TheRPGSite

As some of you might recall, I recently did a number of cultural studies of various... more or less generic standard... fantasy races; to include humans.

I intended to keep things as generic as possible, and in some ways I accomplished that goal.

However.

As I worked them out I kept putting peices together, much as you would a puzzle. What I wound up with was the very fabric of a great tapestry.  

Not that I actually HAVE that tapestry, not yet. But the cloth is there, the skeins of colored thread... all the ingredients are there. All I have to do is put them together.  Hence we have this.

One thing I avoided doing before was claiming any particular facet of my studies was unasailable fact. I didn't quite succeed, I'm sure, but for the most part you don't have to say Orcs MUST BE this that or the other thing. I merely said they were PROBABLY.

But when building a world I feel I should actually change the tone. The Orc of this world ARE this that or the other thing. No probably about it.  Why? Because if the world is not built on a sturdy foundation it will wobble and shake. No one likes a shaky world.  It makes the Quiche fall.


As is only proper when dealing with a fantasy world, a good mythic origin and questions of geography.  I'm rather fond of flat earths for fantasy. Don't know why, don't care.

So. In the beginning there was everything. But there was no order to it, no permanence. This everything was Chaos, the Well of Creation, the Fountainhead.  In time there arose beings of thought and mind, who desired a place of peace, of stability, of permanence. A place where they could exist without fear of being subsumed by the Chaos from whence they came. Drawing upon the very Chaos that had birthed them they formed a mighty island in the roiling sea, and thus gave birth to the world, the sky, the seas, even the heavens above.  For a time they were content, for as Chaos wore away at the edges of their Haven, they repaired it anew in an endless cycle.

These Beings were the First Gods. Legend ascribes to them the aspects of all things, all races, and their names are the names of the founders of each race. That is legend, however.

Eventually, however, other beings arose in the swirling Chaos, and being unlike the first, saw the Haven and were jealous, attempting to enter where they had no place, forcing themselve upon it. There was a mighty war; Gods were slain, the Haven losing some great portion of itself. Demons were slain, their blood and flesh poisoning the land.

The war threatened the very stability of the Island, the Gods could not keep the border secure from the Demons and recreate what Chaos had reclaimed at the same time. One or the other had to be sacrificed.

It was the First Smith who solved the dilemma. He created a vast engine that would ever seek to stave off the encroachment of Chaos. To deal with the demons he took the bodies of the first slain from either side and forged a terrible Pax.  The body of the first slain God became the barrier that no Demon could cross from Chaos, while the slain of the first Demon became Death, to claim aspects of Creation for the Demons to build their own real upon. As the Haven drew upon the Fountainhead to renew itself eternally there would be no loss.  While this ended the war, it was flawed. The War was never claimed by Death, and lies waiting, occasionally springing forth to claim more victims.  The barrier still exists, and while it bars the Demons from entry from Chaos, it is less effective against the other beings that Chaos creates.

Chaos is the source of magic, the foundation of everything. Though no legend speaks of it, all life on Haven forms a part of the Great Engine... which is why no seeker has yet found it.

As for the Motives and natures of the First Gods? Who can really say? They make up the warp and weft of their own creation, embodied in its aspects. The First Smith is not a being, but all Smiths, and all things smithed belong to him, are of him. Who can say if a great mountain is a First God, or merely a part of another Great God who is an entire range.  The same could be said of the most powerful First Demons.

But a deeper study of the Creation of Haven is beyond our purview. Let us remove ourselves to those aspects of history and Legend that actually matter.

Haven, of course, is a huge, flat landmass floating in a sea of Chaos. The Great Barrier is invisible to mortal life, they can travel to the very edges of creation, though it occupies far greater square footage than our own humble orb. The Seas merge into the frothing Chaos, the land drops away to overlook great churning seas of Everything.  The power of the Human mind can push the Chaos back... or it can be overwhelmed entirely and destroyed.  By learning to tap that Chaos, either indirectly via magic, or directly by finding the raw seething stuff of Creation and shaping it by will alone, a man might become a God.  

There passed a time where nothing of mortal import occured on Haven. Some legends have the various races as participating, soldiers and servants of their Gods, but such stories are Myth.  Lesser Gods arose, eventually, embodying the races that arose, creations of the First Smith, and occasionally those lesser Gods fought the Lesser Demons that found their way to the mortal realm. Such lesser Godwars happened with no great frequency, and skirmishes remain common to this day, if largely unnoticed by the mortals. The war, of course, is over the disposition of Souls.

Eventually, the Lesser Gods removed themselves from the mortal realm and the various intelligent races found themselves lost. Note that none of these races were actually the races found today. Civilization, organization, was slow to spread. The first race to master organization, to discover the power of Magic, rose to power virtually unopposed.  They slaughtered and enslaved their neighbors, committed wars of genocide on any other race that arose to oppose them, and generally were lords and masters of their domain.  This race was the titans. They were not Orcs, nor were they Human, Elf or Dwarf. They were Titans.  From their slave races and themselves, they bred Orc and Elf and Dwarf and more. They gave over the souls of their unborn children to give their greatest warbeasts intelligence. They were great, and powerful, and without Good or Evil.  

Kobolds were a failed expiriment, a slave race unchanged that 'escaped' to plague the cities of the Titans. The Goblins were not sentient, or at least not civilized yet, and even had they been so their homes deep in the earth were hidden well away. Halflings have yet to rise to a level that the Titans would have noticed, though at the time they were little more than comfortable savages, out of sight and mind.

The Lizardmen arose far from the Titans center of power. The Titans had moved their greatest cities so that the very center of Haven was their home, while the Lizardman swamps were out near the very borders of the Titans empire. Had it not been for some obscure desire to expand their Empire out to the very fastnesses of Haven, the comparatively primative Lizardmen might never have been noticed.  

Comparatively, for the Lizardmen of then were near Gods compared to even modern civilizations. Their mastery of Magic was easily the equal of the oldest Lich, though alien to the Titans or the Men of today. However, they were a poor match for the Titans and their Dragons. By expending every last drop of power, sacrificing their entire civilization, the Lizardmen were able to preserve their race and freedom. Ironically, they were in the end responsible for destroying the Titans.

The Dragons recognized a kindred species of sorts in the lizardmen. More than one dragon, held in check by unbreakable Oath's of loyalty and fetters of unasailable power, had held telepathic communications with the very people they destroyed time and again.

The Elves, merely amusements, concubines and playthings, often were called upon to sooth the great savage beasts after troubling sorties and raids. It was in those conversations that the Elves found among themselves a realization that they hated their masters.  Unlike the dangerous Dragons, the Elves were viewed as pretty playthings, nothing more, and their Oaths of Loyalty were weak and fragile things, often forgotten completely.  The stoic dwarves, content in their lives as farmers were not even a consideration, and the Orcs of old, far more dangerous than those of today were loyal beyond Oath.  This was the comforting womb of the Titans, secure in their power they failed to realize that arrogance would destroy them.

The Elves organized, as was their wont even back then, under the oldest and wisest of their kind, and over centuries... millenia they secreted away whatever leavings they could, seeking an opening to exploit. Thus they stole, bit by bit, the secret of Magic from the Titans.  Then they wove a terrible spell.

History does not record their intent, their plan. It only records the result. The titans, as a race, were suddenly cut off from Chaos, from the very magic that sustained their long lives, powered their great cities, chained their slaves.  Somehow, by design or happy luck the Elves had removed the Titans from the Great Engine. The devestation was immedeate and total.  The Dragons, freed of their fetters escaped and gave in to their beastial sides... so long kept in check. There was little to destroy, however, for the very building blocks of the cities were swept away as if they'd never been. Whole cities vanished overnight, unimagineable secrets lost forever.  Many of the titans died instantly, those whose lives were beholden to Magic, others found themselves crippled or powerless. The Elves and Dragons sought blood, the Kobolds as well, though for different reasons. Even the doughty dwarves were angered, though they blamed the titans for destroying their comfortable existance, rather than the Elves who were really to blame.  The Orcs proved mighty protectors of the survivors, and in the spun sugar debris of the once mighty civilization, blood flowed like wine, staining the ground red.  

Eventually the survivors scattered and the terrible savage war ended at last.

Thus endeth Part One.

Might I say, congratulations on the "cultural studies" series of threads, they were great.

RPGPundit

Something I'd suggest--unless you are using D&D with your design, try and turn away from D&Disms (The kobolds one is rife with "D&D Koboldisms")

I think you've done a good job, but your kobolds represent only D&D versions, not classic folklore (Mining Dwarf style Kobolds with blue skin), nor anime descendants which took the dog thing farthur and turn Kobolds into basically short gnolls/dog-people.

If you stick to the roots, there's no difference between a goblin and a kobold.

And you can't ignore the most famous kobold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumuckl) of the whole wide world ;)

Actually... the Kobolds I think of in D&D terms are little lizard people. :confused:

I went with the wiki on Kobolds, which had subterranian dwarf/goblin types, strangely strong mercenary bodyguards and more.  

Then there was 'Kobolds Ate My Baby', which I referenced a few times in my cultural study. The only reason I brought them back up here was I had already done the 'Study' on them and in the context of this world building exercise they make an interesting contrast.

Kobolds are one of the original races, unmodified from their basic stock, and they survived by becoming vermin in the cities of the Titans. They have nothing but hatred and contempt for the former slaves of the Titans, and by extension all other intelligent life.  There actual role on the 'world stage' remains small and easily ignored.

The wake of the Titan War, or the great revolt was bloodshed and chaos of a much more mundane sort.  The Titans had ruled unopposed for so long, and so throughly that there were no other civilizations, no cultures left to fill in the void left behind.

Furthermore, the sudden release of all that magic into the world at once, all the world spanning enchantments and the huge consumptive spells that made the Titan civilization so powerful ruptured and burst without the powerful mages that had formed them keeping them under control.  The world itself spasmed and flexed, growing in places, shrinking in others. For a time Demons walked unfettered across the face of Creation.

Those heroes that led their peoples away from the worst of the destruction were later held up as Gods by their decendants. A few even acheived Godhood.

Millenia passed. The scraps of magic stolen by the Elves were not enough for them to recreate the wonders of old, were barely enough to sustain them as they learned to live on their own. The Dragons scattered, the Dwarves shrugged and used their hands, then stones and wood to continue to till feilds and harvest crops.  

The Surviving Titans, a tiny handful of these former demigods hid themselves away in the regimented collections of their soldiers, eventually breeding with them and passing away into memory.  Each race promised to remember the Titans, their civilization, and to reclaim it.

But Millenia are long, and even the Immortal Elves forgot, their culture rent by strife and disent.

It began with the Dwarves, ironically enough. As the fragile Elves struggled to support themselves, to regain what they had lost, the Dwarves... who it must be noted had never known what had happened to their former masters... grew and prospered, bolstered by their tight knit communities and work ethic. They discovered metal working and weaving and a hundred other skills that had once been performed by magics.   The Elves looked on their neighbors with envy and often empty bellies. After all, it had been the Elves who had freed them all, yet who suffered most?

The dwarves do not look kindly upon theft. Their labors, even their children had long been victims of Kobolds, even in the distant past, and a new breed of theives were not welcome.   The Dwarves defended their feilds with their tools as weapons.

It was Daeylyraeth Darsyltier who slew the first Dwarf and started the war. Informal leader of the bands of Elves who stole grains and sheep for their kin, it was he who spilled the blood first. It meant nothing to him, nor his kin. Dwarves were useful animals, it is said.

The Dwarves responded with fire and steel, assaulting the forests themselves when they could not find Elves. They invented armor to protect themselves from the wooden shafts of Elvish arrows.

The war did not go well for the Elves. Among them came the call for peace, others recommended more drastic solutions. It was the faction led by Daeylyraeth that stole the old Magics from their elders, cast a terrible spell, seeking to recreate the sorcery that had destroyed the works of the Titans.

Something went wrong. Many things went wrong. The Dwarves did not use magic, had not sorcery to disrupt. The First Gods had sought the destruction of the Titans, for they threatened the Great Engine with their genocidal wars and absolute arrogance, but the Dwarves were no Titans.

But Chaos can not be summoned without consequence, Magic of such power can not simply not do something.  The spell washed over the Dwarves, seeking out their connections to Magic, altering what they found before lashing back at the Tribe of Daeylyraeth.

The destruction wrought on both races was terrible to behold, though different for each. The Dwarves fled from the power that had assaulted them, hiding away in great caverns in the Earth, sealing up the entrances behind them in their terror.  Here they found sanctuary and for a time, peace.

Those elves who had sought peace, or simply thought that the Old Magics were too dangerous to be used again looked upon their cousins with pity and a small measure of fear.  

There arose among the Elves a great debate, slowly but surely the rift between the Daeylyreath and the rest of the Elves grew wider, the differences of opinion too great.  Many Elves agreed that even the knowledge of the Titans was dangerous. Unable to reach an accord, the two sides fell to blows, the first civil war in the history of the world. Daeylyreath and his followers once more tried to turn to the Old Magics, but they were opposed by their kin who were ready for them.  Barely more than a century had passed since the Dwarves had been driven underground, less than three since the dispute had begun, and the surviving Tribe of Daeylyreath were driven out of the great forest home of the Elves.

It is said of the Daeylyreath that they turned at the end to Demons to succor them, to grant them power over their Kin. Others say they sought out secret entrances to the Demonic Realms in the bowels of the earth itself.  They became the boogey man of myth and legend, their leaders became demons in their own right.

Almost incidentally, during their wanderings, the Goblins fell afoul of this first splinter Tribe, cursed for their refusal to obey.  At that time the Goblins had great cities, even nations deep within the Ground. Their sorcerers kept sealed the hidden passages to the Demonic realm, their scholars pondered the mysteries of creation from the dark depths.  The Daeylyreath shattered their civilization, twisted their ties to Chaos, and gave them an endless hunger they could never sate... all with what was to them a simple spell.  Too late the Daeylyraeth learned the consequences for tapping such powers, for the First Gods rejected them utterly, turning their faces away from the twisted Elves.

End Part Two.

Before I move into part three:

As I mentioned before, the concept of Evil Elves is not unique to D&D at all. Seelie and Unseelie courts, Norns from Tad Williams... Drow in D&D.  The Daeylyreath Tribe as mentioned are the evil elves here, inheritors of powerful sorceries from the Age of the Titans. At the moment I'm still staying semi-generic. There is not a pressing need to describe them, physically or mechanically.  Nor do I feel a need to make them a subterranian race. They have been rejected by the Gods, and have made so many deals with Demons for power that they have practically become demons themselves.  Practically. But: for all the evils they have wrought as a race, for all they may be twisted in body... they are individuals... they are Elves still.  While I don't think documenting the Daeylyreath's long and twisted history is important or even relevant, it is hardly going to be out of character for them to have had social fractures of the same sort that 'created' them. Nor is it impossible for one to have a change of heart about what his people have done. If there is anything that History teaches us, it is that nothing is immutable in the face of time.

I have contradicted my cultural study of Goblins... deliberately. Before I suggested it was the removal of a powerful predator or other dangerous factor in their environment, and that their previous civilization was relatively primative. However, the point of view of the Cultural study was that of an outsider, while my world building is from the perspective of an omniscent narrator.  Given the mythic scope of the era I'm covering, and the time frames involved, it wouldn't seem fitting that Goblins were subterranian villagers preyed upon by some beast.  

I find that I can divide races up into interesting lines.

Kobolds, Goblins, Lizardmen and Halflings all fall into 'natural races', not necessarily untouched by the Titans, but certainly arising from the design of the Gods.

Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Humans are Titanic Races, bred from primordial stock... that is natural races, but no longer natural themselves.  It occurs to me that altering the way these races interact with magic would be an interesting, and subtle, way of reinforcing that difference were I to lay this out as an entire game product rather than a slightly generic setting.


However, slightly generic, at least in fantasy RPG terms tends to lend itself easily to D&Disms.  It could just as easily lead itself to Tolkeenisms, which isn't much of a change.  

Treating Elves and Dwarves as biological races, rather than mystical Fey, is the root of the 'problem'.  Cosmetic changes, such as calling Halflings Kender or...Qanuc... do not work when addressing generics.  I could rename the Elves, i could rename any race, dress them up how I liked. I could even make my Halflings mountain dwelling mystic savages...  but in the end I'm talking about a race of half sized human looking beings.

Rather than tear my hair over this, I simply give you the most common, easily identifiable name for a race, their culture, part wholly fabricated and part common tropes, and a history that fits both.  Notice that my Elves, for example, don't have any real reason to prefer forests... no mystic reason to live in trees, it's simply where they settled predominantly.  The dwarves chosen lands are open plains, easily coverted to agriculture and herding.

My intent is to provide more and more intimate details as the world building approaches (rapidly) the modern ages.

The wake of the Elvish Civil War was devestating. Two debilitating wars in a row robbed the Elves of their once growing civilization and much of their power.   The remaining Elves resolved never again to raise their hands against their brothers, a promise that would occasionally be broken but never again on the scale, or with the rancor of that very first.  They also put away those artefacts they could not destroy, and never spoke of them again. As the oldest Elves succumbed to violence, disease and accident, slowly the secrets disappeared into myth.

The cursed race of the Goblins fared less well, their civilization tearing itself apart from within in a matter of weeks. Their greatest scholars and magi turned their great minds to a solution, fighting the hunger, the beastial urges that had been forced upon them. Failing to find a way to break the curse, the greatest of them sacrificed himself to cast a spell that would ensure that the Goblins would be able to survive until such time as the Curse could be broken. He brokered a deal with the First Gods and the Demon Death, allowing the souls of Goblin kind to reincarnate endlessly, carrying with them the lore of ages. While his success may have ensured the eventual recreation of his beloved nation, it only compounded the problem, as new Goblin souls continued to be born, and their population exploded to encompass both.

It was mere decades after the Daeylyreath passed through their lives that Goblins found themselves locked in a bitter struggle with the now well entrenched Dwarvish Clanholds.


The Dwarves were a battlehardened race, but the constant pressure proved hard on them. In the face of an endless war, the Dwarves turned to exploration and diversification, as well as honing their skills in battle. New clanholds were formed, new bases, often as far from the Goblins as possible were formed and manned.  Rather than run, the doughty race dug in, going deeper into the earth, seeking to root out this new menace at it's source.


Meanwhile, in the northern Wastes, largely unpopulated by the Elves and Dwarves, a large tribe of Orcs built for themselves a city of stone. While history does not record why this was done, the truth is that Demons of Ice and Famine stalked their lands with Hounds of Death. Defended by their stone walls, the brightest Orcs congregated and studied, discovering for themselves that even the Orcs could tap the Fountainhead and do magic.  The Demons proved little threat to such an organized, determined band of survivors, though the stalemate would not be broken for nearly a thousand years, with the rise of the Warlord Norgosh, who led what was the first Horde through the wastelands, and then south to more fertile lands, encountering the Elves.

War followed. The Elves had not forgotten the role the Orcs had played during the Revolt. The Orcs had forgotten much, but they had tales of slender creatures of treachery and evil... of Elves.  Freshly blooded and battle hardened, the Horde overwhelmed the first Elvish cities they encountered, whole splinter tribes were lost. But while the Elves had put away their old weapons, they still possessed a far greater understanding of magic than any other race, and having thousands of years to hone their martial skills, they proved a formidable opponent.   Norgosh was slain by assassins in the night, his strategic genius lost to the orcs, and with it the only chance of armistice.

But it was the destruction of Mo'garen, Orcish for Sanctuary, that broke the horde.  Fire rained from the sky and shadows strangled their owners in the night, the very ground salted and cursed so that no living thing could thrive there.

While the Elves had one a great victory, they had not won peace. The Orcish horde was shattered, their nation destroyed, and their species returned to the sort of savagery that they had climbed from so painfully.  But the Orcs remained, hatred festered as they scattered, no longer confined to the wastes of the north, or the borders of Haven, now they could be found throughout the gardenlands near what had once been the heart of the empire of the Titans.  

Worse, the Orcs had learned a painful lesson. No longer would they rely on a single leader or a single city, no matter how glorious.  A thousand tribes, each with leaders who's power was only as great as their ability to hold it, formed. Many continued the war as best they could, others sought peace and safety, retreating from the powerful Elven tribes.

It is said the Golden Age ended with the rise of the Daeylyreath, and thus the Silver Age died with Norgosh.  

While a thousand things occured, nothing to stir the hearts and change the world happened for the next few millenia.  The Elves saw themselves very much as rulers of the world, and as far as they knew no other race existed who could dispute that.  Even the whispered stories of dwarves reappearing could not shake them from this belief.

But the Elves were not unified. While many tribes were lost to the Orcish Horde, or had rejoined their more powerful kin for safety, no less than four competeing kingdoms arose during this era.   Aligning themselves according to the three prime Poles and the Seven Directions of Elvish cartography, the kingdoms carved themselves out powerful niches and rivalries. (The prime poles are roughly analogous to north, southeast and southwest, with center as a null value. Don't even get started on the Seven Directions, which includes aesthetic values like how pleasant the trip is...  Dwarvish maps are clearer, but as dwarves map along three axis (north-south, east-west, up-down) the can be confusing as well. The dwarves, notably, do not use the three prime poles, but map everything towards Center, which to them is the only value (1 in binary sense))

It was during this time that the first records of Halflings began being written. The race itself had existed in pastoral bliss since the forging of the Great Engine, but their primative lifestyle had never drawn the attention of the Titans. In isolation from the surviving races, the halflings, by this point not even dimly aware of the events that had thus far shaped the world, gradually developed a civilization of sorts. Upon encountering the expanding empire of the Elves, and the scattered tribes of the orcs, they struck up trade, learning new ideas and gaining access to goods they had never had before. The Halflings cheefully discoursed with both sides, though the occasionally violent orcs were somewhat less popular than the aloof Elves.  Relations between the Elves and the halflings chilled when the elves realized that anything the halflings learned from them would eventually make it into orcish hands...

Several minor orcish kingdoms rose and flourished breifly during this era. As often as they disintigrated from within, they were destroyed by the more powerful Elvish kingdoms they competed with.

This stalemate would not end until the end of the Silver Age when the Goblins finally invaded the surface world.


End part the third...

I've done no editing, hell I haven't even read portions of it...

But I thought you'd like to know you're up to 35 pages.  Keep this up and, with illustrations, fluff, you could easily have a 40 page book.

Quote from: James J SkachI've done no editing, hell I haven't even read portions of it...

But I thought you'd like to know you're up to 35 pages.  Keep this up and, with illustrations, fluff, you could easily have a 40 page book.

You'll want to read all of it before you put it in there. At least one longish post from today was more a 'designers notes' than anything else.

I'd almost be tempted to sub all of this for the RQ game I plan to start in January, but with my players I think keeping away from D&D feeling will be wiser, or else the dreaded d20 books will come flying out of bags at the first mention of Elves...;)

Very solid stuff. Keep at it. ;)

I think you should use the RQ OGL to publish this when you are done.

There may be some good ideaness to that, Silver... we'll have to see.

I've been thinking of trying to limit the amount I do in a single day, giving me more time to percolate ideas in the backbrain, but I am sort of crunched for time.

With any luck I will be completely out of the the loop for the next two weeks starting Sunday, and when I'm back in the loop, so to speak, I doubt I'll be still 'on track' with this amusing project.  This is me looking around my desk for my graph paper to do up another map that in all likelihood only I will ever see...:p

So. Look for at least one more post this afternoon as I get rolling. Of course, trying to come up with names and the like is killing me! :eek:

The impact of the arrival of the Goblins on the surface of Haven can not be over estimated.  Before this singular event the delinations, the wars between species, the society at large was more or less static. War between Orc and Elf was inevitable, and once it had occured, omnipresent.  A member of either speices understood plainly that they were at war, and the reasons were unimportant.

The Goblins did not arrive in a huge wave... not at first. At first there were refugees from the chaos of their underground lives, drawn by the lack of other goblins and the abundance of food. To the surface dwellers there was little to distinguish a Goblin from a Kobold. The larger Goblins were still small, sneaky, capable of digging into the dirt to avoid detection or capture, and tended to kill small animals and steal infants for food.  

However, where one goblin goes, others eventually follow. Both breeding and population pressures eventually forced larger numbers to the surface. It was actually a misplaced 'military' force, seeking to find a new way to attack the now hated dwarves, that broached the surface in large numbers.

This event occured in a smallish Orc town known as Hru'tha while the adults were at war with the local elves. The Goblins easily overran the place, consumbing the occupants. Individual goblins returned to their warrens to report on this wonderful discovery, while the 'army' continued to march, looking for more food. The Orcs of Hru'tha returned to find devestation, and sought out the source with vengence in their hearts. They believed the hated elves had done as they always did, massacred the non-combatants to break the backs of the warriors, and turned their eyes on their neighbors.

As fate would have it, the goblins had gone in the direction of the forests, seeking refuge from the sun in it's shade, and there they found the Elves of the Tautha kingdom resting up from the recent battle. The fresh, even eager Goblins fell upon them, not expecting to encounter the sort of terrible resistance the Elves mustered.  It was the Orcs who saved the Elves, however.  Faced with the real murderers the Orcs of Hru'tha put aside the ancient war for that one day. The echos of that act would ring down through the aeons.

The surviving Goblins fled back to the depths, warriors of both races on their heels.   Only, the rest of the Goblins came boiling out of the depths, eager to sate their hunger, having heard of the surface world of plenty. While the mixed band of vengeful soldiers proved too powerful to be overwhelmed, they proved to few to stem the tied.  Tuatha fell, her inhabitants made into refugees and exiles. Many fled to the other Elven kingdoms, bringing word of this new menace, often just before other goblin hordes broke forth from the underground.

Others, however, found refuge with the Orc tribes, putting aside their hatreds in the face of this terrible swarm.

Those first Goblin wars lasted for centuries, whole hordes were destroyed by powerful magics, Elvish cities were torn asunder.  It was the Dwarves that ended it when they turned their eyes to the surface. They stepped out of their Holds in shining hosts, collapsed mountains into the warrens, turned rivers into the warren holes.  The Dwarven High King Thandel marched his host to the  very Center of Haven to recieve the gratitude of the Elves.  When asked what his reward should be for this timely rescue, he demanded that the Elves should apologize for what they had done to the Dwarves so long ago, that the Queen should bow before him this one time.

To the horror of many, she complied willingly.  Thandel returned to his Clanhold, taking his army with him, along with a peace treaty and trade agreements, content that he had served his people well. The Dwarves have not forgotten the Elves, but for the most part they have forgiven them.

The Queen paid the price for her Honor, half her kingdom left her, angry over her bending a knee to a Dwarf, and the Kingdom of Tuatha was reborn, under the myth that the Tuathan's had never bowed to another. Tuatha would, in time, eclipse the tribe of Siti in power and glory, but her arrogance would ensure her eventual fall.

But what of the original Tuathans?  None had heard of them for hundreds of years, and they were presumed dead.  The orcs of the southwest were quiesent as they had never been before.

Yet it is no mystery to those who are not blinded by hatred and pride why the first Human kingdom of note arose in the Southwest, where the original Tuatha reigned. None at all.

Thus Ended the last of the Elder Ages, and thus Begun the Age of Myth.

The history of the First Human Kingdom was never written.  They themselves had no intrest in such activities, and their origins were mysterious to the nations of their contemporaries.

However it is not forgotten by the Gods of the World, nor was it unnoticed by the First.

In the Southwest, where Shining Tuatha once stood, and Proud Tuatha rose from her ashes, the mingled tribes of Orc and Elf watched with secret dismay as the Goblin Wars came to an end.  Not because they gloried in it, nor because they hated the outcome.

No, they dismayed due to shame and fear. The Orcs of Hru'tha were all but gone, only tribes with too much hatred in their hearts remained pure. The Elves had, in sorry, in desperation, and even in love or lust had mated with the Hru'tha, and their children were things neither Elf nor Orc.  The immortal Elves remained to watch over this new race that slowly replaced the Orcs, but they feared their sin was written plainly on the faces of their decendents.

