Divinosis Campaign Setting

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This is a campaign setting I’ve been working on and had the opportunity to play as a DM in two different campaigns.

Index

• Basic postulates/schtick
• Summary of History
• Geography
• Gods, pantheons and other powers
• Magic and the supernatural
  
• Races of the setting
• Deviations from the rules as written
• My personal list of approved content for my campaigns and setting NPCs
• So you want to make an adventurer
• Detailled Timeline
  
• Setting-Specific Races and Templates

Basic postulates/schtick

• Magic is abundant. Spellcasters create new spells as they need, and a handful of people in the world can craft epic spells. With proper skill and funding, magic can do anything and that includes changing race using the rules from Savage Species.
• Deities are actively involved in politics and many demigods live on the material plane.
• The rest works more or less as it should. The GM interprets the rules as if they were self-consistent, which rules out: drown-healing, kobolds taking epic feats, monks using the fighter bonus feats ACF for feats they don’t qualify for, shuffling elf proficiencies, stacking contingencies, traps that don’t target creatures, etc. Optimized builds are possible within the rules as intended.

In this campaign setting, anything that a player can do in D&D can also be done by NPC (as individuals). Many NPC achieved epic levels, divine ranks and so on. The setting more or less acknowledges three degrees of power:

• The vast majority are ordinary mortal people. They possess no divine rank and cannot exceed level 20.
• Epic-level characters with no divine rank. They are the great heroes or villains of history, legends and fairy tales. Some of them killed gods. In-universe, leveling up higher than level 20 has additional requirements than experience points.
• People with divine ranks, or gods. In this setting, most gods are symbiotically linked to their worshippers by granting divine magic in exchange for worship. They have a portfolio (eg. love) and an extrasensory perception of its important events, but their power level is on the weak end of what is described in Deities & Demigods. Since their divine abilities make most fights superfluous, they don’t gain xp. They don't have utter mastery of their portfolio: it's possible to win a war against a god of war, and mortal scholars are not entirely sure why.

Some entities fall out of these categories: Elder Evils, paragons, vestiges, etc. Oral traditions mention a God above gods ("the Great Unknown"), but some people jokingly reply that the Great Unknown could have its god too.

Summary of History
The history of the world unfolded in three ages:

• First age (prehistory): a civilization of gods (the Saromeans) lived on the Material Plane. As their power grew, they became more ambitious. A god created humans and bestowed on them the gift of Determination. Three other gods created dwarves, elves and gnomes with the gift of Pride. This is the age when dragons came to this setting from another plane. The Great Unknown intervened exactly twice in history: first to create the Saromeans, then to create eleven Elder Evils who killed the Saromeans. None of the gods were left alive, but the mortal races were.
• Second age (tribal history): the blood of dead Saromeans transformed the ecosystem, and allowed some mortals to achieve epic levels or godhood. The gods of this age fed on the worship of mortals and sought to increase the availability of their sustenance. To this end, they built great cities and created many new races, such as goblins and orcs. This is the longest period of history and the period when the ancestors of modern halflings travelled here from another plane.
• Third age (imperial history): this is the age when tribalism began to be regarded as primitive. New rulers calling themselves emperors claim authority over the whole world. A new pantheon emerged whose members don’t need worship to sustain their divinity. The campaign setting is more developed around the year 1,023 of the third age.

Each age is characterized by a different source of divine power. Divination magic reveals that there will be a fourth age soon, though the exact time of the change is unknown. A few races claim to come from the sixty-sixth age, as does the demon prince Cyrus, but they claim that all stars in the sky will have died out.

Geography
The main continent is very linear and reaches from the north pole to the south pole, both of which are inhabited. From north to south, the main territories are the Empire of Jade, the Lower North Empire, the Empire of the First Plains, the Stone Empire and Iron Empire, Irtub’s Empire, the Southern Cross, the Valley of the Gods, the Wet Lands, the Republic of Abraxis, and the Wendigo Kingdom. Five of these places are trading partners in a coalition called the Union. Irtub’s Empire is the most recent member.

The Empire of Jade (known as Empire of Torper by outsiders who don’t know better) is located on the geographic north pole (though it isn’t cold) and mostly inhabited by humans with epicanthic folds. The emperor or empress is the Child of Heavens served by an army of eunuchs and twelve major clans (some of which are based on the Legend of the Five Rings clans). The imperial families and the samurai caste speak secret languages that are not allowed to be taught to peasants and outsiders. In general, the upper class respects divine spellcasters, is neutral toward psionic characters and looks down upon arcane spellcasters: many clans consider wizards to practice "foreigner magic" and the wu jen tradition is considered a remnant of tribal practices from the second age. After many centuries of isolationism, the empire recently conquered four of its neighbors: the Ivory Kingdom, the Naga Kingdom, the Panda Island, and the Vanara Forest. These vassal states are allowed some degree of trade with the Lower North Empire, but black powder and "dark magic" are forbidden both in the mainland and the vassal states. The Empire of Jade connects to the Lower North Empire through many chains of islands and a single land route (so small as to be omitted from most maps). On the opposite end of the Empire of Jade, the Unbowed Tribes (yobanjin) live as independent entities, yet to be vassalized or conquered. Many in the First Plains refer to the Empire of Jade’s capital as Torper and to its emperor as Tobit Paugée; most inhabitants in the Empire of Jade are not familiar with these names.

The Lower North Empire is a vast coastal realm made of a peninsula and many isles. It has a temperate climate and trades with many underwater realms. This empire has sizable elvish, human, lizardfolk, minotaur and orcish populations. It is a member of the Union. Neighbors include an independent yak-folk kingdom and some enclaved vasharan city-states.

The Empire of the First Plains has a temperate climate and a fertile ground for agriculture. Most of its territory is occupied by a gigantic mixed forest. At the height of the Saromean empire, its great cities were located in the First Plains. This is also where humans, gnomes, elves and dwarves were created, although dwarves and gnomes moved south in the first age and never returned to the north. This empire is a member of the Union.

The Stone Empire is a realm where dwarves make up the majority of the population. Its citizens are xenophobic, selfish, and greedy. They enjoy fortresses, magma traps, and levers. Their traditional attire is the great kilt. The empire spans the western half of White Mount, a gigantic mountain. It is a member of the Union.

The Iron Empire is a realm where gnomes make up the majority of the population. The empire controls the eastern half of White Mount. It is famous for its culinary arts, gunpowder, and siege engines. It allegedly abolished private property and social classes, but remains a member of the Union.

Irtub’s Empire is a landlocked desert realm ruled by a divine maharajah. When a new maharajah is crowned, they change their name to Irtub, which is also the name of the Empire’s main god. The desert that Irtub’s Empire controls is dubbed the Great Desert and passes through the equator. The north side of Irtub’s Empire borders the White Mount, the west side borders the dwarvish khaganate, the east side borders the elvish khaganate and the south side borders the Southern Cross. In the year 1,012 of the third age, Irtub’s Empire made a lasting peace deal with the Union. In 1,023, many would consider it a de facto member, though it has its own coinage.

The Southern Cross is the region that separates Irtub’s Empire from the Valley of the Gods. This place is the homeland of crucians (a race of turtle-men) and is also inhabited by some sphinxes

The Valley of the Gods is a desert realm populated by many clans and tribes of monstrous humanoids. Braxats, gnolls, harpies, harssaf, kreen, lamia, medusas, scorpionfolk, ssurans and wemics can be found here. During the first age, this valley was the place where the Great Unknown created the Saromeans, and the place where dragons breached into the material plane from the Plane of Shadow. In the third age, some of the regional clans and tribes formed a group called the Western Confederacy. As of 1,023, the Western Confederacy’s members includes the majority of harssaf clans on the plane and a few tohr-kreen tribes.

The Wet Lands are a region consisting of prairies, lakes, deserts and badlands. Some of the lakes are rather large. Inhabitants of the Wet Lands include firbolg, sharakim and southern vasharan. The Western Confederacy has been scouting the Wet Lands since the 990’s with zik-trin’ak warriors and zik-trin’ta scouts.

The Republic of Abraxis is a wealthy realm that extends from the steppes just south of the Wet Lands’ southernmost lake to the frozen plateau where the south pole is located. Thus, the Republic of Abraxis is at the geographic antipode from the Empire of Jade. To the west of the Republic, just outside its zone of control, there is a second plateau topped by a hot spring called Monkeys’ Lake. The heat from the spring made the Monkeys’ Lake’s plateau warm enough for a small tropical forest. Many tropical primates live around Monkeys’ Lake, such as blood apes and cloaked apes. About two months of travel to the west of the Monkeys’ Lake, there is an unnamed temperate forest inhabited by dinosaurs and pterrans.

North of the south pole, but in the other direction than most of the continent, the Wendigo Kingdom is an unforgiving frozen tundra that never trades with other realms. Only feys and troglodytes are extended the courtesy of a visit; explorers of other races have never seen this place with their own eyes, but some have tried divination magic with worrying results. Rumors talk of hovering humanoids with burnt stumps where their feet should be, men and women who shed their skin to reveal animalistic forms, vampiric troglodytes whose horrible stink causes deadly diseases, and worse.

