MrBrongher
2016-12-12, 08:39 PM
To quench my long overdue need to run a game I've put a lot of work into my current campaign, that at the moment only has two players. I'd like to get feedback from some people who don't look to me as their only chance to roleplay regularly, and also for some things that I haven't opened up to them yet. Also, I work on this stuff in secret, and then build on it for possibly months before some of it leaks to players during the campaign, so I'd like people to shout if it looks like I'm going in a terrible direction.
Fair warning, this is an all elf PCs game, if that turns you off turn back now.
My game takes place in a world largely influenced by Tolkien and the Forgotten Realms, with ASOIAF and Kingkiller chronicles for further inspiration. Some of the magic details are lifted from the Magicians. I wanted a world without the artificial certainty that standard D&D provides, so there are no alignments, no surefire ways to detect lies, and though there is prophesy and magic, the Gods do not make anything clear, if they exist at all. Spellcasting clerics are very rare, to the point that they might be myths. Also, there are dark skinned elves, but no drow, no Lolth and no sea elves.
Some famous NPCs
King Canem-Ka Rylintar (Kay-numb-ka Ryl-in-tar) (Canem)- Has sat the throne for over 500 years and is approaching his 900th birthday. Long ago defeated the Ogrillon Warlord Merash in single combat, thereby scattering the Fell-Merash Horde and ending the Siege of Banners. Since the death of his queen 200 years ago he has delegated more and more responsibility to his Small Council, and is now seldom seen. He is properly addresses as “Your Majesty.”
Queen Sevaralir Rylintar (Say-var-a-leer )(Vara)(nee Dae-nes) (deceased)
Sevaralir Daenes was an arcane wunderkind, youngest to be named Magi, High Magi, Magus of the Inner Circle and finally, at the age of 203, August Seer. Married to Canem for 250 years before a terrible accident destroyed the Inner Circle. Since then no new High Magi have been created and the existing ones cannot match their illustrious forebearers. Properly remembered as “Her Majesty.”
Crown Princess Feralantrith Rylintar (Fer-a-lan-trith) (Fera) Lady of Ban Fiord 372 yo Feralantrith is charming to behold, proficient in the bow, the sword, the harp, the falcon and the dance, as all quessir should be. She is also utterly without humor or guile, direct to the point of bluntness, and without a single original thought in her head. For all that she is kind, warm and compassionate. It is widely whispered that she might make a good queen, so long as she has a great council. Properly addressed as “Your Royal Highness.”
Prince Azadethtial Rylintar (Aza-deth-tial) (Za-de) 242 yo Azadethtial, called the Golden Prince, or Zade, is beloved of commoners and scorned or despaired of by the nobility. Wearing his gleaming white leather armor studded with golden medallions, bearing his shining golden blade, unmarred by scratch or burr, he carouses across the elven lands, spending lavishly, either with his retinue of wastrel friends, or unannounced and unaccompanied. A dilettante swordsman, wizard, poet and harpist he has no deeds to his name, and no fame but for his extravagance and his tendency to disappear for months or years on end on what he calls "his Adventures" but which are undoubtedly carousing far away. In a larger family he would be ignored as harmless, but as it is he is a constant shame to the Rylintar. Many who would otherwise wish her abdicated cherish Princess Feralantrith as the bulwark against Azadethtial's ascension to the throne. Properly addressed as “Your Royal Highness.”
The Small Council
Commander of the Royal Guard - Evarohrah Kenyrator (Ev-aro-ra Ken-ear-a-tor) 738 yo
Evarohrah has served in the Guard for over 600 years and commanded it for the last 280. Despite the serious nature of his work he is well thought of as compassionate and peaceable, though when he is called upon to don the golden mask of his rank he is utterly implacable. When his duties allow he often personally oversees the general populace in the sword and bow training that is every elf’s responsibility, where he is quick to laugh and gentle in his instruction.
Despite the forces at his command, Evarohrah often utilizes the services of up and coming young quessir for duties of minor import, and in so doing makes the Guard approachable and meets potential young recruits. Properly addressed as “Commander” or “my Lord,” though it is a courtesy title.
August Seer - Since the death of the Queen this seat has been empty, and this shows no signs of changing. Although there are enough High Mages remaining in the Kingdom to form a circle or, perhaps two, none match even the least of the old Royal Circle, and furthermore there is no one to train them to be better.
Admiral of his Majesty's Fleet - Nimiana Dwinaear (Nim-ee-ana Dwin-ay-ar) 375 yo
The Admiral commands all of the Crown’s warships, and in times of crisis all Elven vessels. A druid member of the Circle of the Coast, Nimiana also works to bolster the Crown’s treaties and alliances with many creatures of the Sea and Rivers such as nymphs, mermen, selkies, mermaids and dolphins. Though tense and somewhat squirrely at court, those who have served with her say she is only truly herself at sea. The Fleet often solicits updated maps of far off waterways from explorers. Properly addressed as “Admiral” or “my Lady,” though it is a courtesy title.
Master of Remembrance - Neurcion Lasslothtinu (Ner-sea-on Lass-loth-tea-new)
The Master of Remembrance is responsible for planning ceremonies for both the Court and the populace including Royal Weddings, Funerals, High Holy days, Festivals and Memorials. Often called the Master of Revels, or the Royal Planner, it is not a well regarded post despite its seat at the Small Council, being seen as frivolous. Neurcion takes his duties very seriously, and obsesses over minor details of floral arrangements, seating charts, musical arrangements and the like to distraction. The others in the council treat him with varying degrees of contempt, which he tolerates with effete superiority and exasperation. He often commissions younger quessir, likely to be awed by his title and so respectful, to run all manner of errands, including fetching rare flowers or place settings for a feast, exotic or dangerous creatures for a menagerie, or rare books or antiques to display at a salon.