And so they fled in the night, slowly, and over many years the hybrid tribes migrated away from the rising spires of the new Danu, as their home was once and again called.  They fled away from the center, away from the heartlands of the Elves, and settled on a vast rocky island in the heart of a great Sea.  It is said that this sea was called Tibor, for the Elves filled it with their tears of shame and grief for their short lived children.  

These Humans, as they came to call themselves in time, were not entirely like the men of today. Longer lived, more perfectly formed, more savage, they build a mighty home for themselves in the Sea of Tibor. Surviving the Goblin War had taught them much of magic, and they witnessed the engineering of the Dwarves and were impressed, so they copied it, slowly and haltingly at first.

The Tibor found Dragons roosting in teh mountains of their Island home, and with cunning and magic enslaved them as the Titans once had.

The first record of the Tibor was the sudden destruction of a mighty goblin horde being incinerated from above by Dragonfire and sorcery.  Later they demanded tribute from the Elven kingdoms, and in time recieved it, for the Elves had never had power over Dragons. The Tibor fought with the Tuatha, too proud to bend a knee.

But it was the Daeylyreath who ended their reign in bloodshed.  The Tibor had treated the Daeylyreath as they would any other elf, and demanded tribute. They earned a violent response, and to the shock of the Dark Tribe, very nearly exterminated them. Only the races retreat to the Demonic realms saved them, as it always had. But the Tibor, in their arrogance and ignorance, did not realize that Demons were real, that the Daeylyreath were still a threat, and when the dark ones arrived in the night in the hidden fastnesses of Tibor's mighty fortresses, they found no one able to stop them from the slaughter. And so the first race of Men was no more.

But their progenitors had long since left them, and human villages and outposts were scattered everywhere that Humans had been.

In time more kingdoms arose, Morkath, Hiideia, Gompileste... and they fell. Morkath and Hiideia destroyed eachother in magical wars over borderlands, Gompileste was destroyed by a flight of Dragons for daring to attempt to rule over them, as Tibor once had.

The Goblins, never entirely out of sight, returned and the second Goblin War came to dominate Haven.  The humans fought alongside the Elves and Dwarves and when necessary, even the Orcs.  And in the wake of the second War, much easier than the first, all the Elven kingdoms but Mighty Tuatha came to view this new upstart race as younger kin, taking their fledgling nations under wing, if only to prevent disasters.

The Tuatha, for their part, never forgot the Tibor and their arrogant demands, or the losses suffered from Dragons. Might Tuatha, whose Armies were unmatched for all the Mythic Age.


Far from Danu, a new human kingdom arose, again as if from nothing.  A lost tribe, living in the forests and hills of the northeast uncovered a secret not for mortal men. They found a tiny fragment of the Demon who had become Death, merged with the the flesh of the God who had become the Barrier.

The Stone of the Egg, as they called it, provided their primative mages with an understanding of magic that had not been matched by even the mighty Titans, if not their power. Understanding of the true nature of Magic, and of the Gods and even Death itself, they raised a might kingdom whose name still rings from the pages of History, and whose mark upon Haven was as great as that of even the Titans themselves.  Her name was Irem, and at her heart a mighty city of brass raised by servants conjured from the Chaos itself.

At first Irem was at peace with her distant neighbors. At first. But their understanding of the warp and weft of the world was too great for that to last. Using magics undreamed of by others they learned witnessed the history of Haven, it's creation, the arrival of the Demons, the Titans, all of it.  They saw that a life of magic and comfort and immortal power had all turned to dust in the blink of an eye... the eye of a First God. They learned, to their horror that all life, all things on Haven were merely part of the Great Machine, the knowledge of which had never been in mortal hands before, and whose secret was lost with Irem.  Knowing the fickle, amoral nature of the Gods, and the worse one of Demons first hand, they resolved to never fall to that fate. The cunningness of their plan was to draw upon the Fountainhead all the power they needed to become as the First Gods themselves, or even to surpass them.

Their failure created a massive wasteland, the very heart of which is a Sea of Pure Chaos right inside Haven.  Even the Gods wept at their failure, and creation shrunk as the Border tore and new terrible beings entered the breach, along with the raw stuff of Chaos.  It is said that mastery of magic, the magic of Irem would allow one to enter that inland Sea, and recover the artefacts of Irem herself, still intact, hidden within.  But even the Gods fear that Sea, for it's merest touch would dissolve them utterly.

A full discorse on the History of Irem would include such details as their war with the Tuatha, the fall of Danu, or the shocking loss of magic that followed in their wake, even a discussion of such arcane topics as how the casting of magic was forever altered by their passing and it's manner.

However, such conversations must await another day. Irem was destroyed, magic fled the world, only to return slowly and much changed. The End of Irem was also the End of the Mythic Age and the ancient cultures who had filled it.  Only the Daeylyreath remained unaffected, sequestered in terror in their demonic homes.  Why the Daeylyreath feared so is a tale for another day.

37...38...

Quote from: James J Skach37...38...

To help you out, this is sort of Designers Notes again, rather than trying to bulk up my page count. :p

Human kingdoms in the Mythic age, looking back on what I've written, almost universally came to bad ends. Many of them lasted for centuries, however, if not longer.  Tibor was a major player for a long time, for example.

The Elves, who are our standard for comparison, with their apparently contiguous governement in the central kingdom, and their long lives often viewed humans as horribly self destructive or even cursed.  Certainly they were reckless.

The Elves are somewhat cautious naturally, and while their kingdoms might persevere, they were no less subject to drastic changes than any other race. It's perception more than fact. Humans persevere, their kingdoms rise and fall. Elves persevere and their kingdoms remain, though over time change radically.  Never forget that Tuatha was destroyed twice, bookending the Mythic Age.

The End of the Mythic Age was unmistakeable. Those few who lived through it through to the modern day could tell you exactly what they were doing when it ended.

Not when they heard about it, for no one announced the start, much less the end of the era, but what they were physically doing. It must be understood that even the doughty dwarves, as unmagical as they often seem, were heavy, almost instinctive magic users.  Nearly every species had developed some form of sorcery unique to their race, magic was in the very air they breathed. A million wonders were lost in an instant, when the magic they came to depend upon ceased.  Gods died, their bodies falling to the earth.

Thus Irem fell, and with her the world.

All was not lost, however. The First Gods and the Gods of the World that had surivived worked desperately to repair the breach in the great Barrier, to contain the Chaos Sea that had formed, using the very structure of Haven itself to contain the spill.

Tuatha was lost, Her armies had marched on Irem, and were destroyed in the cataclysm. Her spires and gossamer bridges fell in the banality that followed. Goblins haunt the remains of Danu to this day.

Only the Goblins found a reprieve from their curse in the disaster. For a time, only for a time.  Slowly, as magic returned over the decades that followed, their ancient curse arose once more.

Each of the races stuggled, for the thousand tiny ways they had once performed magic as easily as breathing were not lost to them, and many of the techniques and tricks they had relied upon to perform simple daily tasks was no more.

The dwarves, who had trusted in their engineering, recovered first, and prospered most during the Banality.  Dwarven trade caravans became common, often welcome sights during this 'Dark Age'.  While all feared new Goblin hordes and Daeylyreathi mauraders, neither occured. The Goblins were quiesent due to the relief from their curse, the Daeylyreath were trapped in the Demon Realms, unable to cross over, and just as bereft of magic as every other species.

Magic returned slowly, in dribbles and drabs, starting decades after the disaster. Even millenia later it has never reached it commonality or ease of use.  The Dark Ages saw the fall of all the Elven kingdoms, though not the end of the race, it saw the decline into semi-savagery of Humans.

While the Orcs did not prosper, their crude villages of stone survived untouched, and a dozen or more orcish villages formed a loose coalition of sorts, the beginnings of a new Orcish Kingdom.

With the return of magic, the Dark ages ended, and so too this post.

I apologize for the short post last night. I was feeling poorly, it must have been someone I ate...

The mythic age was populated entirely by vast city-states with assosiated villages and nomadic tribes. That is, Tuatha, for all her glory, had exactly one city, though she dominated a huge area of land and many smaller burgs and even smaller cities who were tribute payers, though not actually Tuathans.

The Titans had a multi-city Empire, though they didn't think if it in such terms, as any given Titan could teleport freely between them, and all were built and populated by the Titans themselves.

The Orcish coalition of burgs in the Dark Ages was the first, arguably, modern 'kingdom' of multiple cities. Though none of the burgs and villages approached metropolitan sizes, and there was no single center of government, it was unique in that several independent powers became one single political entity.   By the End of the Dark Age, the Orcish state had a single military, a single council of elders, one from each 'city', and a unified body of law and cultural tradition.   While this lasted for generations, the council traveling from town to town on a circuit once a year, the advent of magic, and the renewed capacity for long distance communications meant that the traveling council could settle down, it was arguments over which town to become the capital that caused a rift between the long alliance, and as council members set themselves up as kings of their own smaller kingdoms, disputes over succession eventually ended even that.

The first true Kingdom that arose was mighty Urtesh. The mythical founder of Urtesh, Bovard, was annointed by the Gods after solving the Chimeric Puzzle and slaying the Beast of Maidens Tears. At first Urtesh was merely a largish fortified town, much as any other, but over the first three decades of his reigh, Urtesh subdued the 9 great kings of the West, and uniquely, made their cities a part of Urtesh, and the kings his princes and governors.  Bovard ruled for 70 years of peace, long enough that upon his death his kingdom passed to his heir, a great nephew, peacefully. Bovard's dynasty lasted for seven generations, Urtesh persisted longer, finally falling to the Tenebrian Horde, who ruled as the Tenebrian Dynasts over many of the same cities.  

The Tenebrians of course, ruled a vast empire, conquering weak and stagnent kingdoms, vulnerable city states. The Tenebrians were humans, though many hybrids filled their ranks, granting them great strength. (Hybrids refers to, naturally enough, halfbreeds, half orc and elf predominantly, though any mixed race species falls into this catagory). It was the practice of hiring orcish and dwarvish mercenaries that ended the Tenebrians, as their own military might became dependent upon outsiders their ability to hold their conquests from newer, hungrier foes slipped away. The Tenebrians might have conqured the entire world during their heyday had they left the Elves to their forests. Danu was gone, the Armies of the Tuatha had dissappeared with Irem, but the arts of war had not been lost, and many retired soldiers of the Tuatha had found refuge in the lands of the Siti.  The Elves inflicted such devestating defeats upon the Hordes of the Tenebras that they lost all taste for battle.  

As it was, Tenebria was the largest, most powerful empire in the world for a long time, and even today persists as an exotic distant back water in the far west. Many kingdoms claim to be the seat of Urtesh, though none may say with certainty.

The seat of culture shifted slowly to the SouthEast, the rising kingdom of Nornsa. Nornsa was a naval power, a trade powerhouse, and her conquests were largely economic in nature.  The economy of Haven remains one of the Gold Standard, but the sacred Order of the Coin in Nornsa developed arcane arts that allowed them to make even the worst deal profit their kingdom through secret arts.  Many have tried to steal those secrets for themselves, and while the Order of the Coin spares no expense in protecting their holy writs, what has leaked has proven indecipherable to even the most puissant mage or sage.  The Nornsa found Orcs to be uncouth bandits, and their attitudes have shapped human opinion in much of the civilized world ever since.  

The rise of the Warlord of Melitior proved a defining moment, perhaps the signifier of a passing of ages. The Warlord of Melitior is a well known figure to myth and history,a  boogyman to scare small children with. His race and origin are not recorded in history, only that he commanded a terrible army of feinds, demons, Daeylyreath, goblins and more. Where his army walked the earth blackened and charred, the sky filled with ash. Whole cities were put to the sword for the crime of merely existing.  Sadly, such tales are not exaggeration, for the Warlord was the avatar of War, and his army included such fearsome beasts that we have no names for them, unique manifestations of Chaos that had slipped into Haven and fallen to his cause.

The Warlord was stopped, though never slain, by a shining host of Elves and dwarves and humans, the Nornsa predominant. The absence of Orcs has been held up as an example of their evil natures ever since, though unwarrented, as the Nornsa and Elves never invited them, leaving those orcs who opposed to the Warlord to fight and die alone.

Following the defeat of the Warlord, the Races of the Light, as they had taken to calling themselves, built a great city on the site of his defeat, entombing him in a vast sepulchur at its heart, where their combined magics could keep his power at bay for all eternity.  Three races sharing a city in peace was unprecedented, and the city of Ysithyderi marked the beginning of 'surface dwarves'. Eventually Ysithyderi grew to become a kingdom in her own right, a center of learning, magic and trade. It was their attempts to understand, and subdue the Draconic menace that lead to her destruction three hundred years ago in a night of fire.  While this put an end to attempts by any kingdom to control Dragons, it did create the popular myth of dragons as evil beasts only worthy of death, and the rise in popularity for 'dragon slayers', though such individuals are so rare as to be non-existant.  

The lingering affect of Ysithideri is the lasting peace between Elves and Men and Dwarves.  While relations between them has cooled somewhat in the intervening centuries, many Elves recall fighting alongside humans against the Warlord, just as they recall the Night of Dragon's Breath, and the peace that lead up to it.

A notable 'kingdom' is Hwarzia, in the mountians just north of the Center heartland.  Hwarzia is populated by humans and orcs who overthrew their herditary monarchs just after the Warlord era, but have never appointed any of their own as a leader.  The Hwarzis have since fought off attempts at conquest and subjugation a dozen times, retreating into the mountains, leaving their towns and villages behind, their crops burned or taken with depending upon the season.   Most hereditary nobles consider the Hwarzis to be strange and violent, while peasants and merchants consider them pleasant but a bit odd.

To discuss in more detail the kingdoms of Haven, which term, it should be noted is not common at all among her inhabitants (unless they are Gods), would require a map.

And should we even discuss the presence of Paravail?




EDIT::: The Tenebrians are to the EAST and south, while the Norsa are to the West, only slightly south of Center. My apologies to James if he still reads this.

s'cool.  I was just letting you know the total, as you go. I understand that you don't see this as some sort to publish-able effort in its current form.  I haven't read all of it (as I mentioned).

I just hope it's not copyrighted material ;)

Quote from: James J Skachs'cool.  I was just letting you know the total, as you go. I understand that you don't see this as some sort to publish-able effort in its current form.  I haven't read all of it (as I mentioned).

I just hope it's not copyrighted material ;)

No such thing to me, James.  Maybe its because I'm a lazy git, but if someone were to take all this and steal it for a published product... I'd probably shrug and turn to the next unrelated project.  This doesn't cost me anything to do.

Posting will be inconsistent at best, absent entirely at worst for the next two weeks.


EDIT:::: Cancel that, posting should continue as normal.

To the south of Center, and the Elves of the Hydiminoi Forest, along the River Erd, and surrounded on two sides by the Sea of Gattipol lies the trade city of Paravail.  Paravail was founded by a mix of Orc and Human tribes during the Dark Age, though today her population is far more cosmopolitan.  Paravail has grown as a trade power throughout the centuries, all but untouched by the violence and war that has torn the land.   Some say Paravail survived the Warlord's march by trading with his armies, though the Paravailo deny this utterly.  Their Caste Army has rebuffed conquerers of all stripes since the cities founding, and the free companies, the Order of the Wall and The Order of the Chains have proven formidable foes as well.

The Kingdom of Nornsa, or now the nations of Nornsa control much of the land bordering Paravail, and the high status of Orcs in Paravail has caused more than a few wars, but Paravail's trade might and mighty defenses have proven nigh unbreachable.

[ Note: A link to the Paravail Wiki, anyone?]

All this despite the fact that by most standards, Paravail is ungoverned completely.

The River Erd flows leisurely from the far distant North, crossing a great many lands, and having different names along its route.  The people of Hesh, surrounded by desert, worship the River, sacrificing a child in the first flower of youth to the River each year to ensure the floods. Typically the sacrifice is of noble birth and is feted for the entire year before, or even their entire life if they were born 'marked'.  It is said that the crocadiles, large enough to be considered gods themselves, are viewed as the servants of the River, which is said to encircle the World. The Sun and Moon had fought a terrible battle, and chase each other in mighty war barges around the World on her length, though the cults of each dispute who is the one running, and who follows.  When the nights grow long, however, festivels are held across the river all night to slow the Moon, when the days are long, the festivals are held during the day to slow the Sun. If either escapes or catches the other, surely the end of the world will result.  

The Hesha are viewed by most of their neighbors as primative, though their masteries of magic is unprecedented in the region.  Their bronze weapons and unarmored soldiers should be no match for iron and steel, but the power their sorcerers draw from the river, from the network of power channeling temples and pyramids, their alchemists, and the 'tamed' crocadiles they bring to war all make for a fearsome army. Never mind their long standing alliance with the tribes of desert lizardfolk, or the long standing tales of dragons alighting on their Pyramids, watching over the Hesha below.   Hesh produces the finest cotton and linen cloth in the world, and her flooded feilds produce more grain each harvest than the Hesh can eat, though they must import animals for slaughter and timber for building.

Of note, when discussing Haven is that geographic poles, and proximity to them, means little when discussing the weather.  The distant north is no more cold than the distant west.  While there is a vague sense that the northlands are colder, it is possible to go past those fabled lands and find that it is not as cold as you thought.  Likewise, one living in the center might suspect that the south is all steamy Jungles and hot lands, yet find a pleasantly chilly temperate nation instead.

There are zones, or proximate similarity. That is, you will very rarely find a jungle next to a tundra. If an area is very cold, the coldest area will likely be the very center of it, not the most distant portion. If an area is a murky jungle, the hotest, murkiest point is likely to be the center of it.  Geography plays a role in it as surely as it does in more 'natural' worlds, however. If an area is hot and dry, a desert, but borders a sea or massive river, then you will find jungle.  High, mountainous terrain is cooler than lowlands, and so it goes.  Natural scientists ponder why the area's closest to the sun are coldest, while areas most 'sunny' tend to be the hottest, they argue that a war between Sun and Sky is responsible, and areas that are hot have less sky between them and the sun...


To the distant north, on the very border of creation, is the Ice Queen, called so not because her land is ice bound (while cool, it is not), but for reasons left to matters  of taste.  Her keep lies on the last outcropping of rock above the churning endless sea of Chaos. Since time immemorial she has lived there, and heroes have gone to slay her.

Instead she marries them, sending her husbands out into the Chaos to push it back and so doing expand the world and what is in it.  Few live long, but rather than be dissolved into the churning Chaos, they slowly turn to immobile stone, indestructable and capable of stilling even Chaos Eternal all around them. The statues of her past heroes litter her castle, others are arrayed along the Sea as a wall of guardians preserving this end of the world.

The inside of her Keep is Larger. Larger than the outside, Larger than the inside. The curious interplay of her nearness to Chaos, her madness from gazing upon it for so very long, and the nature of her lost Husbands means that reality overlaps upon itself endlessly within. Chaos creates new realities, trapped and fixed by her Husbands' presence. In the very center, which is also the peak of the highest tower she waits for the bold and daring, like a spider.

Those few sages who know of her existance think of her as a lost God, or perhaps some forgotten Titan.  The truth is more prosaic. She is a Daeylyreath renegade, a student of Irem before her Fall, and she has become a Godess, watching over Reality in a rocky wasteland.  Become her Champion, and if you can escape her spells, you can become a God. It is said that the Warlord was once one of hers, though this is falsehood.


Should we talk of Spada?  A city-state within the borders of once great Tenebria, who was never conqured. Shall we talk of how there are no women among the Spadan, of how each man looks like his neighbor, their fearsome silence on the battlefeild, their slaves, their Helots of all they have subjugated?  The Spadan are among the most fearsome armies in the world, though as individuals they are unremarkable warriors at best. The Spadan are fearless and undeniable.  Even the dwarves remark upon the stamina and determination of a Spada Warrior.  

Shall we tell of the wastes that remain of Irem? Of the cities of brass and stone that peak from black sands, the shattered rocky ground where only twisted life, unlike anywhere else in teh world, can thrive?  Of the artefacts that are rumored to exist within those long lost cities?  What of the silent guardians of the Sea of Chaos, robed, silent watchers on the Rim of Madness who would slay those who would seek the power of that Sea, or the secrets that are said to lie within?



EDIT::: change Ice Queen to Queen of the North or something. Ice Queen just sucks.

The Geography of Haven is slightly unstable. Due to the constant influx of controlled Chaos, and the everpresent pressure of the uncontrolled Chaos outside it, Haven's stability is suspect.  However, change is not common nor often drastic, and is significantly reduced by the presence of significant populations.

It has been noted that the occupants of Haven do not typically call it that. While each language and culture has its own terms, ranging from the prosaic to the absurdly baroque, it is conveinent for our purposes to call it as the First Gods do... though such beings do not use langauge as we understand it.

Some of the terms used by inhabitants:

The Dwarves refer to Der Gert, or Soil and Rock.  The Elves of Hylimithiea, typically similar to other elvish tribes, refer to Ymiintaleathoi, or The Busom of Comfort, the Womb of Life.  To date no Orcish term covering more than 'our Land' has come to light, suggesting an interesting difference of pychology. Our land and Their land being the extent of their terms for the world at large.

Humans, particlularly the Nornsa cultures and Paravail, simply call it 'the world', while the Tenebria refer to Uisuia, the term for their fertility goddess.

There are mulitple continents on Haven, though largely close together, along with several larger landmasses, Islands or microcontinents if you will.  To the north the land continues all the way to Chaos, while elsewhere the sea flows directly to the ends of the world, with occasional bisected landmasses, often small dotting the area.  Notable is the island of Erbeth, which while unmapped and largely considered legendary, possesses a great cliff, miles above the churning Chaos, with endless waterfalls flowing over them. Why the Chaos is so far 'down' in relation to Erebeth is a metaphysical mystery largely unpondered by the Sages, due to the perception many have of it's 'fairy tale' status.

The ground of Haven is riddled with deep caverns and passages, occupied by life unlike that of the surface. This is the home of the Goblins, and they reign supreme in it.  Many of these cavern networks run so deep that they pass under the seas and oceans of Haven, though if one runs deep enough you encounter the Demonic Realms.

The Demonic Realms are accessable via two routes; go deep enough into the earth and find the sealed Doors, or rise high enough into the sky and find the Door's up there. The actual location of the realms is on the underside of Haven, a sort of mirror image, or rather a negative. Where the greatest mountains rise, in the Demonic realms lie great chasms.  Here rivers of blood and fire flow, storms of ash and screams sweep the landscape.    It is said it was not always thus, that the Gods made the Realms the equal to the surface, but the rapine ways of Demons made it so.  The truth is more complicated, but a matter for another day.   Even the demons could not make the sun black as night, the sky the sickly yellow of an old bruise.

The Underworld, however, is a seperate entity all together, the realm of the dead. Unlike the Demonic Realms, it has no 'location'.  The sages suggest that the realm of the dead exists at right angles to the realm of the living, though such terms confuse the less learned.  It is said that climbing the Cliffs of Erebeth can bring a mortal to the Underworld while alive, and that setting a funeral boat adrift on the river Erd leads to the Underworld as well, though no living eyes can see it.  There is a cave in the Mountain of Omai that contains a dark shaft which is endless, her bottom in the Underworld...

What the living do not know is that all these locations, and others, only lead ot the ENTRANCE to the underworld. Each soul must then travel the paths of the dead, a series of tests, some known some unknown, before finding their rest in the halls of the dead. Fail and one is consigned to an eternity or three of servitude to the Dead, or even utter destruction, while exceptional performances are rewarded.  In times of need, exceptional souls may return to the living, through means best left undiscussed, though they remain quite dead.  There is a difference, though subtle, between the living undead who have returned with the blessings of the Gods and the true undead, who are soulless abominations.

When discussing the History of Haven it is very important to note that most of it is utterly unknown to the inhabitants.  The Titans left no written records, and very little in the way of ruins, but more than a few artefacts, many of which are broken down and 'glitchy', and that is but one example.  The Tuatha are largely mythic, and viewed with sort of a rosy lens by the average citizen of the modern era, even a few elves who are old enough to remember Tuatha at it's height suffer from nostalgic and inaccurate ideas about the more prosaic reality.  What must be recalled is that Danu, the capital and seat of Tuatha was on the southern Continent, far removed from the Center, where most civilizations lie.

Not even the Elves, nor the Titans before them, know what Demons are, or the difference between the First Gods and the Gods of the World. They have an idea about Chaos, what it is, what it represents, but think of the world as seperate from it, rather than a part of it made solid.

Of all the First Gods, very very few are accessable at all to modern peoples, and possessed of any worship. The Smith is, and manifests through avatars in the form of Gods of the World as a means of continuing to work on his Great Engine.  Another is Death, who while technically not a God at all, has physically manifested to stalk the battlefeilds and sick rooms of the world when the whim takes him. War is also accessable, while something other than God or demon, and manifests both as Gods of the world, and through mortal agents.

The Gods of the world, for the most part are former mortals, who in ages past were raised up to maintain the Great Engine, some are distilled essences of First Gods, or even Demons. It is these Gods who recieve worship, who in fact sustain themselves on worship, and use their faithful to maintain the integrity of Haven, when they aren't using them to fight holy wars against their kin for more selfish wants.

While all magic is essentially nothing more than tapping raw chaos and shaping it according to will, there are very real divisions in how it is performed.  Most mages, moreso now than ever before in history, use some form of filter to channel the Chaos. Sometimes that filter is a God, other times it is a staff or talisman, other times whole societies have built arcane devices that processed Chaos directly for the mage, who's magic was nothing more than tapping that engine.  

In the case of personal filters, staves and so forth, the warping influence of Chaos exerts itself slowly on the stucture of the object. The longer a mage uses such a device, the more twisted and unnatural it tends to look.  To protect themselves, and to reduce the warping effect, powerful enchantments are woven into the structure of such devices to protect them and refine the Chaos still further, making each a miniture Arcane Engine in its own right.  Gods, of course, are immune to this warping, and feed their followers clean power.

Tapping chaos directly is rare, and in the modern era all but unknown, and feared when it is.  The processes are varied, but the results: Irem, the Titans, the Daeylyreath... Elder magic is feared as inherently evil and corrupting. It is not subtle, not usually, but it is powerful beyond conventional measure.    Among the primative tribes of the Lizardfolk and some of the older, more fearsome dragons, a variation of Elder Magic is preferred. The lizardfolk because they do not know another way, the dragons because they fear nothing and respect power.

This is a back dating of information regarding mapping. The proclivities of the Elves and dwarves has been much discussed in regards to mapping, yet the tendencies of other races has not.

Humans cleverly came up with a sort of compass. While it could be said to always point to the nearest source of Chaos... that is the very edge of the world, in all practical matters, that is usage and conversation, it is said to point towards Center. Center, therefore is North.  All maps point towards center, as the dwarves do with a twist. Humans figured out early on in their cartographic systems that their compassess changed directions as they moved laterally past center, or even circumnavigated it. As this meant that Center was not North, per se, they compromised and drew their maps around it. Previously, only the Titans had ever understood that the southern heartland of the northern continent was the 'center of the world', knowledge that the elves did not retain.  The Savants of Irem might have grasped it at the very end, but no record remains that suggests they ever communicated it.  Human maps point towards center, but their larger, world maps acknowledge that it is not a peak.  This trended towards maps that had a fixed axis, chosen at random, with an arrow indicating direction towards center, and a seperate arrow for 'north'.  The Lesser Sea of Chaos, in the wastes is a little understood influence on mapping, as it tends to warp the compass headings as if it were the end of the world in that spot...

Orcs and Halflings map things based purely on local geography. Each map features a prominant geographical feature, often exaggerated, that the map should be aligned with to read.  Goblin maps, on the other hand, are hopelessly crude, rendered without even a nod to the cartographer's arts.

Dragons do not need maps, as their superior eye, aerial perspective and prodigious memories make such things superflous.

