BootStrapTommy
2015-02-21, 06:40 PM
Llöthlor
A Homebrewed Fantasy Campaign Setting
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2015/058/a/0/lloethlor_by_bootstraptommy-d8jso28.jpg
*In case you're stupid, the shading is mountains!
This is a campaign setting I’d say has been in development for years, rolling out of various short stories I’ve penned or imagined. My intent is to eventually flesh it out to the extent of a whole cosmos, filling it with languages, other nations, and cultural and migratory histories. You know, go all Middle Earth/Westeros on it.
In addition to showing it off, I posted it for help and critiques. I have put a big effort into this, but it will take a big effort to get it where I want it. Plus, I think the idea of crowdsourcing the remaining content to be awesome. Not only would I enjoy help from whoever wishes, I also give permission to anyone who wishes to use it, whole or in part.
There are a number of ideas which need fleshing out. Places and people that exist still need names and specific details and histories need to be written. And I will exalt any who help as among the greatest persons to populate this earth. Like Corneel, DarkBunny91, and LordotTrinkets, all of whom I think are awesome.
Oh, and I constantly update. So for those interested, keep an eye out for more! Subscribe if you like!
Just Kidding!
The continent of Llöthlor derives its name from the ancient empire which once ruled much of its shores. Emerging sometime after the Dawn War from which the world was formed, the Llöthlori Empire was a mighty, loosely-held magocracy ruled by an order of powerful Dragonlords, which faltered over many centuries before collapsing in the Great Interregnum, a cataclysmic civil war near as bloody as Creation. As with many cataclysmic civil wars in fantasy and in reality, the Great Interregnum lead to the destruction of much of the learning and history of this first historical empire, which now lives on largely in the legends, the ruins, and the names they left behind.
The end of the Llöthlori Empire brought about a dark age upon the lands which once comprised the vast Empire, which splintered and crumbled not into successor states, but into a scrabbling mess of independent fiefdoms vying for the scattered infrastructure of their predecessor. Often referred to by contemporary historians as the Warring States Period, or simply as the Age of Darkness, the Great Night following the Llöthlor’s demise is known little better than the interregnum that preceded it. But the historical works which do survive paint a picture of a brutish struggle between clansmen, warlords, generals, and kings to claim land and glory for their posterity.
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The Age of Darkness met its end after centuries of blood shed in a bloodbath nearly as brutal as the Age itself. In the south of Llöthlor, in those Lands of Endless Summer, a religious cult to a violent Orc goddess named Ysera the Mauler rallied the forsaken and downtrodden among the vicious desert Orc tribesmen of the Sand Shield, erupting a vile war between the cultists and their Elven neighbors, which drove the cultists north fleeing persecution and in search of conquest. Gathering Orcs and goblinoids to their banner as they went, the movement now known as the Great Horde emerged as the first true nation building force from the ruins of Llöthlor. Fueled by fervor for land and a religious mandate for conquest, the first Horde carved the first “empire” in over a millennium. At the base of the Southron Spines in the lands surrounding the Sea of Elytheria, the Horde subjugated the petty kingdoms, forging a brutal theocratic militocracy which claimed dominion over the lands for over a generation. The irony of this first “empire”, however, is how instrumental it was the formation of the great nation-states to come. As the Horde’s armies proved neigh unstoppable, the fiefdoms and city-states of central and northern Llöthlor forged alliances and true kingdoms to stem the tides of fearsome Orc warriors. It was the petty Dwarven clans which called the Southron Spines their home who, interestingly enough, helped forge the first chain of great nations which would follow, overcoming their internal struggles and forging a stalwart alliance with the neighboring free states, their kinsmen in the Northern Spines, and the mysterious Dragonlords which called the central isles of the Sea of Nisos their home.
The First Smyrna Alliance, as it is now known, dealt a series of devastating blows to the Horde, crushing their seats of power at the base of the Southron Spines and in the lands north of the Sea of Elytheria. But its victory was short lived, as within a generation a new more imposing Horde emerged, under a new charismatic prophet. Bolstered by influx of crusaders from across the continent fueled by tales the of the glory of it predecessor, the second incarnation of the Great Horde proved more brutal than the first, and soon the forces of the liberators crumbled under its weight, the Southron host retreating to their mountain strongholds while the Northern host retreated back across the Sea of Nisos. As the Horde stormed the Southron Spines, only the Dragonlords of the Isles stayed true to their alliance, their forces bolstered by mercenary from the frigid lands north of the inland Sea of Nisos.
The Second Smyrna Alliance faired better than the odds would have ever predicted. After successfully breaking a number of sieges, a small force of Southron dwarves, bolstered by mercenaries lead by a charismatic Dragonlord named Mosaham Abramose and a powerful Northman wizard name Gabriel the Bold, lead a daring assault on the Orc’s Court in the vale of Smyrna, were the cunning and daring of the Alliance forces slew the Orc prophet and dealt a crushing blow to the second Great Horde from which the movement never recovered. As the Horde’s dominion collapsed, the victorious Alliance grew. Fueled by Dwarven craftsmanship, Northman magic, and the iron fisted rule of Dragonlords who claimed descendency from the Llöthlori, Smyrna emerged as the first true empire from the rubble of the old. From their ceremonial fortress at Orquacourt, the Dragonlords, with their mage and Dwarven allies, forged a kingdom which comprised much of the lands to the south, east, and west of the Southron Spines, as well as a number of colonies which dotted the Sea of Nisos, many of which would rise to form nations of their own in time. Over time, however, the Realm of the Dwarves and the Dragonlords would wane, as emerging threats from the north and the east whittled away the great empire. Ultimately, as the star of the Northman rose, the star of Smyrna set. The Great Waste swept the land, turning Smyrna into wildlands, and weakening its borders for those great leaders enterprising enough to forge their own legacies. An age of successor states followed, many of them empires in their own right.
To the northwest of the Sea of Nisos, nestled between the Great Sea and the Northern Spines, are the vast arid plains of the Vale of Rhune. Once a rugged borderland of Llöthlor, it is now home to a hardy people at home as much in a saddle as on the deck of a ship. A geographically divided land dominated by three rivers where loyalty to clan and jarl are the highest value, its sorcerers and warriors oft found employ to the south, many of them helping forge Smyrna. But the Northmen’s greatest conflicts always pointed inward, as clans vied for water, land, resources, and power. By the Twilight of Smyrna and the age of its successors, the clans had merged into twelve petty fiefdoms, each ruled by powerful warlords called “dux”. Seeing an opportunity in the waning power of Smyrna, however, an enterprising leader from the Bay of Amur name Dafydd Penddraig, strengthened by his marriage to the daughter of a warlord from the Behrune Gap, began a lifelong campaign to unite the Rhunites as One People under One Banner. He succeeded in this endeavor through both cunning and conquest, crowning himself the first King of the Rhunites in his twilight years. But a kingdom did not suffice his son, Llywelyn, a boy who outshined his father in both wit and skill of arm. So when the first King of the Rhunites was laid to rest, the first Emperor of Rhune was crowned.
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The Great Rhunic Empire emerged over the coming century as the greatest power since the Llöthlori, forging a dominion which stretched through Rhune and the former lands of Smyrna to the northern shores of the Sea of Elythria. As the power of the Dukes of Amur waned, the power of the Dukes of Nisos waxed, forming the basis for a maritime empire which stretched to every shore of the Sea of Nisos and south of Elthyria. The Rhunites reforged the long forgot infrastructures of Llöthlor, exploring the western oceans and the land beyond and forging new trade routes with the emerging nations to the south and east from those once established by Smyrna and its successor states. Yet even the Rhunite’s new glory ultimately could not withstand the sands of time.
The Rhunic Interregnum rivaled it predecessor, yet record of the period remain surprisingly intact. A blood letting forged in the crucible of questioned succession, the Empire splintered as regional warlords laid claims to lands no longer protected by legions now embroiled in the civil war. By the time the dust settled, the Second Empire was a new animal, much of its former lands culled with naught but the heartlands and its Nisosi colonies remaining. Yet it too crumbled under its own weight as age old Rhunite quarrels reemerged and the Remnant collapsed into infighting.
Post-Rhunite Llöthlor has been a land of rising and falling states. Many empires have themselves risen and fallen in the years following Rhune’s demise. The Federation that rules the Vale of Rhune is powerful, but a pale spectre of the Empire it succeeds and must face off against growing Elven powers to the south, rising city-states to the east, and new threats from beyond the horizons.
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2015/058/a/0/lloethlor_by_bootstraptommy-d8jso28.jpg
*In case you're stupid, the shading is mountains!The Federation of Rhune
The Vale of Rhune is a cold, arid plain bordered on all sides by mountains, located in the northwestern corner of Llöthlor. In the center of the Vale lies Dagon’s Mount, a dormant volcano and the largest peak in Llöthlor. Runoff and hydrothermal vents on the mountain’s side converge to feed the Vale’s three major waterways, the Amuri, the Behrune, and the Nisos. Surrounding the Mount is the Ring of Rhune, a small range of sheer mountains which cut off the Mount from the rest of Rhune, save the three gorges cut out by the emerging waterways. The Mount and those lands within the Ring are sacred to Rhunites, and the six “Goddesses” of Rhune guard the way, two statues where each of the three rivers emerge from the Ring. It was around the Ring which rose one of Rhune’s most powerful fiefdoms, the Duchy of Fornox, Rhune’s spiritual capital and home to its best spellcasters. From there, the three great rivers of Rhune have shaped the land and its people, watering otherwise parched steppes with the water needed for livestock and agriculture. The Behrune flows north and west, carving the Behrune Gap between the northern White Mountains and the western Demure’s Daggers. Here the Duchy of Behrune formed, hardy northern farmers rich from trade with the frigid lands north of the Sea of Ice into which the Behrune empties. The Nisos flows south and east, where it empties into the inland Sea of Nisos where that sea juts out west between the Northern and Southron Spines and Rhune’s Grey Mountains. Here rose the Duchy of that name, whose sailors are among the most skilled in Rhune and feared throughout the sea that bears their name. Last is the Mighty Amuri, shortest but greatest of the rivers, which flows into the Bay of Amur that separates the Behrune Penisula to the north from the southlands of Rhune. It was there, upon the Amuri Delta, that the Empire was first founded by the Dukes of Amur, and it is there that the grand Imperial Demesne lies, the Gem of the North and one of the greatest cities in Llöthlor.
