Fantasy RP

[Bannanachair]

This RP has not finished being written. I’m utilizing the ability to edit posts so that I can just continually add more stuff to it, which is why the Table of Contents has stuff that you won’t actually find in the OP yet. You also should not read everything all at once. Skim things if you want to and read what you want to. PM me if you have a character concept and want me to give you suggestions on what reading to do from there.

Table of Contents

1) Geography
1.1) A brief Overview of the World
1.2) Orevod
1.3) Eredal
1.4) Elusia
1.5) Argolon
1.6) Kraken Island
1.7) The Towers
1.8) Traketus
1.9) Vrelon
1.10) Grithal
1.11) Oyinid
1.12) Tedal
1.13) Lovilan
1.14) Legia
1.15) Slairis
1.16) Far North/Winterpond
1.17) Yhendorn
1.18) The Cavelands
1.19) The Riftlands
1.20) Other Places, to be detailed later
2) Races
2.1) Humans
2.2) Cyclopses
2.3) Faeries
2.4) Dragons
2.5) Other Races, to be detailed later
3) Religions
3.1) Darism
3.2) Tiarism
3.3) Gold Fox
4) Organizations
4.1) Threun Guard
4.2) Knights of the Purple Tower
4.3) Knights of the Star
4.4) Knights of the Broken Sword
4.5) Knights of the Black Rose
4.6) Knights of the Storm
4.7) Ashen Legion
4.8) The Eagleswords
4.9) Bloodied Circle
5) Magic
5.1) Wizards
5.2) Sorcerers
5.3) Warlocks
5.4) Trees and Woods
6) History
6.1) History of Nerath
6.2) History of Tarthel
6.3) History of Ghoril
6.4) History of the Lich King
6.5) History of the Wars of Fire
6.6) History of Arkhosia
6.7) History of Bael Turath
7) Calendars
7.1) Darist Calendar
8) Languages
8.1) Tarthelian-derived Languages
8.2) Nerathi-derived Languages
9) Rules and Guidelines
10) Characters and Suggestions (to be edited as the story progresses)
11) CS

1) Geography (1

1.1) A Brief Overview of the World (1.1

There are three continents known to and charted by scholars of Kraken Island, though there may very well be more. The continent to the west, which is the most well-documented of the three, is home primarily to humans, though it also has large numbers of other Races. There are at least four notable Cyclops kingdoms in the Cavelands, as an example, and most deep forests have notable faerie populations (the only notable exception being the Spiderwood Forest, which has its own nonhuman entities). Though the continent has various names in various languages, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll be using the Old Nerathi name of Emuine for the continent.

The western part of the continent is in primarily feudal kingdoms, like Orevod, Eredal, Argolon and Vrelon, and the linguistic-cultural regions of Elusia and Legia are fractured into various independent duchies, counties, baronies and others (as was Orevod, until about a hundred years ago). Many of these kingdoms were formerly part of the Empire of Nerath, and some were part of the Empires of Tarthel and Ghoril as well, thousands of years ago.

Central Emuine is dominated by three main regions: In the south, there’s Yhendorn, secluded from the rest of Emuine by the Yhendorn Mountains. There are at least forty city-states within the Plains of Yhendorn, and they claim to be one of the first cradles of civilization. To the north of Yhendorn there are the Riftlands and the Cavelands, two regions that share a similar history. The Riftlands are known as such because the ground is full of canyons and valleys and rifts in the earth. The Cavelands are a much hillier, nearly mountainous area, covered in a large cave network, or several large cave networks, depending on which authorities one chooses to believe on the subject. North of the Cavelands is the Oln Sea, a large inland sea with a rich and storied history. Some religious scholars claim that the Oln Sea is the centre of the world, while others claim that some point in the Cavelands is (generally a cave of theological significance to them). Either way, it is evident that one of the two is the centre of the Emuine continent.

Eastern Emuine is much less populated and known about than the rest of the continent. Much of Emuine east of the Oln Sea is in the Umbath Desert, a wasteland where very little can grow and less can survive. It’s hypothesized that the ancient ruins of Bael Turath lie somewhere in this desert, but many who attempt to journey into the desert simply do not return alive. This is more attributable to death by dehydration than supernatural phenomena, however. North of the Umbath Desert are the Umerth Mountains, which are very likely the largest mountain range in the world. The Umerth Mountains are considered to be impassable by humans, and begin somewhere in the Umbath Desert: That said, the mountains are far from uninhabited. Up to a hundred dragons may live in the mountains, depending on how one chooses to count, and there is certainly a notable mixing of Snow Cyclops and Stone Cyclops in the northern reaches of this range.

To the north of everything is a region known simply as The Far North, where Faeries, Dragons and Cyclopes reign freer than men. The kingdom of Slairis arguably extends into this region, but the most notable Human settlement in The Far North is Winterpond, established shortly before the fall of the Nerath empire.

Eplune is the Southern continent, though admittedly not much beyond the northern coast, and part of the Western coast, has been documented by the wizards of Kraken Island. The north coast is littered in cities that deal in trade, selling gold and jewels in exchange for cloth, harder metals and sometimes even food, when the Gnoll Raids get bad. Inland of the Trade Cities Gnolls, as they are known, are a race of demons that slaughter any attempts to travel inland, and regularly besiege and try to destroy the Trade Cities, often successfully.

The continent of Atera lies to the east of the Umbath Desert and the Umerth Mountains, though it is notably connected to Emuine by land. Not as much is known about Atera as is known about Emuine, but what is known is fascinating: There is evidence that Bael Turath expanded as far east as Atera, for instance. There is a peninsula that goes further to the south than the northern coast of Eplune, where a million gods are worshipped. There are kingdoms inhabited by a race of demons known as Minotaurs, full of suffering and pain. Many spices and silks are produced, and come into Emuine through sea routes and trade with the Cyclopes of Umerth.

1.2) Orevod (1.2

Orevod is a relatively new nation, located on the peninsula that is its namesake on the western end of the world. The peninsula had, for several centuries, been divided between a half a dozen petty kingdoms prior to its recent unification under the blue dragon Nizeston, who conquered them all over the course of a hundred years and began centralizing power under himself.

Now, Orevod is one of few Dragonocracies currently reigning in the world, and by far the most powerful. The government structure is feudal, but there is a significant amount of social mobility, with those proving to be beneficial to Nizeston’s rule being granted higher titles and those that shirk their duties losing theirs. The dragon cares very little for the old bloodlines of the peninsula, and as such the current aristocracy is a mixture of new and old blood.

There are six cities on the peninsula, those being Ostcliff, Mallowater, Eriport, Nargon, Galbror and Clearden, with Ostcliff, the capital and largest city, having over fifty thousand people residing in it. Clearden and Eriport each have about twenty thousand, and Nargon, Galbror and Mallowater have about ten thousand each.

Each of the six cities was formerly the capital of one of the petty kingdoms that ruled in the peninsula, before they were assimilated into the realm of Nizeston the Blue Conqueror. Ostcliff was the first to fall, and it became Nizeston’s capital from which he launched his further conquests. The royal family was burned alive a hundred and twenty years ago.

Mallowater, nearby to Ostcliff (just across the Paruks Bay by sea and the Qrihst Mountains by land), surrendered quickly. They were always the weakest of the kingdoms, and opted to surrender to save their lives. The old royal family now rules as Earls of Mallowater, and have become some of Orevod’s most loyal vassals.

Eriport and Nargon joined together to war against the dragon, leading to a series of prolonged wars over the course of fifty years. Eventually, though, Nizeston won, and put men loyal to him in charge of those newly conquered cities. As time progressed, the loyalty of their descendants has changed as much as loyalty to the crown changes in any other kingdom from generation to generation, though they knew better than to rebel.

Clearden surrendered peacefully to Nizeston, though that surrender led to a war: Dragons are territorial beasts, and don’t like their territories to be enveloped by another’s. Two dragons, Lemurrath the Green and Esulnoc the Red, both laired within areas ruled by Nizeston, in the Hyst Forest and the ruined city of Gagh Buldir respectively. This led to decades of conflict, during which the grandson of the man installed as Earl of Nargon pledged support to Esulnoc.

The War of Gagh Buldir, as it is known, ended in a victory for Nizeston, though not a total victory. Gagh Buldir was stormed by knights loyal to Nizeston and Esulnoc was slain. The knight who slew Esulnoc was granted the hereditary Earl of Nargon and the hereditary title of “Dragonslayer” (used only on the most formal documents, as the term tends colloquially to be used only in reference to those who have actually slain dragons). However, Lemurrath managed to hold the Hyst Forest despite the best attempts of Nizeston to drag him out, and would have slew Nizeston in aerial combat were it not for some archers who temporarily distracted him. The Hyst Forest, as a result, remained entirely independent of Nizeston’s rule.

The last nation on the peninsula was Galbror, which had sworn itself to Eredal as Dukes of the Crebehl Forest. Nizeston was determined to conquer it as well, and thirty years later launched a conflict known as the First Galbror War, the First Crebehl War or the First Orevod-Eredal war, depending on which scholar describes the event. However, Eredal is a strong kingdom, and unlike the Rape of Ostcliff and Conquest of Mallowater, and even the Eriport-Nargon war, merely being a dragon was not enough to gain a victory. Ultimately, Nizeston was repelled, and began preparations for a second invasion.

Ten years after the conclusion of the First Galbror War, Nizeston launched the Second Galbror War to much greater success, managing to conquer the city and much of the forest, and even press somewhat further into Eredal. Ultimately, however, he was forced to draw peace early when threats of Lemurrath joining the conflict emerged, resulting in a peculiar feudal situation in which the Duke of the Crebehl Forest under Eredal is simultaneously also the Earl of Galbror under Orevod.

Ten years have passed since the Second Galbror War, with the only conflicts in the kingdom being among minor feudal Lords and Barons, and one minor peasant’s rebellion.

1.3) Eredal (1.3

Eredal is a feudal kingdom, significantly less centralized than Orevod but still distinctly a single nation. It’s located along the western coast of the continent, and stretches inland until it reaches the Truqolp mountain range and the Cyclops Kingdom there. It is bordered to the south by the Nubarb River (on the other side of which is Elusia) and the Spiderwood Forest (across from which is Argolon), to the north by the kingdom of Vrelon, to the west by Orevod and to the east by the Truqolp mountains, on the other side of which lie the human kingdom of Traketus.

The Owl Kings of Eredal, known as such due to the family’s heraldry, have been reigning for nearly three hundred and fifty years, initially as sub-kings under the Empire of Nerath. Prior to them, the Wolf Kings had reigned, and before them the Bear Kings forged the kingdom together after the fall of Tarthel. That said, ‘Owl King’ is a term used generally informally or by historians to distinguish the three different eras of the kingdom’s existence. The full title of the King of Eredal is long and contains over a dozen titles, including Lord of Belgate, Wearer of the Amber Crown and Wielder of the Sapphire Sword, referencing their ancestral home and capital, and some of the royal regalia.

There are nine Dukes sworn directly under the Kingdom of Eredal, and each of those has various Earls and Barons and landed Knights. The most powerful of the Dukes is very likely the Duke of Greenwater, who rule the most populous, though not the richest, city in the kingdom north of Belgate, and have some of the most fertile fields in the land.

The Dukes of Strongvale have long been renowned for their martial abilities, and the Dukes of Goldport have a city along the Icil River, near the Truqolp Mountains, where they collect and transport gold and gems mined in the mountains. These two Duchies have long been close allies, with frequent political marriages going back two hundred years.