Faen Ambassador - Firavelruil Kennyrmitore (Fear-avel-rue-eel Ken-ear-mit-oar-ay) (Exalted-Dark-Sword Sworn to the Moon) The current ambassador, Firavelruil Kennyrmitore is an Eladrin Knight who has served at this post for almost a century. A small contingent of Coure serve as his messengers, aids and gofers. It is his responsibility to represent the interests of the inhabitants of the Fey Wild to the court, and to advise the crown on how to best deal with them. Fiarvelruil is known to have strong seelie sympathies. Personally he is seen as surprisingly stern and humorless. Firavelruil is heir to a barony in the marches of faerie, and is thus properly addressed as “My Lord.”
Lord Ranger - Princess Iorthondis Eregnith (see locations, Quarminar) Though holding the title of princess it is functionally equivalent to a high lordship, and as such she is correctly addressed as “My Lady,” though to curry favor or be on the safe side she is often addressed simply as “Princess.”
Crown Princess - Feralantrith Rylintar Traditionally the heir to the throne sits upon the council, both to have an official avenue for adding their voice to the crown’s ear, and to better learn the ways of the crown. Feralantrith dutifully attends every meeting.
Voice of the Gods- Kethronis Arwalombas (Keth-ro-niss Are-wah-lom-bas) (Dawn’s Wind Walker, Keeper of Secrets) It is the Voice of the Gods’ responsibility to interpret and communicate the wishes of the Seldarine to the crown. Kethronis is a copper elf shaman sworn to all of the gods of the Seldarine. She is approaching her thousandth birthday. She is appropriately pious and decorous, but rumors that her placid demeanor conceals a ruthless ambition have swirled around her for centuries. Pointedly, they have never been confirmed. Voice of the Gods conveys the style “Your Eminence.”
Ambassador to the Seelie - Kyoro Freaniathem (Key-ore-oh Free-an-ee-ath-em)(Ruby-flower Friend to Dragons)The Ambassador to the Seelie is not technically a member of the council, but is often grouped with them nonetheless. Spending most of their time in the seelie court in Faerie, they officially represent Alaritaur’s interests to the Seelie while also spying on the doings of the court. Officially the People have no ties to the unseelie, but when necessity demands dealing with them, the ambassador must be the one to treat with them. This office is given to two sorts of People; those who have a strong affinity for the Fae, and those who have earned an unofficial banishment. Kyoro is the latter. Constantly agitating for the realm to involve itself in interests abroad in order to engender defensive treaties with outsiders, while proclaiming that the current defenses of the realm were insufficient, she managed to arouse some concern amongst the people, before King Canem’s court grew tired of her fear mongering. The Freaniathem is an ancient and well regarded house, tracing its origins to the Dragon wars, and so she could not be publicly chastised - instead she was sent to Faerie, ostensibly to make the allies she so desired. For 75 years she has dutifully sent her reports back to the council.
The Princes of Illikving
The citizens of Illikving style their leaders “My Prince” or My Princess,” though to outsiders they remain simply “My Lord/Lady.”
Princess Fionthel Ninganell (Fee-on-thel Nin-ga-nell)(Sister-to-hawks Tears-of-the-harp (sad song)) gold elf female 383 yo
Fionthel Ninganell is a devoted gold elf traditionalist, who makes no secret of her desire to abolish the monarchy and reinstate the Senate of old. She also has strong isolationist tendencies and would like to see the kingdom close all its ports to outsiders and severely punish any intruders. She was an influential senator before assuming her ancestral title, and the traditionalists thought she would usher in a new golden age of elven primacy with a Senate at its head, but almost the moment she became a Princess a scandal erupted when it was revealed she’d been carrying on a torrid affair with a nymph. Her husband, Gwilwilethon Cugulaer, the younger brother of Prince Sidhon Cugulaer, left her during the controversy and her political bloc crumbled. Since then she has remained staunchly traditionalist, but has seemingly abandoned any ambition of being a firebrand, instead calmly and rationally making her views known through calm debate and voting predictably. Although the controversy has died down, it is still what she is best known for to anyone not intimately familiar with the politics of Illikving.
Prince Sidhon Cugulaer (Shee-on Coo-goo-lair) (Peace Dove’s dirge) gold elf male, 442 yo
Sidhon (sometimes called the Tiger or the Raspberry) inherited his title at the young age of 79 when his father Olon’s (ooh-lon) boat capsized during a storm. For the next 75 years he was a loyal traditionalist, however, over the next century, as he began to step away from his family and their advisors in favor of his own growing coterie of assistants and allied senators he began to evince different views. He has since become known as a strong pro-royalist, who cites the words of the Great Conclave at every opportunity and who believes that in order to persist and thrive the nation must expand its borders, assimilating or eliminating any other nations on the West coast. Amongst those indifferent to politics he is best known for thumbing his nose at his family and for the portwine birthmark on the right side of his face, from which he gains his nicknames.
OTHERS
Montressor - Echadel Montressor is half legend. Supposedly, born about 2000 years ago, not much is certain about Montressor, and much of what is known may be exaggerated or apocryphal. It is said that as a small child, while at Ruafel, Montressor saw Hanali Celanil playing the harp in the moonlight. Or saw her reflected in the lake’s sky. Or saw her as the sky, composed of stars. Either way, Montressor went on to become the most famous of all instrument crafters, ever trying to create an instrument capable of creating as beautiful a scene. Or as a gift for Hanali Celanil, etc.
Everyone knows that a Montressor instrument’s worth is incalculable, a thing of beauty and a treasure of the People, but only performers themselves can truly appreciate their workmanship; it is said, by those who have been blessed enough to play one, that all other instruments seem as child’s toys, crude and brash.
Montressor made instruments for about 900 years, but sometimes took more than a year on a single piece, and many have been lost or destroyed. The fabled pipe organ at the Abbey of Moondrops in Uqa Katinka was build by Montressor over the course of more than a decade. The locations of 386 other instruments have been logged by the Master of Remembrance, along with rumors of the whereabouts of many others.