Gods, pantheons and other powers
The major powers of the world are as follows:

• Ambul’s Pantheon: This pantheon has three goddesses and over four male gods. Ambul (LN) became the first deity of the third age as goddess of life and death. The Guardian (N) is a goddess of meteorology and luck from the second age. Other gods are Ambul’s children: Prage (LE, god of sex), Bulessia (NG, goddess of change), Sabiel (LG, god of nobility), Fabio (LN, god of heavy artillery), Goiregrin (CN, god of theater and poetry), and others. Ambul and her children are spellfire wielders.
• Galar’s Pantheon: This pantheon has merely three gods: Galar (N, god of epic levels and seals) who is a retired elder evil, Hullatoine (LE, undead god of the sun), and Xin (N, undead god of children). Hullatoine and Xin are sons of Ambul but were not part of Ambul’s pantheon because they were not born with divinity, though they are still spellfire wielders. A solar goddess and a lunar god were also part of Galar’s pantheon but are rumored to be dead; they were credited with teaching truename magic to mortals.
• Irtub’s Pantheon: This pantheon has five gods: Irtub (LN, god of selfishness) who may be a former vestige, three hagunemnon goddesses of pact magic known as Rashema (N), Rua (CN) and Rysa (CN), and Avalen (LN, god of war), the latter of which is actually an anaxim.
• Empire of Jade’s Pantheon: largely the same as the Rokugani pantheon after Daigotsu ascended as Champion of Jigoku. The main gods are the Ten Kami, the Seven Gods of Fortune and the elemental dragons. The elemental dragons include a Jade Dragon (secretly a benevolent aspect of Hullatoine) and an Obsidian Dragon (LN, secretly a herald of the former).
• The Five Emperors: the Five Emperors are the sons and daughters of Sabiel (son of Ambul), and four of them are confirmed spellfire wielders. They are quasi-deities and can't die of old age themselves. Their descendants (house Paugée) did not inherit divine powers, but some are spellfire wielders.
• The Forty-Two Planar Paragons: the planar paragons are 42 rulers from Amanauris. Planar paragon is a title; it does not denote the paragon template, though some possess the template. With some exceptions, they each rule over a different race (such as air elementals, angels, or yugoloths). Planar paragons have the power to grant divine spells if they choose to. Among these 42 rulers, noteworthy planar paragons include Abaddon (CE, fallen solar with an army of demons), Black Death (LE, devil lord of slaughters), Cyrus (CE, demon prince of time and allegedly a dragon), Dorac the Archangel (LG, lesser god of angels), Pizna (CE, princess of succubi), Sotla (NE, humanoid necromancer), Uriel the Dark Archon (LG, throne archon lord), and Us (NG, humanoid abjurer and sworn enemy of Sotla).
• The Twelve Founders: Legendland, the first city of the second age, was built on the ruins of the Saromean empire’s capital. In folklore, the energies of this place are said to have attracted the twelve greatest men and women of history, and their thousands of followers. Many people consider the Twelve Founders a myth, a metaphor for achieving impossible perfection in a craft. But myth or not, Legendland is a real city. Soldiers who guard the city gates don’t allow foreigners within its walls (entry is technically allowed at a fee but the fee is so high that it dissuades all visitors) and don’t discuss the inner workings of the city. Outside of the city, there is a trading centre which doubles as a pilgrimage site. Many leylines converge on Legendland, and every year its youth travel the world as a rite of passage, but the city is guarded against divination and teleportation.
• Other powers: other important powers include Barduk Aether (CN, non-deity who can shape myths into reality), the Dweller at the Threshold (N, vestige), Seth (LG, dead god of good), Tostan (NE, leader of an Athar/ur-priest cult) who is the only currently mortal son of Ambul, and Xeral-Tabec (N, dead god of war, son of another dead god named Lucius).

Magic and the supernatural
The inhabitants of this campaign setting have access to many sources of unnatural abilities. These sources vary from the magical (handled by the Spellcraft skill) to the non-magical (such as psionics).
These sources of magic have at least a few users:

• Arcane magic: magic that channels creative energies. The bottom of both oceans has gates that connect to the plane of Amanauris. Raw liquid magic enters the material plane through these oceanic gates and permeates the ecosystem. To regain their daily allotment of spells, an arcane spellcaster must typically rest 8 hours to accumulate enough liquid magic for their spells. Ambient magic "snowballs" whenever a spell is cast. Places with no ecosystem may develop into dead magic zones, where no spell can be prepared or cast and where accessing other planes becomes nigh-impossible (entering a zone does not discharge spell slots or prepared spells, but they become unusable from lack of energy).
• Chaos magic: this is a lost tradition that never achieved significance. This form of magic shouldn’t exist according to classical theories and most scholars still doubt its existence. In the first age, one vasharan woman discovered chaos magic. It consumed her, but she had the time to teach her discovery to an elf ur-priest. Chaos magic was passed through the ages but there were never more than ten practitioners in the world at any given time. Those who follow this path risk no less than their immortal soul. A few chaos mages in the third age believe that the Multiverse and the souls were themselves provoked by chaos magic. As all chaos spells are temporary, these chaos mages believe that a soul lost to chaos magic merely reverted to its original inert state. They believe that other souls are also destined to be temporary.
• Divine magic: the magic of faith. Some claim that everyone possesses a window to their soul on Anima (the setting’s version of the astral plane). When someone dies, this is the window by which the soul leaves the body and enters Anima. The window of a living person cannot be interacted with, but is what divine spellcasters use to regain their spells. If a divine spellcaster has a patron god, their divine magic comes from their god (the window to the god's soul emits raw divine energy that reaches the window to the worshipper’s soul). The patron deity discloses divine spells for the caster to choose from, and provides divine energy to cast them (archivists only receive divine energy). A deity can grant less than a daily allotment of spells, or even refuse to grant any spell to a worshipper, but cannot revoke a spell that has already been granted. Some divine spellcasters worship many gods. In this case, each patron deity decides on their own terms if the spellcaster is worth the investment. Divine spellcasters who worship no god in particular instead draw on the ambient energies of Anima. They answer to no one for their divine spells, but need a general description of the spells they wish to prepare. All divine magic requires an access to Anima (the astral plane) to draw divine energy, and enough raw magic in the environment to "snowball" the effect. Dead magic zones prevent divine magic, just as they prevent arcane magic.
• Incarnum: this is the magic of souls. No pronounciation or waiving of hand is required to use it, because souls communicate empathically. A meldshaper draws souls from the Bastion of Soul and binds them to their body, producing what the common folk nickname heavy magic (from the incorrect assumption that soulmelds have a weight). A meldshaper retains their soulmelds in a naturally-occuring dead magic zone (not in an antimagic field), but cannot meld new soulmelds in these places since dead magic zones restrict access to other planes.
• Infusions: infusions (such as those possessed by an artificer) function like arcane magic, and typically require 8 hours of rest as well. Infusions don’t work in dead magic zones.
• Pact magic: two traditions of pact magic are known, but both involve binding entities outside of the Multiverse as we know it. One tradition binds vestiges; the other tradition binds spirits. Unlike soulmelds, vestiges and spirits constantly draw energy from their surroundings and a binder loses all granted abilities in a dead magic zone (though they don’t lose the pact early). Pacts cannot be performed there, either.
• Shadow magic: a lesser-known form of magic (most characters aren't actually aware that there is a Plane of Shadow). This category is similar to arcane magic, but distinct. A shadowcaster's shadow becomes like an organ to them. When the shadowcaster rests for 8 hours, their shadow draws liquid magic from the Plane of Shadow. On the Material Plane (or any plane coexistent with the Plane of Shadow), shadow magic works even in a dead magic zone unless the zone exists on both planes. On the Plane of Shadow (and non-coexistent planes that connect to the Plane of Shadow indirectly), shadow magic works like arcane magic and requires ambient magic. Shadow magic doesn't work on planes that are fully cut off from the rest of the planes, but few planes really are.
• Shadow Weave magic: unlike Abeir-Toril, the setting contains enough magic in its ecosystem to cast spells without a Weave or Shadow Weave, so the notion of "Shadow Weave" magic seems strange. Instead, the feat "Shadow Weave magic" is refluffed as a Goju secret lore to weave the power of Nothing into their magic. Coincidentally, this magic is compatible with magic drawn from the Shadow Weave on Abeir-Toril. This is not to be confused with shadow magic, which draws from the Plane of Shadow.
• Spellfire: raw liquid magic, unshaped by spells and components. While all arcane and divine spellcasters need liquid magic to fuel their spells, it takes a special gift to wield its pure form, spellfire. This gift is inheritable; according to folk beliefs, it indicates descent from the First Lich, whose name (Vralroth) is almost forgotten. Some members of house Paugée wield spellfire while others don’t (the probability seems to be affected by birth order). While the Paugée were not the only family to wield spellfire, this gift is unheard of in non-noble families.
• Truename magic: an ancient type of magic (rediscovered by two gods in the second age) which does not draw energy from anywhere and does not connect to other planes. On one hand, it ignores natural dead magic zones (but not antimagic fields). On the other hand, truename magic is considered a silly tradition because it requires a lifetime of study to master and the results are not as impressive as other forms of magic. Worshippers of Seth (a dead god), nezumi shamans and allegedly the Kolat cling to truename magic and keep this old tradition alive from master to apprentice (truespeak cannot be self-learned).

These unnatural abilities are not considered "magical" (they are not handled by the Spellcraft skill). They work in natural dead magic zones, but not in antimagic fields:

• Life sensitivity: one person in a million is sensitive to the flows of positive energy that permeate the Multiverse. These people use their life force to produce effects broadly similar to psionics: extrasensory perception, lightning, telekinesis, etc. In life-sensitive people, their vital energy becomes influenced by their emotions. As a creative force, positive energy is difficult but powerful. Anger and hatred sway positive energy into a destructive force, which wrecks the user’s own body.
• Mutant abilities: a few mythical heroes were born with a strange power that draws from their own body (but not their vital energy). Mutant abilities don't fit in the other categories and tend to be accompanied by a deformity or two. Mutant heroes outperform their non-mutant peers in non-magical prowesses, and develop many strange abilities, but always lack talent for proper magic or psionics. Mutants have no conscious control over which abilities will develop, and cannot teach non-mutants to become mutants.
• Psionics: the power of the mind. This power source is considered just as versatile as magic (due to psionic artificers and spell-to-power erudites). Standard magic/psionic transparency tends to apply (counterspells, dispels and psionic/spell resistance are interchangeable). Powers that interact with power points and powers known (Apopsi, Assimilate, Metaconcert, Psychic Surgery, etc.) don't affect spellcasters. Also, a dead magic zone is not necessarily a dead psionic zone although they tend to overlap.
• Sublime Way: during the early years of the second age, dwarves, elves and gnomes each created three schools of martial arts which became collectively known as the Nine Swords. Their proud and pragmatic cultures value flashy combat maneuvers to perform from memory, in contrast to humans’ preference for combat styles which allow more flexibility. Exchange of maneuvers and styles between individuals of different races was encouraged by two human gods, Lucius and his son Xeral-Tabec. Nowadays, previous racial preferences were relegated to tendencies: there are many human warblades, and many elvish fighters.
• Subpsionics: the power of the subconscious mind. Many Saromeans of the first age had psionic abilities. While this divine race was incapable of feeling positive emotions, they could feel fear, and felt it when they realized that their extinction was coming. Their death did not fully disperse their psionic energy as the elder evils had hoped. Unlike regular manifesters who draw power from their own conscious mind, subpsionic manifesters use their subconscious mind to draw power from the Saromeans’ primal fear and anger toward their creator and toward the elder evils. The vasharans were the mortal race closest to Saromeans and the first mortals to develop subpsionics. Despite their resentment for other races, vasharans could only keep subpsionics a racial secret for a couple generations. By the end of the second age, any race could learn subpsionics (although few would willingly tap into the nightmares of dead gods as a source of power).
• Void: often considered a fifth element, Void (or Akasha) is that which holds elements together. A few races are intimately tied to the Void and have the power to change their own fate through Determination. These races, that is to say "osroth" humans, kitsu, and Shinomen nagas, are the races of the Void. Some other races, such as most feys, require the Void in order to exist but do not hold the power to control it. They are races from the Void.

