When I began world-building for the Reaver setting, I knew I wanted to create something that would be quick to jump into without much learning and that would be easily adapted to other setting. I didn't want the setting to restrict the game, it can be discarded in favor of another setting without issue. With this in mind, I followed Robert E. Howard's style of world-building, using real-world history to create analogues that would be easily recognized. Still, the setting is large and provides quite a bit of depth for those interested.
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The Sagas of Cennor
Following up on that, I decided to use the "cycles of human history" trope in which human civilizations rise and fall over countless millennia, leaving behind ruins and secrets of a forgotten world. The now-dead lands of Symmeris, Hyperborea, Ingamaar, Zaramaat, and others, themselves inheritors of a more ancient world, rose and fell during the calamity of the Long Night which was begun and brought to a close by cosmic events that wrought devastation on the planet. These sorcerous peoples left behind strange ruins and artifacts, secrets of the ancient world and the time before humans.
Furthermore, Cennor incorporates Lovecraftian elements and has been visited by cosmic, extra-dimensional, and extra-terrestrial beings in its past---some still residing on the planet while others existing beyond time and space---and are venerated by secretive cults and interfere in the mundane world through inhuman means. Shuggorath, Garmotha, Yog Sothoth, Ilithokryss the Unborn---entities whose names are known to only a few, but whose power and influence could bring the world to an end.
The current epoch---The Thraxian Age---follows the Long Night by many millennia and is one of imperialism and strife, in which oppressed peoples strive to throw off the imperial yoke, while the Thraxian Empire struggles to maintain its supremacy and the emperor Callus Severax has sworn to reclaim lost lands. Other forces are rising to challenge that crown---Azirah Zultana, the Witch Queen of Kheraun, commands a horde that encroaches upon the northeastern borders of Thrax squeezing other peolples between hammer and anvil; Jubakar, King of Zucchabar, has taken control of a swath of northern Quuat with his Tuigar riders and a fleet of Zucchabaran corsairs; and Khem is again rising under the rule of the seemingly-immortal Priest-King Kaa-Nammerat and the priesthood of Set. Deeper into Quuat, Great King Ubayo of Kuyo has declared the rise of a new Supremacy and sends his armies against his neighbors, seeking to subjugate all.
Struggling against these imperial forces are city-states and young kingdoms, tribes and rebels, chieftains and usurpers, all striving to maintain their independence. Alongside these powers are sorcerers and priests who command supernatural forces and worship old gods and new, while in the dark places of the world creep the remnants of ancients races---serpent people, deep ones, apefolk, voormis, and others.
What adventures await the player characters in this dangerous world, only the Chronicler knows...
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