Campaign Setting: Empire's Cairn (done) (PEACH!)

[Reltzik]

This is a campaign setting I started coming up with all of a week or two ago. My purpose was twofold. First, to create a setting without too many wild changes from core DnD, making it easy to play in. Second, I wanted to make it both compelling and internally plausible. Taken together, this meant having valid reasons for having dungeons for adventures, monasteries for monks, stretches of wilderness for savage humanoids, and so forth. I drew a bit too heavily on real-world history, and think I met my first requirement much better than my second, but you be the judge. (Too be honest, I think I've turned it into just-another-DnD-world. Mrr.)

Truth is, this setting isn't complete, but I'm posting it now anyway because I want to do something unique in the setup: modularize it. (I was starting to retool Ravine this way, but decided that the setting itself was too fundamentally flawed for it to work.) What I'm posting here would be the "core" setting. It will overview, for example, the commonly-known history and the racial and political makeup of the Northern Empire, but leave a lot of gray areas and unknowns. Then there would be "interpretations" -- various in-depth looks at different aspects of the campaign world, which may or may not be true. One interpretation could detail the Northern Empire as the last bulwark of enlightened civilization under constant attacks by outside savages, while a different interpretation would show the Northern Empire as a proxy state to its aristocratic elite, guided by an elven agenda of racial superiority.

The idea is that the core setting is what the PCs are expected to know -- interpretations might contradict this, but if so it won't be common knowledge in the world. This avoids players who are familiar with the setting from knowing the major NPCs' stats, what lies beyond the eastern ocean, and what REALLY caused the Great Death, because it leaves these decisions in the hands of the DM, while offering several detailed suggestions to fill in the gaps or spark ideas. So if reading the core setting starts sparking ideas in your brain about how some part of the world might be, WRITE IT DOWN and POST IT. Please? I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have and would REALLY welcome collaborators. Of course, the core setting isn't complete yet, either. That's because I'm... uh... alpha testing it. Yeah. That's it. (Oh, and on the very long shot that someone might actually join in but be worried about legal issues, let's just OGL the whole thing. Yeah, I know, not going to happen. Still, doesn't hurt to say it.)

Anyhow, my experience with posting game settings on these boards is that a serial approach is better than posting one huge freaking brick of text. So this post is intro and general geography. After that, I think I'll tackle it in chronological order by age, devoting one or more posts to each. The age where play is intended is The Reemergence, but I think many of these ages would make for good campaign settings of their own, properly developed.


Geography

The Cairnlands is a regional name for the eastern quarter of a continent, stretching from one mountain range east down to the sea. The mountain range is known by many names in many languages, but in this era is most commonly referred to as the Homewall. It is a range of steep and confused mountains carved out as if by glaciers (think Yosemite), with many secret passes and valleys and many more impassible routes. It runs north-south for a little over four thousand miles, curving southwest/northeast for the last thousand miles of its southern stretch. The far northern stretch of the Homewall is covered in coniferous forest and surrounded by tundra and taiga, while the southern-most stretch (past the bend) runs through savannah before leveling out into desert. It spawns three subranges -- one running west by southwest from roughly its center, one running northeast from where it bends southwest, and one running east, splitting off from the northern-most stretch eight hundred miles before it ends. These offshoots are more in the way of foothills by comparison than true mountains. (Think Appalachians next to the Rockies.)

The two eastward-running ranges are separated by a sharp ocean inlet, called the Dagger Gulf in Common. The Gulf splits the eastern slope of the Homewall in two, known informally as the North and South, and has several islands known as the Dagger Isles. Save for near the Homewall, the North and South are fairly gentle, with relatively flat lands stretching away from the subrange in the North and rolling hills surrounding the subrange in the South. Both are heavily forested with several rivers and lakes; generations of civilization have cleared away stretches for cultivation, but quite often these fill back in when people move on.

A chain of islands called the Ice Pearls by the elves extend from the north of the continent, where the Homewall range hits the sea, and hook east. Another chain called the Cradle by the halflings (who claim to have originated from it) extends into the southern sea, and a large volcanic island known as Fireport by the elves lies due east of the Northern half of the Cairnlands.

