Setting Overview (cont’d) Setting Overview (cont’d)

the colonial governors and their allies in the homeland. At least Where they have taken root, crime becomes civilized. e Fam- Drakr The Lost Riders.
once a decade, a spree of assassinations strikes, shaking the compla- ily seems to respect loyalty and avoids doing violence to innocents, Before the rise of the kingdom of Triegenes, dwarven warlords in After most of the dwarven tyrants had fallen to Triegenes, the
cency of the nobility, and frightening the common folk. though when they move into a new city they viciously cut out the Drakr subdued the undead titans of the land, encased them in crys- last five warlords gathered at a fiery tower in the Shawl Moun-
e largest colonial city is Santi Simone, over the ruins of current criminal element and institute a more refined form of cor- tal, and buried them deep beneath the earth. e dwarven warlords tains to discuss a plan for war. As they camped and planned, one
Elfaivar’s original capital Bharata. In an uncharacteristically sym- ruption and lawlessness. allied with the Demonocracy in the east, trading the lives and souls of their archmage servants warned that a winter storm stronger
pathetic move, the Clergy built a giant memorial to the countless of their mostly-human subjects for infernal power. Each warlord than any in history was approaching. Afraid of being stranded
dead eladrin women, interring their bodies in tombs carved into a erected a tower as a symbol of h is power, and from these bases they from their battle, the five warlords mounted their various dread
massive rock that sits along the city’s river. Danor marched unnatural armies to battle for territory and supremacy. steeds and rode forth. But when the storm fell upon them, they
Guided by a congress of businessmen and scholars, Danor is devot- Later Triegenes assailed those towers, toppling each as a step- lost their direction.
Devas, Angels, and the Dead. ed to endless progress. Old beliefs, especially religion, are cast aside ping stone toward the Demonocracy itself. e tyrants fell, and Too cruel and convinced of their invincibility to die, the five
e Second Victory ended with a legendary battle just outside the in the face of newer and more profitable ideas. A er surviving an dwarves became an oppressed minority in what had once been continued riding until they vanished forever into the blizzard. For
walls of Alais Primos, where legions of Clergy-blessed warriors apocalyptic collapse five hundred years ago, reason and hard work their homeland. When the Great Malice shattered the kingdom over a millennium the dwarves of Drakr have told tales of the lost
faced an army led by the goddess Srasama herself. A er hours of have created armies more powerful than any in the world, where a of Triegenes, several clans of dwarves overthrew the priests who riders, continuing to search for the battle that they should have
battle, Srasama was felled by a thousand cuts, and fire exploded common man can wield weapons as mighty as the magic of legend- had ruled over them. ey prepared for war, intending to recre- fought and won. Folk tales warn never to o er aid to lost travelers,
from her body. e warriors nearest to her were annihilated, but ary heroes. A er centuries of complacency, the other great nations ate new dwarven kingdoms, but the deadly threat from the Malice lest you anger their pride and earn their wrath.
those who survived and were close enough to see the death of a god eye Danor with envy, and with fear. Lands forced them to band together, even unite with humans to
were marked by the experience. Following the Second Victory, the social order in old Danor was keep newly-birthed abominations at bay. malice beasts which previously would have taken an army to defeat.
Many of these veterans settled in the lands liberated by the upended. e Great Malice le the capital of the Clergy bere of e dwarven clans and fractured human provinces that survived e finest guns come from Drakr, and many of those are enchanted.
eladrin army’s retreat. In the years that followed, whenever one of magic. Horrible monsters that spawned in the border regions of the collapse of the kingdom of Triegenes created a loose federation Unlike Risur, however, Drakr has not rushed to develop steam war-
them died, open flames would flicker for miles around, and some- wild magic wrought havoc as quavering holy warriors struggled to that has grown ever more united. Regional governors, mostly hu- ships. ey have limited interest in naval matters, and prefer to
where within three days’ travel the man or woman would be reborn destroy them without their divine aid. e whole country was cut man, handle normal farming and trade, while dwarven lords direct defend their coasts with forts and cannons, though a few Drakran
in the wilderness. No longer quite human, these reincarnated souls off from its usual channels of communication, and in a matter of grand mining operations and command the nation’s army and navy. shipyards do construct ironclad vessels for Danor.
