Golemgame:Setting
From Fax Encyclopedicus
Flickerdart (Talk | contribs) |
Flickerdart (Talk | contribs) (→Feral Humanoids) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/PresidentPSkillz/golempocalypse.png | http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/PresidentPSkillz/golempocalypse.png | ||
=The Dustlands= | =The Dustlands= | ||
| - | The Dustlands is the name given to the rough area of high golem activity that cuts laterally through the two continents. Nearly everything larger than the size of a fist has been ground into dust from millenia of warfare. Occasionally, the various interacting magical energies will latch on to the shattered remains that litter the Dustlands and bestow some sort of supernatural properties. Magic items created this way are usually extremely volatile, something that most people would never wish to hold, never mind use on a daily basis. "Dustmen", adventurers that scavenge these artifacts, are considered the lowest of the low, and also certifiably insane. Some craftsmen, known as "dust farmers", bring all sorts of objects to the Dustlands in the hope that they will gain some special power through exposure, and stumbling onto the rare successful dust farm can be a lucky break for a beginner adventurer. | + | The Dustlands is the name given to the rough area of high golem activity that cuts laterally through the two continents. Nearly everything larger than the size of a fist has been ground into dust from millenia of warfare. Occasionally, the various interacting magical energies will latch on to the shattered remains that litter the Dustlands and bestow some sort of supernatural properties. Magic items created this way are usually extremely volatile, something that most people would never wish to hold, never mind use on a daily basis. "Dustmen", adventurers that scavenge these artifacts, are considered the lowest of the low, and also certifiably insane. Some craftsmen, known as "dust farmers", bring all sorts of objects to the Dustlands in the hope that they will gain some special power through exposure, and stumbling onto the rare successful dust farm can be a lucky break for a beginner adventurer.<br/> |
| + | Needless to say, teleportation near, through or into the Dustlands is a dangerous and foolish matter, due to the prevailing extraplanar conditions caused by the powerful weaponry of the golems. While it is unlikely that a short-range teleport would happen across any of these, a long-range teleportation spell requires feats of incredible mental fortitude from the caster to avoid potential rips in the Astral plane. While it is still possible to maneuver past them alone, any passengers make the feat near-impossible, dooming the travellers to a painful death or worse. | ||
==The Tapestry== | ==The Tapestry== | ||
| Line 19: | Line 20: | ||
===Port Zarrak=== | ===Port Zarrak=== | ||
| - | Port Zarrak (meaning Revenge in the halfling tongue) was one of the first cities erected after the fall of Karakat, built with scraps of golem technology and materials painstakingly retrieved by Namoki from ancient stockpiles all over the world. Zarrak is almost exclusively composed of soldiers, who are there only by choice, and always for life. If they wish to sire children, the warriors will meet their wife in the raging waters of the Serpent, as women are not allowed in Zarrak, and the men consider it dishonourable to come back to Namok for anything short of their own funeral. | + | Port Zarrak (meaning Revenge in the halfling tongue) was one of the first cities erected after the fall of Karakat, built with scraps of golem technology and materials painstakingly retrieved by Namoki from ancient stockpiles all over the world. Zarrak is almost exclusively composed of soldiers, who are there only by choice, and always for life. If they wish to sire children, the warriors will meet their wife in the raging waters of the Serpent, as women are not allowed in Zarrak, and the men consider it dishonourable to come back to Namok for anything short of their own funeral. Many soldiers that come to serve in Zarrak are pure-blooded descendants of the ancient assassins once trained by the Namoki, as savage as they are skilled and powerful. |
==Barad-Dai== | ==Barad-Dai== | ||
| - | The launch platform for the golems of the Western front, Barad-Dai dwarves have always hated their southern neighbours. They are risk-takers by circumstance instead of choice - the northern reaches of Barad-Dai lands are inhospitably cold, while the south is under constant threat of attack from the Namoki, and vulnerable to golem attacks by both land and sea. Barad-Dai build their fortress homes deep underground, and rarely emerge from them except to hunt or raid shipping. The <i>de jure</i> Barad-Dai leader and god is one of the oldest golems, whom they have named Daguran. The most noble thing a dwarf can do is forge an adamantine chain link, and attach it to the many similar links that hang from Daguran's face like an enormous metal beard. Some would say that the <i>wisest</i> thing a dwarf can do is anything but this, as even the journey to track down Daguran's position in the Dustlands claims many lives. Dwarves