Golemgame:Setting
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===Berkut=== | ===Berkut=== | ||
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> | 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= | =The East= | ||
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===Njall-yusog=== | ===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 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. | ||
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| + | ==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. | ||
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| + | ==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. | ||
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| + | =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. | ||
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| + | ==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. | ||
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| + | ==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. | ||
