Arikona: Wounds in the Wind

Silk, cloth, and paper form the wings of flight that a lone human takes up in his descent through the Aetherian Sea. As time climbs by, it becomes clearer this zealot has every intention to fall forever through the ethereal winds.

Gears of wood turn and groan, water flows through small channels and into hanging basins, and a machine of wood and water awakens into full form, spilling out its contents onto fragile green sprouts and filling life into the apothecary's shop. A device reminiscent of metal-starved times.

A priestess adorned in cloth and silk treads smooth fingers across the flimsy paper filling her prayer book. Tiny miracles drip from her pierced tongue, bringing forth spirits that cling to her faith-soaked voice. No longer will the Lotus bind her.

Floating Continents. Arikona is a world not bound into one solid piece, but rather hallmarked by massive continents and scattered islands that float above an even more colossal sea of whipping winds. Islands, both small and world-spanning, nurture the nations, tribes, and collectives of mortals that dwell and adapt to this wind whipped world. Its people trade, travel, communicate, and go to war riding upon its winds through the aid of beasts, inventions, and long practiced magics. At the edge, and beyond, of every continent is a sheer drop into a bottomless sea of furious winds called the Aetherian Sea.

Ancient Peoples. Traditions, long held and warped by fickle mortal minds, are held with utmost importance, just like the countless gods and faiths worshiped here. Its peoples have reigned here, within their homelands and beyond, since ancient times, and have carried forth many of the ideas and ideals of those ages.

Gods on High. Zealotry and apostasy, both opposite extremes of faith itself, manifest themselves within the many wandering souls that seek comfort, purpose, dedication, and worth within the arms of the divine. Many inhabitants of this world pray, sacrifice to, and worship at least one or two different gods, while those with faith flowing forth from their very souls find themselves displaying powerful magics.

High Magic Airships float like butterflies and swifts upon the air, schools composed of stone and mortar towers house eager apprentices of magic, glass-roofed apothecaries hide tiny glints of old magic within their rare and precious plants, and even the constellations in the sky spell out runes of magical power when formed correctly. This world is drenched in magic, and nary a commoner will live their lives totally free of its influence.

Antiquity. Not without tones of medieval squalidity, this setting carries dominant tones of bronze age antiquity. However, the world does not lack for technologies of later classical and medieval ages, like steel, plate armor, and advanced metallurgy. This is mostly reflected in the architecture and lifestyles of average people.

Using this Setting

Arikona, as a setting, embraces secrets and details. Meaning that players are encouraged to go beyond the established lore and create a part of the world to call their own. A tribe, a religion, a royal family, a small nation, an ethnic group, or any combination of the latter can allow a character to feel like a genuine part of the world and its landscape. Consult your DM on how you can do this, what you would want, and how deep you want to do into it. While the established setting and its lore should be respected, and anything created within the "free space" must be done so in a reasonable way, these aspects can go a long way to impacting the setting and the campaign at large.

In terms of its established themes, players can expect to find..

• High Magic: Arcane academies, mageocracies, and hidden occult orders; each of these are all but expected in this world.
• Intrigue: Past wars and their scars, old rivalries and alliances, ancient examples of complex political and cultural webs. Characters may stumble upon each and every one of these.
• "Airpunk": Floating cities and islands, boats that fly across the Aetherian Sea, canvas gliders, and kites everywhere. The sky and other flying things is a massive influence in the world.

"Ghost Islands" are small domains and realms, once settled, now controlled by none. However, within the scars of old settlements, vestiges of old dynasties feed upon what was left behind.

Ancient and Drifting Stories

When mortal kind was young and humanity itself hadn't even arose from the mud and clay yet (as believed by the Holy Lotus), the world even then still wasn't isolated and disconnected by the great distances between the islands and the continents. Shifting and moving in the Aetherian Sea, sometimes islands would collide or drift near each other, allowing denizens of either to "hop" between each home to trade, emigrate, or go to war with each other.

Such times were seen as omens of great change, malign or graceful. However, when entire continents drift near each other or collided with one another, it was and still is seen as a portent of doom and suffering. Thankfully, such examples are legendarily mythical, and oftentimes powerful spellcasters of all nations come together to try and reverse the process. When it does happen however, landmass churns as earthquakes sound out, magma forms between the two colliding landmasses, and all manner of natural disasters that both destroy and reshape nations occur with a sense of finality.

Kingdoms and great collectives that had otherwise been prospering and lavishing within their golden ages met their end when their lands collided and melded with (or broke off from) larger floating realms. This great change is a constant within Arikona, and most cultures must come to terms with this as a fact of life -incorporating these messages into wisdom and literature alike; the saving grace being that, even the most rapid of these events come relatively slowly in terms of mortal lives.

Of Wood and Water

The people of Arikona are incredibly inventive; a powerful tool when mixed with scarcity. As it was, much of Arikona was metal starved for a great period of time, as popular myth had it that many of the strip mines would result in the workers and resources falling through the earth. Until that myth was disproved, in lieu of metal and other strong materials the many civilizations of Arikona dealt in wooden tools -enchanted or treated to be especially strong. Melee weaponry was often given to the elite, while wielding bows and arrows (tipped with flint or obsidian glass) was commonplace for even the peasantry. Machines of clever inventiveness, such as irrigation systems, pulleys, windmills, and cranes, were operated with wooden gears, wheels, and weighted basins that would pool or drain water to gather momentum. Using canvas sails was also a common factor, which are often strong enough to act as rudimentary elevators. Woodcarving and carpentry became synonymous with the trade of engineering and artifice. Even today, where metals are now abundantly found, civilians often employ the use of water wheels, wind sails, and weighted basins to empower machines that make their lives easier.

Blood and Bronze

As time went on, and metal became more abundant alongside the art of magic and artifice, traveling from landmass to landmass in search of resources (whether they were unclaimed or otherwise was not exactly considered important) became more popular. Competition became fiercer and fiercer. Nations would swell and bloat in size, until the natural drifting of the lands forced once connected realms to become alien to each other. This, of course, entailed no small amount of bloodshed.