The Rhunites are a hardy people, and incredibly diverse, surviving in a land comprised of mostly cold steppes. Suited perfectly for these steppes and for warfare, the large, shaggy bred of horses known as the Fadenwaith have become the primary livestock for much of Rhune’s pastoralists. As a result, the majority of central Rhunites are born and raised in the saddle. Preferring heavy armor and bows, Rhunic cataphracts are some of the most feared cavalry in northern Llöthlor. The denizens of the Duchies of the Rivers, however, grew to accept the bounty of the Daughters of Dagon, being the best farmers and sailors in all the north. These Rhunites often preferred axes and shields to bows and fight in medium and light armor, if any. As the spiritual leaders of Rhune and Guardians of Dagon, a common myth among the other Duchies states that all Fornoxi are wizards. While they aren’t (some are sorcerers, druids, clerics, and warlocks!), they do produce the most talented spellcasters in all of northern Llöthlor.
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The Federation is a loose confederacy comprised of the 12 fiefdoms of old. Each Duke/Duchess rules his/her Duchy with near autonomy, with the help of feudal Earls, the remnants of the clan leaders of old. It is from the Twelve that the Federation elects the Archduke/Archduchess, who must renounce their claim to their Duchy and rule as Chancellor and Grand Margrave from the Imperial Demesne for life. This practice has had the effect of leading Rhunites to abandon primogeniture, as abdicating such a position without an heir could be disastrous. The Archduke/Archduchess is largely a figure head, however they are expected to lead Rhunite armies into battle and mediate disputes between Duchies.
Other Duchies include Aratoy, Oriam, Thrace, Gwynedd, Mercia, Crimea, Saoisti, and Fadenwaith.
The Demuren Free Cities
The Behrune Peninsula and its core mountains, Demure’s Daggers, jut south from the Behrune Gap along Rhune’s western border with the Great Sea, forming the outer edge of the Bay of Amur. Demures Dagger’s sheer peaks slowly taper with the peninsula’s length, descending into a land of swampy hills known as the Mere of Demure, which itself dissolves into the series of lagoons, atolls, and archipelagoes known as Demure’s Fingers. Here, among the cold, shallow waters of the labyrinth which guards the Bay’s mouth, the rugged Demurens make their living from the Sea. A people bound to their waters, they rival the Nisosi’s maritime exploits. Ever watchful, their skill at arms has been honed by years of conflict with the pirates who haunt the Finger’s, the monsters who haunt the Mere, and the might of the Great Sea. Unlikely as it is, among these cold, wet rocks clinging off the coast of Llöthlor a number of powerful trading cities emerged.
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The Fingers, located not only beside the mouth of the Bay of Amur but as the last true ports through to the Sea of Ice and the mysterious far western isle nation of Nemeria, sit upon a vital trade route which have enriched the fisherman and sailors of these hostile waters with goods and trade from far distant lands. Yet the numerous isles and fertile waters of the Finger’s have also made it a haven for pirates, while the Mere’s murky depths hide sea creatures of great peril. Each of the Free Cities find themselves hard pressed to protect themselves, let alone quarrel with each other or protect ports and fishing villages upon which they rely. As a result a flourishing mercenary culture has emerged, freelance monster and pirate hunters working for the highest bidder.
While de jure vassals of the Federation, the Free Cities share de facto autonomy, many ruled as republics or even democracies. A few however are ruled by powerful mages, merchants, or sea captains.
The Kingdom of Sinope
Nestled between the Grey Mountains to the north and the Southron Spines to the east, the Kingdom of Sinope is a rising city-state along the Sea of Nisos’s southwesternmost shores. Centered in the eponymous seaport, it is a nation founded by refugees fleeing persecutions in the neighboring Elythrian Empire and her Three Sisters. Vassal to the Duchy of Nisos, Sinope holds its Elven enemies a bay through the sponsorship of its powerful northern neighbors.
A proud place, the city itself is said to predate even the rise of Smyrna, having repelled numerous attempts by the Horde to subjugate it. But where the Orcs had failed however, Dwarves and Dragons succeed, as the lone city-state on the Sea of Nisos became the gateway to Smyrna’s Nisosi colonies and the launching ground for Smyrna’s attempts to quell the remaining Dragonlords of the Isles. After brief independence during the Twilight of Smyrna, the city became one of the first additions to the Rhunic Empire under its first Emperor. Ever after tied to Rhune, it became little more than an extension of the Duchy of Nisos, remaining in the Empire through the Rhunic Interregnum. Even when the Empire finally collapsed, Nisos held sway in Sinope.
As xenophobia and racism grew through Elven separatist lands to the south, humans fled to Sinope, where they found protection under a Nisosi court. Despite attempts by the Elven forces to their south to claim the city and its dominions, the Nisosi kings of Sinope have held true. Now, recent events in the Elthyrian Empire have armed the city-state to go on the offensive and maybe even find allies where once were enemies.
The Dwarven Fiefdoms of the Spines
The Spines are a vast range of gargantuan mountains which make their way down west-central Llöthlor, between Lands of Winter to the north and the eastern most reach of the Sea of Elthyria to the south. Vast peaks snow-capped to their very southern reaches, they serve as one of the most extreme geographic barriers in all of Llöthlor. At their center however, separating North from South, the vast inland Sea of Nisos gouges its way between them, the island remnants of this stretch of the peaks speckling the waters. As imposing a barrier as the mountains themselves, the Sea has separated the Spines’s kinsmen, the Dwarves.
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In the North the Spines are a frigid wasteland, their interior and eastern slopes cold and dry and their western slopes cool and wet. Vast in breadth, only a small number of passes pierce from east to west, while countless other winding paths create a deadly labyrinth waiting to swallow the naïve and lost. Home to numerous bands of primitive tribals, the true powers of these vast peaks honeycomb the mountains’ depths living hidden in their massive fortress-mines. The rugged and resourceful dwarves of the Northern Spines dredge valuable metals, minerals, and gems deep beneath the behemoth peaks. With these they forge beautiful works of art, their furnaces fueled by wood cut from the mountain side by their tribal neighbors. The most prosperous mines, however, are those which arose along the viable trade ways, enriched not their own mineral wealth, but by the markets which emerged at their door steps. But greed and revenge run deep among the Dwarves, and petty feuds between Dwarven fiefdoms persist, ensuring continued disunity within the mountains.
In the South, things are a shade different. Once the industrial heartland of the Dragonlords of Smyrna’s vast domain, the mines of the Southron Spines where ravaged by the same Waste which brought that empire they served to its knees. Many of the once great mines of Smyrna now lay empty, nothing more than monster filled ruins dotting the warm, dry peaks which border the wild central valley of Smyrna. Those Dwarven strongholds which remain in these barren peaks are insular and xenophobic, keenly aware that their ancestors paid dearly for their foreign alliances and expansionist ambitions.
The Wildlands of Smyrna
As the Southron Spines reach south toward the Sea of Elthyria, they split down the middle, forming a fertile valley watered by the summer run-off of the vast surrounding peaks. It was within this wild, easily defended valley that the Great Horde made its greatest holdfasts against their Dwarven enemies. And it was there that the second Alliance defeated the Great Horde at the court the Orc’s had made. It was on the ruin of that battlefield that the some of Dragonlords of Isles commemorated their victory with their Dwarven allies by raising their own holdfast, the mighty Orquacourt, among the greatest fortresses since the long ruined holds of the Llöthlori. These Dragonlords of the Vale subjugated a vast dominion with magic, stretching throughout the lands bordering the mountains and the shores of the Sea of Nisos. Records of the nation these Dragonlords built are spotty, much lost in the chaos now known as the Great Waste, a strange, unknown affliction which torn at the heart of the empire, ravaging its heartland and leaving its hinterlands ripe for the taking.
The valley of Smyrna is now a wild land shrouded in mystery, shaped and change by the events which precipitated the Great Waste. Few who venture into the valley every return. Those who do return changed, shaken by the experience, babbling tales of a twisted landscape populated by strange monsters and stranger magic.
The mysterious cult of the Strangers holds these lands to be sacred.
The Elythrian Empire
Forged during the collapse of the Rhunic Empire by Elven separatist, the Elythrian Empire is the primary successor state to the estate of a High Elven conqueror of old. With ample coast lines along the Great Sea to the west and to the south along its namesake, the Empire stands as a properous hub of trade. A temperate fertile land which bridges the lands of the North with those south of the Sea of Elthyria, the Empire has emerged as one of the greatest nations in Llöthlor. Ruled by an insular High Elven upper class, its power was forged on the backs of slaves justified by a belief in Elven racial superiority. While the Woods Elves of the Empire form its minor lords and merchant middleclass, its Human population have suffered over the centuries in bondage, those few who have their freedom condemned largely to a life of poverty and discrimination.
A decade ago the fires of rebellion were kindled as Humans revolted against their High Elven overlords. Beginning as a simple of act of disobedience, a revolutionary movement rose around a charismatic, young warlock name Roland Jeremiah. After years of battle and numerous miraculous victories, the rebels delivered the killing blow in the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula, where the Emperor and his son fell in battle, leaving the lands in the hands of the Emperor’s young daughter, Mara Aurelia.