took the name deva, from an eladrin word for deity. weeks, thousands of priests killed themselves, believing their gods Once again the nation has grown fond of towers, not just as e capital city of Trekhom is a major hub of industrial trade,
When a deva reincarnates, he recalls language, culture, and had died, and many more fled in every direction. A once-mighty symbols of power but as strongholds against intermittent waves of as well as a nexus for several rail lines. Every day countless tons of
enough knowledge to make his way in the world, but usually pos- nation fractured into desperate enclaves, and the old capitol was monstrous incursions from the Malice Lands. Dark magic is not refined steel arrives by train from the northern forge city of Mirsk,
sesses only vague recollections of his previous life. Acquaintances abandoned as an accursed place. precisely endorsed, but it is tolerated as a necessary evil for the na- high in the snowy Shawl Mountains. It is said that giants work
are unfamiliar, and expert skills like magic, cra smanship, or A major contributor to the region’s downfall was that its previ- tion’s defense. Criminals convicted of any great crime vanish into some of the mines in those frigid mountains, lending their physical
swordplay fade, but usually the deva quickly slips into the same ba- ous leaders—the hierarchs of the Clergy — had been transformed by mountain prisons to serve in hellish mines, until the day they are might in exchange for enchanted weapons and armor.
sic role he held before death. the Great Malice into seemingly demonic creatures with horns and sacrificed to empower a magical ward or weapon. Where the Avery Coast railroad crosses the border into the
Where devas are rare, one that dies is usually found quickly a er barbed tails. People in what today are the Malice Lands refused to Malice Lands, a steel spire rises five hundred feet above the deso-
reincarnation, and a er a period of acclimation he will manage to let these people reach the new capital in Crisillyir, believing the Metal and Magic. late landscape, guarded by a battalion of soldiers and mages. Its
continue as if nothing had happened at all. In Crisillyir, though, old rulers were “from the deep pit of hell,” and thus dubbed them Unsurprisingly, Drakr has taken easily to alliances with Danor, purpose is unclear, but some suspect it is enchanted to drive away
devas are common enough that they seldom manage to return to “deeplings” or “tieflings.” both military and economic. In particular they helped build and malice beasts, or to help mend the tear in the fabric of magic.
their previous lives. In either case, devas still fear death because it A er decades of chaos, a tiefling named Jierre who had once been still today defend the Avery Coast railroad, and are in the process
means an end to all they are. While a reincarnated deva might be a priest near the top of the sacred hierarchy gathered the fractious of building their own rail lines. eir trains, however, are powered The Philosophy of Governance.
able to continue the same mission, he’ll never recreate the emotions leaders and managed to convince them in the span of a mere five by arcane furnaces that burn blood red yet whose metal skin feels ough intellectuals of the rest of the world are quick to disassociate
and memories that made him unique. years to reunite under a new vision. If the hands of the gods could eerily cool to the touch. themselves with some of the darker trends in Drakran philoso-
Many devas find a place in the Clergy, where through special no longer reach into Danor, then it would be the hands of mortals Similarly, the Drakran military has embraced firearms, and phy — those grounded in the power of the old warlords — many
training they can act as vessels for invoked celestial beings. Such that would give them power and safety. several companies have become famous for slaying implacable heap great praise on the wise and open deliberations in the nation’s
angelic visitations never last long, and occasionally result in the parliament.
death of the vessel, so they are only used in situations where the e old ecumenical tradition of the Clergy survived the Great
priesthood feels inadequate to answer questions of guilt or opine on Republic of Danor. Federated Drakran States. Malice in the form of schools of philosophy. O en each clan or town-
matters of morality. ship would have its own line of local philosophers. eir ideas would
In a similar way, on certain bleak holy days the priests of the influence local leaders and businessmen, who would in turn spread
Clergy will reach through the veil into the Bleak Gate and capture them through the rest of the nation, with the most successful and
uneasy spirits, which they parade in front of crowds of worshippers. intriguing philosophers earning their home prestige and profit.
Compelled by magic, these undead specters wail about the sins they Today the most visible philosophy is Heid Eschatol, which fo-
committed in life that le their souls trapped in ‘Purgator y.’ e cuses on proper endings to all of life’s affairs. Its founder, Vlendam
priests then offer absolution, and destroy the unholy beings. Heid, makes a living speaking to audiences around the world, en-
Capital: Trekhom gaging them with philosophy rather than letting them be passive
The Family. Capital: Cherage Government: Federal parliamentary republic consumers of ideas from books. But other ideologies still battle in
One of the few chinks in the strong face the Clergy presents is a Government: Constitutional republic Head of State: Chancellor Dmitra Takhenov the marketplaces and academies of Drakr, and any successful fed-
criminal organization known as the Family. Most people only know Head of State: Sovereign Han Jierre O cial Language: Dwarven eral representative has to be a studied philosopher, or else espouse
of them in rumors and hearsay, but it is said that they are behind O cial Language: Common Common Races: Human 67%, dwarf 30%, other 3%. wild teachings that will get him noticed.
most of the crime on both sides of the Avery Sea. Common Races: Human 81%, tiefling 17%, other 2%.