Naval warfare, taken place in the sky, was often the most popular form of warfare, as airships and gliders became much more commonplace and easier to produce. Sieges of cities often created scenes where enemy ships circled around and above cities and their walls like sharks circling dying prey. Mass warfare, though a necessity in war, was often sidelined in lieu of more intimate and glorious skirmishes and single combat. Champions and elite warriors would battle to the death, while the lesser soldiers would cheer on, and death would often incite the beginning of a charge from both sides; all of this after one took a heavy blow to their morale, seeing their warrior fall.

Commonly, smaller "Skylands" will float above larger landmasses, remaining part of the geography as if pulled by a constant gravitational force. Many of the more affluent and wealthy use these islands as private land for their villas and mansions, or criminals may hide up within them.

Chapter Two: Current Times

The realms of Arikona are ancient and ever changing, however their days of yore aren't so immediately important as their most recent developments. Listed here are some of the recent age's most important events in chronological order.

Smoke in the Wind

Granted, many ages and centuries would go by in relative peace and quiet before the true militarization began. However, with untested powers in hand, many sovereigns began the decline into greed-borne depravity. The fires of industry were spurred and ore and spirit were in plenty in the nations of mortal kind. Tribes sold themselves and their manpower in return for material rewards, monasteries and temples all over were converted into armories and academies of war as faiths sold the gods out, and kingdoms scoured the lands in search for more resources to grow their fragile empires. The world seemed ready to rend itself apart, but at the culmination of a declaration of war, the world paused.

A duo of trading kingdoms, who have long since banded together for protection, became interconnected and one whole nation through a political marriage. The Orinsvurn and the Kwiano trading kingdoms became the Twinbird Empire, quickly gaining its title as the Ascendant Domain or to others, the Voraunt. Given this title for sole purpose of highlighting the grandeur of its new Empress and Emperor, the Ascendant Domain stands to symbolize the nation's ambitions to became more like an unbreakable aspect of life in the world; never to be thrown to the winds like the many empires before it.

Intimidated by the pure force of power both of these states threatened the world with, neighboring countries quickly went on the offensive. Countries such as the "Border Kingdom" of Eiost, the Emirates of Shasca, the islanders of Wisteria (albeit, coerced into action), and the Corvinian Theocracy agreed to put down their differences in order to dismantle the "newcomer" that had stirred up the worldly status quo; forming an alliance known as the Red-White Rose Coalition. The war lasted only 3 years and 11 months. The forces of the Rose were slaughtered, and forced into accepting costly and humiliating terms of surrender. The Corvinian Theocracy betrayed the Coalition midway through the war, beginning its trend into a Twinbird victory.

Many faiths and deities, and the cultures that built themselves around such things, became obscured when Corvain demonized them. As such, many pagan faiths only have a paltry few in their following. Fewer who truly remember their gods.

The Petals of Many

Corvain, with the support of the Twinbird Empire and its puppets, had established the Holy Lotus. It was, in its intent, a conglomerate religious entity that incorporated the many gods and their faiths into one collective. The Holy Lotus would oversee the institutions of faith it presided over, ensuring their fealty, faith, and purity to their oaths, while itself acting as the conduit through which an entire pantheon of deities can enact their will; this pantheon being the Paragon. Additionally, it further solidified Corvain's right to criminalize pagan faiths and regulate the rest, as the Holy Lotus was the prime figure in the world who decreed what faith was "true" and what was an insult to the true. Other foreign countries, when faced with such ardent power and influence, had to accept the Lotus' intervention and oversight, which was admittedly weaker and more laissez-faire in foreign lands.

Symbolically, a Lotus has about 8 petals. Each petal represents each faith that originated within the institution, the gods of the Paragon pantheon. Each time a new faith is added to the Lotus, referred to as "vassal faiths", a new petal is added, representing the Lotus' growth and ascendancy into an extraordinary figure as it unites more and more of the religious world. Vassal faiths are expected to give tribute in return for the legitimacy and support the Lotus provides, which can take the forms of many kinds of wealth. Coin, relics, and art are some of the provided means of tribute. However, some churches often hand off young acolytes, essentially children, to the Lotus as tribute instead, calling them "Tribunal Pilgrims" as they are sent off to live in whatever land and train in the ways of whatever the Lotus chooses for them. Some of these children were never responsibilities of the churches they were made tribute within, sometimes being forced from the clutches of vulnerable parents by desperate (or stingy) churches.

Despite the world not being centered entirely within faith, the Holy Lotus and its influence still manages to force a grand amount of change within the world.

Puppets and Insurgency

As Corvain enjoyed the benefits of its fickle loyalties, the rest of the Coalition nations faced heavy burdens in order to make reparations for their "hostility". Exorbitant embassy rights, exhaustive resource demands, circles of Twinbird influence, and other policies essentially made the countries of Eiost, Shasca, and Wisteria colonies and puppets of the Twinbird Empire; although the empire itself would call them its protectorates.

Outcries from other worldly nations rang out towards the Ascendant Domain, in fear of Twinbird power or in genuine shock and awe of such horrid treatment. Although much of those disappeared as trade agreements and insights into arcane research (which were stolen from Wisteria and Eiost) sprouted forth. While the nations of the Coalition lived in poverty, the rest of the world experienced economic prosperity. Parties and organizations began to form, trying to regain their national freedoms. Many small, while others genuinely gaining the attention of their oppressors.

Scripts of papyrus, tablets of stone, paper lanterns, and kites can be found plastered with special symbols of resistance, utterly incomprehensible to those not in the know. Small skirmishes can happen in the streets, catching innocents in the crossfire and making neighborhoods unsafe. Twinbird punishments come swift and harsh to already impoverished and reeling communities, which only makes resistance that much more stubborn, spiteful, and resentful. However they fight, as the years pass and progress is made towards rebuilding what was lost, the memories of the war fade away as do the many homes, families, and cultures caught in war's fire. Collaborators even have begun their rise to power, working with the Twinbird Empire to bring food, medicine, and order to the streets (sometimes somewhat successful). There are few things that could be called benefits of Twinbird occupation, but it has modernized the somewhat backwards technological state of the region.

Abandoned, entire towns have been fled from as communities were forced to move elsewhere. Scavengers and dungeon delvers make considerable coin, wading deep into history's forgotten places, and shrines hold angry and spurned spirits who miss their worship and tribute.