Upon her 1000th name day Montressor declared her intention of going West, there to learn from all of the previous craftsmen of the People and continue her quest to become the instrument crafter nonpareil.
Here's some fluff on some human gods I'm working on
The Old Gods
Valeria and Argent are the primary members of their pantheon, the Old Gods, who were worshipped by the humans of the West coast since time immemorial. They have largely been supplanted by the Jovians of the Old Aturan Empire, and by the Ansensei of the South Western and far Eastern humans, though their worship persists in the Northern reaches and the mountains. Forge and the Stonewardens follow the Old Gods, the cosmopolitan peoples of Seahaven largely follow the Ansensei, though they have Jovian shrines still, and shrines to many smaller gods besides.
Valeria, the sun, and Argent, the moon, were born of the Timeless Darkness. They were meant to shine light on the things of the other side of the sky, but those things were so terrible to their perfect eyes that they rebelled. Working together they made the world, Faelren, and its Vault of the Sky kept the Timeless Darkness far away, though its thousand-thousand eyes still peer at us through the night, with bitter, impotent rage. As the vault closed it away, The Darkness reached out a final time for the pair; Valeria blazed so fiercely the darkness recoiled, but it grabbed hold of Argent and has never let go. To this day he fights to escape their grip, but every time he is near to free he falters and is dragged inexorably away, only to stand up and repeat the process.
Followers of the Old Gods believe the elves are descended of an ancient race of Man, exiled by their victors after a long war, they were lost in the fae. There they wandered and suffered for generations, being twisted by the fae, until the creatures there drove them back to Faelren.
Valeria, Blazing Eye, Golden Mother, is the mother of mankind along with Flourishing Argent. She is steadfast, patient and inexorable. She has never been defeated, and the day she is permanently brought low will be the end of all life. The paramount mother, she is ever nurturing, all forgiving and above all loving. Whenever it seems that her affection is overbearing it is always because some other thing is lacking; a drought is not scorching because of the sun, it only lacks rain. The sun only burns when one lacks shade or rest.
Valeria has had many other children. Many are the lesser gods of cloud and pool, grove and glade, grain and grape. Others are the creatures of the daytime air, who act as her messengers and omens. Snakes, bears, horses and cattle are also hers. She has an ambivalent relationship with the Fae, who are not her children or her enemies, sometimes blessing them in their mysterious holdfasts, other times destroying them without mercy for trifling with her children.
Argent, the moon, is complicated. Flourishing Argent, Argent Ascendant or Argent in Triumph, is humanity’s father. He lights the world for man while his wife sleeps, protecting them from falls, predators and the wicked fae. His creatures are the hedgehog, the owl, deer, goats, the racoon and the mouse. Sometimes wise, other times foolish, sometimes a nuisance, but never dangerous. Flourishing Argent treasures his children but does not coddle them; he promises no mercy or second chances to the foolish or unlucky, nor is he always interested in them. Sometimes his light illuminates pathways and truths that are invisible by day. He is most fond of young women, though not always in a lecherous way, and he often shines on them so as to bless their suitors.
Flagging Argent, Argent Declinal, or Argent Vanquished, is being brought back to the Darkness, having exhausted himself. He is bitter and his exhaustion and shame make him spiteful. His light conceals more than it reveals, and makes the world a dangerous, more mysterious place. Thieves, hunters, predators and monsters take advantage of his indifference. His creatures are the bat, the rat, the wolf, the cat, spiders, moths, nightjars, newts, toads and frogs. Though he seems completely negligent, if not malicious, he still offers protection to his children, for on the night that he is pulled completely into the Darkness, demons, devils, wicked fae and other unholy nightkind more easily come to Faelren; from this it is deduced that it is his light that keeps them away at other times. New Moon is often called the Escape; it is a propitious time to begin a difficult, dangerous undertaking, such as marching off to battle, or actually attempting an escape. This time is only for those things that can be completed in 14 days or less; any longer and your undertaking becomes doomed. The height of the full moon is called Exultation. Dalliances, battles, contests and giving birth are all blessed during these nights.
and here is something on the cosmology of my world from before the world existed.
Always there is Chaos. Possibility unbound. Time is irrelevant to Chaos, because effects do not spring from cause. Things, places, ideas and creatures spring always from Chaos, and inevitably are subsumed back into it. However slight the possibility, persistence and entropy, the arrow of time and reification as we understand it, were birthed from the Chaos. This is the only beginning we can speak of. Before this, a vast infinity of inexplicability. After, planes, reasons and creatures that we can understand. But remember: Chaos is real, and not only of the past. It’s maddening maelstrom is far from all that we can understand, axiomatically so, but still, things of scale and magnitude beyond all comprehension swim the depths of Chaos, and occasionally, terribly, boil out.
The first persistent creatures were likely demons. Only incrementally different from what had come before them, different only in that they were slaves of consequence; action before reaction, effort before completion. In all other ways they were still of Chaos, in their variety, their destructiveness, and yes, in their occasional brilliance. One such brilliant individual, whose name is lost to the aeons, was a Fulcrum of Change. The demons made endless war upon one another, training, building up stockpiles and engines of war, only to turn on one another, splinter, reform, betray, revenge and destroy endlessly, a great millstone grinding itself to dust, only to reemerge from it’s own ruin. But this creature, this Fulcrum, in seeking his own ascendancy, crafted weapons devised to be perfectly effective against his demon brethren. He called them Solars, as their might burned like suns, and the first, most carefully created was called Asmodeus. Working together, as no creatures had been truly capable of doing before, they could destroy even the most monumental of their foes, creatures the size of mountains with minds of fire and hearts of iron. They were implacable and indefatigable, and their creation had tremendous consequences.