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Setting Overview (cont’d) Setting Overview (cont’d)

Wild and Dead Magic. Elfaivar Empire of Elfaivar.

Within Danor’s borders, magic quickly seeps away, a consequence of cast within Danor, though spells with the ritual tag can still be cast Before the Great Malice, the kings of Elfaivar held power to ri-
the Great Malice, wherein the eladrin goddess Srasama died five hun- with spell slots. val all the other nations of Lanjyr. Commanding legions of slave
dred years ago. A creature’s own innate magical powers still function, It is believed impossible to create magic items in Danor, so almost armies from the far east and fielding battalions of fey mages and
such as a tiefling’s hellish rebuke or an eladrin’s fey step. no Danorans study magic. The few Danoran mages there are either monsters, the long-lived eladrin monarchs were able to ensure the
Creatures cannot cast spells or use magical class abilities unless traveled to other nations to study, or purchased magic implements security and prosperity of the mightiest nation in the world.
they have some sort of permanent magic item as a focus. These items and paid exorbitant amounts to import tutors. Today, only ruins sur vive.
carry enough innate magic with them to power spells and prayers, Just beyond Danor’s borders, in a broad swath hundreds of miles e Great Malice slew every eladrin woman in the empire and
but over a period of weeks or months, their power fades entirely. (As wide, the fabric of magic is damaged but not destroyed. In these beyond, with only the rarest and most unlikely survivors: women
a guideline, common or uncommon items are disenchanted within places, known as the Malice Lands, whenever a character casts a currently polymorphed, on other planes, or who had forsaken the
a week; rare and very rare items within a few weeks; and legendary spell (either from a class or an item) or activates some sort of magi- Elfaivaran faith entirely. Within weeks the once-glorious empire,
items might last a month or more, subject to GM adjudication.) cal class power, roll an unmodified 1d20. On a 1, a mishap occurs. This which had been poised to crush the impudent Clergy who had Capital: Bharata (now Santi Simone)
Until such time as they lose their enchantments, magic items usually takes the form of the magic backfiring, manifesting as a free- twice launched a holy war against it, descended into chaos. Within Government: Feudal monarchy
brought to Danor function normally. In addition, rituals cannot be willed monster, or otherwise going dangerously awry. decades the population had collapsed to the tiniest sliver of its origi- O cial Language: Elf
nal number.
It was magic, a er all, and the superstitions relying on traditional beliefs. So far, detailed theo- A stirring eulogy of the poet Vekesh convinced a few eladrin to
and archaic beliefs that were its trappings, that ries have eluded them, as if magic itself refuses to let seek harmony, to endure, and to prosper — and above all else, to
had held back the people of Danor from their po- itself be understood. find and free eladrin women from bondage so the race could heal. Asrabey Varal,
tential. Jierre understood that they had a unique Without a doubt, the House of Jierre rules Dan- But for millions of grief-stricken eladrin men, the a ermath of the Eladrin Champion
opportunity. No foreign nations would bother a or, but their prominence has not gone uncontested. Great Malice was a time of constant battle.
land without magic, so the new Danor needed not Periods of riots and protests have plagued the na- ose few women who had survived were quickly claimed as
to worry about invasion. It would decide its own tion, especially in the early days of its industrial property, and anyone who could keep ownership of a wife against a
fate, and as long as all were devoted to the ideal of revolution, though it certainly helped that, in a hundred thousand other suitors could command enclaves of desper-
progress, Danor would one day be the strongest na- realm where few have ever even seen magic, any ate followers. Whole cities of despairing men would fight to the
tion in the world. Finally, a er centuries of insular tiefling can still rebuke a person who attacks him death for the chance of winning their lord another wife. Mages
work and struggle to build a new society, Danor by engulfing him in infernal flame. laid curses upon swaths of cropland, but some enclaves chose to
has begun to claim its place in the world. starve rather than hand over their “queen.” Slavers brought ships
Cities and Industry. of human and elf women magically transmuted to pass as eladrin
The House of Jierre. Danor’s historical capital of Meth ia lies abandoned. Sovereign Han Jierre and then sold into servitude, only to be slain when the truth was
Common belief attests that Srasama cursed the ough Danorans reject superstition, even they discovered.