tend to cross bloodlines with gnomes, although a handful of families | + | The launch platform for the golems of the Western front, Barad-Dai dwarves have always hated their southern neighbours. They are risk-takers by circumstance instead of choice - the northern reaches of Barad-Dai lands are inhospitably cold, while the south is under constant threat of attack from the Namoki, and vulnerable to golem attacks by both land and sea. Barad-Dai build their fortress homes deep underground, and rarely emerge from them except to hunt or raid shipping. The <i>de jure</i> Barad-Dai leader and god is one of the oldest golems, whom they have named Daguran. The most noble thing a dwarf can do is forge an adamantine chain link, and attach it to the many similar links that hang from Daguran's face like an enormous metal beard. Some would say that the <i>wisest</i> thing a dwarf can do is anything but this, as even the journey to track down Daguran's position in the Dustlands claims many lives. Dwarves tend to cross bloodlines with gnomes, although a handful of families carry Raptoran blood. Nearly all of their members have hung their links on Daguran, and many landbound dwarves grumble that being able to fly is cheating. |
===Berkut=== | ===Berkut=== | ||
| - | Berkut is a marvel of dwarven | + | Berkut is a marvel of dwarven architecture, constructed with enormous flood gates that allow it to launch submersible ships without any outward signs. While this is no protection from aquatic golems, these ships can take mortal vessels by surprise. However, their small range and speed makes them useless for offensive action of most kinds. Berkut is incredibly hard to locate for even an experienced tracker, and the only possible way to infiltrate it is inside such a submersible.<br> |
| + | From Berkut, the Council of Elders rules the dwarves. The name is actually a misnomer of sorts - only the most esteemed of dwarves between the ages of 150 and 250 are allowed to serve on this council. When they age beyond that point, the Elders take up weapons and armour that they put down a century ago and go back out into the world, to seek death in battle as befits a dwarf. Famously, no Elder has ever died (or so the dwarves claim) while serving their term. Formally, the Elders serve as advisors and priests to Daguran, but since the ancient war machine does not make much of a head of state, Barad-Dai is functionally a theocracy, with this clergy at its head. The dwarves don't seem to care very much, one way or the other - the Council of Elders existed before Daguran was ever built, and so it is only fitting that they should rule now as they did back then, and if they do so in the name of an enormous death machine then all the better. | ||
| + | |||
| + | =The East= | ||
| + | While the West has, for the longest time, been dominated by the Bas-Karakat and Agan, many independent nations to the East remained largely independent, and were able to spring back the quickest after the war, devouring former Agan holdings to increase their own power. A variety of races call these states their home, and a significant percentage of the population have never even seen a golem. Most of the exotic races such as raptorans and lizardfolk keep to these parts of the world. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Faradan== | ||
| + | Caught between the East and the West, Faradan was the first to fall to Agan colonialism, and the last to throw off its shackles. Faradan elves resent the North and South in equal measure, and have very little love for their kin to the East. Hit the hardest by the recent change in the golem war, the tiny scrap of land the elves subsist on may well be wiped out in the coming years. Elves pay their respects to a large pantheon of gods that they insist is fundamentally different from the Agan deific hierarchy. They do not have much in the way of a unified nation, and tend to breed with other clans, creating a diverse array of subspecies. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Romaya=== | ||
| + | A settlement concealed among towering cliffs and lush valleys, Romaya is the meeting place for the gathering of tribes. Each clan chief must journey here every two years, and in the month that follows they pray to their gods, discuss territorial claims and settle disputes through combat among the chiefs of allied clans. If a chief does not return from Romaya for any reason, having died en route or been slain in the circle, the clan becomes the lowest in the hierarchy and must pick a new chief. | ||
| + | |||
| + | =The South= | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Somila== | ||