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On face value the rebels have emerged victorious. Suing for piece, the Empress has done the unthinkable and offered her hand in marriage the rebel leader. Though denied the title of Emperor, Roland Jeremiah has been given the position of Grand Margrave, commander-in-chief for the Empires armies. Even after 3 years, Elythrian politics smolder on the verge of renewed violence. While slavery remains, reforms have released many from bondage, while in turn enslaving many of the land’s former ruling class. Those High Elves which remain in power stand with their Empress against the aggressive policies of her husband, a situation only complicated by the warlock’s mistress, a High Elven turncoat bent to claim the throne for herself.
The Three Sisters
The four Wood Elven nations nestled between the Grey Mountains and the Elythrian Empire share their powerful neighbor’s pedigree. Born from the northern borderlands of an old High Elven estate, the Three Sisters straddle along the shores and islands of the massive Bay of Kyn. While the two Sisters of the Arms are more welcoming to trade with any nation, the Sister of the Interior suffer xenophobia in greater degree than even the elite of the Empire, trading only with their Elven neighbors.
Many within the Sisters look suspiciously upon their neighbors across the Grey Mountians, the Rhunites, and look covetously upon their neighbor, Sinope, a prize they claim is their own.
The Land of Nuren
One of the Lands Beyond the Nisos, Nuren is a insular nation of Hobbits and Wood Elves in the east of Llöthlor, tucked between the Sea of Nisos and its smaller eponymous Sea (more of a lake). Nuren’s denizens have a long history, having resisted colonization by both Smyrna and Rhune, the large wood hills and dells of their land providing them the cover for brutal guerrilla war. Master archers, the Nuren Elves and Haflings prefer simplistic living. However, they have in recent years opened trade with denizens of the shores of Nisos, a fact potentially motivated by problems along their northern border with the Great Steppe.
The Pirate States and the Sand Shield
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian Sea, dotting the Sand Shield's coast, are numerous ports which serve as havens for the pirates which haunt the Sea. These cities, the Pirate States, are largely independent city-states fueled by trade from the south and plunder from the Sea.
Among them includes Salé, a city republic, populated in great part by human refugees from the Elythrian empire; Dzayer, the Islands, a city located in a protected cove on a cluster of islands; Ruskikda, the Promontory of Fire, where natural eruptions of naphtha fuel a cult of fire worship; and Mahdya, ancient capital of a short lived federation of all of the pirate cities whose Despot still pretends lord over them.
Tahert, the Lioness, lies somewhere deep within the Sand Shield. It is home to what remains of the cult to the godess that is called the Mauler.
The Other Lands Beyond the Nisos
Many kingdoms, fiefdoms, and city-states have arisen along the Sea of Nisos, some founded by natives, other former colonies of Smyrna, Rhune, and Nisos. Tales even tell of a great eastern empire near Nuren, whose lands stretch far east to another Great Sea!
North of the Sea of Nisos, stretching to the Lands of Winter, is the Great Steppe, a massive northern plain populated by ramblers and nomads. South of the Sea lies the Hared Desert, a land of desert kingdoms which cuts its southern and eastern neighbors off from the rest of Llöthlor.
The Dales lie along the Nisos' northern shore, nestled against the Northern Spines.
The Lands Beyond the Elythrian
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian, the thin band of the Sand Shield cuts off the Pirate States from the Lands of Endless Summers to the south. In these lands of mountains and jungle, the only nations which emerge do so near the embrace of the Great Sea or atop the cool peaks of its many mountains.
The Lands Beyond the Great Sea
Llöthlor is only the only continent to populate the world, and the Great Sea surrounding Llöthlor hides many lands. Rhunite explorers have visited many across the western Sea, establishing trade with the strange lands beyond. The most noted of these is the frigid land of Nemeria, a Halfing forest nation to the northwest, made wealthy by the mining efforts of its Gnomes.
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All existing deities might find a place somewhere in Llöthlor. However, the majority only hold sway over a handful of followers and few physically manifest. Most lands and people throughout Llöthlor practice varying degrees of animism or are disciples of great philosophies. Yet some nations possess strong, widely worshiped deities. The Six Goddesses of Rhune, for example, are Rhune’s highest pantheon, pious Rhunites often going so far as to deny the existence of others. Dwarves rarely worship deities, even their own, preferring an animist form of ancestor worship. In the Elythrian Empire and her Three Sisters, their founder Elyt holds deitital status, while among the rebels worship of a fertility goddess is common. In other nations, strange monotheistic traditions have taken hold.
The strangest faith, however, is the emerging cult of the Strangers. This odd religion, spreading through the lands which border the Southron Spines, is super secretive, worshiping some sort of trinity.
The duality of Good and Evil is far less prominent in Llöthlor. Thus Evil deities tend to be less explicitly so, more subtly so. The churches of any explicitly Evil deities are often merely cults.
The world on which Llöthlor resides possesses a Creator. Few worship or are even aware of the existence of this Being, its name only appearing scattered through ancient documents.
Dieties:
Goddesses of Rhune:
The Queen of Justice, Lawful Good
The Lady of Light, Neutral Good
The Maiden of Plenty, Chaotic Good
The Mistress of Pain, Lawful Evil
The Mother of Darkness, Neural Evil
The Sister of Sorrow, Chaotic Evil
Edoc'sil the Allseer, Baelnorn
Neutral Good Quasideity
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A member of the trinity of the mysterious Cult of the Strangers, Edoc'sil is the embodiment of Freedom, Creativity, and man's Good natures.
Maurgner the Great Wyrm, Dracolich
Neutral Quasideity
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To the Cultists of the the Strangers, Maurgner, the Great Wyrm, is the paradoxical embodiment of Chaos and Law, of Change and Immutability. He is also the Cult's fertility god, representing the virility of Dragons.
Sjachi the Supressor, Lich
Lawful Evil Quasideity
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Sjachi is the dark deity of the Cult of the Strangers. He is the embodiment of Power and man's Evil natures.
Sophitia, Goddess
Chaotic Good Deity
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A fertility goddess whose worship arose among human slaves in the Empire. She emerged as a goddess of war and victory as the patron of Roland Jeremiah's revolt.
Ysera the Mauler, Goddess
Lawful Evil Deity
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Ysera the Mauler is the violent war goddess worship by a number of orc and hobgoblin tribes inhabiting the Sand Shield. It was her cult which first spurred the Horde into action, catalyzing the formation of nations states in the wake of the Age of Darkness.
Elyt the Grand, Hero
Lawful Neutral Deity
[Pending]
Entropy, Titan
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Chaotic Neutral Deity
[Pending]
The Creator, Overdeity
Variably Aligned Comic Book Character
http://i.imgur.com/qitvX.jpg
Batman, God? What's the difference?
I plan to fill out this section when name needing NPCs get names and background fluff. See Future.
Historical Figures:
Dragonlord Mosaham Abramose, Half-elf
Neutral Good Military Leader
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Outcast by his heritage at an early age, Mosaham Abramose was a wanderer, making a living off songs, stories, and adventures travelling the Sea of Nisos. But his stunning rise to power was precipitated by his rebellion against the gods and eventual alliance with a powerful great wyrm. Earning his spurs within the first Smyrna Alliance, he gained his reputation as one of the most feared Dragonlords during the second such alliance, leading the Alliance in its greatest victory at the Orc's Court, along side the remaining Southron Dwarf clans and the mercenary forces of the Fornoxi wizard, Gabriel. After the Horde's defeat, Mosaham oversaw the work to construct the fortress of Orquacourt. There he ruled as Dragonlord of Smyrna of many decade.
Dragonlords are long lived, potentially as immortal as their their marvelous mounts, and while Mosaham's name slowly disappeared from this history books, it was never fully forgotten. The last known record of the famous Dragonlord dates to just before the Great Waste, though whether it was the famous hero or simply another Dragonlord of the same name is not known...
Gabriel the Bold, Human
Lawful Evil Military Leader
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The youngest son of a Fornoxi earl, the wizard known as Gabriel the Bold made a name for himself as a adventurer and mercenary in the lands of the North in the days preceding the second Smyrna Alliance. A close friend and ally of the emerging Dragonlord Mosaham Abramose, the wizard lead a volunteer band of Northern mercenaries, supplemented by magical abominations, to aid the beleaguered Dragonlord and his Dwarven Allies against the returned Horde. As part of the second Smyrna Alliance, the wizard's magic helped turn the tide against the crusaders and clerics of Ysera the Mauler.
Gabriel was instrumental in the formative years of Smyrna, providing his magic in both the construction of the nation state and the early military campaigns to expand it. However, a few short decades after the completion of Orquacourt, the wizard mysteriously disappears from the history books. A few tomes of magic dating from the early days of the Rhunic Empire, however, tell tales of a great lich in the Southron Spines with uncanny similarities...
Emperor Llywelyn I Penddraig, Human
Lawful Neutral Military Leader
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The son of Dafydd Penddraig, the Amuri King of the Rhunites, Llywelyn was destined for greater things. Inheriting his father's throne, the young warlord bestowed upon himself the title Emperor, his claims bolstered by Fornoxi support. He turned the Rhunites' attention outward, leading the armies which claimed Demure, Sinope, and the borderlands of the disintegrated Smyrna.
He first commissioned the Imperial Demesne, though it was not completed until the twilight of the reign of his grandson, Llywelyn II.
Emperor Elyt I, High Elf
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Lawful Neutral Military Leader
[Pending]
Contemporary Political Figures:
Archduchess Aelia Octavian, Human
Chaotic Good Political Leader
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The former Duchess of Fornox, Aelia is one of only a handful of Fornoxi dukes in history to take the reigns of the Federation. Her election was part of a compromise between Nisosi and Amuri factions following the death of her predecessor. Nisosi-leaning, she took over the Imperial Demesne, while her Amuri-leaning younger brother took Fornox. A capable leader, Aelia's reign has so far been a prosperous one. But tensions within the Federation are always simmering beneath the surface, and who knows what might bring them into the light?