A Young Diaspora

While the continent of Vingoth -parent realm to the Twinbird Empire- had been warring, other distant lands elsewhere had begun to answer their own calls to conflict. The Voxistanii Magocracy, once allied with the two trading kingdoms before their inevitable unification, refused the call to war to come to their defense. Stating that the Twinbird Empire was no longer the original governing body that their ancestors had made a defense pact with decades ago. The Ascendant Domain, angered by the potential lives Voxistanii aid could have saved, has cut off nearly all of its contact with the magocracy. It has closed trade routes and travel ports to and from their continent. Only one embassy remains within the Imperial capital, Vesipoli, that tries to salvage potential relations with the newly formed superpower.

However, the closing of ports and contact with the magocracy has had dire effects on pilgrims, migrants, and many other Kudor natives whom wish to go home. Shrinetender tribals, whom have traveled abroad before the war, find themselves unable to go back home to their families. Desperate foreigners, treated harshly by Twinbird citizens, scrape what they can so they may return home via their own means or smuggle themselves upon dangerous journeys. Additionally, the magocracy had opened many magical schools as subsidiaries to their larger main academy back home. With the war, they become under massive threat from resentful imperial armies. Young apprentices and professors both were pressed into military service (although not explicitly conscripted, they had little choice in the matter). Most of these schools were raided and their inhabitants denied diplomatic immunity, and now after the war these veterans of war or disheveled students of magic find no way to go back home.

Blacklists and Whitelists

Coincidentally, as the Twinbird Empire took to book burning and propaganda to maintain a cultural domination upon its new "protectorates", major scholarly circles were suddenly denied access to the Aes Adei, the world's most important archive of literature and a center of education for all. Cloistered and devoted to themselves and their patron god, its archivists tend to take apolitical stances in worldly affairs. However, in the midst of the war, many Eiostan and Shascan libraries and schoolhouses were burned down; along with them went countless pieces of poetry, academia, mysteries, unread stories, and other pieces of literature. Spurned on by their divine mission, the archivists of Aes Adei were angered by this massive loss of mortal achievement. Especially abhorrent to them was the constant twisting of knowledge that the Twinbird committed in order to maintain an edge over their rivals. Henceforth, while average citizens and commoners could theoretically make the trip and join them, the imperial bloodline, its future children, and all Twinbird scholarly circles and organizations were barred from Aesite aid. In return, blacklisted scholars seek other means, sometimes dubious, to sate their intellectual curiosities about mortal nature, the cosmos, and more.

Shades of Occultism

However, many have begun to question the Aes Adei and its legitimacy. Truly an ancient catalog of mortal literature, and an outlet for the highest of educations, the archive has only survived so long by being purely apolitical and removed from the world (and henceforth, its issues). Never before has it truly barred accessed to anyone, even those whom have used its knowledge for their own selfish needs; that also includes nations which have practiced propaganda and book burning. Why begin with the Twinbird, whom still offer the Aes Adei grand reparations to this day? Many suspect the archive is trying to hide something by fully isolating itself.

Throughout the ages the archive has existed through, it has collected countless pieces of literature scrawled onto any medium. Stone and clay slabs, ceramic tiles, sheets of vellum, parchment, sheepskin, preserved bark, and other countless mediums of mortal transcript have survived and been preserved only through the Aes Adei. Due to this immensity, traveling through their halls and libraries is akin to moving through a forest of labyrinthine bookshelves, tables, and drawers. Without guides, many scholars can get lost, and while there has been no recorded deaths due to such there have been murders and other close calls before.

Such space and storage is near impossible to maintain, and only the help of magical aides and spells allow such an archive to remain functional. Even then, the bureaucratic demand for organization and reordering oftentimes allows many books and tomes to go missing. Literature of both heretical and occult nature, stored for safekeeping or archived on accident may also go missing, only to be found within the hands of overly curious and hidden sages who find it easy to retreat in their own halls. All this to say, there are many who suspect that pockets of Aes Adei allow for the survival of occult circles, or that the entire archive is in of its own self a sphere of safety for those who practice the profane.

A King of Rust

On the shattered continent of Cor'kivna, the dragonborn of Hakorrlund have a tradition of sending out their young, particularly their first- and thirdborns, into the Koorode Badlands as a trial of strength. Should they come back, alive and mentally sound, they would be welcomed as worthy warriors of the Exarchate. While time has proven this is no meager feat, and only the strong survive even brief tirades into the badlands, in recent ages some dragonborn have come back with strange marks of old, dead languages; or just not come back at all. Despite the varied nature of these markings, and the fact that many attest to not knowing where they gained them from, each one that bears these marks has faint recollections of a single entity, the "King of Rust". Many believe that is is a new god coming to make its name known in the Bleeding Lands, while others believe it to be a prophesied sovereign that will rally all the realm's warriors in order to conquer the entire continent; as of such, many dragonborn have begun to vy for power in order to become the King of Rust. Words of warring dragonborn, on a crusade for the new god, have spread far and wide.

Chanting from Afar

The elves of Iversyl, despite being such an ancient race, are relatively new to the world at large. Having remained within the feywild for a millennium and more due to an ancient pact, they had returned to the Material Plane about a century ago since. From that time, reappearing into northern Cor'kivna where the land is fertile and temperate, they have been building a tetrarchy and reestablishing a name for the elven race in Arikona.

However, as of now when they've built an impressive nation of their own, in spite of the drama and chaos their appearance has caused, the elven tetrarchy has begun to receive their own threats of war. Hakkorlund, the Ostrikkan Huntrealm, and its own exiles have been hounding at their doorstep. Some call for a crusade, others seek the thrill of a hunt, while some simply want retribution for their ostracism and exile. Those that live among the elves, such as the halflings and gnomes alongside the wood elves and outlander citizens, find themselves having to content with the possibility of an especially brutal war on the horizon. Some villages have already spoken of raids, where both riches and people are taken away.

Chains and Hunger

It is no surprise that Cor'kivna is a land where slavery and servitude are common. The dragonborn of Hakkorlund take prisoners of war and outsiders as servants, alongside the foul treatment of the kobolds and lizardfolk they find. The Badlands is a safe haven for those who wish to make illicit and dubious dealings in the dark, where few bounty hunters will go. Even the Iversyl Tetrarchy will sometimes make servants out of prisoners -although, at least they can attain their freedom (on a elf's lifespan, unfortunately). Only the Ostrikkan Huntrealm will break chains and set escaped slaves free to roam alongside them (so long as they prove strong), yet they do not make it their obligation either.