leaders of the Clergy with infernal horns and jag- cannot help but feel uneasy in these ruins. Noth- Many eladrin men fled to other lands, seeking wives of other
ged tails, sacrificing half her mortal followers in a ing grows there, wild animals stay out, and even races, but they could sire no children. As attrition whittled down
Great Malice when she realized she could not defeat in the height of summer a chill breeze blows under survivors, and too few children were born to keep society alive, ever
the armies arrayed against her. When Jierre united overcast skies. more wealth and magical relics pooled in the hands of fewer and
Danor’s factions, almost all those so accursed joined e modern capital of Cherage, though, is a bus- fewer men. When foreigners from Crisillyir or the distant east
him, adopting the moniker “tiefling” as a badge of tling center of business and trade. Two centuries of tried to claim Elfaivaran land they were driven back by fearsome
rebellion. Some became decisive merchant leaders, practice at industry has moved the pollution-cough- eladrin warriors. Trained by constant battles for survival, and pos- The Arsenal of Dhebisu.
while others took a role in government. ing factories and poverty-riddled worker villages sessed of the finest arms and armor of entire cities, each man was Eladrin tell a tale of a god who turned against their pantheon and
Jierre, for his part, refused to be crowned king, outside the city, where deep canals provide the wa- match for a hundred normal soldiers. was transformed into a tiger that walked like a man: a rakshasa.
and for his remaining years he served as part of a ter for mills. A er the city was attacked in the Eladrin are long-lived, but old age eventually claims even them. As a god, no weapon in the world could harm him, and he ravaged
congress of peers. In the centuries since his death, ird Yerasol War, the Danoran navy constructed Some made pacts with the powers of the Dreaming or other planes, the lands of Elfaivar, drowning villages and tearing entire cities
though, his family — tieflings all — has proven a landfill islands off the shore to place massive artil- but a er two centuries, Elfaivar was practically a ghost nation. free from the earth with a swipe of his clawed hands.
source of many great statesmen, scholars, and lery batteries and look-out stations. It took nearly a century more for Crisillyir and other nations to A warrior named Dhebisu, infamous for her incongruous bril-
inventors. ough officially Danor has only a Con- Trains powered by steam crisscross the na- defeat the few vengeful hold-outs and begin to colonize the empty liance as a poet and lewd sense of humor, was called upon to
gress and a Sovereign who is elected every decade, tion, and the great Avery Coast Railroad runs landscape. defeat the rakshasa. She befriended the cats of the jungle to
the House of Jierre is effectively Danor’s royal fam- from mountainous Beaumont on the west coast, Jungle had reclaimed cities. Mighty magical effects had lost learn of the monster’s weakness, and consulted with sages to
ily. Where they point, most follow. through Cherage, and on eastward to Drakr, pass- Vlendam Heid their cohesion, spilling strange enchantments into the land. In learn when the next meteor shower would occur. That night she
e Sovereign today is Han Jierre, former presi- ing through Crisillyir, before finally ending three some places the material world had blended and merged with the sang a mocking tune to lure out the rakshasa.
dent of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious thousand miles away just across a channel from Dreaming. It was in these confusing borderlands that a handful of The beast attacked her, but she pulled a falling star from
academy of war, the Jierre Sciens d’Arms. Various Elfaivar. Warships armored with iron churn along Vekesh-inspired enclaves survived. the sky and wove it into her hair. Thenceforth any weapon she
relatives and in-laws hold many positions in the the nation’s coast and among the islands it holds touched became infused with the powers of the heavens. They
government and military. A few have even traveled in the Yerasol Archipelago, protecting shipments Modern Enclaves. battled through the night, until finally, the rakshasa tried to slay
abroad to study magic and apply Danoran principles of food that feed Danor’s burgeoning population of Early on, the freed women of Vekesh enclaves gained great power, her with a poisoned arrow. But Dhebisu snatched the bolt and
of science to explain how it works, rather than industrial workers. both politically and magically, for they came to embody the hopes plunged it into the fiend’s loins, destroying it so that it could never
of thousands of survivors. New daughters were fiercely guarded and reincarnate.