It should be noted that halflings and lizardfolk are far more common on the southern continent, though the nomadic halfling subcultures have propagated the species to the north, while the Lizardmen remain virtually unknown outside their jungles or on their once colony 'island' of Lu, ironically all but unknown despite its proximity to the more populous north.  Lu is considered sacred ground to the humans on the nearby coast. That coast is extremely rugged and treacherous, and the people who populate it are feared reavers of the seas, confident in the securities of the homes.  In fact, the term reavers entered the languages of other human nations based on their name for themselves: the Reve.  Note that the Reve are unaware of the slowly advancing lizardman population on nearby Lu, no explorer or settler has ever returned.  Very rarely one might land on Lu for repairs, even gather exotic fruits from the trees near the beach, but to enter the jungle, to leave the sight of water or to linger overlong is to offend the gods of the place.

The Lizardfolk, the Ssarsalsh in their native tongue, are an interesting facet of Haven.
 

The Reptile God is remote and poorly understood by even other gods. It is belived by those who study such things that the unnamed deity is a First God, one of those who created Haven and all that is within. Others believe he is more properly termed a Demon, an outsider from after the world's creation who avoided the First War and coexists among the gods, while not truly a part of them.   This later is correct, in that the Reptile came after the creation of Haven, but before the Demons, and made his place in Haven unbeknowst to the First.  When the Smith created the Great Engine, Reptile mimicked him, making a second Engine, for Haven is Reptile's home as much as any other Gods.  

But Reptile has not raised any of his children to Godhood, does not receive worship from his people, and so remains unknown to them.

That is not to say that there are no Gods of the World among the lizardfolk, for the very nature of the Great Engine is such that a few exceptional mortal heroes have taken their Apotheosis directly from Creation.  However, they are not prone to accepting worship either, though they often do receive some small tithe from their tribe in due course.  As all Gods, they work to sustain creation and enforce the treaty with Demonkind, though never alongside the Gods of other races.  This aloofness has resulted in mixed results for the lizardfolk, for when Irem fell, only they had magic, yet when the Titans destroyed the culture they had built, their Gods could not save them, nor help them rebuild.

The heart of the Lizardfolk Empire was the southern tip of the southern Continent, though they had spread from there. During the war many fled for far away lands, escaping the gaze of the Titans by traveling in cunning ships of wood that floated mostly under the waves.  While these refugees would wind up crossing the entire world almost, eventually settling on Lu, they could not bring with them all the greatness of home, nor could they fully escape the Bargin made by the greatest of their Shaman Kings with the Titans, a Curse that reduced them to near savages for a time. The intercesion of their Gods, particularly the Refugees of Lu was enough to mitigate the Bargin, but not break it.

In the south, the orginal home of the Lizardfolk stands still, virtually undisturbed by the Great Barrier Mountains erected by the Titans to 'lock' the lizardmen in their primative jungle.   Known as the Jungle of Hasih by the Tuatha, and from thence all others, it is a largely mysterious place, though rare outposts of human and dwarven traders can be found on the southernmost shore.  The Barrier Mountains are nearly impassable, though the Dwarves know secret routes through the heart of the mountain range, and claim that fabulous, unknown wealth can be gleaned from them, though no permanent settlements of any size exist.  What was the heart of that ancient kingdom lies north of the mountains, where there is now the Dragon Desert, named for it's origin, and the great lizards who frolic in the hot sands.  Halflings trek through the desert unmolested, but never stay. To the west of the desert lies another sweltering jungle, the Jungles of Amal, where other Lizardfolk live, cut off from their kin to the south and east.  The cultures are different, but not so much to outsiders. The Amal folk are better known, and have established a working relationship with many of the other races, though the Orcs are the only race of note to live along side them, sharing village space, one race active during the sweltering day, the other during the muggy nights.  The Orcs took refuge during the days of the Goblin Wars, as the Lizardfolk found the goblins to be quite tasty.  Even the lure of lizard eggs could not lure the Goblins across the Dragon Desert and into the jungle, and they have a superstitious fear of Amal to this day.

Lu, however, far to the north is the seat of Lizard Culture. They raise mighty stone temples deep in the heart of Lu, which is more a tropical diciduous forest, rather than jungle, and they patrol their shores feircely, still afraid that the Titans will find them and destroy them from the air.   The Lizards of Lu have befreinded two ancient wyrms, though such allies have only made them more cautious than before.  The captives of the Lu are sacrificed and eaten, and from time to time they make their way by stealth to the southern continent to strike raze tenebrian villages, taking care to be seen as Reavers, leaving no evidence behind.  This has only added to the fearsome legends of the Reavers, and the adoption of draconic symbols by the Reve raiders only confuses the issue more.

The Lizards of Lu have developed into two distinct races, a hulking monsterous breed of warriors, and a slender, almost petite race of intellectuals, shaman and wisemen.  Each race breeds true, and crossbreeding, while rare, results in sterile, but powerful mules who combine the best features of each. The fearsome Mules are said to be destined for great things and often lead their Lizardfolk kin.  As part of their deal with their draconic allies, when a Lizardfolk grows infirm with age or crippling injury, he offers himself to the Dragons as sacrifice.

Current culture(s).

The Elves of Danu, the Tuatha, are little more than cultured savages. Danu was destroyed twice and they have suffered for it, their pride shattered, the flower of their civilization lost in an instant. Those who survived the Banality did so by ruthlessness and personal power, sometimes gained at the cost of others.  While Magic was missing, a handful of ancient artefacts retained enough residual power to make the wielder formidable, if not world shaking.
   

The Tuatha scattered across the rolling plains, far from the somber wreckage of Danu.  Many settled into a nomadic lifestyle, still hunting and gathering as they had since the Titans.  While the return of magic has not been missed, they have long since given up on shining cities. They are not 'simple primitives', but sophisticates who have taken hard lessons to light, and chosen to live simpler lives.  

More interesting are the 'Fortress' elves, who have set up personal fiefs all over the south. Generally small, not even village sized, they rule over populations of serfs of other races with ruthless hands, and since the return of magic have dedicated their efforts at making their power secure against such future disasters.  These Fortress Elves engage in limited trade with outsiders, but have not missed the changes to the world in the last thousand years.  Many such fortress elves are solitary sorts, a single isolated king on the hill, served by mewling slaves and practicing dark magics, while others are more... normal.

Both groups view the ruins of Danu as 'sacred ground' and for different reasons have never practiced 'grave robbing'. The Danu (nomads) have no desire to return to city life, and the Fortress Elves believe nothing of value remains... thinking in their arrogance that Danu (the city) was picked clean by the survivors during the Banality of all of value.  Note that the Danu Elves rarely have more than one or two members who are old enough to remember the Fall, their lives are harsh and shorter than most elves (rarely exceeding three centuries), while the Fortress elves are universally survivors first, with younger elves being 'children' no matter how old.


The Plains of the Tuatha are not without other races, though the Elves are the dominant. Around most Fortresses are small communities of Orcs and Halforcs, occasionally humans, all yoked into servitude to Elven masters.  Farther out, orcish and human nomad tribes vie with the 'superior' elves for game, though all the nomadic tribes meet bi-annually at the base of  Jujamion, the Mountain in the Sea of Grass, for a week long festival, where 'wife swapping' and trade are all common. The term 'wife swapping' comes from the practice of most of the tribes for the women to go to their husband's tribe, while in many cases it is the woman who chooses her new spouse.   Here also many of the tribes work out there differences in mock wars, which can be quite lethal to the participants.  This doesn't stop two or more tribes from fighting real wars out on the plains between Moots, but it does cut down on the long term grievances.

Also occupying the rolling plains are Halfling communities, larger than the Fortress Fastnesses, often smaller than the tribes. These tend to be well marked, as the Halflings prefer to live near to the rare copses of trees, or to create orchards with fruit to harvest. Some make their homes around the singular, massive Yuib Trees, each a giant in an otherwise barren plain of six foot grass. The bleached white bark of the Yuib makes them readily visible, as does their singular stature.  The Yuib Halflings are half wild savages, the bark is rendered into poisons that paralyze their victims, and they are said to be insane from constant exposure to pigments made of the same material.  Yet in truth the Yuib are peaceful, preferring to hide from outsiders than engage them. The Yuib have tales unheard by outsiders, handed down for generations, possibly going back to the time the Titans flew their dragons overhead and raised the Barrier mountains from empty fields. Or not.




To the East of the Plains of Tuatha, a thousand miles and more from Jujamion, lies the coast. The Sea of Grass gives way to the preternaturally calm Sea of Glass.  Here there are more scattered villages, of Halflings and humans and elves each. The Elves and Halflings dominate the southern most reaches, while farther north the Humans hold sway as they grow closer and closer to the realms of Tenebria.  These small fishing villages are poor but largely peaceful and quiet, trading salted fish with the nomads of the Sea of Grass.

The southernmost reach of the coast, however, is the barrens. Here no grass grows, the land is cracked and dry, like shattered bricks, the mountainous tail of the Great Barrier is volcanic, spewing ash and fire into the sea, tainting the waters. What life thrives here is hardy and occasionally vicious, and the orcs make their home here, the last of the Hern, the surviving tribes of long lost Hru'tha, whose ruins lie at the northern edge of the wastes.  The Hern Orcs build homes of clay brick and crude quarried stone, mining what the can from the toxic mountains. Were it not for their ability to eat nearly anything, and the hard iron they forge and trade to the nomads to the north, they might not have survived here at all. Goblins are unheard of in this region, giving credence to the legends that some horrible curse lay waste to the land during the Goblin War, for any member of that race quickly sickens, then dies, in it's fastness.

To the West of the Sea of grass, also some thousand miles from Jujamion, the grass slowly gives way to golden sands and red rocks, thrusting up from the dunes.  The River Waiqa, also known as the River of Memory Past, flows from the Barrier Mountains, forming a natural border between the two lands.   The desert, known as the Dragon Desert, or the Sea of Sands, is a hot arid land, with travel being nearly impossible for the uninitiated. Knowing the locations of the rare oasis's and who to court for permission to use them, is of paramount importance.  A nomadic tribe of Halflings, the Bauon, roam freely, obscured in their shrouds and veils, living in the sands for as much as anyone can tell.  Confusing the issue is the presence of Kobold tribes who have many of the same behaviors and garments, from a distance...or even up close, who is to know if it is a Halfling or a Kobold who rises from the sands.

Near the river lies the city of  Nis, a massive walled complex of stone and clay. The Nis are humans, snake worshippers said to know many secrets lost in the earth, and the so called lords of the desert. In the Dragon Desert, all roads truly lead to Nis, for they are the only ones who have built them.  Nis is the only human city in the world to host a Lizardfolk ambassador, though ambassador may be to strong a term.  For some time, the Nis have sold products from their desert domain alongside the products of the Jungle Amal as the sole proprietors of such secrets, though time has turned on them, and coastal towns of displaced Nornsa have begun trading with the Lizardfolk, when they are not fighting them. Nis is ancient, slightly decadent, ruled by priests and tyrants in equal measure, each struggling to win the upper hand for all time's sake. They were, at one time, the greatest center for healing in the ancient world, combining secrets gleaned during the Banality, with secrets whispered to them by the very Snakes they worship. Now, as the Nornsa and the Elves of the Siti raise the pillars of civilization ever higher, Nis finds itself marginalized to a distant, forgotten backwater... and they rather like it.   As a final word on the Nis, they control many of the smaller oasis villages scattered throughout the Dragon Desert, though their grip grows weaker the farther from the cities one goes. On the coast, they have a small port city, with caravans transporting goods to the river to be barged upriver to Nis, and to collect goods shipped downriver to the caravan docks.

The desert slowly merges to the west with the Jungle, a narrow band of swamp and sand forms a natural barrier between the two, the greenery growing thicker the farther west.  Above the jungle rise huge stone pyramids, and the ground of the Amal is hollow, with many pits and openings scattered about to trip up the unwary. Many such holes are home to unsavory creatures unknown on the surface, and many host Kobold villages. The land itself seems incredibly hostile, with stinging insects, toxic plants and venomous predators.  The Amal lizardfolk are more advanced than their southern kin, with a complex tribal structure and significantly advanced craftsworks, mostly in stone and wood. The Amal have perfected working obsidian, but have almost no metalworking. Copper is highly prized by them, for they have only a few poor mines, and though they have traded for iron, they find it corrodes far to quickly to be useful.  Feathers and beads are heavily used in decoration, and the rather cunning Hollowtooth Tribe (crude translation) has made itself wealthy by means of trade with the softskins.

The Amal lizardfolk do not use their huge pyramids, claiming they are cursed. They do maintain the grounds around them, and appear to worship, or at least revere, the stellae placed at the bases, though no known translations exist of the engravings upon them.


South of the Great Barrier Mountains, on an ithmus lies the Jungles of Hasim and the original settlements of the Lizardfolk.  Life is not so harsh on this southernmost jungle, and the lizardfolk are virtually alone here, for few indeed are hardy enough, or foolish enough, to make the trip.  The Hasim Lizards have stone temples as well, though poorly maintained and much lived in. The Hasim are primitive compared to the Amal, still using fire hardened wood spears as the pinnacle of their technology.   The Hasim jungle is tame compared to Amal, though several large predatory animals make their homes here, and the lizardfolk are casually hostile to outsiders, not viewing them as intelligent in the least.

As for the lands of Tenebria... those are a matter for another day.

Urtesh is wrongly held as the First City of Man.  This is not entirely without truth, for not only is Urtesh the oldest city built by human hands, she is also built upon the bones of long forgotten Gompileste (Goam-pill-S-Tay); though her inhabitants know it not.   Built on three hills, rising above light forests and cultivated plains, it was from here that Bovard led forth a ragged band of desperate men to face the Kings of the West... a collection of petty princedoms on the western coast of the north eastern peninsula.  Through marriage, treachery, alliance and war, Bovard rose to rule those kings, forging them into a single nation. Through most of the civilized world, Bovard's name is invoked as the essence of a great king.

It took time for the example of Urtesh to catch on, and in time even the dwarves chose a high king from their many clanholds to represent them all, in the manner of  Thandol, who had lead his clanhold to war, uniting many of the strongest Dwarven cities under his banner. To this day the Dwarvish word for High King is 'Tandolkz', in his honor.

Urtesh traded and warred with other kingdoms over the two plus centuries of her independent existence.  It was the coming of the Tenebrian Horde that ended that.  No one knows why or how the Horde earned it's name. They rode out of history with the taking of the southern City of Jingsho, riding north on their fanged steeds, carnivores in the shape of horses, from the Sea of Grass. In a matter of a few short years they had conquered all the civilized lands on the southern continent, sacrificing the ruling family of each city or kingdom to their gods, but adopting the cultures of those they ruled.  To this day the cities of Tenebria still have many citizens with traces of orcish ancestry, a lineage inherited from their one time masters.   Two generations of Tenebrian Emperors saw the consolidation of power in the south before they crossed the Straits of Falling Stars, and passed the Rock of Heaven in it's midst to set foot on the northern continent, eager to claim the world.

They pressed north to the very gates of Spada, who's fanatic soldier-citizens rebuffed every attempt. Their western border proved more mobile, sweeping away a thousand petty fiefdoms, and bringing the very essesence of Tenebrian culture to the Northern continents.  However, on the banks of the River Erd they encountered two problems.

Less pressingly, the warrior caste of Paravail proved to be nearly the equal to the fanatics of Spada, an unbreakable rock of bronze, steel and flesh.   At the Battle of Mapon the soldiers of Paravail fought to the man, and as the legend holds, to the last man they refused to lay down, even in death. The Tenebrian's surrendered the field to the Paravailian military, and superstitiously refused ever to cross that field again, forcing them to take a less strategic route to Paravail's walls.

The true difficulty lay with the Elves of the Siti, the first tribe who still occupied the central forests of Hydiminoi. Bolstered by weathered veterans of Tuatha, and the rare survivors of the army that had once marched on Irem, the Elves took the field as a shining host.  Each of these grizzled warriors could slay a hundred men without falling, and the mages who backed them were worth a thousand or more.  

By day the Elves fought on the battlefields as men do, in shining hosts, with gleaming armor and terrible weapons, the warpreists of Tenebras countering the spells of the Siti hosts. But by night their warriors set aside their armor and snuck through the shadows, cutting the throat of every other man they found, their sorcerers conjured up beasts of terrible shadow to stalk the warpriests and slay them in their councils.  The elven host refused to sleep until the upstart invaders fled, and so the legends that elves never sleep came to be, and the Tenebrian Horde found it's limits.  Those cities and kingdoms on the eastern coast still show strong Tenebrian influence, though those rulers are long gone, replaced in time by less ambitious Mugnjo dynasts, the Tenebrian empire splitting as regional governors took power for themselves, or provincial revolts went unpunished.  The kingdom of Tenebria is a shadow of her former self, but proud and ancient none the less.


It is suggested that the Dwarves of the Homast Mountains, rising gently from the Sea of Grass along her northern rim, were responsible for the rise of the Tenebrians, when they traded metalwork to the human and orcish tribes of the Sea.  The Homast Clans do not pay fealty to the High King, and are accounted by their northern kin to be a surly lot driven by greed, while the Homast see themselves as merchants, extending their hands in friendship to other races in return for those things that Dwarves can not provide for themselves... such as grain.  They view the High King as an upstart parasite, drawing wealth from the coffers of more deserving clans.   As a result, many of the Homast Dwarves have rejected the concept of kings all together, their clanfathers must be business-dwarves as much as leaders, but never rulers.


But what of the culture of Tenebria, and her decendents?    How do they differ from the more familiar peoples of the Nornsa, or the elves of Siti?  

The Tenebrians are unfailingly polite in their dealings with others, even in the face of terrible insults.  It is said you know when you have gone to far when you find a knife in your ribs.  Status must be earned by right, rather than birth... with a few exceptions at the highest level of social status. Earning wealth comes easiest to wealthy families, but expertise in war  is held in equally high esteem.  Murder, killing in general, is held to nearly ritual behaviors. Failure to perform the correct forms is a terrible shame, possibly even a religious crime. Certainly, engaging in wanton murder IS a crime, but obeying the proper forms is viewed as acceptable, even laudable.  One who would be an assassin is prohibited from killing anyone unless they have been paid in advance, for example, while a warrior killing an unarmed man would be reviled, for it would be an act of cowardice.

On the other hand, theft, indeed a whole host of innocuous but disruptive acts are viewed as terrible crimes, with occasionally gruesome punishments. For example, a thief has molten gold poured over their hands, destroying them.  A political agitator haranguing the populace might have his tongue cut out and fed to him in small bites.  Note that political agitation is not the crime, but harassing the populace is.

The Tenebrians are incredibly religious as a people. While the level of devotion may vary, as well as reverence, the Gods are viewed as very common, even omnipresent. Each Tenebrian has a 'personal god' chosen for him by his parents at birth, one of the Ten Thousand Gods of Tenebria. There are over a dozen documented 'war gods', each representing a tiny facet of war, and a thousand 'hearth Gods'.  Despite the high numbers of preists, and the fame of the Warpriests of history, there is no organized clergy.  Each temple or monastery is run independently of any other, and a sufficiently devout man could spend his life maintaining a crude shrine of his own making and be viewed by all and sundry as a learned sage of that God, a truer holy man than some preists.   The Tenebrians are rather egalitarian in practice if not in speech or demeanor. Women are expected to maintain the household and be coquettish and demure, yet their legends and culture abounds with stories of wild warrior women and hen pecked husbands subject to their powerful wives.  Currently the Empire, what remains of it, is led by an Empress who holds an almost hypnotic sway over her people, though this may be more due to her dynamic rule than her gender.  The armies of Tenebras are on the march once more, and the nations of the world shudder.


They needent bother, unless they are long lived elves, for the former provinces and nations that once made up the mighty empire are her targets, at least for this lifetime.

The people of Tenebria favor long flowing clothes in light fabrics. Split skirt trousers are popular for men and women, and members of either gender may tie off the cuffs of their garments in preparation for hard work. In fact to 'Tie Up' is slang for hard work.   The armor favored is made of quilted layers of cloth, coated with thick lacquer until it is stiff and gleaming. Universally inks and dyes are used during the lacquering, and a fine suit of armor may have a fantastic design, with peaks and detailing unheard of to other nations. The resulting armor is light and easier to make than its equivalent in metal, though not quite as durable.  Weapons tend to be large and crude looking, at least for common soldiers.  However, any true warrior would be expected to provide his own favored weapons, and the craftsmanship of such are undeniable.  Spears and polearms are the backbone of the foot infantry, while the mounted cavalry of Tenebria have an unparalleled mastery of the bow, though they carry long thin swords they use much as lances when the fighting gets too close.   Cavalry soldiers typically have huge colorful cloth 'wings' or banners affixed to their backs, making them look massive on the field and awe inspiring on the charge.  Ancient law decrees that only horse may use bows, but the footsoldiery are not without massive blocks of archer support, in the form of huge siege crossbows, fired in two or three man teams.  

A curious tradition found when Tenebrian's fight one another lies in the role of officers.  The Officer is the most important part of any unit, and their orders are obeyed without question, even if treacherous. When two units fight, the officers often single one another out for duels, as only the rare soldier dares to engage an obvious superior... even if success would raise his social status and wealth. Often the two units only engage in sort of mock combat as their leaders resolve the 'battle' in single combat. The loser's unit surrenders peacefully.  If an officer dies to misadventure, however, the unit infallingly follows their last order to the letter, even if that last order was to 'wait'.  In the absence of orders, they will typically flee the battlefield.  Many occasions are noted where an exceptional soldier took command of his unit after the officer was killed and altered this normal chain of events. Such men are held as heroes, but among the soldiers are often held in contempt during their own lives.

Over 50 pages now (same caveats as before - no editing, haven't read a bunch of it).  Just thought you should know...

There is a significant population difference between the two major continents.  The southern continent, which we have spoken of in somewhat great detail has only a few scattered communities of dwarves, one significant population of elves, and scattered, often mixed, groups of humans and orcs, along with several indigenous halfling tribes.  

In contrast the Northern continent has a much higher population of Elves and Dwarves, with only the Humans running a close third. Orcs are uncommon, and very uncommon in 'civilized' areas. Halflings are almost unheard of, if a dozen or so halflings live in a single city of major size it's accounted a 'large population'.

Allow me to clarify: the actual population of Elves isn't so very high in terms of actual numbers, but in their impact upon other races. Elven kingdoms and political power is still excessively high. Dwarves have the numbers and the power, but as they tend to exert themselves only rarely, their impact is lessened to the trade agreements and 'dwarven mercenary armies' that occassionally hire out to defend strategic resources. Originally this was only done to protect the common good, mostly from Goblins or other destructive forces, such as the Warlord's army, but in the recent era, they often hire out to defend politically important objectives.  Note that they refuse to sell their services as aggressors, a hallmark of Dwarven culture.  Dwarven merchants are everywhere in the north, often competeing with, or joining with human merchants.  

There is a very real feeling among the various Human cultures that they are newcomers, almost children among the older, wiser races. This leads to both fetishization of the elders, and resentment.   Human kingdoms actively ape both Elvish and dwarvish styles, with only a few 'human original' designs cropping up.  This is not universally true. The Reve, for example, have had very little contact with Elves or Dwarves, their log longhouses are purely human in design, as is their artwork.  While the Reve do borrow from other cultures they've raided, their primary targets are Tenebrian (mostly due to proximity), and the Tenebras are considered mostly 'pure human' in aesthetic design.

The Bearmen that walk the Tundric Flats in the Harmzgelter mountains, in direct counter to this, borrow almost exclusively from Dwarven construction techniques, adapted to surface conditions, of course.

Quote from: James J SkachOver 50 pages now (same caveats as before - no editing, haven't read a bunch of it).  Just thought you should know...

Hey James, interesting to see you are still cataloging this... I wonder if anyone else reads it? :p

Anyway, slow going as I get into more details, the chance to contradict myself looms as I switch from the broad strokes of history to the narrow strokes of 'right here and now'.  Ideally, I want to expand the Tenebrian states at some point, but I don't want to get too focused on them and miss the Nornsa or other cultures that exist.  Mind you, Tenebrian States is about as informative as 'asian', covering a lot of different, vaguely similar, nations, rather than a single culture or nation, and a similar 'sweeping catagory' could be said of the Nornsa kingdoms.  While once these were unified empires, they were made up of many independent nations.

I'm stalking you...follwing behind picking up all of your Pikadroppings...

Like I said, I'm behind in reading it; but I'm trying to keep up with collecting it at the very least.  I was just thinking today I should sketch out a rough map of where things are and such.

You could seriously have a source book.  It's 50 pages with no illustrations or real page work down, just straigt text in Word.

Maybe after Christmas, when I get my personal server back working at home, I'll post it on my web site (whcih needs a complete overhaul as it is).

someone else here who loves it.

only got a chance to read the first post, but the vibe/world you've founded is amazing.  i would love to adventure there.  now i need some spare time to read the rest. . . .

i'd buy the sourcebook

I have a rough sketched map already, I'll have to scan it in and see if I can attach it.

As I said, between Christmas and New Years I'll be rebuilding my server.  I already have a couple of domains, so I'd be happy to host this, just so I can be a part of it. ;)

Though perhaps a Wiki or some such would be a better, choice.

But the offer stands - for free we'll put it on a server and let the world see it.  It would be a fun little project.  Try to make it kinda like the d20 SRD in HTML.

I know of at least four other GMs who lurk around the sites which I do, who are following your work in this thread.

Regards,
David R

I have no idea about how best to put this out there, James. Forums is about the extent of my internet-fu... all that forest living, you know ;)

Thanks for the information, David.  For the sake of my fans I guess I can keep going:melodramatic:

I'll try to get something good going by lunch on the other dominant culture, the Nornsa culture.  I can already feel ideas trickling out of the backbrain... kinda like Chinese Water Torture in reverse...

When discussing Nornsa, one must be fully clear in which era the discussion takes place.  Prior to the Banality, in the Mythic Ages, Nornsa was a village on a hill overlooking the Harbor of Five Seals. Nornsa of that era was nothing more than a place to live and fish. Her nearest neighbors were Orcs of the Fadim tribes, or slightly to the north of that the Elves of the Yrthmu tribe, in their city of White Spires, Illiakei in their tongue.  After the destruction of Irem, Illiakei fell, as many elven cities did, and the wastelands threatened to overwhelm her ruins. The Yrthmu took succor in Nornsa and other human villages for a time before building the current city of Seven Spires, or Illiacli many leagues to the south of Illiakei, so that they would not have to look out their windows and see their former greatness, and failures staring at them.

During the Banality, the Orcs of the Fadim formed their Alliance of Tribes, and they exerted a sort of dominace over all the towns and villages of the region. As a non-orc village, Nornsa was taxed heavily for fish and other products of the sea, and under the stern guidance of these absent 'landlords' grew and prospered, though much of her wealth was paid in tribute.  It is said that the humans of the region developed their hatred of the Orcs from this era, though the prejudices of the Yrthmu that still lived among them can not be discounted.

Following the Banality and the dominance of the Orcs came a man, born and raised in Nornsa, his parentage unknown, though many suggest he had elf blood. He was Vesilimatu, his name meaning 'Great Beloved of Men', and is surely a title rather than his given name. Vesilimatu was a giant of a man, towering over his contemporaries. He was a scholar and a warrior, and seperating truth from legend was impossible, even in his life.  He was said to have fled Nornsa as a boy, having thrown the Orcish taxman from the temple step, breaking the Orc's neck with his bare hands.  It was in Illiacli that he developed a love of learning and mastered, some say invented, the strategic game of Oyoi Stone and Horse, known by all as Oyoi, or sometimes Stones.