Margrave Roland Jeremiah, Human
Neutral Military Leader
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Born a slave in the Duchy of Catalan in the south of Elthyria's Balearic Peninsula, the young warlock forged his Pact to throw off the yoke of the sadistic Duchess Azkadelia Tellus, whose eye and ire he earned working in her household.
Roland's capture of the Duchess and her stronghold sparked rebellion, as the human separatist faction known as the Warden unexpectedly rallied to the aid of the warlock's impulsive power grab. The civil war which ensued lasted seven years, during which Roland Jeremiah demonstrated a natural talent and mastery of the battlefield unmatched by his Elven opponents. At the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula, Roland's cunning, magic, and tactical mastery delivered a stunning defeat to the High Elven forces, resulting in the death of both the Emperor and his son and heir.
The Emperor's young daughter, Mara Aurelia, succeeded her father. Suing for peace she wed the rebel leader, appointing him Grand Margrave and commander-in-chief of Elythria's martial forces. Backed by the Warden, Margrave Jeremiah has emerged as the most powerful leader in the Empire, his power only challenged by the remaining minority of High Elven loyalists to his wife.
Empress Mara Aurelia, High Elf
Neutral Good Political Leader
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Young, talented, and an oft thorn in her father's side, the wild young daughter of Elythria's Emperor was thrust into the dire world of Elythrian politics after her father and older brother's untimely demise at the hands of Roland Jeremiah's war machine. Lacking the manpower to hold against the the approaching human army, the young Empress instead sued for peace. She bought that peace with her hand in marriage to the rebel leader.
A number of loyalists remain in her camp, holding enough power and influence to shield her from any further power grabs by her new husband's allies. Her marriage to Margrave Jeremiah has been far from a happy one, marred by the political tensions and his notorious philandering.
Azkadelia Tellus, High Elf
Lawful Evil Turncoat
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Once the Duchess of the wealthy and powerful Catalan, Azkadelia was the first victim of the rebellion which swept Elthyria. Stripped of her power by Roland Jeremiah, she spent the early years of the rebellion imprisoned within her own castle. Charismatic and cunning, she worked her way into her captor's graces, turning coat and emerging from the war as both his mistress and closest confidant, much to the detriment to both the Warden and the Empress. Many believe she has designs for the throne.
Masked Empress of the Dales, Unknown
Lawful Evil Political Figure
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The ancient and mysterious ruler of the land known as the Dales, the Empress was once a women of unparalleled beauty and a sorceress of unparalleled power. It was under her wing that the first Lord of the Dales, a young unproven chieftain, united the tribes of the Dales. In the centuries to come she ruled the Dales as the power behind the throne, advising the Lords and Ladies that follow. But as the Great Waste took Smyrna, distrust of magic grew. The nobles of the Dales rose up against their Lady and her immortal chief adviser, bringing them to trial and executing them as maleficarum.
But all great mages have contingencies. The Witch of the Dale rose from the ashes with a terrible wrath. Through magic, trickery, and conquest, the Dales fell to their new Masked Empress. And so she has ruled the Dales in the centuries since, feared by her people.
Will fill this out eventually. See Future.
The Warden
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Emperor Elyt III ascended the throne inheriting the ruin wrought by his grandfather's war with the Remnant. His soldier tied up in battles with Sinope and the Nisosi, the Empire's roadways fell victim to brigrandry with no sentries to patrol them. As desperate times call for desperate measures, the Emperor enlisted the help of the Empires most plentiful resource: slave labor. Gathered from the sturdiest ranks of slaves, he purchased a great many young humans. Offered greater responsibilities in exchange for future freedoms, these new slave soldiers were trained in survival and combat and put in charge of cleaning up the tradeways of the Empire. Initially a success, the Order of Wardens soon proved a burden, as its freed members themselves turned to brigrandry. Eventually the end of conflicts with the Empire's northern neighbors spelled the order's doom and it was outlawed.
The Warden soon emerged as an underground human resistance movement among the slaves of the Elythtrian Empire, fighting against the very empire which first armed them. It was the Warden, not the warlock himself, that made Roland Jeremiah the centerpiece of rebellion against the Empire's repressive High Elven regime. Had it not been for their quick response in rallying to the impulsive warlock's actions, Roland Jeremiah may have quickly perished without the rebel army needed to challenge Elthyria's military forces. As the war raged on, it was the Warden who tempered Jeremiah's hasty strategy, insuring the long term survival of the rebellion and its eventual victory at the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula. However, not all within the Warden welcomed the ensuing peace. Members within still plot to finish what they started and overthrow the Empress and the High Elven slave system.
The Grey Company
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One of the most famous mercenary companies among Demure's Fingers, the Grey Company has distinguished itself with a radically different business model than many of its competitors. While other groups rent out bands of soldiers for the various intercity conflicts, members of the Grey Company are veteran pirate and monster hunters. The Grey Company more often rents the services of just one or two of its members to the towns and villages of the Fingers and the Mere to train local militias or hunt monsters, bandits, or pirates. In those battles which the Company has taken part, however, they have proved decisive.
The Greg Company also possesses the largest private fleet in the Fingers, which they rent out as escorts.
The Cult of the Stranger
[Pending]
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A Dawn War occurred long before even the Llöthlori, waged between the primordial gods and elemental titans. This cosmic war ended with the titans going dormant. Many religious texts speak of the Waking of the Titans, a sort of end times. A powerful titan known as Entropy is rumored, however, to still be awake and active. The cosmology is otherwise classic D&D.
In the days of Llöthlor, magic was as common as breathing and spellcasters shaped the very reality around them. This changed during the Age of Darkness, following the devastation of the Great Interregnum, when magic not only reshaped Llöthlor politically, but physically. Whatever events striped much of the magic from Llöthlor, it is a low-magic campaign. Players should try to limit spellcasters to one per party (paladins, rangers, arcane archetypes, and warlocks are exceptions). Magic is rare in Llöthlor, but it is Power, as every empire to rise since the Age of Darkness has had some measure of magocracy. The number of mages a society produces greatly affects that society’s power. The Duchy of Fornox is the greatest among the Federation, despite the accomplishments of the Amuri and Nisosi, due to their mages (some theorize Dagon’s Mount is to blame). High Elves hold power in the Empire and elsewhere due to their race’s natural propensity for the arcane, a fact which is the foundation of High Elven racial theories.
The most common magics in Llöthlor are divine and pact, since they are bestowed rather than learned. Magic can be fickle, and often involves unintended consequences.
Dragons and High Elves aren't long lived. They’re immortal. Other races have shorter than PHB live spans. Humans have longer. Rumors abound that some of the Llöthlori Dragonlords still live.
Gnomes only hail from Nemeria. It is believed by many scholars that the Gnomes of Nemeria are the descendants of a band of Dwarven traders whose ship blew off course in the northern Great Sea and who found themselves shipwrecked. Over time they intermingled with their Halfing hosts, and their descendants began craving great mines under the hillside smials of their Halfling neighbors. The treasures they unearthed have made Nemeria rich with trade, both from Llöthlor and from lands further west.
Magictech and gunpowder are new, extremely rare, and totally the Dwarves' and Gnomes' fault. Dwarven Weapon Familiarity applies to Renaissance gunpowder weapons. Gnomes treat gunpowder weapons as Martial weapons. Everyone else must be taught.
Despite magictech and gunpowder, plate is rare. Leather, ring, scale, chain, and splint are exponentially more common.
Warforged are the creation of Smyrna-era Southron Dwarves. Incredibly long lived, they’ve moved up within Southron Dwaven society, from automaton soldiers and workers to elders and keepers of lore and wisdom. Undying are common among Wood Elven elders.
Being a denizen of the Underdark doesn't make you evil. While Drow retain some of their cultural identities, much of what might be considered evil in their cultures derive from the necessity of underground survival, not just them being *****. Many of the Southron Spine Dwarves are Duergar, potentially a result of the Great Waste.
Common is nothing more than an overly-simplified trade language. Communicating complex ideas with it is very difficult. Undercommon is the same, just angrier sounding. All players know Common. All other languages (with the exception of the exotic languages like Draconic, Infernal, etc.) are regional languages, rather than racial. Wood Elves from Nuren cannot communicate with High Elves from Elythrian, except by Common. Nor could Rhunites with Humans from the Empire.
Drop bears are real.
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Needing names:
The Horde’s Orc goddess
The Horde’s Orc prophet
Smyrna Generals
Rhune’s Six Goddesses
The Amuri King
The First Rhunite Emperor
The remaining Rhunic Duchies
The current Rhunic Archduchess
The Demuren Cities (I’m thinking 7?)
Maybe a few Dwarven Strongholds
Elthyria’s Warlock Margrave
Elythria’s Empress
Margrave's Mistress
The Rebel's Goddess
The names of each of the Three Sisters
The various Pirate Cities (Corneel got 5, need 4 more)
The Strangers
Needing creating:
More extensive history and cosmos
The languages
More religions
The colonies, nations, and city-states of the Sea of Nisos
The rest of the Lands Beyond
An Underdark
Important Organizations
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It's good to be gangsta!
A Homebrewed Fantasy Campaign Setting
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*In case you're stupid, the shading is mountains!
This is a campaign setting I’d say has been in development for years, rolling out of various short stories I’ve penned or imagined. My intent is to eventually flesh it out to the extent of a whole cosmos, filling it with languages, other nations, and cultural and migratory histories. You know, go all Middle Earth/Westeros on it.
In addition to showing it off, I posted it for help and critiques. I have put a big effort into this, but it will take a big effort to get it where I want it. Plus, I think the idea of crowdsourcing the remaining content to be awesome. Not only would I enjoy help from whoever wishes, I also give permission to anyone who wishes to use it, whole or in part.
There are a number of ideas which need fleshing out. Places and people that exist still need names and specific details and histories need to be written. And I will exalt any who help as among the greatest persons to populate this earth. Like Corneel, DarkBunny91, and LordotTrinkets, all of whom I think are awesome.