These things are abilities, items or cosmological assumptions of the setting:

• Alchemy: this is the science of understanding, deconstructing and reconstructing matter. Most forms of alchemy create items (mundane or magical) or modify creatures. Common forms of alchemy include the Craft (alchemy) skill, potion-brewing, or life-shaping.
• Alignment: even commoners of simple mind know that chaos and law, good and evil objectively exist. Detecting people’s alignment is one of the first tricks taught to young divine spellcasters. Having a chaotic or evil aura is considered shameful in many and most cultures respectively, so many characters follow moral guidelines to stop themselves from being outright chaotic or evil. The Multiverse seems to keep track of a person’s true alignment even if they perform actions in a dead magic zone or ward themselves against Divination. It appears that souls retain their alignment even after death. Outsiders from Amanauris can almost only harvest souls sharing the same alignment as them, and this is part of their ecosystem. Other souls can only be taken with restrictions (usually the soul’s consent prior to death).
• Astrology: for aeons, many scholars studied the pattern of stars in the sky. The position of the stars at the time of someone’s birth can reveal their personal truename and other information. By studying the stars, some astrologers can predict the birth of a person with specific birthmarks (see below). Stars and constellations are also associated with a number of spells, though no unified theory can fully explain the mysteries of astrology.
• Birthmarks: most birthmarks are ordinary and meaningless, though some citizens of the Stone Empire are born with strange birthmarks that grant magical powers. This phenomenon may be related to a local overuse of magic seals, because magical birthmarks are very rare elsewhere. Some astrologers can predict the occurence of specific birthmarks, magical or not.
• Blood magic: trace amounts of raw liquid magic can be found anywhere in the ecosystem. In the second age, some mortal tribes learned to draw arcane magic from blood. This ability might have been discovered by vasharans first but it soon passed to other races. The group most gifted at blood magic was the Isawa tribe, which existed prior to the Empire of Jade. Blood magic always had an affinity with the taint of evil (see Taint, below), but the Isawa tribe was protected by the power of seven demigods (the Seven Gods of Fortune). After the Empire of Jade was founded, the Seven Gods of Fortune stretched their power over too large an area. For a thousand years, blood magic (maho) was reviled because it tainted its users (see Taint, below). There are also weaker but safer forms of blood magic.
• Crossbreeding: wizards (and wizard class variants) with access to the transmutation school can use rituals to merge two or more creatures (potentially including themselves) into a hybrid creatures with traits from each progenitors (unlike alchemy, which modifies one creature at a time). Hybrids with the same racial traits breed true. When a crossbreeding ritual is performed on progenitors that cannot mate without magic (such as owls and bears), the hybrid is a new species and cannot mate with its progenitors.
• Earthblood: many gods of the second age died from being deprived of worshippers. Their blood produced bloodnodes and earthflows. A few gods also produce a bloodnode after suffering a major injury, even if they survive. These places could overlap with a dead magic zone in rare cases.
• Elder Evils: near the end of the first age, the God above gods created eleven elder evils. Their task was to kill the Saromeans. When they were finished, each turned to their own purposes. The elder evil Galar became a deity, others slept until they would be needed again, and others yet plan to end the Saromean legacy forever by killing the gods of the second and third age. They do not hate mortal races but still have no desire to protect them (except Korozales, who sought to protect her mortal lover until his betrayal). There are also other elder evils not created by the God above gods, and which do hate mortals.
• Elements: the elements are believed to be the primal forces of magic. At the beginning of the second age, mortal races other than dragons adopted a system of five magical elements (Air, Fire, Metal, Water and Wood). This was an accepted tradition until plane-travelling halflings imported a new system of four magical elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water). The Empire of Jade adopted the halfling elements and added Void and Taint as the fifth and sixth elements, respectively. Alchemists believe that the magical elements represent the "pure forms" of matter (solid, liquid, gas, etc.), but that matter is composed of "pure substances" such as specific metals. There is a global undertaking to discover the pure substances and rank them by melting point and density.
• Energies: during the first age, dragons believed in a confusing taxonomy of magic based on colors. Dragons have a broader visible spectrum than humans so the name of some colors is untranslatable from draconic. After interacting with Saromeans for thousands of years and witnessing the rise of humanity, dragons reconsidered their old taxonomy. Since the second age, they believe in five primal energies (acid, cold, electricity, fire and sound), working together to create all arcane magic.
• Familiars: to the common folk, a familiar is the first thing (short of casting spells) that indicates that someone is an arcane caster. Indeed, many arcane casters develop an empathic link with a wild animal, and from then on it becomes their familiar. The exchange of raw magic between master and familiar provides the former with physical qualities and the latter with a sapient mind. Some casters learn this ability later in life, while others (such as most dragons) apparently never do. Familiars are an unconscious display of arcane magic, far from the sophistication of arcane spells. Even some warlocks have a familiar despite their inability to cast proper spells.
• Fate and luck: commoners believe in fate and luck to an extent: they think some parts of the future are predetermined and other parts whimsical. They also hope to benefit from that whimsicality. Some spells seem to predict the future, but these predictions are often incomplete if not outright mistaken. Some people believe that the future and past are distinct from the present, and would describe them almost as places. Notably, Cyrus the demon prince of time issued propaganda claiming that he is a time-traveller from the sixty-sixth age. This was long believed to be an outrageous lie until giths and mind flayers emerged in the third age and gave credence to Cyrus’s claims.
• Leylines and nodes: when liquid magic crosses the ecosystem, it does so in an ordered fashion. Flows of liquid magic form leylines, and pools of magic provoke earth nodes, evil nodes and sometimes shadow nodes (shadow nodes only appear in areas where shadow weave magic is used). A leyline or node may never be a dead magic zone (but may be a dead psionic zone). These nodes are not related to bloodnodes created by earthblood, though their area can overlap.
• Paragons: a paragon is an individual who exemplifies the best qualities of his species. Some are people who take levels in a paragon class, while others possess the paragon template (either obtaining it as an adult or inheriting it from two paragon parents). A few times in history, a great hero was born with the paragon template from two normal parents. While alive, this bloodline founder passes on the paragon template to all descendants. When the bloodline founder dies, further descendants cease to inherit the template. As of the third age, the last recorded bloodline founder was Urmul Naazghul from the Empire of Jade. Naazghul was the third child of the samurai Urmul and a part-dragon mother.
• Planes: the people of this setting generally know three planes: Divinosis (a material plane), Anima (an astral plane not connected to the Great Wheel) and Amanauris (a plane that provides raw liquid magic and is inhabited by many races of elementals and outsiders). A few scholars are aware that Divinosis is coexistent and coterminous with Ethera (an ethereal plane) and the Plane of Shadow, both of which connect with other cosmologies. The Empire of Jade knows a few other planes (which they call spirit realms) that lie beyond the ethereal plane, including a plane of dream. Finally, Divinosis connects to many demiplanes which can only be accessed by specific locations and which to date remain largely unexplored by mortals: Akar (an endless sea); the Century Cubes (Extra-dimensional World of 1001 Century Cubes, home to Irtub’s pantheon and allegedly to the Great Unknown); the City of 14119 retainers (home to Ambul’s pantheon); Jeremy’s 4th-dimensional Dumpsite (home to Galar’s pantheon as of the third age); and possibly others. There are also countless regular demiplanes which can be accessed from any location, of course.
• Seals: some two-dimensional forms can store and release liquid magic. Many of these forms are known, and both traditions of pact magic require seals to function. Wizards, wu jen and archivists also use seals to write down their spells. Other seals are the result of an active spell (like symbol of death) and others yet place magical enhancements on items without requiring experience points or spellcasting knowledge. Each arcane caster also knows one seal unique to them known as their wizen sigil (idea taken from Of Sages and Sorcerers by Alfred E. Bonnabel IV). The caster can perfectly scribe their wizen sigil, and other characters can attempt to copy it with a Forgery check. A caster has a 5% chance by (real, not effective) caster level to receive a mental ping when their wizen sigil is used by someone else, but they do not automatically know where or by whom.
• Sethite magic: this ability is reserved to some divine casters with Seth (LG dead god of good) as their patron deity. It replaces their ability to prepare or cast divine spells. Instead, they can produce spell-like effects on the fly using divine energy (which has a chance of failure). Sethite magic is quite rare, even for the clerics of Seth. (Note: I didn’t write a full subsystem yet. It’s only a plot device for now.)
• Souls and afterlife: Souls normally have three possible states: their mortal form, the outsider (or petitioner) form they adopt after the death of their mortal form, or dormancy (when both forms are dead or don’t yet exist). When a mortal dies, their inert soul passes to Anima within a few rounds (see Planes, above). At best, a greater god will notice the soul of a faithful worshipper and make them a petitioner who retains partial memories (but not the experience) of their former life. Other strong-willed souls refuse to accept their death and manage to return as free-willed undead or deathless. But it is more likely that the soul will not be reclaimed and will linger on Anima for many years. Outsiders from Amanauris can harvest lost souls of their alignment to make more of their kind. These souls turned outsiders retain only the alignment and personality of their mortal existence, but not memory or experience. The mortal form may still be resurrected if the soul agrees to it, but this kills the outsider form (resurrecting a dead outsider kills their mortal form too, if applicable). The choice to be resurrected depends on the soul's personality and which form it "prefers". When making that choice, the soul compares the memories of the mortal and outsider forms; but these forms have distinct memories for all other purposes. Animating an undead functions as a forced resurrection: the soul is forcefully pulled from whichever form it occupies (killing that form) and trapped in its undead state (a process akin to slavery). Until that undead is destroyed, the other form cannot be resurrected. Every so often, a young outsider from Amanauris dies because a necromancer animates a skeleton or other undead. As a security measure, older outsiders don’t attempt to discover their mortal identity, in case this knowledge falls in their enemies’ hands.
• Spells, incantations and invocations: the most common form of magic is spellcasting. A spell can be thought of as a device which uses raw magic or divine energy as its fuel. Arcane spellcasters accumulate raw magic when they sleep and divine spellcasters accumulate divine energy when they pray. After accumulating, prepared casters visualize the seal for each spell and fuel each of them with raw magic or divine energy as appropriate. Spontaneous casters have the seals imprinted in their body and mind, so they fuel their spells at the time of casting. At the moment of casting, a spell reveals its verbal and somatic components (mantras and hand seals) as sudden fits of inspiration. Therefore, spell components are instructed by the spell and only serve as catalysts for the spell’s effect; spellcasters can learn to avoid some of them. Though the actual hand seals do not change, divine spells (using divine energy) only need an approximate rendering of them and arcane spells (using raw magic) need a precise rendering, which explains arcane spell failure chance. Incantations are similar to spells but far simpler to use: accumulation, visualization and casting are performed at the same time. Both spells and incantations can be scribed down (as seals) and taught to others. Invocations combine the accumulation and casting phases but have no visualization phase, because there are no seals for them. Instead, invocations are grafted on the caster’s soul by another entity (such as a dragon, fiend, or fey lord). This makes invocations impossible to write down.
• Taint: the taint of evil is an infection of the body and soul which manifests itself as corruption and depravity. In the Empire of Jade, taint has existed in some form for a thousand years and is considered a sixth element (albeit one which should be avoided). But the true nature of taint is as a spiritual link with evil-aligned planes. Taint is gained from interacting with tainted items or places, using taint abilities, casting or being targeted by a maho spell (see Blood magic, above), or failing a binding check with a spirit (but not with a vestige). Of course, most evil characters do not become tainted. Despite also connecting to evil planes, corrupt spells and spells with the Evil descriptor do not have the correct composure to provoke taint (ie. they lack a blood component). Monsters with the Evil or Shadowlands subtype have an innate taint score and do not accrue taint; this is also the case for undead from an evil race (such as ghouls or zombies), whether or not the individual is evil. They have no symptoms and thus no extra feats. Undead from a good or neutral race (such as ghosts) begin play with no taint score and suffer the normal consequences for accruing taint. Unique undead (like liches) use their alignment at creation.
• Technology: in d20 modern terms, most cultures of the third age are progress level 2 (middle age). The Empire of Jade, the Iron Empire and the Republic of Abraxis are progress level 3 (age of reason). Cutting-edge technology from these places, while extremely expensive, could reach progress level 4 (industrial age). The first age varied between progress level 0 and 1 but never developed metallurgy, while the second age varied between 1 and 2. Many anomalies exist but their workings are lost: Dantalion’s empire in the second age was progress level 4, a few extraterrestrial civilizations are progress level 6 (fusion age), and some illithid artifacts appear to be progress level 9 (age of singularity). Occasionally, advanced devices can be magical (eg. +1 musket) but they are no more or less likely to be than other devices. So this is not a magitech setting. The availability of magic significantly reduces the necessity for advanced technology.
• Utterances and recitations: truenamers produce effects by speaking directly to the Multiverse, using the true name of things. Sadly, the intricacies of Truespeak make the language hard to pronounce and impossible to write down, because Truespeak was never intended for mortals. Therefore, all utterances and recitations must be spoken from memory (or through magic items that can speak). Mute characters cannot speak utterances or recitations.

