of Moscow (dictatorship, CR4), Aztec Empire (dictatorship, CR3 for citizens, CR6 for slaves)
Worldline Data
TL: 4
Mana Level: normal (high in the Holy Land, very high around Ayyadieh)
Quantum: 3 Infinity Class: Z2 Centrum Zone: Inaccessible
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