Squalor, injustice, cynicism, grit, chauvinism and sexism
Most people are squalidly poor, by modern standards. While hygiene, sanitation and medicine are far better than in the real world Renaissance, they still do not come near those of the 21st century Western society. While only the truly poor starve, most people are overworked and somewhat underfed. The everyday dish is vegetarian, meat and fish is a luxury. Many people are alchoholics. There is little birth control.
Nobody is equal under the law. The laws favour the rich, the nobles and the clergy, and disfavour women, foreigners and non-humans. Punishments are often corporal, and a suspect is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Furthermore, most countries are ruled by heriditary nobility who are always self-serving, usually arrogant and often inbred. Knights in shining armour are often bad news to any commoner nearby.
There are few certified bad guys, and ever fewer certified good guys. While many people are basically decent, and try to improve things, most of them make certain that they earn a decent living while doing so, and are very reluctant to jeopardize their own luxuries to help those beneath them. Similarily, most "evil" people are cruel because it is so convenient, though many of them have learned to enjoy their acts.
Ymirea is a mean world. This is reflected in combat - one solid hit, and you go down. You do not take a sword thrust to the abdomen and gallantly keep on fighting, instead, you take a sword thrust to the abdomen and fall over in immense pain. Limbs get chopped off, brains and other vital organs are fair game.I use the Advanced Combat Rules - this means that just about any factor that could affect combat in the real world is incorporated into the body of rules, for instance fatigue, shock, bleeding, hitting specific parts of the body, reach of weapons, level of lighting, relative height... If you do not want to get into the rules, then simply do what you find sensible. I also use the Advanced Injury Rules. This means that you can take a great number of light wounds and recover almost instantly, or one critical wound and have no option but to fall over, as above. Several player characters have died or been maimed in combat with ordinary soldiers.
While it is, in the spirit of GURPS, permissible to play very many different races/species (people have fielded humans, dwarves, felinoids, gnomes, goblins, a hawkman, an ogre, a leotaur and an intelligent falcon), there is little of the "cosmopolitan" attitude so often found in fantasy worlds. Most people of Avation have had little contact with any non-humans. Perhaps they have seen a couple of dwarves and gnomes, but never spoken to them personally, and they might even have participated in the burning of a captured goblin. This is the extent of their interracial experiences. Despite this, they are very prejudiced towards all people different from themselves. Even people from foreign countries are damned frightening, people from different races are worse. The sole exception to this attitude is the Magocrats, who are a bit jaded in this respect.