Uresia: Grave of Heaven

An anime-inspired fantasy world for the Big Eyes, Small Mouth roleplaying game. Uresia: Grave of Heaven was written by S. John Ross, and includes maps drawn by the author. Uresia was originally published by Guardians of Order.

Uresia is a world in which all the gods destroyed themselves in a heavenly war which sent the godly realms crashing towards earth, destroying the continents and killing most of the population. Now, centuries later, new civilizations have arisen on the spray of islands left behind, influenced by the nature of the dead gods.

Uresia, like most S. John Ross works, is a gentle humanist satire applied to roleplaying games, oscillating freely between the grim and the overtly silly, with constant themes of history, horror, humor and humanity. Obvious influences include the Slayers and Record of Lodoss war anime series, and other fantasy works including the Zork computer games, the gamebooks of Joe Dever, and the Discworld novels. The world's apocalyptic origins are, according to the author, inspired by the opening scene of Project A-Ko.

Uresia was published in 2003 and a new edition, adapted to the D20 System published by Wizards of the Coast, appeared in 2004. An online publisher of electronic gaming material, Cumberland Games and Diversions, is owned by S. John Ross and has published both font and electronic-book supplements for Uresia, first under license, and then as Uresia's sole publisher after acquiring the rights in 2005. S. John also maintains Blue Lamp Road, a homepage dedicated to the fantasy world, and featuring fan-written expansions and characters.