This fantasy world is copied from a role-playing game setting—a fact I discovered when Planecrash literally linked to a Wiki article to explain part of the in-universe setting.
The world of Golarian is a (or the?) setting of the Pathfinder role playing game, which is a fork of the D&D 3.5 rules[1] (but notably different from Forgotten Realms, which is owned by WotC/Hasbro). The core setting is defined in some twenty-odd books which cover everything from the political landscape in dozens of polities to detailed rule for how magic and divine spells work. From what I can tell, the Planecrash authors mostly take what given and fill in the blanks in a way which makes the world logically coherent, in the same way Eliezer did with the world of Harry Potter in HPMOR.
Also, Planecrash (aka Project Lawful) is a form of collaborative writing (or free form roleplaying?) called glowfic. In this case, EY writes Keltham and the setting of dath ilan (which exists only in Keltham’s mind, as far as the plot is concerned), plus a few other minor characters. Lintamande writes Carissa and most of the world—it is clear that she is an expert in the Pathfinder setting—as well as most of the other characters. At some point, other writers (including Alicorn) join and write minor characters. If you have read through planecrash and want to read more from Eliezer in that format, glowfic.com has you covered. For example, here is a story which sheds some light on the shrouded past of dath ilan (plus more BDSM, of course).
D&D 3 was my first exposure to the D&D (via Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights), so it is objectively the best edition. Later editions are mostly WotC milking the franchise with a complete overhaul every few years. AD&D 2 is also fine, if a bit less streamlined—THAC0, armor classes going negative and all that.
Some additional context.
The world of Golarian is a (or the?) setting of the Pathfinder role playing game, which is a fork of the D&D 3.5 rules[1] (but notably different from Forgotten Realms, which is owned by WotC/Hasbro). The core setting is defined in some twenty-odd books which cover everything from the political landscape in dozens of polities to detailed rule for how magic and divine spells work. From what I can tell, the Planecrash authors mostly take what given and fill in the blanks in a way which makes the world logically coherent, in the same way Eliezer did with the world of Harry Potter in HPMOR.
Also, Planecrash (aka Project Lawful) is a form of collaborative writing (or free form roleplaying?) called glowfic. In this case, EY writes Keltham and the setting of dath ilan (which exists only in Keltham’s mind, as far as the plot is concerned), plus a few other minor characters. Lintamande writes Carissa and most of the world—it is clear that she is an expert in the Pathfinder setting—as well as most of the other characters. At some point, other writers (including Alicorn) join and write minor characters. If you have read through planecrash and want to read more from Eliezer in that format, glowfic.com has you covered. For example, here is a story which sheds some light on the shrouded past of dath ilan (plus more BDSM, of course).
D&D 3 was my first exposure to the D&D (via Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights), so it is objectively the best edition. Later editions are mostly WotC milking the franchise with a complete overhaul every few years. AD&D 2 is also fine, if a bit less streamlined—THAC0, armor classes going negative and all that.