In the face of an insurmountable foe, something unprecedented occurred; a group of demons came together to put an end to the solar threat. They recruited more and more of their kind, with press gangs when they could, negotiation when they could not. There were more demons than solars of course; an infinite amount. Those who joined together called themselves the Tanar'ri. Cooperation was not in their nature, and they continued to fight amongst themselves. However their lords were cunning and powerful enough to curtail this to a frightening degree. Before they could strike out against their solar oppressors though there was a new development; the tanar’ri and the solars found themselves in a new place. A new realm had boiled out of Chaos and carried them all away, and they found themselves in the Abyss. Though the power of the Abyss was similar to that of Chaos its magnitude was significantly less. Infected with something new, the Abyss was stratified into comprehensible, though mutable layers. It was also more malevolent.
The outrage at these new circumstances was complete. The tanar’ri were convinced this was the doing of the solars, and their attack upon them was immediate and total. As mighty as they were, the solars were outnumbered more than 10,000:1. They held out as long as they could but finally fled as far as they could from this new Abyss. Their creator, the Fulcrum was torn into pieces smaller than the meanest crumb, and his name was erased from history.
The solars, streaking away from the abyss fled into nothingness, but after a time they all came to agree that they seemed to be going up, though up what, or in relation to what they did not know. After what might have been moments or millennia they finally stopped and looked below them. Instead of the void they had traversed they found themselves above a mountain bigger than worlds, glowing pure and cold and mighty. Above them was a sky, and in it a sun and moon and stars. All of these things had been known to arise in Chaos, but randomly and fleetingly. All around them was life unlike that which could ever have persisted in Chaos. All of it running in predictable, beautiful patterns, circles within circles, like clockwork. It was something altogether new. And they looked about and all agreed that this was the best of all possible places. They named the mountain Celestia, and lived in the clouds above it. And Order, which had emerged from Chaos so small that it was at first unnoticeable had now become an axis in the cosmos.
Though the hatred of the tanar’ri for the solars never abated, the distance between them was so vast, and the solars new home so inimical to demonkind, that their war all but ground to a halt. For their part, without their creator to give them orders, the solars were content to study the movements of celestial bodies and the minute ways of the life beneath them. There remained in them a strong antipathy for demons, but it slumbered so long as the demons were far away. Their first was the exception. Asmodeus, first of the Solars had been exquisitely tuned and shaped to war upon demons; it was his passion, and nothing more pleasant could divert his mind from thoughts of conquest. He brooded on the defeat the solars had suffered at the hands of the tanar’ri, and it galled him. He fought it over and over again in his mind, looking for some stratagem, some ruse or tactic that might have made things different. He gnashed his teeth and he took no notice of the beauties of his new home.
His comrades were concerned for him. The solar force was innately cooperative, and so they had developed compassion for one another. One brought him charts they had drawn of the movements of the stars, but their complex rhythms did not interest him. Another brought him tiny creatures from the mount, mice and cats and jewel-like birds, but their antics did not charm him. Another brought him flowers of shades both garish and subtle, with fragrances that elicited nostalgia, romance or contemplation, but Asmodeus was not moved. In frustration his brother cried “There is an infinity of beauty here, as precise and nuanced as Chaos is wild; how can it be that you do not wonder at all of it!?” And Asmodeus raised his head, and met his eyes, and for the first time since their flight he smiled.
Asmodeus threw himself into his brothers’ studies with a determination that was almost alarming. He plotted the course of the celestial bodies into tens of millions of days from that time. He observed and gathered every specimen of life he could, and when he had learned all that he could from observation he took them apart to observe their inner workings. Before he was done he could even put them back together, sometimes differently than they had been before. And he grew a garden of every green thing, and soon he could grow plants and blooms that had never been seen before, that healed the injured, grew fruits of enrapturing flavor, and others that pulsed with blood like animals, or that hunted like foxes or wolves. All this and more he did with determination and precision, but it was only in pursuit of deeper truths. For Asmodeus had woken to the idea of Law as a force opposed diametrically to Chaos, which Chaos itself had engendered and his creator had later managed to refine, distilling it into his creations that they might be the ultimate negation of Chaos. And he believed that he and his brothers’ creation had injected so much Order into Chaos that the demons were infected, such that they would band together, and finally, as two lodestones repel one another they had all been driven from Chaos, and later, on their own, the solars had given rise to Celestia.
Asmodeus knew that there had never been a chance of conquering all of the demons of Chaos. If there had been a million solars that would not be enough to subjugate only those demons that sprang from Chaos in a day. And there were far fewer of them than that.
But the Abyss was to Chaos as a candle to the sun, and though multitudinous, still the tanar’ri were not quite infinite. And Asmodeus had a plan. He had determined that he would deliberately infect the tanar’ri with Law as he and his brothers had accidentally done to the demons they had been. And the instrument he chose was called Hierarchy, an idea he had gleaned from his observations of the seven levels of Celestia, and those things that lived upon them. To inculcate Hierarchy in the tanar’ri he had devised another weapon, something else that demons had had forever but that he would refine. He called it Deceit, and though he did not truly invent it he believed he had perfected it.
In his many doings his brethren had looked on in awe, and some had come to learn alongside him. These he now took into his confidence, and instructed in his methods. Together they would infiltrate a corner of the Abyss comprised of eight intermingled layers, and in secret they would spread their gospel of Hierarchy. Asmodeus’ plan was that when enough of the tanar’ri had internalized their teachings of stratum and caste, duty and purpose, that they would become like solars. And with a new army, with the strength of solars and the numbers of demons spreading his Hierarchy throughout the Abyss, he would have an inevitable, absolute victory over his one time vanquishers.
But he had miscalculated. The inferiors he created were rife with acquisitiveness and ambition, their superiors with paranoia and cruelty. And though he had planned it to be used only upon demons, all of them were paragons of deceit and used it unceasingly. They were as different from solars as they were from the demons they had been. Perhaps that is why, long before he had a chance for further infection, they were all violently expelled from the Abyss, landing amidst the ruins of the layers that they had once targeted but that now formed a new place. Asmodeus was hurled out with more force than all of the others combined, shattering through the eight layers and finally coming to rest broken and battered in a ninth that accreted around him. And from there he still broods upon all of his losses, Prince of Lies, Lord of Nessus, King of the Nine Hells.