The central western slope is forests most of the way down, before turning into grassland plains that stretch beyond the Cairnlands.

(Note that these are the names common during the Age of Reemergence -- different ages referred to these regions by different names, and different languages have different names for them in the same age. However, I will use these names consistently, regardless of which age I am talking about, to avoid confusion.)

See map, below -- I'll post a color key at the end of this, but for now know that blue is ocean (duh) and bronze is the crests of mountain ranges. Note that no accurate map of the region exists and this is nothing more than a cop out approximation.

Map (http://reltzik.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/Cairnlands2.bmp)

[Reltzik]

The First Age and the Undying Lords

Though the details are lost in distant past and muddled by all matters of legends, myths, and ghost stories, the Undying Lords were very real. Some legends claim that these were the first beings created by the gods and as such were granted knowledge of life and death; others, that they stole the gods' knowledge and sought to usurp their place. Some myths claim that they created the wide variety of races as servants and soldiers, though who was created, what stock the Lords derived their servants from or themselves came from, and what purpose their creations would serve is often based more on the speaker's prejudices than actual facts. ("The Undying Lords created humans for brute labor, and that's all that wretched race is good for!" So say some elves.)

What is fairly well agreed upon is this: Through whatever means, the Lords achieved immortality through transformation into... something else. They did not age, or perhaps grew stronger instead of weaker with age, or perhaps did age but could perform rituals to reverse it, or... that part's unclear. They could be killed, but that was a very difficult task to accomplish permanently. It has been speculated that differing methods of immortality were embraced, but what those might be have been obfuscated by countless myths, ghost stories, and unfounded but popular theories. They were small in numbers, powerful in magic, highly individualistic, given to feuds, and are remembered as evil enslavers of the various races' ancestors. They built no cities, but instead devised fortresses for themselves and their slaves as their homes, towers and dungeons and hidden vales carefully disguised by magic. These settlements stretched across the continent and, it is believed, across the world. There is no historical mention of a civilization prior to the Undying Lords; if one did exist, it was utterly destroyed.

No one's sure what happened to them. Some say they killed each other off, while others say that the slaves rebelled, and others say that the gods intervened. Perhaps a combination of all three, or -- so say the ghost stories -- perhaps they're still around. Some speculate that the most ancient dragons are Undying, while others suggest that some of the Lords sleep away the millennia in hidden tombs as undead vampires, mummies, and liches. It is generally agreed that the more common members of all these types are not Undying Lords, though may be their creations or descendents. But it is also common for those plagued or terrorized by such beings to overestimate their stature, and many a monster which was not, in fact, an Undying Lord has been labeled as such. The mantle of Undying is also reached for by, or applied to, notable tyrants, wizards, and megalomaniacs, and their hand is seen by many in natural phenomenon such as earthquakes and blight. All of this greatly confuses the historical record.

Artifacts, lesser-but-still-potent magical items, magical texts of unsurpassed power, curses which affect entire lines or even races, ancient fortresses that change hands from one nation to another but are themselves neither destroyed nor ever fully claimed... these are remnants of the Undying Lords. They are objects of fear, tainted by the reputation of their creators, unknowable and mysterious. Many, but not all, have a very dark and sinister side to them.

[The Undying Lords, and their age, are very much open to interpretation. They could be anything, so long as they are powerful. They could still be around, or not. Though remembered as being universally villainous, this is fragmentary history written by the survivors; it is possible that some could have been goodly.]

[Reltzik]

(I decided to switch to two posts a day.)

