The Ten Worlds of MORANA: one story, ten folklores

The Ten Worlds are the ten folklore realms of MORANA's cosmology, a single saga told ten times over: the wheel of the year has cracked, the boundary between the living and the dead has torn, and every culture on earth turns out to have been describing the same event in its own myths. MORANA: The Open Grave is the first of those worlds; the other nine are the mapped saga ahead.

What the Ten Worlds are

MORANA is not one game but the first chapter of a planned ten-world story, each world drawn from a different culture's public-domain folklore in its own art style. One engine runs beneath all ten, so the rules never change, only the myths do. A player anywhere can begin with their own childhood stories and still be playing the same game.

The cosmology: Yav, Nav, and Prav

The world is built of three layers: Yav, the living world; Nav, the realm of the dead; and Prav, the divine order that holds them apart. The saga begins when the turning wheel of the year cracks and that order tears, so the dead begin to walk back through the wound between Nav and Yav. That single rupture is the engine of every world's story, and it is why the graveyard in MORANA is not a discard pile but a battlefield: in this cosmos, death is a door, not a wall.

Why ten cultures tell one story

In the first world, the Slavic and Balkan lands, the wheel breaks and Wardens race to mend or exploit it. In each world after, a new people meet the same phenomenon and name it in their own tongue, from the Grimm forests to the trials of Olympus, the Norse doom, the glamour of Avalon, the lamps of the Arabian and Persian nights, the nested tales of India, the hundred demons of the East, and at last a great Council Fire in the Americas and Africa where every world's story is shown to be one story. The Turning was never a Slavic-only truth; it is what all folklore was quietly describing.

The same ground, seen ten ways

The worlds share their geography. A river crossing, a market square, a threshold shrine, a burial mound: the same places recur in every culture, reskinned into its own lore. The ten worlds are, quite literally, the same ground seen ten ways, which is the whole meaning of the saga. Every fire, in the end, is the same fire.

The realms, in order

• I. The First Turning, Slavic and Balkan. The origin: the wheel cracks and the dead walk back. This is the game you can play free right now (see folklore.html for its spirits and gods).
• II. The Old Tales, Slavic skazki. The folk-tales themselves are the magic being fought over (see old-tales.html).
• III. Der Irrweg, Germanic and Grimm. Some things lost in the forest never return.
• IV. Hybris, Greek myth and Aesop. The die never rolls. Pride climbs it, and the summit is the fall. This is the flagship set, playable free right now (see hybris.html).
• V. Fimbulvetr, Norse and the Eddas. The end is foretold, and it keeps its schedule.
• VI. The Glamour of Avalon, Celtic and British Isles. Nothing is what it seems, once.
• VII. Tales of the Thousand Lamps, Arabian and Persian. Three wishes, ranked and public.
• VIII. The Frame Tale, Indian fables. A story inside a story inside a story.
• IX. Akuma no Matsuri, Japanese and Chinese. A hundred demons parade, and every street escalates.
• X. The Great Council Fire, Americas and Africa. Every fire was always the same fire.

Realm I is live, Realm II is fully illustrated as a preview, and Realm IV, Hybris, is the flagship set and playable free in the browser now. The rest are the designed saga ahead, a mapped queue rather than a dated calendar: they are announced when real, never promised to a date.

Where to start

You start in the first world. The Slavic set is playable free in your browser today, and it is the doorway to the whole cosmology.

• The sagaten folklore worlds, one story, one engine
• The cosmologyYav (living), Nav (dead), Prav (divine order); the wheel cracks and the dead return
• The shared grounda river crossing, a market, a shrine, a barrow, reskinned in every culture
• Start herethe Slavic first world, free in your browser

Frequently asked

Sources: MORANA's own cosmology and folklore world-building, drawn from the public-domain myth traditions of each culture named above. The living game and its Slavic spirits are catalogued at folklore.html and in the card gallery. MORANA: The Open Grave, the first world, is playable free now, and so is Hybris, Realm IV, the flagship set; the remaining realms are a designed-ahead saga, a queue not a calendar, with no cards yet and no release dates, announced only when real. This page describes MORANA only and does not reference any other product.