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Races of the setting
The Divinosis campaign setting takes for granted that monstrous races are available for player characters. This summarizes some of the scholarly information and commoner opinions about the d20 system’s standard types and subtypes.

• Aberrations: aboleths are the first aberrations and claim to have observed the Saromeans in the first age. Many aberrations are related to aboleths in some way (chuuls, mind flayers, otyughs, etc.) and some are caused by supernatural mutations (elans, gelatinous creatures, etc.). Aberrations almost never integrate with humanoid society, unless they can pass for humanoids (like elans).
• Animals, magical beasts and vermins: these creatures exist in every biome and are extremely varied. Some biomes, such as the forest west of the Monkey Lake, even have dinosaurs. In humanoid settlements, intelligent creatures such as magical beasts and awakened animals can be recognized as persons, but their ability to work for a living is limited if they lack prehensile hands, speech or both. Circuses, druidic circles and farms are the most likely places to hire quadrupeds.
• Constructs: they are created when a spellcaster binds a soul to an artificial body. Many constructs are mindless and expensive to create. For a noble, it is a great honor to earn a golem’s protection as a gift from a trusted spellcaster. A few constructs are intelligent, such as the warforged. They are relatively rare and tend to come from the higher classes, so usually they do not compete with the living for jobs.
• Dragons: dragons are counted as mortals, but they weren’t created by any known god. They wield incredible control over arcane magic and live for centuries, though many dragons will readily renounce the former to participate in the Great Game (a challenge by proxy to seduce mates by proving the superiority of their champions). They regard the Great Game as a playful rivalry. There is usually no serious enmity between dragons, because the world is vast and their kind is way past its former glory. Physiologically, true dragons have a greater body-to-limb proportion than humanoids, their tail makes up between half and two-thirds of their full length, their wings are larger than their back, they are facultative bipeds (stand on two legs, run on four limbs), and their two clawed hands are fully prehensile. All true dragons are warm-blooded, but most other dragons are not.
• Elementals and extraplanar outsiders: the majority of these creatures come from Amanauris, but some can be encountered on the material plane. The Empire of the First Plains used to hire devil mercenaries. Irtub’s Empire employs demons and genies for slave labor. The Republic of Abraxis is populated by savage ice elementals and allows intelligent elementals to apply for citizenship (including elemental-type creatures like immoths). The Stone Empire often encounters earth or magma elementals when digging underground; these poor elementals are usually trapped for dwarfy purposes when not killed on sight. Some elementals could pass for a construct or outsider to uneducated observers.
• Feys: when three Saromeans created dwarves, elves and gnomes, they based them on the dragon accounts of two mythical races: eladrins and leShay. At first, feys were figments of dwarvish, elvish and gnomish imagination. When these tales were taught to human children, feys became more real, and by the middle of the second age they were real enough to appear on the material plane. While their genesis was a mystery at the time, the cause was human children’s ability to create forms from nothing by subconsciously applying the Void to their imagination.
• Giants: true giants were created by dwarvish gods of the second age. They have the appearance of tall dwarves and possess magical powers. In truth, dwarvish gods did not base giants on dwarves alone but also on a far older outsider race: the titans.Some creatures of the giant type are not considered true giant, but "giant kins", such as firbolgs (from the Iron Empire and Wet Lands), fomorians (from the Iron Empire and Stone Empire), ogres (from the Empire of Jade and Lower North Empire), taer (from the south pole), trolls (from the Stone Empire), and non-fiendish oni (from the Vanara Forest). While true giants only differ from humanoids by their size, many giant kins have an unusual appearance. The Stone Empire openly treats giant kins as second-class citizens and doesn’t allow them to have their own clans (trolls adopted into dwarf clans are rare). In the Lower North Empire, many people believe that ogres eat children. Giant kins find the most acceptance in the Iron Empire and Republic of Abraxis, where they can apply for citizenship on the same terms as humanoids.
• Humanoids: within the humanoid type, there are races who can mate with humans and each other at full fertility. This group consists of dwarves, elves, gnomes, goblinoids, halflings, mongrelfolk and orcs. The humanoid type also includes many lesser races who cannot mate with the full human group, such as gnolls (can only mate with bugbears and humans), kobolds (cannot mate with other humanoids), lizardfolks (can only mate with gnomes, humans and troglodytes) and troglodytes (can only mate with gnomes, goblinoids and lizardfolks). Humanoids can visit most countries in the world without raising eyebrows (a merchant ship can be manned by lizardfolk sailors, the smith guild of a major city can have orc blacksmiths, etc.).
• Humanoid (dragonblood): kobolds are discussed under the humanoid (reptilian) entry. The category of dragonblood humanoids also includes dragonborns and spellscales (Races of the Dragon). These races are not widely known by other humanoids, but they are known to dragons. Metallic dragons use the rite of rebirth to transform willing allies into dragonborns. Spellscales are mutated humanoids recognizable by patterned scales of any possible color palette, a propensity for arcane magic and an altered anatomy (spellscales do not retain the lifespan, visual acuity or ability score adjustments of their non-draconic ancestors). When a spellscale is born from two parents of a longer-lived race, the anomaly is sometimes regarded as a birth defect (from the elf viewpoint, an elf reaches adulthood one-tenth as fast and lives two to five times longer than a spellscale). Conversely, a handful of orcs, humans and goblinoids would seek the rite of spellscale assumption to extend their lifespan, assuming that they know the rite exists. Spellscales interested in an even longer lifespan may seek to become dragonborns.
• Humanoids (dwarf): dwarves are a short and sturdy creature, fond of drink and industry. (ahem!) In most dwarf cultures, men are quite proud of their facial hair and set themselves apart by styling a beard, mustache or goatee. Their first facial hair takes many years to grow, but growing it back is much faster. Dwarf women usually don’t have facial hair (though exceptions occur) and style their hair instead. Women are smaller and sturdier than men, but also weigh less. Dwarf men from the Stone Empire tend to wear the kilt.
• Humanoids (elf): elves are slender and on average slightly smaller than humans, but never stop growing, gaining another inch every century or so after adulthood. Men and women have almost the same height, and most elf men shave their facial hair (wood elves tend to shave less often than other elves). Elves extensively use magic to change features and adapt more easily to any biome. While they are too proud to admit it, many elves are sluggish, don’t like to work under pressure and don’t hone their skills to perfection. Gray elf wizards were historically an exception to this rule and visited other races much more often than their peers. Ironically, gray elves are responsible for the reputation that elves are good at magic. Drow do not natively exist in this campaign setting.
• Humanoids (gnome): gnomes were the first humanoids to be inherently imbued with spell-like abilities. While not more intelligent than humans, gnomes have a drive to innovate, especially to create magic items. More than even other long-lived races, gnome crafters almost only create masterwork items.