What IS known is that the Vasilimatu rode south from Illiacli with a small band of rough men and liberated Nornsa and a small handful of other towns and villages from the Orcs, though history suggests that he faced no real opposition from the Orcs at that time.  He spent the winter gathering men and a handful of Elvish Knights, legendarily Tuathan in origin, and when the Orcs sent armed bands to collect their taxes, he destroyed them, mounting their heads on the gates of his 'cities'.   History again suggests that the Orcs did not take him seriously, and had they sent an army might have destroyed him without much concern. But in the two years he occupied Nornsa, he turned the people to his cause and raised a large, if somewhat ragged army. The following summer the Battle of Dorem Plain, a battle that remains a hallmark of modern strategic study, occured. Outnumbered five to one, most of his army undisciplined, poorly trained fishermen and farmboys he defeated the Orcs of the Fadim. He placed his knights, and himself, in the center of the line, and when the Orcs charged instead of standing, the knights broke and fled, and fled again, luring the orcs in until their greatest warriors were trapped, surrounded on an open plain by Vasilimatu's farmboys, and the suddenly rallied knights turning on them with a vengence.  Once he had destroyed the Van, the knights turned from the melee and launched like a spearthrust at the leaders of the Orcish Army and routed them, slaying thousands that day, and thousands more the next in what the Orcs still refer to as Grogamolokosh, or the Run of Blood and Shame.  

Inspired by his victory, his army bloodied and hardened by battle, Valsilimatu turned his attentions to the East and the South, paying heed not to anger the Elves of Siti, in their forest fastness of Hydiminoi, and from them he drew additional forces. He convinced the Dwarves of the Kamaza Clanhold to build up several of his more 'important' cities, and thus incidentally defend them from those who would harm them. He scattered and razed the cities of the Fadim, he overran the heretics of Lomun and their fledgling kingdom to his south, and when he reached the southern end of the River Erd he turned back leaving his generals to conqure in his name as he turned his attention to ruling nearly one quarter of the known world at that time.  Of course, to him, the known world was the northern continent. His generals ignored Paravail, then still a humble village out to sea, but then they barely crossed the Erd at all. The Kingdoms of the South were sterner competition, richer, better protected and defended than the Western towns and villages.  

Vasilimatu did not live to see the Tenebrian Horde sweep through his southern holdings. If he had, History might have been written differently. As it was, he died some generations before the Tenebrians made their way north, and his Empire soon fell apart as his sons and generals fell to infighting, his empire shattering into two dozen mighty kingdoms within decades, each warring with the others for the right to rule the Empire that was no more.  By the time of the Tenebrian Wars, the Nornsa 'Empire' was nothing more than a memory of past greatness and a handful of mighty cities ruling over a handfull of lesser ones.  If not for their distance, and the twin protections of Hydiminoi and the River Erd, and the Paravailians at their height, Nornsa might be a mere footnote in the history books.

As it was, the Tenebrian's presence, temporary as it was, galvanized many of the southern Kingdoms into setting aside their differences and petty wars, often fought by mercenaries in the increasingly unstable region, and allying. Eventually a new Nornsa, far removed from the original City far to the north, formed, made fat on trade flowing through Paravail, and by virtue of rich coasts and minerals, trade with the Dwarves and Elves of the region.  The new Nornsa was not expansionistic (indeed, could not be, or the fragile alliance that birthed her would have shattered irreprably), but focused on learning, trade and the sciences of Alchemy and Magic.   Her capitol was the city of Renbluve, which still stands proud though her heyday as the seat of a mighty kingdom is long past.

This was the Nornsa that existed prior to the Warlord of Melitior. To discuss Nornsa after one must perforce discuss the Warlord.

In the Tundrid Plateau to the North lies the truly ancient ruins of Mo'kath, the oldest complete ruins in existance, destroyed by the Elves at the end of the Golden Age.  In those Ruins lie many ancient secrets, and the magics of old still lie fallow in her stones, the power of ancient curses and battlespells.

The Warlord, who or whatever he was (for the record, the Avatar of War come to birth the end of civilization into an endless orgy of destruction....) strode out of Mo'Kath and united the scattered tribes of Orcs and the Bearmen (humans of the Tundrid Plateau), and with powerful sorceries enslaved Goblins and terrible creatures and swept south, laying waste to all he surveyed.

The Warlord did not perform simply wanton destruction. No, he toyed with his victims, whole kingdoms and city-states, forcing them to adapt, to become more warlike to fight him, to survive, and when they were vicious enough he would pass them by. Some he would recruit to his cause, others he would destroy as examples to the others. His armies grew and grew, splitting in two going around the Great Forest Hydiminoi, knowing what evils the Elves could perpetrate when driven hard enough, as he slowly but surely did. His eastern horde swept south, eventually crossing the seas to attack the southlands, though the Warlord himself was not present, and the Eastern Army floundered eventually against the Tenebrian Empire in the South. The Warlord pressed against Nornsa, and found the hardest fight he ever had, and he gloried in it, even has he gnashed his black teeth against the alliance of Light that forged to stop him. He wanted war between the races, between brothers.  It was here he spent his forces as if they were water, and in a terrible thrust pushed into Nornsa, cutting her in half as he pushed to destroy the architects of the Alliance where they sought sanctuary at the southernmost tip. The Battle was terrible, and the Warlord was destroyed by means known only by legend.   It is said that the Queen of the Elves, she who had bent her knee to the pride of the Dwarves, sacrificed her immortality, her life to preserve the lives of people who were not her own, her soul was forged into a shining blade of light by the greatest of all Dwarven weaponsmiths, who, not to be outdone, poured his own life into the work, quenching the blade in his own heartsblood, and this weapon was weilded by the daughter of the King of men, who without malice in her heart was immune to the weapons of the Warlord and thrust the blade into the heart of the Warlord, and was willingly consumed by this act.

The Death of the Warlord was attended by Death himself, who refused to collect the souls of any involved... including the Warlord.  Instead the Elves and dwarves and Men built a massive Sepulchure over him, warded with the most puissant magics they could find, then built the fabled city of Ysithyderi around it, and this became the capitol of a new Nornsa, lacking only the name of that fabled kingdom of old.

The new kingdom was famous for being a true kingdom of three races. The Siti withdrew from the world, mourning their lost Queen, she who had ruled them from before time, and legend holds the last living being to remember the Titans, what they looked like, what they called themselves...

One last note on the the death of the Warlord. One popular legend holds that the actual deathstroke, had it come from the girl would have ended the Warlord for all time (and by extension, though men know it not, War itself), but she was only immune to the minions of the Warlord. It is said that Death was drawn to her, by her beauty and dedication, and took up her sword and slew the Warlord himself on her behalf, for only Death has such power that no other could stand. But Death refused to claim only the Warlord's soul for reasons of his own (being that War is kin perhaps), and now carries the Sword of Three Souls as His Bride. Others claim the Sword still peirces the Warlords breast, and if ever removed he might rise again, others claim if he rises, only the sword can finish him.

Regardless of what legend you follow, it is a catagorical fact, held up by record, that Death changed following the death of the Warlord. Depictions of the being before are of some inhuman feind, cruel and heartless. Often formless, or nearly so, and personally attending the deaths of all beings of note.  After the Warlord, Death took on a more Human appearence, often legends ascribe him talking to people kindly before claiming them peacefully, and he is said to be attended by blind maidens who claim those slain in battle, so that he does not have to look on the ruin of the battlefeilds.  There are those who claim that Death was changed when he learned of Love, others suggest a new being claimed the Mantle of Death, even going so far as to suggest the previous Death was slain by the Warlord, and as one of the immutable beings of creation, his power flowed into the nearest host, who finished the job. Those who hold the Warlord in high esteem tend to belive that he had the power to slay Death, if only temporarily.  

It was Death who guarded the tomb of the Warlord from Dragon's fire when Ysithyderi was destroyed, and the bones of those Dragons who dared his power guard it still.

Following the fall of Ysithyderi the kingdoms of man fell once more into fractious infighting, and two Nornsa's arose.  The first was the original city to the North which still rules a respectable empire, though the Hwarzia in the mountains rebelled a few hundred years ago and remain a thorn in the side of that kingdom.

To the south the city of Renbluve, having long lost her status as the Jewel of the South, rose over a smaller Nornsa kingdom. Renbluve has worked hard to reclaim her glory, and has mostly succeeded.  The Kingdom, however, is hard pressed to stay 'alive'. The Order of the Coin, which dates back to the Pre-Warlord Nornsa, works hard to keep the new Nornsa wealthy, yet the land is poor, overworked, the mines are ancient, deep and mostly played out.  The people are wealthy, educated... they are a nation of scholars and philosophers, their power is undisputed, and Renbluve never fell to the Warlord, though he certainly had his sights on them near the end.  But they survived, in part by enslaving those who had served the Warlord. Captured Orcs and Goblins, and even men, were put to work in the mines, forges, and farms of the Kingdom, feeding a desperate army.  To this day the decendents of those original Slaves still work those same mines and farms, alongside criminals. Recently it has become popular to take slave children and raise them in the cities to serve in the houses of the rich and powerful, though this is viewed as immoral and distasteful by many others.  Most of the nearby kingdoms turn a blind eye to the practice, pretending it doesn't exist, though others have begun to ape them, procuring slaves from the Nornsa or capturing their own. Still a third faction, and the predominant one, views the practice as distasteful in the extreme and will having nothing to do with it.  

An attendant problem in those kingdoms who have recently begun allowing slavery is the displacement of lower classes. Farmers and miner's, those who earned their livelihood in those jobs that are not 'slave work' often find themselves destituite, and shortly after slaves themselves, or turn to banditry.  Nornsa, having lost those personages during the Warlord's March, never had that problem, though they do have a large 'urban poor' class, many of whom end up criminals (thus, eventually, slaves) or join the robust army of Nornsa.

Former Ysithyderi has split into Ys, to the East, Nornsa, to the North, and Helthdan to the west. Ys has shrunk to a fraction of it's former size, with a dozen splinter kingdoms, but has stabilized nicely. Helthdan isn't even a kingdom anymore, but a collection of dozens of smaller kingdoms, the people are known as Helthdanes, but no kingdom claims that name. Nornsa, properly, wasn't part of Ys, but rather absorbed a portion of her land before fragmenting. The modern Nornsa is one kingdom and 8 splinter kingdoms, some of whom fight each other.  The River Erd is viewed as the end of Nornsa lands, though this is not entirely accurate. Paravail, for example, was NEVER part of Nornsa, and her culture remains uniquely her own, but to the east a great number of lands share a great deal of cultural traits with Nornsa, often blended with Tenebrian imported cultural artifacts.

In the intrest of naming conventions, those human lands to the north and east, where neither Nornsa or Tenebrian cultures ever reached are often called 'Melitorian', after the Warlord.  This might be unfair, though no kingdom of the time had the power to withstand him, though the Warlord, properly, was named after the human term for the general region.


To move beyond the purely mortal understanding, it must be understood that in purely metaphysical terms, the Warlord, as the Avatar of War, was tearing asunder the Great Engine of the First Smith. War then is the mortal enemy of the First Smith and the Gods. this is ironic, because War might be considered the only God native to Haven, being born entirely here.  War doesn't want the destruction of Haven, he wants to tear apart the Great Engine and the Barrier, allowing Demons, old and new, to once again war with the Gods. He is like a spoiled child who fails to see he would destroy his own home in the name of amusement.  War has no expirence with Chaos, as the First Gods do, or Demons for that matter, which makes him ironically very weak.  He can only draw power from the metaphysical cause of his existance, war itself. Mortal wars only give him mortal power, divine wars give him more power. The treaty then incidentally is anathama to him, limiting him to the Warlord... and the Warlord is Dead.  It would take an apocalyptic mortal war or a serious violation of the Treaty to give him the power to rise once more.... the mistake made by those who destroyed him (thus why Death didn't claim him) is that 'Love' or 'Self Sacrifice' isn't anathama to War, though powerful weapons in their own right. Peace is, and while the Sword of Three Souls carries a lot of peace in it's forging, it was not forged as a weapon of Peace... a metaphysical impossibility.  

As for what happened in that final battle, and to Death itself... some things are best not discussed, but left for the reader to decide.

If anyone is reading this, please, feel free to comment. Tell me what you liked or didn't like, and what you'd like to see more (or less) of.


I rather suspect that if I ever decide to redo this for publication or re-release, I would leave out most of the theological and metaphyscial bits. Know them, certainly, understand them, of course, use them to build up more? Indubitably...

But as it stands I lay out too many cards on the table and risk putting people off.  My presentation, for the purposes of players, is all backwards I suspect.  I've started taking that tack when writing the recent parts, being a bit more obscure and leaving more unsaid than when I started.

i've (unfortunately) got the day off from work tomorrow, so i plan on reading the whole shebang in one go!

any choice of soundtracks while i do so?  wagner, perhaps? :D

i've been hardcore into the WoW 'track. i think the first post goes well with it's epic feel.

Wow, pretty impressive. Other than some names not really fitting my personal perceptions its very nice. (Grogamolokosh this one it seems a bit off but its Orcish..so..)

Anyway my long post I had I realized you've already thought on one of the major other issues I was going to talk about--presentations/too much info interferes with play (as opposed to making an RPG for just "readers" as opposed to actually playing.) A good world with solid story is grand, but making it digestable and useable is an issue, but you know this so :)


Keep up the good work.

Quote from: SilverlionWow, pretty impressive. Other than some names not really fitting my personal perceptions its very nice. (Grogamolokosh this one it seems a bit off but its Orcish..so..)

Anyway my long post I had I realized you've already thought on one of the major other issues I was going to talk about--presentations/too much info interferes with play (as opposed to making an RPG for just "readers" as opposed to actually playing.) A good world with solid story is grand, but making it digestable and useable is an issue, but you know this so :)


Keep up the good work.

Well, Silver, technically Grogamolokosh isn't a name at all, it's a verb with attached adverb and descriptor (in english, two adverbs).... ;)

I'm not crazy enough to invent whole langauges (I gave that up as a nipper...), but I should go back and make sure I'm at least using similar linguistic rules in each demonstrable use of a related language.

One issue that's come up as I've been writing this is scope, or scale. I'm trying to describe an entire world... one I had envisioned as being epic in scope, thus larger than our own (taller mountains, deeper ravines, wider oceans, larger nations....).  When discussing everything, things tend to get collapsed down, you don't know how far apart Tenebria and Nornsa are, they sound like neighbors.

There should be a hundred or more major cities, each unique and notable in it's own right, and I've named maybe a dozen, half of which are ancient ruins.

To give some ideas:

Paravail, on a penninsula thrust out into the Sea of Gattipol, is on the end of a landmass roughly the size of India, and none of the powers mentioned share that land mass with her.  Hydiminoi, the Great forest of the Siti tribe of Elves is bigger than all of Europe, yet occupies maybe a tenth of the northern continent. The river Erd, as a consequence is long enough to completely cross the lenght of Africa, maybe then some.  

If I reduce my scale to more normal proportions, then the Erd flows some 5000 miles, Paravail is on a penninsula the size of Florida, maybe a bit longer and the limits of the Hydiminoi are a thousand miles along either axis.


So... not only do I need to refine my presentation to reader/player level as I work, I need to fill in the huge gaps between the major historical players. Paravail is not without neighbors, it is just that none on the penninsula have ever had a major influence on history, and have gone without mention.

Much has been said of history and legend, but what of the modern age? Should not we deal with the history of individual nations as needed as we discuss what occurs in the modern era?

Thus we turn our attentions to the land once known as Hygleac, now known to all as 'Greater Paravail', the penninsula upon which that city prospers.

The Erd flows from the Lake of Smoke, high up in the mountains of Karamako that border the Wastes of Irem. From there it flows far to the East through Hesh, turning south before reaching the sea. It flows through the Hydiminoi, eventually forming a border between the lands of the Nornsa and those who were Tenebrian before entering Hygleac, eventually flowing into the Sea of Gattipol.  Many view the River as possessing mystic properties, absorbed and channeled from the many lands she flows through.  

The northern expanse of Hygleac is a vast desert, dry and sparse. The Erd does not flood often or widely, her banks are carved deep into into limestone, and the hard land does not absorb her waters. The bearded Keks culture worships the river, claiming it flows from the seat of life, and even the gods of the Keks are said to have come from it's waters.  Their kingdom is poor, though from the rocky hills and valleys they are able to mine iron and gold, along with a few gems, however, they can barely grow enough food to survive the dry seasons.  The Keks men do not shave, nor do any of them cut their hair. This is not mandated by law, and one might see a bald or beardless Keks male on rare occasions, often for health reasons, but to be 'beardless' is an insult, suggesting 'unmanliness' or 'boyishness'.  In some of the more distant regions it is popular with the women of the keks to paint their cheeks with dark pigments to suggest beards.

The 'Culture' of the Keks is very much a tribal/clan structure. Each tribal cheiftan is a king of his people, and the tribes themselves hold 'sacred ancestral lands', defending them with a particular vigor.  Many of the more dominant tribes have fortresses in the mountains that form a natural border between the Keks and the Nornsa lands. The Paravailians trade heavily with the tribes to keep them as defenders of Hygleac, and by extension Paravail. Notably, the Tenebrians did not attempt to cross the mountains, though they did send heavily armed supply shipmends down the Erd through them, but landed their army by boat on the coastline and took the river 'cities' and ignored the feirce mountain tribes.

Kek culture is simple for the most part, an agricultural lifestyle in a hardscrabble land. It is then most efficent to discuss highlights that make Keks more unique.  Their garments are almost unversally rough homespun cloth, dyed in bright, vibrant solid colors with local pigments. Men and women favor loose fitting clothes.  Sandles or barefoot is the norm for lowland Keks, but the mountain tribes wear boots or curled toe shoes made of goat skin.
Bathing is public, typically in a river or irrigation ditch, but in drier communities, a dousing from the public well is most common.  While modesty is heavily prized, there is no nudity taboo, in fact the consumation of a wedding night is closely watched by the parents of both families.  Modesty, then, is more public comportment and behavior.  Gossip, for example, is frowned upon unless done behind closed doors.  Aside from festivals and music, most Keks communities are fairly quiet, as speaking in public...except for business, is viewed as 'immodest'. Of course, the cities are loud riots, as many of the more traditional behaviors are relaxed, and every day is some sort of religious festival.  In private, however, the Keks are loud, boisterous, occasionally rude. Being invited into a home is akin to becoming a member of the family, and semi-serious offers of marriage are sure to follow.   Keks do not like to do business with strangers, beyond casual exchanges, so offering a bride (or groom...) is a sure sign of serious business to come. If you accept.  The difficutly lies then in dealings. They have no minted coinage, but set great value on gold and silver as mediums of exchange.   They have little to offer the casual merchant, as a people, but to a more discerning trader, their crafts, particularly the 'metal lace' they make for jewelry (and the Keks love to wear their wealth), and some of their more exotic desert spices, can be sold to distant lands for great profit.  

There are many exotic rules for men and women among the Keks.  Men rule and do business one way, women may rule and do business, but not as men do. To the casual observer this may not be obvious. One may either assume that women are treated the same as men, or may assume that women are in the inferior position. Neither is precisely true.  Politically, women in Keks culture have less power, less say in many things. This is even more true in the mountain tribes than elsewhere, where women are often viewed as property, and very valuable property at that (land, women and gold, three thinks a Mountain Keks will kill you just for coveting).  In the lowlands, this is less true. A woman may inherit or acquire wealth and power through a variety of channels, and be deeply respected once she does.  More, women are absolute masters of the Home in most Lowland communities.  One does not, for example, ask a man to enter his home (provided one has been invited) one asks his wife.  Likewise the women are responsible for arranging the marriages and determining the future living arraingments of the happy couple, and negotiations can be cut throat.    In keeping with tribal traditions, Keks live in multigenerational homes, living alone is an aberration, often a mark of tragedy.  Homes therefore are often quite large, and families may seem wealthier than they are, as several members of the extended family provide wealth.  

It should be noted that the mountain Keks hate the dwarves, viewing them as treacherous feinds who seek to steal the land and gold out from underneath them (literally underneath), while the lowlanders often call the mountain tribes 'dwarves', but trade equitably with the occasional visitor from that race.

There is a temptation to discuss the other cultures of the Hygleac penninsula in greater detail before moving on to other regions of interest.  Obviously there is interest in the Mulgrim, and their gold covered repasts and their minarets, how they have risen from the Swamp of the Sudd to become shining kings of their lands, their wars with their cousins from the Bhradain dynasty across the banks of the Erd, how this war has prevented them from capitalizing on the trade up and down the river.  Perhaps an in depth look at the Bhradain themselves, their rigid caste structure, the preist-king and his army of Eunuchs.

One could mention their distant relation to the northern Keks, or the constant trade between the southern kingdoms and the northern Keks.  Perhaps the delicate bejeweled 'Eggs' that are the highest artform of the Bhradain, or their bizzare habit of allowing the swamp scorpion's to sting them so they can experience the ecstatic illumination.

 Pehaps we shall pass from the banks of the Erd to the western coast of Hygleac, where the Fisher Kings reign, their sea going ships unmatched in the Gattipol, how they retreat from the mainland when enemies press them, the entire nation fleeing to the seas, where they reign supreme.

But would you rather move away from this to the distant north, where the Bearmen roam the icy wastes of the Tundrid Plateau where no many should be able to live through the night, yet whole tribes of men not only thrive, but still hold the Warlord of Melitior as the greatest of them?

Indeed, we should speak now of these distant northmen, the remotest of all men, whose harsh lives make the lives of the Reve on their rocky shores seem positively pastoral.  The Karamako mountains form the southern border to the Tundrid Plateau, the northern edge is a massive cliff, nearly a league in height looking over the barrens of the north, stretching as far as the eye can see... all the way to the edge of creation and the Queen of the North in her Tower.  

The plateau is massive, a man could spend his entire life traveling it and not see every corner, not that there is much to see. The land is rugged, locked in frozen winter the year round. It is said that once the  Tundrid Plateau was lower, cold and icy much of the year, but when the Elves destroyed Mo'garesh, the land heaved and rebelled at the torture.  

Tribes, known as the Bearmen, wander the plains, each is unique, but many share common traits. Not all are human, many are orc, or have a significant percentage of orcish blood. Most drape themselves in the hides of great cave bears they slay for meat and fur, and thus the name.

To the casual observer the Bearmen are primative savages, nomads who should be barely able to survive, a people who rarely, if ever, eat the fruits of the earth.  This to the casual observer, for the Bearmen do not just hunt bears, they worship them. It is said that the men (and orcs) who lived here before the land heaved to the sky, found themselves trapped in a wasteland incapable of supporting life. They turned to the Great Bear, an Old God, and begged him for succor, and in his wisdom he made them his children, giving them the blood of the bears.  

This is the most often heard story, but many tribes worship other animals of the north,  the farthest north one may find the Wolf Pack tribes, whom even the Bearmen fear, saying they have been driven mad by staring through the endless night towards the end of the world, though the Wolves tell another tale entirely.

More importantly, the land is not so barren as it appears to those from more habitable lands. Many hardy plants grow there, from rare evergreen copses to iceberries, the same shade as the snow they grow from.  While nothing may be cultivated, most tribes suppliment their diets with what they can find in the wild.

Neither are the tribes entirely nomadic. Their hunting parties might travel for days, or weeks, on the hunt, making camps of snow block buildings or in snow caves carved from drifts. The Wolf Pack tribes do not even do that much, but pile together under a sheet of two hides, relying on brotherhood and bodyheat to preserve them through the cold.  But almost every tribe has a permanent camp, a town or village they call home. Many of these are cunningly hidden from their enemies, some in ravines or hidden valleys, others deep in the few tiny forests. There they have homes of stone, primative founderies and surface mines. They occasionally trade, or sell their services as mercenaries or guides across the icy wastes, others commit banditry on any they can find.  The Wolves, so far removed from all other peoples use stone and bone for their weapons, while the Bearmen in the southern reaches use dwarven steel, trading furs for it when they can.  None wear armor more than the thick hides that preserve their lives, for metal armor would be the death of them in the cold.

We have spoken many times of the southern kingdom of Nornsa, and the shining fortress city of Renbluve, yet we have not truly detailed them.  Great and terrible things are focused in Nornsa, the world changes once more, and the axis of that change is Renbluve itself.

Renbluve is occasionally known as the White City, or the City of Levels.  Originally a fishing village on the coast, under cliffs of gleaming white rock that thrust from the ground in a massive rise, as the population grew, and the need to defend themselves arose, the population gradually moved their most important buildings atop the great Rock, their temples carved from the same white stone. By the time of Versilimatu, Renbluve was already an unassailable fortress overlooking the sea, and tales of her capture are the stuff of legend.  The oldest son of Versilimatu coveted Renbluve, and made her his own when the original Nornsa empire began to fragment in the wake of the great King's death, and built for himself a powerful kingdom with the White City as his seat.

The Crown of the Rock, walled and virtually unreachable, is half a city and half a fortress.  The only route up is long, winding and treacherous, and very well guarded by peoples who long ago mapped ever nook and crevice, trapped every turn, and during the Warlord's March, proved willing to destroy it. The wealthiest and most powerful lords of Nornsa, the Archmagus Academy, the Temples, and the Alchemists all make their homes in the Crown, behind walls formed from the living rock itself, in towers and spires that reach to the very heavens.  A recent addition to the skyline are the floating manses, unique in all the world.  The Archmages slowly seem to recover the secrets of the Titans.

Meanwhile the Alchemists have discovered new secrets of their own, fueling a bitter rivalry between the two organizations.  In Renbluve one may see Flamesticks in the belts of daring dilletants, desperate duellists, and the Dragoons of Nornsa are the newest, and most feared military in the world. While Firesticks have slowly started to appear around the world, only in Renbluve are they common enough, along with the secrets of their operation, to equip a military with.  As the Dragoons ride on flying reptiles, minature dragons bred by the Archmages, the Nornsa seem posed to conquer the world while they still have the advantage, though it is a matter of some debate if the Dragoons are the equal to the massive, and incredibly disciplined, Tenebrian Army...

Below the Crown lies the Walled Harbor, the original town of Renbluve, now surrounded by walls nearly the equal to that of the Crown, and a large city in her own right.  This is the enclave of the bourgeois, the tradesmen, craftsmen and merchants that keep the Crown alive.  The Walls extend out to two towers in the sea, with enough room betweent them to allow the widest of merchant vessels to pass, but not much more.  The harbor itself is well sheltered naturally, and the walled portion is said to be the smoothest sailing known to man, this Harbor within a Harbor is large enough for entire fleets to shelter in, while the outer harbor is a massive quarentine zone for tax inspectors and paperwork duties. A smuggling trade exists, largely in the outer harbor, which is well defended from land based fortessess constructed on the headlands, and entire communities have formed on the water itself, with floating taverns and brothels, and worse. The city does not enforce any laws on the outer harbor, but does reap the profits of much of the trade. Bribery is expected to access the inner harbor, and harbormasters report, and are taxed on the bribes they take... mostly.  To be perfectly honest, paying judges, or publicly flexing political muscle, are openly accepted means of dealing with legal issues.  As a result there is surprisingly little corruption, and influence peddling is difficult because a rival can move openly against you to counteract this.

Outside the Walled City, and extending around the base of the Crown exists a massive, permanent suburbia of poorer districts.  The inhabitants are not perceived as being citizens of Renbluve, though they are members of the greater community (proles), and becoming a citizen is one of the few ways inside the Walls other than as paid labor.

Even the suburbs are surprisingly clean and well run, however.  The Archmagus Academy regularly sends out apprentices to practice humble magics in street cleaning, the Alchemists expiriment with means of destroying sewage, or converting it to useable substances, and the Renbluve Engineering Society has made great strides in their 'hobby'.   Most importantly, every morning before the sun rises, the City's Slave Corp, filled with convicted criminals and orc and goblin decendents of the Warlords Armies are marched solemnly through the city on their way out to the farms and mines that feed the city, or on their way to whatever labor jobs they are called on to perform IN the city, and along the way they must perform such duties as to maintain the city... picking up trash, or bodies, sweeping up the sewage and roadapples. The Goblins particularly are preferred for this work, as they will consume much of what is left out, though care must be taken that they do not attempt to eat drunks or the dead.

It is an open secret that under the Crown lie extensive catacombs carved from the living stone over millenia, though what lies in them is anyone's guess.  