However, as of recently, whispers in the darkest corners of religious and occult circles have spoken of a new deity. A goddess in chains. A goddess to slaves and servitude; a deity who serves, instead of demanding service. Some confuse this new deity for Requiem, goddess of forgiveness and freedom, who is often seen as a "Chainbreaker". Word only grows more and more of this deity who protects those whom no one else will or can. She is an embodiment of the suffering, despair, and vulnerability of those locked away or in forced submission. Some servants even dream of this deity, finding themselves devotees to her. Those that revere her call her a savior to sinners and servants, who honors their unwilling sacrifice and in turn lightens their burden. Those that hate her gave her a name; a name to define and rebuke her with. Those that hate her, named her Evarie.

There are those who join her outside of servitude instead, those whom have never known or understood the pain of being shackled or imprisoned. These servants seek out those in chains and hope to free them from their bondage, and they have very little qualms about the amount of bloodshed necessary to enact such a will.

Chapter Three: Nations of the World

Arikona has three main continents which play host to the majority of the recognized nations of the mortal world, leaving many islands flying about within the Aetherian Sea to be unnamed and uncharted. This section will cover all of these nations and more at the surface level, explained to the same level a local to the area might understand.

Do I Have To Pick One?

While most campaigns will typically deal with adventures within the Material Plane, and henceforth be influenced by the nations and cultures of that realm, characters don't explicitly need to come from Arikona to adventure within it. Outside of the Material Plane, and beyond the miasma that cloaks the Inner Planes from the Outer Planes, are different realms and domains filled with extraplanar life and influence. A character could have once resided within Feywild for a time, or even have had come from the dreary and death-ridden depths of the Shadowfell. Perhaps they lived within an underwater city, kept hidden inside a massive pocket of air, within the Elemental Plane of Water. Maybe they came from the City of Brass within the Elemental Plane of Fire, an escaped slave seeking greener pastures within the Material Plane.

While players should be careful about making characters that have lived within the Outer Planes (as any character who has lived to see the theoretical afterlives is a complicated one), there are small pockets of mortals living where most others could only dream of. For example, some pockets of the Nine Hells, where businesses reign and deals are struck, can sometimes hold mortal communities within them.

Iversyl politicking and diplomacy is often dramatic and thespian on its surface. Good scenery, interesting vocabulary, and a decent force of personality goes a long way into making allies.

Corvain

Culture and Lifestyle

Social Hierarchy

Ordinary people, the laborers, lesser clergy, and smalltime traders, carve out often satisfying and fulfilling lives from their works. They do not pay explicitly pay household taxes, but do offer tribute of any kind to their churches during masses and ceremonies, of which they are expected to regularly participate within. Common citizens often labor hard nearly every day, given breaks only during holy holidays and prayer days. Nearly every Corvain citizen has a church, temple, or even small shrine which they regularly visit, both out of a spiritual desire and the genuine safety it can provide. Clerics, acolytes, and priests can channel minor miracles empowered by their belief, which are often bequeathed unto the hungry, wounded, sick, and cursed. Those who are avid worshipers and patrons to churches would not be out of line to expect the favor to be returned.

The middling and upper classes are also given very little leeway when it comes to church tribute and participation. However, their lives are considerably much easier and often completely free from the woes of pestilence and complete hunger or thirst.

The "Godhounds" are the standing military force of Corvain, and their reputation as warriors is known far and wide. When they were reigned in by Corvain during the Red-White Rose war, the Empire now had free reign to crush their foes.

Orthodoxy and Taboo

Corvain has its own sanctioned deities, those that are aligned with civilization and the continuation of mortal kind's influence upon the world. During the Age of Zeal, the theocracy had cracked down on acts of paganism and belief in unsanctioned deities. Once minor cases of pagan belief could end in brutal and dire punishment, and bearing a holy symbol of a pagan deity can land an individual in permanent servitude. Families ostracize and oust other members who show minor signs of occult practice or pagan beliefs, and can outright enact brutal justice towards those who show interest in elementalism.

Witch hunts can often take place in outland villages, where those suspected of heresy can be pulled from their homes, humiliated publicly, and exiled. However, the authority of Corvain doesn't sanction these witch hunts and can hardly stop them due to their numerous nature. Genuinely dangerous cults are threatened by inquisitorial orders and church sanctioned assassins, gatherings that actually garner the Cloth Lords attention. However, it is those very restrictions and taboos which often push the young, impressionable, and desperate into the worship of these deities. In dense cities, there can be said to be hidden pockets of pagan worship or cults of elemental evil present. The pagan gods take in those that the sanctioned's servants rebuke.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Corvain finds itself in genuinely blessed and fertile lands. To its most northern points, taigas dominate with their ancient pine tree forests that dot alongside biting cold streams. Mountains surround these lands, with valleys of broadleaf trees giving entrance to the wider domain of Corvain. Temperate forests with interspersed grasslands and rolling hills inserted between them. Throughout all its lands, beautiful flowers both rare and common bloom through the seasons and paint the lands below with their color. Massive walled villas, housing those of the upper echelon of society, hold extensive vineyards which produce some of the worlds best wines and spirits. Winters can be harsh, but spring and summer remain consistently warm and mild.

Bastion of Morality

As part of these ancient pacts, soon named the Divine Accord, Corvain was compelled to endure throughout all mortal ages, as to ensure the survival of the very morality that compelled the gods to forge such pacts in the first place. Kingdoms will fall as dangerous plagues sweep through, cultures will die out as conquerors erase them from the earth, dragons will raze the countryside, and strange cults will sweep through nations, but Corvain must survive through it all. Henceforth, Corvain tends to prioritize its own survival above anything else, even when the world around it seems to fall apart. This does not deny the theocracy the ability to aid the ailing, or participate in the world at large, but the moment a genuinely credible threat to Corvain rears its head the nation retreats into itself and prepares for the worst. Some blame Corvain for cowardice, but no one person can deny that the nation has endured through untold ages due to this.