Oh, and I constantly update. So for those interested, keep an eye out for more! Subscribe if you like!
Just Kidding!
The continent of Llöthlor derives its name from the ancient empire which once ruled much of its shores. Emerging sometime after the Dawn War from which the world was formed, the Llöthlori Empire was a mighty, loosely-held magocracy ruled by an order of powerful Dragonlords, which faltered over many centuries before collapsing in the Great Interregnum, a cataclysmic civil war near as bloody as Creation. As with many cataclysmic civil wars in fantasy and in reality, the Great Interregnum lead to the destruction of much of the learning and history of this first historical empire, which now lives on largely in the legends, the ruins, and the names they left behind.
The end of the Llöthlori Empire brought about a dark age upon the lands which once comprised the vast Empire, which splintered and crumbled not into successor states, but into a scrabbling mess of independent fiefdoms vying for the scattered infrastructure of their predecessor. Often referred to by contemporary historians as the Warring States Period, or simply as the Age of Darkness, the Great Night following the Llöthlor’s demise is known little better than the interregnum that preceded it. But the historical works which do survive paint a picture of a brutish struggle between clansmen, warlords, generals, and kings to claim land and glory for their posterity.
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The Age of Darkness met its end after centuries of blood shed in a bloodbath nearly as brutal as the Age itself. In the south of Llöthlor, in those Lands of Endless Summer, a religious cult to a violent Orc goddess named Ysera the Mauler rallied the forsaken and downtrodden among the vicious desert Orc tribesmen of the Sand Shield, erupting a vile war between the cultists and their Elven neighbors, which drove the cultists north fleeing persecution and in search of conquest. Gathering Orcs and goblinoids to their banner as they went, the movement now known as the Great Horde emerged as the first true nation building force from the ruins of Llöthlor. Fueled by fervor for land and a religious mandate for conquest, the first Horde carved the first “empire” in over a millennium. At the base of the Southron Spines in the lands surrounding the Sea of Elytheria, the Horde subjugated the petty kingdoms, forging a brutal theocratic militocracy which claimed dominion over the lands for over a generation. The irony of this first “empire”, however, is how instrumental it was the formation of the great nation-states to come. As the Horde’s armies proved neigh unstoppable, the fiefdoms and city-states of central and northern Llöthlor forged alliances and true kingdoms to stem the tides of fearsome Orc warriors. It was the petty Dwarven clans which called the Southron Spines their home who, interestingly enough, helped forge the first chain of great nations which would follow, overcoming their internal struggles and forging a stalwart alliance with the neighboring free states, their kinsmen in the Northern Spines, and the mysterious Dragonlords which called the central isles of the Sea of Nisos their home.
The First Smyrna Alliance, as it is now known, dealt a series of devastating blows to the Horde, crushing their seats of power at the base of the Southron Spines and in the lands north of the Sea of Elytheria. But its victory was short lived, as within a generation a new more imposing Horde emerged, under a new charismatic prophet. Bolstered by influx of crusaders from across the continent fueled by tales the of the glory of it predecessor, the second incarnation of the Great Horde proved more brutal than the first, and soon the forces of the liberators crumbled under its weight, the Southron host retreating to their mountain strongholds while the Northern host retreated back across the Sea of Nisos. As the Horde stormed the Southron Spines, only the Dragonlords of the Isles stayed true to their alliance, their forces bolstered by mercenary from the frigid lands north of the inland Sea of Nisos.
The Second Smyrna Alliance faired better than the odds would have ever predicted. After successfully breaking a number of sieges, a small force of Southron dwarves, bolstered by mercenaries lead by a charismatic Dragonlord named Mosaham Abramose and a powerful Northman wizard name Gabriel the Bold, lead a daring assault on the Orc’s Court in the vale of Smyrna, were the cunning and daring of the Alliance forces slew the Orc prophet and dealt a crushing blow to the second Great Horde from which the movement never recovered. As the Horde’s dominion collapsed, the victorious Alliance grew. Fueled by Dwarven craftsmanship, Northman magic, and the iron fisted rule of Dragonlords who claimed descendency from the Llöthlori, Smyrna emerged as the first true empire from the rubble of the old. From their ceremonial fortress at Orquacourt, the Dragonlords, with their mage and Dwarven allies, forged a kingdom which comprised much of the lands to the south, east, and west of the Southron Spines, as well as a number of colonies which dotted the Sea of Nisos, many of which would rise to form nations of their own in time. Over time, however, the Realm of the Dwarves and the Dragonlords would wane, as emerging threats from the north and the east whittled away the great empire. Ultimately, as the star of the Northman rose, the star of Smyrna set. The Great Waste swept the land, turning Smyrna into wildlands, and weakening its borders for those great leaders enterprising enough to forge their own legacies. An age of successor states followed, many of them empires in their own right.
To the northwest of the Sea of Nisos, nestled between the Great Sea and the Northern Spines, are the vast arid plains of the Vale of Rhune. Once a rugged borderland of Llöthlor, it is now home to a hardy people at home as much in a saddle as on the deck of a ship. A geographically divided land dominated by three rivers where loyalty to clan and jarl are the highest value, its sorcerers and warriors oft found employ to the south, many of them helping forge Smyrna. But the Northmen’s greatest conflicts always pointed inward, as clans vied for water, land, resources, and power. By the Twilight of Smyrna and the age of its successors, the clans had merged into twelve petty fiefdoms, each ruled by powerful warlords called “dux”. Seeing an opportunity in the waning power of Smyrna, however, an enterprising leader from the Bay of Amur name Dafydd Penddraig, strengthened by his marriage to the daughter of a warlord from the Behrune Gap, began a lifelong campaign to unite the Rhunites as One People under One Banner. He succeeded in this endeavor through both cunning and conquest, crowning himself the first King of the Rhunites in his twilight years. But a kingdom did not suffice his son, Llywelyn, a boy who outshined his father in both wit and skill of arm. So when the first King of the Rhunites was laid to rest, the first Emperor of Rhune was crowned.
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The Great Rhunic Empire emerged over the coming century as the greatest power since the Llöthlori, forging a dominion which stretched through Rhune and the former lands of Smyrna to the northern shores of the Sea of Elythria. As the power of the Dukes of Amur waned, the power of the Dukes of Nisos waxed, forming the basis for a maritime empire which stretched to every shore of the Sea of Nisos and south of Elthyria. The Rhunites reforged the long forgot infrastructures of Llöthlor, exploring the western oceans and the land beyond and forging new trade routes with the emerging nations to the south and east from those once established by Smyrna and its successor states. Yet even the Rhunite’s new glory ultimately could not withstand the sands of time.
The Rhunic Interregnum rivaled it predecessor, yet record of the period remain surprisingly intact. A blood letting forged in the crucible of questioned succession, the Empire splintered as regional warlords laid claims to lands no longer protected by legions now embroiled in the civil war. By the time the dust settled, the Second Empire was a new animal, much of its former lands culled with naught but the heartlands and its Nisosi colonies remaining. Yet it too crumbled under its own weight as age old Rhunite quarrels reemerged and the Remnant collapsed into infighting.
Post-Rhunite Llöthlor has been a land of rising and falling states. Many empires have themselves risen and fallen in the years following Rhune’s demise. The Federation that rules the Vale of Rhune is powerful, but a pale spectre of the Empire it succeeds and must face off against growing Elven powers to the south, rising city-states to the east, and new threats from beyond the horizons.
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*In case you're stupid, the shading is mountains!The Federation of Rhune
The Vale of Rhune is a cold, arid plain bordered on all sides by mountains, located in the northwestern corner of Llöthlor. In the center of the Vale lies Dagon’s Mount, a dormant volcano and the largest peak in Llöthlor. Runoff and hydrothermal vents on the mountain’s side converge to feed the Vale’s three major waterways, the Amuri, the Behrune, and the Nisos. Surrounding the Mount is the Ring of Rhune, a small range of sheer mountains which cut off the Mount from the rest of Rhune, save the three gorges cut out by the emerging waterways. The Mount and those lands within the Ring are sacred to Rhunites, and the six “Goddesses” of Rhune guard the way, two statues where each of the three rivers emerge from the Ring. It was around the Ring which rose one of Rhune’s most powerful fiefdoms, the Duchy of Fornox, Rhune’s spiritual capital and home to its best spellcasters. From there, the three great rivers of Rhune have shaped the land and its people, watering otherwise parched steppes with the water needed for livestock and agriculture. The Behrune flows north and west, carving the Behrune Gap between the northern White Mountains and the western Demure’s Daggers. Here the Duchy of Behrune formed, hardy northern farmers rich from trade with the frigid lands north of the Sea of Ice into which the Behrune empties. The Nisos flows south and east, where it empties into the inland Sea of Nisos where that sea juts out west between the Northern and Southron Spines and Rhune’s Grey Mountains. Here rose the Duchy of that name, whose sailors are among the most skilled in Rhune and feared throughout the sea that bears their name. Last is the Mighty Amuri, shortest but greatest of the rivers, which flows into the Bay of Amur that separates the Behrune Penisula to the north from the southlands of Rhune. It was there, upon the Amuri Delta, that the Empire was first founded by the Dukes of Amur, and it is there that the grand Imperial Demesne lies, the Gem of the North and one of the greatest cities in Llöthlor.
The Rhunites are a hardy people, and incredibly diverse, surviving in a land comprised of mostly cold steppes. Suited perfectly for these steppes and for warfare, the large, shaggy bred of horses known as the Fadenwaith have become the primary livestock for much of Rhune’s pastoralists. As a result, the majority of central Rhunites are born and raised in the saddle. Preferring heavy armor and bows, Rhunic cataphracts are some of the most feared cavalry in northern Llöthlor. The denizens of the Duchies of the Rivers, however, grew to accept the bounty of the Daughters of Dagon, being the best farmers and sailors in all the north. These Rhunites often preferred axes and shields to bows and fight in medium and light armor, if any. As the spiritual leaders of Rhune and Guardians of Dagon, a common myth among the other Duchies states that all Fornoxi are wizards. While they aren’t (some are sorcerers, druids, clerics, and warlocks!), they do produce the most talented spellcasters in all of northern Llöthlor.