Slaves are a very rare sight within the city, and the term 'Slave' is extremely gauche. Many of the more refined citizens will go through quite contorted efforts to avoid calling them such, or even acknowledging their legal status. Technically all slaves should belong to the city, though the practice of 'selling them' to those in need of unskilled labor has reduced that to a mere formality, and in recent times a 'lip service tradition', as many of the 'old money' in the crown, and somewhat MORE of the 'new money' in the Wall have taken to using slaves as personal attendants and 'house servants'.

The rise of Slave traders specializing in bringing in attractive and tractable slaves for such uses is extremely troubling to many more open minded citizens, and is only possible given the rise of slavery in the region...following Renbluve's example.

*Firesticks have recently come to be known by some as 'Gonnes', or Guns if you will, the etymology of this term is unclear, but may have some origins in Dwarvish for 'tube' or 'Rod', which can be roughly 'Gomnes', though the spelling in non-dwarvish is subject to debate.  There are those that suggest that the orcish slaves named it such for their bastardized word for 'Death', in the local patios 'Gfonz', the similarities of both terms are self evident, though in spoken word they are dissimilar.

To be Cont.

In discussing Renbluve, one may come to the impression that their culture is self evident beyond the trivial details mentioned in that city.  Not so. Perhaps in a stretch of backwards revelation, it was decided to focus on those things truely unique to the most advanced city in the modern age, and deal with the general culture when we turn to discussing the life of the Southern Nornsa as a whole.

A culture does not exist seperately from its environment. The lands of the South are warm, sunny, with gently rolling plains and scattered forests and rivers.  They have been settled since time immemorial, and occasionally very ancient stone ruins and even barrows of long lost kingdoms might be found.  The Nornsa do not dwell overly much on history. Perhaps their proximity to the Hydiminoi forest to the North and East, and the frequent contact with the Immortal Elves of the Siti has some factor in this.  The Nornsa have been farmers for some time, the fast growing Guelph trees provide most of their wood, leaving the older hardwood forests mostly untamed, given the love the Nornsa have for horses, they may feel uncomfortable in the closely packed trees. Indeed, one thing that often comes to mind to most people when discussing the Nornsa are their horsemen and cavalry.  It is said that the first men settled here and offered thanks to the gods for the bounty of the land, in return for their peity, the Gods gave them Horses to tame and ride.  Between Horses and Peity, there remains little to say of the 'typical Nornsa', even the poorest farm has at least one old nag to pull a plow, though as one gets closer to Renbluve, free farmers are rarer, and landed nobilty overseeing slave worked plantations grow ever commoner. Those plantation lords live largely idle lives, roaming the land on horseback, and romantic tales are told of them.

To the Nornsa, the worship of the Gods is a given. Piety is rewarded in this life and the next, each house has at least one small shrine to the hearth gods, and every facet of life has some tiny ritual devoted to it, though the sheer volume of such rituals means that many go unperformed simply out of ignorance. A midwife will burn the umbilical cord of a newborn to give thanks because she knows it is proper, while a farmwife might not because there is no reason for her to know better.  the Nornsa belive the Gods are forgiving of such lapses, but look more favorably when such rituals are performed.

Physically the Nornsa are nut brown, often with dark hair and eyes, though a dusky red is not unheard of for hair, and green eyes are particularly prized, though rare.  They are slight of build and delicate of feature, many ascribe this to strong elven blood, and many nobles will proudly claim elven descent even if no evidence exists to back this up.  

They favor trousers and tunics, often of wool or cotton, which grows well in the region, preferring to dye their clothes in muted colors.  Nobles favor half capes over one shoulder, those favoring duels might wear such a cape lined with leather strips for protection.  

Interestingly, the Nornsa do not marry. Men and women take lovers for periods of time, with urban and higher station members of society taking new lovers more frequently.   Children typically stay with the mother for a time, but most sons move in with their father by puberty, and will inherit from their father, while daughters inherit from the mother. Among the poor, it is more common for a couple to stay together, even if they are no longer lovers (and have outside loves), though the same tendency to send children to the appropriate family persists.  In 'stable' relationships, or with a current lover, it is gauche, even rude, to discuss other lovers, past or present.  The wooing process is not easy, and the social codes governing it are positively byzantine.   Foreign conquests are prized among the wealthy, often for the utter naiviety they show, and can be treated almost like pets, though always with an eye for not upsetting them.   Naturally, the Nornsa place a great deal of emphasis on planning pregnancies, and have developed a number of highly effective birth control methods.

Technically, the kingdom of Nornsa is a feudal one, though the peasants are not bound to the land. Nobles typically leave the running of their feifs to local village mayors, though occasional keeps out in the rural regions may hold a local lord with no taste for city life.  Nobles are the 'heart and soul' of the military, though the recent rise of the Dragoon regiments in Renbluve is changing this.  Nobles are expected to provide a certain amount of Horse in times of war. There are two branches of 'Horse' in the Nornsa way. Light Horse, the Hussars, are on fast chargers, lightly armored, armed with long thin swords for the charge, and powerful bows as their primary armament. The Heavy Horse, or Knights, are powerful, almost unstoppable heavily armored lance cavalry in plate. For a time the Knights were viewed as the ultimate expression of Nornsa might, though many poorer nobles could not afford the kit, in the modern age, the mobility and strategic value of the Hussar, and the comparative cheapness of plate in the face of new techniques for forging, has led to increasing debate between members of each 'class' of nobility.  

While there are specific titles for the nobilty, the only true measurement that is used by almost everyone, is Light or Heavy, with a rising new 'class' of nobility, the Compadores... nobles who do not organize into units, do not wear armor, but ride and 'harrass' as they will. Compadores are often called 'dilettants' by the other two, not truely warriors but peacock ruffians playing soldier.

The soldiery, traditionally, was ill equipped, ill trained infantry, armed with spears mostly. Bowmen, generally hunters impressed into service, would be grouped as archers and given minimal training in military tactics.   In the wake of the Warlords March there has been a gradual increase in 'professional' soldiers, culminating in the Dragoons.  Prior to the Warlord Era, the only infantry of note on Nornsa battlegrounds were mercenary regiments, who were often barred from riding horses in battle without noble dispensation... though many a mercenary captain was made a peer, and thus his company would become mounted. Many mercenaries, who were called Dragoons prior to the adoption by the current aerial cavalry, would ride to battle then dismount to fight as infantry to avoid violating the law.

Speaking of Nornsa law, nobles are the primary judges of crimes in their feif, though in their abscence a senseshal, called a sheriff, would be appointed to oversee their duties.  The justice system is rudimentary, and many tales of corrupt sheriffs running roughshod over the peasants make the rounds. Most crimes are punished via death by exposure, often in cages hung at crossroads.  

Tales of people 'pulling one over' corrupt sheriffs are much loved of the peasants. As taxes are levied by portion, a farmer suffering from excess taxes might offer a small bag of grain as his entire crop, obliging the sheriff to take one tenth of the bag, or enough for perhaps a single meal, while the farmer subsists on the charity of neighbors from another county (county, derived from 'counting', an area that falls under a single noble 'tax collector'... thus the most common title for nobles  is 'Count'), or some non-taxed produce, such as fruit or mushrooms from a nearby woods.  Recall that the peasants are free, such as it is, and thus have many options for dealing with oppression from the nobility, and their culture upholds such 'quiet resistance' as an ideal response.


The signature weapon of many Nornsa is the Espadrille, or Grass Blade, a short sword or long knife with a tapered blade, generally no longer than the arm of the weilder.  These are elegant weapons, often light and quick, and a darting motion is used when fencing with them. The long blades are suitable for drawing cuts, heavy enough to cut deep, and the sharp point is more than suitable for stabbing. Shorter blades of the same design are more akin to daggers but confusingly get the same name.  Interestingly, the proper way to carry an espadrille, or at least one longer than the forearm, is sheathed and held in the left hand. In public places there is a notch in tables or benches specifically so that the Espadrille may be set down, and again an entire ettiquete exists governing the proper deportment of Espadrilles.

The Hussars, interestingly, never carry an Espadrille, considering it beneath them. Their weapon is the Stalk, a sword of considerable length, often four feet of blade or more, with a triangular cross section and no edge at all, used to run enemies through.  The Stalk requires a great deal of training to use on foot, though it makes an adequete spear in anyone's hand.   It is notable to point out that the Hussars first formed in the eastern parts of the kingdom, and much of their 'costume' is exotic looking in the more 'settled' western half.

To finish up a common saying about the Nornsa: He is always cheerful, wether dancing, drinking or murdering, but he will cry over a lost horse as if his heart were rent.

Quote from: SpikePehaps we shall pass from the banks of the Erd to the western coast of Hygleac, where the Fisher Kings reign, their sea going ships unmatched in the Gattipol, how they retreat from the mainland when enemies press them, the entire nation fleeing to the seas, where they reign supreme.
.

That name Hygleac combined with Bear-persons, have you been watching 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead? ;) )

The rest is interesting (Hussars being a name for a Polish military unit might cause some confusion as well)


Other than those teeny things very nice. What kind of system are you going to use for this? What kind of important conflicts will be going on during the start "year" of this campaign?

Quote from: SilverlionThat name Hygleac combined with Bear-persons, have you been watching 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead? ;) )

The rest is interesting (Hussars being a name for a Polish military unit might cause some confusion as well)


Other than those teeny things very nice. What kind of system are you going to use for this? What kind of important conflicts will be going on during the start "year" of this campaign?

Actually, I haven't been watching it, Hygleac was made using my normal naming conventions (string a bunch of letters together in cool ways and see what comes up...), while the bearmen was more independent. The Hussars are... hey get this! Light cavalry... I steal from everywhere, lol... maybe I should change the name just to avoid confusion (Dragoons, for the record were infantry that rode horses and dismounted to fight... often equipped with firearms....)

Espadrilles, of course, are shoes. ;)

Quote from: SpikeActually, I haven't been watching it, Hygleac was made using my normal naming conventions (string a bunch of letters together in cool ways and see what comes up...), while the bearmen was more independent. The Hussars are... hey get this! Light cavalry... I steal from everywhere, lol... maybe I should change the name just to avoid confusion (Dragoons, for the record were infantry that rode horses and dismounted to fight... often equipped with firearms....)

Espadrilles, of course, are shoes. ;)

Yeah I'm aware of them and janissaries and myrmidons and many others. However its funny that the name and the bear tribes meshed that way.

In the original story Beowulf  is related to Hygelic (cousin?), and they mention it in 13th warrior his relation and the "grendel" of that story being a Bear Worshipping tribe.


Not a bad name though just thought I'd mention it, someone may notice the similarities if you publish this.


So system? *pokes* I want to hear what this is going to be used for :)
When are you running it?

Quote from: SilverlionYeah I'm aware of them and janissaries and myrmidons and many others. However its funny that the name and the bear tribes meshed that way.

In the original story Beowulf  is related to Hygelic (cousin?), and they mention it in 13th warrior his relation and the "grendel" of that story being a Bear Worshipping tribe.


Not a bad name though just thought I'd mention it, someone may notice the similarities if you publish this.


So system? *pokes* I want to hear what this is going to be used for :)
When are you running it?

Well... I'm thinking I'll be using the MRQ system, run the system through it's paces. I had a post I was going to make covering the treatment of the various races, as MRQ is pretty humanocentric, but I got the Monster book the other night and just about every race I have is in there somewhere.   I got lazy on trying to come up with new lifepath backgrounds for each race once i figured that each race would have certain analogs to the existing ones.

I was a bit nervous about adding in the firearms, nothing I've mentioned so far was working up to that... but then history often doesn't, eh?  I'm tempted to run though a post discussing the tactical and strategic deployment of the Dragoons (most will only fire a single shot as a 'terror weapon' and charge in with spear/lances.  Guns are still viewed mostly as a novelty device, rather than a serious weapon... in fact, I will do a post on Guns specifically).

As for terms like Hussars, Janisarries and so forth, I expect I'll be using more of them where appropriate. No sense inventing new terms for everything.  If knight is a perfectly valid term to steal, so should Hussar, right? :D


I hope to be running this starting in January. I have two or three pretty much garaunteed players (depending on timing) but I like bigger groups for the dynamics. More people equates to more ideas and party interplay.

The last decade or so has seen the arrival of a fantastic new device upon the scene in the world: Dragoons armed with Firesticks and riding fabulous flying beasts resembling nothing so much as miniature dragons.

It has only been the last five or so years that organized regiments of volunteer soldiers have taken to the skies in any numbers, and those years saw significant improvements.

Roughly 15 years ago, the Royal Alchemists Society discovered a compound, which when properly treated and exposed to a catalyst (their term) reacted violently, often shattering the apparatus it was in.  At first it was a mere novelty, a useless experiment, a prank to play on younger students. However, one bright lad, after ruining a laboratory array trying to follow the instructions had a bright idea to harness this stuff. Initially, his experiments were in the nature of mobile machines, using the explosive blasts propel the arms of a 'windmill' in a very noise mortar and pestle device. It was after this apparatus broke, on arm flying off and peircing the oak door of the lab, that he determined a better use, armless crossbows.

Other uses have since been discovered, the explosive force is used to shatter stone in mining in larger quantities, though still very expensive for the return value.

The original 'Firestick' was a crude affair, a short metal tube affixed to the base of a crossbow stock that contained the 'layer cake' charge (the actual blast is produced with the layers mix when the catalyst passes through them), with a 'charge hole' on top for the firer to pour the liquid catalyzer in. A crossbow bolt would be placed on the stock with one end in the tube.  Firing was incredibly awkward, as one could imagine, and the blast, while impressive, tended to shatter the bolt, flinging a cloud of flinders forward. Sturdier bolts flew forward much as an ordinary crossbow bolt would.

Refinements to this novelty came from the Engineers Society, a gentleman's group of idle rich who have devoted their energies to odd mechanical studies.  At first the bolt was reduced to just the metal tip, which proved remarkably effective, later the tube was lengthened, as it was found that just the tip tended to be incredibly inaccurate. Later soft metal balls were used, though they did tend to either deform horribly in firing, getting stuck in the 'shaft', or roll out if the device dipped too low.

The greatest refinement came from the use of a small brass resivoir in the 'butt' of the stock, with a tube leading to the charge hole. The firing lever works a simple, even primative, pump mechanisim. This allows both hands to be free to aim and fire.  The solution to the ball problem was wrapping the ball with wadding.

With that, Firesticks became fully functional devices, though many question the need in the face of existing weaponry.  The weapons sold publicly are 'fixed tube' weapons, where the cake is dropped in the muzzle, the wadded ball shoved in after with a rod.  The Dragoons, who typically only fire a single shot, however, were given a 'secret' advanced prototype. The 'firing chamber', which is the thickest part of the tube, is removable, the cake and ball are pressed in by hand, and replaced much quicker. Smarter dragoons aquire several 'chambers', prepacking them and allowing for reloading that is much faster than even a crossbow of similar power.  It is not without problems, however. If poorly reset into the 'Gonne', the chamber has a tendancy to fly off the back, injuring, even killing the shooter, often the catalyst tube is bent out of alignment by the removal and replacement of the chamber, leading to more frequent misfires.


The other major 'invention' that lead to the Dragoons is a product of the Archmagus Academy. Long exploring a variety of esoteric magics, the Archmagii had developed the ability to create hybrid species in complicated processes. While the value of these 'monstrosities' was extremely limited, when pressed with a challenge (and the increasing popularity of the flying manses) they standardized a hybrid species that could fly, mounts suitable for reaching the manses in the event that all aboard were abscent or reluctant to send down an elevator basket, and for scouting by air.

Such hybrids are sterile, genderless things, though that hasn't stopped foriegn nations from stealing a number of them to 'breed them'.  The process is long and involved, but the resultant hybrids can live for as much as two decades before expiring.   The Academy currently sells them only to the Crown for the Dragoons, but the nobility is clamoring for a flying mount for personal use.

The Dragoon Mounts (referred to as Dragons, Dragoons, or even Draggies...) are large serpentine lizards with massive wings. The rider sits before the wing, up behind the crested armor of the head, and is strapped to his mount, making dismounting difficult. Typically he will have two long firesticks strapped to his saddle, appropriate for aiming by resting the tube on the crest, and a 'quiver' of long spears. The Dragoon can not perform a proper lance charge, as the force of impact can knock the mount from the sky if a solid enough target is hit, so the Dragoon tends to use a sort of charging throw, though practice 'aerial duels' have involved using the bladed tip of a spear as a slashing weapon during 'flybys'.  This has led to the increased use of a single long bladed spear in addition to a stock of lighter 'javelins' among certain regiments.  

While the members of the Dragoon regiments are almost entirely drawn from the 'middle class' or lower, with only a few 'second son' nobles occupying command positions, they are very much the new nobility of Renbluve, feted and much loved by the populace.  Their colorful 'flight armour' and distinctive behavior makes them 'rebel princes', a 'dashing heroes', and the short history of the Regiments has already a singular tale of heroism, with the 'Lost Fourth' having sacrificed themselves destroying a maruading Dragon who apparently belived the Crown of Renbluve was too grand a nesting site to leave to mere human occupants.

There are those Dragoons who swear their mounts are intelligent, and the beasts are much loved by their riders. Some suggest that a good rider has a mystic connection to his beast, though horsemen have been swearing the same for eons in the absense of any proof.



In the decade or so that Firesticks have been functional devices they have spread far. Renbluve is a major trade center, and ships from every major nation can be found in her docks.  While the secrets of the Cake remain largely impenetrable to foreign alchemists, the construction of the devices is not.  While a handful of firesticks have been exported to places such as Paravail and Tenebria, the majority found in such nations are made locally, and often vary wildly in design (though to date, none have replicated the replaceable chamber of the Dragoon Gonne, though it is surely only a matter of time...), and the Tenebrians reportedly have developed a means of firing multiple shots (actually, a shotgun load, but rumors report otherwise...), all buy their Cakes from Nornsa, and they are worth their weight in gold outside of Renbluve.  Ironically, the catalyst is much easier to replicate, and rumors of non-alchemists making their own 'in the feild' persist.  

There are several weaknesses, of course. First of all the short supply of Cake, followed only shortly by it's delicacy. A crumbly Cake is dangerous to use, a wet cake is worthless, even if dried.  Cake, for the record, has a certain residual 'taste' of magic to it, though the Alchemists swear it should not.. they have long since sworn those who know the method to secrecy, though it is only a matter of time before some former student realizes he knows a valuable thing.

Just over 61 pages now...

An important addendum to the Dragoons:

Given that weight is a serious issue for flying mounts, two important facets of Nornsa culture must be looked at closer.  The dragoons, by default, can not be heavily armored, as the Knights are, making the Hussar concept a much more 'valuable one' in current militaria.  Generally Dragoons wear mostly light leather garments, occasionally layered with down or silk for warmth, though there is a marked tendency among riders to wear bright metal helmets, or half helms over leather caps.  Hussars wear bright cloth wings, perhaps foreshadowing their evolution into the Dragoons of the modern age, the Dragoons could not withstand the wind resistance of such wings on their backs, but instead favor streamers of brightly dyed horsehair tied aroudn their arms or attached to their helmets.

More importantly, the largely egalitarian Nornsa society still has long favored men among the soldiery, particularly the Knights and even the Hussars.  However, Dragoon regiments are predominantly female, something that is still rather shocking to the Nornsa, and downright abominable to many nations.   As a result, the Dragoons have tended to adopt a swaggering braggadicio, as if trying to be more masculine than the men, and those male Dragoons, generally slight of build, are even worse.  This only adds to the colorful behavior of the riders, and if the Dragoons suddenly became less arrogant it  would undoubtedly dismay the populace.

Disregarding the Lost Fourth, the only real battle involving significant numbers of Dragoons was Duchane Bridge, along the border with the Kingdom of Avante, where the Dragoons of the First, assigned an auxillery role, were critical in taking the bridgehead, supporting more conventional forces of light and heavy horse with Myrmidon (mercenary) Infantry from Karkesh, to the south.  The Dragoons were able to sweep the Avante defenders from the bridge itself, and the terror they provoked allowed the ground forces to sweep across unopposed.    This untested unit proved to be the battle winning force, and suffered heavy losses over the three day affair, returning home heroes.  There was some bitterness in the way they were 'misused' in the later stages of the battle that lead to the heavy casualties, but several notable generals became ardent supporters of the regiments in the aftermath.  Regretably no one has determined a good method of employing the Dragoons against conventional ground infantry other than as unconventional cavalry...

Karkesh is the southernmost kingdom of note on the Northern Continent. More exactly, it is the southernmost inheritor of the Nornsa culture as well, though different from the northern Kingdom that still bears that name.

Karkesh is also the home of Ysithyderi, the Sepulchure of the Warlord and if legends are correct the home of a lost city of elves from the Mythic Age... or older.

Nornsa, to the north, has rolling plains, hills and occasional forests. Karkesh has none of these, for the land slowly flattens out into sweeping plains, and the few trees that were native to the region were long ago harvested.

However, Karkesh does have the Scar, a broad swath of land cleaving the nation in two where the Warlord once walked.  Why the Scar appears here, and no where else is a mystery to all.

What is the Scar? That depends on many things. To the south, near Ysithideri, it is a terrible gorge, occupied by monsters too terrible and unique to name.  Farther north, as it widens and becomes one with the plains it becomes a swath of grasslands, appearing only slightly greener and livelier than the land around it... only the grass here is razor sharp and hungry for blood, the low insects form massive 'armies' that consume all that cross their path, and the birds are viscious predators that flock and prey on larger beasts, tearing the flesh from their bones.  There is no safety in the Scar, the bridges that cross the Gorge are subject to accident and high winds that have been known to pluck a man from his feet and toss him to his doom, while in the north the land itself is the enemy.  Thus it has come to pass that there are two Karkesh, divided east and west, but the people are determined to remain one... even as the two kings war over the right to rule.

Karkesh is known as the Summer Lands to the Elves, for the winters are extremely mild, the seas warm, the sun shining.   Rainstorms are brief but strong.

The people are darker and larger than their northern neighbors, and appear more somber in demeanor, though this is not to suggest they are grim. Karkesh is not as wealthy as Nornsa, no good mines, few natural resources other than good croplands, they have little to export. The majority of the people are farmers or herdsmen, they are practical minded people who fill their scant free time with simple pleasures.  If anything the Kerkeshi are beloved of the Elves, for many still live in the region after the fall of Ysithideri, and the dwarves, for the one thing the region is famed for is their varieties of wine and beer.

Before the Dragons destroyed the shining city, it was the center of this divided land, the Scar ended at the city gates, and was slowly being tamed by the wizards and sorcerers of that city.  Now, as a blasted ruin haunted by all manner of demons and ghosts, the way across the Scar is lost, though there are those who make a living understanding it's dangers and leading adventursome sorts through it.

To the West, ruling from the City of Moet, lies the Dragon King, who swore oaths of freindship and peace with the destroyers of Ysithyderi, and who famously can call upon their wrath but once by use of the Horn of Oldamungri.  The Current Dragon King is King Julo, and he has built his throne from the bones of the destroyed city.

To the East, ruling from the city of Kelsem, is King Daved, who's grandfathers swore oaths of vengence against the wyrmkin and all waged a holy war against the traitors of the West.  The Eastern Kerkeshi are grimmer than those of the west, and worship stern gods.  Say what you will about them, but the Kerkeshi of either side are among the most knowledgeable of Dragons of any men.

Neither king, however, can call upon a standing army.  It has long been the practice, since even before the fall, for the nobles of the region to hire bandits to fight for them, rather than attempting to fight the bandits. Over time the rise of Myrmidons, or professional mercenaries, has become the predominant military force available, and when work is scarce these Myrmidons hire themselves to other nations, by their own code they owe allegiance only to coin, not to men.    A myrmidoni (a single member of a myrmidon) can be recognized by his coat of 'coin', pointed helmet and curved sword.  Many are said to worship Death above all others, though how one sould properly worship such a being is unclear to others, the presence of myrmidoni fighting with blindfolds on would suggest they attempt to emulate the servants of Death.  Others are said to worship the money they are paid, in terms more religious then cynical. Such myrmidoni are particularly curious, because their loyalty, once bought, is absolute... unless you are later outbid.  A curious legend arose of a Myrmidon (unit) who was hired to kill a prince in Juimo. The prince offered up his treasury if they would kill the man who had hired them thus. The captain agreed, and once paid, killed the prince. When he returned the severed head to his employer, he killed him too, fulfilling both contracts to the letter.

Of course, you might always stumble across Myrmidons who are little more than bandits with a veneer of respectability.


Regardless.  The Kerkesh grow Jute and cotton, favoring both for garments and other practical goods.  Indeed, shoes soled with braided ropes of Jute are almost universal kerkeshi footwear, and their weapons use similar methods for covering the hilt.  

One might ask, given the land, why cavalry is less popular in kerkesh? The answer is of course that the Kerkeshi do use cavalry, though not as famously as the Nornsa. Horses eat a lot, and the croplands of the region, while vast, are not always suitable to maintaining large quanities of horse. Animals are used for labor more than war. Myrmidons may be horse based, or foot based, many are capable of both.  It should be noted that the crossbow is not much used, the curved bow is preferrable, and firesticks are veiwed as dangerous toys, little more.

It is the Western Kerkeshi who have perfected the use of ice magics to preserve fish from their expansive coasts, a technique finding greater use across the world.  The eastern Kerkeshi have long been reknown for their dances, many of their religious festivals involve elaborate dancing and spinning.  

Both nations have very strict views of the roles of men and women in society, something they appear to have adopted from the dwarves, rather than the Elves.  Elves, to the kerkeshi, do not fall into either male or female roles, but are 'Elvish', and thus seperate. A Kerkeshi male is expected to fight and defend his woman to the ends of his life, an unattached woman attempting to fight for herself would be surrounded by concerned men looking to defend her, while a married woman would be pitied for her weak and useless husband.  

Conversely, women are expected to shoulder the entire burden of maintaining a house, even adopting unmarried men to 'mother'.  Many outsiders question this, but the similarity between kerkeshi culture and taht of the nearby mountain Keks have been noted.  Kerkeshi are rather famous for carrying their odd behavior with them to other nations, which earns them no freinds when traveling.  Kerkeshi women who travel are often running away, and are pitied.

The Kerkeshi build in brick, often sun baked, and due to a lack of wood often used lashed bundles of sturdy grasses and reeds for construction of lighter structures.  This gives them a distinctive architechtural flare, and their buildings are known for their... sturdy... appearance.

Avante is the first of the non-Ysithyderi kingdoms as one progresses north.  For reasons lost to antiquity, the Avante have a powerful dislike of Elves, and after the death of the Warlord launched a war of agression against the southlands.  This sort of brutal hatred was common in the Warlord's wake, as he specialized in setting nations against one another, but the Avante seemed to have more personal reasons.  Regardless, the combined might of the Elves, Dwarves and Humans (and at the time, a few allied Dragons, each considered a nation in their own right) were able to push the Avante back to their hills and dales.  To prevent further wars, the Chasm of Mourning was opened, a long ravine running the length of the border between Avante and the south, the very sea made treacherous with rubble from the work.   The means of its building have since been lost to time, but rumors of enslaved earth spirits, powerful ritual sorceries, and an army of orcish slaves armed with shovels and picks were all involved.  The Chasm is thousands of feet deep, steep sided, and for much of it's length a river runs through the bottom, though dry regions exist. It took nearly a century before the first bridges were built by those seeking peacable trade, by which time the Kingdom of Ysithyderi was no more. The Avante still hold deep seated distrust of the southlands, and wars between them and the Nornsa are frequent.  However, bringing an army over the bridges has made most such 'wars' relatively minor affairs.