• Humanoids (goblinoid): goblinoids are technically a single race, though like dog breeds, a single mutation can drastically alter their appearance and size. Their skin color ranges from yellow to red, though ochre is average. Goblinoids perceive more shades of yellow-orange than other humanoids and their language is extremely precise for this color range, but their eyes perceive fewer shades of blue. They easily confuse light blue with green, and dark blue with purple. Some half-goblins see the same shades of orange and still see blue normally. Goblinoids live longer than orcs, but not as long as humans.
• Humanoids (halfling): halflings are small people (on average 4 inches shorter than gnomes) who look almost like human children if not for their pointy ears and big feet. Some halflings live a sedentary lifestyle in their small villages, while others are nomadic. The halfling author Tolkien introduced hobbit as a synonym for halflings and penned stories depicting fictional hobbit heroes. Deep halflings do not natively exist in this campaign setting.
• Humanoids (human): humans are the first mortals created by a Saromean, and the creator of humanity used his own divine race as his blueprint. He gave one human paragon the gift of Determination, so this human could oversee the growth of humanity. In the Third Age, all human subraces can be narrowed to three groups: the "osroth" who are descended from the original human paragon and inherited the gift of Determination; the sharakim (Races of Destiny) who are descended from a hunter named Sharak and cursed to have a boar-like face; and the vasharans (Book of Vile Darkness) who are descended from Vasha the original human and cursed to be denied true divinity forever. The vasharans themselves claim that the creator of humanity mitigated their curse with a talent for fulfilling their ambition by evil means.
• Humanoids (orc): orcs were created at the beginning of the second age. According to some myths, the first generation of orcs were created directly by divine power (if true, then their physical appearance was certainly inspired by elves and sharakim). According to other myths, the original orcs were transformed elves and sharakim. Orcs are not dumb, but age much faster than humans and outgrow adult humans when only ten-years old. Orcish women are almost the same height and weight as men. Orcs and half-orcs tend to have grey or olive skin, but those orcs with some degree of goblinoid ancestry often have sienna skin. Common orcs live an average of forty years, but always less than fifty years. Mountain orcs and ondonti (high orcs) live twenty years longer, while orogs live thirty-five years longer. Orcish life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
• Humanoid (planetouched): lesser planetouched (Player’s Guide to Faerûn) are people with an even thinner elemental or outsider ancestry than regular planetouched. A lesser planetouched is no less than ten generations removed from an elemental or outsider.
• Humanoids (reptilian): kobolds and lizardfolk are arguably the best known reptilian humanoids. Kobolds are cold-blooded ovipares that vaguely look like a mix of dog and gnome, with scales instead of fur. Dragons raise some kobolds as pets and often use magic to create new breeds. Lizardfolk are warm-blooded ovipares that look like bipedal crocodiles. Lizardfolk are larger than humans. Troglodytes live separately from lizardfolk but they mate from time to time.
• Monstrous humanoids: some monstrous humanoids were created on purpose by mutating adult humanoids. Hags are the most famous (or infamous) example, because many fairy tales describe them coming from the swamp to eat disobedient children; in some fairy tales, an evil step-mother turns out to be a hag. Yuan-ti are also descended from mutated humanoids and some believe that humans can transform into yuan-ti. Other monstrous humanoids are strange descendants of humanoids and giants. Yet other monstrous humanoids are unique races who aren’t even fertile with humanoids, such as centaurs, sahuagin and thri-kreen.
• Native outsiders: monks who reach Enlightenment, nature spirits and planetouched are often native outsiders. Planetouched are by far the most common: one in ten thousand people are planetouched when adding up the regular and lesser varieties. The blood dilutes more or less rapidly depending on the strength of the bloodline. In the cult of Prage, a rite makes women pregnant with children that possess the abilities of a demon (see the Wunderkind entry under New Races and Templates). These children have the native subtype and are considered planetouched, despite having no extraplanar ancestor.
• Oozes: while many clerics would like to believe otherwise, not all gods are sapient beings. A few gods of the second age were mighty beasts driven by instinct. Their imagination matched this, and many varieties of oozes were independently created by animal gods. The idea caught on, with intelligent gods and mortal spellcasters alike creating and modifying oozes for a variety of purposes. Oozes are heterotrophs (incapable of photosynthesis) and reproduce by mitosis. Humanity wiped out oozes from most of the known world, but they survive at the edge of civilization or deep underground. It is possible that the Monkey Lake itself is some form of giant ooze, though this was never proven.
• Plants: many Saromeans created flora as experiments into creating life. The greatest floral diversity is found in temperate climates, including the Empire of Jade, the First Plains, the Lower North Archipel, and the forest west of the Monkey Lake. Feys and gods of nature frequently use flora as templates to create new creatures to protect nature. Druidic circles often employ them as restless guardians or for other purposes. Intelligent plants rarely travel to cities and such occurrences are considered bizarre (in fact, even awakened animals are more common visitors).
• Spirits: according to the "What is a spirit?" entry in Complete Divine, a "spirit" includes all creatures with the spirit subtype, elementals, feys, incorporeal undead, astrally projected creatures (but not creatures physically present on the astral plane), and spirit creatures created by spells such as dream sight (Complete Divine // Oriental Adventures) or wood wose (Complete Divine). In the Divinosis campaign setting, dwarf ancestors (Monster Manual IV), sisiutl (Stormwrack) and all loumaras (Fiendish Codex I) should have the spirit subtype.
• Undead and deathless: undead are unusually common in the setting, both those that occur naturally (called "revenants" as a generic term) and those cursed by an outside force (the "risen"). Good adventurers are called to hunt down evil revenants, unwilling risen and anyone who recklessly creates new risen. Many people are sympathetic to good and neutral revenants, so they are usually allowed entry in human cities without question (unless they pose a blatant risk to living creatures). The risen must plead a convincing case that they will obey the laws of the land. In both instances, deathless are far less unpleasant to living creatures than true undead: the body of a deathless never rots or produces stench. Its dead flesh peels off a little bit at a time, if at all. Furthermore, a deathless has a specific purpose to accomplish or exists for a limited time. Ambul encourages her clerics to animate undead under strict supervision, but her cult also punishes disobedient clerics. Xin is worshipped by many revenants, but instructs his clerics to only create deathless risen or none at all. Laypeople frequently make the mistake of saying undead and deathless interchangeably (in fairy tales, the name of the so-called "Koschei the Deathless" is an example of such confusion because he is blatantly described as a lich). The fact that Ambul’s clergy formerly had mixed armies of living, undead and deathless soldiers fighting side by side didn’t help the confusion. However, laypeople may know the less abstract information that a ghost (revenant) sometimes travels alone and a zombie (risen) never does.