Elves, and their Golden Age

In the power vacuum left behind by the Undying Lords, the elves emerged from the isle of Fireport. What they had been doing there is lost in time -- some legends suggest that they isle had escaped notice by the Undying Lords, others that the elves had rebelled and destroyed or forced into hiding their masters, others that the elves had been refugees from the mainland, others that the gods had created the elves to replace the Undying Lords, or were simply the first to reorganize, or had an advantage even then of trade across the eastern ocean.... and on and on it goes. Regardless, the elves came to the mainland, and whether through conquest, assimilation, or simple organization, they established a civilization spanning the entire North and stretching west of the Homewall. There was no true ruler of this civilization, but rather it was comprised of city-states which fell into and out of each others' spheres of influence. The region was united more by common culture and language than any ruler. The elves were known for science, philosophy, and magic which would be considered the pinnacle of learning for millennia to come. Their architecture was distinctive and can be found across the north, especially the distinctive semaphore towers still in use today.

At some point, the civilization started to decline. Again, the causes are uncertain, but the decline was both economic and social in nature. Various historians point to the exhaustion of mineral deposits, some blame the acceptance of barbarian races into the elven civilization, others point to the fouling of Fireport by a bout of volcanic activity and the subsequent loss of trade contacts across the ocean. A common belief among elves is that the drow were somehow responsible, and there are varying (and often conflicting) tales of why this was. Another common belief among the laymen was that it was a curse laid down by an Undying Lord. Others question that the civilization declined at all, pointing towards a trend in elven philosophy to feel that all things as proceed towards entropy and that previous days were better than the present.

Note that while the ancient North is generally referred to as an Elven civilization, in actuality it and most of the civilizations to follow were quite mixed. Humans, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes abounded and were a part, albeit a downtrodden part, of society. Elves, however, occupied the upper tier, and most of its enduring personalities -- the great leaders, poets, scientists, magicians, theorists, philosophers, playwrights, architects, heroes, and so forth -- are either known to have been elves or simply assumed to have been elves.

Much of Elven culture survives to this day, and though the lands were invaded by outsiders who broke the elves to their will, within a few generations these invaders were speaking Elven, adopting elven customs and styles of dress, reading or writing poetry in the Elven pattern, and generally giving rise to the question of who really conquered whom.

Elven philosophy, science, and magic revolves around abstraction. It emphasizes the purity of thought, the fallibility of the senses, and the notion that this world is simply a distorted echo of the true one. Reasoning from the general to the specific is their hallmark. Appeals to authority are also frequent; the older the authority and the mustier the tome it is cited in, the better. It is believed that certain individuals from the Golden Age were allowed to see the true world, instead of this one, and the knowledge recorded by these figures is truer than anything a modern elf (much less human or other race) could discern nowadays. Alchemy is based on theories of four elements; magic on a theory of eight schools. The more something can be classified and divided into separate realms about which blanket statements may be made, the better. Elven philosophy also claims that the world was perfect in its beginning and is now decaying, a concept tied to their own decline, the pollution of Fireport, the primacy of the old philosophers, the gradual shift of their civilization west towards the sunset, and their own origins from the east and the sunrise. Other sciences of interest to elves include numerology (in which the number 4 and derivatives thereof are considered especially potent), astrology, and the study of bodily humors.

During the Age of Reemergence, elves appear to form an upper class of aristocracy and intellectual elites. Even the poor among them seem related to important figures, albeit as distant descendents or cousins five times removed from anyone of real importance. In actuality there may be a great many elves no such connections at all. Such elves would be ashamed of their low position in society and not speak of it, though some may be determined to take their rightful place by becoming legends in their own rights and even prone to delusions of grandeur beyond their present accomplishments. (An Elven Man of la Mancha, anyone?) Even wild elves tend to be much the same; they just rule over nomadic tribes, instead of settled commoners. Upper class elves tend to be proponents of the ideals of nobility, chivalry, and divine right, and the mounted archer, javelinier, or knight hold special reverence. Whether they practice what they preach is open to interpretation.

All subtypes of elf are, by default, available for play, largely as described in the core rules. Though these subtypes do not really live separately, they are distributed based on their tendencies; thus, gray elves and drow are more common in the mountains, while aquatic elves are more common along the shore. Drow are very much disliked and tend to keep to themselves, but are not complete outcasts.

