All For One: Régime Diabolique core rulebook

The year is 1636 and France is sick. Like an ancient elm, its core is being devoured from within. Yet from outside it appears strong and vibrant. Louis XIII sits on the throne, but his rule is that of a puppet monarch. While France rots, Louis spends his time throwing extravagant balls (the cost of which places a heavy tax burden on the peasantry), hunting all manner of beasts (including, some say, Protestants dressed up as animals), sponsoring artists to produce works of art for his private adoration, and ignoring the pleas of the downtrodden citizens who clamor for justice and clemency.Pulling Louis' strings is Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu, better known simply as Cardinal Richelieu. He serves both as Cardinal of Paris and as Louis' chief adviser, both positions of great power.

Religious persecution is rife, and has been for over a century. France's Catholics have engaged in many cruel massacres of the country's Protestants, including the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572.

Richelieu has entered France, a Catholic country, into the Thirty Years' War (a name it has yet to acquire in the current age) but on the side of the Protestants. Richelieu's aim was to break the power of Spain and the Hapsburg Empire, against whom the Protestants were fighting, but his views were not shared by all. France's nobles and ministers reacted angrily to this act, many seeing it as treachery against the Papacy, but Louis ratified the Cardinal's order, and few dissenters had the stomach to argue with the King.

France's armies have not fared well. After a disastrous campaign beyond their eastern border, France's army is in retreat. Soldiers from Spain and the Holy Roman Empire are marauding throughout the French countryside, making their way toward the gates of Paris.

In order to bolster France's demoralized army, Richelieu has raised taxes and introduced conscription, though it is the poorer members of society who suffer the most from these measures. Famine wracks the land, forcing the already overtaxed peasants into increased hardship. Resentment and anger are bubbling beneath the scum of corruption which floats atop French society, threatening to break the surface and drag the country into civil war.

The nobility of France has grown corrupt, though some would hasten to add they are simply more corrupt than their ancestors. Richelieu's taxation policies are a mere inconvenience to the aristocracy, and while they dine and dance, their peasants starve and succumb to disease. Many speak of deviltry among the nobility, of midnight ceremonies honoring their unholy counterparts in Hell, of young girls taken by force never to be seen again, and of terrible bargains sealed with blood and souls. But such talk is commonplace when times are bad.