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Setting Overview (cont’d)

intensely trained so they could defend themselves and someday lead cataclysms that tend to wipe out any nation that tries to establish
their own enclaves. Despite this, sometimes foreign mercenaries itself there.
would manage to abduct an eladrin woman, for they became prized Most people in the Malice Lands live in small villages or as
status symbols in the rest of Lanjyr. nomads in order to avoid the more deadly manifestations of wild
ese abductions led to the first Vekeshi retributions, as mystics magic. ese war-torn lands are also havens for criminals who
undertook daring missions to rescue lost women or at least pun- cross into neighboring countries to pillage and plunder. One note-
ish those who would steal them. In general, though, the enclaves worthy exception is the city-state of Orithea, which has managed to
stay hidden. ey’ll deploy spies to keep eyes on human activity in prosper in a small pocket of stable, albeit weakened magic.
nearby lands, and will make bargains with fey to scare off those In general, the border states between Risur and Ber are little
who get too close, but they realize that they cannot risk antagoniz- more than mountainous tribal lands that refuse to join either larger
ing the human nations. nation. e border states between Crisillyir and Drakr are fairly
A rare few eladrin seek to integrate with human society. ey autonomous and stable, while the border between Drakr and Danor
wear as much gold as they can, which prevents them from using is near anarchy. North of Drakr, a few minor nations stay out of
their fey step, in an effort to cut themselves off from their fey heri- the politics of greater Lanjyr, while beyond Elfaivar lie powerful
tage. By contrast, some Vekeshi mystics also adorn themselves in protectorates of a distant empire, still recovering from the fall-out
gold, but only as rituals of self-flagellation, to meditate on their of the collapse of Elfaivar centuries ago.
distance from their people’s histor y so they can ponder how best to ese lands are generally outside the scope of this campaign,
reclaim their birthright. which gives the GM an excuse to add strange and exciting personal
touches to the world.
The Fallen Goddess.
Srasama was just one of dozens of prominent gods in the Elfaivar Calendar.
pantheon. Traditionally she was the six-armed sculptor who gave e region generally uses a simple calendar devised over a millenni-
form to the raw creation discovered by her husband. She had domin- um ago by the skyseers of Risur. is calendar divides the year into
ion over the lives of women, and she particularly oversaw rituals of four -day seasons, each starting on an equinox or solstice. A er
womanhood, marriage, and grief. For these, she would take three the st of Winter, one extra day is used to celebrate the new year.
different forms of maiden, mother, and crone, but in all she was a e most common celestial rhythm is the cycle of the moon over
fierce defender of the Elfaivar empire. and a half days. People might say something happened “a month
e famous adventurer Hamyd of the East claimed in the year ago,” but individual months are not named. Instead dates are refer-
. . . to have witnessed a conclave of eladrin matriarchs, wherein enced in the format “ Spring . . .”
they performed the ancient rituals of Srasama. According to him, In the year . . ., the first first-quarter moon of each season
though, they cut short the rituals of the crone, and his guide alleged occur on Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Festivals
that this was because the matriarchs had forsworn grief, and so can of the Old Faith typically fall on these nights. More colloquially,
never age. there are names for each prominent moon phase throughout the
year. ese terms have fallen out of favor except in poetry, aca-
demia, and mysticism.
The World
All of the events of the campaign occur on the continent of Lanjyr, Lunar Myth.
aside from a few forays into the coterminous planes of the Dream- Some say the moon is made of glass, and they claim they can see
ing and the Bleak Gate, so we leave it to the GM and players to stars through it, or perhaps within it. Poets have long noted that
decide the nature of the world beyond the edges of the map. the “right side” of the moon (the edge that crests the horizon first)
seems to have the shape of a man with his arms extended, while the
Border States and the Malice Lands. le side has the image of a woman facing away from the man. is
Risur, Ber, Crisillyir, Danor, Drakr, and Elfaivar are the largest gave rise to a shared myth of the moon.
and most prominent nations in Lanjyr, but by no means are they In this tale, an orphan boy meets a girl whose mother is dying be-
the only ones. Some regions on the continental map are marked neath a cypress tree. e girl is taken away to be trained as a mage
as “border states.” ese lands play no noteworthy role in the Z - (or an artist, a princess, or a scholar depending on the version),
campaign, but you should feel free to use them for whatever and the orphan boy joins a band of hunters (or rogues, brigands, or
purpose the GM needs. rebels). ey cross paths, fall in love through their trials, wed, and
Other areas surrounding Danor are called the Malice Lands. become heroes. But he dies, and she lives on to raise their child.
When Danor had its magic stripped away during the Great Malice, ough different seasons can have more specific names, generally
these lands were at the edge of the effect’s radius. e magic there the first quarter moon — when only the “man” is visible — is called
was le fractured and unstable. While Danor was able to restore Hunter’s moon. e full moon is Lovers’ moon — when both man
itself in the relative stability of its dead magic zone, the wild magic and woman are present. e third quarter is Maiden’s moon — with
of the Malice Lands has led to irregular catastrophes and small the woman alone. And the new moon is Dreamer’s moon.

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