Elves worship a complicated pantheon of over sixty thousand animal-gods. (Obviously, study to become a priest is a long-term prospect, even by elven standards.) These gods have a wide variety of names (most secret to the religion and believed to be words of great power) but are generally referred to specifically by their animal type. Drow tend to be particular adherents to the Black Widow, and aquatic elves to the Dolphin, but even they acknowledge and pay appropriate homage to the other gods in the pantheon. The rest of elven religion in general sees no particular god as ascendant, though some are certainly more popular and everyone has favorites. It is the rare elf who knows of all the gods, much less all their secret names; such individuals are seen as possessing the key to unworldly power.

The Elven language is commonly used for scholarly and academic discussion, even outside of Elven lands. It is analogous to real world Greek.

[Note that while much of what the elves represent (nobility, divine right by birth, a denial of empiricism) and much of what they believe (revealed knowledge, astrology, numerology, others) has been dismissed in the real world, and rightly so, this should not be taken to imply that the Cairnlands do not function as the elves believe. It is a fantasy world, after all, and their belief that, say, magic naturally classifies itself into ten rings of potency divided into eight archs is.... well, okay, that one's largely true. Whether the rest are true is open to interpretation.]

[Reltzik]

Gnomes and the Drenidian Empire

Around the same time that the elves were (or weren't) declining, the gnomes were on the rise. Beginning from the city of Drenidium, located beneath the Homewall Mountains, just south of Dagger Gulf, the gnomes began a march to empire that eventually conquered all but the southern-most thousand miles of the range, the North and South, and the western slopes as well. (That they were the place of gnome origin, and later the capitol of the empire, is what gives the Homewall Mountains its name.) Great fleets of gnome caravels patrolled the Dagger, the Ice Pearls, the Cradle, and Fireport, and all the civilized world was theirs to command. The feats of their legions became legendary, all the more so because they were infantry. (In later years, cavalry would come to be seen as superior.)

Within three gnome generations, the Empire had been forged out of almost nothing, the elves beaten and brought into the fold, and infrastructure, roads, and aqueviae linked every portion of the land: artificial, underground waterways that crisscrossed the Homewall mountains and the subranges, allowing for the swift and direct movement of goods, personnel and information.

[Again note that while the gnomes ran the empire and were its principle figures, it was very mixed, including elves, dwarves, humans, and halflings.]

Part of the key to their success was their religion. Though they worshipped the All-Father and His various servants, the gnome church had developed an all-encompassing notion of Divinity. All gods from all religions were merely different expressions and perspectives of Divinity. Thus, two gods of conflicting pantheons, both with control over the oceans, weren't actually in conflict; instead, they were merely different ways of looking at the same thing. The Church of Divinity established a basis for potentially hostile religious groups to coexist within the same empire. It didn't always work, but it usually helped.

Of course, elves had ways of conquering invaders which they could not defeat. The gnomes were soon absorbing elven learning and styles of governance, adopting elven culture, using the Elven tongue for formal and learned matters. Religious scholarship, in studying the Divinity, would increasingly turn to study of Elven gods as being the ones yielding the most understanding of the Divine Whole. Inside of a couple gnome generations, elven and gnome culture were virtually indistinguishable.

The downfall of the Empire was clearer than the Elven Age. Some eight hundred years after its expansion concluded, a plague known as the Great Death swept the land. It was particularly virulent and usually struck too swiftly to be stopped, or even much slowed, by magical and learned healing, but at the same time could remain dormant in a host for a quarter century. Many saw the hands of the Undying Lords in this.

In desperation, Emperor Marconius II placed an order of quarantine upon the entire Empire; no movement of any kind was allowed between settlements for the next hundred years. To enforce this, the aqueviae were disabled. With that one order, the Empire ceased to be a single, united structure and became thousands of tiny, isolated units, which were in turn shattered by the invasions to come. It never recovered, and to many (elves especially) it was seen as the end of the world. A fragment of the empire still remains in the North, where the old semaphore network allowed coordination and cultural unity despite the quarantine. The North Empire styles itself as heir or continuation to the old Empire, but anyone can see that it has only a fraction of the power once possessed by that great entity. Whether or not the quarantine was wise remains debated to this day.

