So is Man Atrocious (Cloak-and-Sword Setting)

As one of the last people to jump on the cloak-and-sword bandwagon, I've decided to make myself useful and compile some of the setting details you can find dispersed elsewhere, not touching on the more complicated and remote countries like Noblessie, Inferie, and the Dragoman empire.

As far as I can tell, the presumed primary setting of a Cloak and Sword game is a Frenchish land called Manteu, rife with ruffs, black powder, swordsmen, finely bred horses, smoking clubs, Latin, wars on the continent, and the overripe flower of chivalry. When people want to disambiguate the setting from the genre which is called "cloak and sword", they call the world Manteu.

Manteau! Manteau! Called "land of earnest-speakers" and "The Only Place in the World, à l'Exception" and "A ruin without realizing it" and "the sort of place where hardly anyone knows how many wars are going on in it" and "a kingdom three weeks and two centuries across" and "150% France-per-France".

Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier

It has the influence that France had in an earlier age, when French (the language is still called French) is the language of the entire continent of Ganymed. The cultural capital of the world, En Plus Paris (tr. grand city of Paris) is home to the high king, the queen, their respective musketeers, the cardinal, his musketeers, various grand dukes, marquises, baronettes, and so-ons, and an endless war against boredom as all these armed swaggerers hit the club, flirt with people they shouldn't, and pursue schemes without end goals. Outside the great cities, political organization is more Beowulfine, with a king or a lord in a big house and usually some big problem they need a hero to solve.

The king is at war with the queen. The queen is at war with the Spanish. Everyone is at war with the Huguenots, but most especially the cardinal is. Everyone is also fighting the robbers, beggars, and wolves. The fay of the summer are at war with the fay of the channel, apostalizers who converted when French blood turned the very fish faithful. The Spanish are at war with everyone. If the hated Dragomen ever show up, it's on sight. People are generally sexist and stuffy in sufficient extent to furnish any life's ambition or true love with endless obstacles.

Heroes, as such, tend to be split in a dichotomy. Gallants include anyone who is a dramatic Player Character-like character loyal to their family, invested in fashion and both l'Action and l'Amore. Chansels (or, if men, Chansiers) seem to be an unflattering stereotype of non-cloak and sword PCs (or players who act like this is a normal dungeon setting?), derogated as unmoored and violent petit bourgeoise, greedy, "only eat one meal a day," uncaring of discomfort, romanceless freaks who take a scientific approach to killing. Damn meal-a-days.

Magicians and the magical abound, and while they are found in every scenario and great scheme I could find, it seems there's no totally politically captured institution of wizardry. Notably, the Academie Gramarie has ensured their independence by capturing the king's true name, and the Scholomance has stolen the heart of a mountain-sized black dragon, Letarrasque, so neither can be easily jerked around by standard politics.

Blogposts are always talking about whether angels can see you or not, so it seems like the default answer is "no." Basically it seems like the setting is undergoing a worldwide titanomachy, with demons, Grendelles, and horrible elves on one side and the angels, who few people can actually see, on the other side. The crowns of Ganymed all champion the angels, while their hated enemies in the Dragoman Empire side with the Grendelles.

There are gunswords, and this is what "Damascus Steel" refers to here. Apparently only manufactured in (or just invented in?) the Dragoman Empire.

Provinces of Manteu include:

• Les Lances, rich and suspicious land that was once the front-line in invasions, and before that was settled by Vikings
• Mauve, the fashionable second banana to En Plus Paris, known for growing wine and traitors. The setting of a very good introductory adventure.
• Competence, the gateway to Levol, known for its herbs and therefore its witches. Maintains a policy of non-interference with the red wolves, whoever they are.
• Boucony, a rustic land where everyone wears a beret and is very pedantic. They love pistols here.
• Nigaudy, where tits-out blood feuds are somewhat more common and somewhat less whimsical.
• Dijon, home to a city where nothing ever fucking happens until you make it happen.
• Region de Fableau, accessed only through the enchanted tapestries of Saint Cussata.

Farther afield, we find such lands as

• Spain, which is constantly invading but the source of all gold in the world
• Merica, a former rival now long-eclipsed, an island nation with some measure of refinement
• Nedde, rich city-state of clothiers, windmills, and tolerant merchants
• Levol, peninsula of robbers and priests where some secondary action often takes place. Home to an anticardinal who challenges the legitimacy of the cardinal in En Plus Paris

A commoner in Manteu has a first name and maybe an epithet. Pick Gallicized Biblical names like Marie or Emmanuel. Nobility (broadly defined, often including all PCs who aren't definitely common based on class choice) follow a different formula:

• You can be named for the place you rule or hail from, like D'Mauve or D'Lances.
• You can have an epithet, like L'Paresseux (the sluggard) or L'Joyeux (the gay)
• Each noble family has a one- or two-syllable name stem that they pass on to descendants and those who marry in. The end of each stem has an optional consonant to help avoid awkward names. Each individual's name will sound like their parents', with a different ending. There are 35 traditional endings for men, though only 20 are common, and 35 traditional endings for women.

Example stems (playable???) include

• Forti(n), the royal family of Manteu
• Fe(r), a family once prolific for their banking wealth that have recently suffered a great downfall
• Cou(l), the traditional dogsbodies of the royal family, in tension with themselves as some have declared for the king and some for the queen.
• Ma(l), the open secret wife and children of the cardinal.
• Au(r), perhaps the most cursed family which hasn't been killed off yet.
• Eo(th), a tenacious and prolific line that holds pride for its Viking blood

To give you a sense of how these names work, and because it took me like four hours to interpret all the conflicting sources, here is a name generator. Remember to decide whether to keep that optional letter, turning Ma(l)bert into either Mabert or Malbert, for instance.