However, should the gods under Corvinian protection ever come under harm or severe threat, and Corvain can't protect itself through isolation, there will always be crusading orders ready to leap from their walls and decimate any foe in their way.

Too Far, Or Not Enough?

Many people stand against the Priest-King's decrees, who see it as an act of tyranny to sanction what gods can and can't be worshiped. Although they do not explicitly join under one banner, nor are they at all united in their cause, those that do hold these beliefs tend to refer to themselves as "Underpriests". Commonly, these people hide small shrines or locations of devotions within hidden places, so that those of different beliefs can worship in safety. Secret societies and other underground organizations also tend to take on these worshipers, hiding them from the Priest-King and his "Godhounds" for a hefty price or favor to be paid in time.

Conversely, there are those who believe that the Priest-King and the decrees of the Holy Lotus haven't gone far enough. The fact at all that people can rally and, with enough luck, persuasion, and force, allow different deities to be sanctioned is appalling to them. These individuals are often loud, outspoken, and wholly devout individuals who make up the forces of inquisitorial orders, holy paladins, or act as vigilante mobs that pull perceived heretics, occultists, and pagans from their homes and deliver them justice.

Both groups, in their extremism, often meet equal punishment from the law due to their blatant disregard for the law and Holy Lotus's dominion.

Eiost

Culture and Lifestyle

Labor and Wealth

The Eiostan people are an industrious sort, whose lives mainly focus around their everyday duties and longstanding labors. As early as they can, children are expected to help the family in lesser ways until they are ready to endure true labor. This includes cleaning, cooking, butchering, sewing, spinning thread, and foraging, all of which must be done before the child can go about their free time. By the time a person is nearing maturity (around 15-17 years old for humans), most are expected to work alongside their parents in whatever industry they apply themselves to -the most common of which, in Eiost, is lumber work, mining, quarrying, and farming. Most folk do not mind switching labors, as long as it doesn't happen rapidly, which means by the time a person reaches their 30th year, they most likely have multiple professions under their belt. Labor, physical or otherwise, is often tasking, demanding great endurance and strength from those who undergo such duties. As such, the Eiostan population boasts and prides itself on its peoples strength and ability to endure any labor and hardship. Truly, this has been consistent in the past, but recently they've faced great shame at the hands of a military loss to the Twinbird, which as riled many into frustration and warped respect.

An average commoner, though they do not fall within true squalor, is not exactly of a wealthy standing. Eiost is ruled under a king, one that which has been historically respected and feared in equal amounts. It is this same king, and the lesser nobility under him, that often benefit the most from the intense toiling and labors of those beneath them. In turn, as feudal kingdoms go, the citizenry is protected by a professional military, walls are erected, and laws are formed in order to maintain peace. Although, the lesser nobility, who own small portions of land, do not have the ability to restrict others from hunting, collecting lumber, or foraging in places nearby as has been evident in other countries. Gold is the domain of nobility, whereas resources are traditionally the domain of those who toil for them.

Gatekeepers and Wardens

Historically, any traveler wishing to take a route to another country must cross the Iron Slopes, endure Eiost scrutiny, and gain the country's permission to travel through safely and swiftly; otherwise, the only other routes that remain are expensive and tumultuous trips across the Aetherian Sea. Due to this, Eiost as a country has had a strong stranglehold on much of the trade, pilgrimages, and general travel that happens on the Vingoth continent for centuries.

Traditionally, the country has never impeded trade or travel, nor does it bully other countries into isolation, instead making money off of the tariffs and taxes placed upon those who enter and leave the country's borders. Trade can happen but Eiost has always gotten a portion of the wealth, even when the kingdom could hardly call itself a merchant kingdom. Furthermore, Eiost reinforces its right to do the aforementioned because of its propensity to curb illicit trade deals. These dealings include the trafficking of illegal substances, occult knowledge, dangerous materials, weapons, smuggled criminals, and even captured people. As such, many of these deals and their dealers have a difficult time going through Eiostan borders twice over, at least without sufficient bribes. It was through the strength of the Ironclad Wardens, the kingdom's main guard and military force, that these borders were enforced and taxed.

In recent times however, after Twinbird occupation, the Ironclad Wardens have been utterly dissolved and a new installed guard force of Twinwing Hussars now patrol these borders and settlements. The Empire has opened up Eiost completely, freeing trade of all past restrictions, allowing easier transportation of troops, and consequently easing illicit dealings of policing.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Generally a mountainous kingdom, true flat land itself is rare. Many architects and laborers are forced to terrace the land before true development begins. Entire cities and towns are built alongside the mountains and within their valleys, clinging onto their sides like moss and vine upon rock and stone. The Iron Slopes are mainly heavily forested, with deciduous and coniferous trees dominating the landscape in equal parts, providing abundant wood for the brave logger who would dare to tread the uneven terrain. The forest that rides alongside the Iron Slopes is colloquially known as the Pikewood Thicket, named as such for how their tall and mighty trees.

The only true flatland that the kingdom of Eiost claims as its own is the Gladepool, a region of fertile grasslands, a beautiful blue green lake, and a unique aspen forest. Extremely prosperous, the region is envied far and wide by neighboring lands for its thriving agricultural output, hunting grounds, and scenic beauty. Today, the Gladepool is a place of heavy Twinbird occupation, as native Eiostan homesteads are replaced with manors headed by lords and ladies of the Twinbird Empire. Made claimants of the land by Twinbird law, they take in the displaced Eiostan farmers and ranchers for cheap labor.

Seeds of Rebellion

The old military and guard force of the Eiostan Kingdom, the Ironclad Wardens, were dissolved and unmade as per the conditions of surrender Eiost was forced into. However, not all went quietly or at all. Pockets of resistance remained, where loyal sons and daughters of the kingdom refused direct orders from their superiors. Though these pockets are long gone, they allowed time for the cunning and clever among them to plant the seeds of future rebellions. At least, this is how it is seen by the current insurgent forces who hide within the cities and ruined forts left behind.

To this day, many fighters, veterans, disgruntled citizens, and roguish individuals, work under the banner and symbol of the Ironclad Wardens or the Ironclad Resistance; depicted as a cracked -yet whole- shield with a single crown above it. It is rare to find genuine information upon this clandestine group that isn't shrouded in rumor, myth, or outright misdirecting lies. They strike often at night, unless desperate or wanting to send a message to their neighbors. Somtimes many innocents can be caught within the crossfire, which has allowed Twinbird officials to criminalize them wholly.

