Heart & Steel is a game about common folk trying to rise above their station. You leave the safety of home for the wilds in search of fame and fortune, taking on dangerous work, exploring forgotten places, and chasing the stories that might make your name.
If you survive, you return home with silver in your purse, scars beneath your clothes, and a better story than the one you left with.
There are no chosen ones here. You might begin as a poacher, hedge knight, blacksmith's apprentice, disgraced noble, travelling scholar, or village drunk. What matters is what you make of yourself.
The Lands of Yore are a romantic vision of the Middle Ages: proud kingdoms, feuding nobles, poor peasants, wandering knights, ancient forests, lonely monasteries, muddy villages, and castles looming above the countryside.
Civilization is scattered. Roads connect towns and cities, but beyond them stretch great tracts of wilderness where the king's law carries little weight. Travelling even a few days from home might mean crossing robber-haunted woods, sleeping beneath ruined watchtowers, or seeking shelter at the hall of a lord you've never met.
Monsters, bandits, scoundrels, thieves, witches, and worse things lurk beyond the firelight. But danger means opportunity. The recent Widow's War left keeps burned, families ruined, soldiers scattered, and perilous ruins in its wake. There is coin to be earned and treasure to be found by those willing to risk their necks for it.
The Lands of Yore are a human-centric setting about human endeavors and human problems. There are no elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, tieflings, or other fantasy peoples. The strange exists, but it belongs at the edges of the known world.
Think of the Realms of Yore as a mix of Game of Thrones, King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and the Kingdom Come: Deliverance series.