The land is rich in minerals, iron in particular, giving the soil a reddish tint. So much so that many refer to the 'Red Hills of Avante' when speaking of the place.   The  Eastern half of the nation is rather pleasant, if slightly dry, and is where most of the population lives. The Western half is a miserable salt water swamp extending to the coast, and if not for the necessities of shipping, and fishing, it is likely only the dispossesed would live there.  Unlike the Nornsa, the Avante are avid explorers of the world, they send ships out to bring things back, not sit at their ports content to let the world come to them.  This has led to an interesting  occurence. Lizardfolk of the Amal have traveled to Avante as ambassadors for their various tribes, and finding the swampy regions by the coast to their liking, have entered a lucrative arrangement with the council of princes.  Dispossessed Amal, those whose tribes have been broken in the wars, or who lack useful lands, may travel to the North and settle in the Avante Swamps, trading exclusively with the humans of the region. The lizardfolk gain new, uncontested homes, the humans gain access to whatever resources the swamps provide... which is more than you might suspect.  This also prevents criminals and bandits from seeking shelter in the already dangerous lands, as the Lizardfolk are more than happy to keep them out. This has resulted in a little disruption of life for some humans who had lived in the swamps for generations, but such people paid no heed to the Princes, paid no taxes, and generally were viewed as parasites.  

The Avante are the darkest of the races of men, the darkest skinned of all races, something that others have claimed is the mark of the Warlord upon them, though historical records show that the natives of the region were always black of skin.  Their hair is thick and straight, commonly black, though dark browns and occasionally ash white hair is not uncommon.   The Avante are a tall people, and they grow their hair long, it is not uncommon for them to style it to add to their height, though this is more common among women than men.   They  prefer clothes of brightly dyed linen, which is one of the few natural fibers common to the region, though wealthier members may import silks.  Poorer Avante of both genders wear only short leather skirts (kilts) during the hot summer months, and cloaks of straw in the colder months.

Warriors, which many soldiers consider themselves, always wear their hair long and loose, placing metal or stone beads throughout their hair. A warrior that is defeated in battle will lose a lock of hair, complete with beads, to the victor, who will wear the locks of his defeated enemies as trophies, tying them to his Falcata, his body (arm bands made of trophy hair are very popular) or sheild, and adding 'unshorn' to one's name is a sign of arrogance.  Fighting to the death is frowned upon when an honorable loss is possible.

The preferred weapon of the Avante people is a two to three foot long hooked spearblade on a short haft, about the same length as the blade.  In organized regiments the weapon is used in short chopping or thrusting moves, often the first rank weilding it one handed so they can carry a sheild of streached hide, while lone warriors use it in great sweeping strikes and almost dancelike flourishes to terrible effect.  

The noblility of the Avante does not hold land, but rather rules over people. Those people hold land, if they can, but may be forced off of it by more powerful groups.  The nation is ruled by a council of these tribal princes, a colorful bunch frequently at war with one another when outside of the council.

I'm not sure, but it may be time to talk about a non-human region... either that or jump to Northern Nornsa... with somewhat scottish tropes...

decisions decisions...

The Hydimenoi forest, or rather it's southern Edge, is viewed by most as the demarcation line between the northern and southern halves of the north (viewed by many as the primary) continent.  This is a rather vague point, and serves little practical value other than color. While the northern lands do tend to be cooler than the southern lands, the hot, arid desert of Hesh is the furthest north of all civilized lands... at least commonly though, the border of the Hesh extend all the way to the mountains that demark the tundrid Plains of the Bearmen.

In truth, the Reve have a well developed civilized land futher north, often forgotten for its isolation, and the fact that the Reve themselves are hardly paragons of cultured behavior. It must be stressed that the Reavers, the ship based barbarian raiders that are the terror of the Eastern Coast, are inhabitants of the southern most, least hospitable lands in their territory, and the kings they pay homage to live in more pleasant regions.  It is a mark of the Reve's very civilized natures that they rarely, if ever, raid their own peoples, though internicine war is far from uncommon.

But it is the Hydimenoi to which we turn our gaze.  This vast forest, but little shrunk since the earliest days of the world, occupies the very center of the world, and is a thousand leagues across in any way.   In the days of Legend the Dwarves felled a thousand miles of woods with ax and flame, and the forest regrew stronger than ever once they had fled.   The humans who live in it's shadow have a great deal of respect for it's power, respect and occasionally a healthy dose of fear.  Some of that power clings to the elves who still make the region their homes, the oldest and greatest of all the scattered elven nations, the Siti.

One must understand that ancient magics still course through the very land where the Forest holds sway.  Even the Elves pay silent homage to the 'Lord of the Forest' as they make their way through it's boughs.  We have mentioned how the land of Haven is mutable, it is in the forest that this is most clear, for where a clearing or hill might be one day, another will find only trees, or a crevise.  It is said that the ancient places of power that may be found within can not be mapped, the directions are less about location and more about the journey one must take to get there.

Before we speak of the Siti themselves, let us speak more of the forest. It is said that an innocent may walk unhindered to the very heart of the forest, yet a thousand children are torn asunder by beasts and more fearsome creatures every year.   The Forest itself is alive, a primal, savage thing, yet may be swayed by beauty. The Trees themselves might move, they are said to have fought the dwarves for every inch of ground, though no one can remember seeing such a thing.  Gods of the beasts are said to roam, the only gods to be found in the mortal realms, great monsterous beasts, far larger than any other.

As for the Lord of the forest? Who can say, for no one has ever said to meet him.

More mysterious still are the ancient barrows and ruined stones that might be found by intrepid souls. Ancient when even the Elves first settled here, no one can say to whom they once belonged, or how they were built in such a hostile place.  A few, more recent, belong to the elves, memorials of earlier times, earlier kingdoms. One thing that unites these scattered remains is that the Forest can not move them, they alone of all her attributes remain fixed.  It is there that one might find sanctuary from the relentless nature... though still more fearsome things are said to dwell at such places.  

So then, one might ask, how DO the Siti survive in a land where all life is for the taking?  It is here we find answers. The Siti survive because they are, in some respects, only a few short steps above the savage beasts they hunt.  In their estimation, all creatures are animals at heart, and civilization is nothing more than a fragile veneer to make life more bareable.  Not that the Siti are uncivilized, far from it. They consider themselves the most advanced, civilized race in the entire world.

They make their homes, rather famously, in the trees. To the casual ear this conjures up visions of tree houses and fortresses, levels and ladders and bridges. This is, however, vastly incorrect. The Siti live among the trees of their homes mostly at the ground level, stringing brightly colored cloth between regions to demark walls and private areas. Wild animals roam freely within this 'city', which moves freely as the trees do, yet is stationary.  By changing the color of the sheets, and their arrangement, entire new areas are opened up, others are closed.   Within, and without, these 'buildings' lies a colorful world of gardens and lightweight furniture carved from wood or rarely stone found in the land around them.  Everything the Siti have is portable, from their rare pottery kilns and forges to their gardens and bedchambers.  They make no attempt to sheild themselves from the sky, preferring to let the trees do that for them, as imperfectly as it may be.  Even their defenders and watchmen are impermanent, wandering silently, invisibly through the woods around them like ghosts.  

The Siti, for the most part, remain a kingdom in mourning for their lost Queen, the oldest and wisest of them. Though she has been dead nearly three hundred years, to the Elves this is not even a generation passed, and they miss her still.   She had reigned from time immemorial, and her passing is perhaps the greatest challenge their nation has faced, for even still they remain largely leaderless. In three hundred years a bare handful of strong, charismatic leaders have risen to the challenge, almost all of them have since left, taking only a handful of followers with them to found newer, more vibrant tribes. Those that remain make no pretenses on the empty throne, but rule in her absence by informal council, and that but rarely.  If not for the vibrant human kingdoms around them, they might not attempt even that much, and the Siti slowly withdraw from the other races and even other elves.

One hallmark of Siti culture is the super-attenuated childhoods they force upon their young.  While elves mature only slightly slower than humans do, the Siti particularly do not like to consider an elf as an adult until centuries have passed. To even be considered more than an infant decades must go by. This has led to an interesting tidbit regarding sexuality.

Like all races, most of what children do is considered natural and harmless. Children are 'shameless' until taught shame by older members of the species. As the Siti consider, and treat their young, as helpless 'children' until long after sexual maturity has blossomed, young elves explore sex, often openly, without censure, a practice which is viewed as natural, and one that continues into 'adolesence' and even 'adulthood'.   It is part of the maturation process that elves undergo that teaches them appropriate times and partners, which as an absolute lack of what elves refer to as  prudish behavior of lesser species, is far more open than even many hedonists consider practical. Of course, the well established proclivity towards 'sensualist' behavior among all elves is  well established, and may not be strictly accounted for by cultural artifact.

More importantly than sexual behavior is the tendency for 'runaways', long considered a dangerous problem, though one that has grown to such prevalence that the Siti are at a loss for how to deal with it.  Young elves, often less than a century in age (and well into physical maturity) often find themselves so frustrated at their lack of 'adulthood' that they flee the Hydimenoi and the strangling culture of their people for 'freedom' and even excitement.  Many never return, some don't make it out of the forest, others die, still others find new homes and forget their birthplace, tainted by bitter memories. This exodus of the youth has only acerbated the situation for most of those who remain, though some families have begun taking a more even handed approach.

Among themselves, the Elves have an almost ruthless sensibility among them.  They engage in constant contests of increasing elaboratness to prove superior in skill, wit, wisdom or warfare. They prize power above all else, but their constant proximity to the savage beasts of the forest make it known to them that only true power has meaning. Power earned or stolen from others is fleeting and dangerous to the holder. Occasionally an Elf will grow fed up with their standing and attempt some foolish risk to bolster their stature, the Elves respect luck and daring to a degree, others try more underhanded tactics, most of which fall flat eventually.  The gossips among the elves occasionally might talk of one elder or another who they believe have been struggling for millenia to hold on to power rightfully another's, the irony being that their years of success obviate the need to hide the original sin.

The Siti have long standing (even by their standards) trade agreements with the Dwarves, dating back to the first Goblin War, and retain some ties with the Nations that once made up Ysithyderi.   Of late, however, the lack of goods or contact flowing from the Hydimenoi has made them more exotic and mysterious, and the forest seems to mourn the lost queen as well...

I am less than perfectly pleased with the last post.  Ah well.

I'm going to split this post in two: first I want to talk about where I am going, what I am doing with it, then I'll drop into my 'authorial tone' and write the post as usual.  For some reason, I just would feel wrong to leap in with both feet and NOT say anything. Its irrational, I know.

I'm going to discuss the Reve.  I've revealed bits and peices of this far flung culture, but I haven't really gone into nitty gritties yet. Obviously they are a loose viking analog, living in rocky coastal fjords, raiding more prosperous lands by sea, living in the distant north.  By itself this gives me a veritable boatload of starting points.  For example, I can easily say that they ride longboats and have berserkers, build long huts, wear beards.  For some reason that seems a cop out, the easy answer. Might as well say :Reves: vikings, and go home and call it a day.  I could lift existing viking tropes whole heartedly and assuage my concience with a longer peice without breaking a sweat.   But this is still a cop out.  Because while I have vaguely created a viking style culture, I have not yet made them my own, they don't belong yet.  This, above all else, is why I have chosen to focus on them before I deal with the northern Nornsa, the Hesh desert dwellers or the vastnesses of the Tenebrian kingdoms, because I've given most of those twists to make them uniquely my own, enough detail that simply stealing whole heartedly from 'real history' would jar with what I've provided.

For example: to give them 'longships' would be to ignore the fact that the wold has progressed technologically (and magically) from the era that the vikings were actually dominant in.  

End part one...



Much has been said of the Reve, but little has been illuminated, neither their culture nor their impact upon the world has been laid bare.   The Reve of course are famous for their 'Reavers', ship borne raiders that have laid waste to small villages on both primary continents. They have done this for a thousand years and yet remain beyond persecution. How is this? For the Tenebrians and the Nornsa and even Paravail have been assualted by them many times. The feirce Spada are not immune to their raids, in fact have suffered greatly due to relative proximity. So, how then do they get away with it?

Distance has much to do with it. The lands of the Reve are far removed from others, cold air from the Tundrid Plateau, rocky mountainous highlands form a nearly impenetrable barrier to an army on foot.  Few from the south know exactly where the Reve 'lands' begin, only that they are found far to the north, and to get there by ship is to sail into the maw of the beast, for the Reve are masters of the sea.

They must be, for the arable lands in their homes are all but nonexistant, narrow rocky strips of green between barren rock and frigid waters. Their southernmost portion of their 'territory' is the worst, as far as lands go, the coastline is jagged and full of a thousand tiny nooks, each settled by independently minded families, or in the case of larger ones, clans.  To be without a ship is to doom ones family to a slow death of starvation.  Much of the year these men 'farm the sea', sailing out with great nets trailing them, scooping up edible seaweed and all manner of fish, and the Reve have mastered the arts of preserving fish, often without magic at all.  But in the harshest parts of the year, when the waters are too rough and filled with fantastic beasts capable of shattering the ships of men, the Reve sail south to richer lands to take what they want, returning in the spring to their families.  

Farther north, inside the 'Horn of Atre', in the great Bay of Jublix, the waters are calmer, and as the Horn gives way to the mainland, arable land is more common and useable, and this is the seat of Reve culture, the home of Reve kings.  The Bay faces north, and the very edge of the world may be seen from the tall cliffs of the Horn if one looks out far enough, even those who have braved the ships of the Reve and the fearsome chaos spawned beasts of the sea have never rounded her.

At the current time there are seven Reve kings, powerful lords with many ships and sworn men.  The number fluctuates as wars and succession may lay a line low, or breed a new one.  The kings rule over their lands, but not their men. The independent minded Reve will swear allegiance to the King he likes, or flee the mainlands for the Fjords around the Horn, or even the smaller islands that lie in Reve waters between them an Lu.   The Reve will collect what allies and freinds he can, and it is often said that each Reve home is it's own kingdom, and every man a king. There is much truth to this, away from the heartlands in the bay of Jublix, the most respected Reve are the ship-captains, the men who own the larger vessels that can make the long winter journeys south.   Crews are impromptu affairs, while a captain may have men he respects and trusts to crew his ship, they are not bound to him, nor do they work for him. If a man wishes to ship out with another captain one year, he will. Thus much of the year a Captain will travel up and down the coast speaking to the men he trusts and getting them to swear oaths to ship with him again that winter.  

A strong arm and sturdy back are respected, obviously, but sun bronzed skin is considered particularly attractive to the Reavers, for it shows a man who has traveled south recently and returned alive.  Ship Wives, those stolen from the south, are prized for dark skin and small bodies,  seperating them from the large, pale local women.  Not that any Reve would trust his home to a soft Ship Wife.

Women hold a special place in Reve culture. Local women, called Hearth Wives, are expected to raise large, often belligerant families with iron hands, to keep the home safe during the dangerous winter months.  Wolves and bears are common in the mountains that run up to the sea, and will prey on men as readily as sheep or goats.  Women favor the spear and the bow for weapons, and are expected to kill a wolf in the wild before they marry to prove their courage to their future husbands.  Sexual fidelity is non-existant among the Reve, though the menfolk are expected to act as if their wives were pure. Many a tale laughingly refers to the Reaver returning to find his wife in bed with a 'lesser man' only to be beaten soundly by his wife when he attacked the lover.  Any child born into a household is raised as a 'biological child' without question, as are adopted children, which are very common.  There is little familial loyalty among the Reve beyond the personal bonds.  Swearing brotherhood has far more meaning than accidents of biology or proximity, and it is exceedingly common for children in the same family to swear oaths to eachother if they are close. Adopting the name of a parent as a surname is the equivilent for a child to parent.  Fratricide and patricide feature prominantly in many stories, not as examples or as warning, but as a fact of life, a warning to the old wolves to be kinder to their pups before they grow teeth.  The very old and infirm are alternatively mocked for failing to die when proper, and respected for their accumulated wisdom and years.  The old are expected to help defend the household, and can be reviled for cowardice for failing to sacrifice their lives for the lives of children.

As a people the Reve are only of middling height, but have heavy bones and tend to be very broad across the shoulders.  Many have short, almost bandy legs, but long powerful arms are common. They have pale skin and eyes, most reavers shave their heads and faces, often leaving only a tarred tail in the back to signify their willingness to 'sail', though the mainlanders and the women (and children) tend to exhibit hair colors ranging from pitch black to ash white, with the darker colors more common among reavers than mainlanders.  Every man (and unmarried woman) is expected to keep a small boat, suitable for a single man to crew for transportation and fishing, though these are not tiny boats by any means but fully seaworthy vessels.  A 'Captain' is expected to keep at least a full ship, if not more than one, which tends to be a massive sail driven vessel of many tons.  Trees are felled in the mountains and drug by hand, the massive logs are split to make the planks, or uncut used to build the massive hearthhomes that make up the average living place. The home is a massive complex of wood and stone, with only a few large rooms and heavy, often iron banded, doors. Storage is underground, and typically accessed from inside, to reduce the need to go outside during the dangerous winters.  Iron is also mined, though in small quantities, but only used for tools and weapons, often the same thing. The Reve favor axes above all other weapons, and among the reavers rarely use ranged weapons. Armor tends to be made of the scaled hides of massive sea beasts, a single such creature, while dangerous to hunt, can feed a dozen households for an entire winter and armor an entire crew, or wooden planks tied together. Metal armor is viewed as a folly, or a 'Lander' trait, chain hauberks are common among those who stay on dry land.  

Female reavers are not uncommon, though it is all but unheard of for there to be an entire crew of women. They too shave their heads, to show their reaver status (though this is a personal choice), and are the most likely to take males captive, though not as 'ship husbands'.  Reve tradition is to geld male prisoners, to prevent them from finding their 'stones' and rebelling, such prisoners are put to work as women around the home, or sheepherding or mining, whatever scut work the captor choses.  Many are dressed as women as well, though to the Reve there is no insult in this, just as there is no shame in a man keeping such a gelding as a 'ship wife', though that is uncommon as well.  Captains are expected to keep their ship wives (rarely more than one) aboard their vessels year round, when they tire of them they are put to work around the house. Other Reve keep theirs in seperate huts within the main homestead area until winter, when they are turned over to the 'stone wife' to put to work.  Killing a slave is a criminal act, though not as much as killing a freeman. Killing another man's slave is an act of war. Murder is punished by the victims family, rather than by enforced law, which is why slave murder is a minor crime, there is no one to seek revenge.    It is more a social taboo, outside the mainland, where a King might have a real say in the matter.

What do the Reavers steal? What are their ships like? These are important questions. To be certain, the Reavers are the unquestioned masters of the sea trade, their vessels are highly advanced. A thousand years ago they launched their raids in long thin boats, rowing to shore with their powerful arms, and unfurling simple sails when the wind was moving the right way.  It is difficult to imagine that these primative vessels were capable of taking the Reavers thousands of miles each way, yet they did, often taking years for each journey, though such long trips are not unheard of even to this day.

While modern ships owe much to those early designs, they are much larger, more complex affairs.  The most common design has several decks and two or three sails on independent masts, capable of sailing almost, but not quite, directly into the wind, though tradition demands that they still be capable of being rowed. More massive vessels often possess only the single mast, but use powerful elemental spirits chained to provide independent power, air elementals power the sails, while water elementals tow the ships through the seas.  It is these ships which are the true terrors of the oceans, for such captains rarely are content to return home each spring, and their men are equally wedded to the seaman's life. They tend to be full time pirates and occasional merchanters who may end up so far removed from Reve life and culture that they no longer return home at all, generations passing, each inheriting the life and ship until she is no longer seaworthy at all, the ship wives becoming true women of the sea, even commanding their 'husbands' vessels after his demise.

For the regular Reve, however, they long to return home, torn between their life of danger and the comforts of home.  They are fond of metals, both decorative and functional, grains and products of industry, such as woven cloths (they wear wool garments primarily, and have some sophistication in it's production, but bolts of already woven cloth are a prize more valuable than gold).  The Reve take only a few prisoners, for their maintenance on the long voyage home cuts into their profits from trade, and spread terror as a means to an end.  Rumors of bloodthirst and madness are spread by survivors, rather than the results of Reve behavior, as hunting men for sport is viewed as wasteful of time and energy better spent looting and moving on.

It is notable that many reaver ships pull into major port cities to trade goods, particularly gold or gems for more useful products that they were unable to steal. It is this honorable trade, and the existance of Reve ships who primarily focus on real trade rather than pillaging, that makes open condemnation of their practices problematic.  More, many civilized kings like the idea of hiring these fearsome 'barbarians' as mercenaries and bodyguards, something many Reve are happy to do.


One of the few 'civilized' people the Reve treat with as equals are the Dwarves. Only the dwarves, with their tunnels and ways can treat with the Reve kings in their courts, and brisk trade of grain and preserved meats for the goods of industrious nations is much needed.  

One thing the Reve are good at is filling long idle periods.  As children they are cooped up in a large, noisy home for months on end, as adults they can trade that for a life at sea.  The many of the more popular games have their origins in Reve culture, and the Dwarves often sale hand carved figurines of wood or bone of surprising delicacy, few indeed could imagine that such things came from the battle scarred hands of a barbaric reaver with his blood stained ax.   Few realize that the colorful warriors of legend are colorful because they learned to work leathers or cloth into bright patterns to get through a long voyage.   A study of the Reve language shows surprising complexity, a word may be long and incredibly descriptive, or short and to the point, yet say the same thing either way.  Skor means ship, Duskormojinatorgefut means 'Three decked ship with red oak sides and bound 'Du' or spirits, or if you will: Ship.

The Reve have an unusual religion. Most races worship gods that look and act roughly like members of that race, with rare exceptions.  The Nia worship, among other things, Snake, for example.

Not so the Reve. Their Gods are few, and exist mostly to be placated. They worship the Sea (in a love/hate sort of way), and elements. Not that their elements have much in common with other peoples.  The Sea is an element, to them, as are Rock, Fire, Tree, Rain (not water...), and so forth. Its considered a jumbled mess, but their worship is demonstrably with some merits, for their Yrtadu, or 'Callers'  are not merely venerated as preists or other holy men, but can accomplish many things comparable to the miracles occasionally performed by holy men from more civlized lands.   Perhaps fittingly, their ships and temples are one in the same, and no price can cause a Reve to sell a ship, not even to another Reve.   A man builds (or has built) his own ship, and if it does not pass to his decendants it is destroyed when he dies, sent back to the sea as payment for daring to travel upon it.  A small portion of whatever treasures a Reaver takes are sacrificed before he sets foot on land again, without fail. Some to the sea, some to ceremonial fires. Hearthwives prefer to sacrifice to Stone, crushing and grinding sacrifices to destruction and burying the remains, or scattering a handful of grain upon stony ground so that the messengers of the rain (crows) can take it to the God after a storm.  Animals are alternatively servants of the gods sent to test men, or terrible demons opposed to the gods who wish to destroy men, robbing the gods of their sacrifices.  One cannot always tell by looking which type of power an animal represents, but the appropriate behavior is the same, respect for its ability and a strong ax to kill it.

Let us speak of ships and sails and those who ply the waves.  There is no single outstanding design for ships, it should be noted. The Reve are famed more for their understanding of the craft of building and the arts of sailing than their designwork.  There are Sages in Nornsa who have devoted their lives to understanding what makes for a good or bad ship design, and the Tenebrians have long had competing families of Shipwrights striving to out do one another in craftsmanship AND beauty for imperial favors for nearly 700 years.  

The Reve ships use some of the most functional design features from antiquity AND the most advanced techniques, if harnessing elementals for power is a technique. In truth it seems more a form of religious rite, and few indeed have mastered the raw elements in such a fashion.

The Tenebrian kingdoms of the Northern Continents are famed for their triremes, even if such ships are viewed by most others as less useful than others. However, to mistake these for purely primative designs is foolish, for the basics have altered wildly since their inception in ages past.  They remain long narrow ships that sit high on the water, true, but the rowers are as likely to be strange contraptions and armatures run by a single man per deck as banks of slaves, their keels and rudders and even sails have all been improved upon the original designed, the famous bronze ram/prows are as likely to be lightweight ceramics, lighter and sharper than the originals, if far more fragile.    The Tenebrian EMPIRE on the other hand uses 'square hulled' ships, known for their odd angles and almost birdlike plummage of sails, some with the shells of giant tortises as armor scales over the hull.  The Nornsa cultures use ships they call galleons, with raised decks fore and aft, with two or three masts appeice.  Such ships rely on the thickness of hulls and the volume of weapons fire to win battles than maneuverability (as the Reve) or exotic armors (as the Tenebrians).

The Reve are not known for their sophistication in naval warfare, ironically. They use an incredibly simple technique that has served them since time immemorial. They close and board, counting on their ferocity to carry the day, and the ship. Of course, as raiders they hardly wish to sink their enemies.  When pressed by superior forces they tend to unleash powerful magics and summon fearsome creatures of the sea in their wake, failing that they always turn and fight to the bitter end.   The Tenebrian kingdoms use ramming and boarding techniques as well, the latter adopted from the Spadans and the Reve, though they use catapults and burning pitch before hand.  The Empire prefers to attack the men rather than the ship, their compliments of soldiers are armed with powerful bows and mounted crossbows designed to clear the decks of enemy ships, leaving them unmanned. The sky is said to turn black when the ships of the Empire go to war, black from the arrows that fill her.  The Norna use large ballistae and on the very largest ships trebuchets on the deck, and banks of smaller ballistae below decks, fired from portals in 'broadsides', each with enough power to punch through a foot of hard wood, and the man on the other side. They seek to scuttle enemy ships, sink them slowly. If looting and pillageing is the order of the day, then the ships are scuttled first, the crew taken prisoner and the cargo unloaded against time.

In the lawlessness of open waters all ships are viewed as potentially hostile. There is no treaty, no law of the sea but might, and piracy is common.  There are several types of pirates, ranging from starving villagers who launch their tiny boats in the night to take a slow moving ship while the crew sleeps, to traders who seek to make money on teh side, to those who were born to a life of piracy and can not imagine a life without a rolling deck underfoot.   There are small islands at the far reaches of Gattipol who are known pirate 'fortresses'; kingdoms without king, lands without laws or industry but theft.  Names like Barson and Grinfaol conjure up romantic or barbaric images depending on who is listening.  

The Dwarves have the most unusual ships. Two seperate hulls, like round cups, spin independently, connected by a high gantry. There are curved 'blades' on each hull and the spin of the 'outer hull', powered by great screws turned by hired orcs or tired donkeys, is used to drive the ship 'forward' or 'backwards', or even turn it. Each hull is considered a seperate ship, with her own crew and captain, but coordination between the two is necessasary for them to do anything.  Ramming or boarding are extremely difficult due to the nature of the double hull, and while the two (rarely more) hulls are 'independent', and can be seperated by simple techniques, this cripples both hulls as neither can go anywhere without the other.

Massive 'Firestick' Cannons have been expiremented with, at great cost, but no navy has adopted them yet, for the alchemical reaction is unstable enough to be problematic with larger 'cakes'.   For now, the Norna Navy, easily the most conservative navy in the world, is content with tried and true technologies.  Rumors of a huge 'flagship' fit for the king persist, and commonly told rumors of caravans full of massive brass 'cannon' being sent out persist.   Of course, rumors also persist that the 'Lost Fourth' survivors reformed their regiment of Dragoons... aboard the flagship, large enough to support a wing of Draggies and their pilots.

The elves, for the record, have never possessed anything resembling a navy. When the Tuatha migrated south, their method of crossing the sea is unknown, but rumors of giant seashells drawn by seaserpents feature heavily in even the less fanciful tales.  Such 'vessels' would be incredibly impractical for most purposes, but then the elves are said to have had access to skybridges, or faegates at one time, and if such legends are true ships would have been unnecessary for trade or travel beyond exploration.  Of course, the Banality would have destroyed such means of travel, possibly for good.

A great deal of time and effort has been spent discussing the prevalence of Tenebrian and Nornsa cultural influences upon the world, to the point one might suspect no human culture remains beyond their influence but for a few marginal barbarian tribes.  Certainly the Bearmen are barbaric primatives, and the Reve are in their own ways hardly any better, so far removed from other Men that they often fail to consider them men at all.  

While it could behoove us to speak of the Spada, their culture is unique and not without influence of the Tenebrians as well, for their long wars with the kingdoms to their south have tempered away all remanents of peaceful living within them and converted them to a culture dedicated solely to war... war against the Teneb Dynasts to their south, once part of the greater Tenebrian Empire.