The Duke of the Crebehl Forest was a recent addition to the kingdom, and nearly a recent loss to the kingdom after the Second Crebehl War. The Duchy was nearly lost to Orevod, and likely would have been were it not for the ingenious idea on the behalf of the Duke of Estermere to send messengers to try and bribe the Green dragon Lemurrath into the conflict. It is currently in a state of affairs where it is simultaneously a vassal of Orevod and Eredal.

The Duchy of the Spiderwood Forest is the last notable vassal of Eredal, and likely the most internationally infamous. The Spiderwood Forest is located along the small border that Eredal has with Argolon, and likely contains the source of the Nubarb River. It is known as the Spiderwood Forest because of the giant spiders who live there, known mainly through myth and rumour. It is the only place where Spideroak is harvested, a type of oak tree that can be treated to be as hard as some steel and that has magical properties. It is distinguished by blue, spiderweb-like veins that run through it.

1.4) Elusia (1.4

Elusia, unlike Eredal and Orevod, is not a single kingdom, but rather a heavily disjointed feudal area, linked by common language and history: Akin, in some ways, to what Orevod was a hundred years ago. The major rivers in the region include the Nubarb, which also defines the border with Eredal, the Ayomor, the Stalm and the Eluse, from which the region gets its name.

There are over a hundred small nations in Elusia, many of them independent Baronies or Counties that control everything within less than two day’s walk of their capital. As such, it would be redundant to even attempt to list them all, so only the major feudal realms will be discussed in any detail, and the history of the region will be given in broad strokes.

Among the most significant (and permanent) titles are the Duchy of Ayomor, the Duchy of Stalmar, the Principality of Besite, the Duchy of Datha, the Earldom of Krilia, the County of Crocan, the Duchy of Waitis, the Duchy of Tivell, the Grand Duchy of Alvania, the Earldom of Gerean, the Earldom of Prodour, the County of Meotus and the Duchy of Thasia, many of which have numerous vassals of their own and complex relations, both with eachother and with nations abroad.

Elusia was not always the disjointed mess that it currently is: After the Empire of Tarthel left the area twelve hundred years ago, it was ruled by a king in a feudal nation akin to modern-day Eredal and Argolon, though then it was called Elsutia. However, the kingdom was prone to civil wars, and over the centuries the king began to lose authority: Eventually the title of “king” became an elected one, chosen from among the nobility, and then after several centuries it was ignored entirely.

The Empire of Nerath never managed to conquer Elusia: The defenses along the Nubarb, amplified by various magics and the aid of Kraken Island, managed to prevent Nerath from conquering it. That said, they certainly exerted some influence over the region, regularly funding rebels and quickening the collapse of the kingdom.

About two hundred years ago the southern coast of Elusia was annexed by Kraken Island during an era of expansion for them, becoming the Kraken Coast, and the Duke of Ayomor and the Count of Arlomon were forced to become vassals of the Kraken Kingdom, though they managed to retain significant amounts of autonomy.

1.5) Argolon (1.5

Argolon is a kingdom much like Eredal, if only slightly more centralized. It has a southern coast, but the kingdom extends far north enough to share borders with Eredal and Vrelon and have a presence in the Oln Sea. To the west the kingdom is bordered by various Elusian realms, among them Arlomon, Prodour and Stalmar. To the east Argolon is bordered by the kingdom of Oyinid, the two nations being separated by the Wiples river and the Krios mountains.

The kingdom is rather ancient, and has been ruled by a continuous line of monarchs since the fall of the Tarthel empire twelve hundred years ago, at least according to oral tradition: Written records from anything more than a few hundred hundred years ago are generally considered to be untrustworthy, particularly in the kingdom of Argolon.

Argolon is likely the most magical of all kingdoms, and singers abroad who need a setting for their tales often set them in Argolon: There are plenty of faeries throughout the kingdom, with Seelie faeries being something of a boon to the kingdom (sometimes) and Unseelie faeries being one of the greatest dangers that the people of the kingdom regularly face.

There are six Duchies in Argolon: The Duchy of Prugon, the Duchy of Golon, the Duchy of Diton, the Duchy of Tothen, the Duchy of Cresite and the Duchy of Pronait, arranged in a circle of sorts around the capital of Calbourne, and each occupying part of the border with external nations or the sea.

The Duchy of Prugon shares a border with Eredal and the Spiderwood Forest, and is similarly heavily forested, though shared by humans and faeries. Prugon was an independent kingdom before Tarthel conquered the area that would become Argolon, and there are a handful of ancient families that exist that can trace their lineage all the way back to that time. These families are the oldest recorded families with detailed family trees to exist west of the Oln sea, though they were recorded in bardic and skaldic oral traditions for millennia before they were written down.

The Duchy of Golon lies next to Prugon, and lies on the Oln Sea and shares a very small border with both Traketus and Oyinid. The capital of this Duchy is a port city on the Oln Sea, where the Wiples River flows into the sea. South of Golon is the Duchy of Diton, which comprises most of the border with Oyinid. The Diton River flows through most of the Duchy, eventually becoming a tributary of the Wiples.

Tothen is the duchy that comprises most of the rest of the border with Oyinid, with their part of the border being alongside the Krios Mountains. It is probably the most heavily forested of all the Duchies, and the most mountainous. Most of the duchy is wilderness, ruled by faeries and cyclopes who come down from the Krios Mountains, but it also has some of the largest mines outside of the Cavelands and Riftlands due to access to the Krios mountains. It is also the location of the ruined Cyclops city of Thar Garum, and stretches all the way far south enough to have a border on the southern ocean.

Cresite is the Duchy with the largest stretch of the south coast to itself, but it has no land borders with other kingdoms. Cresite does border the last duchy, Pronait, which comprises a small amount of the south coast and has most of the borders with Elusian nations.

1.6) Kraken Island (1.6

Kraken Island is the world’s oldest and most powerful Magocratic nation (that is, a nation ruled by those who use magic) except for arguably ancient Bael Turath. It’s not exactly certain how old the magical order that came to political prominence on the island is: There is archaeological evidence to support theories that the Wizards of Kraken Island existed for up to four thousand years, certainly predating the rise of Arkhosia and Bael Turath by a number of centuries.

Either way, it was conquered by Arkhosia during the Wars of Fire and the institution managed to survive those destructive conflicts, and remain largely intact throughout the Lich King’s reign of tyranny over the world. Ghoril and Tarthel both also managed to exercise some degree of authority over Kraken Island at various points in history, though neither were particularly successful at getting more than a nominal acknowledgement of overlordship.

After the fall of Tarthel, Kraken Island entered a period of isolation for several centuries, when they ultimately got involved in defending Elusian realms along the Nubarb from Nerathi interference. At this point in time they also began to exert their own influence upon the southern coast of Elusia, a region which they would eventually annex as the Kraken Coast.

The modern-day territory of Kraken Island is split between two continents and a chain of a dozen inhabited islands. The largest island, upon which the capital of Kraken Tower is located, is simply known as Kraken Island. The rest of the chain of islands is known as the Kraken Islands. There are two locations known as the Kraken Coast: The coast of southern Elusia, and the coast of very northwestern Eplune. In addition to this, Kraken Island also exerts a large level of control over the semi-autonomous Duchy of Ayomar and County of Arlomon.

Kraken Island is incredibly militarily powerful, but also very isolationist. It is the most powerful naval force in the known world for the same reason that it is known as Kraken Island: The Council of Seven are the only wizards who know a specific spell capable of controlling the great Krakens of the ocean, beasts that they use to ensure that no naval invasion upon their shores is successful and to greatly deter Cyclops pirates in the seas around them. Furthermore, they have a powerful land army, with over a thousand wizards trained in using magic in combat. This has resulted in the Kraken Coast being one of the few parts of Eplune where it is generally safe to be outside of the walled Trade Cities and without having to fear an attack by the Gnolls quite as much.

The structure of government on the island is, as previously mentioned, a Magocracy. It is ultimately ruled by a governing council of the most powerful and knowledgeable Wizards, known as the Council of Seven. If one wishes to join the Council of Seven they may challenge a sitting member of the Council to a set of three magical tests: One that they devise and two devised by their opponent. If a sitting member of the Council dies, then the remaining members hold a vote among themselves to decide who their replacement will be, usually also accompanied by a competition of sorts to see the skills of their candidates. Despite the existence of a legal procedure by which one may replace a sitting member of the Council, it has not been utilized successfully in slightly over two centuries.

The Kraken Coasts are administered by wizards selected by the Council of Seven. There are two hundred wizards on each Coast involved in administration, and twenty each in Ayomar and Arlomon to act as advisors to the Duke of Ayomar and the Count of Arlomon respectively.

In addition to being a strong naval and military power, Kraken Island is also known as one of the scholarly centers of the world. It has some of the best schools for studying magic, history and geography, and one of the largest libraries in the world at over two million books and scrolls and seventy thousand maps, most of which have not been seen by living eyes.

1.7) The Towers (1.7

The Towers are not a single location, but rather half a dozen different locations scattered throughout the world. They are towers taller than any other made out of peculiar materials, each one its own colour and entirely smooth with no ridges or gaps. Some emit a faint glow while others are reflective like a mirror. There is nothing that is known to be able to damage these materials, and yet one of them shows significant signs of damage.

All of the Towers that are known, with two exceptions, are centers of magical knowledge home to peculiar orders practicing highly unique forms of wizardry. Nobody knows quite why this is the case, or if they have always been used as such, but historic records indicate that this has been the case for quite some time.

The Blue Tower is located on the fork of the Rimgar River: That is, the point where the Rimgar splits into two separate rivers, not the point where two rivers join to form it. The order that resides in it is likely the one most similar to the wizards from Kraken Island and various other non-Tower magical groups around the world, though they shy away as much as possible from any magic that can be used in combat.

The Red Tower, located on the very end of the Grithal Peninsula, is home to a highly militaristic yet isolationist order of wizards who call themselves Swordmages. They all undergo incredibly difficult training routines, both in swordfighting and wizardry, to be the peak of magical and combat ability, yet they simultaneously maintain no ties at all with the outside world save for allowing new members in.

The Yellow Tower, located in the Yhendorn city-state of Ollalnas, serves a dual role as a palace and the home of the only military that the city has. The Kings of Ollalnas have been incredibly powerful wizards for as long as their written records exist, and the city’s nobility all similarly practice magic, specializing in the use of elemental wizardry.

The Purple Tower is on an island near the very middle of the Oln Sea, and is not home to a wizarding order. Rather, it is home to an order of knights.

The Black Tower is a centre of necromantic knowledge, and it is thought that the Tower itself is evil. It is located in the eastern reaches of the Cavelands, though the precise location of the Black Tower seems to change slightly each time someone tries to get to it. Despite several attempts to conquer the Tower and extinguish it of necromancers, the new orders that are formed to occupy it inevitably turn to necromancy within fifty years.

The Green Tower, peculiarly enough, lies in ruins in the middle of Traketus. It was destroyed in an ancient conflict centuries before the empire of Tarthel was formed, though none know precisely how it was destroyed. It now holds a ceremonial role in the election of the Traketan high-kings.

1.8) Traketus (1.8

Traketus is a kingdom with a very unique history. Written records of Traketan history date back to the early days of the Ghoril empire in some parts, with a handful of scrolls and clay tablets preserved for that long. However, the true history of Traketus begins with the rise of one of its ancient post-Ghoril petty kingdoms into the empire that would become known as Tarthel.

