Lionheart interview

Gamers Hell have posted an interview with Lead Designer and Co-Producer Ion Hardie about Lionheart, the upcoming RPG game from Reflexive Entertainment:

Can you tell us some more about the game's storyline?

When we were developing the original concept, we did some preliminary research into history and historical episodes and factions, including the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish Armada, etc. and came up with the bare bones of the story. During a more intense historical research phase, we were able to really flesh out the design with actual events that occurred in human history and altered them to get our new divergent timeline. There is a divergent "break" with history that occurred in 1192 during the Battle of Acre in which Richard the Lionhearted inadvertently caused the Disjunction, a ritual that briefly tore the fabric of reality and let loose magic into the world. Chaos reigned, and spirits of light and darkness were spread to the four corners of the Earth. As you would expect, many historical events were severely altered because of this. The game starts some 400 years later in Nueva Barcelona, a city rebuilt upon the ruins of Barcelona. Spain is ready to unleash the Spanish Armada against England, England is occupying much of Northern France, and the Inquisition has a strong foothold in much of Europe in its quest to eradicate magic and magical beings. Many of the historical people from that era are also available to interact with, including Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo and Shakespeare.