If anyone has read some of this, thank you, if you've enjoyed any of it, I am glad.
Fair warning, this is an all elf PCs game, if that turns you off turn back now.
My game takes place in a world largely influenced by Tolkien and the Forgotten Realms, with ASOIAF and Kingkiller chronicles for further inspiration. Some of the magic details are lifted from the Magicians. I wanted a world without the artificial certainty that standard D&D provides, so there are no alignments, no surefire ways to detect lies, and though there is prophesy and magic, the Gods do not make anything clear, if they exist at all. Spellcasting clerics are very rare, to the point that they might be myths. Also, there are dark skinned elves, but no drow, no Lolth and no sea elves.
Some famous NPCs
King Canem-Ka Rylintar (Kay-numb-ka Ryl-in-tar) (Canem)- Has sat the throne for over 500 years and is approaching his 900th birthday. Long ago defeated the Ogrillon Warlord Merash in single combat, thereby scattering the Fell-Merash Horde and ending the Siege of Banners. Since the death of his queen 200 years ago he has delegated more and more responsibility to his Small Council, and is now seldom seen. He is properly addresses as “Your Majesty.”
Queen Sevaralir Rylintar (Say-var-a-leer )(Vara)(nee Dae-nes) (deceased)
Sevaralir Daenes was an arcane wunderkind, youngest to be named Magi, High Magi, Magus of the Inner Circle and finally, at the age of 203, August Seer. Married to Canem for 250 years before a terrible accident destroyed the Inner Circle. Since then no new High Magi have been created and the existing ones cannot match their illustrious forebearers. Properly remembered as “Her Majesty.”
Crown Princess Feralantrith Rylintar (Fer-a-lan-trith) (Fera) Lady of Ban Fiord 372 yo Feralantrith is charming to behold, proficient in the bow, the sword, the harp, the falcon and the dance, as all quessir should be. She is also utterly without humor or guile, direct to the point of bluntness, and without a single original thought in her head. For all that she is kind, warm and compassionate. It is widely whispered that she might make a good queen, so long as she has a great council. Properly addressed as “Your Royal Highness.”
Prince Azadethtial Rylintar (Aza-deth-tial) (Za-de) 242 yo Azadethtial, called the Golden Prince, or Zade, is beloved of commoners and scorned or despaired of by the nobility. Wearing his gleaming white leather armor studded with golden medallions, bearing his shining golden blade, unmarred by scratch or burr, he carouses across the elven lands, spending lavishly, either with his retinue of wastrel friends, or unannounced and unaccompanied. A dilettante swordsman, wizard, poet and harpist he has no deeds to his name, and no fame but for his extravagance and his tendency to disappear for months or years on end on what he calls "his Adventures" but which are undoubtedly carousing far away. In a larger family he would be ignored as harmless, but as it is he is a constant shame to the Rylintar. Many who would otherwise wish her abdicated cherish Princess Feralantrith as the bulwark against Azadethtial's ascension to the throne. Properly addressed as “Your Royal Highness.”
The Small Council
Commander of the Royal Guard - Evarohrah Kenyrator (Ev-aro-ra Ken-ear-a-tor) 738 yo
Evarohrah has served in the Guard for over 600 years and commanded it for the last 280. Despite the serious nature of his work he is well thought of as compassionate and peaceable, though when he is called upon to don the golden mask of his rank he is utterly implacable. When his duties allow he often personally oversees the general populace in the sword and bow training that is every elf’s responsibility, where he is quick to laugh and gentle in his instruction.
Despite the forces at his command, Evarohrah often utilizes the services of up and coming young quessir for duties of minor import, and in so doing makes the Guard approachable and meets potential young recruits. Properly addressed as “Commander” or “my Lord,” though it is a courtesy title.
August Seer - Since the death of the Queen this seat has been empty, and this shows no signs of changing. Although there are enough High Mages remaining in the Kingdom to form a circle or, perhaps two, none match even the least of the old Royal Circle, and furthermore there is no one to train them to be better.
Admiral of his Majesty's Fleet - Nimiana Dwinaear (Nim-ee-ana Dwin-ay-ar) 375 yo
The Admiral commands all of the Crown’s warships, and in times of crisis all Elven vessels. A druid member of the Circle of the Coast, Nimiana also works to bolster the Crown’s treaties and alliances with many creatures of the Sea and Rivers such as nymphs, mermen, selkies, mermaids and dolphins. Though tense and somewhat squirrely at court, those who have served with her say she is only truly herself at sea. The Fleet often solicits updated maps of far off waterways from explorers. Properly addressed as “Admiral” or “my Lady,” though it is a courtesy title.
Master of Remembrance - Neurcion Lasslothtinu (Ner-sea-on Lass-loth-tea-new)
The Master of Remembrance is responsible for planning ceremonies for both the Court and the populace including Royal Weddings, Funerals, High Holy days, Festivals and Memorials. Often called the Master of Revels, or the Royal Planner, it is not a well regarded post despite its seat at the Small Council, being seen as frivolous. Neurcion takes his duties very seriously, and obsesses over minor details of floral arrangements, seating charts, musical arrangements and the like to distraction. The others in the council treat him with varying degrees of contempt, which he tolerates with effete superiority and exasperation. He often commissions younger quessir, likely to be awed by his title and so respectful, to run all manner of errands, including fetching rare flowers or place settings for a feast, exotic or dangerous creatures for a menagerie, or rare books or antiques to display at a salon.
Faen Ambassador - Firavelruil Kennyrmitore (Fear-avel-rue-eel Ken-ear-mit-oar-ay) (Exalted-Dark-Sword Sworn to the Moon) The current ambassador, Firavelruil Kennyrmitore is an Eladrin Knight who has served at this post for almost a century. A small contingent of Coure serve as his messengers, aids and gofers. It is his responsibility to represent the interests of the inhabitants of the Fey Wild to the court, and to advise the crown on how to best deal with them. Fiarvelruil is known to have strong seelie sympathies. Personally he is seen as surprisingly stern and humorless. Firavelruil is heir to a barony in the marches of faerie, and is thus properly addressed as “My Lord.”