Many gnomes today live in the past, remembering the glory days of the Empire. A disproportionate number of them are bards and minstrels as a result. The Church of Divinity still survives and is made up chiefly of gnomes, though its influence has waned. Though most educated individuals still believe the philosophies of the Church, the average person is only vaguely familiar with them, and worships his or her own gods accordingly. The rest of the gnomes have largely assimilated into either dwarven or elven society, adopting their views and perspectives. All subraces of gnomes are available for play by default; rock gnomes are those who have remained true to their roots, while Svirfneblin and Forest Gnomes are those who have assimilated with the dwarves and elves, respectively.

The Gnome language is frequently used for geographical discussions, political functions, and religious matters, even by other races. It is analogous to real world Latin.

[Reltzik]

The Drenidian Empire, Gnomes, and the Great Death

Around the same time that the elves were (or weren't) declining, the gnomes were on the rise. Beginning from the city of Drenidium, located beneath the Homewall Mountains, just south of Dagger Gulf, the gnomes began a march to empire that eventually conquered all but the southern-most thousand miles of the range, the North and South, and the western slopes as well. (That they were the place of gnome origin, and later the capitol of the empire, is what gives the Homewall Mountains its name.) Great fleets of gnome caravels patrolled the Dagger, the Ice Pearls, the Cradle, and Fireport, and all the civilized world was theirs to command. The feats of their legions became legendary, all the more so because they were infantry. (In later years, cavalry would come to be seen as superior, which elevated the successful gnome infantry to a position of awe.)

Within three gnome generations, the Empire had been forged out of almost nothing, the elves beaten and brought into the fold, and infrastructure, roads, and aqueviae (artificial, underground waterways that crisscrossed the Homewall mountains and the subranges, allowing for the swift and direct movement of goods, personnel and information) linked all portions of the land.

[Again note that while the gnomes ran the empire and were its principle figures, it was very mixed, including elves, dwarves, humans, and halflings.]

Part of the key to their success was their religion. Though they worshipped the All-Father and His various servants, the gnome church had developed an all-encompassing notion of Divinity. All gods from all religions were merely different expressions and perspectives of Divinity. Thus, two gods of different pantheons, both with control over the oceans, could coexist without being in conflict; instead, they were merely different ways of looking at the same thing. The Church of Divinity established a basis for potentially hostile religious groups to coexist within the same empire. It didn't always work, but it usually helped.

Elves had ways of conquering invaders which they could not defeat. The gnomes were soon absorbing elven learning and styles of governance, adopting elven culture, using the Elven tongue for formal and learned matters. Religious scholarship, in studying the Divinity, would increasingly turn to study of Elven gods as being the ones yielding the most understanding of the Divine Whole. Inside of a couple gnome generations, elven and gnome culture were virtually indistinguishable.

The downfall of the Empire was clearer than the Elven Age. Some eight hundred years after its expansion concluded, a plague known as the Great Death swept the land. It was particularly virulent and usually struck too swiftly to be stopped, or even much slowed, by magical and learned healing, but at the same time could remain dormant in a host here or there for a quarter century. Many saw the hands of the Undying Lords in this.

In desperation, Emperor Marconius II placed an order of quarantine upon the entire Empire; no movement of any kind was allowed between settlements for the next hundred years. To enforce this, the aqueviae were disabled. With that one order, the Empire ceased to be a single, united structure and became thousands of tiny, isolated units, which were in turn shattered by the invasions to come. It never recovered, and to many (elves especially) it was seen as the end of the world. A fragment of the empire still remains in the North, where the old semaphore network allowed coordination and cultural unity despite the quarantine. The North Empire styles itself as heir or continuation to the old Empire, but anyone can see that it has only a fraction of the power once possessed by that great entity. Whether or not the quarantine was wise remains debated to this day.

Many gnomes today live in the past, remembering the glory days of the Empire. A disproportionate number of them are bards and minstrels as a result. The Church of Divinity still survives and is made up chiefly of gnomes, though its influence has waned. Though most educated individuals still believe the philosophies of the Church, the average person is only vaguely familiar with them, and worships his or her own gods accordingly. The rest of the gnomes have largely assimilated into either dwarven or elven society, adopting their views and perspectives. All subraces of gnomes are available for play by default; rock gnomes are those who have remained true to their roots, while Svirfneblin and Forest Gnomes are those who have assimilated with the dwarves and elves, respectively.