Once Traketus (then known as the Tarthelian Vale) was united under the empire of Tarthel, it was able to expand outwards both north and south. Everything from the northern reaches of Vrelon to Kraken Island to the northwestern coast of the Riftlands fell under Tarthelian dominance during those years, until the empire fell.

Barbarians from what is now called Legia invaded the shores of Traketus, razing the ancient capital of Dorthol to the ground and establishing themselves in all the land between the Truqolp mountains and the Oln sea. In the twelve hundred years since the fall of Tarthel, ancient Tarthelian culture was completely erased by the Traketans, who brought with them their own language and religion.

After the Traketan tribes invaded and settled the land they were not united under any individual king, but rather had a half-dozen petty kingdoms between them. They didn’t unite until pressed by an outside force – this time, the expansions of Nerath, which also forced them to adopt Darism. (Traketus never submitted to Nerath aside from briefly under the rule of Mazaer Cantal II, but they did need to convert in order to secure aid from Elusia and Argolon in repelling invasions).

There are two things that define the peculiarities of modern Traketus. The first is its unique non-feudal system of feudalism – each of the former petty kings still hold the title of king and the one in charge, the high king, holds absolutely no authority at all over lands in Traketus that are not his own. The high king is not a hereditary title, and instead, on the death of one, all the kings gather in the ruins of the Green Tower and elect a new high king from their own ranks. A small amount of money is paid in tax to the high king, which is used for the common good of the Traketus, but any unused money is given to the next high king rather than to the heirs of the old one.

The second peculiarity of modern Traketus are the cyclopes. Traketus is bordered to the west by the Truqolp Mountains and to the east by the Oln Sea, and as such is frequently attacked on all sides by them. This has led to Traketans developing a highly martial culture of seafarers and mountaineers, and it’s sometimes said that the strength of one man from Traketus is the same as that of three men from anywhere else. That said, Traketans don’t just fight cyclopes – there are instances of trade between Traketans and the cyclopes of the Truqolp mountains and with the Oln Sea. Rumour has it that there was once even a marriage pact discussed between the King of Vilon and a ‘Cyclops Princess’, though that is most likely just slander.

1.9) Vrelon (1.9

Vrelon is a new kingdom with ancient history. The ruins of the ancient Arkhosian city of Dralneh can be found in Vrelon, and older than that are the ruins of the Cyclops city Nugh Dorul. More recently the land has been under the control of the empires of Tarthel and Nerath, and under the control of pagans and of heretics and of other nations long gone.

The country lies in a region where the distance between the Western Ocean and the Oln Sea is substantially less than in areas south of Vrelon, and so it manages to be one of very few nations to have two coastlines. Likely as a result of this, and due to it being about halfway between north and south, Vrelonians are well-known for being merchants and traders.

Vrelon was at least three different nations before the empire of Nerath conquered it. In the south is where the kingdoms of Devosh, Nebaral and Puithen were located, all three of them formerly part of northern Eredal and all three nations being heretical. Rather than being Darist kingdoms, they were Tiaru kingdoms – that is, they believed that the prophet Tiaran was a successor to Neoran. The kingdoms were cleansed of their heresy when the empire of Nerath invaded them four hundred years ago, and now their names live on as merely three duchies of the kingdom of Vrelon.

Central is the kingdom now called Old Vrelon, from which the modern kingdom gets its name. Old Vrelon was formerly a province of the Tarthel Empire, and continued to think of itself as part of the Tarthel empire until Nerath conquered it, and Nerathi culture supplanted the old Tarthelian culture that was there.

The northeastern section of the kingdom was formerly the kingdom of Tedal, and was until some brutal conflicts one hundred years ago. The last Tedalian king, of a line going back nearly seven hundred years, led his kingdom to ruin and it was divided up by its neighbours and fully annexed. Specifically, Vrelon got the duchies of Sivil and Crosta.

Modern-day Vrelon is a hodge-podge kingdom of its various historical groups. There are people who speak Vrelonian in the south, Tedalian in the north and even a few Old Vrelonian speakers left in scattered pockets of the realm. That said, the nation is united by a religious zeal not seen anywhere else, stronger almost than that in Threus itself and present to some extent even in the southern part of the kingdom.

1.10) Grithal (1.10

The Grithal peninsula juts off the western coast of Vrelon in much the same way that the Orevod peninsula juts off the side of Eredal. They are roughly the same size, and were both historically part of empires such as Tarthel and Nerath. That is where the similarities end.

Grithal is not a united nation like Orevod, but rather a collection of city-states on a peninsula very similar to what Orevod was one hundred years ago. They fight and vie for territory and influence and have complex relations with one another, regularly hiring mercenaries to aid them in their squabbles.

The peninsula breaks off into an archipelago at its point, and on one of the islands of the archipelago lies the Red Tower. The Red Tower is home to a monastic order of warrior-wizards called swordmages, who undergo intensive training in the martial arts and the arcane arts. Despite being the most militarily powerful entity on the peninsula, they are also highly isolationist, generally keeping to themselves. Individuals who trained in the Red Tower are, however, often employed as mercenaries by the rest of the peninsula and beyond.

The city-state nearest the Red Tower is Mukalsav, just across the strait separating the Red Tower from the rest of the peninsula. Many swordmages visit Mukalsav whenever they need to purchase anything, and in the past two hundred years there have been nearly ten members of the Mukalsavian royal family to become swordmages (one of whom rose high in their ranks).

Darobryn is currently the most militarily powerful of the city-states, and has been dominant on the peninsula for the past thirty years. Darobrynian kings currently extract tribute from several other city-states, among them Mukalsav, Orosv and Nausvor. Despite this current supremacy, their position is tenuous, as Grithal is in a near-constant state of war, with the balance of power ever shifting.

Orosv, Yhul and Nausvor are three cities that are very similar in many ways – indeed, more similar than they are different. Orosvian goldsmiths are among the most prized in the world, and Yhul is famed for their wooden carvings. Likewise, Nausvorian tanners and leatherworkers are considered to be masters of their trade, with Nausvorian leather prized for its many great properties.

Basacin and Vyarigrod are located nearest to Vrelon, on opposite coasts of the peninsula. Despite their frequent animosity, both with eachother and with the other Grithalian states, they have made it publicly clear that if one is attacked by Vrelon the other would come to their aid.

The soil in Grithal is a unique black colour, not seen anywhere else in the world. No wild grass grows, curiously enough, though the soil is nutritious enough for crops to grow on.

1.11) Oyinid (1.11

The kingdom of Oyinid is often considered to be the easternmost Darist kingdom, or perhaps the westernmost kingdom in the East. It’s northern coast is on the Oln Sea, and the Urnesh Islands lie off the southern coast. Its western border with Argolon is defined by the Wiples River and the Krios Mountains, and the eastern border is shared with numerous realms, including the Blue Rift and Nasathalus.

Given the large number of influences upon the kingdom from all sides, many travelers are surprised that Oyinid has managed to maintain an identity of its own for centuries. Indeed, sometimes even Oyinidians are surprised by this fact. Though religions from both the east and the west are practiced, Oyinid has managed to maintain a population worshipping the Gold Fox and the various spirits of Stone. Though there are speakers of both western, Tarthel-influenced languages and eastern languages, the language of Oyinid has stayed true since the days of Ghoril.

The history of Oyinid is, in some sense, the history of the world. It was one of the eastern regions of the Arkhosian empire, though every once in a while the Bael Turathi armies would reach far enough west to occupy parts of Oyinid for sometimes decades at a time. They left with them a small population of Tieflings, and to this day the city of Zalfura is one of the only predominantly-Tiefling cities west of Satriyath. Afterwards, the region was occupied by the empire of the Lich King, of Ghoril and of Tarthel, the last of which left behind one of the oldest Darist churches in the world, in the city of Mishul.

Oyinid also serves in some sense as a gradient. Western Oyinid is largely Darist and maintains western Tarthellian-Nerathi feudal structures. The Duke of Wiples and the Earl of Krios exist on the border with Argolon, the Duke of Athatt has holdings along the Oln Sea and the Count of the Urnesh Isles is in an endless state of war against pirates and cyclopes.

Further east, we see the structures common in eastern kingdoms – high centralization near the center, and the eastern portions of Oyinid essentially acting as tributaries. Indeed, the cities of the First Rift and the Blue Rift are largely autonomous and left to their own devices, simply paying the Oyinidian monarchy for protection against the Vuadin.

The monarchy itself exists in a peculiar state of being depending on where in the kingdom one looks. They are nominally Darist, and devote substantial funding to supporting the church, though they also take part in traditional religious festivals and allow practitioners of multiple religions to practice openly. In some places, such as the capital city Uyim, they hold absolute power. In other places, such as Zalfura, their authority is barely respected.

1.12) Tedal (1.12

Tedal is a land divided. What was once a proudly independent realm has been split in three, torn asunder by the Vrelonians to the south, the Lovilains to the north and the Legians to the east. One hundred years ago, a seven-hundred-year-old lineage came to a devastating end.

The area that is now Tedal was, at one point, on the northern frontier of the empire of Tarthel. Prior to that, the land was barbarous, with no written histories, just oral traditions – so, much of the earlier history of the land is legend. After the fall of Tarthel, the tribes in the land of Tedal were eventually united by King Jalkor, popularly known as the Strawberry King, and his wife Queen Velana, known as the Peppermint Queen, semi-mythical figures who ruled their court from the Forest of Stars. Their son, King Hunum I, converted the realm to Darism and established the now-lost capital city of Tarleare. The kingdom was subsumed quickly by Nerath, but the kings allowed to rule as sub-kings of the Nerathi, and the land continued to prosper after the fall of Nerath.

One hundred years ago, after the fall of Nerath, the young kingdoms of Lovilan, Vrelon and Legia grew greedy. After the death of King Tahrir V, his brother King Denkahm II, their uncle King Hunum VI and his sons, all in the span of a few years, the Tedalian royal line seemed to have died out. The dukes were arguing among themselves over which branch-family should take the throne, and in the chaos and the disarray, the land of Tedal was partitioned between its neighbours, the ducal families made to either swear fealty to new lords or replaced. The Forest of Stars itself was partitioned; Tedalian custom holds that the tri-point border is where the Strawberry King and the Peppermint Queen held court.

A central location in Tedal, of great cultural and historic significance, is the Forest of Stars.

Today, southern Tedal is northern Vrelon. The dukes of Sivil swore fealty to Vrelon, and kept their titles and lands. As such, they have allowed the Tedalian culture to prosper even under Vrelonian rule. Combined with the fact that daughters of the house of Jalkor often married into their line, there are those who claim that the dukes of Sivil have the best claim to the Tedalian throne to this day.

Contrast with the duchy of Crosta, which initially heavily resisted Vrelonian rule. The ducal family was executed, and the younger brother of the king of Vrelon named the new duke of Crosta; it is his descendants that still rule there to this day. The nobility is mixed Vrelonian-Tedalian, with Vrelonians given privilege over the native Tedalians. Crosta contains part of the Forest of Stars, and the new dukes have desecrated it, considering its cultural significance to the Tedalians an act of paganism.

(I will write more about Tedal as I write about Lovilan and Legia.)

1.13) North of Vrelon (1.13

Bordering Vrelon to the north are two kingdoms – Lovilan, which lies on the western coast, and Legia, a land almost as fragmented as Elusia that rounds the northwestern corner of the Oln Sea and is bordered to the east by the pagan barbarians who brought Tarthel to its knees. In eastern Legia as well the Rimgar river feeds into the Oln Sea in two locations, split in half by the Blue Tower.