| + | Somila is but one of the nations claiming to be the successor state to the Agan Empire. Composed of an eclectic mix of elves, humans, kobolds and gnomes, Somila's access to the Serpent Gulf has allowed it to continue the trade legacy of its mother nation. A heaven for adventurers because of its proximity to the wealthiest Agan lands, Somila's primary occupations are mercenary and mercenary that works for the state to keep the other kind of mercenary from breaking too many things. The vast and expansive bureaucracy that controls the trade (and by extent, everything else) is only rivalled by the thriving criminal underground, which handles the shipping that needs to circumvent red tape, as well as most other kinds of shipping - it is often easier and faster to pay your way to a smuggler's cargo hold than to bribe your way through official means. The only god here is money, but there will always be someone willing to sell you prayer time at a "shrine" that might not even be a back alley, if you're lucky. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Appabaganna=== | ||
| + | The "rebirth of Mother Agan" is an enormous city of nearly twenty thousand, kept fed by constant streams of travellers and water in equal measure. With a waterway draining straight into the Serpent, it is a popular starting point for adventurers, who aren't bothered by the lack of a convenient way to get back to the city (because nobody would want to go back here by choice). The bulk of the city consists of a semi-mobile shantytown, and it's not unheard of the city's central core to suddenly become outskirts as a golem sighting sends the citizens scrambling. Anything can be found here, and anything can be lost (then re-purchased at a significant loss, unless you can prove it's really yours). | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Kheret== | ||
| + | The plains of Kheret are harsh and unforgiving, which helped the goblins living here push back Agan expansion. Skilled outriders and legendary sailors, Kheretans quickly adapted from opportunists that raided shipping to opportunists that scavenged anything left over after a town's population had fled from an approaching golem, real or fabricated. Goblins form small warbands, led by a cunning and respected (even if physically weak) chief. The Chief of Chiefs, the goblin who leads the strongest warband, must be a fine warrior in his own right, however. This goblin is the only one who may enlist the aid of other warbands to complete an objective; normally, if a warband requires more manpower, they will track down another band with a weaker chief and attempt to belittle and humiliate him so that the warband's members will lose respect for their previous leader and change sides. The current Chief of Chiefs is a young and ambitious goblin named Ghataban, with foolish un-goblin-like dreams of a life that's more than just raiding and pillaging. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Port Mehet=== | ||
| + | Another one of the Chief of Chief's duties is to maintain the fleet, which is based in Mehet. Most of the goblin fleet is composed of light collapsible vessels that are usually disassembled and carried by pack animals, but large vessels are hidden here, drawn out and crewed by the most skilled sailors when the Chief of Chiefs commands a raid on an especially valuable objective, or when the elves have gotten on his nerves once too many times. Barring an auspicious occasion, however, the city is never inhabited by more than a handful of clans at a time. | ||
| + | |||
| + | =Organizations= | ||
| + | A number of organizations transcend political boundaries, and can sometimes leverage respectable political clout when it suits their goals. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==The Njall== | ||
| + | The Njall are a cult that goes back to before the two great empires even existed, if their legends are to be believed. The story of their origin (as told by the Njall themselves) goes thus:<br/> | ||
| + | In times immemorial, the gods were greedy, and demanded offerings from all men who lived and worked the soil. One farmer, by the name of Vinu, worked on poor soil, and one year he had to choose between making an offering and having enough to eat during winter. When the gods did not receive his offering, they became angered, and took Vinu's sheep and wheat and fields from him, saying that if he could not work what they had given him, they would find someone else who could. Without his livelihood, Vinu was forced to wander and beg. One day, he met a traveller, who had no face nor body, but instead was made from light. Vinu thought he was a god and fell to his knees, but the traveller bid him rise. "I am Njall," the traveller said, "Do not kneel before me, for I am no god, though I am far greater, for I have discovered all the secrets of the mind. I will make you like myself so that you also have nothing to fear from gods." Njall took Vinu's old mind away, and gave him a new mind. And Vinu, who was now Njall, went forth to spread Njall's blessing among others who were tyrannized by the gods, and the gods could not touch him, for he knew all the secrets of the mind.<br/> | ||
| + | The Njall claim that their founder was the origin of all psionic powers, and to this day keep the only library of psionic lore that exists in the world, surviving even the war and the purge of knowledge that followed it. Thus, they are the only ones privy to the craft of shaping or summoning, as well as most forms of artifice, and jealously guard these secrets, hunting down those who would steal and use them.<br/> | ||
