At the world's end: Elves

Natives of Yilguen, the elves are servants of the gods of Nature, Art and Magic.
These three sibling-gods created the Elves together, shaping them out of the wood of Nature, giving them the beauty of a artisan's sculpture, and then breathed life into by the god of Magic.
Probably the most magically adept of the species of the world, the three gods split the elves among themselves, creating the three "Spheres" of elven society.

The elves are beautiful things, but by human measure short. The tallest reaching about 150 centimeters tall, with the average ranging 140.
The elves are made lithe and dexterous, but their light bones are brittle and can take little in terms of impact in combat. The elves live for longer periods than Humans, with a average life length of 150 years, and the oldest reaching a venerable 200.

The servants of Nature inhabit the Heartwood, a large woodland filled with both wonder and terror. The trees are beautiful and enchanted things, blooming wonderfully vibrant colors during springtime. But in the shadow of the trees lurk dark abhorrent things, for beauty is merely one of nature's many faces.

The elves themselves live of the wilds, shaped into independent packs of savage hunters, acting as the rangers and border guard of the elven lands. The woodland elves are the fiercest of them all, and it is said there is no better archer in all the world than a Woodland ranger.

In the valley of the thousand statues the servants of the god of art live their lives, each wholly dedicated to it's life's mission, to master one thing well enough that it's name will be marked in the ledger of artisans, and its' art studied by generations to come.
These elves are assigned a role from birth, and it is said that their patron god himself creates each of them as a specific piece that makes up the great tapestry that is elven society, and the divine masterpiece of the god himself. Each elf strives for nothing less than complete mastery of his given art, be it tilling the land, fishing in the inner sea, performing the most exquisite of music or practicing the deadliest of martial art, be it sword or spear.
Among the artists, new ideas and inventions are seen as blasphemy towards the god's will, and anyone straying from the role gifted to them at birth are a flaw in the great tapestry, and must be removed.

In the great towers of the City of crystal that exists in the center of it all backed by the Inner sea, the servants of Magic practice their rituals and spells. These elves have been the terror of lesser races for a long time. The master magisters, the high priests of the god of Magic, are terrifying fiends capable of flinging molten metal, thunderstorms and open rifts in space at a whim. But these secrets are guarded jealously, and the few apprentices that manage to sneak a peek out of their master's grimoires often see themselves flogged for their insolence. Only the most favoured of sons and daughters of the wizard guilds are ever gifted with higher magics than simple cantrips and basic spells. The more ambitious and brilliant among the magicians study the coded tomes of magisters long deceased, and attempt to wrest from them the secrets the magisters intended to take with them to their graves.
It is seen as a great shame for a magister to have his work stolen or decoded, for the most brilliant mind, they say, is the one that only their God can understand.

At the world's end: Humans of Helgren

The humans evolved on the continent of Helgren, a continent of mild summers and harsh winters.
Additionally, the continent was plagued by the fury of the Dragons, huge fire-breathing lizards that soared the skies as unchallenged masters of the land for millennia.

The humans evolved from fairly unassuming primates, and rapidly mastered the fire of the dragons, and used it as a weapon against the dragons themselves. Going from the smithing steel swords and axes to eventually creating firearms.

While in the early years of the Human society, only the mightiest of heroes dared battling dragons, and even then many cities and towns existed merely on the whim of the beasts. But once firearms were invented, it provided a sudden change. Where earlier, only great heroes could hope to slay a dragon, suddenly anyone who was able to aim a cannon or a rifle had the possibility of doing the same.

This eventually led to the nigh extinction of dragon kind, and cemented humanity as the rulers of Helgren.

The human civilization is divided into clans, that for as long as anyone can remember has worked together for the survival of the human people.
The government is arranged as a general democracy where the chieftains of each tribe vote on issues regarding things extending beyond the scope of their own clans.
Ruling over this gathering of chieftains is a high chieftain that has been elected by the rest of the chieftains to ensure the efficiency and relative peace of the gatherings.

Once a issue has arisen, the chieftains are asked to vote. If there is no clear majority, and no compromise can be found, each side chooses a champion. These champions are then to face off in a duel, as selected by the champions themselves.

The most common form of these duels is something that is called "Envig", a ritualistic duel, either armed or unarmed, in a sacred ring of combat. The first one to be rendered unconscious, dead or leaves the ring loses.

But the type of duel could be anything from a horse race to archery, to a poetry challenge, as long as both of the challengers agree.


Due to their constant conflicts with the dragons, humanity has gained a sort of respectful loathing of the scaly fiends, and weapons and other tools of destruction are commonly crafted in the image of their great enemy.

Over all, popular additions to clothing among the humans are fur, leather, and functionabe apparel. Often wearing armor is seen as a sort of fashion statement.

Humans as featured in this campaign are often fair of skin and complexion, but other varieties exist outside of Helgren on the continent of Algamor, and are decendants of humans that migrated south into less harsh lands.

At the worlds' end: New setting, again.

So, I've started work on a new setting in the downtime that has just passed, and I'm going to start documenting it here this weekend. I'll try to get it all written down before Monday, but I'm not making any promises!

So, a short introduction to the world:

The players are part of a human expedition into foreign land, full of wild and magical things. 

The humans themselves are a mundane people, which developed both as a civilization and a people under the terror of bestial dragons. 

The dragons are enormous flying, fire breathing monsters that roam the land with no thoughts beyond their hunger and their attraction to reflective things, be it gold, gems, reflective surfaces, or any the like.

After developing gunpowder, the humans managed to nearly drive the dragons to extinction, the few that survive living in remote and inaccessible areas, the humans set about discovering the rest of the world.

