Age of Instinct

Hello, Adventurers!

The world of Aurelia has been with me for most of my life.

I first imagined Aurelia, and the idea of Humans bonding with animals and becoming Hybrids, when I was around 15 years old. I’m 43 now, and in the years between, that world has been many things.

At various points it was going to be a book. Then a comic. Then a cartoon. At one stage, even a film. None of them ever quite came to fruition.

But Aurelia never went away.

Then came lockdown in 2020.

Like everyone else, myself and my brothers Taylor and Scott suddenly found ourselves with a lot more time at home. We wanted something we could do together, so we started looking at playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder online.

And that’s really where Age of Instinct — the game — began.

I loved the idea of tabletop roleplaying, but I couldn’t help feeling there was a barrier to entry. Part of that was the obvious cost of books, subscriptions and online virtual tabletops, but there was another barrier too: complexity.

Some of these games have been around for decades, accumulating more and more rules, classes, subclasses, expansions and systems along the way.

I wanted something different. Something easy to learn, affordable to play, and built around imagination, storytelling and the people sitting around the table — whether that’s a real one or a virtual one.

After all, how many different types of Wizard do you really need?

So I went back to the world I’d been carrying around since I was 15.

Aurelia. The Bond. The Hybrids.

And, nearly three decades after I first imagined it, Aurelia finally found the form it had been waiting for. Age of Instinct became a game.

But there is another part of this story that means even more to me.

I was fortunate enough to travel to Ghana with Futurestars, where I helped clean, repair and improve a school that welcomes anyone who wants the opportunity to learn. That experience stayed with me.

When I came home, I wanted to find a way to continue supporting the work they do. Eventually, that became part of the reason for taking Age of Instinct beyond the game my brothers and I played together and turning it into something other people could experience too.

From that came this website and AoI Tabletop Online — both of which I’m incredibly proud of. And that is why 15% of all profits from Age of Instinct are donated to Futurestars Ghana.

It’s also why I’ve tried to keep the principle of affordability at the heart of everything I’ve created. Players play free — always — and GMs pay a very reasonable annual fee with the knowledge they will be contributing to an extremely worthy cause.

Because I don’t believe someone’s bank balance should determine whether they get to sit around a table with their friends, roll some dice and disappear into another world for a few hours.

So, almost 30 years after I first imagined Aurelia, my brothers and I still get to explore the world I’ve carried with me for nearly three decades. Only now, I get to invite all of you into it too.

And if, while we’re telling stories, rolling dice, bonding with Companions and exploring Aurelia, we can also make a genuine difference to people who deserve our support… then the world I dreamed up as a 15-year-old has become something far more worthwhile than I ever imagined it could be.

Thank you for being part of it.

Welcome to Aurelia. Bond. Survive. Become.

All my love,

Daniel P JamiesonCreator of Age of Instinct

Daniel lives in Nottingham, UK with his amazing NHS midwife wife Emma, his beautiful daughter Evie, their cats Kit Kat & Ollie, and their dogs Daisy the Dachshund and Rosie the Rottweiler.