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JQ: Episode 01.05

2017-05-16T04:14:46Z

Daredrinker: /* SYNOPSIS */

== SYNOPSIS ==
Perf blows another spell, Glorion encounters a gargoyle, and the orcs have a very bad day.

== CONNECTIONS ==

Continued fight between Perf and the Orcs from Ep. 1.04

== FEATURED CAST ==

Perf - Christian Doyle

Nara - Anne Kennedy Brad

Carrow - Brian Lewis

Glorion - Kevin Pitman

Wren - Emilie Rommel Shimkus

Rilk- Jesse Lee Keeter

Kurn- Kevin Inouye

Gargoyle- Nathan Rice

== BEHIND THE SCENES ==

This was shot in Carkeek Park in Seattle, WA in 2010.

== COMMUNITY LINKS ==

Discuss this episode on the forums [http://fora.zombieorpheus.com/topic/56/jq-episode-01-05-not-a-zombie].

View this episode at zombieorpheus.com [http://www.zombieorpheus.com/videos/jq-episode-01-05/]

[[Category:JourneyQuest_Episodes]]

JQ: Episode 01.05

2017-04-19T04:34:48Z

Daredrinker: /* CONNECTIONS */

== SYNOPSIS ==

== CONNECTIONS ==

Continued fight between Perf and the Orcs from Ep. 1.04

== FEATURED CAST ==

Perf - Christian Doyle

Nara - Anne Kennedy Brad

Carrow - Brian Lewis

Glorion - Kevin Pitman

Wren - Emilie Rommel Shimkus

Rilk- Jesse Lee Keeter

Kurn- Kevin Inouye

Gargoyle- Nathan Rice

== BEHIND THE SCENES ==

This was shot in Carkeek Park in Seattle, WA in 2010.

Wyrm (Fartherall)

2017-04-19T02:03:28Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Wyrms == Draagan the mighty. Draagan the invincible. Draagan the infinite. The source of all dragons is an unknowable god-being so great in scope and unfathomable in n..."

== Wyrms ==

[[Draagan]] the mighty. Draagan the invincible. Draagan the infinite. The source of all dragons is an unknowable god-being so great in scope and unfathomable in nature that even the most brilliant of its children can’t honestly claim to understand its goals, if indeed goals there be.

Just below Draagan in terms of might are the [[Dragon Monarchs]]. They are worshipped as gods and goddesses by the broods they spawn, and are powerful enough to grant the spells to back up such grand claims. Unfortunately for most everyone, the Dragon Monarchs often fancy themselves the proper god-sovereign of any land which they inhabit. Few humanoid races are willing to bend the knee of their own free will, and as powerful as the Monarchs and their lesser drakes are, they cannot be everywhere at once. Needs dictated that a lesser dragon race would be called for to keep the disparate humanoid races in check, and so were born the first wyrms.

Using their incredible magic to alter the properties of their own eggs, the Monarchs created a new form of life which would gestate quickly, be born in broods of twenty, and mature into able warriors even more quickly than orcs. Wyrms are born in clutches of ten to thirty, and are able to manage a sword by their second year. Despite this rapid rate of maturation, a wyrm has the potential to live up to 200 years.

Wyrms of different types are bred for different tasks, and are lethally effective in their destined fields of expertise. They are also pathologically incapable of pursuing any other goal, desiring only to become the greatest exemplar of their breed.

This controlled method of breeding created the perfect minions, and a Dragon Monarch’s ability to switch gender at will (coupled with the ability of their Consorts to also alter their genders accordingly) means that breeding rates and quality of stock can be monitored with incredibly scrutiny and, if needs be, adjusted with stunning speed.
This perfect stock of chattel was disrupted once in the distant past when a mistake was bred. The Consort responsible for the anomaly was removed from the gene pool with all haste and prejudice, but the damage was done – free will had somehow polluted the wyrm gene pool.

Now, on rare occasion, a wyrm emerges from its egg with questions on its mind. As it grows, it will observe the brutal regime into which its been born with a growing sense of unease, for the different and impure aren’t tolerated once they make themselves known. These wyrms do what they can to keep pace with their clutch mates and not draw attention to themselves. Those who fail are either sent on suicide missions by their commanders or executed outright, but those who succeed will often be driven to escape shortly after their second birthday. The fact that this act of defiance is even possible sets their mind tumbling down even more dangerous paths, and it’s never long after that that they begin to question, doubt, and resent the claims of infallible divinity possessed by the Monarchs, as well as the absolute superiority of dragonkind.

=== Physical Description ===

A typical wyrm stands anywhere from six to eight feet tall, sports thick scales, claws, fangs, and a powerful tail. They grow no hair, but sometimes they decorate their horns and crests with various trinkets or marks of rank. In addition to these standard traits, wyrms tend to exhibit three other physical characteristics which set them apart from brood to brood.

They gain their coloration (and therefore resistance type) from their Monarch, and their build and crests from the Consort whose traits they were meant to emulate. Lastly, their coloration may take on mottling over time to match with the landscape where they primarily reside.

Wyrms have no gender, for the ability to create new life is fit only for the gods.

An exception to this rule, as ever, is the heretics. When away from wyrm society for several years, a bizarre phenomenon occurs in which they somehow develop a gender, and begin to exhibit traits, both physical and personal, that further distinguish them from their genderless clutch-mates. Furthermore, in the ultimate expression of heresy, these heretic wyrms develop and act upon the desire to breed with others of their kind, resulting in an unregulated draconic life which will share the coloration (and 1/2 of each resistance) of both parents. Any such heretic wyrm will be hunted even more zealously than their parents, as their very existence is an impossible blasphemy.

=== Society ===

Adherence to the dictates of the Monarch is the only law in Wyrm society. The only desire that they know is pleasing their progenitor, and a drastic reversal of a hundreds-year-old tradition would be received with open arms, as long as the decree came from their beloved god(dess).

A neighboring kingdom of wyrms may show up before an established kingdom of other humanoids is even fully aware of their existence, and this nightmare scenario almost always ends with a sudden and bloody war of conquest, the unfortunate survivors of which having only a short and brutal life of slavery to look forward to.

Heretic wyrms most typically resort to becoming hermits, as they are often chased far away from any established settlement of other humanoids.

=== Relations ===

Most wyrms look down on all races with equal measures of distaste, considering themselves to be the only true scions of greatness in whatever realm they happen to inhabit. This point of view only changes to hatred and furious indignation directed toward any race who successfully challenges their sense of invincibility. Anything other than absolute deference is treated as a blasphemy against the Monarch who created them, and there can be only one punishment for blasphemy.

The heretics fight against their natural draconic hubris, and do what they can to fit in among any civilized race who is willing to have them.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Apart from the heretics, all wyrms worship the dragon monarchs as their gods, and many of the dragon monarchs in turn worship Draagan. As such their alignments tend toward NE and LE. Wyrm heretics, however, chafe under anything they perceive to be unjust or foolish, and so tend to be CG, and worship any god most closely in tune with their personal beliefs.

Dryad

2017-04-19T01:51:33Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Dryads == When the Olom created the halflings to tend the gardens of the nascent world, they created a determined and conscientious lot dedicated to providing as b..."

== Dryads ==

When the [[Olom]] created the [[halflings]] to tend the gardens of the nascent world, they created a determined and conscientious lot dedicated to providing as bountiful a harvest as efficiently as possible. To this end, a group of unusually reckless halflings decided to see what would happen if they infused their crops with energy they’d harvested, in turn, from [[The Garden]].

The raw inclusion of this mighty energy had the intended effect — increasing crop yield and variety — as well as some remarkable unintended ones. The plants subjected to this infusion grew healthier and stronger, and even seemed to respond to the (often unvoiced) desires of their gardeners; if the tender of a berry crop wished the berries were a bit more tart, they’d discover the flavor had changed by the next morning. Some plants would disappear during the night, only to turn up rooted in places their gardeners hadn’t put them, and often grouped together as if they’d relocated and sorted themselves. While this phenomenon was initially written off as a series of harmless pranks, it soon became apparent that contact with the Garden had granted these plants some form of sentience.

Ever-conscientious, the halflings set about attempting to communicate with the sentient plants, causing many members of the other races to question their sanity. Eventually, the gardeners hit upon the idea of grafting these sentient plants onto trees. The sentience leapt to the trees with enthusiasm, and these sentient trees grew rapidly in ways never before seen, developing limbs, mouths… and faces. These new creatures — called dryads — shared the kindly nature of the small folk who created them, and took up their creators’ task of nurturing the growing things of the world. In time, they would take their talents beyond the halfling gardens and strike out on their own, becoming stewards and wardens of the wilderness.

Dryads have an innate talent for empathically communicating with nature. Upon arriving in a new natural habitat, they can literally root themselves in the soil and learn all they need to about the location: its flora and fauna, overall health, mood, and threats to it, simply by tapping into [[the verdance]], flowing from the Garden, that connects all living things.

=== Physical Description ===

Dryads, grown from a magical mingling of blossoming plants and trees, come in a rainbow of colors. Instead of hair, dryads grow flowers, grass, pine needles, leaves, or vines. Their skin is the color and texture of a tree, and runs the gamut from ashen to deep brown, to pale white shot through with dark lines. While dryads themselves don’t have gender, the halflings gardeners shaped their original bodies in images similar to the [[elves]]; as such, some dryads have vestigial masculine or feminine physical characteristics. Most appear asexual.

Dryads have the ability to root themselves in place by sending wooden roots from their feet into the ground. In this state, they are incredibly difficult to dislodge. Furthermore, a rooted dryad can be almost indistinguishable from an actual tree; while rooted, a dryad’s legs grow together, leaves (or whatever growth the dryad has for hair) sprouts from outstretched arms, and the features soften and vanish beneath a mask of bark. In this state, the dryad is tapped into the network of fauna in the region, and can learn valuable information about the area.

Dryads continue growing throughout their very long lives. They begin life as small creatures and, over the course of many centuries, can reach the height of the tallest trees in their woods. It is rumored that colossal dryads dwell in the worlds primordial, unsettled reaches. It is not known exactly how long dryads live, or even whether they die of old age, or just keep growing. It’s not something dryads discuss.

=== Society ===

Dryads live in small clusters called copses in the wilder places of the world. The youngest, known as saplings, are small sized creatures raised under the canopies of the permanently rooted elders. Dryads communicate with one another silently, through an empathic link they share as a species. Through this link, it is impossible to lie or hide intent. Affairs are governed and decisions made by the great elders towering above.

A dryad may take up adventuring life for a number of reasons. Primarily it’s youthful rebelliousness, and the desire to be separated from the link long enough to develop on their own personalities and views of the world. Indeed, young dryads are encouraged to go on at least one walkabout, as their experiences will enrich the copse upon their return. Dryads sized small or medium (or even large, though that’s rarer) can be bitten by this wanderlust and leave the copse for the civilized humanoid lands. But the pull of the copse is strong, and by the time a dryad has reached size large, the allure of the open world holds less interest. By size huge, they only want to return to the copse and raise saplings under the shade of their branches.

Dryads are laconic with non-dryads and prefer to speak through actions rather than words. The reason? They find speech maddening. A chain of words — each representing a boxed image or limited concept — is to them an extremely inefficient form of communication when you can just tap into one another’s minds directly and experience their views, history, and thoughts in one empathic rush. And given that deception is impossible via the link, dryads don’t pick up on subtext or sarcasm; they tend to take statements at face value. That’s not to say they’re stupid — they’ll figure out if you’ve lied to them, and will respond accordingly.

=== Relations ===

Dryads have the best relationships with [[halflings]], often living in harmony with the short folk, either within or just beyond the bounds of their village. They are also quite friendly with [[gnomes]] and [[elves]], both of whom can appreciate the fact that dryads share an even deeper connection with the natural world than they do. Elves in particular find dryads to be pleasant company, as there are few other races as long lived as they, and forming a lasting bond with someone of different heritage is a rare and special thing. Dryads are indifferent to [[dwarves]] unless and until a dwarven mining operation threatens the wilderness a dryad calls home. At this point, they will approach the dwarves with their polite concerns, and when the dwarves inevitably turn a deaf ear to the ramblings of a “nutty leafbeard”, the dryad will slink away before a lit dwarven torch.

[[Orcs]] are often problematic, but less so than dwarvenkind. If handled diplomatically enough, a dryad may even find work as a guard on an orcish settlement — perhaps even watching over them during their deep sleep, if they prove their loyalty over the course of many years (or decades). [[Ogres]] are, as always, no use to anyone, and dryads avoid them with all prudence.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Dryads worship [[The Garden]], holding special reverence for the source of their transformation from simple plants into a race all their own. However, they do not share the Garden’s indifference towards matters of right and wrong, instead largely taking after the halflings who cultivated them in the first place in their attitudes toward others. Dryads are most often Neutral Good.

Deepling

2017-04-19T01:40:02Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Deeplings == The Deep is an infinite plane of formless, hungry emptiness. Here and there, it seeps into the material world. Go deep enough underground, it is said, and..."

== Deeplings ==

[[The Deep]] is an infinite plane of formless, hungry emptiness. Here and there, it seeps into the material world. Go deep enough underground, it is said, and you’ll fall into a tendril of shadow and be pulled into the all-consuming void. Several religious traditions teach that the Deep will, one day, consume all life across the cosmos before devouring itself and bringing about an end to the universe — and perhaps beginning it anew.

Despite its strong affiliation with pure negative energy, there are places where the Deep intersects with the rest of creation. These collisions results in blasphemous and terrifying forms of life. In many cases, these abominations take form in realms mercifully detached from the other planes, and spin off gibbering into the infinite black — but not in all cases. In one realm in particular, a border region where the Deep boils into [[the Fountain]], the Deep’s seeping negative energy has given birth to an icy nightmare world known as [[Fathom]]. This yawning aquatic abyss is home to two of of the most dangerous and devious species in the omniverse: the [[krakens]] and the [[aboleths]].

This lightless domain of Fathom lies in a perpetual state of contention between its chief tenants. The war between the krakens and aboleths — each of whom are convinced they are better equipped toward the task of keeping the denizens of the Deep from overwhelming Fathom — stretches back before recorded times. The one thing these two species agree upon is that if Fathom should be overtaken, none of the lesser races (that is, everyone but themselves) would survive. It should be noted that between the two, only the aboleths consider this noteworthy.

Krakens handle threats to Fathom by gathering a school of their brethren in direct proportion to whatever danger intrudes into their territory, and then demolishing it with their titanic combined strength. Thus far, this rather direct strategy has proven effective, and legions of explorers and would-be conquerors alike have died in the grip of their crushing black tentacles.

As the physically weaker race, the aboleths have developed more sophisticated methods for securing their survival. Their cities — gigantic membranous constructions that resemble enormous single-celled lifeforms in their layout — are hidden to naked sight by powerful illusionary magics that would baffle the brightest [[Black Robe]]. It is behind these invisible walls that burn the only sources of illumination in all of Fathom. Great mansions of genetically-engineered coral are lit by globes of magical light, and contain vast libraries of alien philosophy, mathematics, and prophecy, collected from several different worlds and several different points in time.

An idiot among aboleths would be considered an exceptional intellect among the lesser races, so when the aboleths say they have put their hundred greatest minds to work on a single problem, that statement carries significant weight. Such was the case with [[the Grand Equation]]. Every century, these hundred great sages are interrupted in their work to participate (impatiently, it should be noted) in a battery of aptitude tests to determine whether they are fit to continue their work, or if any other aboleths have surpassed them and claimed a spot in the brain trust. Such has it always been, and in the ten thousand years of recorded history since the Grand Equation’s beginning, never has a member of this group been replaced for a reason other than death.

No one on this side of Fathom knows the details of the so-called Grand Equation; mages who have attempted to scrye in to discover its secrets have either been driven to gibbering madness or died outright from the psychic backlash. From the scribblings of those driven insane by what they saw, this little can be deduced: that the Grand Equation is both a theory and a formula that, when implemented fully, will lead to complete aboleth ascendancy and mastery over all sentient races in all realms. Additionally, it is known that in aboleth society, adherence to the Grand Equation has taken the place of religion. Each aboleth has a part to play, and the Equation, like a fractal pattern, becomes more defined the deeper an aboleth dives into implementing it.

The intrusive tentacles of the Grand Equation have wormed their way into the affairs of most every sentient race, and rarely if ever do those being implemented have any inkling that they are being influenced. A popular and traditional method for steering the developmental paths of lesser beings involves an aboleth envoy traveling to the material plane, and using its innate powers to dominate the mind of a likely thrall, who will bring it a more highly placed thrall, who in turn will bring it a thrall yet more highly placed, until the aboleth becomes a puppet master of members of a royal court.

In recent centuries — scarcely enough time to grow bored, by aboleth reckoning — this classic approach has been mostly supplanted by the creation of a new slave race the aboleths refer to simply as “[[slugs]]”. Bred from a mingling of genetic material harvested from [[ald]], [[ord]], [[olom]], and aboleth, each individual slug is carefully crafted into an attractive image of whatever race it will infiltrate, and is implanted as an embryo into the body of the host mother — sometimes a willing cultist who knows of and believes in the Great Equation, but most often through complicated and ultra-sophisticated teleportation magic that removes a fertilized embryo from the womb of the host and replaces it with that of the slug. It is unknown what the aboleths do with the embryos the fetal slugs replace.

Slugs are born and live their entire lives believing they are a member of their host mother’s race — as far as they know, their host mother is their mother — and there is nothing remarkable about them. After behaving exactly as they were bred to behave and achieving all in life that they were meant to achieve, slugs are gripped by a sudden and all-consuming depression. This crippling plunge in mood inevitably leads to a grisly suicide that leaves very little of their original body in a recognizable state; the most common kind is self-immolation. The puppets of the aboleths have thus fulfilled their unknown masters’ plans and neatly disposed of themselves, and the gears of the Great Equation have ground forward another step.

This infiltration tactic has proven effective and efficient for many years, and the aboleths have ruled it an unmitigated success… until very recently, when certain slugs began to gain self-awareness. What caused this is unclear; what little evidence of this awakening that’s been gathered suggest either an error in the Great Equation (unthinkable to the aboleths) or a fundamental change in the laws of physics, at least in this branch of the [[omniverse]].

Whatever the case, the results are consistent. Somewhere during a slug’s development — usually in late adolescence or early adulthood — a mysterious stimuli interrupts a slug’s false-life, and triggers a shocking change: an awakening into their true nature, a change that manifests in a way that reveals the slug’s aberrant heritage (see “physical description” below). This first transformation is involuntary and horrifying, both for the slug and any witnesses. Should the slug survive — a number don’t, as their minds break with the trauma and their suicide programming kicks in — its world has been shattered. The person it thought it was was but a mask that has fallen away, and with it fell most of the memories its aboleth masters encoded into the slug at its birth.

Always disoriented, and carrying only scattered fragments of what it once knew and who it once was, these lost souls do what they can to survive. Many times, the sudden appearance of a strange looking creature in the midst of humanoid society results in the unfortunate slug being murdered on the spot by adventurers or a terrified populace. Enough of these awakened slugs have been encountered, however, that the humanoid races have christened them “deeplings” — a name first coined by [[Jendril]] (better known as the [[Wicked Prince]]), a Black Robe of surpassing power, after he manage to divine the slugs origins after a lengthy vivisection.

Meanwhile, the great aboleth sages who steward the Grand Equation will not say one way or the other whether the emergence of awakened deeplings is all part of their plan, or if it represents the biggest ever ripple in their scheme. This ambiguity has left their lesser aboleth kin feeling a keen and alien discomfort.

=== Physical Description ===

While in their humanoid guise, a deepling always appears as an exceptionally attractive and confident member of its mother’s race. Its bearing and intellect usually carries it far enough in life that it can afford expensive and custom-tailored garments, which it wears well enough to cause envy among its peers.

In its natural form, however, a deepling’s flesh becomes translucent and gelatinous, and its figure becomes stooped and androgenous. Its facial features warp into two large black eyes, two slits that serve as nostrils, and a thin line of a mouth. Like their aboleth grandparents, they are hermaphroditic; deeplings are only male or female in their mind insofar as they’ve been programmed to believe. These personal perceptions often continue throughout a slug’s life even after it’s awoken, and is reinforced by their eventual ability to resume their old humanoid forms.

Deeplings identify themselves by their gender before their first transformation, and use the corresponding pronouns.

=== Society ===

Deeplings have no society of their own. They were spawned with the sole intent of driving their host societies in some impossibly convoluted and long-sighted plan as part of the Grand Equation. After their first transformation, deeplings are almost always driven away from the places they’ve called home.

=== Relations ===

Deeplings’ relationships with the various humanoid races could be described as rocky at best. The people who knew the deepling while they were in disguise — “dormant,” is the term the deeplings prefer — often feel betrayed, or even refuse to believe that the deepling is indeed the same person they’ve always known, feeling instead that it is a strange monster that has taken that person’s place. In many ways they’re correct, as the deepling always feelings a deep sense of confusion as its free will asserts itself, and many of the relationships formed at the behest of the aboleth programming begin to slip as they reevaluate their opinions of various people they’d never have gotten close to if they had their own say about it.

Deeplings discovered in dwarven society are in for a hellish reception. Dwarven alchemists are always interested in unusual physiologies, and won’t hesitate to make an experiment out of a false dwarf that’s perceived to have betrayed the trust of the clan. Those who fall into the hands of the alchemists are lucky — dwarven priests view the Deep as the greatest threat to the [[Underkingdom]], and deeplings therefore as literal hellspawn.

[[Humans]] treat deeplings little better than [[dwarves]], though they usually simply resort to imprisonment and eventual execution after a long interrogation. Newly awakened deeplings can seldom provide useful answers during such a questioning.

[[Elves]] are wont to simply place the deepling under house arrest for the remainder of their life.

[[Gnomes]] are the only race that a deepling has any hope of remaining among when it first changes, as the bonds formed while hunting and guarding the forest run deep and strong.

No deeplings have ever been placed amongst the [[halflings]]. It’s unclear why this is the case. It is theorized that either the Great Equation doesn’t account for halflings, or doesn’t deem them significant enough to factor in..

Any deepling who appears among [[orcs]] will often be granted a swift and brutal trial, after which they will be made to defend their honor in a clash of arms. As shocked and confused as a recently awakened deepling is, this seldom ends well.

The only deepling ever to appear among ogrekind was promptly salted and eaten.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Deeplings mostly follow whatever religion their parents do, though those who survive their initial awakening may find themselves questioning their old faiths. A very rare few even try to find their way back to their aboleth masters, adopting the Great Equation and seeking to serve it in spite of their brutal expulsion from all they’ve held dear. Of those who seek out their masters, a number (deemed of suitable mind) have been accepted as servants and agents. At least in this, they retain a sense of purpose.
All being equal, deeplings tend toward neutrality. Those who now knowingly serve the aboleths are most often Neutral Evil.

Half-Orc

2017-04-19T01:19:15Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Half-Orcs == The Boreal Crusades — the great continent-spanning wars between man and orc — have resulted in some of the most spectacular bloodshed ever witnessed..."

== Half-Orcs ==

[[The Boreal Crusades]] — the great continent-spanning wars between man and orc — have resulted in some of the most spectacular bloodshed ever witnessed on [[Fartherall]]. [[Orcs]] burned out and slaughtered helpless farmers and frontiersmen, displacing hordes of northern [[humans]] and seizing their lands; and human assassins massacred hibernating orcs, after slaying their watchers, under the guise of justice and purity. Instances of friendly contact between large populations of these races are all but unheard of, and a half-orc raised by two loving parents is rarer than [[star metal]].

Instead, a majority of half-orcs are, sadly, conceived in violence and pain, left as a burden upon a human mother. Those children who survive their first few years grow rapidly, soon outstripping most of their human counterparts in both strength and assertiveness (which the humans most often mischaracterize as aggression). Those half-orcs with a gentler disposition will find themselves bullied by mobs of their human peers, and those with rougher manner often end up leading those selfsame mobs. This, of course, ends up perpetuating the stereotype of the thuggish and crude half-orc running roughshod over human society.

In contrast, human/orc hybrids have an easier time of it in orcish society. Becoming part of an orcish tribe is a difficult task for anyone not born into it, but those half-orcs who are bound by blood to a tribe will be accepted, even if the blood runs thin. These strange pups — who are comparatively weak and who develop more slowly than their full-blooded orc kin — are put through the same pace as their purebred cousins. Only when and if they can’t keep pace do they face any discrimination for their human side. Unfortunately, given that orcish pups can walk mere hours after birth — what weak baby is this, that must be carried? — half-orc children often get left behind in the earliest days of life. Even so, the relative acceptance that benefits these half-orcs comes with the added difficulty that comes from growing up in orcish society.