The simple fact is, no kingdom outside the reach of either historic power is viewed as truely civilized, regardless of actual cultural developement.  

Let us turn to a vast unexplored territory that we have not yet spoken of at all, the western savannahs of the northern continent, bordering the Hydimenoi and stretching from the desert of Hesh to the southern reaches.

There lies three kingdoms of men, closely linked in culture, that never bowed their head to Tenebrian Dynasts, never swore oaths to the Nornsa to their south.  These three kingdoms, the numbers in flux as wars are waged and alliances made, the kingdoms of the Savannahs are viewed by their neighbors as savage lands, ill settled or used by the inhabitants.  A lack of good quarriable stone, or for that matter a pressing need, has 'reduced' them to building of wood and thatch. Hot dry air with frequent powerful rains coming from over the western coast, means they favor only breif clothes of durable materials.  

These kingdoms, Wei, Xibaltci and Humatrp are each based in a single large, but impermentant city out in the grasslands, with wooden palisade walls and buildings of wood frames and thatch or leather walls to keep the dust and rains down.  The people that live among these three are the same, tall, long of limb, with sun bronzed skin and reddish hair, the color of rust or dry blood some say, and eyes of beaten copper.    

Agriculture on these savannahs is difficult, beans and certain grains grow but poorly, other foods not at all.  Some say that the soil is cursed so that none may live off it, yet the grasses and occasional jungle fastnesses are lush, and the people herd animals, living off the milk and meat primarily. Hunters are welcome, as a great number of beasts live out here, many make good eating, others are dangerous to man and livestock alike.  

Due to the heat and freqent breif rains, men and women alike only wear a strip of cloth around their loins, often nothing. Adornments made of smooth river stones, teeth, bone disks and others make necklaces, hair peices and the like. Warriors and hunters frequently use scarification as well, ritual designs giving honor to totemic gods, cherished ancestors (frequently a pattern used by a family line, homage to all who previously bore it), and even allegiances. Men and women both use body paints and even brightly colored tatoos and large, bold patterns to mark themselves.  

In the villages and towns of the Savannah kingdoms things are simple and functional.  Fathers teach sons, mothers teach daughters, and there is little privacy. While actual lines of relation are more complex, many times life in smaller, more rural villages will be very much like one extended family.  They are very aware of inbreeding, however, and if suitable mates can not be found in the village, one will be 'bought' with a dowery of livestock from a distant village.  Couples are not expected to love one another, not romanticly, though lust between newlyweds is encouraged, and a man or woman with a 'lazy' spouse is commiserated with openly.

I was forced to end the previous post prematurely.  I will continue it at a later date. Sorry.

In the villages unmarried adults tend to live with their parents. Recall that an entire village tends to have the characteristics of a large family, with a great deal of communal property and sharing, along with room for individual expression.  If a young man choses to build his own 'house' away from his parents before he is married this does not raise any eyebrows.  If he chooses to allow his close freind to move in with him, the only raised eyebrows come if he choses not to marry and produce children to continue the family.  Jokes and ribbing are frequent and freindly.

Identifying the cheiftan of a village is often difficult, as many times there isn't any formal recognition. Older, respected men tend to dominate the 'politics', but in reality the person with the most forceful personality has a great deal of power. Generally a single individual is entrusted to make decisions for the village, while their sons are expected to follow their footsteps, there is no formal method to 'take charge'.

As one approaches the larger, more permanent settlements things grow more complex, with greater levels of social stratification.  Often the village cheifs in the larger towns are hereditary positions, as are their councils.  The more powerful the town, the more likely for decorative insignia to be used. The skin of a hunting cat may be used as a cloak of rulership, elaborate headdresses of beads and feathers, adornments of precious metals and gems all signify power, as do brightly plummaged bodyguards.

The three cities of the Savannahs are old enough to have developed unique cultural artifacts, particularly in regards to power.  The King of Wei, known as Wei Shakti, is said to be the personification of the Gods and he rules naked from a seat of stone under the naked sky. Each morning as the sun rises his preists annoint him with a gold infused oil, handing him his sacred weapons of black iron, each night he bathes in the sacred pools of the moon. Wei Shakti is not an idle king, he oversees his armies, leading them on brutal runs to weed out the weak, occasionally finding villages that pay tribute to other kings and destroying them.  Wei builds his power, religious, temporal and militarily with every day.

The king of Xibaltci, King Huruma has built a massive fortress of clay bricks, clad in sheets of beaten copper along the top and wears only jade. None of his subjects may see him, officially that is, for his servants and advisors treat him as a spoiled child. Huruma is the inheritor of an old dynasty, some seven generations in power, the scion of that line is an immobile fat man, a giggling manchild who issues mad proclamations that are ignored by all around him.  Huruma does not even rule himself, instead the nascent beauracracy set up by his grandfathers organizes the city, and the taxes.  They are rich, powerful men, their ambitions are tied to the wealth of the city and they rule well, but they are paralyzed by the aggression of Wei, unsure how to deal with the wolf at the gates.

The King of Humatrp, the Jui-De, is a woman, said to be the mistress of the former Jui-De by her political enemies. She is the oldest of the three kings of the savannahs, cunning and personally powerful but with the most unsteady rule. She is less concerned with Wei, and scornful of Xibaltci, as her most dangerous foes put poison in every meal, a dagger behind every curtain. Only her own cunning, paranoia and potent magics have kept her alive for so long, and she fears her time is nearly up.  Ironically, if not for the viscious intrigues, Humatrp would be the most powerful of the three, with easy access to both the wood harvested from Hydimenoi and mines to the north, trade from Hesh and the Erd Humatrp is wealth, many of her villages lie to her back, preserving them from the agression of the other two, and the army is strong and well disciplined, and fanatically loyal to their Jui-De.  Should the Jui-De order it they would sweep through the palace and slay all those who might wish to harm her... but she fears to use them so.

Mining and weaponsmaking are rare, valuable skills on the savannahs. Most metals are gathered in small amounts from surface veins, as deep mining is nearly impossible in the dry dirt and flash storms that flood. Still, the metalsmiths, preists all, are very skilled at using what they have. Spears and sheilds of boiled leather over wicker frames are the standard military accoutrements, ranged weapons are javelins and slings predominantly, though Humatrp has imported a tiny number of firesticks and cakes, perhaps a couple dozen guns in all.   The Wei Shakti uses a large iron sword, not like Nornsa swords, the hilt is actually a large oval ring of iron cut out of the blade, for example; as do his bodyguards/elite regiments. These massive blades are brutal weapons, but preclude the use of a shield.

At least on tribe of nomads, or rather group of tribal nomads (several individual tribes) that call themselves the Maxcai use long thin leafbladed swords, thought they hunt with very long spears, each adult in the tribe is expected to hunt a Korribe (a type of large cat) alone before they are considered old enough to marry, and being married is crucial to participate in tribal council.  The Maxcai do not settle in villages, but each carries a roll of woven cloth around a bundle of sticks, half of a family 'tent'.  They are fearsome warriors, and may hire out as mercenaries from time to time, many currently take gold from Xibaltci, along with some of the more vulnerable independent villages.  The Maxcai do not use sheilds, but fight with sword and spear together, the spear is used to fend off the enemy until the sword can disembowel them.  They refer to battles as 'hunts', and their enemies as 'prey', though they are freindly open peoples, quick to laugh or share a meal.  Refusing Maxcai generousity is an open insult, but accepting it may mean you must participate in their hunts and even marry into the tribe... a fine line that most attempt to avoid.

To close out discussion of the Savannah kingdoms we will turn to more sweeping topics.

To begin with there is no real discussion of race among the peoples of the savannahs. It helps that the local orcs have the same general coloration of the humans, for example. Dwarves are considered strange, short outsiders rather than a seperate race.

For the most part, any race local to the region seems to have adopted the same mindset. While certainly those Elves who live on the grasslands, rather than in the forest, have a broad enough perspective to recognise the different species, it isn't a topic of conversation.  

Naturally, there is a fair amount of hybridization among most of the peoples of the plains.  While it is naturally more common for orcs to find other orcs more attractive (and humans other humans... et cetera), the lack of linguistic differences between the two, or other identifiers of race, combined with the low expectations of romance or love in marriage decisions makes for very common crossbreeding.  That said, all orc villages are essentially treated the same as all human villages. One notable exception are the priests of Iron, who are predominantly orc males, and whose brutal initiation rites tend to preclude frailer species.

One of the few edible 'crops' that grow easily on the Savannahs are peppers, and this delicacy is prized around the world as a spice, worth it's weight in gold in the cities of the Nornsa.  It is said that the Savannahmen have no tastebuds from having eaten pepper in every meal, and their cuisine is notable for it's spice; this is a myth however. Despite an unusual assortment of ingredients (nettles, certain insects and the like) that make up many dishes, the Savannahmen have very refined palates, cutting the hotness of their food with lime and salt, tricks that other nations miss, as these are not added to the food itself but served on the side.  Still, an enjoyment of spicy food is a necessity to getting along in the region.

The Maxcai have very powerful taboos about the Korribe. The name their god Korribe, but he is not, as is commonly understood, to actually be a Korribe. They worship only this God, for he is the strength of the tribe, and the animal of that name as said to be sent by him to punish them and test them. Only on a child's first solitary hunt, to become an adult, is any part of the Korribe eaten, and the organ chosen is said to have mystic properties. One eats the heart for courage, the liver for strength, the eyes for visions, the brain for cunning and so forth.  Whatever the hunter feels is lacking in him he takes from the Korribe he kills and consumes raw.  Depending on how long the hunt has taken it may have been days since he ate anything but for the root of the Banjub to keep awake, and upon consuming the Korribe many are struck with visions that will shape the rest of their life.  To eat of the Korribe at any other time is said to insult the God, and brings terrible punishments and afflictions. The Maxcai will refuse to even speak to someone who violates this taboo, and none of the other inhabitants will eat the beast either... outsiders who have tried claim the meat is delicate and delicious, but many also report being struck by the affliction commonly known as Plain's Fever, or the Yellow sickness, for the color the skin takes on. Many die of Plain's Fever, even among those who have not eaten the beast, so this may be a coincidence.

Other than the Maxcai, many use the root of the Banjub for strength or endurance, and warriors chew it to ignore their wounds, or apply the chewed pulp to wounds to staunch bleeding.   It is rarely traded outside the plains, where it can occasionally be found as a recreational stimulant in decadent city-folk.  The plant itself is harvested, while unedible, the pulp made from it's stem and leaves can be fermented into a pungent brew, a powerful alcohol that is often watered down and drunk regularly.  Serving it unwatered is a popular prank among males, and pretending not to notice, while difficult, is the accepted response.  Bunjula, the drink, is exported, often with peppers steeping in the bottle to add flavor, and is very popular among certain types. Unpeppered Bunjala is much cheaper and sells very well to sailors and other rough sorts. As the drink is potent enough to make even seawater palatable, it is very commonly used shipside as a 'grog' mixer.  Landlubbers who have drunk the Bunjala/seawater mix swear that the mix is lethal, a myth.

Due to the huge cost difference in the pepper trade, all three savannah kingdoms no longer sell peppers in huge quantity to outside merchants, with a limited exception for the Dwarves, who historically have been the primary merchants (so much so that peppers were long known as "Dwarven Fruit" in many distant markets), and the Hesh, who are close enough (and can grow peppers as well, though not of the quanitity or quality of the Savannah pepper crops). Instead they have sent their own men out to trade and sell, making Savannahmen more common in distant cities, bright plummage and all. Such men tend to be very canny traders, and often learn many languages, though occasionally they might pretend to be distant bumpkins if they think it will get them a better deal.  As the value of such trade is very high, these merchants often employ the best mercenaries and soldiers they can find as bodyguards, and the trade flowing down the river Erd from Xibaltci to Paravail is said to have singlehandedly spawned the 'river pirates' trade.  Such men tend to buy primarily metals and grains that are hard to aquire on the plains, and more than one has fallen in love with distant lands and retired to a life of wealth and priviledge, often working as a go-between for other merchants from their forgotten homelands.

It occurs to me that I am nearly done with this thread.  I've a mind to discuss Hesh and the surrounding regions, maybe get my map cleaned up and posted, but other than that all I really need to cover still is another look at Tenebria... basically the nations that have spun off from her and maybe a closer look at the heart of the empire itself.  

I do have a mind to get away from the geographic/culture mindset and get to more sweeping topics, as I did with Guns for topics such as trade routes and valuable goods, linguistic matters, economics and so forth.  

Of course I still have less interesting areas to cover like Spada, northern Nornsa (or the Northron kingdoms...)

If anyone has any questions, areas or topics they'd like me to cover, by all means drop a comment or two, suggestions are always welcome.  If you are interested to see how I personally will be putting it to use, as it developes, chech out my thread in the actual play forum.

I've got digest it all first, but I, for one, would love to see more.

BTW - you've just crossed into the 75th page and have somewhere in the range of 285,000 non-space characters.

Interesting, James. 75 pages translates very roughly into 150 pages of novelization formats, but  I'm sure it's more of a direct fit to game book formats (barring artwork, etc...).

Of course, a very good chunk of that is stuff that should be excised as 'designer notes' rather than up front information... like the creation of the world, the origins of demons, the truth behind the Warlord of Melitior and more.  Indeed I rather suspect that a huge portion of the first three quarters of the posts would have to go, or be pared down extensively to avoid 'revealing my secrets' if I were of a mind to publish.  Of course, I could pad it out a bit by actually writing in the details of Paravail, rather than leaving what was in the Wiki as fact.

Anyone want to link to the Paravail wiki here?  I lost track myself and I'm still very shaky on how linking works.  I'll write more on the Melitior regions.  I'm leary of filling in the spaces too much, for some reason people have a hard time contradicting what is written down by others...:rolleyes:

As always, I extend an open invitation for ideas, even full posts if something I wrote inspired you to expand.  I've been taking it slower, allowing ideas to percolate and drift from previous bits.

There is a great swath of land north of the Hydimenoi and south of the Tundrid Plateau known as the Plains of Melitior. Bordered to the East by the Desert of Hesh and extending west all the way to the Blasted Lands of Irem, and the beaches of the Northron Kingdoms (of Nornsa),  and cut through lengthwise by the northernmost stretch of the River Erd, this is a huge region, perhaps the largest single stretch of nearly contiguious geography, barring only the Sea of Grass.  

Many consider the Plains of Melitior to be the true heartland of civilization, for it was settled by the Elves who migrated from the Hydimenoi, the Dwarves fled through it for the mountains to the north, the first Orcish kingdoms arose here in modern time, and the ancient kings of Nornsa made their homes here.  

Ancient legends hold that once the Tundrid Plateau was part of the Plains of Melitior, the cold, snowy reaches were far less brutal then. It was the curse of the elves of Siti that raised the mountians under the Tundrid wastes and lifted them to the Sky. Or so legend says. But legend also says that once the Dwarves lived as men, walked under the sun as men, and when they fled to their mountains long ago, it was to the north... long before the Elves curse raised those mountains.  Surely only one might be true, or perhaps the age of each legend is wrong, none alive can say for certain.

What is known is that when the Dwarves opened their great Clan Halls for the first time, sent explorers and armies and merchants out into the world, they came from the north, marching across the Plains of Melitior, slaughtering the Goblin Hordes where they found them.

This then is the history of the Plains.  Here they build of stone and heavy timber, the winters are cold when the wind comes from the north, the summers cool and pleasant. Towns and cities are built like fortresses, and the most defensible land is the most treasured by nobles.  The people are fair of skin but dark of hair, strong of limb and feature, with proud noses and full lips.  Those who live in the shadows of the mountains are known as the Northmen, feirce and hard as the ice that is said to flow through their veins.  It is said no Northmen home is complete without a pack of half wild dogs sleeping on the hearth and a sturdy sword above.

The Northmen are organized under their King, with jarls, earls and huscarls overseeing various levels of a loose fuedal state.  Every householder is a 'noble' and responsible for the protection of those who live 'under his roof'... even if they actually live in a sod dugout miles away.  His responsiblity to his King is as a man at arms, with his men under him.

The Northmen have a very close relationship with the Dwarven clans under the mountains, and many a 'young' dwarf and young human have grown up as 'hostages' with the opposed race.   On the other hand, their relationship with the bearmen of the Tundrid plateau is unbearably hostile, for the 'wildmen' regularly raid south out of the mountains when the need strikes them... and it often does.  The Northmen return the favor, raiding north for what few rare resources the wastes have, and slaughter whatever bearmen they find in revenge for previous raids south.

Though many consider anything north of the Erd 'northman' territory, the actually culture and lands occupied are a much narrower band right up against the mountains.  In fact one of the greatest cities in the Melitior region is Prczolyc, which lies on the northern banks of the river, which is only a few hundred yards across so close to it's source.  Only two great bridges of stone cross the Erd here, and the smaller towns on the southren banks are seperate entities with their own Lord Mayors and paying tribute to another king entirely.  Generally, however, those from the southern bank towns consider themselves Baemin, and more importantly citizens of Prczolyc, though many have never crossed the bridge.

Prczolyc is a lovely town, with cobbled streets and sweeping spires, clock towers and mighty cathedrals.  Waterfront property is valued if sufficently far from the bridges, and thus industry, otherwise the wealthy live as far up the small hills as they can.   The people are known for an inordinant fondness for hats, but an utter disdain for cloaks, preferring long heavy coats instead.  It is said that a native of the region can identify a man's wealth, occupation and even ancestry by observing the hat he wears, a tidbit that leads to much amusement among more southren nations.  It is notable, however, that those from Tenebrian lands do not, for their own reasons, find it unusual or amusing at all, something that has led to greater diplomatic inroads for those distant kingdoms.  Similarly the traders from the Savannah kingdoms have quickly adapted to local customs within Baemia, and despite the cooler air find the city of Prczolyc a suitable second home.   Baemins find the practice of slavery abominable, an affront to the gods. This attitude is actually quite common among the nations of the Melitior Plains, though the Northmen have a 'bondsrech' which is a mix between an indentured servant and a family servant, the word is most often translated into 'slave' in other languages... something that would be a point of contention if the practice were more wide spread or visible.  

Baemia is actually a largish nation, the similarly sized land south of the Erd consists of no less than 8 seperate kingdoms, though the culture is similar, there are significant differences between the Baemins and their southern neighbors, particularly the closer one gets to the Hydimenoi or the Savannahs.


To be Continued.

The lands that lie along the northern border of the Hydimenoi are as unique in the Melitior plain as the lands that border the Tundrid Plateau, though they pay homage to the kings of the rest of the plains.  In fact some three kingdoms of the Melitior hold territories that border the great forest.

Those who live in the shadow of the woods are viewed as 'touched' or 'fey', and indeed, crossbreeding with Elves that have found their way out is excessively common in the region, resulting in a high degree of hybridization among the locals.  Despite this the locals appear to have a nearly supernatural dread of not only the black woods to their south but of Elves in general.  One might wonder how such hybridization could be common given the local attitudes, but dread is expressed primarily as nearly worshipful respect.

The people tend to worship spirits of the woods, or commonly bastardized variations on the gods of the elves, though the worship of Hirstur, the Flame of Life, spreads slowly and occasionally violently even here.   Woodsmen are not envied, though they are the primary source of lumber and firewood, their lives can be brutally hard, as the Forest is not forgiving of even the most respectful men.

Farms are easily identified by the borders of scarlet flowers, their beds seeded with ancient nails, said to ward of the Fey... including elves, though of course they have no power over those worthies.  

Every village has at least one wooden palisade fortress, used to protect the locals from rampaging beasts, bandits and other menaces. Often the leader of the town, be they a noble or simply a respected elder, makes their home inside the fortress, along with food stores for taxes or famine.   In many cases such fortresses may go unused for years, making the people complacent and ill prepared, in others the town virtually lives within the walls, venturing out only to work during daylight hours.  

Throughout the plains of Melitior, swords are the most common weapon for war, and this is true here as well, though most are proficent in the spear and bow as well. Militia or soldiers train in large powerful crossbows, but tend to fight with sword and shield, as the untrained militia, using their bows are the superior archers by far.   Armor is chain link, sheilds are rarely reinforced plank sheilds, though the nobility are marked by their steel breastplates and, among those who use sheilds, their well made triangle sheilds marked with heraldric devices. Weapon choices among the nobility range from the prosaic to the exotic.

To be cont....

The Eight Kingdoms of Southern Melitior are, to outsiders eyes, identical in all but name.  Indeed, to many of the populous the differences between neighboring kingdoms is trivial, though some stereotyping does exist between general regions of the area.  The simple fact of the matter is, the 8 kings hold very loose territory that has changed hands so often over the past centuries that there is no real unified sense of nationhood.  

This has slowly started to change, not from the permanence of Kings, but from the spread of a new, young faith, sweeping in from the West.  

After the Warlord had passed through the region, leaving devestation and strife in his wake, a young woman set herself to the task of his destruction, and the destruction of all he had wrought.  Some say she had been enslaved by his army, some suggest she had been raped by the Warlord himself. Regardless, she rose up and slew the puppet king the Warlord had left behind, alone and unarmed.  Her action, celebrated in statuary and art, brought to her side a small army of ragged peasants and farmers, dispossessed all, to fight the warlords forces.  As if driven by the Gods she and her hapless followers won every battle, suffering horrible losses at each until they were driven into the valley of Geths, where the Warlords men prepared to slaughter them to the last for this affront to his power.

To the south the Warlord was even then being slain, and the Valley of Geths was swept clean of all life by a raging firestorm, destroying the northern forces of the Warlord.  

In the aftermath the people of the region were able to rebuild without concern for those who had swore fealty to the Warlord, the few survivors were left without protection from the wrath of the survivors.  The nameless girl was enshrined as the patron saint by those who had met her on her doomed quest, eventually a shrine, later a church was erected at the site of her first act, pilgrims flocked to it, making their way barefoot and penitent to the sites of each of her battles, ending at the Valley of Geths, where they ritually scourge themselves with flaming brands.   Not all worshippers are so fanatical, but they still persecute the crusade against the heretics who did not fight the Warlord... meaning of course any who are not of the faithful.  The Church of Hirstur, the Flame of Life, as they call themselves (Hirstur is the former seat of the Warlords appointed king, now the center of the Faith, some say the 9th king of Melitior is the Matricarch), does not tolerate the worship of other Gods, though some missionaries are more single minded than others.

The rise of the faith has not been without impact in the region. At least two of the petty kings have recently converted, finding their ambitious plans supported by the church, their entire kingdoms have been converted as well by decree.  This has only fueled the petty infighting and border wars that crop up as each seeks to improve his power.  The missionaries from the church have had no luck north of the Erd or in the Savannahs, though some of the desert nomads of Hesh find the demanding faith suitable to their own beliefs, leading to a strange bastardized variation in that region.

Politically there is a very shallow 'noble class' consisting of a regional King, his extended family, and perhaps a half dozen lesser 'lords' that run the the country under him and their extended families. The wide variety of ranks and stratification does not exist here.  The middle class is similarly shallow, a few 'landed' merchants and exceptional tradesmen, town mayors and sheriffs, and that is about it. The bulk of the population are peasant farmers, not tied to the land as the serfs of Baemia are, but relatively poor but hard working folk.  The region is rich in natural resources, though they do trade for most of their metals, and life is reasonably comfortable when the nobles are not at war. Sadly, they often are, and it could be said that at any given time at least two kings of Melitior are fighting.

Someday, I will have a chance to put this intp PDF form for you.

Quote from: McrowSomeday, I will have a chance to put this intp PDF form for you.

Given that I'm going to be running a campaign in it, I need to start yoinking posts into a word document I can print out... not only that but it's gotten long enough that I'm having trouble remembering all the details.  Time to start referencing my own work! :o

well if you get it into word, I would take me almost no time to generate a PDF of it.

Eventually the Erd passes north into the mountains, back to it's source lake lying between the Tundrid Plateau and the Wastes of Irem.  Few make the dangerous journey to it's placid, misty surface for dragons inhabit the mountains above it, occasionally dropping down to the lake for giant fish.  Some say that the Gods take their ease here, for the region is earily quiet and peaceful, the weather mild the year round, and the entire lake feels magic.

Men live on the surface of the lake, fishing it's depths, their villages on the shore shrouded in the fog.  It is said there are islands on the lake itself, but their locations are never mapped, their names unknown, they cannot be seen from shore.  The men here are strange to outsiders. They live in peace with the dragons, the waters, and the orcs that live in the region. Some suggest that an entrance to the Realm of the Dead lies somewhere on the Lake itself, and that those who live in the region are guardians of it, the dead restored to life to watch over its paths.  


South of the lake, as the border of the Wastes retreats to the Western Coast, the westernmost expanse of the Melitior plains takes over. This is the lands of the northern Nornsa, of elves and men alike.

Near the coast of the western ocean lies the old capital of the former Empire. This is the city Nornsa, called Nornska by the locals. Nornska is dominated by a massive castle build of white stone and roofs of blue slate.  The High King rules from here, though the title is more a tradition for no other kings owe him fealty.  Still, while the High King may be an old lion in winter, his teeth and claws are sharp still.  Northron Nornsa has access to the clansmen, each man of the clans a fearsome warrior in addition to his normal duties. There are no peasants here, no real serfs. It is said that in times of need every man woman and child will answer the High King's call, sword in hand.   This is certainly true of the Clans, though their loyalty is not absolute and often fractious, but not everyone is of the Clans, particularly among the city folk.

The city folk tend to look down upon the wild clansmen with their 'primative' ways, while the Clans look at the cityfolk with pity, for they have no family to fall back upon. As many city folk were once members of the clans, perhaps generations ago, perhaps only years, they view this as a particular tragedy.

The clansmen have an unusual method of waging war, at least as far as other nations go. While the march as one, with sheilds at the ready, they often do without archers, though slings are popular for harassment they lack a 'unit' of missile weapons. They use the sheilds to weather any incoming missiles, drop them in favor of spears (against cavalry, or occasionally as preferred weapons. Spears feature prominantly in tales of ancient heroes, even in duels). A Clansman uses both hands for offense, either with two weapons or a large two handed weapon, very often a massive sword, referred to as a massacre sword.  Those who prefer smaller weapons have more choice, axes, maces and flails are all popular, though smaller swords are strangely not, used only rarely.  'Landed' cityfolk use smaller swords.  

The image that springs to mind of half naked wildmen with massive weapons charging madly across the open ground is somewhat inaccurate.  The Clans are not suicidal, and those who fight regularly will wear hauberks and helms as a matter of course. They prefer to charge forward, rather than wait for their enemies as a matter of course, but only in groups... fighting alone means your family does not support you.  More, the traditional stereotype suggest that they have no grasp of strategy or tactics, which could not be farther from the truth. These wildmen once conqured the known world, casting out the Orcs who had once ruled their lands, then sweeping aside all other kings who opposed their march.  Some say they were the first to use spears against horse, sweeping aside the cavalry of the southron nations.  Further, to dismiss them for their lack of archers, is to ignore their greatest asset, for the High King maintains ancient treaties that were sealed by bonds of marraige to the Northron Elves, whose archers are without compare.  Should the High King in Nornska call upon them, there are few who could withstand the combined might of these two closely linked nations.  Even the machinations of the Warlord could not shatter those bonds, though his efforts were not entirely in vain for in the wake of his passing the contact between the two kingdoms has grown increasingly infrequent and cool.

Though it pains, one must perforce return to the Southron nations to discuss the kingdoms of Ys and the region of Heltdan.  The divide of the Scar is viewed as the border between these two regions, with the modern, split kingdom of Kerkesh occupying both lands.

The kingdom of Ys once encompassed lands as far north as Avante and beyond, and while the western half of Kerkesh is technically part of Ys, the Kerkeshi have not renewed their oaths of loyalty for three generations.

Ys herself is a kingdom of faded, tarnished glories. The capital reeks of sewage, for the dwarves have abandoned her, and none who live there now know the secrets to the sewers. The elves and humans bicker and debate in the house of Lords, occasionally brawling like urchins, the wealthy and powerful fill their days with intoxicants and hedonistic pursuits.  It is said that in Ys, coin is the law of the land, the army is filled with worthless fops and dandies who owe their position to birthright rather than talent, and they are a toothless rabble, better suited to shaking down those who draw their gaze than enforcing order or protecting anything.  