Deviations from the rules as written

• House-rule: I'm ignoring the rules as written on prerequisites (the ones that aren't in the core rulebooks). Instead, characters must meet prerequisites naked and without an active spell. Failing to meet prerequisites doesn't cause the loss of feats and class features unless specified in the class or feat itself (eg. losing paladin abilities due to an alignment change). Classes, feats and skill points used for prerequisites are effectively "locked" and cannot be shuffled or retrained as long as they are being used for prerequisites. Fixed bonus feats cannot be shuffled or retrained to get free feats. Characters gaining a bonus feat from a broad list must qualify for the chosen feat (even fighter bonus feat monks). Prerequisites referencing spell levels reference spells’ actual level, not their effective spell level.
• House-rule: I usually ignore racial restrictions on bonus languages and XP penalties for multiclassing. I’m not quite sure what to do with favored classes. I guess I would rather let characters who take levels in their racial favored class reroll 1s on their HD, but I’m not fully decided yet.
• House-rule: Player characters have maximum hit points for their first Hit Die. If a player character’s hit points total is below the average for the character’s Hit Dice, the player character can reroll all Hit Dice once and take the best hit points total.
• House-rule: Speakers of Druidic can use this language to communicate with animals. Druidic also has a level of mutual intelligibility with other languages allowing characters to communicate with some animals (such as the special language spoken by forest gnomes).
• House-rule: The Rokugan Campaign Setting book and Bloodspeakers book allow characters to attempt to learn maho spells. At my table, this option is only available to shamans (Oriental Adventures), shugenja, sorcerers and wu jen with ranks in Knowledge (Shadowlands). Shugenja, sorcerers and wu jen can attempt to learn a spell from the maho-tsukai spell list instead of their normal spell list whenever they learn a new spell. Shamans can attempt to prepare a spell from the maho-tsukai spell list instead of the shaman spell list. To learn or prepare a maho-tsukai spell, the character must make a Knowledge (Shadowlands) check against a DC of 15 + spell’s level. A failure forces characters to learn or prepare a spell from their normal spell list instead; a wu jen who was attempting to learn a maho spell from a scroll cannot attempt to learn the same spell until gaining a level. If the character is a shugenja, maho-tsukai spells count as spells outside the character’s favored element. Sorcerers with an alternate spell list can also attempt to learn maho-tsukai spells, whether they use the witch spell list (explicit Dungeon Master’s Guide option) or the wu jen spell list (explicit Oriental Adventures option). These classes cast maho-tsukai spells as arcane spells; shamans and shugenja need all the help they can get.
• Modification: Characters native to some regions trade Common as an automatic language for the local lingua franca. Characters native to the Empire of Jade or one of its four vassal states trade Common for the Heimin language. Characters native to the dwarvish khaganate, elvish khaganate or Irtub’s Empire trade Common for the Quad language. Characters native to the Southern Cross may choose between Common and the Quad language (the most spoken language in the Southern Cross is Draconic but characters cannot trade Common for Draconic).
• Modification: NPC wages are slightly higher than presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. A NPC working for the government (such as a town guard) can expect at least 4 silver pieces per day of work. A mercenary with two or more levels in a NPC class can expect to be paid 3 silver pieces per level per day, and a mercenary with levels in a PC class can expect to be paid 10 gold pieces per month. High-level NPCs are not artificially capped at 20th level.
• Modification: When generating random towns, make these changes: add gp equal to the adult population to the GP limit; don’t cap NPCs to 20th-level; and in the final stage of rolling levels and classes for the population, divide the remaining population as 45% commoners, 45% experts, 3% fighters (in addition to 1st-level fighters generated during the first stage), 3% warriors, 2% adepts and 2% aristocrats.
• Races: There is no local drow, deep halfling, gruwaar (Dragon #317) or underfolk (Races of Destiny) population on this material plane. They can only exist as visitors from parallel material planes, with the extraplanar subtype. Subterranean subraces based on a race other than human, halfling and elf (such as duergar, orog, svirfneblin, etc.) do exist and most were created by a goddess named Diana.
• Other: Where D&D rules deviate from real-life physics for better gameplay, I assume that D&D rules trump real-life physics. It is possible to swim in magma and no-sell the heat or make a line of commoners to move an object in 1 round over any distance (no, the object won't deal more damage). Of course, matter and energy are made of infinitesimal particles, but only some NPCs would know that.

My personal list of approved content for my campaigns and setting NPCs (non-binding to other Game Masters)

• I judge new game content by comparing with content from the 3.5 core rulebooks, the 3.0 and 3.5 splatbooks (though I never use the Spell Compendium reprint of a spell with multiple versions), the d20 Modern SRD, Athas.org, Dragon magazine, Dungeon magazine, Malhavoc Press and the Rokugan books (by Alderac Entertainment Group).
• I allow content from these publishers: Bottled Imp Games, Goodman Games, Green Ronin, Inner Circle, Kenzer & Company and White Wolf Publishing.
• I allow content from these books: Arcane Mysteries: Blight Magic (Mystic Eye Games), Book of Templates deluxe edition (Silverthorne Games), The Dread Codex I and II (Adamant Entertainment), the Encyclopædia Arcane series (Mongoose Publishing), Frost & Fur (MonkeyGod Enterprises), Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races (Fantasy Flight Games), Liber Bestarius (Eden Studios), Metablades: Warriors of Mind and Magic (Genjitsu Games), Monster Encyclopædia I and II (Mongoose Publishing), Penumbra: Occult Lore (Atlas Games), The Quintessential Chaos Mage (Mongoose Publishing), Races of Legend: Unveiled Masters (Paradigm Concepts), Runic Weapons (Alternate Realities), Secrets of Pact Magic (Radiance House) and the Tome of Horror trilogy (Necromancer Games).
• I allow players to request content from these publishers: Alderac Entertainment Group (Rokugan content notwithstanding), Avalanche Press (not including content from Aztecs: Empire of the Dying Sun), Dreamscarred Press (not including Pathfinder content), Mongoose Publishing, or the Oathbound books (by Bastion Press).
• I would usually say no to content from Bastion Press (Oathbound content notwithstanding) or content from the following books not reprinted in or from one of the above sources: Aztecs: Empire of the Dying Sun (Avalanche Press), Eldritch Sorcery (Necromancer Games), Of Sages and Sorcerers (Children of the Grave Press) or Spell Compendium (Wizards of the Coast).
• Blacklisted at all my tables: BoEF (painfully bad writing and overpowered content).

So you want to make an adventurer (suggestions)
Some books and stage plays that exist in real life are assumed to also exist within the campaign setting. When creating a new player character, roll 1d6 to determine a book or group of books that the character has read. A character from the Stone Empire or Iron Empire adds +1 to the roll, a character from the Empire of the First Plains adds +2, a character from the Lower North Empire adds +4 and a character from the Empire of Jade adds +6. When possible, ignore or adapt a book’s direct references to terrestrial geography, events or cultures since they would be out of place.

• 1: Persian Letters (baron of Montesquieu): they are named the Imperial Letters. Charles Montesquieu was an ice genasi from a realm that became a part of the Republic of Abraxis. He framed his letters as the correspondence of fictional characters from Irtub’s Empire. Letters 11-14 are about troglodytes who live close to Abraxis, the capital.
• 2: One Thousand and One Nights: this collection of tales comes from Irtub’s Empire. Scholars within the setting speculate that King Shahryar or Scheherazade may have been historical figures from the second age, though they can’t prove it.
• 3: Romeo and Juliet: the Capuleti, Montecchi, and the gnomish city of Verona existed in the late second age in the land of the current Iron Empire. In the third age, the most famous Romeo and Juliet stage play was written by the prolific halfling author Shakespeare. The identity of Shakespeare (whether he was truly halfling or if there were many authors) is a minor point of contention in the setting.
• 4: The Dragon (Yevgeny Schwartz): this stage play was penned by Goiregrin (god of theater) when he sejourned in the Iron Empire. It was intended as a stealth criticism of his niece, the Iron Lady, but the Iron Lady could not bring herself to ban the story without confirming the criticism. Since Goiregrin is a demigod, she also couldn’t punish him.
• 5: Beowulf: this poem was written by an unknown author in the late second age in the land of the current Stone Empire. The halfling author Tolkien published a book with his commentaries on the poem.
• 6: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion (J. R. R. Tolkien): Tolkien was a halfling teacher, bard, and former soldier from the Empire of the First Plains. For the sake of entertainment, he made Middle Earth as alien to the setting as he could think of. This meant writing about hobbits as a sedentary people, elves as a mysterious and immortal people, wizards as emissaries from the gods, etc. Unlike his Earth counterpart, he was quite upfront about the fictionality of Middle Earth.
• 7: Grimms’ Tales (Grimm brothers): Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were high elves of the Lower North Empire. They recorded many fairy tales from their culture, featuring a variety of monstrous creatures such as dragons, fiends, giants and hags. A few tales feature existing artifacts, such as the tale "The Spirit in the Bottle" which describes the Iron Flask.
• 8: Song of the Nibelungs: this poem comes from the Lower North Empire.
• 9: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (E. T. A. Hoffmann): this novel comes from the Lower North Empire. A stage play also exists.
• 10: Marya Morevna: this fairy tale was penned in the yak-folk kingdom and its popularity spread to the Lower North Empire. It features archetypal (but widely accepted as fictional) characters such as the hag Baba Yaga and the lich Koschei the Deathless.
• 11: The Art of War (Sun Tzu): this book was written by a human general named Sun Tzu who lived about a thousand year before the founding of the Empire of Jade. The founder of the Lion Clan included this book (or at least some segments) in his own war treatise titled Leadership.
• 12: The Book of Five Rings: this book was written by a Dragon Clan samurai.

Detailled Timeline
This timeline relates historical events by year on the Ambulid Calendar (AC). Year 0 AC is defined as Ambul’s rise to godhood and the start of the third age. The Ambulid Calendar is a 12-months solar calendar with 365 to 369 days per year based on predictable astronomical events which appear to be correlated with supernatural events. The first 369-days year since the calendar’s adoption is set to be on Year 1,031 AC. In Year 1,023 AC, the Empire of Jade and Legendland have their own solar calendars, Irtub’s Empire mixes and matches the Ambulid Calendar with its own lunar calendar and the Republic of Abraxis uses the Ambulid Calendar following a past attempt to use a lunisolar calendar.