Lord Ranger - Princess Iorthondis Eregnith (see locations, Quarminar) Though holding the title of princess it is functionally equivalent to a high lordship, and as such she is correctly addressed as “My Lady,” though to curry favor or be on the safe side she is often addressed simply as “Princess.”
Crown Princess - Feralantrith Rylintar Traditionally the heir to the throne sits upon the council, both to have an official avenue for adding their voice to the crown’s ear, and to better learn the ways of the crown. Feralantrith dutifully attends every meeting.
Voice of the Gods- Kethronis Arwalombas (Keth-ro-niss Are-wah-lom-bas) (Dawn’s Wind Walker, Keeper of Secrets) It is the Voice of the Gods’ responsibility to interpret and communicate the wishes of the Seldarine to the crown. Kethronis is a copper elf shaman sworn to all of the gods of the Seldarine. She is approaching her thousandth birthday. She is appropriately pious and decorous, but rumors that her placid demeanor conceals a ruthless ambition have swirled around her for centuries. Pointedly, they have never been confirmed. Voice of the Gods conveys the style “Your Eminence.”
Ambassador to the Seelie - Kyoro Freaniathem (Key-ore-oh Free-an-ee-ath-em)(Ruby-flower Friend to Dragons)The Ambassador to the Seelie is not technically a member of the council, but is often grouped with them nonetheless. Spending most of their time in the seelie court in Faerie, they officially represent Alaritaur’s interests to the Seelie while also spying on the doings of the court. Officially the People have no ties to the unseelie, but when necessity demands dealing with them, the ambassador must be the one to treat with them. This office is given to two sorts of People; those who have a strong affinity for the Fae, and those who have earned an unofficial banishment. Kyoro is the latter. Constantly agitating for the realm to involve itself in interests abroad in order to engender defensive treaties with outsiders, while proclaiming that the current defenses of the realm were insufficient, she managed to arouse some concern amongst the people, before King Canem’s court grew tired of her fear mongering. The Freaniathem is an ancient and well regarded house, tracing its origins to the Dragon wars, and so she could not be publicly chastised - instead she was sent to Faerie, ostensibly to make the allies she so desired. For 75 years she has dutifully sent her reports back to the council.
The Princes of Illikving
The citizens of Illikving style their leaders “My Prince” or My Princess,” though to outsiders they remain simply “My Lord/Lady.”
Princess Fionthel Ninganell (Fee-on-thel Nin-ga-nell)(Sister-to-hawks Tears-of-the-harp (sad song)) gold elf female 383 yo
Fionthel Ninganell is a devoted gold elf traditionalist, who makes no secret of her desire to abolish the monarchy and reinstate the Senate of old. She also has strong isolationist tendencies and would like to see the kingdom close all its ports to outsiders and severely punish any intruders. She was an influential senator before assuming her ancestral title, and the traditionalists thought she would usher in a new golden age of elven primacy with a Senate at its head, but almost the moment she became a Princess a scandal erupted when it was revealed she’d been carrying on a torrid affair with a nymph. Her husband, Gwilwilethon Cugulaer, the younger brother of Prince Sidhon Cugulaer, left her during the controversy and her political bloc crumbled. Since then she has remained staunchly traditionalist, but has seemingly abandoned any ambition of being a firebrand, instead calmly and rationally making her views known through calm debate and voting predictably. Although the controversy has died down, it is still what she is best known for to anyone not intimately familiar with the politics of Illikving.
Prince Sidhon Cugulaer (Shee-on Coo-goo-lair) (Peace Dove’s dirge) gold elf male, 442 yo
Sidhon (sometimes called the Tiger or the Raspberry) inherited his title at the young age of 79 when his father Olon’s (ooh-lon) boat capsized during a storm. For the next 75 years he was a loyal traditionalist, however, over the next century, as he began to step away from his family and their advisors in favor of his own growing coterie of assistants and allied senators he began to evince different views. He has since become known as a strong pro-royalist, who cites the words of the Great Conclave at every opportunity and who believes that in order to persist and thrive the nation must expand its borders, assimilating or eliminating any other nations on the West coast. Amongst those indifferent to politics he is best known for thumbing his nose at his family and for the portwine birthmark on the right side of his face, from which he gains his nicknames.
OTHERS
Montressor - Echadel Montressor is half legend. Supposedly, born about 2000 years ago, not much is certain about Montressor, and much of what is known may be exaggerated or apocryphal. It is said that as a small child, while at Ruafel, Montressor saw Hanali Celanil playing the harp in the moonlight. Or saw her reflected in the lake’s sky. Or saw her as the sky, composed of stars. Either way, Montressor went on to become the most famous of all instrument crafters, ever trying to create an instrument capable of creating as beautiful a scene. Or as a gift for Hanali Celanil, etc.
Everyone knows that a Montressor instrument’s worth is incalculable, a thing of beauty and a treasure of the People, but only performers themselves can truly appreciate their workmanship; it is said, by those who have been blessed enough to play one, that all other instruments seem as child’s toys, crude and brash.
Montressor made instruments for about 900 years, but sometimes took more than a year on a single piece, and many have been lost or destroyed. The fabled pipe organ at the Abbey of Moondrops in Uqa Katinka was build by Montressor over the course of more than a decade. The locations of 386 other instruments have been logged by the Master of Remembrance, along with rumors of the whereabouts of many others.
Upon her 1000th name day Montressor declared her intention of going West, there to learn from all of the previous craftsmen of the People and continue her quest to become the instrument crafter nonpareil.
