It is the Year of Our Lord, 1581, and England is changing every day. England is expanding outward, making it's first insteps into the New World. Mary, Queen of Scots has been the figurehead for one rebellion and inciting yet another. The Spanish and the English are on the edge of a full blown war. Yet England under Elizabeth I is prospering, the royal government is no longer in debt, there is an increasing pursuit of knowledge and sciences and the religious conflict that has plagued England has been pushed underground. Elizabeth herself leads a personality cult, a huge portion of the population that worships her as Gloriana. While the population is distracted, Elizabeth begins to enact numerous political and social changes to her country, among them the founding of a ring of spies, as England becomes the first country to engage in truly organized espionage. Politics, science, religion, all of these are growing to new heights with each passing week.

Yet, none grow quite as fast as the popularity of plays and poetic verse, a fashion which is sweeping the English Empire. In London, new theaters and stages pop up every year and all around the countryside the English have become obsessed with the power of verse. In the town of Stratford, a young man named Shakespeare is scribbling down thoughts that will one day turn into the greatest plays of all time.

While the London politicians argue in the Guildhall, something is afoot in the countryside, as sightings of the strange Faye people wondering around the forests have increased and the Rising of the North, in their quest to free Mary, is said to have enlisted some Magi to their cause. Even more serious, the Spanish have deployed their own resources in an attempt to undermine Elizabeth's reign through the Scots and the Catholic Church's most fervent have gone underground, despising their now ex-communicated queen.

This is the setting, for Merely Players.