A strange exception to these standards is the rare, but not unheard of, loving human-orcish mixed race family. On the rarest of occasions, kismet will strike when an orc and human cross paths. For no discernable reason, they will be smitten with one another. Resisting this attraction is incredibly difficult, and can cause sickness and even physical pain in the short term. If the two succumb to this newfound attraction, children (or a litter) will often result from their union. These half-orcs are the fortunate few who grow up in a home with two loving parents, and a foot in each world. As they grow, they feel a strong sense of destiny that draws them to the righteous path of the Paladin.

=== Physical Description ===

Half-orcs are strong, physically powerful and hardy, combining human adaptability with Orcish vigor. Half-orcs tend to stand slightly taller and have heavier musculature than a human, and their skin bears a definitive light green hue ranging from pea green to seafoam. They grow their hair longer in human settlements to conceal their more bestial features, while those who dwell among the orcs will often shave their heads bare and do all they can to make their appearance all the more fearsome.

Half-orc children — called pups when raised in Orcish societies — can walk by three months old and run by six. They are usually born in small litters of fraternal twins and triplets. They reach sexual maturity by ten or twelve and full adulthood by fourteen — quicker than humans, more slowly than orcs. Middle age for a half-orc is thirty, with fifty marking old age. Few live past sixty.

=== Society ===

There is no half-orc society. While a half-orc and a half-orc would produce another half-orc, a half-orc and an orc produce offspring indistinguishable from orcs, and a half-orc and a human produce offspring indistinguishable from a human (with just the slightest touch of green in the skin). Therefore, unless half-orcs only breed with one another, they are never more than a small minority in whichever community they belong.

Upon reaching adulthood, half-orcs who grew up in human societies tend to strike out on their own. Human fear of the orc runs deep; too many have lost loved ones to the [[scrapaxe]] and [[atrocity-knife]], and they unfairly project those feelings onto half-orc children. When the half-orcs reach adulthood — alarmingly quickly, from the human point of view — it’s hard for humans to see anything but a savage orc living in their midst, even if they’ve known the half-orc all their lives. Adult half-orcs living in human populations find themselves the targets of racial profiling and discrimination. To avoid threats of violence, half-orcs who remain in human societies find they have to be “twice as good, half as mad” (so the saying goes). Still, that might not be enough to avoid harassment. As a result, many of half-orcs who live as adults in human settlements trend towards careers of authority: clerics, inquisitors, and paladins. Those who see the writing on the wall and leave as youths seldom return.

On the other hand, half-orcs growing up in Orcish societies often try to prove that they’re as much an orc as any of their peers. Half-orcs in traditionalist tribes go out of their way to accept the scars of rank and anything else that marks them an orc. Once they’ve earned the trust of a tribe, half-orcs in high esteem can rise to lasting leadership positions given their relatively longer lives. Some of the tribes require a purification ritual wherein the half-orc will dangle over a fire — ceremonially burning away their human blood — until the candidate collapses from the exhaustion, only to rise a day later as a “true” orc. From that point forward, the half-orc will be considered and referred to as a pure orc by the rest of the tribe.

On occasion, half-orc refugees from human societies run away to join a tribe. Those tribes willing to accept a half-orc raised by humans put these newcomers through harsh initiation processes. Some require the purification ritual. Sadly, many of these half-orcs either don’t have the stamina to survive the initiations, or die during the purification ritual. Those who do succeed are welcomed as full member of the tribe, and only have the language barrier to surmount.

No such purification ritual is required by modernist orcs in the permanent Orcish settlements. Half-orcs there are welcome, and don’t need to ceremonially purify themselves from their human blood to find acceptance.

=== Relations ===

Non-human, non-orc members of other races have a difficult time telling a half-orc apart from an orc, and this has sometimes led to tragic misunderstandings. Half-orcs who wish to serve in a diplomatic role realize that they need to keep their features obscured and their heads held low until proper contact has been made, lest they alarm their would-be allies.
Dwarven reaction to half-orcs depends on where the dwarf is from. Surface-dwelling [[dwarves]] are surprisingly awkward around half-orcs, seeing them as unfortunate victims of the lax dwarven slave masters who allowed the original escape all those years ago. They do what they can to keep these ambivalent feelings of guilt and disgust from getting in the way of business, of course. Dwarves from under the mountains are sickened by half-orcs and see them as abominations to be put down. What disgusts them is seeing human blood — humans being one step away from dwarves in the [[Olom]] strain — mingled with that of the orc.

[[Elves]] are terrified of half-orcs. The attraction they feel toward humans is there alongside the repulsion they feel for the warmongering orcs. They keep interaction as brief as (rather curt) politeness will allow, and often feel the need for a long bath after such business is concluded.

[[Gnomes]] aren’t especially interested in judging half-orcs, and treat them most like the company they keep. Of course, they usually keep company with both humans and pure orcs, so that often means that they’re trouble anyway. But if anyone’s willing to give an individual a chance, it’s the gnomes.

The [[halflings]] are happy to welcome half-orcs who come peaceably to their tables, and treat them in the manner of whichever ethnicity they seem to most closely identify.

[[Humans]] treat most half-orcs with naked suspicion bordering on open hostility, making it sometimes dangerous for an unescorted half-orc to travel alone in human-settled areas. On the other side of that coin, a lone half-orc spotted by the watch after dark is liable to be under suspicion of mischief, and may be harassed or even arrested with little to no provocation.

[[Orcs]] treat the half-breeds like members of their own tribe when they are brought up among orcs, but any tribe that is not allied to their own will behave as though the half-orc were a human; which is to say, they will often stab first and ask questions later.

Half-orcs prefer to avoid [[ogres]] because the huge lummoxes find them even more attractive than humans. Being pawed at by an ogre is enough to make even the bravest warrior shrink in fear and run for the hills.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Half-orcs mostly tend toward Neutral alignments, as they spend their formative years learning that it can be dangerous to rely on others too much, but also that it can be hazardous to disrupt any established system too much. About as many are good as evil, so it mostly averages out.

Half-Elf

2017-04-19T01:03:52Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Half-Elves == The ardor that humanity stirs in the otherwise placid elves is a point of unending discomfort and embarrassment for the children of the Ald. While a..."

== Half-Elves ==

The ardor that humanity stirs in the otherwise placid [[elves]] is a point of unending discomfort and embarrassment for the children of the [[Ald]]. While an elven couple may produce only one or two children over the course of a few centuries, an elf/human couple could theoretically give birth once every two years.

Unfortunately, these children are doomed to a maddeningly difficult and often traumatic childhood, followed by a lonely adulthood that (eventually) leads into an old age where their ageless, fey-touched soul must watch their flawed flesh age and decay. If they are raised among [[humans]], half-elves watch their parents perish and their siblings and friends reach middle age by the time they themselves have only hit puberty. Their minds mature much more quickly than their physical bodies, the result being adult minds in prepubescents, and decades of infuriating condescension from well-meaning human adults.

Half-elves raised by elves grow so quickly they outpace their peers in all things. They’ll become accomplished bards by the time their childhood friends have outgrown their first nursery rhymes. Even into adulthood, full elves are liable to treat half-elves with overt displays of pity or false favoritism. Sometimes this is born of the same shameful lust that first spawned them, and the half-elf will become the guilty pleasure of several (if not dozens) of amorous elves over the course of their lives. While this can be pleasurable and fun at first, it eventually dawns on the young adult that they’re seen as nothing more than an exotic curiosity, and none of their “lovers” care enough to commit their ageless hearts to the mortal, doomed half-elf.

Many elves are attracted to humans, but none of them are willing to discuss that attraction openly. A tactic for masking their shame is to react with scandalized shock whenever evidence of human/elven coupling cannot be ignored. This “humaphobia” is all-pervasive. Sadly, half-elves who know and were raised by both their parents are all but unheard of. The human parent will die before the half-elf is physically mature, but long after the child has the mind of an adult; and the elven parent is likely eventually to distance him or herself from the societal shame of a half-breed offspring. The life of a half-elf is fraught with trauma, loneliness, and feelings of estrangement, and few remain in their native homes for long.

=== Physical Description ===

To the untrained eye, half-elves can appear indistinguishable from elves to all but elves and [[gnomes]]. Elves think half-elves — who they refer to as “half-humans” or “halfmen” — look more human than elven, what with their stouter limbs and slightly more rounded features. Oddly, gnomes often confuse half-elves for humans or elves; the source of this confusion is unknown. Physically, half-elves blend the best aspects of elven grace with human strength, and are often considered quite attractive. This innate beauty is often at odds with their defensive and gruff personalities.

=== Society ===

Half-elven society hardly exists at all, though over the past few centuries this has slowly been changing. A small sect of half-elves has begun pooling the resources its members have collected as adventures; these half-elves have contracted [[dwarves]] to begin work on a fortress-city called [[Nativity]], deep in the [[Afterlands]], where only half-elves will be granted citizenship. If they are square pegs trying to fit into a round hole, they intend to smash the board until the square peg damn well fits. This new home will give the race the focal point the [[Forty Founders]] believes they need to begin growing as a species, with the end goal being to reach a point where they become a properly sustainable race under their own power and authority.

This dream has quite a few hurdles to overcome. First and foremost is the learned distrust half-elves hold toward most anyone else, including other half-elves. The idea that the fortress-city ought to be built was agreed on unanimously when [[the Forty]] signed their contract with the dwarves, but beyond “We should have a place of our own”, the Forty have been unable to agree on much at all. None want to be subservient to the others, and none want to be made emperor or empress, for fear the others might try to usurp them. It’s as if a settlement founded by a bunch of distrustful loners isn’t the best basis for a society. At this point it seems most likely that the Forty will form some sort a non-representative council to determine all matters of state, and vote on how best to manage the replacement process once the city begins to run on its own.

Prospective citizens of Nativity have spread far and wide to spread word of their brave new home to others of their race. All half-elves are welcome, but the Forty have decided that any scouts who return with other half-elves will be granted a bounty in their new currency (whatever it might be) in proportion to the number of new citizens with which they return. So far nobody has tried to force anyone to join, though whether a particularly enterprising half-elf decides to use coercive measures in the future is anyone’s guess.

Another stated goal of the Forty is to come up with a different name for their race than “half-elves,” because they see that term as an indictment, a measure of incompleteness that serves as a reminder that they don’t belong. Many names have been bandied about, but the one with the most sticking power so far has been “ava” (both singular and plural).

Imperfect as it may be, Nativity is a first and bold statement by the bastard grandchildren of the Ald that they are ready to come into their own, and are no longer willing to be marginalized or abandoned (in actuality or by perception) by the cultures of their parents. Openly mocking this dream is a fast way to halt any bickering half-elves may be doing amongst themselves, so they can focus their energy on delivering a blistering tongue lashing (or regular lashing) on the fool who’d make light of their ill-defined dream.

=== Relations ===

As individuals, half-elves are a dour lot that expects the worst from people, as that’s the kind of treatment they’ve received. Half-elves in the company of others often exhibit narcissistic and vain personalities, but this is usually a mask worn over deep sense of self-loathing. They would be more open toward the other sentient [[races]] of [[Fartherall]] if their personal experiences didn’t tend towards the emotionally brutal.

Some half-elves revere their elven ancestors in a sad and unintentional parody of the adoration that full elves hold for the Ald. These poor souls do all they can to live in service to elfkind, and tend to elicit responses from elves ranging from pity to scorn. They may be taken as lovers many times during their lives, but rarely will a lasting relationship form. Taking a half-elf as a mate isn’t quite as embarrassing as repeating the mistake that caused the half-elf in the first place, but it’s still more than a little uncouth.

Many other half-elves can’t stand purebloods, and resent their powers and senses of their full blooded relatives. They view the erudite Aldspawn as arrogant, and look at themselves as a glimpse into a future that the elves are understandably terrified of, as it doesn’t include them. They take most every opportunity to deride elven tradition and culture, and some have gone so far as to take direct action — arson and murder — to speed along the death of the old ways. These half-elves try to seek out others of their own kind and begin halfblood families, and look forward to the day when their children or grandchildren will be the ones living in luxury while the pure elves are left wandering a world that’s forgotten them.

On the other side of their blood, the human side, emotions are often just as polarized. Some half-elves adore the expansionist and industrial humans. Their fast lives intrigue them, and once they reach maturity they are often well positioned to build and act upon far-reaching plans that the shorter-lived humans may not have the patience for. Their human neighbors often find half-elves attractive, and many a duel has been fought for the affection of a comely half-elf, which is fine by them most of the time; being wanted is something all half-elves crave.

Unsurprisingly, about as many half-elves as love humanity hate it, seeing it as wasteful, grasping, and devoid of real soul or culture. They’re ashamed of their human blood, and go out of their way to excoriate humans on their wasteful and stupid ways at every available opportunity. They see humanity’s rejection of their wisdom as corroborating evidence of humankind’s stupidity.

[[Halflings]] are probably more likely than anyone to treat a half-elf with non-judgmental openness and kindness, and this stirs up a maelstrom of conflicting emotions in a half-elf. Deep gratitude mingles with contempt that such a small and weak race would offer a half-elf friendship. Racial arrogance keeps half-elves from openly admitting how awful it is to be all alone, and to their credit, halflings have come to understand this. In the interest of helping the half-elf keep her pride, a halfling community will usually invent some job that only the half-elf can do, and keep them around as long as they care to share company. Half-elves love halflings.

They aren’t so crazy about [[gnomes]], though. Gnomish bravado and their fierce devotion to their kin reminds half-elves all too keenly of their own displacement from elven society. Gnomes are liable to mistake a half-elf for either human or elf, and have a hard time keeping it straight in their head, sometimes even mistaking the same individual for both races during the same day.

[[Dwarves]] are fine, and often preferable company if company must be kept. Dwarves keep to themselves, turn out interesting products, respect contracts, and don’t ask questions. A half-elf is liable to appreciate how most dwarves treat them exactly the same as any other potential customer, neither slamming their shutters nor offering pity-sales. [[Darrow]], however, half-elves find absolutely exhausting. A half-elf traveling long-term in the company of a half-dwarf will likely grow somewhat cheerful as his wineskin grows lighter.

[[Orcs]] are a favorite target, because both halves of a half-elf’s dual nature agree that the violent greenskins are damaging to what is right with the world, and should be driven away from civilized areas or crushed outright. Interestingly enough, half-elves are defensive of and inclined toward friendship with [[half-orcs]], who they see as kindred spirits. All the same, they begrudge a half-orc the fortune that their low blood should be brought higher by humanity while their own fey heritage was brought low by the same blood.

[[Ogres]] are beasts at best and toys at worst. A half-elf who deals with ogres will do so only on his own terms, and that usually means manipulating the ogre pride into some situation where they’ll be turned on his rivals, often under the guise of being a turncoat from an elven settlement… which has sometimes been the case, and resulted in the destruction of elven enclaves where the half-elf in question felt slighted one time too many.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Being so cut off from any proper friends or family causes many half-elves to grow insular and cold as they discover at a young age that they’ll need to look out for themselves. Most half-elves are Neutral or Neutral Evil, and the anger in their hearts drives them toward an affinity for [[The Furnace]].

Half-Ogre (JourneyQuest)

2017-04-19T00:47:01Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "Ogresses find ogre bulls nearly as ugly as everyone. However, ogresses find human males very attractive, and many prides keep a handful around as pleasure slaves and breeding..."

Ogresses find ogre bulls nearly as ugly as everyone. However, ogresses find human males very attractive, and many prides keep a handful around as pleasure slaves and breeding stock. These unions almost always result in the fourth kind of ogre: the half-ogre. If it’s a male, the half-ogre will join the pride in a position of favor, and will be given a status almost as high as an ogress. If the half-ogre is a female, it is usually killed outright by its ogress mother—the ogresses aren’t interested in any competition.

Half-ogres serve as favored pets among the ogresses, and are intelligent enough to serve as scouts. Furthermore, the fact that they are capable of surviving on plant matter as well as meat—they’re the only omnivores among ogrekind—means that they can range farther afield in service to their tribe. The human fathers, meanwhile, seldom last very long—a single ogress might “marry” several times in her lifetime, and look to replenish her stock of husbands whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Neither [[Orogs]] nor Half-ogres continue to grow throughout their lives. Half-ogres’ growth is capped by their human blood, and [[orogs]]’ is slowed by the hormonal stunting that occurs when they are castrated at birth—an orog can eventually reach size large, but its growth will cease there.

Fartherall races

2017-04-19T00:45:59Z

Daredrinker: /* Mixed Races */

== Elder Races ==

[[Ord]]

[[Ald]]

[[Olom]]

== Legacy Races ==

[[Ogres]]

[[Dwarves]]

[[Halflings]]

[[Humans]]

[[Elves]]

[[Gnomes]]

[[Orcs]]

== Mixed Races ==

[[Darrow]]

[[Halfanforths]]

[[Hobs]]

[[Sprigs]]

[[Half-Elves]]

[[Half-Orcs]]

[[Half-Ogres]]

== Other Races ==

[[Deeplings]]

[[Dryads]]

[[Wyrms]]

Ogre

2017-04-14T00:29:33Z

Daredrinker: /* Orogs and Half-Ogres */

== Ogrekind: Ogre Bulls, Ogresses, Orogs, and Half-Ogres ==

The [[Olom]] created the ogres—the most bestial of their legacy races—for the sole purpose of waging war, churning out a warrior race of soldiers. The ogres were a resounding success. Smaller than their giant masters, larger than their human subordinates, and dumber than bricks, the brutish ogres excel at violence and little else. However, ogrekind is a bit more complex than one might expect at first glance.

Physically, the ogres inherited few direct physical traits from the Olom. They have the Olom’s strong mesomorphic build, though it’s more hulking than that of their progenitor race. Ogres are the only Olom legacy race to have horns. While ogre bulls don’t pay much attention to them, ogresses tend to carve and notch theirs to indicate rank and pride affiliation. Like the Olom and the giants, true ogres (the bulls and ogresses) will continue to grow throughout their lives. While it’s possible for an old ogre to reach huge size, it’s rare, as few live that long; but among most ogress prides, a large or even huge matriarch ogress can be found.

Ogrekind is curious among the mortal races of [[Fartherall]] in that it’s an example of sexual dimorphism—the bulls and ogresses are vastly different from one another in morphology and temperament. The stronger, larger, and less intelligent males are subordinate in ogre society to the smaller but far more cunning ogresses, who bully the males into line when their rages and natural inclinations toward carnage get too far out of hand. These gender roles took shape long ago, after several packs of ogres escaped from their giant overlords and learned to fend for themselves in an unsuspecting and unprepared wilderness. Even so, most ogre prides—which are dominated by ogresses—will drive ogre bulls away, leaving them to mark out their own territory as solo predators and keeping a few choice males around for breeding purposes.

Their massive size and penchant for cruelty typically will position ogres as the apex predators of any area they inhabit. Unfortunately, their fantastically ravenous and entirely carnivorous diets (coupled with ogre bulls being far too lazy and short-sighted to take up breeding their own meat) mean that they can’t remain in one place for too long. Once they’ve eaten everything within a five-mile radius, an ogre bull will take off in pursuit of more meat, which often means an unfortunate village. Ogre prides, on the other hand—which should really be called ogress prides, since such societies are entirely matriarchal—have mastered ranching and dwell in permanent settlements.

Within ogrekind are actually four distinct kinds of ogre. Ogre bull and ogress are two. The other two are not considered “true ogres” by the ogresses or bulls, but they serve vital functions in ogre prides and are hardly uncommon.

=== Orogs and Half-Ogres ===

In the interest of creating offspring more intelligent than the bulls, ogresses took to the practice of castrating infant male ogres. This practice gave rise to the orog—ogre geldings not quite as strong or large as an ogre bull, but are smart enough to handle slightly more complex commands. They often serve intermediary roles in ogre societies, positions that an ogre bull wouldn’t have the competence or patience for. Orogs relish power and respect in their prides, but fear nothing more than disappointing their ogress mother.

Ogresses find ogre bulls nearly as ugly as everyone. However, ogresses find human males very attractive, and many prides keep a handful around as pleasure slaves and breeding stock. These unions almost always result in the fourth kind of ogre: the half-ogre. If it’s a male, the half-ogre will join the pride in a position of favor, and will be given a status almost as high as an ogress. If the half-ogre is a female, it is usually killed outright by its ogress mother—the ogresses aren’t interested in any competition.

Half-ogres serve as favored pets among the ogresses, and are intelligent enough to serve as scouts. Furthermore, the fact that they are capable of surviving on plant matter as well as meat—they’re the only omnivores among ogrekind—means that they can range farther afield in service to their tribe. The human fathers, meanwhile, seldom last very long—a single ogress might “marry” several times in her lifetime, and look to replenish her stock of husbands whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Neither Orog nor Half-ogres continue to grow throughout their lives. Half-ogres’ growth is capped by their human blood, and orogs’ is slowed by the hormonal stunting that occurs when they are castrated at birth—an orog can eventually reach size large, but its growth will cease there.

Ogres have no compunctions against slavery or eating other intelligent creatures. They are quite fond of the taste of Halfling.

Half Ogres

2017-04-14T00:29:15Z

Orc

2017-04-14T00:25:57Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Orcs == Toward the end of the Second Age, the Ord’s power waned and the Ald and their allies drove them into retreat. But not all the Ord who departed in th..."

== Orcs ==

Toward the end of the [[Second Age]], the [[Ord]]’s power waned and the [[Ald]] and their allies drove them into retreat. But not all the Ord who departed in the [[Last Migration]] made it away on their dimension-hopping airships. In the chaos of their departure, one wing of the relocating population swung too close to the [[Home Range]], and the [[dwarves]] there — aided by the magicks the [[elves]] had stolen from the Ald — struck. They shot many of these airships from the sky, and sent them crashing into the peaks below. Those Ord who survived, the dwarves captured and dragged underground in chains.

For generations, these captive Ord were subjected to a brutal course of reverse-eugenics aimed at enhancing their strength and endurance and stripping them of their staggering intellect and sense of identity. This process was helped along with judicious application of alchemical substances to turn these Ord into the perfect subterranean slaves. So were born the orcs, the legacy race of the Ord, in the halls of the [[Underkings]].

The dwarves foisted on their slaves the dangerous manual jobs the dwarves wouldn’t risk their own lives performing. Pickaxe and chain in hand, the orcs were pressed into work. Dwarfdom’s [[Great Expansion]], from the Home Range to their mega-cities dotting the edge of the continent, was built on the back of the orc. Untold thousand of orcs died in the Great Expansion, lost as excavations took them into areas dense with poison gas or hungry beasts from [[the Deep]]. The alchemical hasteners that devolved just a few generations of Ord into orcs remained in their blood as they bred; future generations of orcs developed a keen sense of smell akin to that of a wolf, and this sense warned them ahead of time whether danger lay in the next cavern. The orcs were evolving. The dwarves hadn’t planned on this, but they were glad for the change, as it would lower the mortality rate of their slaves and speed progress along.

And speedy the progress was. In just a few hundred years, the Great Expansion nearly doubled the inhabitable areas of [[Deepearth]], and dwarven outposts and forts sprung up faster and farther apart. With the orcs doing the dangerous work, more dwarves were able to turn their focus to their arts and sciences and make revolutionary discoveries and advances. Orcish labor built the [[Tramway Network]], and steam technology stolen from the Ord powered the dwarves’ great subterranean trains. It was a golden age for the dwarves; all dwarfdom was united in a vast empire that should have taken thousands of years (and who knows how many dwarven lives) to build. More and more lay in their grasp — the plunder of Deepearth and the riches of the surface — and the dwarves, in their greed, overreached. It was a combination of dwarven avarice and their own technomantic advances that spelled the ends of both orcish enslavement and their own golden age.

The dwarves continued to experiment on (“refine”, in their parlance) the orcs during the orcs’ long captivity. The dwarves bred them stronger and hardier, and as a result fewer orcs died as quickly in their labors. Driven by greed and the wealth of the [[Underkingdoms]], dwarven demand for surface goods grew; their human and halfling trade partners couldn’t keep up with the demand, so the dwarves started breeding orcs to grow and harvest resources in dwarf-owned tracts on the surface. The dwarves didn’t want to lose profits feeding these orcs, or have their slaves eat up the tasty, tasty beef from the surface, so a cabal of dwarven alchemists and biomancers imbued a labor-host of orcs with chlorophyll; as a result, these first green orcs (previously, they’d been a dull blue-gray) could work longer hours on the surface, with less food. The dwarves deemed this a success and cross-bred these green orcs with their other slave populations, They’d made the green skin a dominant gene, so in but a handful of generations, all of orcdom was green in hue and could absorb nutrients from sunlight.

Another refinement — and one that proved to be their undoing — the dwarves began as a means of controlling their growing slave population. With fewer and fewer orcs dying from labor, and the adult population rising (due to the short lifespans and breed cycles they’d bred into them), the dwarves had a large and surly excess slave population that was proving harder and harder to control. Where they couldn’t cull (read: murder) a given population for practical purposes, the dwarves tried something new: modifying the orcs by breeding into them a winter mammal’s need to hibernate.