The Gnome language is frequently used for geographical discussions (as many places had gnome names stamped upon them during the days of empire, and the best maps date from then), political matters, and religious matters, even by other races. It is analogous to real world Latin.

[Reltzik]

The Dwarven Invasion

In the final score of the quarantine's years, the Empire was invaded by the dwarven clans. [Again, though dwarven in culture and identity, they were racially mixed]. These clans were migrating from their old homelands, which had been overrun by orcs, giants, goblins, and other savage races. They had over thirty years of combat experience as part of the longest fighting retreat in history. The North, coordinating by way of the old semaphore networks, could produce coordinated resistance despite the quarantine; the dwarves simply flowed away from the resistance to the South, where the remaining pieces of the Empire fell easily. It wasn't a conquest, per se -- the dwarves didn't so much beat the South down as crowd what little was left of the governmental structure out. Indeed, many welcomed the dwarven leadership. The dwarves made themselves at home in the wonderful gnome burrows, mines, and caverns, and then promptly turned around to stave off their pursuers.

What little semblance of identification to the old Empire remained was beaten away under the onslaught of the savage races. Orcs, kobolds, goblins, giants, hobgoblins, bugbears, ogres... and just as often savage humans, elves, dwarves, and others in their company or simply striking at the same time. The South lapsed into a military autocracy in response with dwarven authority foremost, and managed to draw a line along the crest of the Homewall mountains. Several bands and even entire tribes of the savages got through, but the horde was stopped. It was seen as a great victory. The clans then promptly fell to solidifying their individual control over the South, resulting in a century of on-and-off squabbling and warfare. The South is currently splintered into a dozen or so rival kingdoms, all controlled by dwarves.

Dwarves exist in strong contrast to elves. While elves are fond of leisure, dwarves are fond of good, solid work. They like different foods, different pastimes, different lifestyles. Many elves detest the dwarves for, as they see it, destroying their beautiful empire. (Yes, it was a gnome Empire, but many elves see that as a mere technicality. Yes, many dwarves were in the region before the Invasion, but elves can be rather fond of their abstractions.) Dwarves, in turn, detest elves for detesting dwarves. They particularly ridicule elven philosophy as airy-headed impracticality. A dwarf doesn't fumble around with mystical notions of alchemy, but firm, empirical sciences of chemistry and metallurgy. The notion of spending as much time as elven astrologers studying the stars is preposterous to a dwarf, save for the practical application of navigation. To the elves, this attitude is uncouth and the mark of an uneducated barbarian. Elven philosophers often feel that dwarves are incapable of seeing the true world at all, as evidenced by their resistance to magic and stubborn personalities, likely deriving from their subterranean nature. Dwarven society utterly rejects the model of divine right and nobility -- their clan leaders and kings are elected based on merit and skill. Needless to say, relations between the two cultures could be better.

Dwarven religion revolves around a familial pantheon of seven major deities and a couple dozen minor ones. Chief among them are the Earth Mother, goddess of mountains, stone, and the underground, and the Fire Father, forger of the race and giver of life to all things. However, the gods are seen as inviting dwarves to inquiry and exploration, rather than providing certainty and laws. Though their scholars abstractly accept the notion of Divinity, they spurn the established doctrine as flawed, largely due to its (as they see it) over-focus on elven gods.

The normal stereotypes that dwarves will never ride horseback or travel by ship are downright false. It is true that most dwarves don't like riding horses. It is also true that most horses don't like bearing dwarves. It is definitely true that dwarves don't like sailing, and it may even be true that ships hate carrying dwarves. But dwarves are, ultimately, a practical folk, and both riding and sailing have their uses. Dwarven traders usually travel by river or sea, and the dwarven heavy cavalry are among the deadliest lancers about. They're also extremely grumpy and are quite willing -- eager, in fact -- to fight as dragoons whenever the circumstances call for it. Dwarves prefer to utilize infantry tactics whenever practical, but believe heavy cavalry to be superior against most foes (certainly the savage cultures) on the open field.