North still of Lovilan and Legia is the kingdom of Slairis, which is nicknamed “The northernmost kingdom”. It is very sparsely populated and snows nine months of the year, with five-hour nights on the summer solstice and five-hour days on the winter solstice. Faeries and Cyclopes mingle in the northern reaches of Slairis, but the faeries are of a crueler, colder, more unseelie variety than those in Argolon.

Further north than Slairis is the icy wasteland called The Far North, which is uninhabitable by civilized men. The former Nerathi outpost of Winterpond lies in the Far North, hundreds of miles north of the otherwise furthest north Slairian town. Winterpond survives entirely on trade, more often with cyclopes than with humans, and the kindness of faeries to practice their magic beneficially to mortals. It is outside of Winterpond where Icewood, as deadly to the fey as Spiderwood is, can be harvested.

Within the barbarian lands east of Legia lies the Mushroom Forest. Where most forests have trees, this forest is populated by giant mushrooms the size of trees. Druidic tradition is still strong here, though vastly different than in much of the rest of the world.

The Skjalgar peninsula lies within the northern portion of the Oln Sea, and the men who live there come from an intensely martial culture. Their sailors roam the coastlines of Legia and occasionally as far south as Traketus, with longships capable of traversing both the open seas and rivers, pillaging and looting all that they come across.

1.14) East of Oyinid (1.14

East of Oyinid is the Riftlands. A broken plain of valleys and canyons that can stretch for miles and go a mile deep, it is itself as wide as Oyinid and Argolon put together at the very least. Slavery runs rampant throughout the Riftlands, with small petty nations forming around each of the Rifts, mining valuable metals and jewels prized the world over. On the plains between the Rifts, the Vuadin nomads roam.

East of Oyinid and south of the Riftlands are the Cavelands. Though the cavelands have a tendency to vary from rugged mountainous terrain to terrain that is simply hilly, the majority of the populace lives in the Caves that give the region its name. Within the Cavelands lie three important sites: The ruins of ancient Ghoril, the ruins of Hern Kahldur (occasionally and currently inhabited by a Cyclops nation) and the Black Tower.

South of the Cavelands are the Yhendorn Mountains. The tall mountains seem never to have been home to cyclopes but rather just to harpies, who still reside in the mountains. There are only two safe passes into Yhendorn, the grassy plains beyond, and both are guarded by powerful city-states. Indeed, the entirety of the Plains of Yhendorn are ruled by ancient city-states, claiming to predate even Arkhosia and Bael Turath and to be the oldest in the world.

To the east even of these lands are the lands known as the kingdoms of ashes. They claim to have been born from the ashes of the fall of Bael Turath, and have complicated relationships with the dragons and tieflings within them as a result, though other scholars claim that the kingdoms were also part of the Ghoril Empire for a rather long period of time. The kingdom of Satriyath finds itself in a state of near-constant war against the Black Tower.

Far beyond the kingdoms of ashes lies the Umerth Desert, a vast desert home to a very small number of nomadic groups and oasis-towns. Those who do not know the desert are best advised not to travel alone, for if the thirst doesn’t kill them, then the other creatures that live there certainly will.

The Umbath Mountains, the largest mountains in the world, are what separates the continents of Emuine and Atera. It is not a land inhabited by humans, but rather it is still home to various warring Cyclops kingdoms, fighting eachother as though in days millennia past. The mountain range is also home to over one hundred dragons, though even still it has rather few draconic societies.

Not as much is known about Atera as is known about Emuine, but what is known is fascinating: There is evidence that Bael Turath expanded as far east as Atera, for instance. There is a peninsula that goes further to the south than the northern coast of Eplune, where a million gods are worshipped. There are kingdoms inhabited by a race of demons known as Minotaurs, full of suffering and pain. Many spices and silks are produced, and come into Emuine through sea routes and trade with the Cyclopes of Umerth.

2) Races (2

2.1) Humans (2.1

Humans are currently the most populous among the races of the known world, and dominate the land and sea. They are a highly adaptable race, suited for all climates from the heat of Eplune to the cold of the barren North, from deserts in the East to oceans and the islands that populate them.

2.2) Cyclopes (2.2

Cyclopes are an ancient race who dominated the world long before Humans came to exist. Approximately thirty thousand years ago, according to oral tradition, they had a large empire that stretched from Orevod to Atera and from The Far North to the lands of Eplune long forgotten to time.

The remnants of this ancient empire can still be seen today, in the ancient ruins of Gagh Buldir, Thar Garum, Hern Kahldur and Nugh Dorul, alongside the small tribal kingdoms that survive, in the Truqolp mountains between Eredal and Traketus, in the Zahlst Islands off the coast of Orevod and the Urnesh Islands between the coasts of Oyinid and Argolon and the Trade Cities of Eplune, in the nomadic tribes of The Far North and other places.

The physical traits of Cyclopes are striking: They tend to be significantly larger than humans, often up to ten feet tall, and significantly stronger. Rather than having two eyes, they have a single large eye in the middle of their head slightly larger than a man’s clenched fist. No hair grows on their heads or bodies save for the occasional beard. Aside from that, they are proportioned the same as humans. They completely and utterly lack any ability to practice magic, and in this day and age tend to lack cohesion as a group and the level of intellect that humans, faeries and dragons have.

Scholars generally agree that there are three main types of Cyclops that still exist today, known as Stone Cyclopes, Snow Cyclopes and Sea Cyclopes, after the locations that they inhabit. That said, there is lots of contention about sub-categories of Cyclops, particularly in certain mountainous regions in the Far North: Are they Stone Cyclops or Snow Cyclops?

Stone Cyclopes live in the stony mountain ranges of the world that humans are unable to reside in, and survive through trade and herding animals such as goats. They are the most amiable to having extended diplomatic relationships with humans, but even so still tend to be rather solitary. They have stony, grey skin and tend to be the shortest of the three types of Cyclops.

Snow Cyclopes live in the barren wastelands of the Far North and survive through hunting, gathering and herding what animals can survive those frigid conditions, and occasionally trading with the people who live in the Far North or the kingdoms that border it, or those who land on the northern coast of the Oln Sea. They have pale blue or snow-white skin, and tend to be the largest of the three groups.

Sea Cyclopes live on the various islets and archipelagos of the world, either in the Western Ocean, the Oln Sea or the ocean that separates Emuine from Eplune. They are the proudest of the three varieties of Cyclops, claiming to be the truest descendants of their ancient empire. However, each island is ruled by its own king, none recognizing the authority of any of the others, and they’re unable to repair the ruins that they live in, even after all the millennia. They are the least likely to be willing to negotiate with humans, and the most likely to eat them. They have either pale green skin or the same tone as men from Emuine.

2.3) Faeries (2.3

Faeries are another ancient race, either as old as or older than Cyclopes. They are also the exact opposite of Cyclopes in almost every way: While Cyclopes are big, brutish and entirely unable to use magic, Faeries are small, cunning and significantly more magical than all but the most powerful human wizards.

Faeries are a hard race to find subdivisions of. This is not because they do not have subdivisions within their races, but rather because nobody can agree on what those subdivisions are. One of the most common methods of subdivision of the Faeries is to categorize them as Seelie and Unseelie based on their behaviour, where Unseelie faeries are any that are malicious and cruel towards humans and Seelie faeries are any that are not. However popular this model may be among lay people, scholars refute it as the equivalent of saying that racial subdivisions in humans are “murderers” and “not-murderers”.

Another subdivision lies along the various “courts” of the faeries, though none can agree on what those are. There are certainly faeries who attest to the existence of Kings of Winter and Summer, Queens of Autumn and Spring and kings of Day and Night, but there are other courts as well. There’s the King of Hearts, who supposedly sends faeries to trick people into falling in love, and the Princess of Flowers, who is even more mysterious still. None of these faerie monarchs have ever been seen by anyone of repute, though folktales abound of mortal men’s encounters with them.

The other way that people try to subdivide faeries is based off of physical traits, and this one has led to the most success. From this methodology, people have found sprites, pixies, elves and gnomes (among others) to all be different types of faeries, along with a number of subtypes of each. That said, there are many examples of unique, one-of-a-kind faeries that do not fit into these subcategories.

Sprites are one of the most common types of faerie, but they are the least consequential. They are almost always Seelie, though they still do regularly play pranks on people. They appear as small glowing points of light, and appear most often during the twilight hours of night and very early morning just before dawn. No noteworthy individuals among the Sprites are known. They tend to inhabit rural villages and, like most faeries, are particularly common in Argolon.

Pixies are somewhat less common than Sprites, though there is more to say about them. They are proportioned similarly to human adults, but very rarely exceed six inches in height. In addition to that, they have the wings of butterflies sprouting from their back, allowing them to fly and giving them a wingspan equal to approximately their height. Pixies almost always appear to be in their early 20s and to be attractive. They live in most forests and try to stay away from human settlements.

Elves are the most humanlike of all faeries, to the point where there are recorded instances of “half-Elves”, results of a union between Elves and Men. They’re very human-like in proportions, but always slender and they have pointed ears. They tend to be about a foot to a foot and a half shorter than humans. The colouration of their hair and eyes is often very peculiar, and always the same as eachother: If they have golden hair, they have golden eyes; if they have mossy green hair, they have mossy green eyes.

They have written and spoken language, and there are even tales of “elf cities” located in deep forests. They are almost always powerful magic-users, much more powerful than humans, though occasionally an elf will show up at one of the Towers or on Kraken Island or in a university in a human city and demand to learn to be a wizard. There are also three known instances of Elven maidens marrying into the royal family of Argolon, though this hasn’t happened in a significant while.

Gnomes are the last type of faerie that I shall be discussing here for now, but they are by no means the last type of faerie at all. They tend to be about three to four feet tall, proportioned similar to humans, and their hair and eyes are coloured similarly to those of elves. They are also without a doubt on average the most magically powerful of the four types of faerie that I’ve mentioned, though there are many examples of particularly magical elves having more powerful magic than gnomes. Unlike Elves and Pixies, Gnomes continue to appear to age well beyond middle age, but they are still almost as long-lived as their bretheren.

Faeries all possess powerful magic, much of which is entirely alien to human wizards. That said, there are peculiarities in what their magic is able to effect: Anything made of Spiderwood or Icewood is unable to be altered by faerie magic, as an example. Most of the rules that dictate faerie magic seem to be determined on a case-by-case basis, though, and may very well vary as much from individual to individual as the shapes of their noses, their heights and their musical preferences.

2.4) Dragons (2.4

Dragons are a powerful and ancient race, likely predating even the ancient Cyclopes in some form or another. They are also ancient in that their lifespans are rather long – the oldest known dragon is a brown dragon named Zirseosdag who lairs somewhere in Yhendorn and who lived during the days when the empire of Ghoril controlled much of the world.

There are at least eight different types of dragon, distinguished by the colour of their scales and the nature of their breath-weapon, but there are also reports of there being even more types of dragon stranger than those that will be discussed here. The types of dragon are red dragons, blue dragons, green dragons, black dragons, white dragons, brown dragons, grey dragons and purple dragons.

Red dragons are both the most common and arguably the most fearsome. They breathe fire upon their foes and can attain a wingspan of up to a hundred feet once they’re old enough. They’re also generally the longest living race of dragon, with some claiming to have seen the rise and fall of Tarthel.

Blue dragons are also known as “lightning dragons” due to the nature of their breath weapon, or “horned dragons” due to having a very prominent horn on the centre of their heads (though all dragons have some form of horns). They are likely to lair in coastal locations on cliffs overlooking the ocean, and are also one of the most ambitious types of dragons. The young blue dragon Nizeston is also the king of Orevod, and there are living dragons of this colour who have seen the fall of Tarthel, though very few who can remember a time before that empire came to power.