• c. 99,000 BAC: Creation of the ten original Saromeans (deities of the first age).
• c. 84,000 BAC: Dragons settle on Divinosis from the Plane of Shadow.
• c. 74,000 BAC: Fall of the Saromean Empire. No Saromean survives. The First Age ends and the Second Age begins.
• 72,205 BAC: Alleged founding year of Legendland, the first mortal city.
• 69,3xx BAC: The Scorpion God, a second age deity who lived on Amanauris, is slain in a war with Dorac the Archangel. Post-Year 69,392 BAC.
• 46,734 BAC: A cabal of binders restore the vestige Irtub to existence as a proper deity.
• c. 21,000 BAC: A necromancer named Vralroth becomes the first lich. About 30 years later, a flaw in his lichdom causes his phylactery to be destroyed.
• c. 9,000 BAC: The ancestors to the ethergaunts (Fiend Folio) leave the material plane for the ethereal plane.
• 8,9xx BAC: The School of Broad Horizons (Races of Destiny) is founded. Post-Year 8,978 BAC.
• 8,173 BAC: Ariete becomes the first elan.
• 6,986 AC: Ariete becomes a vestige.
• 5,98x BAC: A devil paragon named Baal is slain in a war with Asmodeus. Post-Year 5,985 BAC.
• 176 BAC: The city of Torper is founded above the north pole. Year 1 on the calendar of the Empire of Jade.
• 107 BAC: Cyrus crowns himself the demon prince of dragons (but not yet demon prince of time).
• 3 BAC: Galar and five mortals endowed with the ability to travel planes found the Order.
• 0 AC: Ambul’s apotheosis. Starting year of the Ambulid Calendar (AC). The Second Age ends and the Third Age begins.
• 31 AC: This year was lengthened to 367 days on the Ambulid Calendar due to the conjecture of two astronomical events. Young children who died rose spontaneously as slaymates (Libris Mortis) without the usual trigger conditions; stillborn children of humanoid races rose back as atropal scions (Libris Mortis) without the need for divine parentage; and on a specific date of the year, mothers who died in childbirth rose as ghasts.
• 57 AC: Ambul gives birth to her eldest child, Prage.
• 60 AC: Ambul gives birth to her second child, baptized Thuok Galamion, later known as Bulessia Galamion.
• 66 AC: Ambul gives birth to her third child, Sabiel.
• 86 AC: Sabiel marries Éris Paugée, the daughter of Emperor Théodore Paugée. She will later be known as Sainte Éris (distinct from Éris the Sorcerer, who is a man and one of the Twelve Founders).
• 106 AC: Ambul gives birth to a mortal son that she names Tostan.
• 127 AC: Ambul gives birth to another mortal son named Hullatoine. His origin is kept secret until 142 AC.
• 134 AC: The atropal Xin is stillborn (allegedly from Ambul, but possibly from a Chosen of Ambul).
• 142 AC: Hullatoine (the son of Ambul) goes missing. His origin becomes public knowledge.
• 167 AC: Start of the First Irtubid War on the White Mount between Ambul’s and Irtub’s forces.
• 173 AC: The atropal Xin becomes a true deity while remaining undead.
• 197 AC: An hullathoin (Fiend Folio) named Hullatoine enters Divinosis from the Plane of Shadow (allegedly a return of Ambul’s missing son, now undead).
• 199 AC: Hullatoine (the hullathoin) becomes a deity.
• 201 AC: The samurai Urmul gives birth to his third child, Urmul Naazghul.
• 212 AC: End of the First Irtubid War.
• 231 AC: One of the two astronomical events that occured in 31 AD repeats itself, so this year lasts 366 days on the Ambulid Calendar. New atropal scions and slaymates are created, but no new ghasts.
• 250 AC: The samurai Urmul Naazghul, then 48 years old, is promoted to the rank of minor landholder.
• 265 AC: The Empire of Jade becomes isolationist.
• 311 AC: Death of Seth.
• 312 AC: Tostan attempts deicide on his mother Ambul. Start of Tostan’s Exile.
• 313 AC: Urmul Naazghul, given a long life through demonic possession a few decades earlier, says goodbye to his children and relatives and departs from the Empire of Jade for his first exile.
• 337 AC: One hundred mercenaries found the Company of One Hundred Associates.
• 342 AC: Urmul Naazghul returns to the Empire of Jade and fathers a son named Urmul Accel.
• c. 350 AC: The Guardian (goddess of the second age) starts granting the Death domain to some of her clerics.
• 361 AC: Urmul Naazghul departs from the Empire of Jade again.
• 413 AC: Start of the Second Irtubid War in the Great Desert.
• 417 AC: End of the Second Irtubid War.
• 431 AC: The astronomical event of Years 31 and 231 AD repeats itself again, with the same result than in 231 AD.
• 434 AC: Death of Urmul Naazghul in a battle near Abraxis. A mysterious Jade Vulture is involved in his death.
• c. 447 AC: The Jade Vulture enters the Empire of the First Plains from its southwest border with a crowd of undead soldier at his command. They travel northward.
• 451 AC: Start of the War of Triplets for the crown of the kingdom of Grauschloss (part of the Lower North Empire).
• 453 AC: End of the War of Triplets.
• 485 AC: Resurrection of Urmul Naazghul, who was dead for fifty years and a few months.
• 494 AC: The Jade Demons are founded in a landlocked vasharan hamlet enclaved by the Lower North Empire. They worship the Jade Vulture.
• 558 AC: Start of the Third Irtubid War in the Great Desert between Irtub’s Empire and the Stone Empire. The Company of One Hundred Associates fought on the side of Irtub’s Empire.
• 569 AC: End of the Third Irtubid War.
• 592 AC: Start of the Sunrise Invasion between the Ghoul King and the Lower North Empire. The Ghoul King’s army is spearheaded by a dominated Urmul Naazghul.
• 597 AC: End of the Sunrise Invasion.
• 631 AC: The astronomical event of Years 31, 231 and 431 AD repeats itself again, with the same result than in 231 and 431 AD.
• 831 AC: The astronomical event of Years 31, 231, 431 and 631 AD repeats itself again, with the same result than in 231, 431 and 631 AD.
• 944 AC: Start of the Sixth Irtubid War between the Iron Empire and Irtub’s Empire.
• 951 AC: Start of the Sunset Invasion in the Lower North Empire.
• 955 AC: Destruction of the Sun and Moon during the Sunset Invasion. Two mortals become the second Sun and Moon.
• 993 AC: Retirement and death of the second Sun and Moon. Hullatoine becomes the third Sun and the Obsidian Dragon becomes the third Moon.
• c. 1,004 AC: Estimated death year of the deity Xeral-Tabec.
• 1,012 AC: Peace deal between Irtub’s Empire and the Union.
• 1,013 AC: First sightings of an hound of the gloom (Lords of Madness).
• 1,022 AC: Galar changes the spiritual weapon of his clerics.
• 1,023 AC: Expected start date for the campaign setting.
• 1,031 AC: Will be the first year of the third age to consist of 369 days on the Ambulid Calendar. Both astronomical events from Year 31 AD should repeat themselves and two other events that haven’t occured since the second age.
• c. 1,036 AC: Predicted end of the Third Age.
• 2,034 AC: Uncorroborated birth year of Cyrus, demon prince of time.
• c. 3,000,000,000 AC: Uncorroborated time period for the Sixty-Sixth Age, the reign of the Illithid Empire and Gith’s Rebellion.

Spoiler: Future of the Timeline (Prophecies)

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Roughly four millenia into the second age, three copies of a prophetic book written in the ancient Saromean language began circulating around Divinosis. Each of the original copies was a minor artifact. One of the original copies is owned by Legendland, another by the emperor of the t’ien lungs and the third by an unknown party. A few times, Legendland and the emperor of the t’ien lungs claimed that their copies had simultaneously lengthened overnight. Some handwritten copies with no supernatural properties can also be found elsewhere but they can be worth thousands of gold pieces and few people can read the authentic Saromean version.

As the Year 1,036 AC draws nearer, many people believe that they will see the fourth age within their lifetime and the interest for old prophetic books has slightly increased. The Iron Lady had access to a short version of the book and allowed the translation of four prophecies of interest into Dwarf. The Dwarf version was the basis for translation into other languages. The Iron Lady chose four prophecies that are largely agreed to be about the end of the third age. The identities of the individuals mentioned in the first three prophecies are hotly debated. Some believe that the Divided Man is either the same person as the full-fledged human from the first prophecy or the traveler from the third prophecy. The order of the prophecies is sometimes different than the one given below.

First Prophecy:
"The old gods may return someday, when the last mortal king passes away/
Heralded by a full-fledged human of pure human ancestry/
But these events are not [a certainty]."

Second Prophecy:
"A [married bachelor?] will crown many kings and queens of divine parentage/
Wish for the Divided [Man, or male humanoid] to become whole again/
To serve [his] own brand of justice on those who wronged [him]/
[No one] can escape [his] hatred, but [he] will free [mankind?] from the first gods."

Third Prophecy:
"A child was born from the most unlikely union/
Of the godless and the new gods/
Once [he] eats a scorpion’s wings, [he] will obtain the longevity of the gods/
Then [his] journey of a billion steps will begin/
Learning [all] [either talisman, spell or possibly psionic power] [he] can lay [his] eyes on/
To assemble [his] macabre puzzle."

Fourth Prophecy:
"lo and behold, the third age passes in a blur and the fourth age is upon us."

Spoiler: Major Events from my Campaigns

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• Summer 1,023 AC, kingdom of Almack (center of the Empire of the First Plains): the king of Almack (a dwarf) was killed by a dwarf adventurer under a magical compulsion. The adventurer was exonerated and discovered to be the king’s secret son. The emperor crowned him as King Léo Paugée in fall.
• Winter 1,023 AC, kingdom of Brocéliante (northeast of the Empire of the First Plains): King Louis Paugée of Brocéliante obtained a major artifact called the Uruk-Hai Talisman, retrieved from the Valley of the Gods.
• Spring 1,024 AC, kingdom of Brocéliante: King Louis Paugée of Brocéliante married a fey'ri.

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Setting-Specific Races and Templates
In accordance with this subforum's rules, mechanical pieces will be posted in a different thread to come soon.

Chosen of Ambul
The Chosen of Ambul are undead quasi-deities who can polymorph as living creatures or as other undead. They take orders directly from Ambul and are considered equal to the Five Emperors in purely religious matters (but not in purely secular matters). Ambul only allows women to become Chosen of Ambul, and has a preference for clerics. In the year 1,023 AC, there are about twenty active Chosen of Ambul and a dozen more with unknown whereabouts.

The known steps to become a Chosen of Ambul are to retrieve a garment that Ambul wore before, and wear this garment with the goddess’s approval. As some spells prove, even clothes retain a trace of their previous owners. When the previous owner is Ambul, a greater deity and spellfire wielder, some trace of divinity remains imprinted on the threads. If Ambul sets her eyes on a specific candidate, she delivers one of her old outits through an avatar or messenger. A new Chosen of Ambul is not affected if the outfit that transformed her is lost or destroyed, though many choose to wear it to display their status.

Some Chosen of Ambul spend most of their time polymorphed into young living women for the comfort of living creatures, while still aknowledging their undead state. Some others prefer to be in undead forms full-time, and especially in their natural form: a semi-skeletal undead woman with intact eyes and hair. Yet others assume cover identities as living persons for decades, moving from one life to the next to do Ambul’s will in secret.

Cross-Cultural Adoption (Trait)
You were raised away from adults of your race.
Roleplaying Ideas: This trait is common for the orphans of soldiers who died during the Irtubid Wars.