After two generations, the new hibernation trait had taken hold; late every fall, the orcs grew sluggish and sleep deprived and fell into hibernation for two months out of the year. The dwarves had the orcs carve out winter dens for themselves, and expansions ceased while the slaves slept. Hibernation was the dwarves’ ultimate insurance against rebellion — the slave population wouldn’t, couldn’t revolt when it would inevitably fall asleep a few months hence; and if it did, the dwarves would simply kill the rebelling orcs in their sleep and breed a new generation of slaves. The dwarves patted themselves on the back for a job well done and went back to their hearths.

What the dwarves hadn’t counted on was for the orcs to adapt, just as they’d evolved their frightening sense of smell. The overwhelming majority of the orcs had to sleep, yes, but a handful found they could resist the biological imperative to hibernate, and stayed awake during their two months alone, talking, planning — plotting. In making the orcs hibernate, the dwarves had done something their forefathers had never allowed: they’d put all the orcs in the same place for an extended period of time. And while the orcs have to hibernate for two months out of the year, those months don’t have to be continuous. The “wakers”, if orcish legends are to be believed, whispered to every orc, orcmaid, and pup, breathing into their sleep dreams of freedom and revenge while working their sleeping siblings free from their chains. When the dwarves woke the orcs that spring, they found their slave population awake, unchained, and enraged. A tide of blood erupted on them from the dens. So swift and coordinated was the orcs’ surprise attack — the first decisive battle of the [[Red Exodus]] — that legend says the only orcs found dead in the slave dens were the wakers; they’d given their lives to spread the drumbeat of rebellion to the sleepers before succumbing to the deadly weakness the dwarves had bred into them, and lying down to die.

We do not need to revisit the Red Exodus, those months of howling horror in the deep places of the world. It is enough to know that when the orcs burst onto the surface, most of them seeing the sun for the first time, a powerful new race had taken its place in the world — a race that would die before it wore chains again. Warag!

=== Physical Description ===

Orcs are broad at the shoulder and average six feet in height, with males and females being about the same size. Depending on the tribe, both genders may bear ritual scars and tattoos to denote their rank, or as marks of honor for great accomplishments. An orc who falsely scars himself with deeds he hasn’t accomplished or a rank he hasn’t earned is risking his life. Such an offender would either be killed on the spot, or given a brutal and disfiguring scar that crosses the entire face with a jagged X, marking them as shunned for all time.

Skin pigmentation varies slightly depending on geography. Orcs who spend most of their time indoors or otherwise out of the sun will see their skin yellow as their chlorophyll dies out; “yellowskin” is an insult akin to “bookworm.” A healthy green tone is the sign of a strong orc.

Orcs are the shortest lived of the mortal races. They age about twice as quickly as humans. Orcs reach sexual maturity at 8 and middle age at 20. Orcs rarely live beyond 35, and an orc over 40 is considered ancient. Orc pups are born in litters of 3 to 6 at a time, and a newborn pup set on its feet will, after falling a couple of times, be able to walk, and then run. The dwarves bred the orcs to be ideal slaves: strong, quick to mature and reproduce, and quick to die.

=== Society ===

Orcish society is currently at a crossroads. Traditionally, orcs are arranged into militaristic, nomadic tribes that keep to their own hunting grounds. Such tribes are rather egalitarian societies, all things considered, with strong anarchic streaks; elders are revered and listened to, though decisions are made by the chief, a non-hereditary position won by often lethal combat. Tribes war with one another quite often, but these are mostly along the lines of border disputes and skirmishes and are never wars of eradication. When threatened by an external force, orcish tribes come together quickly and with frightening synchronicity; an orcish warhorde, while seemingly loosely organized, is easily the match of the most well trained human armies. But the orcs’ need to hibernate, combined with the wanderlust common to nomadic peoples, makes sustained wars and campaigns nearly impossible.

The tribal orcs mentioned above are known as [[traditionalists]]. They stand in stark contrast to the [[modernists]], a trans-tribal group of orcs that has risen in the areas of continuous orcish settlement, i.e. the tradepost cities in the southern [[Afterlands]], any multiracial city with a sizeable orcish population, and the orcish city-port of [[Orcsport]]. The modernists believe that the orcs’ future lies in civilization, and not in their nomadic tribes. They can learn from the city-dwelling humies they so despise, and better orcdom for their troubles. Modernist orcs don’t scar their faces, don’t frown on the benefits of civilized life, and many of them have shed their tribal affiliations. While the split between the traditionalists and modernists has never erupted into open war — the factions aren’t organized or geographically defined enough for such an outbreak to occur — resentment abounds, and many suspect the factions are headed towards an inevitable conflict.

Whether an orc grew up on the plains or in a town, self-reliance as a virtue abounds. Orcs are expected to stand on their own and keep to themselves in most matters. They may help their neighbors or not according to their whims, but in times of danger orcs always band together. Serious misdeeds such as murder or theft are brought before the chief, whose judgements tend to be swift, brutal, and final. On a side note, even modernists defer to their chief above all other forms of authority — even when living in another race’s city with an acknowledged ruler.

All orcish enclaves are susceptible during the winter, when they must hibernate. One of the greatest duties an orc can perform is to serve as a [[Watcher]] — a wintertime guardian — and stay awake to protect the den while the rest of the tribe (or community) slumbers. These orcs keep themselves awake through a combination of rigorous training, self-flagellation, and drinking bitter concoctions their [[shamans]] brew to keep their eyes open. Watchers are extremely irritable and borderline insane from their sleep deprivation. In fact, the stereotypical orc that most races would describe — a frothing monster, with bloodshot eyes, who’ll attack anything that moves and doesn’t appear to feel pain — is a pretty good description of a Watcher.

When a den wakes in the spring, the Watchers (who have survived; it’s not guaranteed) will pass out for at least three months, and when they wake up in the summer, they’ll find themselves nicely dressed and well groomed, with a multitude of gifts strewn about their sleeping mats from a grateful tribe. Waking a Watcher during the spring is one of the greatest taboos one can break.

=== Relations ===

Most other races are very nervous around orcs (see the above note about deferring to their chief above any regional sovereign). Only the dwarves understand their roots as being anything but violent and brutish, and they haven’t done much to dispel these ideas since their time on the surface.

Orcs loathe dwarves, and the feeling is mutual. The most prized trophy an orc can carry is the beard of a dwarf, and some of the greatest orc warriors will have them woven into cloaks.

[[Elves]] find the orcish appetite for violence offensive and think their willingness to be ruled by passions and lusts is vulgar. For their part, orcs find elves boring and pent-up. “Talking to an elf” is an orcish expression that denotes a particularly unpleasant activity, akin to “watching paint dry”.

Orcs keep a weather eye out for [[gnomes]] whenever they’re in the woodlands, and take special care not to carve up the local flora too much when they’re in gnome-held lands. They find battle against gnomes to be incredibly frustrating, and often more than a little embarrassing.

Orcs know that [[halflings]] are an easy target in lean times, and usually extort “protection” supplies when they live near each other. However, the orcs do honor these agreements, and have been known to come to the defense of halfling villages that they’ve bullied for years.

Human and orcish armies have clashed innumerable times over the years, with each committing atrocities against the other. Unlike with dwarves, however, orcs and [[humans]] share a grudging respect for each other, both considering the other to be the only race capable of matching their own talent for large-scale violence.

Orcs and [[ogres]] sometimes work together when they have common cause, most often in times of war against humans when the ogres perceive the plunder to be worth their time. Except in these situations, they have no real use for each other and simply keep their distance.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Orcs are predominantly Chaotic Neutral, and most of their clerics either worship [[The Garden]] or local gods of war and strength. They rankle under unproven authority, and expect to be able to pursue their own interests and agenda unless a distraction is truly worth their time. They also consider fighting to be the best kind of fun.

Sprig

2017-04-14T00:01:29Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "Sprigs are the uncommon offspring of humans and gnomes. Most often, they are born to human mothers, though sprigs born to gnomish females aren’t unheard of, and aren..."

Sprigs are the uncommon offspring of [[humans]] and [[gnomes]]. Most often, they are born to human mothers, though sprigs born to gnomish females aren’t unheard of, and aren’t likely to kill the mother during delivery. They combine a human’s adaptability with a gnome’s love of freedom, sense of justice, and communion with the outdoors.

=== Physical Description ===

Sprigs are about the height of [[dwarves]], between four and a half and five feet, but seldom weigh over a hundred pounds. Long and lean, they resemble very short [[half elves]] with spiky hair and occasionally oddly tinted skin.

=== Society ===

Seldom does a sprig grow up in any society other than a gnomish one. Stories of gnome baby-stealers abound in human frontier settlements. Gnome clutches accept sprigs without hesitation and raise them as their own, which can be tricky; sprigs are fifty percent larger than most of their gnomish kin, and are too large for most of their mounts. They hold a special place in clutches and often serve as ambassadors and scouts into human villages, as they can pass for human with minimal disguise.

=== Relations ===

The relations of sprigs are pretty much the same as those of gnomes, but with one major exception. Sprigs feel terribly sorry for half-elves, because the elves don’t accept them as full members of their society, unlike the gnomes.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Sprigs follow the alignment and religion of their clutches.

Hob

2017-04-13T23:57:05Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "These descendants of halflings and gnomes are extremely odd in that they will never perfectly blend physical traits of both parents; instead of a blend of characterist..."

These descendants of [[halflings]] and [[gnomes]] are extremely odd in that they will never perfectly blend physical traits of both parents; instead of a blend of characteristics, hobs slant heavily towards one parent, so hobs run a spectrum of physical traits between halflings and gnomes. It is thus possible for hob siblings to look like they’re from two different races. Where a half-elf is like a more humanlike elf, a hob might look either like a typical gnome but with hairy feet, or a typical halfling but with larger eyes or blue-tinted skin. Given these odd characteristics, it’s often hard to pick a hob out of a clutch or a halfling village (though hobs usually wind up in [[clutches]]; halfling society is too predictable and stifling for the gnome in them).

=== Physical Description ===

As described above: either exactly as a gnome or halfling, but with a physical trait or two from the other parents. Their physical capabilities are identical to whichever parent they don’t resemble. For example, a hob who looks like her halfling father would have the racial abilities, and traits of a gnome, and vice versa.

=== Society ===

Hobs are able to move freely between gnome and halfling society without any discrimination. There are benefits to blending into a society that is surprised at one’s special skill set, just as there are benefits to standing out as someone physically different who is able to master all local customs and skills to a degree that the locals may not expect. The drawbacks normally inherent in these problems are much less pronounced than for most outsiders, given the generally kind dispositions of both halflings and gnomes.

=== Relations ===

Hobs get along famously with both parent races. [[Elves]] find them confusing sometimes, reacting with surprise when a puckish looking gnome offers to help weed their garden, or betrayed shock when a plump and merry-faced halflass paints their toenails in the middle of the night.

[[Humans]] sometimes mix gnomes and halflings up as it is, and don’t seem to care much about the particulars of a hob’s looks versus their ability. This works out just fine as far as the hobs are concerned, because they don’t much care either.

[[Dwarves]] have a hard time whenever they encounter a hob with a gnome’s personality that appears to be a halfling, seeing as they may be opening themselves up to pranks they’d never expect from the one race they treat with a modicum of kindness. This has led to some dwarves hardening their hearts even further towards the surface-dwelling smallfolk.

[[Orcs]] think hobs are weird. They mostly grasp the concept behind their physical dimorphism, but it seems too whimsical and bizarre to dwell on for long… even a bit annoying. Hobs, for their part, tend to keep the intimidating and militaristic orcs at arm’s length whenever possible.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Hobs tend to follow the religious practices of whichever progenitor race they grew up around, and tend toward either Neutral Good gnome-faced hobs, or Chaotic Good halfling-faced hobs.

Gnome

2017-04-13T23:43:31Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Gnomes == During the Second Age, a sub-group within the Ald decided they were tired of war with the Ord, and wandered off into the woods on their own… A far..."

== Gnomes ==

During the [[Second Age]], a sub-group within the [[Ald]] decided they were tired of war with the [[Ord]], and wandered off into the woods on their own…

A far cry from the austere and aloof elves who derived from the [[Sidhe]], the nobles of the Ald exiled to [[Fartherall]], the gnomes of this world are the descendants of the brownies and knockers, the helpful and puckish fae who served as pages and made up the gentry of the [[Seelie Court]]. They inherited from their forebearers the overwhelming urge to intervene, whether to help or just to meddle; this has evolved over the generation into a fierce desire to do right, punish wickedness, and humble the mighty. Pranks are usually involved.

Gnomes are, sometimes quite literally, nature’s heroes. They take pains to disturb as little of their natural surroundings as possible, while at the same time fiercely defending their adopted homes from forces of wanton destruction and evil — most especially [[ogres]] and their kin, the gnomes’ arch nemeses..

=== Physical Description ===

Standing just over 3 feet tall (with the females just a shade taller than the males; males tend to spike and style their hair upwards to make up the difference), gnomes have hawkish eyes and a proud bearing. Their ears are pointed, though not quite so prominently as would be an elf’s. Their skin ranges in hue from the humanlike to the bizarre, with bright purple being the most uncommon. Their hair is similarly varied, and the menfolk tend to groom their facial hair into fancy moustaches and beards whenever time and practicality allows. Their clothing tends toward practical earthen tones when they wish to remain low-key, but in the safety of their homestead they prefer to dress in outfits so vibrantly colored that outsiders might consider them gaudy.

=== Society ===

Gnomes have no centralized society, living instead in isolated holds in the deep forest. They make their homes among the trees, using druidic and arcane magic to shape the branches without cutting, shaping the canopy into an elaborate and comfortable structure with room among and within the trees to house dozens, sometimes hundreds, of gnomish raiders. New children are a precious commodity among gnomekind, as — like the elves — they have a very low birth rate.

Gnome tribes are called “[[clutches]]”. Clutches range from a dozen or so individuals to about two hundred; at this number, clutches tend naturally to split and form into new clutches, while maintaining ties with the previous grouping. Each clutch has its own method for selecting a chieftain. Sometimes a simple vote is called, and sometimes certain traditional trials must be overcome. Either way, hard feelings about losing such a contest, or the very idea of craving personal power for its own sake, are entirely alien to the gnomish mindset. They’re all certain that they have a special gift, and there is no use trying to force what isn’t meant to be.

Once a clutch has established itself, its gnomes tend to patrol the lands around their hold with almost fanatical diligence. These patrols take the form of three very unique kinds of cavalry: the [[Lopes]] ride agile and lightning-fast [[dire rabbits]], the [[Grunts]] ride indomitable [[dire badgers]], and the [[Winds]] sit astride [[dire flying squirrels]]. Each of these unique warrior traditions makes full use of their mount’s strengths while avoiding conflicts where their weakness would become an issue.

Another notable warrior tradition among the gnomes is that of the dreaded [[Hedgehog]] (a moniker; not an actual hedgehog). These silent killers are so named for the astonishing number of blades they can bring to bear in a short time when backed into a corner. They are not above slitting the throat of a sleeping ogre matron if it means the rest of the vile tribe will disperse after her passing.

Their martial ways and inventive nature have combined to result in several ingenious gnomish weapons that help level the playing field when they’re taking on somebody out of their size range, which is almost always the case. Gnomes don’t back down from a fight and are used to punching out of their weight.

=== Relations ===

Gnomes share chilly relationships with dwarven society due to the destructive impact the [[dwarves]] tend to have on the local fauna and flora, but they judge individual dwarves met on the surface according to their own merits. The surface dwelling dwarf-folk that gnomes most often encounter are dwarfmaids, darrows, and dwarf sons without an inheritance pending, and they’ve learned to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The gnomes share similar feelings toward [[humans]]; while their society is wicked and corrupt, individual humans run the gamut and are often quite reputable. Sometimes, gnomes have been known to “adopt” a human family as their own if the humans build their homes close enough to the woodlands. Such fortunates can expect playful pranks interspersed with helpful favors around the house — gardens weeded, firewood chopped, etc. — so long as the humans remain courteous guests in the gnomes’ territory, and respect the wilderness. These friendly relationships have been known to blossom into romance whenever gnome and human actually meet, but whenever a child comes from such a union, the gnomes will do all in their power to steal the babe away from their human parent — infant [[sprigs]] growing up in human society have too often been abused, and the gnomes won’t chance it.

[[Elves]] and gnomes have a long, and not always cordial history. While they share a definite kinship — elves and gnomes are the most prevalent of the Ald legacy races — most attempts by the gnomes to reach common ground are frustrating for both parties. Elves can’t understand why gnomes feel the need to involve themselves in the affairs of others, and gnomes can’t understand why the elves can’t just pull themselves together and get over the fact that the Ald aren’t coming back. To the gnomes, the great tragedy of the elves is everything they’re wasting: their long lives, their insight, and their chance to interact with the world they wound up in, rather than pining away wishing to return to a world they’ve never seen. Gnomish attempts to get elves evolved in the affairs of Fartherall on a societal level have so far all failed. Despite their differences, neighboring elven and gnomish settlements will almost always help each other in times of need.

Gnomes find [[orcs]] sympathetic, and appreciate their reverence for the wild, but gnomes find it hard to excuse the damage caused whenever orc tribes or warhordes go to battle. However, unlike most other races, the gnomes tend to allow an orc time to offer a greeting before deciding whether or not they’re in need of a friend or a spear in the eyes.

[[Halflings]] admire gnomes, and often romanticize what life must be like for the devil-may-care rebels who follow their hearts in all endeavors. This infatuation will often begin when a particularly dashing gnome catches the eye of a halfling during an act of derring-do. Unions between gnomes and halflings produce a hybrid race called a [[hob]]. More than once, a halfling has run away to join a nearby clutch. For their part, the gnomes are willing to admit halflings, so long as they can prove they’re able to keep pace. And it’s an open secret that the reason they allow this, and include sprigs and hobs in their clutches, is because they reproduce at such a slow rate on their own.

[[Ogres]] and ogrekin are the only races that can expected to be met with open hostility by gnomekind. Gnomes view ogrekind as a cancer that must be cut from the flesh of the world, and an ogre pride that moves too close to gnome-protected lands will be ambushed and harried over the course of several hit-and-run assaults until they are either wiped out, retreat, or find and destroy the clutch. Gnomes have been known to make exceptions for an orog or half-ogre traveling alongside other friendly humanoids, but they had best tread lightly.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Their hatred of bullies and desire for freedom makes most gnomes Chaotic Good by nature. Their religion tends to vary in regards to their region. Unlike the elves, they don’t hold the Ald in particularly high esteem, though they appreciate all they’d done. The Ald lie firmly in the gnomes’ past, unlike the elves, who are still grieving for forebears thousands of years gone.

Elf

2017-04-13T23:25:15Z

Daredrinker: /* Elves */

== Elves ==

Elves are ageless but mortal descendants of the [[Ald]], the most varied and mysterious of the elder races. Exiled to [[Fartherall]] after losing a war, the Ald — who were actually a cluster of connected peoples rather than a single race — the Ald discovered to their dismay that their children born in this new world did not inherit their immortality or full magical faculties. The elves are the offspring of the leadership cast of the exiled Ald, a lost people known alternately as the Seelie, [[Sidhe]], or [[Tuatha]].

Enigmatic to an extreme, elves are austere beings of measured thought, rarely moved by passion as opposed to reason. They prefer to remain withdrawn from world affairs. Seldom seen by their neighbor races, they are the undisputed — well, seldom disputed — masters of the parts of the world often dismissed as wilderness. Most elves seem to carry a shroud of quiet melancholy wherever they go, the legacy of their lost immortality, nostalgic for a place they’ve never been and lonesome for company of beings they’ve never known. This internal sadness deepens into a sense of personal tragedy as the years and centuries roll on, until the time of their thousandth birthday, when elves simply vanish: in the blink of an eye, and usually in private. Where they go, no one knows; or at least, none are telling.

Elves reach maturity at forty years of age, though their peers often still consider them immature until well into their second century of life. During this 150 or so years period of time, elven “adolescence” between the ages of 40 and 160, an elf is liable to try her hand at several hundred different pursuits, giving serious consideration to the dozen or so that they enjoy before settling in to spend the next hundred or so years mastering the two or three for which they develop a passion.

This self-focused nature and learned politeness has impacted their language over the years, and this idiosyncrasy carries over to their use of any of the “lesser tongues,” as they refer to non-Elvish or Aldic languages. An elf is more likely to say “I think you should see this”, or “I wonder if you heard that” than “Come look at this”, or “Did you hear that?”, as the first is too demanding, and the second places the focus on the listener without any reference to the speaker.

Elves live in the fringes of the world, in cities shaped to resemble the wilderness that surrounds them. It is entirely possible to walk past, or even through, an elven settlement without knowing it’s there. The fact that elves make their cities so difficult to find in the deepest forest has led many to believe that they worship nature as a religion. This is a misconception. While it is true that they appreciate the beauty and power of nature, it is still mostly a means to the end of keeping them safe and preserving their traditions.

=== Physical Description ===

Elves are often lithe and stand bit shorter than an average human of the same gender. Their eyes, if examined closely enough, can be observed as rather hawk-like. This feature combines with their pointed ears to lend them an air of wildness that is often belied by their soft voices, and only adds to the natural intrigue and mystery. Elves have no body hair; only males can grow facial hair, but not until their fifth century of life.

Elves and elfmaids reach an ageless state at about their two hundredth year. In human terms, they appear somewhere between 35 and 45, but show no other signs of aging — no wrinkles, no gray hairs, no darkening of teeth or freckles or liver spots. They will remain in this ageless state until they die, or vanish after a millenium of life. Elves who have suffered extreme hardship or disease can appear older than this ageless state, but should they be given sufficient time to recover, they will return to it and remain their until their death or disappearance.

=== Society ===

Preservation of the race is a strong motivating factor in elven civilization. Pride does play a part in this to be sure, but as with most things elven, emotional motivation is a distant second to pragmatism. Elves breed very slowly, to the point where hundreds of years will separate siblings. Taken along with their ageless nature, this makes each elven life lost a deep tragedy. There are never, and never have been, enough elves. They have been in decline since the last of the Ald vanished.

Outsiders are very seldom welcome to visit an elven city, though those who stumble upon a particularly open and receptive community may be lucky enough to be shown to a visitor’s lodge set specifically aside for wayward travelers. After a night of rest, the visitors will be given directions to the nearest road and hurried on their way as briskly as etiquette will allow (barring dangerously inclement weather, of course).

Anyone who finds an especially unwelcoming community is liable to be turned away at arrow-point, or worse.

All manner of food is grown year-round in magically maintained elven gardens, making elves with a taste for druidic magic especially prized. This perpetual state of plenty means that the sky’s the limit for what profession an elf can pursue. A cobbler’s younger son may easily rise to become captain of the guard while the elder continues the family trade, and there would be no feeling of animosity between them for the difference in station.

Exceptions to this are elves who are determined by the elders to possess some special destiny. These few are groomed from a young age with the intention of preparing them for whatever trials await in pursuit of that destiny, which often creates a feeling of some resentment in the destined. However, once they complete the special task ahead of them, they are welcomed back into society, and are both helped and encouraged to make up for the time they lost in pursuing other careers.

An elven artisan in their later years is apt to turn out fewer pieces as they grow more preoccupied with the mysterious melancholy that tugs ever more at them, but what they do produce is said to be the finest in all the world. At the height of his ability, an elven smith can turn out weapons superior even to dwarven standards.

Elven society is ruled by a council of elders, the number of which varies. No decision is reached without complete unanimity, though if any member of the council should begin behaving in a way that flies in the face of reason, the remaining elders can vote them unfit to sit the council — again, requiring total unanimity.

=== Relations ===
Elves mostly keep other races at arm’s length, and generally prove true the old adage about good fences making good neighbors. They are baffled by the intractable nature of the [[dwarves]], and younger elves might not be able to hide their disgust in such a rigid existence so far removed from the sun. They appreciate the [[halflings]], and sometimes import victuals raised or grown by the small folk, insisting that you can taste the variety — less universally wonderful than what the elves create, but more exciting when an exceptional spice or vegetable jumps out.

They like [[humans]] that allow them to interact on their own terms, which is to say short encounters that get to the point and end with both parties coming away satisfied with the deal. Elves appreciate that humans admire their craftsmanship and looks, but are very leery of becoming too friendly with them in light of the incident that brought the miracle of the arcane to humanity. Nevertheless, over the past few hundred years they have recognized the great power and promise inherent in humans, and so they’ve begun sending ambassadors from time to time to make sure that the relationship remains amicable.

A further complicating factor in their relationship with humans is the fact that they awaken elves’ amorousness. Elven ardor is often dormant; it is not a daily, or necessarily even yearly sensation for elves to feel. It is assumed by non elves to be an inborn form of population control; if elves mated with the same frequency and vigor as their shorter-lived neighbors, they would quickly overpopulate given an elfmaid’s several centuries of childbearing years. When elves are among themselves, they may only mate once every decade or so. Something about humans, however, kicks these dormant instincts into gear. This doesn’t cause elves to lose control, by any means, but proximity to humans does bring a flood of unwelcome emotion that an unprepared elf may find difficult to handle.