An unintentional side effect of the resistance movement has brought a wave of suspicion and fear towards members of the Eiostan population, specifically to the goliath communities within. Seen as primitive and barbaric by outside nations, few understand that goliaths had been apart of Eiost for as long as humans, dwarves, and orcish folk have. Driven by fair play and a desire for strength, they often filled the ranks of the Ironclad Wardens. As such, many Twinwing Hussars still remember the terrifying visage of their goliath enemies, and often see their presence as conducive to dissidence and resistance movements.

An Unbreakable People, Broken

Dragged to the capital, beheaded and thrown to the people watching below, the King in the Mountain has been replaced by a Twinbird puppet. The popular warrior king, Vykard Leogaud, and his death broke the morale of many solders fighting for his recapture. The subsequent capture of the royal children sealed Eiost's defeat during the war. To this day, the children are used for propaganda and collateral, held in house arrest somewhere hidden.

Only Eiostan architects are capable of the feat of engineering that building onto the mountainside demands. Even then, most other infrastructure remains just below the mountain's feet.

Emirates of Shasca

Culture and Lifestyle

Scarcity and Resources

Though one could hardly call all Shasca a deserted wasteland, it is true that some resources are harder to come by than most. Mainly, however, the main concern is water. Tightly controlled by every Emirate, water is a precious resource that is traded carefully, preserved cautiously, and treated the same as precious gems and minerals. Thievery of water, through any means and by any amount, is treated as a devious and malicious crime. Those who get caught with stolen water often face lengthy periods within dungeons and prisons, and those who destroy or waste obscene amounts (that wasn't theirs) often face execution or worse. The same extends to many laws within the Emirates, as tolerance for criminals and their acts are often rare and in short supply. Though Shascan laws aren't without some mercy, this "mercy" often takes the form as conscription or servitude in the stead of serving a full time imprisonment. There is little sympathy for those who work against their states and nations, especially when times are harsh and there is little to go by for most. Thankfully, many of the gold mines and acquisition of other rare and precious stones comes from Shascan lands. With this influx of wealth, they have often found it easy to trade for that which they lack in.

Ingenuity and Invention

Another quality of the Shascan realms is their unique and deeply explored passion for the sciences. Many scholarly circles seek to understand the how the world works, delving into the world of mathematics, engineering, biology, and medicine to do such. Natural philosophers have heated and often chaotic exchanges with their rivals and contemporaries on whose explanation and scientific doctrine is superior. Perhaps its because of their constant adaptation, innovation, and quickness to leave the obsolete behind that the Shascan culture thrives in the desert. Seemingly able to pull sustenance from thin air, or preserve famously ephemeral resources, they have expanded the carrying capacity of the realms they live within. As a culture, these peoples have been the ones to invent miracle medicines, methods of sky travel, complex machinery using water or manpower, and water acquisition. All seven Emirates and its people share this collective passion for the sciences, and carry an intrinsic trust over the more mundane arts that they typically do of magical means.

Rites of Death, Rights to Death

The Shascan people, for all their ability to survive and thrive, did not build their realms in a smooth manner. Shascan history is filled with sacrifice and loss of life, and still many others succumb to the harsh land around them. Alongside with the Godgrave Desert expunging hordes of ravenous undead creatures at random intervals, the people of Shasca have a culture-wide somber acceptance of death and loss. It is present in their music, poetry, literature, religion, and politics.

In the face of this, the people of Shasca are widely respectful to the dead, be they once hated or beloved. Wandering hordes of undead, when they must be dealt with, have their bodies entombed, embalmed with oils, and given funeral rites. The same is done for those they killed, or those who simply die of other causes, so they never rise again. Funeral rites are perceived to be inexorable natural rights for any living creature, and tampering with the bodies of the deceased in any way but a reverent manner is cause for exodus, shame, and ostracization from the community.

The Seven Emirates

Suae'du'vaan Emirate

Capital: Dunaveil

The Suae'du'vaan Dynasty has undergone intense political scandal in recent times. Its emir in power is known to be a bastard, with half her blood belonging to a foreign commoner. As such, some people clamor for some change in their regime; even if this regime change meant inviting permanent Twinbird annexation.

Strong, resilient, affectionate, and tasty in a pinch, Packybaras are a famous Shascan beast of burden, and make appearances the world around.

Amvanna Emirate

Capital: Sud'iimal

The Amvanna Dynasty has such authoritarian powers due to their constant support and contribution to the intellectual aristocratic elite who live here. Dominating the culture, those without proper education often suffer for it. For the emir's support, the aristocracy, in turn, support the emir's regime and decisions.

Basuut Emirate

Capital: Beaz'uli

The Basuut Emirate, and its dynastic line, have fallen under intense surveillance by the Holy Lotus. The presence of fiendish cults, elemental worship, deals with the extraplanar, and all other manner of profane pacts are all but numerous in these lands. The dynasty itself seems to serve something higher than just the bloodline.

Xufraal Emirate

Capital: Xuna

Sitting upon immense wealth, abundant even in relation to their neighbors, the Xufraal Dynasty has always been quick to exploit the precious metals and stones that remain within the earth. Its commonfolk, the laborers and miners, see so much of this wealth, yet rarely own it.

Cid'el Emirate

Capital: Norsphin

Sitting upon a land of strategic importance, this Cid'el Dynasty has had to defend their lands from intruders since the dawn of their regime. As such, its emir and its people have adopted an intensely martial lifestyle for themselves.

The Twinbird Empire

Culture and Lifestyle

Entrepreneurial Empires

As a trading civilization, its no surprise that many people within the Twinbird homeland are often diplomatic and enterprising, for better or worse. Culturally expected to be resource savvy and to take the initiative in order to grow their station, those that can't keep up often suffer greatly for it. A person who had grown up in the homelands may often know how to stretch out a gold piece for every bit of its worth, be able to see opportunity when it arises, or seem very stingy and outright greedy to outside eyes. Additionally, wealth and monetary gain are extensively important qualities within the empire, and many base theirs and other's worth off of these traits

Military Might

Not everyone is blessed with being born into merchant families or wealthy aristocratic guilds, and as such those individuals express the empire's secondary trait. Often taken as a surprise by other cultures who only see the money trading hands and the illicit deals done in the dark, the empire has strong martial traditions. People who can't support themselves in some way are often drawn to military service, either by complete willingness or want, manipulation of their superiors, or by sheer desperation. Even from birth, discipline is often the first trait many children are instilled with, and the acceptance of their lot in life (rich, poor, or otherwise) comes with the territory. Some lose this discipline as they grow, or as their career demands it, but those who thrive in it are forces to be reckoned with.