Deathless Undead
During the third age, some necromancers worshipping Xin discovered a process to replace the negative energy in a spell such as create undead or create greater undead with positive energy, thus enabling the creation and summoning of deathless creatures similar to true undead. So far, some of the available creatures include deathless ghouls, deathless wights and even deathless wraiths. The special creation process is also practised by the Ambul’s Apostles heresy.

The process creates an empty vessel of flesh or ectoplasm that the departed soul must be able and willing to inhabit, otherwise the creation process fails. The vessel must take the form of a creature with an Intelligence score (no deathless skeletons or zombies, for example). Even when these conditions are met, the necromancer must be aware that the deathless undead only exists for a few weeks before it crumbles away, whereas standard deathless and true undead can exist for much longer.

A deathless undead remains in existence for a number of weeks equal to the highest value between its Wisdom or Charisma modifier (minimum 1 week). A single deathless undead usually isn’t worthy of a marut’s attention because death is only delayed for a limited time, like when a mortal is resurrected.

"Deathless" is an inherited template that can be applied to almost any undead creature with an Intelligence score (referred to hereafter as the "base undead"), except creatures that are deemed inappropriate by the Game Master because they are too tormented to be created willingly (such as allips).

Demielan
"Demielan" is the term for elans transformed from non-human individuals. Some younger elans dismiss their existence as a myth. Ariete, the first elan, tested his transformation process on volunteers of any race and some animals and vermins. At some point after Ariete’s disappearance, it was decided that the elans should only recruit humans.

For all effects related to race, demielans cease to be considered members of their original race or subrace and are hereafter considered elans. Demielans cannot qualify for feats or prestige classes that require a specific race other than elan, but they can take feats or prestige classes that require a template, racial trait or creature type that they still have.

"Demielan" is an inherited template that can be applied to any living, corporeal creature that has a skeletal system or an exoskeleton (referred to hereafter as the "base creature"). All demielans awaken from their transformation as 1st-level characters because the transformation erases procedural memory.

House Désenchanter (Human Subrace)
The Désenchanter family is a noble house and a human subrace with acidic protoplasm instead of blood. Humans of this are subrace are born with a large ribcage and adult-sized heart, though the heart does not seem to enlarge after birth. Formerly believed to carry a natural mutations, the Désenchanter are now known to have been engineered by clerics of Prage through human experiments.

The subrace’s public history began when the cult of Prage in the Empire of the First Plains asked a minor suzerain to promote three dozens of its parishioners to nobility. The suzerain complied, bestowing some unimpressive titles on the elders and the last name "Désenchanter" on the family as a whole. Two decades later, a privately published book accused a dozen clerics of Prage of engineering the new subrace by operating on human children. Emperor André Paugée was allegedly so shocked that he considered outlawing the entire cult of Prage and expelling all parishioners. He was convinced to imprison only the clerics who were directly involved in the experiments, confirm house Désenchanter’s noble status and let it have free rein over what remains of the cult of Prage in the Empire of the First Plains. The emperor also passed strong regulations regarding experiments on intelligent races.

Prior to the founding of house Désenchanter, a cabal of evil wizards that resented the Paugée cursed a dozen human from house Paugée to transform into a mindless and acidic liquid under the wizards’ control. When the wizards died, their curse weakened and the victims became sentient oozes with a human heart. They feared that the curse would reassert itself. The experiments done by Prage were intended to replace a human person’s cardiovascular system with a sentient ooze and allow the ooze to control the body. Instead, the human hosts retained control of the composite bodies and became a new subrace. Since then, the subrace has been true-breeding with other humans.

The Désenchanter have the same movable birthmark than the Paugée, but the birthmark is on their heart muscle rather than their skin. Furthermore, each Désenchanter is born with a heart identical with his first-generation ancestor’s. It is widely assumed that a Désenchanter with two first-generation ancestors would be born with two hearts. However, no couple from separate branches has managed to conceive a child.

The Désenchanter’s alignment tendency is usually Lawful Evil, and their most common patron deity is Prage.

House Paugée
The Paugée are the descendants of Emperor Hénock Paugée through his son Théodore Paugée and his granddaughter Éris Paugée (Sainte Éris). The Five Emperors are the children of Éris Paugée and Sabiel the son of Ambul. All other members of the house are descended from the Five Emperors (André, Hannah, Judith, Tobit and Zoroaster Paugée).

The Paugée family is the largest noble house, and possibly the most prestigious. After all, the Five Emperors control most of the northern hemisphere and they are the grandchildren of a greater deity (Ambul). While the founders of the house were humans, by the Year 1,023 AC the bloodline crossed many racial barriers and counts even a few celestials members as well as a kobold branch. Some cadet branches are endogamous and possess distinctive phenotypes that locals could immediately recognize.

However, members of the Paugée family share some mystical traits. Each member of the house is born with a glowing mark in the shape of a cross (†), which can be moved to any part of the body. Wherever the mark is, the shortest end of the cross always points up (toward the head). The mark also glows as strong as a candle in a color based on the character’s good/evil alignment component: green (Good), violet (Neutral) or red (Evil). A character with the Paugée birthmark can suppress its glow at will and cause it to appear black, even to darkvision. The birthmark does not actually contain a black pigment, but appears black by producing "black light". There is no known way to give a true Paugée birthmark on someone born outside the family. The Paugée birthmark is not considered a normal physical quality in regard to alter self, though an impersonator may use body paint or cast disguise self to create a fake birthmark (which, of course, will not move).

Ambul was famously capable to control pure magical energy without casting spells. Some members of the Paugée family inherited this ability and possess the Spellfire Wielder feat (Magic of Faerûn). Ambul herself is assumed to have inherited this ability from the First Lich, though two spellfire wielders are possibly even more ancient. Since Ambul’s apotheosis, some people born on the 31st of the 11th month (Ambul’s birthday) also become spellfire wielders.

The family has been the object of some controversies. At some point after the future Five Emperors were born, many family curses were put on Emperor Théodore Paugée. The family curses discouraged Théodore Paugée from having more children and affected all of the Five Emperor’s descendants. The Paugée have four of the sample family curses from the Book of Vile Darkness: eldest sons murder their father, yougest daughters become evil spellcasters, one male child is eaten by a dragon and the sixth daughter of a sixth daughter will doom her entire land.

• The first curse applies to an eldest son and his biological father. The murder may be direct or indirect. Sometimes it occurs figuratively or the son is under magical compulsion. This curse was meant to discredit the First Plains’ custom of primogeniture, but it didn’t. Some Paugée avoid the curse by having their first son with a parent who already has a son.
• The second curse enables the youngest daughter in each generation to take sorcerer levels. About half the characters under this curse have a physical trait or two resembling a tiefling. Many acquire a high depravity score (Heroes of Horror). Once the youngest daughter in the generation is identified, the Paugée believe that the curse can be avoided by enrolling her as a cleric.
• Some Paugée avoid the third curse by inserting a nail or lock of hair in a dish and giving the dish to a dragon.
• The fourth curse may be avoided if the sixth daughter of a sixth daughter becomes the queen of the land.

Wunderkind (Faux-Planetouched)
Ambul’s pantheon had powers unlike anything Divinosis had seen in the first and second ages. Ambul’s two eldest children, Prage and Bulessia, can alter humanoid children on a large scale to bestow a degree of fiendish blood on them. Prage only ever transforms children conceived during a fertility rite that his followers practice once per year, on the second day of the fourth month on the Ambulid calendar. In cities where Prage’s cult is the main religion, up to 1% of the population are wunderkinds. Bulessia transforms humanoid children born on the sixth day of the seventh month. Bulessia’s worshippers consider these births a blessing. Outside her cult, some parents time their pregnancies to avoid giving birth at this date.

Only the children of two humanoid (or wunderkind) parents can be born as wunderkinds, and their abilities are not inheritable in the slightest: if two wunderkinds with human parents gave birth on most days of the year, the baby would be a normal human. Bulessia’s wunderkinds are mechanically treated as tieflings (or a tiefling subrace appropriate to their parents’ race) with druid as their favored class. Their alignment is usually good (lawful, neutral or chaotic). Prage’s wunderkinds have a chance to be treated as tieflings (or a tiefling subrace), half-fiends or even true fiends; roll 1d100 and see the table below. Prage’s wunderkinds have the normal range of humanoid alignments. No matter his or her effective race, a wunderkind is a native outsider and can be raised or resurrected normally (wunderkinds cannot also be lesser planetouched).

Table: Race of a Wunderkind Caused by Prage

1d100	Effective Race
0-49	Tiefling (or tiefling subrace; see below)
50-74	Half-fiend template (Monster Manual)
75-80	Erinye (Monster Manual)
81-86	Succubus/Incubus (Monster Manual)
87-92	Lilitu (Fiendish Codex I)
93-98	Pleasure Devil (Fiendish Codex II)
99	Marilith (Monster Manual) or paeliryon (Fiend Folio) (50% chance of each)

The tiefling race as presented in the Monster Manual is appropriate for human and half-human wunderkinds. If neither parents are human, the wunderkind’s effective race is as follows. If the parents belong to a race or combination of races not found below, the Game Master can take the most fitting similar subrace or create a new one.

Table: Tiefling Subraces for Wunderkinds

Parents’ Race	Effective Race
At least one human parent	Tiefling (Monster Manual)
At least one sun elf parent, no human parent	Fey’ri (Races of Faerûn)
Two dwarf parents	Maeluth (Fiend Folio)
Two elf parents	Fey’ri (Races of Faerûn)
Two gnome parents	Jinx (Aasimar and Tiefling – Guidebook to the Planetouched)
Two halfling parents	Wispling (Fiend Folio)
Two lizardfolk parents	Lizard King/Queen (Serpent Kingdoms)
Two orc parents	Nergaz (Aasimar and Tiefling – Guidebook to the Planetouched)

Wunderkinds can qualify for classes and racial feats available to planetouched, native outsiders in general and characters of their effective race (demon, tiefling, etc.), so long as the extraplanar subtype is not explicitely required. Conversely, most wunderkinds (aside from half-fiend wunderkinds) are disqualified from classes and racial feats that require a humanoid race.

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