About Tefr
A world, a game, a writer
World
Tefr is a fantasy world setting with its own RPG system attached. It is possible and intended that The world of Tefr can be used as a resource for referees on which to base their games using other systems. The Tefr system itself is intended to be modular and referees can cherry pick those elements they wish to use for their own gaming and discard what they don’t need.
Tefr was originally developed by Simon Cornish in the 1990s and has since been revised and expanded. Several writers and developers have contributed to those revisions and many others still have lent their enthusiasm in playing characters within the world created.
Tefr is a world held back in technological progress in favour of the use of magic. Bearing mutations, said to be carried down from an ancient war between the gods, player characters are set apart from the outset and forced to become members of a scorned guild simply to survive.
Game
Imagine you are in a strange land.
A world steeped in history and shaped by ancient strife.
A place where rumours of magic and
mythical creatures have a ring of truth to them.
You’d rather not get involved in such matters;
you want to stay home with your family and friends.
But you have a problem;
they say there is something wrong with you.
You have a god’s curse upon you,
which makes you different: tougher, stranger, scarier.
Your family and friends no longer want you near them.
Some would even wish you harm.
So now, if you don’t want to become an outcast,
your only choice is to join the Guild,
follow the only profession allowed to
those cursed by the gods,
become a sword for hire,
expendable and despised.
But better the jackal than the hare.
Cursed by the gods, shunned, cast out, and unwanted, you find yourself among the ranks of expendable mercenaries—freaks for hire in a world that turns its back on you. Roped into doing the dirty work that others are too afraid, or too proud to take on. Opportunities abound, but always come with risks.
Join the guild, the only place that will take your kind, and embark on gruelling quests. Discover plots and treasons under the threat of war. Confront grim adversaries and uncover ancient mysteries.
Your background could have been anything: a wandering priest, a washed up pirate, a fallen noble, a shrewd merchant, or a cunning Grey Hawk. It doesn’t matter anymore. All are bound together by a secret and a shared fate – an unbreakable bond forged in the fires of adversity.
This is not high fantasy, it’s the other kind.
Writer
Simon Cornish has at times claimed to be an animator, at others, an illustrator and, should the lunar phase is right, a writer. Any truth to these claims is hard to verify, as he is almost certainly a purveyor of illusions as well as a liar on an epic scale.
In the dim and distant past he may also have worked in a chemistry lab trying to synthesise a football shaped molecule under a Nobel prize winning professor, but that could just be a story.
He may also have had something to do with the monthly Mental Roy cartoon that appeared for several years in 3DWorld magazine, though that has not been substantiated.
He can categorically deny ever directing an advert for a Bank, apart from that one time, and has never, well not very often, been a vfx supervisor on any commercials, or directed and produced any short films or music videos.
There have been unsubstantiated rumours that he’s written a novella and a novel, but such things should probably be dismissed as pure whimsy.