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The Federation is a loose confederacy comprised of the 12 fiefdoms of old. Each Duke/Duchess rules his/her Duchy with near autonomy, with the help of feudal Earls, the remnants of the clan leaders of old. It is from the Twelve that the Federation elects the Archduke/Archduchess, who must renounce their claim to their Duchy and rule as Chancellor and Grand Margrave from the Imperial Demesne for life. This practice has had the effect of leading Rhunites to abandon primogeniture, as abdicating such a position without an heir could be disastrous. The Archduke/Archduchess is largely a figure head, however they are expected to lead Rhunite armies into battle and mediate disputes between Duchies.
Other Duchies include Aratoy, Oriam, Thrace, Gwynedd, Mercia, Crimea, Saoisti, and Fadenwaith.
The Demuren Free Cities
The Behrune Peninsula and its core mountains, Demure’s Daggers, jut south from the Behrune Gap along Rhune’s western border with the Great Sea, forming the outer edge of the Bay of Amur. Demures Dagger’s sheer peaks slowly taper with the peninsula’s length, descending into a land of swampy hills known as the Mere of Demure, which itself dissolves into the series of lagoons, atolls, and archipelagoes known as Demure’s Fingers. Here, among the cold, shallow waters of the labyrinth which guards the Bay’s mouth, the rugged Demurens make their living from the Sea. A people bound to their waters, they rival the Nisosi’s maritime exploits. Ever watchful, their skill at arms has been honed by years of conflict with the pirates who haunt the Finger’s, the monsters who haunt the Mere, and the might of the Great Sea. Unlikely as it is, among these cold, wet rocks clinging off the coast of Llöthlor a number of powerful trading cities emerged.
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The Fingers, located not only beside the mouth of the Bay of Amur but as the last true ports through to the Sea of Ice and the mysterious far western isle nation of Nemeria, sit upon a vital trade route which have enriched the fisherman and sailors of these hostile waters with goods and trade from far distant lands. Yet the numerous isles and fertile waters of the Finger’s have also made it a haven for pirates, while the Mere’s murky depths hide sea creatures of great peril. Each of the Free Cities find themselves hard pressed to protect themselves, let alone quarrel with each other or protect ports and fishing villages upon which they rely. As a result a flourishing mercenary culture has emerged, freelance monster and pirate hunters working for the highest bidder.
While de jure vassals of the Federation, the Free Cities share de facto autonomy, many ruled as republics or even democracies. A few however are ruled by powerful mages, merchants, or sea captains.
The Kingdom of Sinope
Nestled between the Grey Mountains to the north and the Southron Spines to the east, the Kingdom of Sinope is a rising city-state along the Sea of Nisos’s southwesternmost shores. Centered in the eponymous seaport, it is a nation founded by refugees fleeing persecutions in the neighboring Elythrian Empire and her Three Sisters. Vassal to the Duchy of Nisos, Sinope holds its Elven enemies a bay through the sponsorship of its powerful northern neighbors.
A proud place, the city itself is said to predate even the rise of Smyrna, having repelled numerous attempts by the Horde to subjugate it. But where the Orcs had failed however, Dwarves and Dragons succeed, as the lone city-state on the Sea of Nisos became the gateway to Smyrna’s Nisosi colonies and the launching ground for Smyrna’s attempts to quell the remaining Dragonlords of the Isles. After brief independence during the Twilight of Smyrna, the city became one of the first additions to the Rhunic Empire under its first Emperor. Ever after tied to Rhune, it became little more than an extension of the Duchy of Nisos, remaining in the Empire through the Rhunic Interregnum. Even when the Empire finally collapsed, Nisos held sway in Sinope.
As xenophobia and racism grew through Elven separatist lands to the south, humans fled to Sinope, where they found protection under a Nisosi court. Despite attempts by the Elven forces to their south to claim the city and its dominions, the Nisosi kings of Sinope have held true. Now, recent events in the Elthyrian Empire have armed the city-state to go on the offensive and maybe even find allies where once were enemies.
The Dwarven Fiefdoms of the Spines
The Spines are a vast range of gargantuan mountains which make their way down west-central Llöthlor, between Lands of Winter to the north and the eastern most reach of the Sea of Elthyria to the south. Vast peaks snow-capped to their very southern reaches, they serve as one of the most extreme geographic barriers in all of Llöthlor. At their center however, separating North from South, the vast inland Sea of Nisos gouges its way between them, the island remnants of this stretch of the peaks speckling the waters. As imposing a barrier as the mountains themselves, the Sea has separated the Spines’s kinsmen, the Dwarves.
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In the North the Spines are a frigid wasteland, their interior and eastern slopes cold and dry and their western slopes cool and wet. Vast in breadth, only a small number of passes pierce from east to west, while countless other winding paths create a deadly labyrinth waiting to swallow the naïve and lost. Home to numerous bands of primitive tribals, the true powers of these vast peaks honeycomb the mountains’ depths living hidden in their massive fortress-mines. The rugged and resourceful dwarves of the Northern Spines dredge valuable metals, minerals, and gems deep beneath the behemoth peaks. With these they forge beautiful works of art, their furnaces fueled by wood cut from the mountain side by their tribal neighbors. The most prosperous mines, however, are those which arose along the viable trade ways, enriched not their own mineral wealth, but by the markets which emerged at their door steps. But greed and revenge run deep among the Dwarves, and petty feuds between Dwarven fiefdoms persist, ensuring continued disunity within the mountains.
In the South, things are a shade different. Once the industrial heartland of the Dragonlords of Smyrna’s vast domain, the mines of the Southron Spines where ravaged by the same Waste which brought that empire they served to its knees. Many of the once great mines of Smyrna now lay empty, nothing more than monster filled ruins dotting the warm, dry peaks which border the wild central valley of Smyrna. Those Dwarven strongholds which remain in these barren peaks are insular and xenophobic, keenly aware that their ancestors paid dearly for their foreign alliances and expansionist ambitions.
The Wildlands of Smyrna
As the Southron Spines reach south toward the Sea of Elthyria, they split down the middle, forming a fertile valley watered by the summer run-off of the vast surrounding peaks. It was within this wild, easily defended valley that the Great Horde made its greatest holdfasts against their Dwarven enemies. And it was there that the second Alliance defeated the Great Horde at the court the Orc’s had made. It was on the ruin of that battlefield that the some of Dragonlords of Isles commemorated their victory with their Dwarven allies by raising their own holdfast, the mighty Orquacourt, among the greatest fortresses since the long ruined holds of the Llöthlori. These Dragonlords of the Vale subjugated a vast dominion with magic, stretching throughout the lands bordering the mountains and the shores of the Sea of Nisos. Records of the nation these Dragonlords built are spotty, much lost in the chaos now known as the Great Waste, a strange, unknown affliction which torn at the heart of the empire, ravaging its heartland and leaving its hinterlands ripe for the taking.
The valley of Smyrna is now a wild land shrouded in mystery, shaped and change by the events which precipitated the Great Waste. Few who venture into the valley every return. Those who do return changed, shaken by the experience, babbling tales of a twisted landscape populated by strange monsters and stranger magic.
The mysterious cult of the Strangers holds these lands to be sacred.
The Elythrian Empire
Forged during the collapse of the Rhunic Empire by Elven separatist, the Elythrian Empire is the primary successor state to the estate of a High Elven conqueror of old. With ample coast lines along the Great Sea to the west and to the south along its namesake, the Empire stands as a properous hub of trade. A temperate fertile land which bridges the lands of the North with those south of the Sea of Elthyria, the Empire has emerged as one of the greatest nations in Llöthlor. Ruled by an insular High Elven upper class, its power was forged on the backs of slaves justified by a belief in Elven racial superiority. While the Woods Elves of the Empire form its minor lords and merchant middleclass, its Human population have suffered over the centuries in bondage, those few who have their freedom condemned largely to a life of poverty and discrimination.
A decade ago the fires of rebellion were kindled as Humans revolted against their High Elven overlords. Beginning as a simple of act of disobedience, a revolutionary movement rose around a charismatic, young warlock name Roland Jeremiah. After years of battle and numerous miraculous victories, the rebels delivered the killing blow in the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula, where the Emperor and his son fell in battle, leaving the lands in the hands of the Emperor’s young daughter, Mara Aurelia.
http://i.playground.ru/i/62/20/11/00/blog/icon.600xauto.jpg?v1
On face value the rebels have emerged victorious. Suing for piece, the Empress has done the unthinkable and offered her hand in marriage the rebel leader. Though denied the title of Emperor, Roland Jeremiah has been given the position of Grand Margrave, commander-in-chief for the Empires armies. Even after 3 years, Elythrian politics smolder on the verge of renewed violence. While slavery remains, reforms have released many from bondage, while in turn enslaving many of the land’s former ruling class. Those High Elves which remain in power stand with their Empress against the aggressive policies of her husband, a situation only complicated by the warlock’s mistress, a High Elven turncoat bent to claim the throne for herself.
The Three Sisters
The four Wood Elven nations nestled between the Grey Mountains and the Elythrian Empire share their powerful neighbor’s pedigree. Born from the northern borderlands of an old High Elven estate, the Three Sisters straddle along the shores and islands of the massive Bay of Kyn. While the two Sisters of the Arms are more welcoming to trade with any nation, the Sister of the Interior suffer xenophobia in greater degree than even the elite of the Empire, trading only with their Elven neighbors.
Many within the Sisters look suspiciously upon their neighbors across the Grey Mountians, the Rhunites, and look covetously upon their neighbor, Sinope, a prize they claim is their own.