Elves find [[gnomes]], another Ald legacy race, endearing but exhausting. Elves are sometimes even moved to positively emotional outbursts when their little cousins’ perpetual zeal becomes too much to bear (a consequence, so the gnomes claim, of their progenitors being subservient to the Sidhe). All the same, gnomes are the only race with a standing exception to the elven rule of “no outsiders”. Elves will sometimes exchange goods and services with gnomish merchants, and will welcome and shelter an entire town of gnomes during times of war.

On the surface, elves appear to have no use for [[orcs]], and do their best to avoid them. While elves dislike orcs and consider them brutes, they also feel no small amount of guilt for their lot in life. Had the Ald and Ord not warred and crippled one another in the Age of Wonder, the Ord who were left behind never would have been taken underground and warped into the orcs. The elves feel partially responsible, and it weighs on their conscience, although they would never admit to such a thing.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Their aloof nature leads most elves toward neutrality with no emphasis on either law or chaos. They put the well-being and preservation of their own kind before all other concerns, and are seldom moved to act rashly.

Elf

2017-04-13T23:21:22Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Elves == Elves are ageless but mortal descendants of the Ald, the most varied and mysterious of the elder races. Exiled to Fartherall after losing a war, the Ald..."

== Elves ==

Elves are ageless but mortal descendants of the [[Ald]], the most varied and mysterious of the elder races. Exiled to [[Fartherall]] after losing a war, the Ald — who were actually a cluster of connected peoples rather than a single race — the Ald discovered to their dismay that their children born in this new world did not inherit their immortality or full magical faculties. The elves are the offspring of the leadership cast of the exiled Ald, a lost people known alternately as the Seelie, Sidhe, or Tuatha.

Enigmatic to an extreme, elves are austere beings of measured thought, rarely moved by passion as opposed to reason. They prefer to remain withdrawn from world affairs. Seldom seen by their neighbor races, they are the undisputed — well, seldom disputed — masters of the parts of the world often dismissed as wilderness. Most elves seem to carry a shroud of quiet melancholy wherever they go, the legacy of their lost immortality, nostalgic for a place they’ve never been and lonesome for company of beings they’ve never known. This internal sadness deepens into a sense of personal tragedy as the years and centuries roll on, until the time of their thousandth birthday, when elves simply vanish: in the blink of an eye, and usually in private. Where they go, no one knows; or at least, none are telling.

Elves reach maturity at forty years of age, though their peers often still consider them immature until well into their second century of life. During this 150 or so years period of time, elven “adolescence” between the ages of 40 and 160, an elf is liable to try her hand at several hundred different pursuits, giving serious consideration to the dozen or so that they enjoy before settling in to spend the next hundred or so years mastering the two or three for which they develop a passion.

This self-focused nature and learned politeness has impacted their language over the years, and this idiosyncrasy carries over to their use of any of the “lesser tongues,” as they refer to non-Elvish or Aldic languages. An elf is more likely to say “I think you should see this”, or “I wonder if you heard that” than “Come look at this”, or “Did you hear that?”, as the first is too demanding, and the second places the focus on the listener without any reference to the speaker.

Elves live in the fringes of the world, in cities shaped to resemble the wilderness that surrounds them. It is entirely possible to walk past, or even through, an elven settlement without knowing it’s there. The fact that elves make their cities so difficult to find in the deepest forest has led many to believe that they worship nature as a religion. This is a misconception. While it is true that they appreciate the beauty and power of nature, it is still mostly a means to the end of keeping them safe and preserving their traditions.

=== Physical Description ===

Elves are often lithe and stand bit shorter than an average human of the same gender. Their eyes, if examined closely enough, can be observed as rather hawk-like. This feature combines with their pointed ears to lend them an air of wildness that is often belied by their soft voices, and only adds to the natural intrigue and mystery. Elves have no body hair; only males can grow facial hair, but not until their fifth century of life.

Elves and elfmaids reach an ageless state at about their two hundredth year. In human terms, they appear somewhere between 35 and 45, but show no other signs of aging — no wrinkles, no gray hairs, no darkening of teeth or freckles or liver spots. They will remain in this ageless state until they die, or vanish after a millenium of life. Elves who have suffered extreme hardship or disease can appear older than this ageless state, but should they be given sufficient time to recover, they will return to it and remain their until their death or disappearance.

=== Society ===

Preservation of the race is a strong motivating factor in elven civilization. Pride does play a part in this to be sure, but as with most things elven, emotional motivation is a distant second to pragmatism. Elves breed very slowly, to the point where hundreds of years will separate siblings. Taken along with their ageless nature, this makes each elven life lost a deep tragedy. There are never, and never have been, enough elves. They have been in decline since the last of the Ald vanished.

Outsiders are very seldom welcome to visit an elven city, though those who stumble upon a particularly open and receptive community may be lucky enough to be shown to a visitor’s lodge set specifically aside for wayward travelers. After a night of rest, the visitors will be given directions to the nearest road and hurried on their way as briskly as etiquette will allow (barring dangerously inclement weather, of course).

Anyone who finds an especially unwelcoming community is liable to be turned away at arrow-point, or worse.

All manner of food is grown year-round in magically maintained elven gardens, making elves with a taste for druidic magic especially prized. This perpetual state of plenty means that the sky’s the limit for what profession an elf can pursue. A cobbler’s younger son may easily rise to become captain of the guard while the elder continues the family trade, and there would be no feeling of animosity between them for the difference in station.

Exceptions to this are elves who are determined by the elders to possess some special destiny. These few are groomed from a young age with the intention of preparing them for whatever trials await in pursuit of that destiny, which often creates a feeling of some resentment in the destined. However, once they complete the special task ahead of them, they are welcomed back into society, and are both helped and encouraged to make up for the time they lost in pursuing other careers.

An elven artisan in their later years is apt to turn out fewer pieces as they grow more preoccupied with the mysterious melancholy that tugs ever more at them, but what they do produce is said to be the finest in all the world. At the height of his ability, an elven smith can turn out weapons superior even to dwarven standards.

Elven society is ruled by a council of elders, the number of which varies. No decision is reached without complete unanimity, though if any member of the council should begin behaving in a way that flies in the face of reason, the remaining elders can vote them unfit to sit the council — again, requiring total unanimity.

=== Relations ===
Elves mostly keep other races at arm’s length, and generally prove true the old adage about good fences making good neighbors. They are baffled by the intractable nature of the [[dwarves]], and younger elves might not be able to hide their disgust in such a rigid existence so far removed from the sun. They appreciate the [[halflings]], and sometimes import victuals raised or grown by the small folk, insisting that you can taste the variety — less universally wonderful than what the elves create, but more exciting when an exceptional spice or vegetable jumps out.

They like [[humans]] that allow them to interact on their own terms, which is to say short encounters that get to the point and end with both parties coming away satisfied with the deal. Elves appreciate that humans admire their craftsmanship and looks, but are very leery of becoming too friendly with them in light of the incident that brought the miracle of the arcane to humanity. Nevertheless, over the past few hundred years they have recognized the great power and promise inherent in humans, and so they’ve begun sending ambassadors from time to time to make sure that the relationship remains amicable.

A further complicating factor in their relationship with humans is the fact that they awaken elves’ amorousness. Elven ardor is often dormant; it is not a daily, or necessarily even yearly sensation for elves to feel. It is assumed by non elves to be an inborn form of population control; if elves mated with the same frequency and vigor as their shorter-lived neighbors, they would quickly overpopulate given an elfmaid’s several centuries of childbearing years. When elves are among themselves, they may only mate once every decade or so. Something about humans, however, kicks these dormant instincts into gear. This doesn’t cause elves to lose control, by any means, but proximity to humans does bring a flood of unwelcome emotion that an unprepared elf may find difficult to handle.

Elves find [[gnomes]], another Ald legacy race, endearing but exhausting. Elves are sometimes even moved to positively emotional outbursts when their little cousins’ perpetual zeal becomes too much to bear (a consequence, so the gnomes claim, of their progenitors being subservient to the Sidhe). All the same, gnomes are the only race with a standing exception to the elven rule of “no outsiders”. Elves will sometimes exchange goods and services with gnomish merchants, and will welcome and shelter an entire town of gnomes during times of war.

On the surface, elves appear to have no use for [[orcs]], and do their best to avoid them. While elves dislike orcs and consider them brutes, they also feel no small amount of guilt for their lot in life. Had the Ald and Ord not warred and crippled one another in the Age of Wonder, the Ord who were left behind never would have been taken underground and warped into the orcs. The elves feel partially responsible, and it weighs on their conscience, although they would never admit to such a thing.

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Their aloof nature leads most elves toward neutrality with no emphasis on either law or chaos. They put the well-being and preservation of their own kind before all other concerns, and are seldom moved to act rashly.

Fartherall races

2017-04-13T23:10:18Z

Daredrinker:

== Elder Races ==

[[Ord]]

[[Ald]]

[[Olom]]

== Legacy Races ==

[[Ogres]]

[[Dwarves]]

[[Halflings]]

[[Humans]]

[[Elves]]

[[Gnomes]]

[[Orcs]]

== Mixed Races ==

[[Darrow]]

[[Halfanforths]]

[[Hobs]]

[[Sprigs]]

[[Half Elves]]

[[Half Orcs]]

[[Half Ogres]]

== Other Races ==

[[Deeplings]]

[[Dryads]]

[[Wyrms]]

Human (Fartherall)

2017-04-13T23:01:20Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "Ah, humanity. The Olom created humans to be the perfect laborers. That’s the way human scholars describe it, at least. The original term was “servant,” with a closer..."

Ah, humanity. The [[Olom]] created humans to be the perfect laborers. That’s the way human scholars describe it, at least. The original term was “servant,” with a closer translation being “slave.” The Olom created them to be as clay — infinitely mutable, able to fill whatever role the other Olom races needed, and short lived. Do the [[dwarves]] need cheap labor? Send them humans. Do the [[giants]] need servants? Send them humans. Do the [[ogres]] need arrow fodder soldiers that can double as trail rations? Send them humans. And the humans learned from all of the various tasks they performed, and taught them to one another. Despite their short lifespans, they’ve become the most numerous and diverse people on the planet.

Physically, humans run the gamut in coloration and morphology. [[Archaiad]] was an egalitarian empire that welcomed people from all corners of the world. Today, the legacy of that fallen empire is that humans of all colors, shapes, and sizes can be found pretty much anywhere in the world.

Humans are unique in that they can mate and produce viable offspring with every other race in the world, except [[dryads]]. Whether or not such hybrids are welcome in human society depends very much on the non-human parent’s race.

Today, most of humanity lives under the yoke of the [[Wicked Kings]], and is Lawful Evil. Humans hide behind the law and gladly trade their freedom for security. They are a weak and foolish people, willfully ignorant and pointing to deeds of their ancestors to justify their hubris. They hardly trust one another let alone other races. An individual human can be a wonderful companion, a unique individual unbroken by the weight of societal pressure. On a societal level, humans are self-loathing and cruel. Sadly, most eventually give up what dreams they have and place the yoke of oppression upon themselves. Better to live as a secure slave and lay the blame for their misery on a distant ruler than to truly pursue their dreams and fail.

Halfanforth

2017-04-13T22:53:21Z

Daredrinker: /* Halfanforths */

A halfanforth, or half-halfling, is a somewhat rare but by no means unheard of hybrid of a [[human]] and [[halfling]]. They are almost always a result of a union of a halflad and a human woman. Halfanforths born to a halflass and human male are less common, and without some form of assistance — magical intervention, divine healing, or a Caesarian section — the halflass is likely to die in childbirth.

Halfanforths are unique among the hybrid races in that they’re not instantly recognizable as a half-breed; most would think they’re either a tall halfling or a short, svelte human. They have the trademark full, curly hair of their halfling parents, and both male and female halfanforths hover just about five feet tall. They have no trouble blending into human or halfling communities, as they could pass for either so easily.

Halfanforth

2017-04-13T22:52:44Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Halfanforths == A halfanforth, or half-halfling, is a somewhat rare but by no means unheard of hybrid of a human and halfling. They are almost always a result of a..."

== Halfanforths ==

A halfanforth, or half-halfling, is a somewhat rare but by no means unheard of hybrid of a [[human]] and [[halfling]]. They are almost always a result of a union of a halflad and a human woman. Halfanforths born to a halflass and human male are less common, and without some form of assistance — magical intervention, divine healing, or a Caesarian section — the halflass is likely to die in childbirth.

Halfanforths are unique among the hybrid races in that they’re not instantly recognizable as a half-breed; most would think they’re either a tall halfling or a short, svelte human. They have the trademark full, curly hair of their halfling parents, and both male and female halfanforths hover just about five feet tall. They have no trouble blending into human or halfling communities, as they could pass for either so easily.

Fartherall races

2017-04-13T22:51:48Z

Daredrinker: /* Mixed Races */

== Major Races ==

[[Ogres]]

[[Dwarves]]

[[Halflings]]

[[Humans]]

[[Elves]]

[[Gnomes]]

[[Orcs]]

== Mixed Races ==

[[Darrow]]

[[Halfanforths]]

[[Hobs]]

[[Sprigs]]

[[Half Elves]]

[[Half Orcs]]

[[Half Ogres]]

== Other Races ==

[[Deeplings]]

[[Dryads]]

[[Wyrms]]

Halfandforths

2017-04-13T22:51:38Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Halfanforths == A halfanforth, or half-halfling, is a somewhat rare but by no means unheard of hybrid of a human and halfling. They are almost always a result of..."

Halfling

2017-04-13T22:48:47Z

Daredrinker: Created page with "== Halflings == The smallest and weakest of the Olom legacy races, halflings live in scattered farming communities in the most fertile parts of the world. Created to be t..."

== Halflings ==

The smallest and weakest of the [[Olom]] legacy races, halflings live in scattered farming communities in the most fertile parts of the world. Created to be the gardeners of the Olom, the halflings took to their calling with a passion. Halflings couldn’t be less interested in all of the danger and political upheaval that faces [[Fartherall]]. They’d much rather just to tend their farms and perfect their cooking to keep everyone fed and happy. Naturally charming and friendly to a fault, halflings will almost always go out of their way to feed and clothe any needy traveler who stumbles upon one of their villages.

An optimistic bunch, halflings view each new day as an opportunity just waiting to be seized; a vehicle for sharing jokes, stories, and fellowship, all while honing their horticultural expertise to the very cutting edge. Vegetables and fruit that come from a halfling’s garden are certain to be much larger and more flavorful than those of their neighbors, and none are so talented as a halfling when it comes to using these exceptional ingredients to their fullest culinary potential.

A halfling’s home is rarely private, and so they have earned a reputation for being somewhat fuzzy on the concept of personal space. They catch on to local social norms quickly enough, however, and their willingness to share proximity shouldn’t be mistaken for an inability to respect boundaries once they’ve been established.

Halflings are the only Olom legacy race to have created a race of their own. During the Age of Legends, when magic was stronger and the world more open to such things, halfling druids and [[gardenmasters]] gave rise to the [[dryads]] — the treefolk of Fartherall — to help them tend their farms and orchards. Though most of the dryad race eventually left the gardens, preferring to raise their young in the quiet and uninhabited parts of the world, a number stayed behind and serve in positions of honor in halfling communities. Relations between dryads and halflings is uniformly good.

=== Physical Description ===

An average halfling stands about three feet tall, with the halflasses being a bit shorter than their halflads. They dress practically for their busy work days with loose fitting trousers and tunics, but tend to don festive and colorful garments of all sorts during their off hours. One very notable aspect of halfling society is their deep dislike of shoes, which tend to overheat their naturally fuzzy feet. They feel similarly about gloves, as the backs of their hands are likewise covered in fuzz.

Halflings tend toward dusky complexions and dark brown hair with blue eyes, though the occasional bright redhead is considered a “lucky” halfling, and can look forward to a childhood of gentle ribbing and slightly higher than average expectation. Beards among halflings are rare; most halflads cannot grow facial hair, but can grow full and lush sideburns and chops, which never go out of fashion. Halfling hair grows rapidly and thick, and baldness is almost unheard of. Their hair is almost uniformly curly.

=== Society ===

The short folk don’t concern themselves overly with matters of administration or nation-building. Their communities rarely number more than three hundred individuals, with numbers much higher often triggering a strong wanderlust in enough hearts that a third of the community will migrate to start a new settlement. This urge persists until those affected move on to build a new town and begin the cycle anew. This is exactly the reason the original dryads left to form communities of their own.

Halfling homes are comfortable but never extravagant, and always cozy — a larger house means more work to be done keeping it clean and heated. Homesteads are usually run by the eldest couple, who treat everyone else in the village as honorary nieces and nephews. Most halfling communities don’t even have a prison — respect for elders is such that anyone who acts out of line is sent to their room. Decisions are made by consensus at semi-regular moots; for severe crimes, the defendants are not allowed to participate in the consensus process. The worst punishment a halfling can endure is banishment from one’s home.

Almost all halflings benefit their community in whatever way they can because of a strong sense of community responsibility, made stronger by early Olom breeding programs. A useless halfling feels progressively less comfortable, sometimes panicking if there’s nobody around to assist, or going so far as to invent meaningless tasks to perform on a regular basis. An imprisoned halfling may, for example, obsessively move the pile of straw that serves as her bed from one end of her cell to the other, or even go so far as to organize each straw in order of length.

=== Relations ===

Halflings are great fans of all other races, and tend to see the best in them, even to the point where they’ll cover for or explain away violent behavior. [[Ogres]], for example, just have a really hard time of it, and would live peacefully if only they didn’t need only meat to get by. [[Dwarves]] are wonderfully smart and creative, and make incredible items that will last practically forever. Life under the mountains has just made them a bit gruff. [[Gnomes]] are like cleverer and more mysterious halflings, and it’s nice to have somebody the same size! [[Elves]] are like magical nature spirits, and it’s an honor to know someone who’s lived for so long. [[Humans]] are so diverse and interesting that each one is like a fascinating puzzle to mull through, and [[orcs]] are brave warriors inspiring for how they never give up!

=== Alignment and Religion ===

Given their friendly and conscientious nature, halflings tend overwhelmingly toward Neutral Good. Concern for the well being of others is a powerful motivator in everything a halfling does, and that concern leaves little room for the minutiae of law or the willfulness of chaos.

Their religion focuses mostly on paying homage to various nature spirits and deities of the harvest, some of which are so minor as to be localized to a single settlement.

Darrow

2017-04-13T22:36:53Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Darrow == Darrow are the hybrid children of dwarves and humans. They are almost entirely born to dwarfmaids who fled the oppressive stability of Deepearth and took hu..."

== Darrow ==

Darrow are the hybrid children of dwarves and humans. They are almost entirely born to dwarfmaids who fled the oppressive stability of [[Deepearth]] and took human mates.

=== Physical Description ===

Standing nearly as tall as their human parents and blessed with the stable builds and hawkish noses of their dwarven side, darrow tend to be strikingly handsome, but with large features. The menfolk have the ability to grow full beards of truly dwarven proportions (though doing so is strictly a matter of personal preference and holds no special honor). Female darrow can also grow facial hair, but do so much more slowly. Depending on where they are raised, they may opt to shave their beards entirely. As darrow approach middle age, three-quarters of them (male and female alike) will experience pattern baldness. Male darrow generally don’t mind, and many female darrow simply shave their heads.

=== Society ===

Darrow society in and of itself hasn’t fully been established on [[Fartherall]], though a great deal of potential for future generations does exist. These inherently-affable children of stone and sun are able to breed true, and their dwarven parent (overwhelmingly the mother) often thinks of them as the future of dwarf-kind. To this end, ideas have been floated of gathering as many darrow as possible together in an established city somewhere, in the hopes that they’ll feel unity and love for one another, and eventually begin producing an entirely self-sustaining race.

Darrow reach maturity at age 20, and live to about 150.

=== Relations ===

[[Humans]] treat darrow well enough, but may have trouble fully opening up to them for the resemblance they share with the insular and dour [[dwarves]], who give nothing for free. This caution is usually short lived, however, as the darrow’s natural charm wins through. Darrow often become leaders in human communities and organizations. Darrow yearn to learn more of the [[elves]] who master the wild places of the surface, and are deeply curious about [[gnomes]]. [[Halflings]] are adorable, but often lead lives that darrow would find mind-numbingly dull.

Sadly, dwarves who live beneath the surface want nothing to do with darrow whatsoever, and many refuse to let their bastard scions enter their settlements. Indeed, a darrow in the [[Underkingdoms]] who wears a traditional beard (one braided to show rank and affiliation) would likely be accused of masquerading as a true-blooded dwarf and arrested. When dwarves encounter darrow in a surface trade-city, they treat them with the same brusque professionalism they use for anyone else — a backhanded courtesy that isn’t lost on the darrow.

[[Ogres]] are generally too violent and evil for a darrow to stomach, though they may feel kinship with a [[half-ogre]] who behaves himself. Darrow don’t share the dwaves’ racial hatred of [[orcs]]. If anything, they feel guilty that their ancestors enslaved and abused the orcs, and many seek to make amends by forming lasting friendships.

=== Alignment and Religion ===
(CG, polytheistic) Darrow have bright outlooks and a zest for life that most dwarves would find obnoxious and exhausting.

JourneyQuest:The Mountain

2017-04-13T22:25:20Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Mountain == A realm of absolute stability and unbending rigidity, the Mountain is the source of all earth. It is densely packed and mineral rich, but jealous of each..."

== The Mountain ==

A realm of absolute stability and unbending rigidity, the Mountain is the source of all earth. It is densely packed and mineral rich, but jealous of each stone atop and within its fathomless body. Even the air inside its few entirely enclosed caves and tunnels feels dense and heavy to outsiders, making the native creatures here especially hardy compared to the denizens of the material plane. Change happens most slowly here, and making even a tiny mark on the original landscape is a most difficult task.

Dwarf

2017-04-13T22:22:51Z

Daredrinker:

== Dwarves ==

Among all of the [[Olom]]’s legacy races, dwarves are the most mysterious. Created by the Olom to be the builders of their empire, the dwarves have mastered technological and alchemical arts that would baffle the greatest thinkers of any other race. Their miraculous machines have made it possible for dwarves to literally carve a place for themselves beneath the surface of [[Fartherall]], in vast and uncharted realm known as [[Deepearth]].

Dwarves are generally standoffish, borderline xenophobic folk, but they appreciate and respect people who are willing to engage in fair trade for the services only they can provide. Rare indeed is the surface artisan whose work could be mistaken for dwarfcraft, and the stout folk take advantage of this fact to barter their wares for the few luxury items they can’t produce themselves. The people with whom the dwarves trade seldom realize that the items they’re getting are usually considered antiquated and mediocre by dwarven standards, but the dwarves see no reason to point this out.

The alchemically-ingenious dwarves have managed to create a subterranean version of most any surface commodity. Blind albino cattle provide beef, and vast fungal gardens feed the empire of the [[Underkingdom]]. Alchemically altered cellulose known as [[deepwood]], farmed in great subterranean forests, provides wood and non-stone building materials.
The dwarves are, as a whole, unconcerned about life on the Surface. To them, “the world” means everything underground. [[The Surface]] is a dangerous and chaotic frontier with absurd open spaces, and holds no interest for much of dwarfkind.

=== Physical Description ===

Shorter and broader than men, dwarves are not terribly unlike bricks given flesh and beards. And oh, what beards! Males and females both grow facial hair, though the hair on the chin of a dwarfmaid is decidedly softer and more downy. They often style their beards with ribbons and glittering dust made from pulverized gemstones. The males grow their beards as long as they can, and use them as a sort of personal marquee. Medals and ribbons detail every personal accolade and notable accomplishment, as well as (and more importantly!) displaying their fraternity and standing therein. One can tell a great deal from a dwarf with a well-maintained beard: hometown, profession, fraternal alliance; great deeds and military honors; and standing in society. An unadorned beard is a mark of untrustworthiness — here is someone who is hiding their identity.

A beardless dwarf is incredibly rare, and almost always a felon who has received the ultimate punishment. Beardlessness in dwarfdom is akin to nudity, and is considered obscene. Dwarves who have dealings on the surface have grown accustomed to seeing people without facial hair, but any beardless visitors with dealings in the Underkingdoms — whether male or female — would be foolish not to wear a veil or mask to hide their facial nudity under the mountain. One could be arrested for public indecency for showing an unbearded adult face.

Most dwarves encountered above ground during the day will be wearing wide-brimmed hats at the least, and covered head to toe in thick fabric with specially crafted dusky lenses over their eyes at the most. If they have it their way, only their large noses and beards are visible at all. This is because of an intense racial allergy to sunlight. Long-term exposure can cut a dwarf’s lifespan to a third of what it might otherwise have been. All dwarves on the surface wear smoked goggles to dull the intense light of the sun.

