Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire: Germany after the Cataclysm

On the eve of the Cataclysm in 1991, Germany was only a recently reunited nation. The fragility of its recovery from being split in two at the end of WW2 did not bode well for its chances at staying united when rift-surges tore through Earth, bringing monsters and magic into the world. In the late …

Orcs Children of Gorgmonn

Children of Gorgmonn: Orcs of the Cataclysm

Orcs, goblins and their rarer (albeit, more beastly cousins) are a common sight on Post-Cataclysmic Earth. From hordes of raiders preying on the peripheries of human civilisation, to valuable members of law enforcement and the military, the Children of Gorgmonn are here to stay on Earth. But how did they get here? And what exactly …

Avathor

Avathor: The Land of Knightly Things

This article on Avathor contains spoilers for Dead World, book 7 of the Kat Drummond Series. The In Between contains countless realms, containing even more countless dangers and denizens of this magical and unfathomable existence. But even within the infinite confines of the In Between, there are worlds that brush up against our own. Many …

Post-Cataclysm Map Stylised

Map of the Post-Cataclysm

While the events of the Kat Drummond Series are centered around Hope City and Southern Africa, there is an entire world that formed after the Cataclysm. This Post-Cataclysm world is defined by shifting borders and power structures, as magical warlords, gods and monsters war for supremacy. I have put together and interactive map of many …

Elves Leave Middle Earth

Elves of the Cataclysm

Beautiful. Wise. Mysterious. And, oh so alien. Elves have existed in many forms throughout human history and mythology. But as the Cataclysm revealed, only a few conceptions were accurate. Not to say that other interpretations of elves were completely fallacious. The short, hard-working elves of Santa’s workshop ended up being fae. Gnomes, in particular. Very …

Magic Spark Weylines Wizard

In Between: The Void Between Worlds

“An unfathomable, grey void, inhabited by the dead, the cosmic and the unknowable.” – That is how a surviving riftborne human from the distant realm of Stradgorf described the realm between realms. A place that is physical, yet unreal. A place that ignores all our petty laws of physics and common sense. A place between …

Rift Forest Cataclysm

The Cataclysm: How it All Started

At first, the Vortex didn’t do much. On an otherwise uneventful day in 1991, as the once gargantuan Soviet Union was reaching its final dissolution, a blue, swirling Vortex appeared in the middle of Siberia. Scientists flocked to the scene. Some called it a weather anomaly. Many news stations excused it as a hoax. And …

New Sintar

Not all refugees from the worlds beyond the In Between were content to remain destitute and homeless on Earth. The proud elves of Sintar were initially scattered across the world, but starting in the early 2000s, began to rally to the northern island of New Zealand, where they established a large community. The surviving government …