Any dwarven subrace is, by default, available for play. The Dwarven tongue is often used for technical matters. It is analogous to real world German.

[Reltzik]

Humans, Half-Elves, and Halflings:

Don't let the lack of mention received by humans so far fool you; they've been there all along... and more of them than anyone else. The difference is that, with lifespans too short to often match the other races in acquired skills, humans usually form the lower class of unskilled labor. They are all-pervasive and generally outnumber even the race that supposedly comprises whatever empire they're part of -- hence the racial nickname "Commoner", and the name given to the human tongue: Common. It's been more properly said that Common is all other languages pretending to be just one, since commoners will borrow any term they hear and use it, quite often without knowing what it really means. Ironically, Common tends to be the functional language in most lands, as humans outnumber their supposed betters, which in turn makes Common the ideal language for diplomacy and trade. (It is analogous to real world English.)

But in every rough there may well be a few diamonds, and just because MOST humans are the downtrodden, unskilled plebes doesn't mean they ALL are. The history of any empire is filled token human warriors, generals, saints, philosophers, and leaders.... all of whom encountered prejudice due to their humble origins. There are even a few human lines to whom hereditary nobility was granted. For the most part, humans are universal assimilators -- they become part of the society they're in, rather than reshape it to match their own habits. They have no distinct culture of their own.

Half-elves are generally rejected by Elven society, with few exceptions. The very concept of a half-elf is enough to send shivers down many an elven spine, and most would like to deny the existence of such aberrations altogether. Some do. Those who don't often hold to the prejudice that such half-breeds are the product of common human men raping noble elven women. Ultimately, the concept of a half-elf defies the elven penchant for abstraction; a half-elf is proof that lines are blurry and distinctions fuzzy. Humans are much more welcoming, though many (especially outside of the North) don't recognize the distinction between half-elves and elves. Half-elves sometimes form communities in the North, rejected by their elven kin and not feeling quite at home among the humans.

Halflings: Halflings are itinerant, clannish, and isolationist. When they put down roots in a community, they do so where other halflings are living. Just as often, they prefer to wander the countryside in wagon-homes, never really putting roots down anywhere. [Again, these are just cultural statements. A halfling community will often include several families adopted from other races, who will pick up and leave when the rest do.] Non-halflings tend to regard halflings as thieves, untrustworthy vagabonds, schemers and scammers, who take it on the lam just when they think they're about to be discovered. Hardships brought on by such prejudice have made halflings frugal by nature, giving them a reputation for being misers. They are often the target of violent mobs. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, halflings aren't as affected by local calamities as other races. Not only can they simply pick up and move, but more often than not their valuables are already packed. There are halfling journals dating back to the times of the Undying Lords, representing the only surviving first-hand accounts of that era and kept as treasured family artifacts. A halfling community is a treasure horde of historical details, and historians often spend time surveying them for new insights to the past -- and pay good coin for it, too. As a result, many discussions of history are conducted in the Halfling tongue. Halflings aren't much more or less fond of history than anyone else, but tend to have their facts in order if they do choose to study it.

Halflings are very cosmopolitan and adapt quickly to any culture they find themselves in. The difference between them and humans in that regard is that they unadapt the moment they come home from work and close the front door. Halfling religion is animistic, and they are prone to anthropomorphize animals and ascribe feelings or desires to objects. (The common racist joke is that this always somehow boils down to "Those coins? They really want to be in MY pouch. I should help them out, poor things.") Again, all subraces of halfling are playable by default.