| + | To find new psionics and keep their own secrets safe, Njall journeymen travel the world, but it is not their only purpose. They also continue recruitment into the cult, which is done through a ritual involving a special kind of Mind Seed power. Thus, any Njall risen to the ranks of journeyman is powerful enough to manifest Mind Seed, and Njall initiates are at least 7th level, though rarely higher than 12th. Njall only take willing subjects to undergo the ritual, but of these there is no shortage. Since the mind they receive has been passed along for millenia, they tend to vary slightly. | ||
| + | ===Njall-adar=== | ||
| + | The Njall-adar are a conservative splinter sect within the Njall, who believe that theirs is the one true genealogy that descends from the original Njall. Their journeymen manifest only a single Mind Seed immediately after they are capable of doing so, in order to keep as little of their own mind as possible from interfering with the implantation process. | ||
| + | ===Njall-yusog=== | ||
| + | The Njall-yusog are a liberal splinter sect within the Njall, who dispute the idea that the original Njall was an immortal, godlike figure. Instead, through many years of research they have come to the conclusion that he was an Elan (and that, in out of game terms, he was an epic-level Erudite). Those belonging to the Njall-yusog that are not Elans usually undergo the ritual that creates an Elan from a mortal race. However, often they no longer wish to take the blessing of Njall after the procedure (since their old mind and experience are gone) and leave to wander the world. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==The Gilded Brothers== | ||
| + | The Gilded Brothers are a loose organization of merchant princes that control most of the trade flowing along the south coast of former Agan holdings. Not all merchants can afford to pay the steep membership fees that the Gilded Brothers demand, but all who do enjoy the protection of one of the world's most organized navies, as well as a healthy number of mercenaries and powerful heroes that are under the Gilded Brothers' thumb in one way or another: the guild is known for sponsoring many a promising mage or warrior to pursue an otherwise dangerous and often unrewarding path. They also hold a considerable amount of influence in Somila, and those ignorant of Appabaganna's shadier dealings have much reason to believe that the Gilded Brothers essentially control that city. Rumour has it that one of the merchant princes (though nobody can agree on whether it is the de facto leader Phaedrus the kobold, the richest member Thutmose the human, or the mysterious and private dwarf Asmundar) is actually immortal, outlived the war and started the Brothers with the fleets and wealth that he has been amassing since time immemorial. The last of the four great princes that composes the leadership is an actual prince, the royal Thankarat of Phenn (the small green island off the coast of Kheret). He is known to be a great collector of curios, and has been known to adventure himself once in a while when no fool could be found to retrieve whatever caught the prince's fancy from a dangerous dungeon or haunted ruin. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Unearthers== | ||
| + | The unearthers are not really an organization, in the traditional sense. While it cannot be denied that some group of individuals, indeterminate in number, has laboured since before the war to preserve - and later, restore - the arcane knowledge that has been lost to the world, no trace of any organized cooperation within this group has ever been discovered. Whenever someone is caught engaging in "typical" unearther activities (attempting to cast forbidden magic from grimoires long thought lost, usually with disastrous consequences) no one that they were known to ever associate with is ever found to have aided them in any way. | ||
| + | |||
| + | =Origins of Species= | ||
| + | ==Warforged== | ||
| + | Before the golem war had taken a turn for the worse, the dwarves were working on an assassin just like their Namoki rivals, only instead of flesh and blood, they turned their knowledge of golemcraft towards this task. The result of this research was a dozen metal dwarves, all twelve in various stages of completion. While they could obey simple commands, these creatures (dubbed battle-forged) could not adapt to changing circumstances quickly enough to be effective assassins, and were far too expensive to produce en masse for use in the field. It was decided by the Dwarven Elders that the project be scrapped, and funding be directed to the Namoki assassin program, which was yielding considerable results by this point.<br> | ||
| + | Dwarven sentimentalism for their work being what it was, the battle-forged were given a warrior's burial, loaded into a boat that was then put out to sea and set ablaze. It is not known whether the battle-forged were able to put out the fire, or had merely washed up on some distant shores. What remains fact, however, is that shortly before the end of the war, several scouts from both nations reported "miniature Golems" wandering the countryside, as near as the rivers of the Tapestry, and as far as the easternmost reaches of the continent. When comparing these reports to the research of the dwarves, it is clear that the units were heavily modified, and by different hands - the nearer warforged were made taller and slimmer than their prototypes, with protruding arrays of devices and various grafted instruments, while those found further away were often considerably larger, with bodies of wood rather than metal. Some of these latter ones were even said to be able to speak, which didn't save them from annihilation but earned them a footnote in the history books.<br> | ||