Green dragons have a breath that is poisonous to exhale, and live deep within forests. Their lifespans are about the same length as that of dragons, if maybe a hundred years less on average.

Black dragons

White dragons

Brown dragons

Grey dragons

Purple dragons

When dragons reach the end of their natural lifespans (which is very rare), they don’t simply fall asleep and die. Instead, they die through a process known as “elemental diffusion”, where the element that they control seeps into the world around the locations of their death. Blue dragons cause powerful storms when they die, red dragons can start fires that last a hundred years or longer and so forth. There is no specific pattern to elemental diffusions, however: Sometimes a blue dragon will cause a storm to last in perpetuity, sometimes it will be just a powerful storm that lasts a day.

2.5) Other Races, to be detailed later (2.5

The Demonic Races:

There are three demonic races known to the scholars of Kraken Island. The first are the Tieflings, horned men with red skin. They are the descendants of the nobility of Bael Turath who sold their souls for power, and though the bloodline is tainted, the powers are mostly gone. After the collapse of their empire they lived in exile and in various locations, and are now located in human settlements throughout the world as merchants and bankers, but are often discriminated against and segregated. They can breed with humans (a remnant of their shared history), but the child of such a union is always a Tiefling

The second are the Gnolls, or hyena-men, who live on the savannah and in the desert of Eplune, south of the Trade Cities. Scholars debate about their origins, but they almost universally worship the demon Yeenoghu, and archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the area that they now inhabit was once home to human nations not unlike those of Emuine. As such, hypotheses range from the Gnolls being much like the Tieflings and a race of mortals turned demonic to Gnolls being invaders from elsewhere, destroying human civilization whenever they come across it.

The third are Minotaurs, or bull-men, who live beyond the Umerth and the Umbath in the continent of Atera. Very little is actually known of them, as even those who go to Emuine often still remain far to the east of the Oln Sea, but they are believed to worship the demon Baphomet.

The Undead Races:

The term “Undead Races” is a misnomer, as they generally do not reproduce, but there are several “safe” ways to practice necromancy and get predictable results. These predictable results are the Undead Races that shall be described henceforth:

The most common and easiest to raise are zombies and skeletons, which, despite having two names, are essentially the same creature with one minor difference: Skeletons are only bone. At a glance, it may be considered disingenuous to consider these as races, as they lack any free will and are often thought of as merely extensions of the will of the necromancer using them. However, a number of experiments conducted in darker regions of the world have revealed that corpses raised as skeletons or zombies, killed again and then raised again as something more intelligent still maintained awareness of their actions and experiences as zombies and skeletons.

We will immediately progress from the relatively commonplace to the fortunately much rarer but much more infamous. Vampires are a race of very intelligent undead who survive by drinking blood. They often appear similar to ordinary humans, but with significantly paler skin and teeth that have been adapted for drinking blood. They are also largely impervious to being attacked, requiring an elaborate ritual including wooden stakes, beheading and garlic to kill, or more often simply powerful magic. As many as twenty thousand or more vampires may exist throughout all of Emuine, with a number of well-established cabals existing in the Cavelands.

The last type of undead to be discussed here are liches. Liches appear essentially to be the same as skeletons, but are far more intelligent, require no food for sustenance and even if they are destroyed may regain physical form if certain magical artifacts of theirs still exist. The rituals required for the creation of liches are not very well known, and those who have used them successfully often do so on themselves and are subsequently very quiet about their methods. As a result of this, there are fewer than a thousand liches alive today scattered throughout the world, many locked up in tombs, and with several books claiming to list all living liches.

The Ancient Races:

“Ancient Races” is a catch-all term for those races which were at one point in history more prominent in the world than they are now. Faeries, Cyclopes and Dragons are by far the three most prominent of these races, but there are some others.

The Spider-people of the Spiderwood Forest are arguably the most mysterious such group. Archaeological evidence from before Arkhosia and Bael Turath suggests that they were once more widespread, but they are now confined to the Spiderwood Forest. Much about them, including even their appearance, is unknown: Some reports are of giant spiders with the faces of men, some are of humanoid spiders. The one thing that is known about them for certain is that faeries fear them, and that even the most unseelie are absent from the Spiderwood.

The Yuan-Ti, or snake-men, exist nowadays in only two locations for certain: Two of the Zahlst Islands off the coast of Orevod and three specific caves in the Cavelands. There are some murmurings of them existing in jungles south of the plains where the Gnolls roam in Eplune and far to the east in Atera, but no evidence of these claims is known.

Harpies are another of the Ancient Races. There is some scattered evidence to support that they were once more widespread, but most evidence indicates that they had always stuck to south-central Emuine, in Yhendorn and the Cavelands and the Riftlands. As it is now, they only exist in scattered populations in the Yhendorn Mountains.

3) Religions (3

3.1) Darism (3.1

Darism is a tri-theistic religion worshipping the god Ynedar, the god of all that is good. Ynedar is complimented by Yllios and Ybris, the twin gods of evil who are continually at war with one another but prevented from entering the world by Ynedar. Darism is practiced throughout Western Emuine, from Oyinid to Slairis.

Darists believe that Ynedar sent five Prophets to the world four thousand years ago, in the Five Great Kingdoms, but that due to the intervention of demons, dragons, faeries and others, people have lost their way. The old faith was practiced by only a scant handful of people in a few caves in the Cavelands, until slightly over one thousand years ago He sent one last prophet, Neoran, to remind the people of the truth.

The truth that the prophet Neoran brought to the people was that of the three gods: He taught the world that Ynedar was all that was good, that Yllios was all that was oppressive in its evil and that Ybris is all that was destructive in its evil.

He also taught of the Five Great Kingdoms of ancient times: Arkhosia and Bael Turath who shared Emuine between them, Olnar’Ith in the middle of Emuine that sunk into the Oln Sea and Zarionar and Men-Thar-Kot that controlled Eplune. The Five Great Kingdoms were all of Ynedar, but they all became infested by the works of Yllios and Ybris, and since then all nations have been of one of the two.

He taught throughout the Cavelands for ten years, then stole a boat to sail to Zarionar in southeastern Eplune. He returned with riches, but they were stolen and he was enslaved, forced to work in mines in the Riftlands where he died. He taught also that slavery was of Yllios, and that any nation of Ynedar would not have slavery.

Two hundred years after Neoran’s death, the empire of Tarthel adopted Darism as the official religion. Less than fifty years after that, Tarthel fell.

The faith is ruled by the Threun Pope in the former Elsutian capital of Threus. Under him, each kingdom has a High Priest who serves in the capital of that nation and oversees all of the temples of the faith. Despite the Threun Pope’s location in the south, the most religious nations are in the north: Argolon follows a modified form of Darism that sees fey creatures as being good, Oyinid allows Darism but doesn’t enforce it, many priests in Elusia and southern Eredal don’t hold fey as inherently evil and in Orevod atheism and dragon-worship are encouraged over the barely-tolerated Darism.

3.2) Tiarism (3.2

A nearly-extinct and heavily-persecuted sect located in southern Vrelon, Tiarism is based around the prophet Tiaran, a successor to Neoran who was born some decades after the fall of the Tarthel empire. Much of the metaphysics and claimed history of Tiarism is similar to that of Darism; indeed, they believe themselves to be Darists as well, given that they also claim to worship Ynedar.

According to Tiaru mythology, the reason for the fall of the empire of Tarthel was that the prophet Neoran had been corrupted by Ybris, due to a hatred of the empire of Tarthel that he had gained whilst enslaved. As such, they separate the texts of Neoran into two categories – the Cave texts and the Rift texts, and teach that only the Cave texts are to be fully trusted, and that the Rift texts teach destruction.

Where Tiaran was born is something of a mystery even to his followers; what is known is that he appeared in the kingdom of Nebaral while he was fifteen, and that he gained a following rather quickly. In addition to being a religious figure, Tiaran was a warrior and a strategist, and in an era where raids by Traketans, Legians, Nerathi and Skjalgarans were commonplace, it was his ability to defend people that gained him his following initially.

His teachings were deemed heretical by the church, then still in exile after the fall of Dorthol to the Traketans. By that point, it was too late – he had a following in Nebaral, and managed to place his cousin as the king of Nebaral. Over time, he was able to put his followers on the thrones of Puithen and Devosh, and even forge alliances with dragons.

Where it was Neoran’s hatred that led him astray to Ybris, it was Tiaran’s hubris that led him astray and to Yllion, a fact acknowledged by the Tiaru church itself. He died in battle, his sword in hand, against the Bear King of Eredal, as he tried to forge Cannersley into another Tiaru kingdom.

To the Tiaru, hatred and hubris are the greatest possible sins that one can commit, and all people – even the prophets are at risk of committing them. They believe that, once you let one of these into your heart and truly let it fester, you will be utterly irredeemable, and that it is of the utmost importance to protect yourself against those vices.

After the death of Tiaran, his religion lingered on in the kingdoms that he had conquered, though it was never able to expand much beyond his initial conquests. When the empire of Nerath expanded southwards, long after they had converted to Darism, they slew Tiaran’s draconic allies and made his religion extinct in its homeland. To this day, it exists mostly in isolated communities in southern Vrelon.

3.3) The Gold Fox (3.3

The Gold Fox is the name given to the traditional worship in Oyinid, though it would be inaccurate to call the Gold Fox a god. Rather, she is considered as the first among equals, one of many spirits known as the Spirits of Stone. It is also, notably, not an organized religion in any sense of the word, with numerous strains of thought throughout Oyinid. Thus, I will necessarily speak in broad strokes.

Worship is generally considered to be a household matter, with the specific spirits chosen for worship chosen by the head of the household. Not even the Gold Fox herself is worshipped in every household, and those who attempt to catalogue the list of spirits have counted over seven hundred, some only worshipped by a single family. There is generally a household shrine to one or more spirits in a central area of the house. That said, there do also exist public shrines, alongside those who dedicate their lives to maintaining them – the closest thing the faith has to priests – and particularly devout individuals may travel on pilgrimage to some of these shrines.

The Stone Spirits are, in some sense, exactly what they sound like – they are spirits believed to inhabit certain rocks, boulders, hills and mountains. Often they are considered responsible for natural phenomena, such as the weather, and for the outcome of crop harvests. The Sisters of Wiples are considered to play a large role in keeping the fae in Argolon, and the Blue Man for choosing where lightning will strike.

The Gold Fox is a popular spirit because, in some sense, she is considered to be the opposite of the other spirits. Where most spirits simply control natural phenomena with no particular regard for humanity, the Gold Fox actively wants what’s best for humans. She is a trickster, a manipulator, a warrior, a seductress, a briber and whatever else is required in order to try to make the other spirits do what is best for people. Where most offerings to the Stone Spirits are a trade, offerings to the Gold Fox are often seen as a form of encouragement, helping her to help people.

The religion never had any practitioners outside of Oyinid, and in recent centuries has been dying out within Oyinid due to the actions of the Threun Guard and Darist proselytizers. That said, it is still practiced by many, especially in the countryside and in the southern and eastern portions of the kingdom.

4) Organizations (4

4.1) Threun Guard (4.1

The Threun Guard are a collection of many of the greatest knights in the world. They serve the Threun Pope, head of the Darist faithful, as his militant army, seeking out and warring against heretics wherever they are found.