The Land of Nuren
One of the Lands Beyond the Nisos, Nuren is a insular nation of Hobbits and Wood Elves in the east of Llöthlor, tucked between the Sea of Nisos and its smaller eponymous Sea (more of a lake). Nuren’s denizens have a long history, having resisted colonization by both Smyrna and Rhune, the large wood hills and dells of their land providing them the cover for brutal guerrilla war. Master archers, the Nuren Elves and Haflings prefer simplistic living. However, they have in recent years opened trade with denizens of the shores of Nisos, a fact potentially motivated by problems along their northern border with the Great Steppe.
The Pirate States and the Sand Shield
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian Sea, dotting the Sand Shield's coast, are numerous ports which serve as havens for the pirates which haunt the Sea. These cities, the Pirate States, are largely independent city-states fueled by trade from the south and plunder from the Sea.
Among them includes Salé, a city republic, populated in great part by human refugees from the Elythrian empire; Dzayer, the Islands, a city located in a protected cove on a cluster of islands; Ruskikda, the Promontory of Fire, where natural eruptions of naphtha fuel a cult of fire worship; and Mahdya, ancient capital of a short lived federation of all of the pirate cities whose Despot still pretends lord over them.
Tahert, the Lioness, lies somewhere deep within the Sand Shield. It is home to what remains of the cult to the godess that is called the Mauler.
The Other Lands Beyond the Nisos
Many kingdoms, fiefdoms, and city-states have arisen along the Sea of Nisos, some founded by natives, other former colonies of Smyrna, Rhune, and Nisos. Tales even tell of a great eastern empire near Nuren, whose lands stretch far east to another Great Sea!
North of the Sea of Nisos, stretching to the Lands of Winter, is the Great Steppe, a massive northern plain populated by ramblers and nomads. South of the Sea lies the Hared Desert, a land of desert kingdoms which cuts its southern and eastern neighbors off from the rest of Llöthlor.
The Dales lie along the Nisos' northern shore, nestled against the Northern Spines.
The Lands Beyond the Elythrian
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian, the thin band of the Sand Shield cuts off the Pirate States from the Lands of Endless Summers to the south. In these lands of mountains and jungle, the only nations which emerge do so near the embrace of the Great Sea or atop the cool peaks of its many mountains.
The Lands Beyond the Great Sea
Llöthlor is only the only continent to populate the world, and the Great Sea surrounding Llöthlor hides many lands. Rhunite explorers have visited many across the western Sea, establishing trade with the strange lands beyond. The most noted of these is the frigid land of Nemeria, a Halfing forest nation to the northwest, made wealthy by the mining efforts of its Gnomes.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ceIZLm_7LK8/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAABc/TSl63N3kBAo/photo.jpg
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/019/662/189824541_8cc3b4e7d2_o.jpg
All existing deities might find a place somewhere in Llöthlor. However, the majority only hold sway over a handful of followers and few physically manifest. Most lands and people throughout Llöthlor practice varying degrees of animism or are disciples of great philosophies. Yet some nations possess strong, widely worshiped deities. The Six Goddesses of Rhune, for example, are Rhune’s highest pantheon, pious Rhunites often going so far as to deny the existence of others. Dwarves rarely worship deities, even their own, preferring an animist form of ancestor worship. In the Elythrian Empire and her Three Sisters, their founder Elyt holds deitital status, while among the rebels worship of a fertility goddess is common. In other nations, strange monotheistic traditions have taken hold.
The strangest faith, however, is the emerging cult of the Strangers. This odd religion, spreading through the lands which border the Southron Spines, is super secretive, worshiping some sort of trinity.
The duality of Good and Evil is far less prominent in Llöthlor. Thus Evil deities tend to be less explicitly so, more subtly so. The churches of any explicitly Evil deities are often merely cults.
The world on which Llöthlor resides possesses a Creator. Few worship or are even aware of the existence of this Being, its name only appearing scattered through ancient documents.
Dieties:
Goddesses of Rhune:
The Queen of Justice, Lawful Good
The Lady of Light, Neutral Good
The Maiden of Plenty, Chaotic Good
The Mistress of Pain, Lawful Evil
The Mother of Darkness, Neural Evil
The Sister of Sorrow, Chaotic Evil
Edoc'sil the Allseer, Baelnorn
Neutral Good Quasideity
http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/evidevi-gazou/imgs/e/6/e6ef47f9-s.jpg
A member of the trinity of the mysterious Cult of the Strangers, Edoc'sil is the embodiment of Freedom, Creativity, and man's Good natures.
Maurgner the Great Wyrm, Dracolich
Neutral Quasideity
http://i.imgur.com/OfRRVrd.jpg
To the Cultists of the the Strangers, Maurgner, the Great Wyrm, is the paradoxical embodiment of Chaos and Law, of Change and Immutability. He is also the Cult's fertility god, representing the virility of Dragons.
Sjachi the Supressor, Lich
Lawful Evil Quasideity
http://i.imgur.com/ado3swp.jpg
Sjachi is the dark deity of the Cult of the Strangers. He is the embodiment of Power and man's Evil natures.
Sophitia, Goddess
Chaotic Good Deity
http://cs424622.vk.me/v424622484/7fdd/gWze7s2LCIE.jpg
A fertility goddess whose worship arose among human slaves in the Empire. She emerged as a goddess of war and victory as the patron of Roland Jeremiah's revolt.
Ysera the Mauler, Goddess
Lawful Evil Deity
http://i.imgur.com/OBdlFAC.jpg
Ysera the Mauler is the violent war goddess worship by a number of orc and hobgoblin tribes inhabiting the Sand Shield. It was her cult which first spurred the Horde into action, catalyzing the formation of nations states in the wake of the Age of Darkness.
Elyt the Grand, Hero
Lawful Neutral Deity
[Pending]
Entropy, Titan
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HjY8tVYELFw/VQvQkb7rHKI/AAAAAAAAAHw/_c7veB_HYz0/w506-h750/Solar_eclipse_1999_4_NR.jpg
Chaotic Neutral Deity
[Pending]
The Creator, Overdeity
Variably Aligned Comic Book Character
http://i.imgur.com/qitvX.jpg
Batman, God? What's the difference?
I plan to fill out this section when name needing NPCs get names and background fluff. See Future.
Historical Figures:
Dragonlord Mosaham Abramose, Half-elf
Neutral Good Military Leader
http://maxcdn.thedesigninspiration.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dragon-Rider-l.jpg
Outcast by his heritage at an early age, Mosaham Abramose was a wanderer, making a living off songs, stories, and adventures travelling the Sea of Nisos. But his stunning rise to power was precipitated by his rebellion against the gods and eventual alliance with a powerful great wyrm. Earning his spurs within the first Smyrna Alliance, he gained his reputation as one of the most feared Dragonlords during the second such alliance, leading the Alliance in its greatest victory at the Orc's Court, along side the remaining Southron Dwarf clans and the mercenary forces of the Fornoxi wizard, Gabriel. After the Horde's defeat, Mosaham oversaw the work to construct the fortress of Orquacourt. There he ruled as Dragonlord of Smyrna of many decade.
Dragonlords are long lived, potentially as immortal as their their marvelous mounts, and while Mosaham's name slowly disappeared from this history books, it was never fully forgotten. The last known record of the famous Dragonlord dates to just before the Great Waste, though whether it was the famous hero or simply another Dragonlord of the same name is not known...
Gabriel the Bold, Human
Lawful Evil Military Leader
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7326/13935379330_190233f54c.jpg
The youngest son of a Fornoxi earl, the wizard known as Gabriel the Bold made a name for himself as a adventurer and mercenary in the lands of the North in the days preceding the second Smyrna Alliance. A close friend and ally of the emerging Dragonlord Mosaham Abramose, the wizard lead a volunteer band of Northern mercenaries, supplemented by magical abominations, to aid the beleaguered Dragonlord and his Dwarven Allies against the returned Horde. As part of the second Smyrna Alliance, the wizard's magic helped turn the tide against the crusaders and clerics of Ysera the Mauler.
Gabriel was instrumental in the formative years of Smyrna, providing his magic in both the construction of the nation state and the early military campaigns to expand it. However, a few short decades after the completion of Orquacourt, the wizard mysteriously disappears from the history books. A few tomes of magic dating from the early days of the Rhunic Empire, however, tell tales of a great lich in the Southron Spines with uncanny similarities...
Emperor Llywelyn I Penddraig, Human
Lawful Neutral Military Leader
http://i.imgur.com/wyFfrxK.jpg
The son of Dafydd Penddraig, the Amuri King of the Rhunites, Llywelyn was destined for greater things. Inheriting his father's throne, the young warlord bestowed upon himself the title Emperor, his claims bolstered by Fornoxi support. He turned the Rhunites' attention outward, leading the armies which claimed Demure, Sinope, and the borderlands of the disintegrated Smyrna.
He first commissioned the Imperial Demesne, though it was not completed until the twilight of the reign of his grandson, Llywelyn II.
Emperor Elyt I, High Elf
http://img-cache.cdn.gaiaonline.com/9ff3935ddec21d4b9967ef495c4ae279/http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii129/ShadowParadox1988/Fantasy/74aa17fe-29b2-4ba9-837a-118f833aff05_zpsa14ab100.jpg
Lawful Neutral Military Leader
[Pending]
Contemporary Political Figures:
Archduchess Aelia Octavian, Human
Chaotic Good Political Leader
http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/27900000/Archer-rider-fantasy-27996508-500-365.jpg
The former Duchess of Fornox, Aelia is one of only a handful of Fornoxi dukes in history to take the reigns of the Federation. Her election was part of a compromise between Nisosi and Amuri factions following the death of her predecessor. Nisosi-leaning, she took over the Imperial Demesne, while her Amuri-leaning younger brother took Fornox. A capable leader, Aelia's reign has so far been a prosperous one. But tensions within the Federation are always simmering beneath the surface, and who knows what might bring them into the light?