=== Society ===

Dwarven society is heavily paternalistic, with families deferring to the eldest male in all things, and that eldest male deferring to his fraternity, which in turn defer to the [[Underkings]]. The hearth is the central feature of the dwarven household, and is spoken of in much the same way a human would refer to his home. Dwarves stake a great deal of personal pride in the condition of this great central furnace. It is the duty of dwarfmaids to tend the hearth and raise up any dwarf children, and the duty of the menfolk to take up the family trade to make a living.

After the hearth, the most important structure in dwarven society is the [[fraternity]]. These secret societies are arranged by profession and trade craft: masons, carpenters, brewers, silversmiths, etc. All business conducted in the [[Underkingdoms]] must be done under the auspices of the appropriate fraternity; anything else is considered black marketeering. Membership is passed down through the generations to the first son. A number of brothers of first sons are allowed to join a fraternity depending on the rank in the fraternity of the father. Fraternal orders each have their own rituals and secrets and rules, and the [[Ruling Council]] that advises the Underkings are drawn from the ranks of the fraternities. Dwarves are not allowed to join more than one fraternity, and a dwarf who leaves a fraternity is not allowed to join another. Losing one’s fraternity or being exiled from it is a sign of great shame. Dwarfmaids are not allowed to join fraternities. The fraternities’ reach does not extend to the Surface — business done there is beyond their governance.

Dozens upon dozens of dwarven cities and trade outposts are scattered throughout Deepearth, and all are connected via their underground rail system. This means that all dwarves are subjects of the same great kingdom, and their traditions and values hold true throughout. It is thus possible for a dwarf to travel from the heart of the Underkingdoms in the [[Home Range]] to a trade post on the opposite side of the continent (and even pass under an ocean) without having to travel across the surface. Fraternities have guild halls in various cities and outposts, but never on the surface.

Dwarves never smile, much less laugh, in public if they can help it. Life in Deepearth is tricky and demanding, and expressions of naked emotion are nearly as taboo as naked cheeks. Laughter is considered a lack of self-control, and is embarrassing.

Threatening to shave a dwarf’s beard is the most dire threat someone can make, and they’d better damn sure make certain that the dwarf is properly restrained before they make it. A dwarf’s beard not only displays his accomplishments, but defines them. If he loses the beard, all he’s done to that point counts for naught until the beard is regrown — a process that may take years.

Now for a sensitive topic. Dwarfdom is a slave society. The dwarves built the Underkingdoms and the tunnels to its various colonies on the backs of the orcs. They see nothing inherently wrong with enslavement, as they consider slaves another form of livestock; the dwarves created the orcs, altering them to fit life underground in the same way that they’d created [[blind cattle]] and deepwood, and considered them their property, their trade craft. After the [[Red Exodus]], when the orcs took their freedom and caused a hundred years’ worth of damage in the escape, the dwarves reconsidered their take on enslavement, but not the way the free races of the world would have hoped. Instead of creating a slave race from an intelligent people (as they did with the [[Ord]]), they raised one from a lower form of life — in this case, the [[trogol]], a primitive people from the lower caverns of Deepearth. The trogol are docile and passive compared to the orcs; little else is known about them on the Surface.

Dwarves reach maturity at age thirty, and can live to the age of 300 if they avoid the Surface. Dwarves who have abandoned the Underkingdoms to dwell on the Surface will live to the age of 100.

=== Relations ===

Dwarves have the most contact with [[humans]], and can appreciate their desire to engage in trade and (usually) honor agreements. They have little use for [[elves]] or [[gnomes]], who they see as frivolous to a nearly offensive degree. [[Halflings]], however, come to closest to finding what might count as a “soft spot” in the hearts of dwarvenkind. The hard working dwarves respect the diligence and care halflings take in their gardening endeavors (dwarves have never been able to create underhops that taste good, so the halflings are their main source of beer), and may be stirred to action if a nearby halfling settlement is facing peril — with the understanding that their aid will be paid for as soon as that peril has passed, of course.[[Ogres]] and [[orcs]] are attacked on sight.

Alignment and Religion
(LN, Mountain) More than anything else, dwarves value tradition and the rule of law. This, along with their geographical tendencies, draw religiously-minded dwarves toward those who worship [[The Mountain]]. [[Cultists of The Deep]], however, have no place in dwarven society and are driven out or executed after trial. Too many dwarves have been spirited away by things that lurk in the haunted places down below.

Dwarf

2017-04-13T22:22:28Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == DWARVES == Among all of the Olom’s legacy races, dwarves are the most mysterious. Created by the Olom to be the builders of their empire, the dwarves have mastered..."

== DWARVES ==

Among all of the [[Olom]]’s legacy races, dwarves are the most mysterious. Created by the Olom to be the builders of their empire, the dwarves have mastered technological and alchemical arts that would baffle the greatest thinkers of any other race. Their miraculous machines have made it possible for dwarves to literally carve a place for themselves beneath the surface of [[Fartherall]], in vast and uncharted realm known as [[Deepearth]].

Dwarves are generally standoffish, borderline xenophobic folk, but they appreciate and respect people who are willing to engage in fair trade for the services only they can provide. Rare indeed is the surface artisan whose work could be mistaken for dwarfcraft, and the stout folk take advantage of this fact to barter their wares for the few luxury items they can’t produce themselves. The people with whom the dwarves trade seldom realize that the items they’re getting are usually considered antiquated and mediocre by dwarven standards, but the dwarves see no reason to point this out.

The alchemically-ingenious dwarves have managed to create a subterranean version of most any surface commodity. Blind albino cattle provide beef, and vast fungal gardens feed the empire of the [[Underkingdom]]. Alchemically altered cellulose known as [[deepwood]], farmed in great subterranean forests, provides wood and non-stone building materials.
The dwarves are, as a whole, unconcerned about life on the Surface. To them, “the world” means everything underground. [[The Surface]] is a dangerous and chaotic frontier with absurd open spaces, and holds no interest for much of dwarfkind.

=== Physical Description ===

Shorter and broader than men, dwarves are not terribly unlike bricks given flesh and beards. And oh, what beards! Males and females both grow facial hair, though the hair on the chin of a dwarfmaid is decidedly softer and more downy. They often style their beards with ribbons and glittering dust made from pulverized gemstones. The males grow their beards as long as they can, and use them as a sort of personal marquee. Medals and ribbons detail every personal accolade and notable accomplishment, as well as (and more importantly!) displaying their fraternity and standing therein. One can tell a great deal from a dwarf with a well-maintained beard: hometown, profession, fraternal alliance; great deeds and military honors; and standing in society. An unadorned beard is a mark of untrustworthiness — here is someone who is hiding their identity.

A beardless dwarf is incredibly rare, and almost always a felon who has received the ultimate punishment. Beardlessness in dwarfdom is akin to nudity, and is considered obscene. Dwarves who have dealings on the surface have grown accustomed to seeing people without facial hair, but any beardless visitors with dealings in the Underkingdoms — whether male or female — would be foolish not to wear a veil or mask to hide their facial nudity under the mountain. One could be arrested for public indecency for showing an unbearded adult face.

Most dwarves encountered above ground during the day will be wearing wide-brimmed hats at the least, and covered head to toe in thick fabric with specially crafted dusky lenses over their eyes at the most. If they have it their way, only their large noses and beards are visible at all. This is because of an intense racial allergy to sunlight. Long-term exposure can cut a dwarf’s lifespan to a third of what it might otherwise have been. All dwarves on the surface wear smoked goggles to dull the intense light of the sun.

=== Society ===

Dwarven society is heavily paternalistic, with families deferring to the eldest male in all things, and that eldest male deferring to his fraternity, which in turn defer to the [[Underkings]]. The hearth is the central feature of the dwarven household, and is spoken of in much the same way a human would refer to his home. Dwarves stake a great deal of personal pride in the condition of this great central furnace. It is the duty of dwarfmaids to tend the hearth and raise up any dwarf children, and the duty of the menfolk to take up the family trade to make a living.

After the hearth, the most important structure in dwarven society is the [[fraternity]]. These secret societies are arranged by profession and trade craft: masons, carpenters, brewers, silversmiths, etc. All business conducted in the [[Underkingdoms]] must be done under the auspices of the appropriate fraternity; anything else is considered black marketeering. Membership is passed down through the generations to the first son. A number of brothers of first sons are allowed to join a fraternity depending on the rank in the fraternity of the father. Fraternal orders each have their own rituals and secrets and rules, and the [[Ruling Council]] that advises the Underkings are drawn from the ranks of the fraternities. Dwarves are not allowed to join more than one fraternity, and a dwarf who leaves a fraternity is not allowed to join another. Losing one’s fraternity or being exiled from it is a sign of great shame. Dwarfmaids are not allowed to join fraternities. The fraternities’ reach does not extend to the Surface — business done there is beyond their governance.

Dozens upon dozens of dwarven cities and trade outposts are scattered throughout Deepearth, and all are connected via their underground rail system. This means that all dwarves are subjects of the same great kingdom, and their traditions and values hold true throughout. It is thus possible for a dwarf to travel from the heart of the Underkingdoms in the [[Home Range]] to a trade post on the opposite side of the continent (and even pass under an ocean) without having to travel across the surface. Fraternities have guild halls in various cities and outposts, but never on the surface.

Dwarves never smile, much less laugh, in public if they can help it. Life in Deepearth is tricky and demanding, and expressions of naked emotion are nearly as taboo as naked cheeks. Laughter is considered a lack of self-control, and is embarrassing.

Threatening to shave a dwarf’s beard is the most dire threat someone can make, and they’d better damn sure make certain that the dwarf is properly restrained before they make it. A dwarf’s beard not only displays his accomplishments, but defines them. If he loses the beard, all he’s done to that point counts for naught until the beard is regrown — a process that may take years.

Now for a sensitive topic. Dwarfdom is a slave society. The dwarves built the Underkingdoms and the tunnels to its various colonies on the backs of the orcs. They see nothing inherently wrong with enslavement, as they consider slaves another form of livestock; the dwarves created the orcs, altering them to fit life underground in the same way that they’d created [[blind cattle]] and deepwood, and considered them their property, their trade craft. After the [[Red Exodus]], when the orcs took their freedom and caused a hundred years’ worth of damage in the escape, the dwarves reconsidered their take on enslavement, but not the way the free races of the world would have hoped. Instead of creating a slave race from an intelligent people (as they did with the [[Ord]]), they raised one from a lower form of life — in this case, the [[trogol]], a primitive people from the lower caverns of Deepearth. The trogol are docile and passive compared to the orcs; little else is known about them on the Surface.

Dwarves reach maturity at age thirty, and can live to the age of 300 if they avoid the Surface. Dwarves who have abandoned the Underkingdoms to dwell on the Surface will live to the age of 100.

=== Relations ===

Dwarves have the most contact with [[humans]], and can appreciate their desire to engage in trade and (usually) honor agreements. They have little use for [[elves]] or [[gnomes]], who they see as frivolous to a nearly offensive degree. [[Halflings]], however, come to closest to finding what might count as a “soft spot” in the hearts of dwarvenkind. The hard working dwarves respect the diligence and care halflings take in their gardening endeavors (dwarves have never been able to create underhops that taste good, so the halflings are their main source of beer), and may be stirred to action if a nearby halfling settlement is facing peril — with the understanding that their aid will be paid for as soon as that peril has passed, of course.[[Ogres]] and [[orcs]] are attacked on sight.

Alignment and Religion
(LN, Mountain) More than anything else, dwarves value tradition and the rule of law. This, along with their geographical tendencies, draw religiously-minded dwarves toward those who worship [[The Mountain]]. [[Cultists of The Deep]], however, have no place in dwarven society and are driven out or executed after trial. Too many dwarves have been spirited away by things that lurk in the haunted places down below.

Ogre

2017-04-13T13:23:58Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Ogrekind: Ogre Bulls, Ogresses, Orogs, and Half-Ogres == The Olom created the ogres—the most bestial of their legacy races—for the sole purpose of waging war, chu..."

== Ogrekind: Ogre Bulls, Ogresses, Orogs, and Half-Ogres ==

The [[Olom]] created the ogres—the most bestial of their legacy races—for the sole purpose of waging war, churning out a warrior race of soldiers. The ogres were a resounding success. Smaller than their giant masters, larger than their human subordinates, and dumber than bricks, the brutish ogres excel at violence and little else. However, ogrekind is a bit more complex than one might expect at first glance.

Physically, the ogres inherited few direct physical traits from the Olom. They have the Olom’s strong mesomorphic build, though it’s more hulking than that of their progenitor race. Ogres are the only Olom legacy race to have horns. While ogre bulls don’t pay much attention to them, ogresses tend to carve and notch theirs to indicate rank and pride affiliation. Like the Olom and the giants, true ogres (the bulls and ogresses) will continue to grow throughout their lives. While it’s possible for an old ogre to reach huge size, it’s rare, as few live that long; but among most ogress prides, a large or even huge matriarch ogress can be found.

Ogrekind is curious among the mortal races of [[Fartherall]] in that it’s an example of sexual dimorphism—the bulls and ogresses are vastly different from one another in morphology and temperament. The stronger, larger, and less intelligent males are subordinate in ogre society to the smaller but far more cunning ogresses, who bully the males into line when their rages and natural inclinations toward carnage get too far out of hand. These gender roles took shape long ago, after several packs of ogres escaped from their giant overlords and learned to fend for themselves in an unsuspecting and unprepared wilderness. Even so, most ogre prides—which are dominated by ogresses—will drive ogre bulls away, leaving them to mark out their own territory as solo predators and keeping a few choice males around for breeding purposes.

Their massive size and penchant for cruelty typically will position ogres as the apex predators of any area they inhabit. Unfortunately, their fantastically ravenous and entirely carnivorous diets (coupled with ogre bulls being far too lazy and short-sighted to take up breeding their own meat) mean that they can’t remain in one place for too long. Once they’ve eaten everything within a five-mile radius, an ogre bull will take off in pursuit of more meat, which often means an unfortunate village. Ogre prides, on the other hand—which should really be called ogress prides, since such societies are entirely matriarchal—have mastered ranching and dwell in permanent settlements.

Within ogrekind are actually four distinct kinds of ogre. Ogre bull and ogress are two. The other two are not considered “true ogres” by the ogresses or bulls, but they serve vital functions in ogre prides and are hardly uncommon.

=== Orogs and Half-Ogres ===

In the interest of creating offspring more intelligent than the bulls, ogresses took to the practice of castrating infant male ogres. This practice gave rise to the orog—ogre geldings not quite as strong or large as an ogre bull, but are smart enough to handle slightly more complex commands. They often serve intermediary roles in ogre societies, positions that an ogre bull wouldn’t have the competence or patience for. Orogs relish power and respect in their prides, but fear nothing more than disappointing their ogress mother.

Ogresses find ogre bulls nearly as ugly as everyone. However, ogresses find human males very attractive, and many prides keep a handful around as pleasure slaves and breeding stock. These unions almost always result in the fourth kind of ogre: the half-ogre. If it’s a male, the half-ogre will join the pride in a position of favor, and will be given a status almost as high as an ogress. If the half-ogre is a female, it is usually killed outright by its ogress mother—the ogresses aren’t interested in any competition.

Half-ogres serve as favored pets among the ogresses, and are intelligent enough to serve as scouts. Furthermore, the fact that they are capable of surviving on plant matter as well as meat—they’re the only omnivores among ogrekind—means that they can range farther afield in service to their tribe. The human fathers, meanwhile, seldom last very long—a single ogress might “marry” several times in her lifetime, and look to replenish her stock of husbands whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Neither Orog nor Half-ogres continue to grow throughout their lives. Half-ogres’ growth is capped by their human blood, and orogs’ is slowed by the hormonal stunting that occurs when they are castrated at birth—and orog can eventually reach size large, but its growth will cease there.

Ogres have no compunctions against slavery or eating other intelligent creatures. They are quite fond of the taste of Halfling.

Fartherall races

2017-04-13T13:12:06Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Major Races == Ogres Dwarves Halflings Humans Elves Gnomes Orcs == Mixed Races == Darrow Halfandforths Hobs [[Sprigs]..."

== Major Races ==

[[Ogres]]

[[Dwarves]]

[[Halflings]]

[[Humans]]

[[Elves]]

[[Gnomes]]

[[Orcs]]

== Mixed Races ==

[[Darrow]]

[[Halfandforths]]

[[Hobs]]

[[Sprigs]]

[[Half Elves]]

[[Half Orcs]]

[[Half Ogres]]

== Other Races ==

[[Deeplings]]

[[Dryads]]

[[Wyrms]]

Religion in Fartherall

2017-04-13T12:55:06Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == Our Place in the Omniverse == There are several competing theories concerning Fartherall’s cosmology. What nobody contests is that the gods to exist—they’ve bee..."

== Our Place in the Omniverse ==

There are several competing theories concerning [[Fartherall]]’s cosmology. What nobody contests is that the gods to exist—they’ve been rather too prominently involved in the world’s history for atheism to have taken root.

Religion in Fartherall is less a question of faith and more one of philosophy. The Divine exists—only a madman would dispute this, and an argument against the Divine would be akin to arguing a famous historical figure never existed. Tangible proof of miracles and otherworldly machinations is scattered somewhat (and some would undoubtedly say, a bit too) liberally across the land. Add to this the fact that those who adhere to a particular religion have mastered a category of magic that has eluded arcanists throughout history, and religion is lent further credence.

Something is out there, and it is greater than man, than elf, orc, or dwarf, greater than the dragons—and perhaps the gods themselves? The only question is how many layers of the divine cosmos exist. Is cosmology limited to a single pantheon of sentient deities, otherwise relatable individuals who just happen to be infused with power beyond mortal ken to fathom? Perhaps instead of manifested gods, there exist thoughtless primal forces, eternal energies that shape the universe and that are unable or unwilling to notice the beings on the mortal planes? Or what if all life, from all possible universes, could be traced back to a single source—and all things mortal (and immortal) are merely aspects, imperfect reflections of that single font of creation?

=== Gods and Overpowers ===

Does anything exist above the Divine? Do the gods have gods?

Many are the people content with accepting that the current pantheon of gods are all that exists in the realm of the divine. But others, scholars and historians who dabble in the esoteric and blasphemous, claim that the gods are not the ultimate source of divine creation, but merely a level, a tier between mortal life and a form of existence higher than them. These over-gods, these gods of the gods, they call overpowers.

Here’s how the theory takes shape. We know there are other planes, other realms of existence where the gods can travel, but where their power is limited. We also know that the gods, while immortal, are not eternal—the third generation of gods now rules in [[Ladhalas]], and a few among their number have died. The legends of the universe’s birth even mentions an overpower by name—the [[Draagan]]—which suggests that more must exist in the realms beyond.

Extrapolating outward, scholars conclude that overpowers exist in a dimension above the material plane closer to the source of creation. As to their goals, philosophers make no claim. And as far as practical worship (or game mechanics) go, there are no churches, no temples to overpowers in all of Fartherall. It is just a theory, after all—but one about which the gods themselves are rather tight-lipped.

== The Seven Realms Theory ==

More a theory of the universe than a religion of ritual and ceremony, the [[Seven Realms Theory]]—more commonly known as the Faith of the Seven, or merely “The Seven”—is the oldest belief system currently still practiced, which is all the more remarkable in that it worships no gods. Adherents believe that the world is composed of seven primal elements, and that to understand and master them is to understand one’s place in the universe. In this, it is more natural philosophy than religion.
According to the Seven Realms Theory, the seven elements, the building blocks of existence, include the four elements of antiquity—air, earth, fire, and water—along with light, shadow, and verdance. It is believed that each of these primal elements springs from an eternal source on a distant elemental plane, and that the world is composed of the interweaving emanations from these seven sources.

=== [[The Storm]] ===

Air swirls down from the Storm, a realm of endless turbulence. A realm with no above or below, all is weightless motion and howling pandemonium. There is no ground apart from the uppermost reaches of the Mountain (see below), which oftentimes become havens for creatures that have become stranded here through some mystical fluke. The lack of real estate would be problematic enough if it weren’t for the nearly constant electrical storms churning through this plane’s vast skies. Alchemists who follow The Seven claim that the purest adamantine is formed here when a lightning blast from The Storm knocks loose a chunk of [[The Mountain]] and sends it hurtling into the material world.

=== [[The Furnace]] ===

The source of all fire, the Furnace is a realm of perpetual hunger and endless heat. Salamanders and efreeti vie for control of the blasted landscape and semi-solid coagulations of magma constantly slough off and reforming into the larger land masses. No mortal can survive here for more than a few agonizing seconds without magical protection. It’s said by some that whatever energy is left in a wicked soul after death is drawn into the Furnace, and becomes fuel for its eternal fires. Some cultists have used this as twisted reasoning justifying the propagation of evil, reasoning that without the Furnace and its output of heat and flame, the world would freeze and die.

=== [[The Mountain]] ===

A realm of absolute stability and unbending rigidity, the Mountain is the source of all earth. It is densely packed and mineral rich, but jealous of each stone atop and within its fathomless body. Even the air inside its few entirely enclosed caves and tunnels feels dense and heavy to outsiders, making the native creatures here especially hardy compared to the denizens of the material plane. Change happens most slowly here, and making even a tiny mark on the original landscape is a most difficult task.

=== [[The Fountain]] ===

Water flows from The Fountain, a fathomless ocean with no shore and no sky, where merfolk empires rule vast stretches of sea from floating castles grown from coral, and krakens swim in schools for protection from the larger predators that occasionally swim up from the Deep. Despite its dangers, the Fountain is largely a place of quiet contemplation, and mortal sages who take the proper precautions may find the journey well worth the time and expense for just a single afternoon spent in a triton monastery, riding the currents through this infinite hydrosphere.

=== [[The Beacon]] ===

The source of all light and positive energy, radiance blazes from the Beacon, and it is wonderful. A realm of limitless promise and joy, healing magic cast by good-aligned priests is drawn from here. It is not, however, a safe place to visit—any mortals who found a way to the Beacon would be instantly consumed—in orgasmically pleasurable fashion, it should be noted—by the plane’s radiance. Many religions have adopted a form of the Beacon as the inspiration for their form of heaven.

=== [[The Deep]] ===

The Deep, the origin of all shadow and darkness, lies in decay and sorrow. It is the source of all negative energy, and thus the wellspring of undeath. Visitors here would wither and die before undergoing rebirth as undead. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments for the Seven Realms Theory is the curse of undeath unleashed on Archaiad at the end of the Age of Legends—adherents label the [[Necrofont]] as the Deep breaching directly into Fartherall, vomiting undeath into a world unable to absorb it.

=== [[The Garden]] ===

Life, according to the Faith of the Seven, is an element, and not the opposite of undeath. A better term than “life” would be “verdance”—the primal life spark that compels growth. The Garden is the source of all verdance, and it overwhelms. Not a plane so much as a pure and primal life force, left unchecked, the Garden would grow over, in, around, and through itself until destroyed if not for the other elements keeping it in check. Conversely, none of the others would be able to survive without the Garden giving it life. When this delicate balance is maintained to perfection, all the world is right and perfect. But when an imbalance occurs, natural disasters befall the world of man, their magnitude in direct proportion to the imbalance. An earthquake is venting an overgrowth of Mountain, a flood is excess runoff from the Fountain. Visitors here would experience unchecked bodily growth—hair and nails would sprout and bloom, as would muscles and warts and gastrointestinal bacteria, everything alive swelling and bursting with unstoppable, cancerous growth until the poor visitor bursts into a trillion smaller living things, which then undergo the same process.

Adherents to the Seven seldom erect temples in populous cities, instead seeking out holy sites that occur in nature that most closely correspond to their chosen element. This can lead to conflict from time to time, when (for example) followers of the Mountain claim the top of the tallest mountain for miles, only to find that devotees of the Storm have already established a temple there. These conflicts are often short lived and seldom violent, typically ending in the religious leaders of both sets of pilgrims working to understand how their two elements might work more closely together when the new group folds in with those who’d already established themselves. After all, their philosophy is based on elements entwining in harmony.

Exceptions to this rule are instances when the diametrically opposed forces of Light and Shadow come into conflict, should they both try to establish a site of worship, say, in an old hospice where many died during a plague.

The Seven hasn’t been an especially popular religion for quite some time (possibly due to its difficulty establishing holy sites convenient to the most populous areas), and is often looked upon with some condescension by those who follow more contemporary philosophies. One such philosophy is known as the Tapestry of Worlds.

== The Tapestry of Worlds ==

This tradition teaches that all of creation is connected in a vast tapestry. It shares certain elements with The Seven, but posits that there are far more sources of power than the old religion accounts for—and that all of those elements flow to far too many places to count.