Here's some fluff on some human gods I'm working on
The Old Gods
Valeria and Argent are the primary members of their pantheon, the Old Gods, who were worshipped by the humans of the West coast since time immemorial. They have largely been supplanted by the Jovians of the Old Aturan Empire, and by the Ansensei of the South Western and far Eastern humans, though their worship persists in the Northern reaches and the mountains. Forge and the Stonewardens follow the Old Gods, the cosmopolitan peoples of Seahaven largely follow the Ansensei, though they have Jovian shrines still, and shrines to many smaller gods besides.
Valeria, the sun, and Argent, the moon, were born of the Timeless Darkness. They were meant to shine light on the things of the other side of the sky, but those things were so terrible to their perfect eyes that they rebelled. Working together they made the world, Faelren, and its Vault of the Sky kept the Timeless Darkness far away, though its thousand-thousand eyes still peer at us through the night, with bitter, impotent rage. As the vault closed it away, The Darkness reached out a final time for the pair; Valeria blazed so fiercely the darkness recoiled, but it grabbed hold of Argent and has never let go. To this day he fights to escape their grip, but every time he is near to free he falters and is dragged inexorably away, only to stand up and repeat the process.
Followers of the Old Gods believe the elves are descended of an ancient race of Man, exiled by their victors after a long war, they were lost in the fae. There they wandered and suffered for generations, being twisted by the fae, until the creatures there drove them back to Faelren.
Valeria, Blazing Eye, Golden Mother, is the mother of mankind along with Flourishing Argent. She is steadfast, patient and inexorable. She has never been defeated, and the day she is permanently brought low will be the end of all life. The paramount mother, she is ever nurturing, all forgiving and above all loving. Whenever it seems that her affection is overbearing it is always because some other thing is lacking; a drought is not scorching because of the sun, it only lacks rain. The sun only burns when one lacks shade or rest.
Valeria has had many other children. Many are the lesser gods of cloud and pool, grove and glade, grain and grape. Others are the creatures of the daytime air, who act as her messengers and omens. Snakes, bears, horses and cattle are also hers. She has an ambivalent relationship with the Fae, who are not her children or her enemies, sometimes blessing them in their mysterious holdfasts, other times destroying them without mercy for trifling with her children.
Argent, the moon, is complicated. Flourishing Argent, Argent Ascendant or Argent in Triumph, is humanity’s father. He lights the world for man while his wife sleeps, protecting them from falls, predators and the wicked fae. His creatures are the hedgehog, the owl, deer, goats, the racoon and the mouse. Sometimes wise, other times foolish, sometimes a nuisance, but never dangerous. Flourishing Argent treasures his children but does not coddle them; he promises no mercy or second chances to the foolish or unlucky, nor is he always interested in them. Sometimes his light illuminates pathways and truths that are invisible by day. He is most fond of young women, though not always in a lecherous way, and he often shines on them so as to bless their suitors.
Flagging Argent, Argent Declinal, or Argent Vanquished, is being brought back to the Darkness, having exhausted himself. He is bitter and his exhaustion and shame make him spiteful. His light conceals more than it reveals, and makes the world a dangerous, more mysterious place. Thieves, hunters, predators and monsters take advantage of his indifference. His creatures are the bat, the rat, the wolf, the cat, spiders, moths, nightjars, newts, toads and frogs. Though he seems completely negligent, if not malicious, he still offers protection to his children, for on the night that he is pulled completely into the Darkness, demons, devils, wicked fae and other unholy nightkind more easily come to Faelren; from this it is deduced that it is his light that keeps them away at other times. New Moon is often called the Escape; it is a propitious time to begin a difficult, dangerous undertaking, such as marching off to battle, or actually attempting an escape. This time is only for those things that can be completed in 14 days or less; any longer and your undertaking becomes doomed. The height of the full moon is called Exultation. Dalliances, battles, contests and giving birth are all blessed during these nights.
and here is something on the cosmology of my world from before the world existed.
Always there is Chaos. Possibility unbound. Time is irrelevant to Chaos, because effects do not spring from cause. Things, places, ideas and creatures spring always from Chaos, and inevitably are subsumed back into it. However slight the possibility, persistence and entropy, the arrow of time and reification as we understand it, were birthed from the Chaos. This is the only beginning we can speak of. Before this, a vast infinity of inexplicability. After, planes, reasons and creatures that we can understand. But remember: Chaos is real, and not only of the past. It’s maddening maelstrom is far from all that we can understand, axiomatically so, but still, things of scale and magnitude beyond all comprehension swim the depths of Chaos, and occasionally, terribly, boil out.
The first persistent creatures were likely demons. Only incrementally different from what had come before them, different only in that they were slaves of consequence; action before reaction, effort before completion. In all other ways they were still of Chaos, in their variety, their destructiveness, and yes, in their occasional brilliance. One such brilliant individual, whose name is lost to the aeons, was a Fulcrum of Change. The demons made endless war upon one another, training, building up stockpiles and engines of war, only to turn on one another, splinter, reform, betray, revenge and destroy endlessly, a great millstone grinding itself to dust, only to reemerge from it’s own ruin. But this creature, this Fulcrum, in seeking his own ascendancy, crafted weapons devised to be perfectly effective against his demon brethren. He called them Solars, as their might burned like suns, and the first, most carefully created was called Asmodeus. Working together, as no creatures had been truly capable of doing before, they could destroy even the most monumental of their foes, creatures the size of mountains with minds of fire and hearts of iron. They were implacable and indefatigable, and their creation had tremendous consequences.
In the face of an insurmountable foe, something unprecedented occurred; a group of demons came together to put an end to the solar threat. They recruited more and more of their kind, with press gangs when they could, negotiation when they could not. There were more demons than solars of course; an infinite amount. Those who joined together called themselves the Tanar'ri. Cooperation was not in their nature, and they continued to fight amongst themselves. However their lords were cunning and powerful enough to curtail this to a frightening degree. Before they could strike out against their solar oppressors though there was a new development; the tanar’ri and the solars found themselves in a new place. A new realm had boiled out of Chaos and carried them all away, and they found themselves in the Abyss. Though the power of the Abyss was similar to that of Chaos its magnitude was significantly less. Infected with something new, the Abyss was stratified into comprehensible, though mutable layers. It was also more malevolent.