An expedition managed to discover a new continent where no human had previously set foot.

A continent filled with sentient species completely foreign to humanity, including elves, jaguar-people and goblins.

Each of these species were created by a divine being, a "god", to be their mortal servants and to worship their particular creator-god. Examples of these gods are such as the gods of the elves. The gods of Magic, art and nature. Other examples are the god of the Goblins, the god of betrayal and ill intent; and the god of the Jaguar-people (the Tecuani), the blood god.

Each of these gods granted their specific civilization their own brand of magic, each a school of mysticism and rituals performed by the priesthood and select mages gifted by the gods.

The humans on the other hand, who evolved independently of these gods have no magic, and instead have to rely on science and the fortitude inherent in a species that had to evolve in order to exist, something the species native to the new continent never had to do.

Interlude

So after a significant downtime (Christmas celebrations yo) I'm now going to try and resume writing here on the blog.

While I am now back I am currently unsure what to do next. So, if anyone is actually reading this blog I would like you to leave a comment, or contact me through my email and tell me what you want me to go into next.

New setting: Hak’tar

A canine cousin-species to the M’ella, the Hak’tar were quick to create a advanced civilization (at least compared to their cousins), and mastered bronze working and masonry, building great feats of architecture in their temple-cities.

They also got into conflict with the M’ella because of their complete disregard of the natural cycle, and due to the fact that they embraced dark, alien gods from beyond the universe. Intangible things foreign to the concepts of the world they came from, offering them their hearts’ desires in exchange for worship and obedience.

And what the Hak’tar desired was immortality. Something their gods eventually granted them… in a way.

The immortality they were granted was not an eternal life, but the return of the soul to the body after death, trapping the subject in eternal unlife. This practice was then perfected by the Hak’tar, creating vessels for the soul so that it would not die if the body collapsed, as well as ways to preserve the body, preventing it from decomposing.

Additionally, the lich-priests of the Hak’tar mastered the art of animating the dead, creating unliving puppets to serve their every need.

This, of course, did not go over well to the gods of the universe, specifically the god of Death took offense to this transgression of the natural order. He then created the first seekers to beat down the infection that he considered the undead.

Long wars between the “civilized” Hak’tar and the M’ella tribes followed, but in the end the Hak’tar were forced to flee when their alien gods failed to protect them from the wrath of the world’s gods.

The few remaining Hak’tar settlements in existence are put in isolated places such as vast deserts or secluded valleys, where the Hak’tar death-lords and lich-priests brood upon their eventual return, and the destruction of those who stood against them.

New setting: Notable brigands and mercenaries

Before the shift, the most notable mercenary company in the known world was the Iron wolves. A group based in the borderlands to the goblin territories.

Much of their fame has derived from the fact that they built a fort in the main mountain pass between the goblin empires and the human lands, completely stemming the tide of goblin raids and invasions north and west.

The mercenary company settled this fort, holding it for two hundred years. A deed that got them labeled as heroes and dauntless warriors, whose name was the cause of many a toast in the taverns of the eastern territories of Elidrophyn.

The fact that the Iron wolves acted under strict regulations, and were trained to perfection before they were allowed to officially wear the crest of the company only served to further this nigh-mythical status.

After the shift, the sea that cut off access to the northern territories from the goblin lands was moved, making the goblins capable of marching their numberless legions around the Wolf pass, surrounding and besieging the Iron wolves’ citadel from both sides.

The citadel fell, and most of the iron wolves with it. It is a battle spoken of as a legendary last stand, where over a million goblins are said to have met their end, thus making it the bloodiest battle in known history.

The few regiments of the Iron wolves who survived were divided, half considered the fact that the city-states that had sworn to come to their aid were to blame for the destruction of their citadel and the death of their commander as they did not show up in their time of need. These regiments seceded from the iron wolves, renaming themselves the Dire wolves, becoming a mighty force of vengeance against the governments of the nations that currently rule the realm.

The dire wolves retain much of the basic code of the Iron wolves, as well as their desire for perfection. But even though they have rules and a code of honor, they have become brigands and bandits; they have infiltrated organized crime and revolutionist movements. Their paths are many and divided, but their goal is one: Take down all governments and avenge the betrayal of the nations.

The remaining half of the old Iron wolves chose to keep the name, and continue their legacy as their old commanders envisioned. Having lost their home, their influence and most of their companions the Iron wolves are beset by strife and hardship, and tend to travel the world in the traditional wolf packs of the Iron wolves; small squads of three or four members, with each pack acting as a separate entity from the main command structure of the company.

The squads are expected to upkeep the old iron wolf code. To never take jobs that include harming civilians, to never slay a non-combatant, and to respect the laws of whatever realm they happen to be acting within.

More often than not, the Iron wolves end up in bitter conflict with their former brothers in arms, the dire wolves.

The new setting: Demigods

What are demigods, exactly?
Well, that is a rather difficult question to answer. But in essence the people that can be considered demigods are of two different natures.

The first, and most classical of the two are the offspring of a god and a mortal. People born with certain gifts, often varied in source and significance. These people vary between gifted people, to people of herculean might and legacy. One example of a merely gifted demigod could be a man whose only additional traits are longevity, and perhaps a simple spell he can use naturally. Meanwhile the traits of a herculean demigod could be nigh invincibility or superhuman strength or something akin to that.

The other, rarer version of people that could be classified as Demigods are the supreme mortals.
Mortals that have crossed beyond the limitations of their state, and achieved something akin to divine power. Examples of these supreme creatures could be Cain, father of Vampires. These creatures are enormously powerful.