Margrave Roland Jeremiah, Human
Neutral Military Leader
http://i.playground.ru/i/62/20/11/00/blog/icon.600xauto.jpg?v1
Born a slave in the Duchy of Catalan in the south of Elthyria's Balearic Peninsula, the young warlock forged his Pact to throw off the yoke of the sadistic Duchess Azkadelia Tellus, whose eye and ire he earned working in her household.
Roland's capture of the Duchess and her stronghold sparked rebellion, as the human separatist faction known as the Warden unexpectedly rallied to the aid of the warlock's impulsive power grab. The civil war which ensued lasted seven years, during which Roland Jeremiah demonstrated a natural talent and mastery of the battlefield unmatched by his Elven opponents. At the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula, Roland's cunning, magic, and tactical mastery delivered a stunning defeat to the High Elven forces, resulting in the death of both the Emperor and his son and heir.
The Emperor's young daughter, Mara Aurelia, succeeded her father. Suing for peace she wed the rebel leader, appointing him Grand Margrave and commander-in-chief of Elythria's martial forces. Backed by the Warden, Margrave Jeremiah has emerged as the most powerful leader in the Empire, his power only challenged by the remaining minority of High Elven loyalists to his wife.
Empress Mara Aurelia, High Elf
Neutral Good Political Leader
http://i.imgur.com/SQT8MFv.jpg
Young, talented, and an oft thorn in her father's side, the wild young daughter of Elythria's Emperor was thrust into the dire world of Elythrian politics after her father and older brother's untimely demise at the hands of Roland Jeremiah's war machine. Lacking the manpower to hold against the the approaching human army, the young Empress instead sued for peace. She bought that peace with her hand in marriage to the rebel leader.
A number of loyalists remain in her camp, holding enough power and influence to shield her from any further power grabs by her new husband's allies. Her marriage to Margrave Jeremiah has been far from a happy one, marred by the political tensions and his notorious philandering.
Azkadelia Tellus, High Elf
Lawful Evil Turncoat
http://i.imgur.com/0ymCqi9.jpg
Once the Duchess of the wealthy and powerful Catalan, Azkadelia was the first victim of the rebellion which swept Elthyria. Stripped of her power by Roland Jeremiah, she spent the early years of the rebellion imprisoned within her own castle. Charismatic and cunning, she worked her way into her captor's graces, turning coat and emerging from the war as both his mistress and closest confidant, much to the detriment to both the Warden and the Empress. Many believe she has designs for the throne.
Masked Empress of the Dales, Unknown
Lawful Evil Political Figure
http://orig08.deviantart.net/9c2a/f/2008/198/4/1/41824cd07d3674bbe413e0058b84256b.jpg
The ancient and mysterious ruler of the land known as the Dales, the Empress was once a women of unparalleled beauty and a sorceress of unparalleled power. It was under her wing that the first Lord of the Dales, a young unproven chieftain, united the tribes of the Dales. In the centuries to come she ruled the Dales as the power behind the throne, advising the Lords and Ladies that follow. But as the Great Waste took Smyrna, distrust of magic grew. The nobles of the Dales rose up against their Lady and her immortal chief adviser, bringing them to trial and executing them as maleficarum.
But all great mages have contingencies. The Witch of the Dale rose from the ashes with a terrible wrath. Through magic, trickery, and conquest, the Dales fell to their new Masked Empress. And so she has ruled the Dales in the centuries since, feared by her people.
Will fill this out eventually. See Future.
The Warden
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/lotr-lcg/the-lost-realm/ranger-of-the-north-art.png
Emperor Elyt III ascended the throne inheriting the ruin wrought by his grandfather's war with the Remnant. His soldier tied up in battles with Sinope and the Nisosi, the Empire's roadways fell victim to brigrandry with no sentries to patrol them. As desperate times call for desperate measures, the Emperor enlisted the help of the Empires most plentiful resource: slave labor. Gathered from the sturdiest ranks of slaves, he purchased a great many young humans. Offered greater responsibilities in exchange for future freedoms, these new slave soldiers were trained in survival and combat and put in charge of cleaning up the tradeways of the Empire. Initially a success, the Order of Wardens soon proved a burden, as its freed members themselves turned to brigrandry. Eventually the end of conflicts with the Empire's northern neighbors spelled the order's doom and it was outlawed.
The Warden soon emerged as an underground human resistance movement among the slaves of the Elythtrian Empire, fighting against the very empire which first armed them. It was the Warden, not the warlock himself, that made Roland Jeremiah the centerpiece of rebellion against the Empire's repressive High Elven regime. Had it not been for their quick response in rallying to the impulsive warlock's actions, Roland Jeremiah may have quickly perished without the rebel army needed to challenge Elthyria's military forces. As the war raged on, it was the Warden who tempered Jeremiah's hasty strategy, insuring the long term survival of the rebellion and its eventual victory at the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula. However, not all within the Warden welcomed the ensuing peace. Members within still plot to finish what they started and overthrow the Empress and the High Elven slave system.
The Grey Company
https://parmenionbooks.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/crimson-shield.jpg
One of the most famous mercenary companies among Demure's Fingers, the Grey Company has distinguished itself with a radically different business model than many of its competitors. While other groups rent out bands of soldiers for the various intercity conflicts, members of the Grey Company are veteran pirate and monster hunters. The Grey Company more often rents the services of just one or two of its members to the towns and villages of the Fingers and the Mere to train local militias or hunt monsters, bandits, or pirates. In those battles which the Company has taken part, however, they have proved decisive.
The Greg Company also possesses the largest private fleet in the Fingers, which they rent out as escorts.
The Cult of the Stranger
[Pending]
http://www.thehighdefinite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/oljUbOw-560x362.jpg
A Dawn War occurred long before even the Llöthlori, waged between the primordial gods and elemental titans. This cosmic war ended with the titans going dormant. Many religious texts speak of the Waking of the Titans, a sort of end times. A powerful titan known as Entropy is rumored, however, to still be awake and active. The cosmology is otherwise classic D&D.
In the days of Llöthlor, magic was as common as breathing and spellcasters shaped the very reality around them. This changed during the Age of Darkness, following the devastation of the Great Interregnum, when magic not only reshaped Llöthlor politically, but physically. Whatever events striped much of the magic from Llöthlor, it is a low-magic campaign. Players should try to limit spellcasters to one per party (paladins, rangers, arcane archetypes, and warlocks are exceptions). Magic is rare in Llöthlor, but it is Power, as every empire to rise since the Age of Darkness has had some measure of magocracy. The number of mages a society produces greatly affects that society’s power. The Duchy of Fornox is the greatest among the Federation, despite the accomplishments of the Amuri and Nisosi, due to their mages (some theorize Dagon’s Mount is to blame). High Elves hold power in the Empire and elsewhere due to their race’s natural propensity for the arcane, a fact which is the foundation of High Elven racial theories.
The most common magics in Llöthlor are divine and pact, since they are bestowed rather than learned. Magic can be fickle, and often involves unintended consequences.
Dragons and High Elves aren't long lived. They’re immortal. Other races have shorter than PHB live spans. Humans have longer. Rumors abound that some of the Llöthlori Dragonlords still live.
Gnomes only hail from Nemeria. It is believed by many scholars that the Gnomes of Nemeria are the descendants of a band of Dwarven traders whose ship blew off course in the northern Great Sea and who found themselves shipwrecked. Over time they intermingled with their Halfing hosts, and their descendants began craving great mines under the hillside smials of their Halfling neighbors. The treasures they unearthed have made Nemeria rich with trade, both from Llöthlor and from lands further west.
Magictech and gunpowder are new, extremely rare, and totally the Dwarves' and Gnomes' fault. Dwarven Weapon Familiarity applies to Renaissance gunpowder weapons. Gnomes treat gunpowder weapons as Martial weapons. Everyone else must be taught.
Despite magictech and gunpowder, plate is rare. Leather, ring, scale, chain, and splint are exponentially more common.
Warforged are the creation of Smyrna-era Southron Dwarves. Incredibly long lived, they’ve moved up within Southron Dwaven society, from automaton soldiers and workers to elders and keepers of lore and wisdom. Undying are common among Wood Elven elders.
Being a denizen of the Underdark doesn't make you evil. While Drow retain some of their cultural identities, much of what might be considered evil in their cultures derive from the necessity of underground survival, not just them being *****. Many of the Southron Spine Dwarves are Duergar, potentially a result of the Great Waste.
Common is nothing more than an overly-simplified trade language. Communicating complex ideas with it is very difficult. Undercommon is the same, just angrier sounding. All players know Common. All other languages (with the exception of the exotic languages like Draconic, Infernal, etc.) are regional languages, rather than racial. Wood Elves from Nuren cannot communicate with High Elves from Elythrian, except by Common. Nor could Rhunites with Humans from the Empire.
Drop bears are real.
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2015/057/9/8/1239932_592667820780022_409697950_n___copy_by_boot straptommy-d8joaui.png
Needing names:
The Horde’s Orc goddess
The Horde’s Orc prophet
Smyrna Generals
Rhune’s Six Goddesses
The Amuri King
The First Rhunite Emperor
The remaining Rhunic Duchies
The current Rhunic Archduchess
The Demuren Cities (I’m thinking 7?)
Maybe a few Dwarven Strongholds
Elthyria’s Warlock Margrave
Elythria’s Empress
Margrave's Mistress
The Rebel's Goddess
The names of each of the Three Sisters
The various Pirate Cities (Corneel got 5, need 4 more)
The Strangers
Needing creating:
More extensive history and cosmos
The languages
More religions
The colonies, nations, and city-states of the Sea of Nisos
The rest of the Lands Beyond
An Underdark
Important Organizations
http://photo2.ask.fm/780/842/304/710003009-1rj01p2-5qrt7k6ga14cthf/preview/TrDnOcfqZLE.jpg
It's good to be gangsta!