The Threun Guard formed out of the city guard of Threus, their namesake, during the later years of the Tarthel empire. At the time there were nearly twenty different “paladin orders” operating throughout the world, each under the control of a regional high-priest and often working in conjunction with secular rulers.

Many of these groups would attempt to wrest political control from the kings around them as well, and by the time the Nerathi began their expansion, most had long since died out. The Nerath Empire put an end to most these remaining organizations when they encountered them – the Cyban Order in Old Vrelon, the Paladins of Saint Kithjen based out of Bjaerkr and the Silver Knights of Vyarigrod all have songs sung about their fall.

The reason that the Threun Guard survived while the others did not was simply that they were lucky enough to be in Elusia, unconquered by Nerath. As Nerath retreated northwards and eventually fell, however, the Threun Guard opened new chapters throughout Emuine – first in Eredal and Orevod, then Vrelon and Grithal, and last establishing itself in Lovilan, Legia, Slairis and the now-defunct Tedal chapter. It also expanded east, into Traketus, Argolon, and Oyinid, though the last two chapters are rather weak.

The structure of the Threun Guard is relatively similar to that of the Darist church: The Threun Pope is the ultimate authority, and then the High Priests of each kingdom have authority over temporal matters there. After that, the High Priests appoint one called a Grandmaster, who directly controls the Threun Guard in the kingdom or part of a kingdom. Under the Grandmaster are semi-independent monasteries operating in “isolated regions” throughout its kingdom.

There are over fifty monasteries in Elusia dedicated to the Threun Guard and over thirty in each of Eredal, Vrelon and Traketus. Other kingdoms have a significantly less prominent Threun presence: Oyinid barely has five monasteries, Argolon’s “Grandmaster” is essentially an honourific title and at least three Orevodian Grandmasters were killed by Nizeston for attempted resistance, with the rest of the order expelled.

The stated goals of the Threun Guard are to dismantle and eliminate all heresy. That being said, they have a very broad definition of “heresy”: In much of the north this involves battling fae and driving druids further into extinction, in some places sorcerers are counted among heretics as well. Priests who preach the wrong religion, warlocks serving demons and necromancers are universally reviled by the Threun Guard.

4.2) Knights of the Purple Tower (4.2

The purple tower, one of the great Towers, is located on an island in the middle of the Oln Sea. Over its history, it has been home to many organizations – an order of wizards, an exiled royal family, a coven of witches and even a dragon and her followers. Since the days of ancient Tarthel, or perhaps for even longer, the purple tower has been home to the Knights, an organization of sailor-warriors in an unending crusade against the cyclopes.

The philosophy and motivations behind the Order of the Purple Tower is relatively simple: Right now, in the world, the fastest way to get from Skjalgar to Esumeul is the strait between them, taking at most a week, though even still the majority of travelers will choose to go through Vrelon, Traketus, the Riftlands and the Kingdoms of Flame, taking sometimes up to two years. This is because the cannibalistic Sea-cyclopes pose a near-universal threat to human life in the Oln Sea and the Order of the Purple Tower, therefore, opposes them.

Members of the Order are drawn from all along the Oln Sea’s coastline, though to an extent even reaching the Tower to join the Order is an achievement in and of itself. The members fall into three broad categories – there are the knights seeking fame and fortune, those born on the islands in the Oln and, every once in a while, a younger son or even heir to a seaside-kingdom. Given the diversity, the Knights pay allegiance to no single particular religion.

The Order has two main functions that it serves. First, they escort the rare ships that decide to try traveling through the Oln Sea, protecting them from attacks by pirates and cyclopes (and occasionally worse). Second, they will occasionally make landing on islands in the Oln controlled by particularly powerful Cyclops-kings, attempting to wage war against them instead of just defending.

They receive sporadic funding from various kingdoms and religions at various points in time, though they mostly fund themselves through charging for protective services and the spoils of conquest, against the Cyclopes. However, the general mood among the nobility of the mainland is one of cynicism – that the Purple Tower is a place to send unwanted idealists or ruffians, that their battle is one that will never be successful given that, for the past thousand years, it hasn’t. Contrary to that, the populace generally love knights who have spent time fighting alongside the Purple Tower, and that popularity only fuels the cynics even further.

4.3) Knights of the Star (4.3

The Knights of the Star are warriors, scholars and solitary travelers, dedicated to uncovering truths and protecting innocents. There are three different legends about their origins, and it’s often debated even among their members which of the three is true. The first holds that the order was founded by the Prince of Honeycombs, a younger son of the founders of Tedal. The second is that they grew out of the Circle of the Star, an ancient druidic circle that seemed to vanish when the Knights first appeared. The third is that they were founded during the days of the Lich King, and rebelled against him.

Whichever origin is to be believed, it is known that they had a strong relationship with the monarchy of Tedal. In fact, many of the books and scrolls they found were sent to the library in Tarleare, and they frequently received funding from the Tedalian monarchy even when others ignored them and ridiculed their mission. Despite those close ties, the Knights of the Star have never aided Tedal militarily, and forswear all national allegiances and rights to land when they join the order.

Despite their goal being the uncovering of secrets, they are a highly secretive group. There’s no full membership roster; Knights may go their whole lives only ever meeting a handful of others in their organization. Outsiders recognize knights of the star by the insignia that they all wear, a blue nine-pointed star, but though very few would have reason to impersonate a Knight of the Star, the handful who have tried tended to be found out by the order quickly enough. There is no leadership structure, no hierarchy to speak of beyond just Knights and squires. Indeed, even the squires of Knights of the Star don’t always join the order, and already-made knights may join without first being squires.

There are no large chapterhouses like the Threun Guard have, no large, centralized fortress like the Purple Tower. Instead, there are two kinds of locations they have – citadels, hidden away in secret hard-to-reach places of the world, and waypoints, places like inns and the like run by those friendly to the Knights, where they are given lodgings and occasionally information.

Outsiders often have mixed opinions on the Knights of the Star. On the one hand, commonfolk whom they aid tend to admire and respect them; many a folk hero has been a member of the Order of the Star. Nobility tends to see them as being a nuisance at most, something harmless but not helpful, occasionally stealing a promising if idealistic heir. Priests and wizards have remarkably varied opinions, depending on whether the individual finds the Knights’ task useful, on whether they think the knowledge they gather and protect is knowledge worth knowing or a kind of inconsequential self-indulgence in old books. And, given the nature of the Knights, often outsiders’ opinions vary from Knight to Knight.

4.4) Knights of the Broken Sword (4.4

The Knights of the Broken Sword is a repentant order, of broken men seeking to repent for transgressions. A newer organization, the Knights of the Broken Sword emerged in the past century and has already amassed a reputation, though it can be hard to garner whether it’s a positive reputation or a negative reputation.

Saint Garlin of the Broken Sword was a warmonger before his revelation. The second son of a second son of a third son, he could trace his lineage back to the royal line of Rokij, one of the Traketan kingdoms. Not in direct line for inheritance, he murdered his relatives and connived his way up the line of succession, until his first cousin wound up on the throne; at that point he resorted to all-out banditry, looting villages and trying to claim Rokij for himself. Until, according to legend, he met a kindly priest who set him on the right path, and he shattered his pureforged bloodwood sword Deathsong, and scattered the pieces throughout the peaks of the Truqolp mountains and the islands of the Oln Sea. From that day forth, he swore to repent for what he had done, and lived a life of humility, devoted to helping those who need it.

Every man who joins the Broken Sword was once a knight in the same vein as Saint Garlin. Most were men seeking personal glory, or wealth, or conquest, who performed horrible deeds in pursuit of those goals and found religious revelation in the Darist faith. Others slew their loved ones; parents and wives and children, teachers and liege-lords and priests. Knights of the Broken Sword often take on new names, renouncing the names they had as killers – in fact, even Saint Garlin’s original name has been lost to time. It is common for those who take on new names to say that those who performed the heinous deeds are dead, and that the date of death is whenever the knight joined the Knights of the Broken Sword. Some keep their old names and epiphets as a form of punishment for what they have done.

Those who join the Knights of the Broken Sword have certain vows that they must swear; first, they forswear all aspirations for personal glory or renown, for wealth or fame. Then, they swear not to harm any other man, woman or child ever again, even as an act of self-defense. There are two exceptions to this; bringing justice to one’s former compatriots, and bringing justice to a Knight of the Broken Sword who has returned to their former cruel ways. Lastly, they swear oaths to Ynedar, the god of the Darist faith, and often spend years in solitude studying theology and ethical philosophies before returning to the world – almost always at least three, though oftentimes more.

The Knights of the Broken Sword are based out of a monastery in the northern reaches of the Truqolp Mountains, and even reaching the Monastery of Saint Garlin is an achievement. There are no other locations where Knights of the Boken Sword congregate; there are both too few members of the order to justify it, and it is thought that it poses too great a risk, in case those who congregate outside of the eye of the church return to their lives of evil all at once.

To say that the public perception of the Knights of the Broken Sword is mixed would be an understatement. On the one hand, there are numerous tales of Knights righting their wrongs and becoming good and just people, in the image of Saint Garlin. On the other hand, every member of the Knights of the Broken Sword is hated by many – the loved ones of those they’ve slain, their former enemies and often their former allies.

There is another version of the tale of the Knights of the Broken Sword. That they are monsters who were losing battles, losing wars, and who sought ‘redemption’ not because they saw the error of their ways and wanted to repent but so that they could survive. This version of the tale often goes further, saying that the Knights know secrets about the location of the pieces of Deathsong, and that the blade was enchanted with great magical power – that those supposedly repentant souls are still as power-hungry as before, and are trying to gain power over that Bloodwood blade in order to further their own ends and goals.

A curiosity is that Knights of the Broken Sword are allowed to renounce their vows, whenever the believe that their penance has been served. In fact, many of the best lords and kings throughout history were once monsters, then Knights of the Broken Sword as they sought forgiveness. Though, those former Knights who transgress against morality yet again often find themselves the enemies of the Order they were once part of.

5) Magic (5

The magic used by humans is as diverse as those who use it. In general, however, there are three different types of magic-users: Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks, distinguished by different methods of magic use, different sources for their magical powers and the different capabilities of the different types. However, that said, there are some who argue that there are only two different types of magic-user, and some who argue that there are other types of magic-user that don’t fit into those three.

5.1) Wizards (5.1

Wizards are probably the most common form of magician that exists, but still rather diverse in and of itself. It is learned magic, often taught in universities in large cities such as Ostcliff and Belgate, and in the Towers. That said, the most prominent center of Wizardry is without a doubt Kraken Island, which boasts over five thousand Wizards within its borders (including several hundred administering the Kraken Coast).

Wizardry is learned through many years of study in various books, and requires incantations and occasionally various reagents to be added into the spell, if it is one of significance: For instance, many spells require the burning of candles to be performed optimally. Certain tools, such as wands, staffs and orbs, are often utilized in the quick casting of spells to make them more efficient and powerful. Most spells also have spoken incantations, but there are several wizards who know of techniques that can be employed to perform these spells silently.

There are many different disciplines within Wizardry, from those who specialize in one of various elements (fire magic, water magic, etc.) to those who specialize in specific applications of magic: Healing magic, and use of teleportation circles, for instance. However, there are a handful of Wizarding sub-disciplines that warrant some further elaboration:

The first and by far most controversial is necromancy. Necromancy is the art of reanimating deceased corpses, sometimes with no recollection of their prior lives and sometimes with twisted and corrupted personalities. However, the raised individual is always corrupted in one form or another, and, with the exceptions of vampires and liches, only very rarely have the same motivations as they had in life. As a result, necromancy has been declared illegal in the vast majority of nations, which has not stopped particularly sadistic individuals from practicing it.