The outrage at these new circumstances was complete. The tanar’ri were convinced this was the doing of the solars, and their attack upon them was immediate and total. As mighty as they were, the solars were outnumbered more than 10,000:1. They held out as long as they could but finally fled as far as they could from this new Abyss. Their creator, the Fulcrum was torn into pieces smaller than the meanest crumb, and his name was erased from history.
The solars, streaking away from the abyss fled into nothingness, but after a time they all came to agree that they seemed to be going up, though up what, or in relation to what they did not know. After what might have been moments or millennia they finally stopped and looked below them. Instead of the void they had traversed they found themselves above a mountain bigger than worlds, glowing pure and cold and mighty. Above them was a sky, and in it a sun and moon and stars. All of these things had been known to arise in Chaos, but randomly and fleetingly. All around them was life unlike that which could ever have persisted in Chaos. All of it running in predictable, beautiful patterns, circles within circles, like clockwork. It was something altogether new. And they looked about and all agreed that this was the best of all possible places. They named the mountain Celestia, and lived in the clouds above it. And Order, which had emerged from Chaos so small that it was at first unnoticeable had now become an axis in the cosmos.
Though the hatred of the tanar’ri for the solars never abated, the distance between them was so vast, and the solars new home so inimical to demonkind, that their war all but ground to a halt. For their part, without their creator to give them orders, the solars were content to study the movements of celestial bodies and the minute ways of the life beneath them. There remained in them a strong antipathy for demons, but it slumbered so long as the demons were far away. Their first was the exception. Asmodeus, first of the Solars had been exquisitely tuned and shaped to war upon demons; it was his passion, and nothing more pleasant could divert his mind from thoughts of conquest. He brooded on the defeat the solars had suffered at the hands of the tanar’ri, and it galled him. He fought it over and over again in his mind, looking for some stratagem, some ruse or tactic that might have made things different. He gnashed his teeth and he took no notice of the beauties of his new home.
His comrades were concerned for him. The solar force was innately cooperative, and so they had developed compassion for one another. One brought him charts they had drawn of the movements of the stars, but their complex rhythms did not interest him. Another brought him tiny creatures from the mount, mice and cats and jewel-like birds, but their antics did not charm him. Another brought him flowers of shades both garish and subtle, with fragrances that elicited nostalgia, romance or contemplation, but Asmodeus was not moved. In frustration his brother cried “There is an infinity of beauty here, as precise and nuanced as Chaos is wild; how can it be that you do not wonder at all of it!?” And Asmodeus raised his head, and met his eyes, and for the first time since their flight he smiled.
Asmodeus threw himself into his brothers’ studies with a determination that was almost alarming. He plotted the course of the celestial bodies into tens of millions of days from that time. He observed and gathered every specimen of life he could, and when he had learned all that he could from observation he took them apart to observe their inner workings. Before he was done he could even put them back together, sometimes differently than they had been before. And he grew a garden of every green thing, and soon he could grow plants and blooms that had never been seen before, that healed the injured, grew fruits of enrapturing flavor, and others that pulsed with blood like animals, or that hunted like foxes or wolves. All this and more he did with determination and precision, but it was only in pursuit of deeper truths. For Asmodeus had woken to the idea of Law as a force opposed diametrically to Chaos, which Chaos itself had engendered and his creator had later managed to refine, distilling it into his creations that they might be the ultimate negation of Chaos. And he believed that he and his brothers’ creation had injected so much Order into Chaos that the demons were infected, such that they would band together, and finally, as two lodestones repel one another they had all been driven from Chaos, and later, on their own, the solars had given rise to Celestia.
Asmodeus knew that there had never been a chance of conquering all of the demons of Chaos. If there had been a million solars that would not be enough to subjugate only those demons that sprang from Chaos in a day. And there were far fewer of them than that.
But the Abyss was to Chaos as a candle to the sun, and though multitudinous, still the tanar’ri were not quite infinite. And Asmodeus had a plan. He had determined that he would deliberately infect the tanar’ri with Law as he and his brothers had accidentally done to the demons they had been. And the instrument he chose was called Hierarchy, an idea he had gleaned from his observations of the seven levels of Celestia, and those things that lived upon them. To inculcate Hierarchy in the tanar’ri he had devised another weapon, something else that demons had had forever but that he would refine. He called it Deceit, and though he did not truly invent it he believed he had perfected it.
In his many doings his brethren had looked on in awe, and some had come to learn alongside him. These he now took into his confidence, and instructed in his methods. Together they would infiltrate a corner of the Abyss comprised of eight intermingled layers, and in secret they would spread their gospel of Hierarchy. Asmodeus’ plan was that when enough of the tanar’ri had internalized their teachings of stratum and caste, duty and purpose, that they would become like solars. And with a new army, with the strength of solars and the numbers of demons spreading his Hierarchy throughout the Abyss, he would have an inevitable, absolute victory over his one time vanquishers.
But he had miscalculated. The inferiors he created were rife with acquisitiveness and ambition, their superiors with paranoia and cruelty. And though he had planned it to be used only upon demons, all of them were paragons of deceit and used it unceasingly. They were as different from solars as they were from the demons they had been. Perhaps that is why, long before he had a chance for further infection, they were all violently expelled from the Abyss, landing amidst the ruins of the layers that they had once targeted but that now formed a new place. Asmodeus was hurled out with more force than all of the others combined, shattering through the eight layers and finally coming to rest broken and battered in a ninth that accreted around him. And from there he still broods upon all of his losses, Prince of Lies, Lord of Nessus, King of the Nine Hells.
If anyone has read some of this, thank you, if you've enjoyed any of it, I am glad.