The Twinwing Hussars, the empire's military and guard force, are an extensive and gargantuan military body that has spread across Vingoth. Their presence has replaced the Ironclad Wardens of Eiost, the Shogun's Hand in Wisteria, and the military spread across Shasca. This immense task is upheld by recruitment drives held over the continent and mercenary reinforcements picking up the slack where the hussars fail.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Riding alongside the western coast is a dense, miles-long tropical jungle that is known as the Grymwood Garden. Humid, winding, and constantly prone to rain showers and strong storms, the jungle is known for its thick vegetation and towering trees that coat the sky in a deep, emerald green. Pushing east, past the Mosshill Range, the land becomes more subtropical and temperate, where temperatures can drop well past into freezing during the winter months. Deeper south, trees become sparse within the Jute Steppes, where the short, scratchy grass looks like the rough fiber of its namesake.

The Twinbird domain is usually a humid and warm one, with long summer seasons fit for growing numerous crops (so long as they endure the hot seasons). Monsoon rains originate from the Grymwood Garden, spewing out torrents of rain as they travel towards the Verdant Tablelands. Within its dense forests, trees grow on winding hillsides. Exposed pockets of earth reveal the ground's ruddy, red color that it gets from its signature clay and silt soil. Apothecaries, plantations, and cunning foragers take advantage of the realm's unique plant life to collect coveted spices, salts, and medicines sold around the world. Its mountains pour forth with rich iron, tin, and copper deposits necessary for a nation's survival. Today, these lands are bustling with life and wealth, as peoples of all nations and origins walk the realm in their travels to trade with the denizens of the empire. Its roads are well traveled and well guarded, keeping the valuable wealth and gold of its traders, merchants, and businesses safe until they can be spent and used later on.

To the Victors, the Spoils

Having won the White-Red Rose war, the Twinbird Empire has had free reign to install loyal and puppet-like influence within the nations it had brought low. This has earned it equal amounts of obedience and animosity for those it now stands above. Exorbitant demands and rights earned from nations of the White-Red Rose Coalition, the Twinbird Empire claims their prosperity for its own. Resources, manpower, political sway, diplomatic pressure, and more are at its command, and yet with every passing year the empire seems to demand something more. Already earning the ire of many, the Twinsoul Sovereigns, the Empress and Emperor, constantly risk inciting rebellion and insurgency among its "protectorates".

However, as it stands to be, the people and citizenry of the Twinbird Empire are among the most prosperous and thriving culture and peoples of Arikona. Even standard commonfolk, no part of the nobility or aristocracy even, can stand to see much wealth and material gain in their lifetimes; even affording to send their children off to schools, afford books, and increase their quality of life. While the standard citizen understands the spoils they've won during war, most are ignorant to the true machinations of their sudden change in station and lifestyle. The pockets of those who do understand the height of suffering their prosperity demands only do so because they have embraced it, rebelled against it, or remained neutral in spite of it.

The Twinsoul Sovereigns

The idea of a "twin" or a sense of duality in both Orinsvurni and Kwian cultures have always carried a form of divinity, or at least mythical quality. In ancient times, and even in some pockets today, twins boast some form of prophetic inheritance, destined to bring great change and carry great power so long as they remain together. Those born as twins are treated as royalty and spoiled with gifts and luxuries even as children. Those of noble birth lavish them in boons and blessings, granting them the finest of tutors, grooming them to be the finest of their lineage. Birthing twins, or having them in your recent bloodline, also provides a massive boost to status and reputation. All manner of noble bloodlines will boast of their ancient twin ancestors, and their accomplishments; while a fragment minority might revile such a circumstance, usually having had their family brought low because of such events.

A Twinsoul on that matter is a pair of individuals, not necessarily blood related, who share the same soul (or at least, carry an exact copy of each other's souls). Their unique circumstance comes with a manner of powers that could only be attributed as a mixture between the arcane and the divine. Throughout history, the birth of Twinsouls have marked the eras changing, the death of heroes or villains, the rising of new dynasties, and the destruction of the old status quo. As it happens to be, the reigning Emperor and Empress of the Twinbird Empire are, themselves, Twinsouls. Born to different dynasties, who seem to have been fated to share a single soul between the other.

Wisteria

Culture and Lifestyle

A Beast's Honor

The people of Wistera hold honor close, and reputation alone acts as a form of unspoken currency among the Islanders. Good-will, dignity held high, bravery on the battlefield, and proper manners are the foundation for an Islander's honor as well as that of an outsider. Those that lack honor, or have little of it, are rarely respected and even feared among the commonfolk. Killing prisoners, betraying allies, going back on deals, harming children, and being deceitful are just some of the ways one could lose honor in the eyes of the Wisterian culture. A surefire way to sully one's reputation, and mark oneself for vengeance from the many, would be to disrespect both the spirits of nature and honored ancestral spirits. Destroying tombs and sanctums, stealing sacrifices, antagonizing animals, or desecrating the deceased invite the vengeance of those who outright worship the spiritual world.

However, for the many that walk a warrior's path or speak to the spirits in their faith, honor acts as a culturally mandated shield for the vengeful, bloodthirsty spirits that possess their strength. Most choose to hide it away and to remain within civilized society, cultivating patience and dignity even in the face unbridled change, frustration, and emotion. Some give in to this power, becoming barbarians which are possessed by animalistc spirits in the height of their rage or those that control the storm and weather with their anger. There are entire warrior paths, monasteries, and orders which exist solely to guide those of these paths, whether they choose to unleash their inherited festering frenzy or keep it locked away.