[Reltzik]

The Age of Reemergence

Present day. It has been a century since the assault of the savage hordes slackened, and a century and a half since the dwarves invaded. The clan wars have redefined dwarven society; clan leaders and kings are no longer paramount, and must constantly answer to the populous forces at work beneath their thrones. Such leaders experience meteoric rises and falls, as they garner support one minute only to have it evaporate the next. So, while the South is usually divided into a couple dozen large nations and countless small ones, the nations in question come and go very swiftly. The abstraction of "nation" just doesn't apply well in the south... unless the entire region is one single dwarven nation, which might well be the way to look at it. Though the dwarves were never assimilated by the elves, they have absorbed a lot from the gnomes, and feel that they are the heirs of the Empire and its appointed defenders.

The Northern Empire is belatedly falling to pieces. The drow of the Homewall mountains, forming the Empire's western stretch have split off entirely, feeling that the elves in general abandoned them when it came time to fend of the dwarves and those who came after. Several of the Ice Pearl isles proved unrecoverable after the Quarantine was lifted, having set up their own governments, and have since become bases for piracy. The Cradle Isles were always bases for piracy. During the Quarantine, Fireport was colonized by forces from across the Eastern Sea. One river valley was retained by the elves, and is still part of the Empire, but only at the Easterners' sufferance.

Conflict between the dwarven south and the elven north is coming to a head. Their philosophies and world views are just too different. It won't be a military conflict per se, but the intellectual feud has taken on a class identity, with elves championing the upper class and dwarves the middle, and has thus begun touch on every facet of life in the Cairnlands. The conflict will be economic, academic, and cultural, rather than martial, in nature. Already, books are being banned, universities are being pressured to adopt this or that curriculum, and cultural contamination is taking on a sinister connotation.

Truth be told, the lands are no longer really civilized. The die-off from the Great Death was about nine-tenths, and the population retracted, leaving great stretches of land to be reclaimed by wilderness. The land is more isolated regions connected by roads than a country. Several towns didn't survive the Quarantine, either slain by the Death entirely or left too thin in numbers to endure. Elven ruins, gnome burrow-complexes and mines, great caverns, all these and more lie abandoned.

The land itself changed with the fall of the Empire. Many of the aqueviae were not properly disabled and flooded subterranean caverns of the Homewall. Entire moutains collapsed, old passes were filled, new passes opened, rivers diverted. Roads and bridges were scavenged by local commoners for bricks until nothing remained. As a result, no map which survived the Empire's fall is really accurate any more.

Though the larger horde was beaten off, several tribes and bands of orcs, goblins, ogres, and other savage humanoids made their way into the lands of the Empire proper and set up shop. The remainder flood along the western slopes of the Homewall and occasionally break through. Often these bands are swallowed up by the wilderness, their direction unknown until they emerge to assault a town or village.

There is a general air of loss about society, a focus on what was and never will be again. The common phrase for it is a feeling that they are living on the Empire's Cairn. But a few take a more positive attitude. The Death is over, the great horde beaten to a standstill, and all around are opportunities: Renewed trade between North and South, and between both and the East, land for homesteading, communities isolated since the Quarantine waiting to be rediscovered, and ruins packed with the treasures of their centuries-dead inhabitants. Those who were at the top have been brought low, and there are plenty of opportunities for those who were at the bottom to ascend.


Map (http://reltzik.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/Cairnlands2.bmp) Key:
Bronze: Crests of mountain ranges. Thick line is the Homewall range.
Green: The Elven North.
Red: The Dwarven South.
Black: Drow Independent States.
Pink: Independent islands (usually engaged in piracy).
Yellow: Sections of Fireport colonized from Eastern continent.
Gray: Lands unclaimed/in hands of savage hordes.
White Stars: Capitols. To the south, Drenidium, seat of the old Empire, capitol of the South, home of the Holy See of Divinity. To the north, Aquilonium, capitol of the Northern Empire and, before the Empire, greatest city of the Elven age, Star of the North, Last Bastion of the Civilization, Heir to the Empire, and, most commonly of all, simply The City.

[Reltzik]

So... that's it. Like I said, I know it's unfinished. Comments? Suggestions? Ideas? Criticisms? Questions?

....

Anyone?

....

*crickets chirping*

.... I know you're out there. I can hear your view counts breathing.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Comrade Gorby: Thread missed in the move over from Gaming to Homebrew.