Each concentration of elemental energy is connected to its source by a thread, and these threads connect one world to another. For example, the heart of a volcano would have strong ties to both the Mountain and The Furnace, and one could follow a Thread of Fire to the center of a star or the core of a planet. A master of this religion—or of the philosophy behind it, who knew where to look—could theoretically travel between similar sites in entirely different worlds, or even different realities.

According to [[the Tapestry of Worlds]] theory, each and every world is finite, even if it appears infinite. Different weavings tie specific strands or threads and worlds together. If you find these threads you can travel between them to other worlds where the tapestry is connected. Such travel can be very hazardous for the unprepared.
Believers in the Tapestry of Worlds claim that the [[Ord]]—that vanished race from the Age of Wonder—first traveled to Fartherall, and have since traveled to other worlds, following a Thread of Air from their original world of high mountaintops and thin atmosphere. Their homeworld was dying, being torn apart by the Reaver (see below), and they scattered in their airships to find a new home—or so the story goes. There aren’t any Ord to ask about it.

Adherents to the Tapestry believe in two specific named overpowers who hold dominion over all connected worlds and govern the progress of the tapestry. These beings are known simply as [[the Weaver]] and [[the Reaver]]. While one constantly creates new worlds and possibilities, weaving together the [[Threads of Fate]], the other trims away all the frayed ends and wipes out entire realities with cold indifference.

== [[The Root]] ==

The theory of the Root is both a religion in and of itself, and a philosophy that can coexist with other religious traditions, including belief only in the current pantheon. This theory posits that all worlds—all dimensions, all realities—are connected to a single, mysterious point of origin that has eluded sages and explorers since creation first sprung from it at the birth of the universe. From this single point came all matter and life, ranging in complexity from the lowliest amoeba to the grandest dragon, even up to and including the overpowers. If this “root” dimension could be found, one who did so would be able to travel anywhere, and anywhen, any time they so desired. They would have access to power unimagined, and in some ways, become greater than a god.

Certain blasphemous rumors tell that small fragments of this Root sometimes (somehow) are breaking away and are scattering across the mortal realms. These fragments, for whatever reason, take the form of large [[black circles]]. These circles are said to have a strange depth to them, and a telltale shimmer not unlike lamp oil splashed in a puddle. These circles can be discovered laying flat on the ground, attached to the sides of buildings, or even suspended midair. Once any living creatures step into a black circle, one of two things happens.

Most commonly, the traveler vanishes, and they are never seen again. Alternately, those who step through—if they may emerge from the other side—arrive changed in some drastic way. Anecdotes tell of people coming back sorcerers, or with extra limbs, with black glowing eyes, or with more disturbing variations.

Where these black circles can go or what their true source is, no one can say. The circles offer one-way passage only. What is known about them is that they do exist—they’ve been chronicled throughout history, though they’re by no means common—and they cannot be destroyed.

JourneyQuest:Main

2017-04-13T12:31:52Z

Daredrinker: /* The World */

JourneyQuest is a show produced by [[Zombie Orpheus Entertainment]] and created by [[Matt Vancil]].

== The World ==

[[History of Fartherall]]

[[Religion in Fartherall]]

[[Races]]

== Season One ==

[[Perf]] finds a magic sword and is drawn deeper into a quest that he doesn't want.

[[JQ: Episode 01.01]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.02]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.03]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.04]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.05]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.06]]

[[JQ: Episode 01.07]]

== Season Two ==

Captured and chained, the party is dragged through the dangerous [[City of the Dead]].

[[JQ: Episode 02.01]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.02]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.03]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.04]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.05]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.06]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.07]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.08]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.09]]

[[JQ: Episode 02.10]]

Sixth Age

2017-04-13T12:30:26Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Sixth Age: The Age of Reason == The events of this age parallel the technological advances of the Renaissance. It is in this era that the events of PWNED are set."

== The Sixth Age: The Age of Reason ==

The events of this age parallel the technological advances of the Renaissance. It is in this era that the events of [[PWNED]] are set.

Fifth Age

2017-04-13T12:29:02Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Fifth Age: The Age of Heroes == Also called the Age of Mortals, this is the era in which the Gamers movies set in Fartherall take place."

== The Fifth Age: The Age of Heroes ==

Also called the Age of Mortals, this is the era in which the [[Gamers]] movies set in [[Fartherall]] take place.

JourneyQuest:History of Fartherall

2017-04-13T12:27:06Z

Daredrinker:

The history of Fartherall falls neatly into nine ages, stretching back into the mythic past and far into the unknown future. The events of [[JourneyQuest]] take place in the [[Fourth Age]] of [[Fartherall]], and is where our focus will center.

The Ages are presented in chronological order, as are the events within those ages. As of now, these histories are covered only in the broadest of strokes.

A bit of terminology before we continue: Each Age has a Birth and a Death, and most of them also have a Balance.

The Birth of an Age is the event (or series of events) that brought about a new era in Fartherall’s history. Some events happen between Ages, in the time between the death of the previous age and the birth of the next. Called the Lost Ages, these cover vast swaths of the world’s unrecorded history.

An age’s Balance is the heart of the age, after the events heralding its birth have settled and before those presaging its death have begun. It is the golden era of the age, when the institutions and dangers of the time are at their height.

The Death marks the end of an age, and the often cataclysmic events that brought it to ruin. An Age’s death isn’t always the final event of an Age—it is rather the one that marks the inevitable transition into another.

[[First Age]]
[[Second Age]]
[[Third Age]]
[[Fourth Age]]
[[Fifth Age]]
[[Sixth Age]]

Wicked Kings

2017-04-13T03:10:48Z

Daredrinker:

=== The Wicked Kings ===

By tying their life forces together, the trio of monarchs—henceforth referred to as the Wicked Kings, or just the Kings—are constantly aware of one another’s wellbeing. Pain felt by one is felt by the other two, as is pleasure; if one is threatened or hurt (or doing the horizontal waltz, if you catch my drift), the other two experience the same sensation and can react appropriately. Should one of them killed, the other two will die as well. So the Kings have a rather vested interest in keeping one another alive. Furthermore, their lifelink has allowed them to avoid doing something all tyrants and despots must do at one time or another: sleep. You can’t kill a gestalt entity when two-thirds of it is awake, as no small number of unsuccessful assassins have discovered.

Their lifelink also gives the Kings access to each other’s skills and knowledge, so if you’ve met (or earned the ire of) one of the Kings, the other two are aware of you as well, even if they may not know the context. That’s because the one thing they don’t share—or so it is believed—is thought. Those remain private, which has lead in no small part to the Kings’ extreme suspicion of one another.

It’s no great secret that the Wicked Kings hate one another. Human beings aren’t meant to live as long as they have. The magic that ties their lives together has dramatically slowed their ageing—they age perhaps one year in ten—and humans who artificially extend their lives out that long tend to go a bit batty (take your stereo-typically daft but genius wizard, for example). To say the Kings have grown apart is an understatement. They didn’t exactly care for each other to begin with—theirs was an alliance of necessity—and that was before they’d been magically bonded together for 400 years. Breaking the bond is not an option—if the bond breaks, they die—so they’re stuck with one another, and stuck in each other’s heads. It’s why they bicker and spew so much. They’re not only each other’s only peers; they’re their only competition, and they take any opportunity to undermine and embarrass one another. Like the erstwhile Middle Kingdoms, the only time they come together is when they’re facing an external threat. In the last century, no credible threat to their power has arisen, and as a result their interactions have been especially testy.

The Wicked Kings’ domain encompasses nearly all of humanity. Only two independent human states remain: [[Golden Valley]], a small mountain-ringed state south of the Wicked Kingdoms that owes its autonomy to its Switzerland-esque geography, and to [[Valmarrogandrex]], the ancient guardian dragon who dwells there (mainly the dragon); and [[Transis]], the mighty city-state trade port far to the east that is accessible only by sea or caravan through the [[Afterlands]], conquered by the barbarian king [[Karn the Unpleasant]]. The Kings’ main goal—apart from preserving their rule—is to conquer these final two holdouts.

The Kings make their home in the [[Wicked Citadel]], a colossal fortress in the heart of [[Lassax]] on the [[River Frael]]. They have sequestered themselves here in their hidden audience chamber, and it is from here that they pilot the various puppets they’ve spread across the world to do their bidding.

=== Puppets of the Kings ===

Early in their reign, the Kings discovered that they could use a variant of their lifelinking magic to seize control of individuals and dominate their will. They used this power to turn willing subjects and captured foes into puppets and mouthpieces. The Kings can see and hear what their puppets experience, and can (somewhat clumsily) control their actions as well. From their hidden antechamber, clustered around the [[Orb of Control]], the Kings pilot their collection of puppets. The Orb they use to speak through their puppets is only designed for one user, which has the effect of making a puppet rapidly shift and jerk when the Kings talk over one another (which happens a lot). The Kings use their puppets to spy on enemies and subjects, and to mete out violence wherever they feel it is warranted.

The Wicked Kings cannot remotely possess someone. A person must be made into a puppet via a process the Kings have only shared with their most trustworthy servants, the priests of the [[Wicked Cult]] (who worship the Kings as gods). The process of turning an individual into a vessel of the Kings is dreadfully traumatic, but those who survive (and who are not driven insane during the procedure) are unaware that they’ve been made into a puppet. The ritual erases all memory of the procedure, and newly-made puppets tend to wake from the ordeal believing they’ve had a severe nightmare that they can’t quite remember.

No one knows exactly how many puppets the Kings have, but the Kings are only able to speak through and pilot one puppet at a time. They can put a puppet they’re not using on “hold”, so to speak, which causes said puppet to freeze in whatever position they’re currently holding (an unbalanced puppet on-hold puppet will fall to the ground and hold its position there). The Kings are also able to “hang up” one of their vessels when they’re done using them. This returns mental and physical control to the puppet. Many puppets aren’t aware they are puppets until after the Kings have activated them and taken control. While the Kings are piloting a puppet, the vessel blacks out and retains no memory of events while compelled. However, puppets the Kings release from control do recall that they were controlled, even if they can’t recall the details—such puppets, once released, thus have the opportunity to warn people that they’re not in control of themselves and may be compelled again at any moment. This is why, if the Kings need to use a puppet multiple times, they tend to use zealots or soldiers loyal to them, saving unwilling puppets for critical one-and-done missions. It’s also why the Kings usually kill their unwilling puppets once they’ve had their use of them.

=== The Prophecy and the Sword of Fighting ===

The oppressed peoples of the [[Wicked Kingdoms]] look to the prophecy of the [[Sword of Fighting]] for deliverance: “Whoever draws the Sword shall lead a revolution to topple the Wicked Kings.” That exact expression—Wicked Kings—is translated verbatim from the original text. Since the fall of [[Archaiad]], the elite of the [[Middle Kingdom]] would throw that label around to smear their enemies and competitors. When the Triumvirate rose to power, their enemies loudly (and correctly) named them the Wicked Kings of prophecy. The Triumvirate saw this actually working in their favor, so they adopted the label, going so far as to name their empire the Wicked Kingdoms. Several hundred years later, there is no doubt (not even the to Kings themselves) that they are the Wicked Kings of legend, whose rein will be ended by the Sword of Fighting, should it ever be found.

To thwart the prophecy, the Kings have dispatched wave after wave of forces into the Afterlands—most often to chase down and kill those heroes who’ve proclaimed that they will return with the Sword and topple the Kings, but more recently to find the Sword themselves and destroy it. They’ve also sent a horde of bounty hunters and assassins to capture or kill any questors who successfully locate the mythical Sword (the Kings haven’t reigned for 400 years because they’re poor planners). So far, none of the Swordquests—those undertaken by would-be heroes, or those funded by the Kings themselves—have come even remotely close to success. Much of humanity has begun to conclude that the Sword doesn’t actually exist.

=== Life in the Wicked Kingdoms ===

Society is striated into a number of castes, and there’s little in the way of upward mobility. The Wicked Subjects (as they half-jokingly, half-despairingly call themselves) are more scared of their rulers than any foreign threat. This keeps insurrection and insubordination down, especially among servants of the state. Additionally, none of their subjects—especially ambassadors or generals or anyone else in power—is ever 100% certain they’re not a puppet waiting to be activated. This threat keeps folks in line.
For the rank and file, things really isn’t that bad. As long as serf and citizen don’t rock the boat, they can reasonably expect to live out their lives in uneventful if boring fashion. The Kings themselves are excellent administrators, and while they keep their population under an iron thumb, they’re too smart to enact any policies that would foment rebellion. The Kings may be evil, but famine is rare, roads are free of brigands, markets are stable, justice is brutal but consistent (and does not take rank into account—a baron and a peasant will receive the same punishment for the same crime), and servants of the state are well compensated. Plus, they haven’t been invaded since the [[Boreal Crusades]], an unprecedented stretch for humanity, and the Wicked Kings’ subjects prefer the stability of their current state to the chaos and uncertainty of the late Middle Kingdoms. Sure, the Kings are prone to random bursts of violence and are unanswerable to any law of the land, but the prevailing attitude among their subjects is, “If we have to be conquered, I’ll take the Kings.”
The colors of the Wicked Kings are black, gold, and silver. Their symbol is an inverted golden crown on a black field. Military dress is black with gold accoutrements for senior officers, silver for juniors, and white for the rank and file. All members of the military and servants of the state wear too much mascara.

Wicked Kings

2017-04-13T02:45:02Z

Daredrinker:

== The Wicked Kings ==

By tying their life forces together, the trio of monarchs—henceforth referred to as the Wicked Kings, or just the Kings—are constantly aware of one another’s wellbeing. Pain felt by one is felt by the other two, as is pleasure; if one is threatened or hurt (or doing the horizontal waltz, if you catch my drift), the other two experience the same sensation and can react appropriately. Should one of them killed, the other two will die as well. So the Kings have a rather vested interest in keeping one another alive. Furthermore, their lifelink has allowed them to avoid doing something all tyrants and despots must do at one time or another: sleep. You can’t kill a gestalt entity when two-thirds of it is awake, as no small number of unsuccessful assassins have discovered.

Their lifelink also gives the Kings access to each other’s skills and knowledge, so if you’ve met (or earned the ire of) one of the Kings, the other two are aware of you as well, even if they may not know the context. That’s because the one thing they don’t share—or so it is believed—is thought. Those remain private, which has lead in no small part to the Kings’ extreme suspicion of one another.

It’s no great secret that the Wicked Kings hate one another. Human beings aren’t meant to live as long as they have. The magic that ties their lives together has dramatically slowed their ageing—they age perhaps one year in ten—and humans who artificially extend their lives out that long tend to go a bit batty (take your stereo-typically daft but genius wizard, for example). To say the Kings have grown apart is an understatement. They didn’t exactly care for each other to begin with—theirs was an alliance of necessity—and that was before they’d been magically bonded together for 400 years. Breaking the bond is not an option—if the bond breaks, they die—so they’re stuck with one another, and stuck in each other’s heads. It’s why they bicker and spew so much. They’re not only each other’s only peers; they’re their only competition, and they take any opportunity to undermine and embarrass one another. Like the erstwhile Middle Kingdoms, the only time they come together is when they’re facing an external threat. In the last century, no credible threat to their power has arisen, and as a result their interactions have been especially testy.

The Wicked Kings’ domain encompasses nearly all of humanity. Only two independent human states remain: [[Golden Valley]], a small mountain-ringed state south of the Wicked Kingdoms that owes its autonomy to its Switzerland-esque geography, and to [[Valmarrogandrex]], the ancient guardian dragon who dwells there (mainly the dragon); and [[Transis]], the mighty city-state trade port far to the east that is accessible only by sea or caravan through the [[Afterlands]], conquered by the barbarian king [[Karn the Unpleasant]]. The Kings’ main goal—apart from preserving their rule—is to conquer these final two holdouts.

The Kings make their home in the [[Wicked Citadel]], a colossal fortress in the heart of [[Lassax]] on the [[River Frael]]. They have sequestered themselves here in their hidden audience chamber, and it is from here that they pilot the various puppets they’ve spread across the world to do their bidding.

'''Puppets of the Kings'''

Early in their reign, the Kings discovered that they could use a variant of their lifelinking magic to seize control of individuals and dominate their will. They used this power to turn willing subjects and captured foes into puppets and mouthpieces. The Kings can see and hear what their puppets experience, and can (somewhat clumsily) control their actions as well. From their hidden antechamber, clustered around the [[Orb of Control]], the Kings pilot their collection of puppets. The Orb they use to speak through their puppets is only designed for one user, which has the effect of making a puppet rapidly shift and jerk when the Kings talk over one another (which happens a lot). The Kings use their puppets to spy on enemies and subjects, and to mete out violence wherever they feel it is warranted.

The Wicked Kings cannot remotely possess someone. A person must be made into a puppet via a process the Kings have only shared with their most trustworthy servants, the priests of the [[Wicked Cult]] (who worship the Kings as gods). The process of turning an individual into a vessel of the Kings is dreadfully traumatic, but those who survive (and who are not driven insane during the procedure) are unaware that they’ve been made into a puppet. The ritual erases all memory of the procedure, and newly-made puppets tend to wake from the ordeal believing they’ve had a severe nightmare that they can’t quite remember.

No one knows exactly how many puppets the Kings have, but the Kings are only able to speak through and pilot one puppet at a time. They can put a puppet they’re not using on “hold”, so to speak, which causes said puppet to freeze in whatever position they’re currently holding (an unbalanced puppet on-hold puppet will fall to the ground and hold its position there). The Kings are also able to “hang up” one of their vessels when they’re done using them. This returns mental and physical control to the puppet. Many puppets aren’t aware they are puppets until after the Kings have activated them and taken control. While the Kings are piloting a puppet, the vessel blacks out and retains no memory of events while compelled. However, puppets the Kings release from control do recall that they were controlled, even if they can’t recall the details—such puppets, once released, thus have the opportunity to warn people that they’re not in control of themselves and may be compelled again at any moment. This is why, if the Kings need to use a puppet multiple times, they tend to use zealots or soldiers loyal to them, saving unwilling puppets for critical one-and-done missions. It’s also why the Kings usually kill their unwilling puppets once they’ve had their use of them.

'''The Prophecy and the Sword of Fighting'''

The oppressed peoples of the [[Wicked Kingdoms]] look to the prophecy of the [[Sword of Fighting]] for deliverance: “Whoever draws the Sword shall lead a revolution to topple the Wicked Kings.” That exact expression—Wicked Kings—is translated verbatim from the original text. Since the fall of [[Archaiad]], the elite of the [[Middle Kingdom]] would throw that label around to smear their enemies and competitors. When the Triumvirate rose to power, their enemies loudly (and correctly) named them the Wicked Kings of prophecy. The Triumvirate saw this actually working in their favor, so they adopted the label, going so far as to name their empire the Wicked Kingdoms. Several hundred years later, there is no doubt (not even the to Kings themselves) that they are the Wicked Kings of legend, whose rein will be ended by the Sword of Fighting, should it ever be found.

To thwart the prophecy, the Kings have dispatched wave after wave of forces into the Afterlands—most often to chase down and kill those heroes who’ve proclaimed that they will return with the Sword and topple the Kings, but more recently to find the Sword themselves and destroy it. They’ve also sent a horde of bounty hunters and assassins to capture or kill any questors who successfully locate the mythical Sword (the Kings haven’t reigned for 400 years because they’re poor planners). So far, none of the Swordquests—those undertaken by would-be heroes, or those funded by the Kings themselves—have come even remotely close to success. Much of humanity has begun to conclude that the Sword doesn’t actually exist.

'''Life in the Wicked Kingdoms'''

Society is striated into a number of castes, and there’s little in the way of upward mobility. The Wicked Subjects (as they half-jokingly, half-despairingly call themselves) are more scared of their rulers than any foreign threat. This keeps insurrection and insubordination down, especially among servants of the state. Additionally, none of their subjects—especially ambassadors or generals or anyone else in power—is ever 100% certain they’re not a puppet waiting to be activated. This threat keeps folks in line.
For the rank and file, things really isn’t that bad. As long as serf and citizen don’t rock the boat, they can reasonably expect to live out their lives in uneventful if boring fashion. The Kings themselves are excellent administrators, and while they keep their population under an iron thumb, they’re too smart to enact any policies that would foment rebellion. The Kings may be evil, but famine is rare, roads are free of brigands, markets are stable, justice is brutal but consistent (and does not take rank into account—a baron and a peasant will receive the same punishment for the same crime), and servants of the state are well compensated. Plus, they haven’t been invaded since the [[Boreal Crusades]], an unprecedented stretch for humanity, and the Wicked Kings’ subjects prefer the stability of their current state to the chaos and uncertainty of the late Middle Kingdoms. Sure, the Kings are prone to random bursts of violence and are unanswerable to any law of the land, but the prevailing attitude among their subjects is, “If we have to be conquered, I’ll take the Kings.”
The colors of the Wicked Kings are black, gold, and silver. Their symbol is an inverted golden crown on a black field. Military dress is black with gold accoutrements for senior officers, silver for juniors, and white for the rank and file. All members of the military and servants of the state wear too much mascara.

Wicked Kings

2017-04-13T02:33:12Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Wicked Kings == By tying their life forces together, the trio of monarchs—henceforth referred to as the Wicked Kings, or just the Kings—are constantly aware of on..."

Fourth Age

2017-04-13T02:27:02Z

Daredrinker: /* The Fourth Age: The Age of Order */

== The Fourth Age: The Age of Order ==

''Also called the Age of Kings, the Age of Fools, or the Age of Blood—depending on whom you’re talking to—the Fourth Age marks when humanity finally pulled itself out of the destruction of the Third Age, only to plunge into warfare afresh.
''

'''Birth''': The [[Age of Order]] begins with the [[Red Exodus]]. In a slave revolt that devastates the [[Underkingdom]], the [[orcs]] win bloody freedom from their dwarven captors, razing a number of gate-towns in the process, and burst out onto the surface of the world. The orcs—the tortured and warped descendants of the [[Ord]] that the [[dwarves]] forced to build their subterranean empire—pour out of the [[Home Range]] that marks the eastern border of the [[Afterlands]] and spread rapidly across the northern reaches of the world. The [[orcish tribes]], many of which still exist today, developed quickly depending on where a group of Orcs stoppped after the exodus, and why: some (such as the [[Red Heels]]) keep running night and day until they hit the ocean on the far side of the continent; others (such as the [[Blue Brooks]]) stop once they find land they can defend; but most (such as the infamous [[Black Skulls]] and [[Mancutters]]) smash into the northern [[Middle Kingdoms]]. Feral and starving, these orcs rip through the unprepared human kingdoms like a wolf among hares, seizing food, razing towns, and sending a panicked tide of refugees surging south over the mountains.

The reaction from the human kingdoms to the south is swift. In a panic, the border kingdoms throw their lot in together against this vicious new enemy. They plead for aid from their sister nations to the south, but it is the [[Underkings]] who heed their call. Dwarven armies emerge from their trade tunnels near the human lands, and their generals treat with human kings. The orcs are a primitive and disorganized race, they report, but also fierce and unpredictable. Though they don’t go into numbers, the dwarves intimate that their losses were such in the exodus that they are unable to wage offensive war alone. But together, they can contain the orcish threat before the orcs have a chance to digest their conquests. The dwarves want their labor force back, and the humans want their land, so they make a bargain. In exchange for helping them break the orcs and subjugate them once again, the dwarves will share their arts of war with the [[humans]]. The human kings, distrustful of one another and already maneuvering the human civil war they all believe will come, agree. The dwarves outfit the humans with their most modern arms and armor—catapulting human technology forward hundreds of years—and lead their new allies north in the [[First Boreal Crusade]].

The dwarf-human alliance would have routed any rank and file army of the time. But such an army they do not meet. Employing skills learned in their centuries underground, the orcs lay vicious traps and hazards in the Crusade’s way, splitting their forces and falling upon them in ambush and skirmish, never meeting their opponents in the open field. Under such an unorthodox and ferocious assault, the human half of the alliance falls apart along national lines. They flee back over the mountains, leaving the dwarves in a perilous position: exposed, and outnumbered, above ground. The orcs annihilate the abandoned dwarven army, and outfits itself with their fallen weapons. The surviving dwarves retreat underground and seal their trade tunnels as a wave of well-armed orcs, bearing dwarf heads and beards on their banners, pours back over the mountains.

The orcs meet little resistance as they sweep into the southern border kingdoms, burning fields and seizing fortresses in their wake. Their advance displaces a quarter of the human population, choking the surrounding nations with refugees and the diseases that strike in such densely packed humanity.

Further south, shaken soldiers and petrified villagers pressed into service wait for the inevitable assault. None comes. Scouts report that only a token force of fatigued orcs appears to be present. Desperate to retake their lands, the kings in exile order an attack. To their surprise, after defeating the handful of surprisingly ferocious orcs, they discover the mass of the orc horde asleep—hibernating in the fortresses. The humans murder thousands of orcs in their sleep before what remains of the horde can shake off its weariness and retreat back over the mountains. The orcs’ need to hibernate during the winter—a need engineered by the dwarves to prevent just this sort of revolt—saves the south from being completely overrun.