Druidism is an ancient art, considered by some scholars to be a form of Wizardry and by others to be a separate form of magic entirely. It is in many ways simply a form of Wizardry communicated through oral teachings rather than written teachings, with an emphasis on healing and nature magics as opposed to all the other forms of magic. It is most common in deep forests where the faeries hold sway, with the notable exception of the Far North. As a result of it being an oral tradition rather than a written one, many druidic spells have been lost to history when all those who have known them have died, and due to the secretive nature of druids they were not recorded by literate peoples. Due to this, druids nowadays are significantly less powerful than their ancient predecessors in addition to being significantly less numerous.

Swordmagic is another notable form of Wizardry, though its main practitioners claim that it is a separate school entirely. Rather than using staffs and orbs as implements, Swordmages, as they call themselves, use weapons (generally swords). It is a significantly more martial and combat-oriented form of wizardry, though that said, there are a number of spells that are not combat-oriented in nature. It is most famously practiced by those residing in the Red Tower, though it is also used by some people who live in the Riftlands.

The last type of Wizarding magic is that of teleportation circles and summoning, two fields that are closely related. Teleportation circles come in two forms, those being permanent and nonpermanent teleportation circles. Each permanent circle has it’s own unique configuration of various geometric shapes and runes. In order to travel from one permanent teleportation circle to another one must both memorize the specific details of the destination circle and have been to it in person, and to cast a specific spell. To travel using a temporary teleportation circle the destination can only be to a permanent circle using the same rules, but requiring significantly more magical strength and time to prepare. For this reason the locations of such circles are closely guarded secrets, so as to prevent unwanted individuals from accessing the circles.

To summon a creature of great magical strength, like a demon or a faerie, can be either much easier or much more difficult than teleporting, depending on some specifics. The most important of these is whether the being in question wants to be summoned at all: If it wants to be summoned you don’t need to even be a powerful wizard, you just need to know the spell. If it doesn’t want to be summoned, however, the spells required and the nature of the summoning circle will be more complex.

The study of Wizardry exists without a well-accepted theory behind how it works. The development of new spells is an incredibly tedious process that requires years of analyzing spells similar to what one is attempting to accomplish to attempt to find a pattern, and it very often has disastrous results very different to what was anticipated. There are countless examples of people trying to create an innocuous new spell that accidentally ended up killing themselves and others. There is no reliable predictive method for how to determine what a spell will do in certain circumstances without direct observation.

5.2) Sorcerers (5.2

The second type of magician are sorcerers. Sorcery is considered an innate magic, like the magic used by faeries: It cannot be learned by studying in books, and it requires simply being born with the talent for it. That said, though, it can certainly be practiced and trained, which it often is by those with the talent for it.

Sorcerous powers tend to initially manifest themselves around the onset of puberty, though there are exceptions in either direction, with infants too young to speak wielding powerful magic and elderly men on their deathbeds suddenly finding themselves able to control fire.

There are three main types of sorcerers, but, as with wizards, this is by no means an exhaustive list. The three types are called dragonblood sorcerers, chaosblood sorcerers and astral sorcerers, and all three are different in slightly different ways.

All sorcerers have an innate control over elemental magic, which comprises the bulk of their powers. Dragonblood sorcerers, like dragons, only have dominion over one element, and always similar to that of a breath weapon of a dragon: Fire, ice, acid, storms and poison are the most common (sometimes called “redblood sorcerers”, “whiteblood sorcerers”, “greenblood sorcerers”, “blueblood sorcerers” and “blackblood sorcerers” among those knowledgeable about different types of dragons), though in the far east and far south there are stories of the occasional rare sorcerer with powers akin to a brown dragon.

Peculiarly enough, dragonblood sorcerers also have a large amount of immunity to the element that they control. Whiteblood sorcerers, for instance, are able to withstand temperatures much colder than what normal people can withstand, and blackblood sorcerers are often rather immune to poison. The more powerful one’s sorcerous magic, the more powerful these immunities are.

There are some recorded instances of particularly powerful dragonblood sorcerers even gaining physical traits common to dragons, like wings and scales, and their hands and feet sometimes turn into claws and their mouth into something more resembling the jaw of a dragon than of a man. Whether this is due to a spell gone wrong or an innate part of the magic of dragonblood sorcerers is unknown.

Chaosblood sorcerers, on the other hand, have control over all the elements, but to a lesser degree than Dragonblood sorcerers do and without the magical protection. Chaosblood sorcery is arguably the most dangerous type of magic to the individual using it due to its unpredictable nature.

A peculiarity of Chaosblood sorcery is that the element being used is seemingly irrelevant to the most powerful practitioners of it – they can sail in rivers of dirt, make swords out of solid air, strike people with water and walk on lightning, along with many other things that are seemingly impossible even to the most accomplished Wizards.

There are various theories about it, but the most popular theory is that Chaosblood sorcerers draw their power directly from a chaotic realm similar to the realms of hell where demons reside, a realm where the elements that mortals are familiar with don’t take the form that they normally do and are accompanied by dozens more that we cannot even begin to conceive of.

5.3) Warlocks (5.3

Warlocks are the third and last type of magician. They, rather than possessing magic themselves, use magic that they got from more powerful entities that they summoned or found, often in exchange for their souls or their servitude.

There are two main types of warlocks, but there are written records to indicate that other powers were once able to grant such abilities. The most common are the demonic, infernal or hellish warlocks, who generally tend to sell their souls to demons for magic. The second group are the fey-pact warlocks, who make an agreement with a powerful fey, an archfey, in exchange for magical abilities.

The first type get their powers by summoning demons, and generally get their abilities in exchange for their souls. Occasionally more is requested of the warlock, however – several hundred years ago the government of Sylathneus was overthrown by one such warlock, and that nation has been ruled by warlocks ever since.

The powers of demonic warlocks vary based upon the nature of the pact and the power of the demon – a powerful Demon Prince may grant much more power than what an imp may grant, for instance. The magic tends to be violent magic as well, seeking to inflict pain almost moreso than death – whether the pact grants power over hellfire or hellfrost, blood or blades, this pattern is common. Whether this is due to the inherent cruelty of demons or the nature of those who would make such a pact with such creatures is an oft-debated issue, but the effect is the same nonetheless.

Infernal warlocks tend not to be part of large warlock organizations, unlike wizards, but there are some that exist and are more common than organizations comprised of sorcerers. Generally, these tend to exist as an elite part of cults worshipping demons, whether the cults be public or secret. They tend to be looser organizations the vast majority of the time, as the worship of demons is illegal in most places.

A curious effect of some hellish pacts, but not all, is the effect that it can have on the descendants of those effected. The aristocracy of ancient Bael Turath became the demonic creatures known as Tieflings, for instance, likely as a direct result of their pact. Whether this was intentional or an unexpected side effect is not certain, and hotly debated by many historians.

Faerie warlocks, in direct contrast, are not inherently evil. Many fey might, when attempting to influence the affairs of mortals, offer some helpful magic to a petitioner. Very often these will be small things – Seasonal offerings of food to a sprite might result in crop harvests that are continually better than the norm.

More martial warlocks in the service of faeries tend to be knights. The nature of faerie-pacts, as with the rest of faerie-magic, varies too much from individual to individual to sum up nicely or neatly, and there will always be exceptions. That being said, exceptional luck that defies belief, the misbehavior of time and of distances and control over beasts of nature are relatively common magical boons among the warlock-knights who often live in Argolon.

Faerie pacts are not known to have any long-lasting intergenerational effects like the pacts of demons. There are some whisperings that the Kings of Eredal, due to their strong affinity for and knowledge of the owls that comprise their heraldry, may have made pacts with faeries, but this is a claim that they deny wholeheartedly.

5.4) Trees and Woods (5.4

In addition to those three types of magic, that require training, blood or deals, there is some magic that can be used by anyone with enough magic. There are a number of forests in the world where trees possessing magic grow, and the wood of those trees is often used to make a variety of things with some magical property.

Spiderwood is one of the most sought-after hardwoods on earth. It is generally considered a relative of oak, or perhaps a type of oak, which it is nearly indistinguishable from aside from blue veins. In particularly good samples of Spiderwood, the blue veins appear to make a spiderweb pattern, which is one of two reasons that it has that name. It has a number of magical properties, including being immune to faerie magic.

Icewood is found in the far north, and if you didn’t know it was from a tree one might mistake it for simply being ice that doesn’t melt. It seems perpetually cold and can be used to amplify magic that effects temperature in that direction. Furthermore, it is much like spiderwood in that faerie-magic cannot change the fundamentals of it.

Bloodwood trees, sometimes called Blackwood trees, are likewise found in only one place – Grithal. They appear similar to evergreens in some ways, though their leaves are always red and never green. The wood is pitch black when cleaned, but is often stained with red. Rumour has it that bloodwood trees bleed when cut down, and their sap or blood is highly valued for its alchemical properties. Additionally, the wood itself is occasionally used by those in the Red Tower to make swords and other weapons.

6) History (6

c.3,100 Years Ago: The Empire of Bael Turath, ruled by humans and located east of the Oln Sea, begins its expansion.

c.3,000 Years Ago: The Empire of Arkhosia, ruled by dragons and located west of the Oln Sea, begins its expansion.

c.2,700-c.2,400 Years Ago: The Wars of Fire, great wars fought between the empires of Arkhosia and Bael Turath, were waged during this period of time.

c.2500 Years Ago: Losing the Wars, the nobility of Bael Turath all sell their souls to demons in exchange for the power of warlocks. To gain as much power as possible, they also sold their bloodlines, thus birthing the race of Tieflings.

c.2,400 Years Ago: Both empires collapse, leading to a dark age for several hundred years.

c.2,250-c.1,900 Years Ago: The Lich King, taking advantage of the chaos, conquered much of the former Arkhosian and Bael Turathi empires, leading to an even darker age.

c.1,900-c.1,400 Years Ago: The Empire of Ghoril reigns during this time. It exists entirely within the borders of the former Lich King’s empire, but doesn’t encompass its entirety. Its capital is the now-ruined city of Ghoril in the Riftlands.

c.1,200-c.850 Years Ago: The Empire of Tarthel reigns during this time. It existed to the northwest of Ghoril, somewhere along the coast of the Oln Sea.

c.500-243 Years Ago: The Empire of Nerath reigns during this time. It existed to the northwest of Tarthel, never going further south than the Nubarb but extending further north than any empire since that of the Lich King, or maybe even since that of Arkhosia.

7) Calendars (7

8) Languages (8

9) Rules and Guidelines (9

Rules:

1) You control your character and nothing else directly. If you’re playing as Bob and Tom is an NPC, you can’t control Tom’s actions.

2) That said, if something isn’t cannon and you need to make up a quick bit of in-world lore, feel free to do so. Throw out the names of your character’s friends and family and acquaintances and details about the village that you visited five years ago: Don’t break narrative flow for the sake of double-checking with me. If it’s not an anything goes situation, or if your character shouldn’t have the in-universe knowledge, it will either be evident from context or I’ll tell you.

3) No torture porn and no regular porn. I’m fine with anything that makes narrative sense happening. I do not want six pages of two PCs having sex, or a ten-paragraph post about what torture method you’ll use to question your prisoner. I can’t think of anything else right now, but if it would make this rated R, cut down on the detail.

4) No complaining if your character dies. I will not kill characters if it doesn’t make sense within the story for them to die. That said, if a character is in an impossible-to-escape situation, there will be no deus ex machina to save them.