Hethdan is perhaps better off, for it was a nation for perhaps 80 years before collapsing into nothing. The petty kingdoms, of which Western Kerkesh is technically one, that sprung up are individually much less powerful, yet are more vibrant and dynamic than what has become of Ys, which survives merely because none of her neighbors can be bothered to conquer her.  Of the former Heltdan kings, Kerkesh is the most powerful and well known, and were it not for the bitter rivalry with her sister nation, might have turned her attentions east.  The faith of the Kerkeshi has spread slowly, despite an utter lack of assistance from the king.  The Hethdan region spreads from the northern border of Hygleac to the south of the Hydimenoi.  It is notable for having the only surface kingdom of dwarves in the modern age.

Spike, I've got all 78+ pages in a word document.

This include the original racial studies - Elves: the Culture of Immortality.

I put the word "BREAK" in between each post so I could see how it flowed out originally (always with the eye towards editing it in the future).

You're welcome to it.

If you haven't yet James, I would add the "using studies" thread too, I think they work as an appendix to the original studies posts.

I tried to do what you have done, and it sounds like you've done a better job at it. Kudos, James.

We James'  have to stick together :)

Where's the using studies thread?  Did I miss that somewhere along the line?

Actually, i would love that... I've put so much up that I've started to lose track of it all :D

When I was going backwards I missed out on the fact that I had already named some kingdoms and regions and completely forgot about them! Gah!

that's why there was a sort of mini-followup post after today's initial volley.

My heart is set on going back to Tenebria, the Imperial Palace and more... but I have so much work to do still on the northern continent.  My work proceeds apace.. ;)

Quote from: James J SkachWe James'  have to stick together :)

Where's the using studies thread?  Did I miss that somewhere along the line?

http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2883 (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2883)

It was a very small thread, but it was a neat little piece of insight, IMO.

Quote from: SpikeAnyone want to link to the Paravail wiki here?  I lost track myself and I'm still very shaky on how linking works.

That'd be right here (http://paravail.pbwiki.com/). :)

!i!

Wow... this thread is hopping today! :D

This is going to be another split post. I've focused pretty heavily lately on geography and politcal landscapes (cultural stuff, etc) but I've neglected to cover a wide aspect of the setting. Religions and anything more detailed than general depictions of 'styles'. Part of this is to keep the corners unpainted so others can use this as springboard for their own games without feeling like I'm telling them that the males of Wei MUST HAVE peirced Scrotums, or it just ain't REAL.   Not going there, that's all on you either way.  

However, I have absolutley no real idea how to name my own NPC's or tell my players how to name their characters other than some generic ideas.  This might seem a minor beef (especially since I know what the Elf is going to be named no matter what I say on the topic, and knew ever before I knew anything else about the character....)... but of course properly established naming conventions can really cement a world for players. If the bartender is named Jim, it shatters suspension of disblief unless you are playing a world where Jim is a valid name.  Obviously a few naming conventions suggest themselves here and there. Renbluve does not sit well contrasted to Espadrille, but if you consider Nornsa and Renbluve are 'imported' names, linguistically, and espadrille is a native term we can sort of gather that southern Nornsa might use 'psuedo-spanish' as their former native tongue, replaced by the bizzare psuedo-germanic english of Nornsa imported from the north.  Elves use a LOT of Y and I and OI sounds in their language, thought the southern Tuatha decendents prefer UA and A sounds, and generally harder consenents.  The Savannah Kingdoms share a local lingo and tribal variations, but generally use very hard C/K sounds and X's, with lots of vowels for a choppy chattery language.  The Tenebrian language could be confusingly described as sibilant without the S... all soft sounds and muted consonants flowing together.

The other major concern that has come to mind is Cults/Faith. I've mentioned Gods and other major powers, named a few cults (the Kerkeshi mercenary cults spring to mind) but otherwise haven't said too much on the topic.  Yet, as a GM using this, I offered my players access to Cults to start with and then had to look stupid when I couldn't name local cultic factions or Gods.  Gah.  Obviously I've looked a bit harder at it, for example the opposed factions of Kerkesh kingdoms mention veneration of dragons and hatred of Dragons, along with the Mercenaries who either worship Death or Coin, and the Living Flame spreading in the Melitior plains (or the Totemic Animal worshippers of the Tundrid Plateau...)... all of which sounds pretty comprehensive, but none of it was useful to me for my campaign starting point.  How do the Elves worship? What about the citizens of Renbluve or the Avante?  Gah.  So, This post is really going to be an attempt to draw some lines, both mechanically and setting wise.  I hope to keep my overall tone the same in the actual 'setting post'.


On Gods and Temples and Cults in the World:

It could be said that the Gods are undeniably real.   This raises many questions, perhaps more disturbing than the one that has been just laid to rest, but it remains a fact.  The Gods are real because the power their worshippers gain is real and is, according to the archmagus academy savants, measurably different than the powers they command, and similarly different from the powers granted to the aesthetic mystic or the bone rattler shaman of more primative cultures.

But the Gods are remarkably silent on the topic of worship. They tolerate religious wars between cults, sometimes of the very same God, both sides drawing upon the might of their deity to destroy their enemies.  While there is only one Death, a terrible figure who many have seen, even to this very day, there are a hundred ways to worship Him, and a hundred different factions for each way.  At least there the path is clear, one Death with many valid ways to pay homage, and gain power.

Less clear are the dozens, or hundreds of gods who's domains overlap horribly.  How can Tenebria have fifeteen different primary gods of War, each covering an incredibly specific facet of warfare, while the clansmen of Northron Nornsa have one God, Harm, who governs both War and Family? What is one to make of such a confusion in the heavens?  the Gods have proven unwilling to appear on the face of the world to address this to their followers directly, though legends speak of earlier times where they dwelt openly with their followers.

And what can one make of the cultural drift? Harm was once, and still is a Dwarven God of Shelter. While it is possible to show how Harm's worship was transferred to the Clansmen, it is less possible to grasp how these radically different visions of the gods could co-exist and be metaphysically valid.

It has been suggested by some that perhaps the Gods themselves are not real, but that worship is merely another means of tapping the powers of Magic, a less well understood 'sorcery'. There are numerous problems with this, not the least of which is the very real presence of Death in the world.  What this suggests of the Shaman and his Spirits, or why Divine magic appears so refined and powerful compared to the sorceries of the Archmagii or the Shaman, who have a clearer grasp of how and why their techniques work... No, that way lies a morass of doubt and confusion. The Gods are demonstrably real.  It is their natures we do not understand.  Rather than dwell fruitlessly on such things, let us instead turn to the actual forms of worship.

There are strong similarities between the practices of the Bearmen and the Tuathan Elves of the Sea of Grass, in fact between all Shamanistic cultures.  The entire Tribe counts as a Cult, though they would not use such a term for themselves, with the Shaman functioning as the High preist and the Cheiftan most often forming the 'Cult champion' role. The shaman must both master the Spirits he commands, and learn to entreat the 'higher spirits' for aide.  These higher spirits are synonimous with Gods, and are often credited with creation of the world and the tribe. It is with the High Spirits that similarities cease.  The Tribes of the Tundrid plateau worship totemic animals, and their High Spirit (only one for any given tribe) is the penultimate expression of that Animal.

The Tuathan Tribes worship abstract concept gods. Hunter, First Elf, Moon, and so forth. The Cults of these gods are pan tribal, the Shaman of a given tribe will typically be the high preist of only one faith, but the tribe members may individually be 'favored' of another.  A hunter would worship Hunter... though this is not set in stone, and for guidance would turn to older, wiser hunters, rarely seeking a Shaman of Hunter from another tribe for particularly difficult spiritual matters.

The Shaman of the Savannahs have named Gods, who are much like other Gods, with domains and legends of their own.  Anzaxi the Spider is the wise man, the builder, who is said to have taught men the arts of weaving and crafting, for example.   While tribal legends and stories may vary, there is little actual variance in 'who' the Gods are.  The three kingdoms each favor certain subgroups of the local Gods, with some cross over, and at times this serves to fuel unrest in the region as the Gods are occasionally viewed as being in opposition to one another.

Among the Nornsa, Versilimatu is venerated as a God, and his worship is as fruitful as the worship of any other God.   His worship is particularly common among the nobility as the epitiomy of a powerful, ambitious ruler.  In the Northron kingdoms he is worshipped openly by the nobility, rites are dedicated to him and the King is expected to be the leader of the faithful, though often not the actual master of ceremonies.  The High King Vergmont, of Nornska, regularly sacrifices a goat to Versilimatu, and is viewed by some of the nobility as the very essence of Versilimatu reborn.  A seperate cult of worship is found among the lower classes, where he is viewed as a liberator from oppression, and yet a third is found among soldiers and warriors where his skill in battle makes him the penulitmate warrior.

In Southron Nornsa, his worship is much different and much more unified.  His worship is open to all, but is kept in secret, rites are not spoken of to non-members, or in public at all.   As membership in the Cult is typically by invite only, the cult remains small.  Casual members are called 'Infante', those who have participated in the Ritual of the Bull are called 'Fateris' with the high preist called  the 'Patari', or alternatively the 'Espadrille', after the sword. members frequently call upon other members for aid in politics or business, and it forms a powerful network for the faithful.  Supposedly, Versilimatu is venerated as the 'First among Men', and the purposes of the rituals is to make the worshipper a better man,a perfected Man.  While the primary purpose of the Cult appears to be the political betterment of the faithful, the cult is extremely prominanent in the army, and the might the faithful weild is impressive in it's own right.

Cults of the Warlord are equally, if not more, secretive, and generally despised, at least in Nornsa and Kerkesh, though they persist in the northern Continent.  Other gods have temples where the faithful may worship openly, and most gods are well named and have a variety of domains. Particularly beloved of the Nornsa is Lellanome, the Lady of the Horse, whose milk is the nectar of the Gods. She is worshipped in many aspects. Farmers worship her as a fertility and harvest goddess, burning the chaff from their fields in her name, while Hussars and knights may venerate her martial aspect, or the speed her worship gives.  While in other lands these might be viewed as seperate cults, the temples and rituals to her are shared by all faithful, uniting them under one worship. This is very prevalent in the former Ysithyderi region, as the enlightened rulers of that realm brought universal worship as a means of keeping the peace.  

The Avante have a much less organized worship, though they often venerate the same gods, they have no temples or 'holy men', each faithful is expected to seek his wisdom directly from the Gods, and seek vision quests and other esoteric methods of communing to determine his path.  This sits well with the mystic brotherhoods who are cultic in behavior without actually venerating any single god.  The mystics seek power by mastering themselves and purifying their spirtuality, and to the Nornsa are viewed as dangerous maniacs willing to kill and die for reasons that are unfathomable, though to the common Avante there is no mystery at all.

The Tenebrians, of course, have thousands of gods, and organized temples to powerful individual gods, or collections of lesser gods.   Cultic behavior tends to follow more pantheonic worship, though individual 'personal god' worship is prevalent as well.  The organized temples follow strict heirarchies, while the individual Cults are more nebulous, with two followers working seperate paths unless they meet and speak... the most respected members are the most 'advanced' on their path, their enlightenment is expected to be self evident.

One of the more interesting... indeed UNIQUE aspects of Nornsa religious life is the  particular way the Sun is venerated.  

While sun worship is found among all races, even the savage Goblins attempt to placate the Sun with primative rituals, the Nornsa are positively fanatical about it.  Almost every cult includes aspect of sun worship, the Versilimatu Secrets cults have Him ritually killing the sun and taking it's place as one of their 'secrets', something even the most casual member will know, if not understand, the worship of Lellanome is always conducted during the day under an open sky, and some venerate her role in pulling the chariot of the sun across the sky...

But it is the Lightbringers who are most unusual of all.  While the vast majority of the populace worships the Lightbringer to some extent, few will make the leap to full fledged initiates of the Cult, and with very good reason.

When a postulant desires to rise in the ranks of the cult as special ceremony is held, and atop the highest temple roof during the noonday sun, the postulant is ritually killed, his heart burned in a brazier.  If he is worthy, the high preist (who, it must be understood has been killed some three or four times himself in this ritual...) will raise him from the dead at the next dawn, he spends the night a corpse lashed to the bloody alter.  While many cults have access to such powerful magics to return the dead to life, only the Southern Nornsa Lightbringers USE it as a prerequisite to become a full fledged member.

There are rumors that some Death Cults are formed from those who have been returned from the dead, but never by those who were killed and ressurected solely to join.  It is said that some of those death cults recruit from fallen Lightbringers, and many lightbringers worship at two alters after their annointment.

Shall we speak of distant Hesh and her strange inhabitants?

Many in the southern lands consider Hesh to be the most distant and exotic of human kingdoms. From the perspectives of the Nornsa, this is hardly an unfair assumption, as Hesh is distant in ways best measured not in leagues but difficulty of travel.   The desert they call home is bordered to the north by the Harmzgelter mountains, to the West by the far edge of the plains of Melitior and to the south by the lands of the Savannah kingdoms.  To the East lies a no man's land of untamed wilderness and savage city-kingdoms, including Spada.   The people of Hesh make their homes in a land few would want, and there they thrive.

The desert is a harsh place of golden sands and red boulders upthrust from it, like ancient ships in the sea without water.  The Wadi's of the desert are natural highways, and incredibly dangerous due to flash floods when the Sun passes too close to the mountains to the north and melt the snowy caps. The water washes down through the desert, sweeping everything clean, and only high ground provides any safety.

The Hesh themselves are dark of skin, though not so dark as the Avante. Their hair tends towards deep rich browns, with waves and tight curls, though they shave their heads. An unshaven head is the sign of a slave or untouchable laborer.  They love their harsh and unforgiving land, and view other lands as uncomfortably chilly and damp.

The River Erd is the life blood of this land, it flows wide and shallow, sluggish with silt from upriver, and great crocadiles wallow in it. It floods regularly, less violently than the flash floods of the desert Wadis, and the Hesh make great use of the rich aluvial soil deposited seasonally, without the floods of the Erd no one could survive long in this burning land.

There are portions of the river that are shallow enough to be very nearly a swamp.  The Hesh harvest marsh reeds and plants, making a fine linen cloth from the fibers of various reeds, and a form of parchment from the leaves of others.  

The region is mineral poor, there is very little iron to be found, even in the Harmzgelter's along the northern border of the desert, what little there is has been reserved for religious artifacts. Bronze is the preferred metal, something that has made the Hesh a target for other, more advanced cultures. Yet, the Heshites have managed to win over other agressors.

To understand why one must look to the huge pyramids the Heshites build in and around their communities. These pyramids are temples, monuments to the Gods of their people, but more importantly, they Heshites have mastered the arts of geomancy, of arranging the flow of magics in the Aether around them to most easily maximize it. Every Heshite warrior is equipped with weapons of enchanted Bronze stronger than steel, their very skin hardened to turn aside the weapons of their enemies. While lesser men cook to death inside shells of steel, the bare skin of the Heshite armies proves nearly as effective, and much easier to wear. The sheer amount of raw power the Hesh Preist-King can draw upon to fuel these enchants accounts for much of their power.

Religion and politics are one and the same to the Hesh. The change of dynasties is the change of primary deities, and in this the Sun tends to reign supreme... not out of love but out of fear. The Erd is worshipped as the mother of the Earth and the Crocodiles are viewed as children of the Goddess, and minor deities in their own right.  Much has been said of their seasonal sacrifice of a child to the river to ensure the floods occur, no more need be said.


To be cont....

(sorry about the poor post, doing it around distractions over three days...)

For the most part Heshite culture revolves around the temples and the Gods. Most heshites are worshippers at a variety of temples, even lay members of a dozen cults. To advance in their culture requires chosing a single cult and advancing in it, the social status tied to position in the temple heirarchy and relative power of the temple itself. The lowest caste of laborers, the untouchables, are forbidden from worship at any of the temples or joining any of the cults, yet they have their own Gods and worship practices. It is not understood if such practices arose from their denial of mainstream worship or are the cause of their castes.

One of the more interesting facets of desert life is the presence of reptilian tribes in the desert. These appear similar to the jungle lizardfolk of the south, but their language and culture is completly different, and it is suspected that they are a seperate race entirely.  These desert tribes wage an eteral war against the Heshites, but the nomadic desert tribes of humans and orcs get along with the lizard tribes more or less peaceably.  The 'Dry Ones' as they are called seem far more savage, yet have a complex social structure nonetheless, than their human neighbors. They use mostly stone, wood and bone, never metal for their construction and worship a deity best described as the 'Lizard of the Sands', or 'The Old One', something that leads some scholars to believe that such a diety may actually be a great old dragon living somewhere out in the burning sea.  

The human tribes to the west are very humanocentric, less likely to treat with the Dry Ones peacably, and have all but chased the orcish nomads away. This is a recent development with the rise of Fire Cults among the western nomads, imported from Eastern Melitior but adapted to the harsh landscape.  The other tribes venerate ancestor spirits and have a more animistic faith structure and very primal 'god-spirits' that recieve only minimal worship.  Most of the human and orc tribes are very similar, though the hardy nature of the Orc tribes means they are slightly less survival oriented, less paranoid about resources than their human neighbors.  Unlike the Heshites the nomads wear great robes and full body coverings to keep the sun and sand off of them, most rarely bother to shave, and bathing is a luxury.  The nomads would appear to outsiders to be a dour and loveless people, but it is more that they have no time or energy for frivolity in their harsh land. In quiet moments, in private, they can be tender and kind, and some of their simple pleasures have spread far beyond their desert origins, so much so that people fail to realize whence they came. Varients of the desert game of S'yang stones can be found as far away as Tenebria, and is a popular form of gambling in Paravail (whence the common name comes). Ironically, among the nomads the game is used to teach conservation of resources and long term planning to children.  No, the real artistry of the nomad tribes is their poetry, for they believe that words have great power. All their magics and worship activities involve spoken, written and chanted words, and among those who have taken the time to learn their language, their poetry is considered among the best in the world, evocative and haunting.  This veneration of words reflects in their culture: most nomads speak as little as necessary, and many will think hard before saying anything, so they may phrase it as beautifully as possible... though of course not all have the talent to truely excell, and their efforts are often lost on outsiders anyway.

The legal system of Nornsa is very simple. Most crimes that appear before a Magistrate (in the Halls of Justice, across from the Palace) are punishable by Drowning, or alternatively enslavement.  There are no lawyers, no jury and no presumption of innocence (or guilt necessarily).

Essentially, one arranges for a Magistrate to hear a chase against someone, if necessary the city watch will roust the accused and bring them to the Halls.  Without the accused present there can be no trial.  The Magistrate sits on a low stone dias in a hard chair holding iron rod capped with an iron ball, dressed in robes and a mitre, the sun must be shining for there to be a trial, and the opening above the magistrate allows the Sun to witness the proceedings.

The Accuser stands at a small podium to one side, the accused are typically manacled to a ring in the floor to the other side. The Magistrate controls the proceedings by banging his rod on the floor, or rather smacking the ball end upon the floor.  The magistrate may punish transgressors in the Hall by striking them with his rod as well.  

The Accuser speaks first, labeling the crime, then the Accused may speak, generally protesting their innocence. Oratory skills are prized at this point. Then teh Accuser presents his evidence, then teh accused as well.  Both sides may then debate (orderly) the merits of their evidence, though this requires both sides to HAVE evidence.   Once both sides have presented each peice of evidence and arguments for and against it, teh Magistrate makes his decision, and the sentence is carried out immeadeatly. Death by Drowning is the official means of execution, but the method generally includes a blow to the head then being tossed off the walls of the Upper city into the harbor.   Variations are held around the kingdom, but the format remains largely unchanged.

It is possible for interested citizens who wish to partake in their civic duties, or hope to refine their oratorical techniques to chose to defend the accused in any given case.  

Likewise, as often the accused have no time to aquire a case, it is not uncommon for the Magistrate to provide a grace period for the accused to provide for their defence, though if the case against them is really bad, they may be held in chains until the trial is properly finished. There is no garauntee the same magistrate will hear both halves of such a split case.

The Accused are not held to be either guilty or innocent by the Magistrate.  He is expected to judge the merits of the evidence and arguements alone. The Sun is unconcerned with actual guilt or innocence, but how the case is presented.   The nobilty are expempt from being accused, their disposition falls under the auspices of the King.

Typical crimes are theft, murder, banditry, wanton destruction, rape and smuggling. Treason is rarely heard in the Halls, and a more recent, and somewhat problematic one, is 'supporting the unlawful release of a slave'... that is helping a slave run away. As there is no real legal tradition regarding the status of slavery, despite a few hundred years of the practice, this sort of trial often has... murky... outcomes.  If the slave in question was part of a city workgang, then the offender is punished severly, if 'privately held', against tradition, then the offender is at most fined, as the law does not recognize privately owned slaves... properly. The King has remained silent on the matter.

In case it comes up later in my Game I'm going to detail the Marches, as well as describe a few facets of Upper Renbluve that have either already been used in game, or might be at some later point.

The Marches is a region of Southron Nornsa, bordering Avante to the north and the Hydimenoi to the NorthEast. The region gained it's name for the march of armies across it's moors and plains throughout the ages. It is said Versilimatu camped his army here to treat with the Siti, the Warlord's Horde swept through unopposed, and the Avante launch their invasions from this portion of the borderland, which is not exactly coincidence. To the West, the nation of Avante is nearly unpassable swamplands, naturally everyone wishing to push south must thread their army between the swamp and the forboding great forest to access the southlands.

While most of Southron Nornsa is pleasant and pastoral, the Marches is harsh and hard, her people militant and distrustful.  Like all Nornsans, the Marchers love their horses, though the moors and rocky valleys are hard on them, and the beasts are generally only found in noble stables.  Farming is hard, and often done by hand in tiny, one man, plots dotting the landscape. Pigs are the most common livestock, and geese, rather than chickens are the common poultry, favored for their hardiness in the cold weather and their aggressive behavior towards strangers.

The Marchers are considered by many to be a uncouth and uncivilized people by their countrymen. No major Nornsan cities or towns can be found here, only minor trade posts and small fortresses overlooking the main routes through the region. Banditry is common, and it is believed by some that every Marcher is a bandit in his spare time, there are no end to secret nooks and crannies in the region.

If the Marchers are uncouth and uncivilized to the rest of the Nornsans, those who live near the Great Forest are viewed as uncouth to even the Marchers. They are a dour and secretive lot, making their living off the forest to their north, trading only with a few trusted merchants brave or foolish enough to travel so far.  This far south the Siti elves are uncommon and distrusted by the locals.  Goblins and Orcs make their homes in the woods, and all three races have been known to prey on the trappers and woodsmen, or on occasion sweep out of the forest to burn whole villages to the ground.  THis view of elves as kin to orcs and goblins is unique to the region and inexplicable to others.  

The March Lords are a loose collection of nobles, the only one who has a title is the Duke of the House Assar. Most of the March Lords are of the Assar as well, with a few exceptions. Each noble is expected to maintain a keep and men, this is his duty as a Noble. Loss of both keep and men equals loss of title. The House Assar also maintains a House Hearth, which is technically the Ducal seat, though the duties of the Duke often take him to distant Renbluve, so the Hearth is maintained by the rest of the family.

The old duke was a true March Lord, led his men on hunts, raids and in war. After the last war against the Avante he spent his time mostly in Renbluve, arguing that Dragoons should be stationed in the Marches as well.  He died a lingering death of a bleeding ulcer, and his two sons remained in Renbluve. His older son is a poor example of a Marcher, or a Duke, preferring to drink himself into oblivion, hates horses and has no intention of returning to the Hearth... ever. His duties consist solely of using his signet ring to sign announcements and proclamations for the Marches from the King and ship them out.  While he is unenthusiastic about this, he does actually read what he signs.  His younger brother is still to young to make a measure of, but is a very earnest boy who idolizes his older brother to some extent.

Grand Dame Gizeli is the old dukes mother and the current mistress of the hearth.  Her opinion of her grandson is a simple one. He needs to be brought out to the Marches, put on a horse and ridden until the booze sweats out of him.  She just might have the power to do so, if she can get him out of Upper Renbluve.

Can someone who has collected all this send me the  word document/pdf? I'm getting ready to go back and clean up the mass and re-present it, along with expanding it a bit more.

Thanks.:D

All 85 pages - and the "appendix" someone suggested?

ummm..sure....sorry I missed the request as I was out of town...

Now let me see...where did I put that document....

I am having the damnedest time ressurecting this bad boy...

How is my demonic general supposed to lead my legion of undead threads to genocidal victory?

You, of course, are not requesting a resend, are you?

haha... no, I have it already. I was getting this resurrected so that I wouldn't confuse people that had missed it the first time, or forgotten it, as I start to add to 'em all...

And I'll let you decide on the following offer:

If Spike agrees, I have all of this original studies on one big bad-ass word document.  That is, I have it all until he resurrected this stuff recently.

I don't recall having the dragons or some of the other stuff.

But if Spike's OK, and he'll tell us here, I offer it.

I'm OK with that. I thought the original idea was to put all the collected stuff somewhere on the site anyway. Its been a while and I have crap memory...

An Update! Oh my faaking Gawds!

No, really.  Recently looking to get this all published up as a vanity project I was talking to some freelancers, but was rejected... sort of.

It seems I'm a bit TOO generic.  Haven is in dire need of a hook. I'm sure there is one in all this mess, but I'm damned if I can put my finger on it exactly.  Also, if this were done as a world atlas product (and for the curious, I am once again in contact with my Map Man... the map of Haven is getting tightened up, mano!), what sort of voice would people like? The GURPS style 'just the facts, ma'am.' that I sort of default to, or the wonky, wild-eyed psuedo-victorian monographs of the, say, metallurgical studies?

Also: I've been sorting out the timeline and collecting abandoned names to reduce error and redundancy/incompleteness. If anyone wants me to make some changes, speak now or forever hold yer stones!

Gah!

Forgot: In the effort to make this a bit more accessable, I think I'll, essentially, write out the Halflings and the Kobolds, reducing the number of 'important races'. Kobolds are redundant with the Goblins (which I think I'll keep to just Goblins, rather than the full spectrum of goblinoids from D&D), and the Halflings can stay in the deep south in their Yuib Trees, forgotten unless someone has a real halfling fetish.  I'll also try to set up some sort of outline for general perusal, a method of approaching the material... in case I DO go ahead and organize it as a book.

So, any advice anyone wants to offer there is acceptable as well...

Holiday bump.  Jeebus, I forgot all you pinkskins take time off this time of year....

-Spike, posting from work all week long...

Quote from: Spike;499892Holiday bump.  Jeebus, I forgot all you pinkskins take time off this time of year....

-Spike, posting from work all week long...

Good God man, take a day off.

Haha... Actually, I just went from eight hours seven days a week, to 12 hours three days at a time... so I actually DO have a day off now.

In three days.


Edit: Also... no comment on the previous post before the bump?  No one?  Damn holidays!

Woah...that's...huge!

I haven't had the time to read through it all (to be honest, just the first page) but i liked what i saw.

Is there a game system you use this world with?
And nice map, by the way! Hope to see a higher resolution of it, you can't really zoom in right now.

Are you planing on offering this up as a free download or is this going to be a product to purchase?

I originally conceived of it as a generic setting, suitable for MOST fantasy games. I mostly have run it in Mongoose Runequest, but I've also used Pathfinder/3.5E D&D for shorter games in the same setting with plenty of success.

With a little refinement on my part and some money outlays, I hope to have something that is at least a lulu product, if not more ambitious.

However, I'm a swell guy, and there are links to a document file in the thread that should get you the main contents of the thread (compiled by a reader), and I have no intention of ever being dickish about copyrights... something I've said numerous times about this. Feel free to use and abuse it as you like, fer free even.

The sticky in the Development sub-Forum has a LOT of extra links once I realized this thread had gotten too long for me to convienently find things I had written.  

Enjoy!