The next season, the orcs roar back over the mountains again. This time, aware of their inability to wage war in the winter, the humans fight delaying tactics. As winter approaches, the orcs fall back, and when winter proper falls, the humans launch the [[Second Boreal Crusade]]. They break the orcs’ hold in the passes and surge into the ruined Middle Kingdoms north of the mountains, killing thousands more orcs—orcmaids and children alike—in their dens after slaughtering their guardians. But in the face of this success, the human alliance dissolves once again. Rather than driving forward and eradicating the orcs entirely, the displaced human kings pull their forces from the Crusade and set about rebuilding their liberated kingdoms. The orcs retreat into the wilds of the [[Afterlands]] to hibernate and prepare for the next spring’s campaign. Without the complete support of the human nations, the Crusade grinds to a stop after reclaiming the lost Middle Kingdoms.

In their hastily fortified fortresses, the human armies brace themselves for the inevitable orcish counterstrike the following spring. What comes could very well have removed humanity as the dominant race in Fartherall. During the winter, while the bulk of the orcish population hibernated, those not guarding the sleepers run north to rally the tribes that settled deeper in Afterlands. Those tribes answer the call and march south, tripling the size of the horde. When the attack comes, it is without mercy or—as the humans are horrified to discover—intent to conquer. The orcs hack through the overwhelmed human armies, and—unlike before—do not press forward until they’ve killed all stragglers and prisoners. As the humans retreat in disarray, the [[Savage Horde]] burns everything behind them—field and fortress alike. This is no longer a war of conquest. It is a war of annihilation. The orcs lay waste to the human kingdoms on the southern side of the mountains, razing hundreds of towns and millions of acres and not distinguishing between peasants and soldiers.

Were it not for a discovery made during the winter after the Second Boreal Crusade, the orcs may have been able to hold their territories south of the mountains, and from there spread across the southern continent. But after the Second Crusade, the army of the human kingdom of [[Lassax]] found itself lost far in the northern Afterlands. They sheltered for the winter in timeworn ruins revealed by an avalanche. Inside, their king, [[Garm]], discovered a hidden vault housing secrets of the extinct giants. He returned with what he found, and presented these materials to his wife and her brother—[[Maliadne]], Queen of [[Elthorn]], and [[Jendril]], King of [[Padz]]—both powerful spellcasters. The trio was puzzled over the mysteries Garm discovered when the Savage Horde broke over the mountains.

As the orcs advance, Maliadne and Jendril decode the giants’ secrets. They use these magics—an altered form of the life-draining rituals the giants used to extend their lifespans—to tie their three life forces together, and make them a gestalt entity. Thus united, the [[Triumvirate]]—as they call themselves—organizes a coordinated defense on three fronts, each monarch leading an army against the Savage Horde. Able to communicate via their bond, the Triumvirate uses its advantage to keep the horde contained via a series of brilliant delaying tactics and strategic losses. This gives the other human nations enough time to regroup and counterattack, blunting the Savage Horde’s advance. As summer stretches into autumn, the orcs withdraw over the mountains lest they be caught in the south during the winter. Rather than pursuing them back into the Afterlands, the Triumvirate seals the mountain passes, collapsing vast mountainsides to block paths armies have traversed over the centuries again. Those passes they cannot seal they garrison heavily with the aid of the dwarves.

When the spring comes, the orcs pound against the newly fortified passes, but fail to break through break through. Despite the howls of the displaced kings, the Triumvirate—who have become the de facto leaders of the loosely allied human states—refuses to launch a Third Boreal Campaign. The winter passes with no human counterattack. The displaced kings denounce the Triumvirate for sacrificing their kingdoms to the orcs and accuse them of setting themselves up to be a new [[Archaiad]]. These accusations find traction among the southern kings, who fear the Triumvirate from what they’ve seen them accomplish against the orcs. The Triumvirate sees what’s coming and strikes preemptively against their most vocal foes, imprisoning the kings and seizing their lands. A bloody human civil war ensues. As it rages, the Triumvirate finds itself vindicated for not launching a third crusade, for no orcish horde attacks the following spring. But for a handful of tribes that wintered in the south and were trapped there when the passes were fortified, orcdom is relegated to the Afterlands.

The human civil war, meanwhile, grinds on for nearly a century. Those allied against the Triumvirate accuse them of being the “wicked kings” of prophecy from the end of the [[Age of Legends]]. The Triumvirate finds this label psychologically advantageous and adopts it. The so-called [[Wicked Kings]] conquer one human state after another, adding each to its burgeoning empire. They do this with nearly inhuman patience and calculation, as the life-linking ritual greatly slows their aging. To terrify the other monarchs resisting them, the Wicked Kings drain the life energy from captured sovereigns—as the giants once did to their human chattel—and discover that this act not only slows their aging further, but stops it completely. But for a handful of brave and foolish holdouts, the remaining free kings bend the knee; those who resist, or their heirs, are crushed and drained. The three-crown banner—the standard of the Wicked Kings—flies over most of humanity. This is the Balance of the Age of Order, and is where we stand today.

'''''The Balance of the Age of Order''' is the default setting of the [[JourneyQuest]]. It is in this era, when the Wicked Kings are at the height of their power, that the show takes place.''

'''Death''': The Death of the Fourth Age is LOCKED, and will not be revealed until JourneyQuest has concluded its final season.

The repercussions of the Boreal Crusades are fascinating in their breadth, especially when how short a time they actually were in taken into consideration. As short-lived as the human and dwarven alliance against the orcs was, it greatly progressed human technology, almost to the point where they were on par with the dwarves. The desertion of the dwarves by the human armies in the First Boreal Crusade has had a direct impact on the cold human-dwarven relations of today; unknowable at the time was that the heir to the Underkingdom was slain during the Crusade after humanity’s abandonment, and this led to a war of succession in the Underkingdom for which the dwarves blame the humans. Additionally, after the Savage Horde demolished and razed the Middle Kingdoms just to the south of the mountains—the area now called [[The Swath]]—humanity’s attempts to re-colonize the Afterlands were effectively ended. Humanity would never again cover as much territory as the [[Archaian Empire]]; by all appearances, it was in the Fourth Age that humanity had peaked.

Fourth Age

2017-04-13T02:22:24Z

Daredrinker: /* The Fourth Age: The Age of Order */

== The Fourth Age: The Age of Order ==

''Also called the Age of Kings, the Age of Fools, or the Age of Blood—depending on whom you’re talking to—the Fourth Age marks when humanity finally pulled itself out of the destruction of the Third Age, only to plunge into warfare afresh.
''

'''Birth''': The [[Age of Order]] begins with the [[Red Exodus]]. In a slave revolt that devastates the [[Underkingdom]], the [[orcs]] win bloody freedom from their dwarven captors, razing a number of gate-towns in the process, and burst out onto the surface of the world. The orcs—the tortured and warped descendants of the [[Ord]] that the [[dwarves]] forced to build their subterranean empire—pour out of the [[Home Range]] that marks the eastern border of the [[Afterlands]] and spread rapidly across the northern reaches of the world. The [[orcish tribes]], many of which still exist today, developed quickly depending on where a group of Orcs stoppped after the exodus, and why: some (such as the [[Red Heels]]) keep running night and day until they hit the ocean on the far side of the continent; others (such as the [[Blue Brooks]]) stop once they find land they can defend; but most (such as the infamous [[Black Skulls]] and [[Mancutters]]) smash into the northern [[Middle Kingdoms]]. Feral and starving, these orcs rip through the unprepared human kingdoms like a wolf among hares, seizing food, razing towns, and sending a panicked tide of refugees surging south over the mountains.

The reaction from the human kingdoms to the south is swift. In a panic, the border kingdoms throw their lot in together against this vicious new enemy. They plead for aid from their sister nations to the south, but it is the [[Underkings]] who heed their call. Dwarven armies emerge from their trade tunnels near the human lands, and their generals treat with human kings. The orcs are a primitive and disorganized race, they report, but also fierce and unpredictable. Though they don’t go into numbers, the dwarves intimate that their losses were such in the exodus that they are unable to wage offensive war alone. But together, they can contain the orcish threat before the orcs have a chance to digest their conquests. The dwarves want their labor force back, and the humans want their land, so they make a bargain. In exchange for helping them break the orcs and subjugate them once again, the dwarves will share their arts of war with the [[humans]]. The human kings, distrustful of one another and already maneuvering the human civil war they all believe will come, agree. The dwarves outfit the humans with their most modern arms and armor—catapulting human technology forward hundreds of years—and lead their new allies north in the [[First Boreal Crusade]].

The dwarf-human alliance would have routed any rank and file army of the time. But such an army they do not meet. Employing skills learned in their centuries underground, the orcs lay vicious traps and hazards in the Crusade’s way, splitting their forces and falling upon them in ambush and skirmish, never meeting their opponents in the open field. Under such an unorthodox and ferocious assault, the human half of the alliance falls apart along national lines. They flee back over the mountains, leaving the dwarves in a perilous position: exposed, and outnumbered, above ground. The orcs annihilate the abandoned dwarven army, and outfits itself with their fallen weapons. The surviving dwarves retreat underground and seal their trade tunnels as a wave of well-armed orcs, bearing dwarf heads and beards on their banners, pours back over the mountains.

The orcs meet little resistance as they sweep into the southern border kingdoms, burning fields and seizing fortresses in their wake. Their advance displaces a quarter of the human population, choking the surrounding nations with refugees and the diseases that strike in such densely packed humanity.

Further south, shaken soldiers and petrified villagers pressed into service wait for the inevitable assault. None comes. Scouts report that only a token force of fatigued orcs appears to be present. Desperate to retake their lands, the kings in exile order an attack. To their surprise, after defeating the handful of surprisingly ferocious orcs, they discover the mass of the orc horde asleep—hibernating in the fortresses. The humans murder thousands of orcs in their sleep before what remains of the horde can shake off its weariness and retreat back over the mountains. The orcs’ need to hibernate during the winter—a need engineered by the dwarves to prevent just this sort of revolt—saves the south from being completely overrun.

The next season, the orcs roar back over the mountains again. This time, aware of their inability to wage war in the winter, the humans fight delaying tactics. As winter approaches, the orcs fall back, and when winter proper falls, the humans launch the [[Second Boreal Crusade]]. They break the orcs’ hold in the passes and surge into the ruined Middle Kingdoms north of the mountains, killing thousands more orcs—orcmaids and children alike—in their dens after slaughtering their guardians. But in the face of this success, the human alliance dissolves once again. Rather than driving forward and eradicating the orcs entirely, the displaced human kings pull their forces from the Crusade and set about rebuilding their liberated kingdoms. The orcs retreat into the wilds of the [[Afterlands]] to hibernate and prepare for the next spring’s campaign. Without the complete support of the human nations, the Crusade grinds to a stop after reclaiming the lost Middle Kingdoms.

In their hastily fortified fortresses, the human armies brace themselves for the inevitable orcish counterstrike the following spring. What comes could very well have removed humanity as the dominant race in Fartherall. During the winter, while the bulk of the orcish population hibernated, those not guarding the sleepers run north to rally the tribes that settled deeper in Afterlands. Those tribes answer the call and march south, tripling the size of the horde. When the attack comes, it is without mercy or—as the humans are horrified to discover—intent to conquer. The orcs hack through the overwhelmed human armies, and—unlike before—do not press forward until they’ve killed all stragglers and prisoners. As the humans retreat in disarray, the [[Savage Horde]] burns everything behind them—field and fortress alike. This is no longer a war of conquest. It is a war of annihilation. The orcs lay waste to the human kingdoms on the southern side of the mountains, razing hundreds of towns and millions of acres and not distinguishing between peasants and soldiers.

Were it not for a discovery made during the winter after the Second Boreal Crusade, the orcs may have been able to hold their territories south of the mountains, and from there spread across the southern continent. But after the Second Crusade, the army of the human kingdom of [[Lassax]] found itself lost far in the northern Afterlands. They sheltered for the winter in timeworn ruins revealed by an avalanche. Inside, their king, [[Garm]], discovered a hidden vault housing secrets of the extinct giants. He returned with what he found, and presented these materials to his wife and her brother—[[Maliadne]], Queen of [[Elthorn]], and [[Jendril]], King of [[Padz]]—both powerful spellcasters. The trio was puzzled over the mysteries Garm discovered when the Savage Horde broke over the mountains.

As the orcs advance, Maliadne and Jendril decode the giants’ secrets. They use these magics—an altered form of the life-draining rituals the giants used to extend their lifespans—to tie their three life forces together, and make them a gestalt entity. Thus united, the [[Triumvirate]]—as they call themselves—organizes a coordinated defense on three fronts, each monarch leading an army against the Savage Horde. Able to communicate via their bond, the Triumvirate uses its advantage to keep the horde contained via a series of brilliant delaying tactics and strategic losses. This gives the other human nations enough time to regroup and counterattack, blunting the Savage Horde’s advance. As summer stretches into autumn, the orcs withdraw over the mountains lest they be caught in the south during the winter. Rather than pursuing them back into the Afterlands, the Triumvirate seals the mountain passes, collapsing vast mountainsides to block paths armies have traversed over the centuries again. Those passes they cannot seal they garrison heavily with the aid of the dwarves.

When the spring comes, the orcs pound against the newly fortified passes, but fail to break through break through. Despite the howls of the displaced kings, the Triumvirate—who have become the de facto leaders of the loosely allied human states—refuses to launch a Third Boreal Campaign. The winter passes with no human counterattack. The displaced kings denounce the Triumvirate for sacrificing their kingdoms to the orcs and accuse them of setting themselves up to be a new [[Archaiad]]. These accusations find traction among the southern kings, who fear the Triumvirate from what they’ve seen them accomplish against the orcs. The Triumvirate sees what’s coming and strikes preemptively against their most vocal foes, imprisoning the kings and seizing their lands. A bloody human civil war ensues. As it rages, the Triumvirate finds itself vindicated for not launching a third crusade, for no orcish horde attacks the following spring. But for a handful of tribes that wintered in the south and were trapped there when the passes were fortified, orcdom is relegated to the Afterlands.

The human civil war, meanwhile, grinds on for nearly a century. Those allied against the Triumvirate accuse them of being the “wicked kings” of prophecy from the end of the [[Age of Legends]]. The Triumvirate finds this label psychologically advantageous and adopts it. The so-called [[Wicked Kings]] conquer one human state after another, adding each to its burgeoning empire. They do this with nearly inhuman patience and calculation, as the life-linking ritual greatly slows their aging. To terrify the other monarchs resisting them, the Wicked Kings drain the life energy from captured sovereigns—as the giants once did to their human chattel—and discover that this act not only slows their aging further, but stops it completely. But for a handful of brave and foolish holdouts, the remaining free kings bend the knee; those who resist, or their heirs, are crushed and drained. The three-crown banner—the standard of the Wicked Kings—flies over most of humanity. This is the Balance of the Age of Order, and is where we stand today.

The repercussions of the Boreal Crusades are fascinating in their breadth, especially when how short a time they actually were in taken into consideration. As short-lived as the human and dwarved alliance against the orcs was, it greatly progressed human technology, almost to the point where they were on par with the dwarves. The desertion of the dwarves by the human armies in the First Boreal Crusade has had a direct impact on the cold human-dwarven relations of today; unknowable at the time was that the heir to the Underkingdom was slain during the Crusade after humanity’s abandonment, and this led to a war of succession in the Underkingdom for which the dwarves blame the humans. Additionally, after the Savage Horde demolished and razed the Middle Kingdoms just to the south of the mountains—the area now called [[The Swath]]—humanity’s attempts to re-colonize the Afterlands were effectively ended. Humanity would never again cover as much territory as the [[Archaian Empire]]; by all appearances, it was in the Fourth Age that humanity had peaked.

Fourth Age

2017-04-13T02:20:46Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Fourth Age: The Age of Order == ''Also called the Age of Kings, the Age of Fools, or the Age of Blood—depending on whom you’re talking to—the Fourth Age marks w..."

== The Fourth Age: The Age of Order ==

''Also called the Age of Kings, the Age of Fools, or the Age of Blood—depending on whom you’re talking to—the Fourth Age marks when humanity finally pulled itself out of the destruction of the Third Age, only to plunge into warfare afresh.
''

'''Birth''': The [[Age of Order]] begins with the [[Red Exodus]]. In a slave revolt that devastates the [[Underkingdom]], the [[orcs]] win bloody freedom from their dwarven captors, razing a number of gate-towns in the process, and burst out onto the surface of the world. The orcs—the tortured and warped descendants of the [[Ord]] that the [[dwarves]] forced to build their subterranean empire—pour out of the [[Home Range]] that marks the eastern border of the [[Afterlands]] and spread rapidly across the northern reaches of the world. The [[orcish tribes]], many of which still exist today, developed quickly depending on where a group of Orcs stoppped after the exodus, and why: some (such as the [[Red Heels]]) keep running night and day until they hit the ocean on the far side of the continent; others (such as the [[Blue Brooks]]) stop once they find land they can defend; but most (such as the infamous [[Black Skulls]] and [[Mancutters]]) smash into the northern [[Middle Kingdoms]]. Feral and starving, these orcs rip through the unprepared human kingdoms like a wolf among hares, seizing food, razing towns, and sending a panicked tide of refugees surging south over the mountains.

The reaction from the human kingdoms to the south is swift. In a panic, the border kingdoms throw their lot in together against this vicious new enemy. They plead for aid from their sister nations to the south, but it is the [[Underkings]] who heed their call. Dwarven armies emerge from their trade tunnels near the human lands, and their generals treat with human kings. The orcs are a primitive and disorganized race, they report, but also fierce and unpredictable. Though they don’t go into numbers, the dwarves intimate that their losses were such in the exodus that they are unable to wage offensive war alone. But together, they can contain the orcish threat before the orcs have a chance to digest their conquests. The dwarves want their labor force back, and the humans want their land, so they make a bargain. In exchange for helping them break the orcs and subjugate them once again, the dwarves will share their arts of war with the [[humans]]. The human kings, distrustful of one another and already maneuvering the human civil war they all believe will come, agree. The dwarves outfit the humans with their most modern arms and armor—catapulting human technology forward hundreds of years—and lead their new allies north in the [[First Boreal Crusade]].

The dwarf-human alliance would have routed any rank and file army of the time. But such an army they do not meet. Employing skills learned in their centuries underground, the orcs lay vicious traps and hazards in the Crusade’s way, splitting their forces and falling upon them in ambush and skirmish, never meeting their opponents in the open field. Under such an unorthodox and ferocious assault, the human half of the alliance falls apart along national lines. They flee back over the mountains, leaving the dwarves in a perilous position: exposed, and outnumbered, above ground. The orcs annihilate the abandoned dwarven army, and outfits itself with their fallen weapons. The surviving dwarves retreat underground and seal their trade tunnels as a wave of well-armed orcs, bearing dwarf heads and beards on their banners, pours back over the mountains.

The orcs meet little resistance as they sweep into the southern border kingdoms, burning fields and seizing fortresses in their wake. Their advance displaces a quarter of the human population, choking the surrounding nations with refugees and the diseases that strike in such densely packed humanity.

Further south, shaken soldiers and petrified villagers pressed into service wait for the inevitable assault. None comes. Scouts report that only a token force of fatigued orcs appears to be present. Desperate to retake their lands, the kings in exile order an attack. To their surprise, after defeating the handful of surprisingly ferocious orcs, they discover the mass of the orc horde asleep—hibernating in the fortresses. The humans murder thousands of orcs in their sleep before what remains of the horde can shake off its weariness and retreat back over the mountains. The orcs’ need to hibernate during the winter—a need engineered by the dwarves to prevent just this sort of revolt—saves the south from being completely overrun.

The next season, the orcs roar back over the mountains again. This time, aware of their inability to wage war in the winter, the humans fight delaying tactics. As winter approaches, the orcs fall back, and when winter proper falls, the humans launch the [[Second Boreal Crusade]]. They break the orcs’ hold in the passes and surge into the ruined Middle Kingdoms north of the mountains, killing thousands more orcs—orcmaids and children alike—in their dens after slaughtering their guardians. But in the face of this success, the human alliance dissolves once again. Rather than driving forward and eradicating the orcs entirely, the displaced human kings pull their forces from the Crusade and set about rebuilding their liberated kingdoms. The orcs retreat into the wilds of the [[Afterlands]] to hibernate and prepare for the next spring’s campaign. Without the complete support of the human nations, the Crusade grinds to a stop after reclaiming the lost Middle Kingdoms.

In their hastily fortified fortresses, the human armies brace themselves for the inevitable orcish counterstrike the following spring. What comes could very well have removed humanity as the dominant race in Fartherall. During the winter, while the bulk of the orcish population hibernated, those not guarding the sleepers run north to rally the tribes that settled deeper in Afterlands. Those tribes answer the call and march south, tripling the size of the horde. When the attack comes, it is without mercy or—as the humans are horrified to discover—intent to conquer. The orcs hack through the overwhelmed human armies, and—unlike before—do not press forward until they’ve killed all stragglers and prisoners. As the humans retreat in disarray, the [[Savage Horde]] burns everything behind them—field and fortress alike. This is no longer a war of conquest. It is a war of annihilation. The orcs lay waste to the human kingdoms on the southern side of the mountains, razing hundreds of towns and millions of acres and not distinguishing between peasants and soldiers.

Were it not for a discovery made during the winter after the Second Boreal Crusade, the orcs may have been able to hold their territories south of the mountains, and from there spread across the southern continent. But after the Second Crusade, the army of the human kingdom of [[Lassax]] found itself lost far in the northern Afterlands. They sheltered for the winter in timeworn ruins revealed by an avalanche. Inside, their king, [[Garm]], discovered a hidden vault housing secrets of the extinct giants. He returned with what he found, and presented these materials to his wife and her brother—[[Maliadne]], Queen of [[Elthorn]], and [[Jendril]], King of [[Padz]]—both powerful spellcasters. The trio was puzzled over the mysteries Garm discovered when the Savage Horde broke over the mountains.

As the orcs advance, Maliadne and Jendril decode the giants’ secrets. They use these magics—an altered form of the life-draining rituals the giants used to extend their lifespans—to tie their three life forces together, and make them a gestalt entity. Thus united, the [[Triumvirate]]—as they call themselves—organizes a coordinated defense on three fronts, each monarch leading an army against the Savage Horde. Able to communicate via their bond, the Triumvirate uses its advantage to keep the horde contained via a series of brilliant delaying tactics and strategic losses. This gives the other human nations enough time to regroup and counterattack, blunting the Savage Horde’s advance. As summer stretches into autumn, the orcs withdraw over the mountains lest they be caught in the south during the winter. Rather than pursuing them back into the Afterlands, the Triumvirate seals the mountain passes, collapsing vast mountainsides to block paths armies have traversed over the centuries again. Those passes they cannot seal they garrison heavily with the aid of the dwarves.

When the spring comes, the orcs pound against the newly fortified passes, but fail to break through break through. Despite the howls of the displaced kings, the Triumvirate—who have become the de facto leaders of the loosely allied human states—refuses to launch a Third Boreal Campaign. The winter passes with no human counterattack. The displaced kings denounce the Triumvirate for sacrificing their kingdoms to the orcs and accuse them of setting themselves up to be a new [[Archaiad]]. These accusations find traction among the southern kings, who fear the Triumvirate from what they’ve seen them accomplish against the orcs. The Triumvirate sees what’s coming and strikes preemptively against their most vocal foes, imprisoning the kings and seizing their lands. A bloody human civil war ensues. As it rages, the Triumvirate finds itself vindicated for not launching a third crusade, for no orcish horde attacks the following spring. But for a handful of tribes that wintered in the south and were trapped there when the passes were fortified, orcdom is relegated to the Afterlands.

The human civil war, meanwhile, grinds on for nearly a century. Those allied against the Triumvirate accuse them of being the “wicked kings” of prophecy from the end of the [[Age of Legends]]. The Triumvirate finds this label psychologically advantageous and adopts it. The so-called [[Wicked Kings]] conquer one human state after another, adding each to its burgeoning empire. They do this with nearly inhuman patience and calculation, as the life-linking ritual greatly slows their aging. To terrify the other monarchs resisting them, the Wicked Kings drain the life energy from captured sovereigns—as the giants once did to their human chattel—and discover that this act not only slows their aging further, but stops it completely. But for a handful of brave and foolish holdouts, the remaining free kings bend the knee; those who resist, or their heirs, are crushed and drained. The three-crown banner—the standard of the Wicked Kings—flies over most of humanity. This is the Balance of the Age of Order, and is where we stand today.