| + | Intelligent warforged appeared relatively recently - probably the machinations of some secluded dwarven engineer determined to finish his people's work, though the 'forged themselves are mum about it. Thanks to largely their own efforts, many of the older prototypes have also been brought online and upgraded to near the modern level of functionality. Still, the world has fewer than 100 functioning warforged, and no permanent community of them exists. They are almost universally despised, but few adventurers feel that way about warforged. To them, the warforged are the same as any other artifact they hunt after, though one deluded into thinking that it's a real boy. Most adventuring parties will thus tolerate and even humour warforged companions, but one in a position of leadership anywhere would be pretty much unthinkable.<br> | ||
| + | To the dwarven people specifically, warforged represent both a grim reminder of the war, and the once mighty tradition of dwarven artifice. Depending on how much the particular dwarf cares about his past compared to his present, their reception might be warmer than usual, even if they will almost certainly want to take the warforged apart "just a little bit" to see what's inside. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Feral Humanoids== | ||
| + | The very first ferals were discovered in Faradan - mutated and vicious animals born of the inscrutable jungles. In rare cases, condition seemed to be contagious - and very swiftly fatal - to the elves of Faradan. Bas-Karakat transmuters spent many resources kidnapping infected creatures and elves and studying them, and eventually managed to reduce the condition from a rapid, violent and eventually fatal transformation to a gradual hereditary growth that resulted in a powerful, resilient and cunning soldier that was jokingly termed Knives, for their slight build when compared to the Orc warriors that composed the bulk of the armed forces. While the majority of these Knives were deployed immediately, the most promising specimens remained in the labs for further testing. The results of that research were forever lost when the lab itself was burned to the ground by enemy saboteurs.<br> | ||
| + | When it became clear that the war was lost by both sides, most of the Knives defected immediately, trying to blend in with the many refugees that were fleeing the warzones. Many of the others felt naturally drawn to Faradan, from where their breed originally came, and vanished into the jungles there. A rare handful of particularly devoted Knives continued the war, striking out at what they perceived as priority targets and stomping out what little remained of most wizarding traditions, as well as relentlessly tracking down the assassins of the Agan Empire. Without any source of intelligence, however, the reign of these marauders was blissfully short.<br> | ||
| + | Those Knives that returned to Faradan did not find a pleasant welcome. Elven communities despise them - they are twice-hated as both tools of those that brought about the collapse of the world, and carriers of the feral curse that still ravages Faradan's more remote corners. Descendants of the Knives can find gainful employment almost anywhere else, however, as they still make exceptional soldiers. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Dragons and Dragonborn== | ||
| + | Dragons were once an ancient and powerful race, and more than one Golem was forged in their image to honour that power. However, the dragons themselves could not accept that their place at the top of the food chain would be compromised by these automatons, and pridefully fought a war of their own, practically to extinction. At the end of this struggle, the craftier dragons that remained began enlisting humans from the minor nations into their crusade, transforming them into dragonborn through a secret ritual in return for fealty. Blessed with exceptional life spans as a side effect of the transformation, the dragonborn remained long after their draconic masters were wiped out to the last.<br> | ||
| + | When their masters did not return, some dragonborn would loot the hoards they were left to protect and flee, while others stayed behind in vain hopes that their dragon would eventually come back. The more powerful dragons who crated the most dragonborn had left behind enormous sprawling caves where a handful of village-sized dragonborn communities are thought to exist today. Hunting for lost hoards is, for this reason, a very dangerous proposition - a clutch of firebreathing opponents is a hell of a surprise when you were expecting an empty cavern full of treasure. | ||