5) If you make a CS, I will assume that you will be active: That means at least one post every two to three days, and very likely more. If you make a character and then immediately become inactive, I’ll just carry on pretending that you didn’t make the character. If you make a character, share a major storyline with someone else and then disappear without warning for a long period of time, I will take over your character so as not to shut down that storyline. If you don’t have a good excuse for not notifying me in advance (“I forgot”, “I got bored”, etc. don’t count, but “I was very ill” and “my parents restricted my internet suddenly and without warning” do count) I will not allow you to resume any NPC-ified characters out of fear that you’ll do it again.

6) I was originally going to say “no Mary sues”, but then I realized that this is fantasy. I don’t think that Mary sues are as fun as characters who have personalities and realistic abilities, but if that’s what you want, that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon anyone else’s fun.

Guidelines:

1) Try to make multiple characters in different places. That way I have more storylines to work with and weave together, and more PCs can meet up in interesting ways. It will also make dealing with character deaths easier.

2) If you want something to happen within the storyline, tell me. If you want to meet up with another PC, tell me. If you want to just go with whatever I have planned, I’ll do that too.

3) When making a character, try to have between one and three goals in mind for what that character wants to accomplish. I want the character’s internal motivations and drives to be story hooks as well as whatever I throw at you.

4) Don’t just write a CS and call it a day, unless you’re really in a rush. If you’re able to, send me a PM with your idea and open a dialogue to see if we can integrate it into the world that I’m writing as best we can, and flesh it out even more. If you want to immediately start RPing with another person, invite them to the PM conversation as well: Whether you and the other person both want to make new characters who are siblings or something like that, or if you want to create a new character to join in one of the other player’s current storylines.

5) Have a OneNote document or some other form of taking notes. There will be lots of characters and storylines and it might become hard to keep track of everything, so it’s best to start note-taking now. I, for one, probably will.

10) Characters and Suggestions (10

Existing PCs:

Duck14:

Alfred Melling, a ferry captain on the Nubarb, who survived a great storm and is investigating its possible causes.

Duke Verous III Datha, a young man thrust into a position of power before he was ready.

Arthur Fangoran, a blacksmith’s apprentice from the town of Secelle, Argolon.

Tikobe:

Othan Mallowater, the eldest son of and heir to the Earl of Mallowater, making preparations to wage war against Eredal.

Kainer Adderant, a knight raised by faeries in the service of the king of Argolon, currently on a quest to fight trolls in the Chelpar Forest

Arelia Nickart, a wizard at the university of Belgate and one of the world’s foremost experts on the undead.

Leggo:

Duke Jonos Dawburn, the self-proclaimed Duke of Thasia and a brilliant military general, currently waging war on the count of Mescor to unite his realm.

Prince Edric Owlen, an explorer and grandson of the king of Eredal, currently in Argolon

In-development PCs:

Duck14:

George Gorganrich, a wizard in Kraken Island

A knight of some description.

Tikobe:

Faryn Taele, a sorcerer bandit from the Riftlands

Leggo:

Fifi Buttercup, a jester.

A pirate

11) CS (11

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Nationality:
Appearance:
Clothing:
Languages: [Optional]
Occupation: [Optional]
Rank: [Could be feudal rank, could be military rank, could refer to rank within a trade guild, etc.]
Personality: [Optional]
Bio:
Friends and Family:
Goals: [Optional]
Other:

[Duck14]

(Didn’t even realise this was up. Gather the troops, we have a roleplay to roleplay.)

[Tikobe]

Apr 6, 2018 11:39:02 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(Didn’t even realise this was up. Gather the troops, we have a roleplay to roleplay.)

(Yeah. We just finished discussing one of my characters (I still need to wait for the Magic and Fae things to be up to make all of them). I plan to be sending him the rough draft of my CS today.)

[Bannanachair]

Apr 6, 2018 11:39:02 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(Didn’t even realise this was up. Gather the troops, we have a roleplay to roleplay.)

(I don't know how many troops there are that are willing to roleplay this roleplay. There's you and Tikobe, obviously, but the two of you were kind of expected to join a fantasy RP by me just by default, for the same reason that I'm contractually obligated to make a CS in all of Tikobe's RPs. If Death or Benzo or even LNG257 (if he still lurks) are willing to join that'd be good as well. I want a large, sprawling storyline encompassing the world with a large cast of characters, dammit. Why can't I ever get that?)

[Bannanachair]

(I added some more stuff to the thread, including a brief overview of the entire (known) world, a writeup on Elusia and a paragraph about humans. I want to be writing faster, but it's hard to find the right music to write along to, and the quality of my writing is very mood-dependent. I think that if I write stuff about the various races of the world and the combat mechanics I'll have enough detail for RPing in the three places that I described, but I really want to write up Argolon, Kraken Island and The Far North before we begin because they'd be extremely important locations in any storyline that takes the characters traveling.)

(Also, if you want to pay a foreign character living in Orevod, Elusia or Eredal, that's what that chapter 1.1 is for. If anything there inspires you to roleplay as any particular type of character, please tell me, because that would be pretty cool.)

[Bannanachair]

Apr 6, 2018 20:08:57 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Apr 6, 2018 11:39:02 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(Didn’t even realise this was up. Gather the troops, we have a roleplay to roleplay.)

(I don't know how many troops there are that are willing to roleplay this roleplay. There's you and Tikobe, obviously, but the two of you were kind of expected to join a fantasy RP by me just by default, for the same reason that I'm contractually obligated to make a CS in all of Tikobe's RPs. If Death or Benzo or even LNG257 (if he still lurks) are willing to join that'd be good as well. I want a large, sprawling storyline encompassing the world with a large cast of characters, dammit. Why can't I ever get that?)

(Or maybe if Craxian decides to join)

[Duck14]

(As you know I want at least one of my characters to be a ferry captain. Will write up that CS soon.)

[Bannanachair]

Apr 9, 2018 20:42:54 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(As you know I want at least one of my characters to be a ferry captain. Will write up that CS soon.)

(Where do you want the ferry captain to be located?)

[Duck14]

Apr 9, 2018 22:15:24 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Apr 9, 2018 20:42:54 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(As you know I want at least one of my characters to be a ferry captain. Will write up that CS soon.)

(Where do you want the ferry captain to be located?)

(Somewhere along the Nubarb.)

[Bannanachair]

Apr 10, 2018 8:59:50 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

Apr 9, 2018 22:15:24 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

(Where do you want the ferry captain to be located?)

(Somewhere along the Nubarb.)

(That... That actually makes things surprisingly easy for me to throw a storyline at you, and for me to force you to meet up with Tik's character if I feel like it. Thank you.)

[Bannanachair]

(Also, what a coincidence that you posted just as I finished my most recent edit.

[Bannanachair]

(Sorry for the delay in updating this, I've been busy with schoolwork. I'll try to update the OP with information about Argolon, Kraken Island and the various magic systems sometime this weekend: I'm about halfway through writing each of them.)

[Duck14]

(No problem. I’ve been busy with uni and my other writing stuff as well so I understand.)

[Bannanachair]

(Am I the only person in this RP not yet in university?)

[Tikobe]

Apr 20, 2018 11:17:37 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

(Am I the only person in this RP not yet in university?)

(If you wanna get technical then you could say no since I'm in a community college and not a university.)

[Bannanachair]

(Okay, we need someone younger than me to sign up so that I'm not the youngest one here by a significant margin.)

[Duck14]

(How significant is that margin? My grandchildren put me in a nursing home last week.)

[Tikobe]

Apr 24, 2018 9:28:36 GMT -4 Duck14 said:

(How significant is that margin? My grandchildren put me in a nursing home last week.)

(I remember when they used to do things like that. They still do in a way. Just like yesterday when my eldest great-grandson tried buttering me up for a better slice of my will by offering to hold my "upcoming" (He worries too much) funeral in Hawaii. Just a sweet little thing.)

[Bannanachair]

(So, just out of curiosity, how interconnected do you want your storylines to be? Do you want me to develop both of you separately with supporting casts and all that stuff before combining the storylines into one, or do you want to be interacting from the beginning? If you're both making three or more characters I'll definitely do both, but for the time being I only know in any amount of detail the specifics of one of your characters each, so assuming that you guys make a character each and then only make your second, etc. characters thirty pages later, what do you want for your first characters?)

[Tikobe]

Apr 25, 2018 12:21:37 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

(So, just out of curiosity, how interconnected do you want your storylines to be? Do you want me to develop both of you separately with supporting casts and all that stuff before combining the storylines into one, or do you want to be interacting from the beginning? If you're both making three or more characters I'll definitely do both, but for the time being I only know in any amount of detail the specifics of one of your characters each, so assuming that you guys make a character each and then only make your second, etc. characters thirty pages later, what do you want for your first characters?)

(I'm fine with whatever. I mean, I don't know if it'll even take 30 pages to make my characters though cause the instant that the parts for fae and magic are up and running I'll start developing the other two characters I have planned.)

[Bannanachair]

Apr 26, 2018 1:47:44 GMT -4 Tikobe said:

Apr 25, 2018 12:21:37 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

(So, just out of curiosity, how interconnected do you want your storylines to be? Do you want me to develop both of you separately with supporting casts and all that stuff before combining the storylines into one, or do you want to be interacting from the beginning? If you're both making three or more characters I'll definitely do both, but for the time being I only know in any amount of detail the specifics of one of your characters each, so assuming that you guys make a character each and then only make your second, etc. characters thirty pages later, what do you want for your first characters?)

(I'm fine with whatever. I mean, I don't know if it'll even take 30 pages to make my characters though cause the instant that the parts for fae and magic are up and running I'll start developing the other two characters I have planned.)

(About that, the reason that the magic is taking so long is that I can't decide what magic system I want to use, so I'm writing several and I'll probably have a whole bunch of different ways of using magic. So you could have ten different wizard characters who are all nothing alike.)

[Duck14]

(I’m also alright with anything.)

[Bannanachair]

(Coolio. So Duck, how many characters do you think you'll develop for the early stages of the RP? I'm fully expecting you guys to make new characters six months or whatever from now when it makes sense within the storyline for new PCs to appear, or to throw in new storylines just for fun (like what GRRM did with Dorne and the Iron Islands in ACOK), but to begin with I'm curious as to how many characters I'm dealing with. The more the merrier, so long as they're all actually characters and not identical people with slightly different names.)

[Duck14]

Apr 27, 2018 10:54:31 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

(Coolio. So Duck, how many characters do you think you'll develop for the early stages of the RP? I'm fully expecting you guys to make new characters six months or whatever from now when it makes sense within the storyline for new PCs to appear, or to throw in new storylines just for fun (like what GRRM did with Dorne and the Iron Islands in ACOK), but to begin with I'm curious as to how many characters I'm dealing with. The more the merrier, so long as they're all actually characters and not identical people with slightly different names.)

(Damn you caught me, I’ll reframe from using Gary, Larry, and Barry the identical twins who do everything the exact same.

Seriously though, I’m really not sure. I’m the sailor for sure and possibly a knight of some description a little later. I know in a few months time if this is still trudging along I’ll have plenty more. I wouldn’t mind trying out a corrupt nobleman at some point. And a good but heavily conflicted one as well, to balance it out.


And something completely new, like an apprentice blacksmith called Arthur Fangoran who just wants to do his father proud but ends up in the middle of an adventure of some description.)

[Bannanachair]

(Wouldn't Gary, Larry and Barry be identical triplets? Also, expect an update to the OP with like a thousand new words within an hour.)