The repercussions of the Boreal Crusades are fascinating in their breadth, especially when how short a time they actually were in taken into consideration. As short-lived as the human and dwarved alliance against the orcs was, it greatly progressed human technology, almost to the point where they were on par with the dwarves. The desertion of the dwarves by the human armies in the First Boreal Crusade has had a direct impact on the cold human-dwarven relations of today; unknowable at the time was that the heir to the Underkingdom was slain during the Crusade after humanity’s abandonment, and this led to a war of succession in the Underkingdom for which the dwarves blame the humans. Additionally, after the Savage Horde demolished and razed the Middle Kingdoms just to the south of the mountains—the area now called the Swath—humanity’s attempts to re-colonize the Afterlands were effectively ended. Humanity would never again cover as much territory as the Archaian Empire; by all appearances, it was in the Fourth Age that humanity had peaked.

Third Age

2017-04-13T02:00:23Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Third Age: The Age of Legends == In the Third Age, the modern races of Fartherall supplant the progenitors. It is the age wherein most modern tales of legendary..."

== The Third Age: The Age of Legends ==

In the Third Age, the modern races of [[Fartherall]] supplant the progenitors. It is the age wherein most modern tales of legendary—told by the races of the age—are set, and is indeed how the age earned its name. It is the first age to possess any recorded history, beginning with the founding of [[Archaiad]].

The [[ogres]], the [[Olom]] warrior race, pursue the [[Wyrmbroods]] into the mountains that ring the civilized world. The [[Ord]] seize control of the territories abandoned by the [[Wyrms]], vastly increasing their domain.

'''Birth''': The Ord and [[Ald]] clash over territory and who will guide the legacy races in their development. This erupts war between the two remaining Elder Races, and frames the backdrop of the modern races’ advancement.

The [[giants]]—the strongest and largest of the Olom legacy—declare themselves the true heirs of the Olom. They claim dominion over the other Olom legacy races and enslave them. Only the ogres are able to resist being subjugated. With the [[dwarves]], [[humans]], and [[halflings]] conquered, the giants pursue another aspect of the Olom life they consider their birthright—immortality.

In exchange for allying with them in their war against the Ald, the Ord promise to give the giants the secret to immortality. The giants agree, and the Ord share the secret: immortality can be achieved by siphoning the life force and youth out of another, a process that ages its victims to death. The giants turn their enslaved races into sacrificial herds to extend their lives. They find the humans the easiest to siphon life from, and abuse them the most. To this day, the humans have the shortest lifespan of any Olom legacy race as a result.

Against the combined might of the Ord and the giants, the Ald find themselves losing the war. Their numbers dwindle, as no more Ald are being born. Since they emerged from the [[First Wood]], the children of the Ald have been born [[elves]] or [[gnomes]], inheriting only a fraction of their parents’ agelessness and magic. The Ald makes plans to withdraw from the world with their legacy races.

The [[elves]]—who have known no other home, and do not wish to leave—break their vow to the Ald never to share their magic with the lesser races. The Ald share arcane secrets with the enslaved Olom legacy races. With their aid, the slave races break free from the giants and ally with the Ald.
To the horror of the elves and Ald, two of the the freed Olom races—the humans and dwarves—use what the elves taught them to exact a terrible revenge against their captors. They throw themselves against the giants, with no thought to their own losses, until they have torn down the giants’ society and driven them nearly to extinction.

As punishment, the Ald exile the elves from the First Wood. The elves vow never again to aid in the development of another race, a promise they’ve kept to this day.

With the giants gone, the Olom legacy races throw their might behind the Ald. Together, they topple the Ord. The Ord reopen the rifts in the sky and flee the world. To cover their escape, they drop their abandoned floating island back into the sea. It lands off the coast of the First Wood. The ensuing tsunami obliterates a quarter of the primordial forest and devastates the Ald.

But not all of the Ord escape. The tidal wave knocks a number of their fleeing vessels out of the sky. The dwarves capture the survivors and dragged them and the wrecks of their ships into the deep places of the world. There, they enslave the Ord and strip them of their secrets and language. They conduct tortuous experiment on the captives, warping and transmuting those strong enough to survive into ideal slaves: powerful, short-lived, with built-in weaknesses. The dwarves build their massive [[Underkingdom]] on the backs of these slaves—the sole legacy race of the Ord—who they call [[orcs]].

The Ald, the last remaining Elder Race, sees that the world now irreversibly belongs to the legacy races. Weary and few in number, they withdraw from the world.

With the Elder Races and giants gone, the elves sequestered in their woods and the dwarves isolated, the humans inherit the shattered ruins of the world. Over the millennia, they spread far and wide, adapting to each region and giving rise to a variety of different cultures and languages. Humanity fills the empty places of the world with its offspring, becoming by far the most populous race.

'''Balance''': [[Archaiad]], the great human empire, stretches from [[Lastport]] in the west to [[Transis]] in the east, and north into the wild [[Afterlands]]. Its roads and aqueducts span the continent, and its legions march unopposed but for the incursions of the occasional ogre pride or Wyrmbrood. A cosmopolitan empire, humans of every creed and color are found within its borders. Though it does not nearly approach the fallen Elder Races’ technology or power, the [[Archaian Empire]] is a stable state, and one that endures longer than any human civilization in history.

After the founding of Archaiad, the recorded history of [[Fartherall]] takes a predominantly human-centered turn. The rapid and often uncontested spread of Archaian civilization, coupled with the intradependence and relative isolationism of the nonhuman races and the Archaians’ meticulous record keeping, were instrumental in this human empire becoming the dominant culture of the era. Readers interested in a more in depth account of the empire’s history, and the heroic tales of legendary set therein, will have no trouble finding volumes on the subject; [[Publian Harto]]’s 40-volume “[[Archaiad through the Ages]]” covers the subject thoroughly, and in often tedious detail. For the purposes of this brief glimpse of Fartherall through the ages, the bulk of the Archaiad has been glossed over.

In the twenty-eighth century of the Archaiad, the emperor [[Colaebrian]] comes to power. The sickly son of a cousin of the previous emperor, Colaebrian inherits the Empire through a series of bizarre and ominous events. The previous emperor, [[Forfaraxian]], dies with his three sons during a slake hunt; as the emperor and his heirs approach to ceremonially cut the horns from the beast’s head, the slake—which had been dead and hauled out of the bay hours before—spasms back to life long enough to crush the four men in its coils. On the very same day, the older of the emperor’s younger brothers accidentally poisons himself while firing bevenomed arrows at captives in a courtyard. When the younger brother runs for help, he slips and falls into the courtyard where he is killed by the captives, who ironically survived (at least until their execution). Colaebrian’s father, the general [[Kaetemnestres]]—who wasn’t aware he was the heir to throne, as the fate of the emperor’s younger brothers was not known at the time—leads his legion into the capital to restore order in the chaos following the announcement of the emperor’s death. He removes his helmet to address the panicked crowd, and is struck in the head by a thrown cobblestone. In a period of twelve hours, the emperor and the next six in line for the crown die, an event historians call the [[Septemiort]]. When told his is the new emperor, Colaebrian faints and falls into a coma. Calculating generals make plans to seize control should the Sleeping Emperor—as Colaebrian comes to be known, die, Archaiad teeters on the edge of civil war.

It is said that Colaebrian fell asleep a boy, but awoke as an emperor. When he mysteriously wakes up a month after falling into his coma, gone is the sickly and indecisive youth. Possessing of a strange sense of calm and an iron will, the new emperor immediately begins issuing edicts. The first is that the capital be moved from [[Haram]] in the fruitful south to [[Sumbre]], the great city-temple that was the empire’s mightiest fortress in the [[Afterlands]]. There, he assembles the greatest wizards in the empire and dictates to them the mad and troubling visions he experienced in his coma. The wizards find these visions worrying, and when they inquire about their origin, Colaebrian reports that they were bestowed upon him by an entity he calls the [[Pale Lady]], who sang to him as he slept.
On the emperor’s orders, the wizards assemble his recorded visions into a single volume. As no wizard was allowed to view the work of another during the transcription, they realize what the assembled visions are too late to prevent their effect. The collected visions are not the mad ramblings of a fevered mind, but a spell—a massive, 99-page spell with arcane energies so dense that it achieves arcane critical mass and awakens. To the wonderment of the emperor and the horror of his assembled wizards, this sentient speaks its name—[[Oclysma]]—and begins to cast itself.

The wizards realize what the spell is meant to do and revolt in an attempt to destroy the Oclysma. The emperor rushes to its defense, ordering his legions to defend his “child”—but he is slain by an elven assassin’s arrow to the heart. Seeing their emperor slain and assuming the elf acted with the rebellion, the Archaian legions attack the wizards in a frenzy. Though the imperial forces are decimated in the battle, the arcane rebellion is quashed. The legions drive the remaining wizards out of Sumbre as the Oclysma finishes casting the first part of itself.

'''Death''': The sun dies. It plummets from the sky and smashes into the ground, setting the far off western continent ablaze and boiling the surrounding seas. No sun rises the next day, or the next, or the next after that. Exactly how much time passes during the [[Day of No Sun]] is unclear, though most estimates put it in the realm of one month. During that stretch, crops fail and frost coats the world, presaging the [[Bittercold]], a miniature ice age sparked by the death of the sun. This is the First Movement of the Oclysma.

The surviving wizards regroup with their apprentices and concoct a desperate plan to stop the Oclysma, which has moved into the second phase of casting itself. The wizards forge the [[Sword of Sundering]], a blade capable of severing the most powerful magics, and pour their own life essences into it. For reasons they do not have the time to share before they perish, the wizards task their apprentices with delivering the sword to the elf that assassinated the emperor. The apprentices—who history remembers as the [[Scions]]—honor their masters’ wishes. They find the wounded elf on the battlefield outside Sumbre and nurse him back to health. The elf—who has a double crescent moon tattoo on one cheek—never shares his name, so the Scions name him [[Nostrum]]. They arm him with the Sword of Sundering as the Oclysma finishes casting the second part of itself.
The [[Necrofont]], a geyser of negative energy, erupts from the [[Heart of Sumbre]] and bathes the surrounding battlefield in its power. The slain legions of the emperor rise as the first undead Fartherall has ever seen. This army of the dead splits; half remain in Sumbre to guard the Necrofont, and half marching forth to spread the undead plague across the world. This is the Second Movement of the Oclysma.

As the Bittercold spreads its icy tendrils and the [[Army of the Dead]] advances beneath a sunless sky, Nostrum and the Scions fight their way through the undead to the heart of Sumbre. They find the Oclysma in the ruined palatial throne room, where it begins to cast the third—and final—part of itself. Nostrum cuts through the Oclysma with the Sword of Sundering, slicing away page after page of the sentient spell. With each stroke, the Sword of Sundering absorbs more of the Oclysma’s power and intelligence. With the final stroke, the Sword of Sundering itself awakens—and the Oclysma explodes, killing Nostrum and leveling Sumbre. The ensuing magical backlash obliterates life for hundreds of miles in all direction, and while it doesn’t destroy the undead, it renders them mindless, turning them into the shambling automatons we know today. The Third Movement of the Oclysma does not resolve.

The next day, a newborn sun rises in the east. But it is young and weak, and not strong enough to push back the ice. The Bittercold continues for centuries until the Young Sun grows strong enough to break it.

The surviving Scions find the Sword of Sundering in the mountains around Sumbre. Sadly, the Sword absorbed so much of the Oclysma’s malice and energy that it drove the newly awakened blade insane. Spitting threats and babbling obscenities, the Sword sings its own prophecy to the assembled apprentices: whoever shall free him from his prison will lead a revolution and kill the wicked kings. The Scions are unable to destroy the mad sword, infused as it was with such powerful energies, so they instead build a trap-laden temple around it and imprison the belligerent blade—which they rename the [[Sword of Fighting]]—inside.

The repercussions of the Oclysma are felt to this day. The ice sheets of the Bittercold carve great swaths out of the Afterlands, rendering it inhospitable to agriculture. The great advances in medicine, architecture, and technology of the Archaiad are lost to humanity after the empire fragments. And undeath—unknown before the Second Movement of the Oclysma—remains a reality, a genie that can never be put back in the bottle.

The Archaian Empire loses a quarter of its population and half of its land from the destruction of Sumbre. The Day of No Sun and the Bittercold lead to endemic crop failure and rampant starvation. The remnants of the Archaiad split on regional and ethnic lines and war with one another for resources. The human population plummets. When it recovers, it does so as the disunited [[Middle Kingdoms]], a string of bickering states fighting over the crumbs of the Archaian Empire. Humanity will not unify again until a new threat bursts into the world—an enraged and hungry threat, a race of merciless savages determined to seize a place in the world: the orcs.

[[History of Fartherall]]

Second Age

2017-04-13T01:32:42Z

Daredrinker: /* The Second Age: The Age of Wonder */

== The Second Age: The Age of Wonder ==

''The more fantastical myths stem from the Second Age, when the Elder Races were at their height, the [[Wyrmbroods]] were legion, and the gods freely interacted with mortals.''

'''Birth''': Through great rifts in the sky, the [[Ord]] appear in their flying vessels. They seize and island and raise it into the sky. The [[Ald]] emerge from the First Wood, exiled there from another world. The children of the Ald born on [[Fartherall]] become the Ald’s mortal legacy races: the elves and gnomes.

'''Balance''': The Elder Races of Fartherall—the Ord, Ald, and [[Olom]]—build thriving civilizations and live in general peace with one another. Magic, the language of the universe, is studied and chronicled. War is virtually unknown, and when it does occur, is a curiosity and a limited exercise. It is a mini-age of unparalleled peace and prosperity, a time when the Elder Races achieve great technological, philosophical, and arcane understanding. The Elder Races grow complacent, and the Olom especially ignore their worship of the gods. Meanwhile, in the wild places of the world, the Wyrmbroods grow.

Driven mad by hunger and a lack of space, the Wyrmbroods attack the Olom. Outmatched, outnumbered, and unprepared for war, the Olom make a drastic decision. Trading their offspring’s mortality for focus, the Olom segment their children into five mortal echelons—rulers, warriors, builders, servants, and gardeners—and send them into war against the dragons.

Stymied by the [[Children of the Olom]], the [[Dragon Monarchs]] unite their broods into the [[Wyrmhorde]]. The horde draws the Ord and Ald into the war. The three Elder Races unite against the Heirs of the [[Draagan]]. War blankets the world.

The alliance of Elder Races attempts to bring [[Death]]—the great strategist of the second generation of gods—back from the dead to turn against the Wyrmhorde. They harvest a [[golden apple]] from the [[Tree of Life]], the roots of which grow through many worlds. But the apple that reaches Death is rotten, and she arises undead—the first being to do so—no ally to those who raised her. Death sees what the world has become, sees that the children of her generation have overthrown her siblings and populated the world crawling, noisy life, and is displeased.

Death whispers to the mortal children of the Olom and turns them against their parents.

'''Death''': The Olom echelons abandon the Olom, their parents. The alliance of the Elder Races shatters. The Wyrmbroods annihilate the Olom, driving them to extinction, and then—as is the way with dragons—turn on and devour one another. The handful of remaining broods return to the wild places of the world, greatly weakened.
With their progenitor race gone, the Children of the Olom settle into their roles and branch into the Olom legacy races: the [[giants]], [[ogres]], [[dwarves]], [[humans]], and [[halflings]].

'''Of note''': There is some disagreement among scholars as to what marks the end of the Second Age and the start of the Third. Most put the end of the Age of Wonder at the extermination of the Olom and the rise of its legacy races. A vocal minority would have the Age of Wonder extend until the departure of the Ord and the Ald as well. It really comes down which event one deems more significant: the fall of the Elder Races, or the rise of their successors. In this account, the Age of Wonder with the inception of the Olom’s legacy races.

[[History of Fartherall]]

First Age

2017-04-13T01:31:32Z

Daredrinker: /* The First Age: The Age of Dreams */

== The First Age: The Age of Dreams ==

''The First Age lies beyond the ken of mortal experience, in the time before time. It is the era of deepest myth. The veracity of its events can only be guessed at.''

'''Birth''': The world is born out of the war between the first generation of gods and the [[Draagan]], the eternal cosmic dragon. In the struggle, chunks of reality are torn free from the primordial chaos of the [[Omniverse]]. These pieces stabilize, and the gods hide them away and shape them into the world.

Chafing under their rule, the second generation of gods overthrows its parents and seals them away in the elemental chaos. The new generation takes control of the world, populates it with their own creations—plant and animal life—and has children of their own.

[[Death]]—the oldest of the second generation of gods—dies, the first deity to do so. The state of death takes its name from her, the goddess who perished.

The second and third generations of gods clash over whether or not to create intelligent mortal life. The third generation is united, but the second is not. The third generation rises to power. They exile those among their parents’ generation who fought with them, and force those who remained neutral to bend the knee.

The third generation of gods creates the [[Olom]], the First Race, and makes them stewards of the world. The powerful Olom build a society and dwell in worshipful harmony upon [[Fartherall]].

'''Death''': Unbeknownst to the gods, the Draagan had laid its eggs upon the chunks of reality from which the gods created the world. From deep within the earth, these eggs hatch into the first Dragon Monarchs. They erupt to the surface to give birth to their broods and make war against the children of the gods.

[[History of Fartherall]]

First Age

2017-04-13T01:29:37Z

Daredrinker: /* The First Age: The Age of Dreams */

Second Age

2017-04-13T01:28:07Z

Daredrinker: /* The Second Age: The Age of Wonder */

Second Age

2017-04-13T01:23:11Z

Daredrinker:

== The Second Age: The Age of Wonder ==

''The more fantastical myths stem from the Second Age, when the Elder Races were at their height, the [[Wyrmbroods]] were legion, and the gods freely interacted with mortals.''

'''Birth''': Through great rifts in the sky, the [[Ord]] appear in their flying vessels. They seize and island and raise it into the sky. The [[Ald]] emerge from the First Wood, exiled there from another world. The children of the Ald born on [[Fartherall]] become the Ald’s mortal legacy races: the elves and gnomes.

'''Balance''': The Elder Races of Fartherall—the Ord, Ald, and [[Olom]]—build thriving civilizations and live in general peace with one another. Magic, the language of the universe, is studied and chronicled. War is virtually unknown, and when it does occur, is a curiosity and a limited exercise. It is a mini-age of unparalleled peace and prosperity, a time when the Elder Races achieve great technological, philosophical, and arcane understanding. The Elder Races grow complacent, and the Olom especially ignore their worship of the gods. Meanwhile, in the wild places of the world, the Wyrmbroods grow.

Driven mad by hunger and a lack of space, the Wyrmbroods attack the Olom. Outmatched, outnumbered, and unprepared for war, the Olom make a drastic decision. Trading their offspring’s mortality for focus, the Olom segment their children into five mortal echelons—rulers, warriors, builders, servants, and gardeners—and send them into war against the dragons.

Stymied by the Children of the Olom, the Dragon Monarchs unite their broods into the Wyrmhorde. The horde draws the Ord and Ald into the war. The three Elder Races unite against the Heirs of the Draagan. War blankets the world.

The alliance of Elder Races attempts to bring Death—the great strategist of the second generation of gods—back from the dead to turn against the Wyrmhorde. They harvest a golden apple from the Tree of Life, the roots of which grow through many worlds. But the apple that reaches Death is rotten, and she arises undead—the first being to do so—no ally to those who raised her. Death sees what the world has become, sees that the children of her generation have overthrown her siblings and populated the world crawling, noisy life, and is displeased.

Death whispers to the mortal children of the Olom and turns them against their parents.

'''Death''': The Olom echelons abandon the Olom, their parents. The alliance of the Elder Races shatters. The Wyrmbroods annihilate the Olom, driving them to extinction, and then—as is the way with dragons—turn on and devour one another. The handful of remaining broods return to the wild places of the world, greatly weakened.
With their progenitor race gone, the Children of the Olom settle into their roles and branch into the Olom legacy races: the [[giants]], [[ogres]], [[dwarves]], [[humans]], and [[halflings]].

'''Of note''': There is some disagreement among scholars as to what marks the end of the Second Age and the start of the Third. Most put the end of the Age of Wonder at the extermination of the Olom and the rise of its legacy races. A vocal minority would have the Age of Wonder extend until the departure of the Ord and the Ald as well. It really comes down which event one deems more significant: the fall of the Elder Races, or the rise of their successors. In this account, the Age of Wonder with the inception of the Olom’s legacy races.

Second Age

2017-04-13T01:22:31Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The Second Age: The Age of Wonder == ''The more fantastical myths stem from the Second Age, when the Elder Races were at their height, the Wyrmbroods were legion, and..."

== The Second Age: The Age of Wonder ==

''The more fantastical myths stem from the Second Age, when the Elder Races were at their height, the [[Wyrmbroods]] were legion, and the gods freely interacted with mortals.''

'''Birth''': Through great rifts in the sky, the [[Ord]] appear in their flying vessels. They seize and island and raise it into the sky. The Ald emerge from the First Wood, exiled there from another world. The children of the [[Ald]] born on [[Fartherall]] become the Ald’s mortal legacy races: the elves and gnomes.

'''Balance''': The Elder Races of Fartherall—the Ord, Ald, and [[Olom]]—build thriving civilizations and live in general peace with one another. Magic, the language of the universe, is studied and chronicled. War is virtually unknown, and when it does occur, is a curiosity and a limited exercise. It is a mini-age of unparalleled peace and prosperity, a time when the Elder Races achieve great technological, philosophical, and arcane understanding. The Elder Races grow complacent, and the Olom especially ignore their worship of the gods. Meanwhile, in the wild places of the world, the Wyrmbroods grow.

Driven mad by hunger and a lack of space, the Wyrmbroods attack the Olom. Outmatched, outnumbered, and unprepared for war, the Olom make a drastic decision. Trading their offspring’s mortality for focus, the Olom segment their children into five mortal echelons—rulers, warriors, builders, servants, and gardeners—and send them into war against the dragons.

Stymied by the Children of the Olom, the Dragon Monarchs unite their broods into the Wyrmhorde. The horde draws the Ord and Ald into the war. The three Elder Races unite against the Heirs of the Draagan. War blankets the world.

The alliance of Elder Races attempts to bring Death—the great strategist of the second generation of gods—back from the dead to turn against the Wyrmhorde. They harvest a golden apple from the Tree of Life, the roots of which grow through many worlds. But the apple that reaches Death is rotten, and she arises undead—the first being to do so—no ally to those who raised her. Death sees what the world has become, sees that the children of her generation have overthrown her siblings and populated the world crawling, noisy life, and is displeased.

Death whispers to the mortal children of the Olom and turns them against their parents.

'''Death''': The Olom echelons abandon the Olom, their parents. The alliance of the Elder Races shatters. The Wyrmbroods annihilate the Olom, driving them to extinction, and then—as is the way with dragons—turn on and devour one another. The handful of remaining broods return to the wild places of the world, greatly weakened.
With their progenitor race gone, the Children of the Olom settle into their roles and branch into the Olom legacy races: the [[giants]], [[ogres]], [[dwarves]], [[humans]], and [[halflings]].

'''Of note''': There is some disagreement among scholars as to what marks the end of the Second Age and the start of the Third. Most put the end of the Age of Wonder at the extermination of the Olom and the rise of its legacy races. A vocal minority would have the Age of Wonder extend until the departure of the Ord and the Ald as well. It really comes down which event one deems more significant: the fall of the Elder Races, or the rise of their successors. In this account, the Age of Wonder with the inception of the Olom’s legacy races.

First Age

2017-04-13T01:14:02Z

Daredrinker: Created page with " == The First Age: The Age of Dreams == ''The First Age lies beyond the ken of mortal experience, in the time before time. It is the era of deepest myth. The veracity of its..."

== The First Age: The Age of Dreams ==

''The First Age lies beyond the ken of mortal experience, in the time before time. It is the era of deepest myth. The veracity of its events can only be guessed at.''

'''Birth''': The world is born out of the war between the first generation of gods and the [[Draagan]], the eternal cosmic dragon. In the struggle, chunks of reality are torn free from the primordial chaos of the [[Omniverse]]. These pieces stabilize, and the gods hide them away and shape them into the world.

Chafing under their rule, the second generation of gods overthrows its parents and seals them away in the elemental chaos. The new generation takes control of the world, populates it with their own creations—plant and animal life—and has children of their own.

Death—the oldest of the second generation of gods—dies, the first deity to do so. The state of death takes its name from her, the goddess who perished.

The second and third generations of gods clash over whether or not to create intelligent mortal life. The third generation is united, but the second is not. The third generation rises to power. They exile those among their parents’ generation who fought with them, and force those who remained neutral to bend the knee.

The third generation of gods creates the [[Olom]], the First Race, and makes them stewards of the world. The powerful Olom build a society and dwell in worshipful harmony upon [[Fartherall]].

'''Death''': Unbeknownst to the gods, the Draagan had laid its eggs upon the chunks of reality from which the gods created the world. From deep within the earth, these eggs hatch into the first Dragon Monarchs. They erupt to the surface to give birth to their broods and make war against the children of the gods.