Inherited Ambitions

Children born into Wisterian families, especially those of higher station, are often born with inherent expectations from the beginning. These traditions can be both confining to those who want out of them, or defining to those who stick by them like a code of conduct. Elder siblings must take on the role of guardian, acting as a shepherd between the massive gap of "adult" and "child", which is reminiscent of times when parents rarely came home from raids or war. The youngest child, with aid from both parent and eldest sibling, must become the lineage's pride in a variety of aspects; athleticism, charisma, academics, and combat. Children born with sorcerous powers are intended for the battlefield, while those born on days of great tragedy are forever cursed to be ostracized. These traditions can shape from both superstition and practical use, and remain both burdens to honors to receive (with some exceptions).

As for adulthood, when expectation is levied and removed, many young adults find themselves lost and without purpose. Their society often expects them to find their own way, even when they are removed so quickly from their parents and childhood homes (unless they are still useful).

Voxistan

Culture and Lifestyle

Arcane Ambitions

Learned arcane skills and inherent magical talents are to the Voxistanii as divine magic is to the rest of the wider world. Magic is the lifeblood to creation, such as water is to all living things, and Voxistan as a collective has immense cultural ties to the arcane. Though their original Voanite blood may be heavily diluted, resulting in fewer and fewer sorcerous children, many people still have an innate knack for arcane learning. Vonsequently, Voxistanii society is built entirely upon arcane learning and the utilization of magics in both the domestic and social settings. Children, even those of poor and lowly station, are often exposed to some amount of arcane knowledge as they grow. Charter and public schools both teach young children the basics of cantrips (and, grimly, weed out those who can't wrap their heads around the subject); sometimes, such children even learn basic spells on their own. Private academies, government established universities, coveted tutors and mentors, hidden arcane societies, and elite orders are responsible for teaching those with ample ambition and skill to match. Such career choices are often expensive, but an individual of a lower station can rely on sponsors and subsidies should their potential prove especially worthy of the aid. Additionally, there are also some small government provided loans and plans available as well, however such things prove to be exhaustively expensive to maintain or exorbitant entrapment into a life of debt.

Some orders are responsible for incredibly important aspects of Voxistanii society, like the Ahritect Arcana. Taking notes from the druids from the Shrinetender Tribes, and experimenting with various sorcerous powers, this popular order created the wizardly versions of various spells such as: Move Earth, Stone Shape, Wall of Stone, and Continual Flame. With these spells, the order created the breathtaking city of Voxistan in short order.

Mundane Drivel

For those unable or unwilling to learn magics, they become part of an unspoken caste in Voxistan. Almost seen as a "servant caste", these menials are reserved some of the more dangerous, tedious, and laborious work. Farming, cleaning, mining, courier work, or just general servitude makes up some of these overlooked and ignored career paths. Furthermore, there is little security in any career path for those of the servant caste, where magic mixed with ingenuity might make their labors useless in the face of cheaper, and easily automated spells and enchantments.

Another career choice, that doesn't include outright crime or joining the ranks of the Ophidian Umbra, is joining the military. Some do this so that they can learn basic spells of war and defense without shouldering the immense cost of doing so. However, those with no magic at hand nor spells to cast often end up as common levies and cannon fodder, as raw martial talent is rarely recognized when it is not enhanced with magical potential. In spite of that, for many unable to harness the arcane, it is still a pathway to three almost-square meals a day, shelter, and some form of respect in their homeland.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Kudor as a whole is a generally cold place, where taigas, tundras, and clear steppes are commonplace. As a mere (albeit massive) city, Voxistan's realm is even more simple to describe than that. Located near the eastern coast of Kudor, the city is built into the Palestone Steppes, a landscape defined by its massive flat landscapes and rocky terrain that was perfect for the original arcane architects to reshape and terraform into the perfect city. Trees and other complex vegetation are sparse, while thin grasses and wild grains dominate the realm. Rivers cut through the jagged rocks and flow through the land all the way from the Myrwilds, a thick, cold taiga that clings around the mountains and beyond. During winter's thaw and into spring, thorny and woody stems burst forth from the ground and produce vibrant flowers of every color imaginable. Most locals cherish the season, but absolutely detest the pollen and floating seeds it produces in abundance. Sticking to clothing and painting walls, most folk give up on cleaning their homes by the first week.

The city mostly inhabits this otherwise featureless landscape, and many architects and builders make it a point of pride to fill the "desolate barrens" of their homeland with beautiful buildings and creations. As for the exurbs and villages that remain outside of the city walls, their lives remain removed from their homeland's infrastructural and aesthetic reputation. Farming, fishing, and little else is done outside these walls and in the countryside; an otherwise perfectly boring life for many. However, some aristocracy tend to use the wilderness to enjoy various forms of recreation as well.

The wealthy often hunt for hillfowl in the countryside, riding horseback and utilizing falconry to find their prey. Foxes, geese, and even roaming bears can also become quarries for these hunts. Horse racing and a cultural sport known as "Spell-Jousting" can also occur outside the walls within the countryside.

Broken Alliances

The Voxistanii Mageocracy, in its infancy, made a defense pact with the two trading kingdoms that would later become the Twinbird Empire. These kingdoms, interested in the potential trade agreements and unique luxuries Voxistan could provide, were invested in the young nation's survival. Should either realm come under attack, the other would aid them. However, when the Twinbird Empire had war declared upon it, the mageocracy broke off this defense pact. Stating that the Twinbird Empire was no longer the original government body that it had allied with, it abandoned the nation during the White-Red Rose War. Incensed by this betrayal, the empire consequently cut off trade agreements and travel between the two nations. Many visiting citizens, both students of arcane academies and noble diplomats, were suddenly barred from ever going home. Even the Twinbird protectorates denied travel to Kudor due to imperial influence. Today, this divide seems to be long lasting, as only a single embassy within the Twinbird capital seeks to amend these tensions.

A Native Conflict

The Shrinetender Tribes, the native inhabitants of Kudor, welcomed the Voanite exiles into their land in older times. Perhaps back then, their relationship was harmonious. However, today, the city expands even further into the continent, threatening to envelop important hunting grounds, sacred groves, and the cherished shrines that these tribes defend with their lives. Time after time again, the city disobeys and breaks the treaties it makes with these tribes, promising to never expand into their valuable and fertile homeland ever again. Tensions rise between these two groups, but the tribes themselves, despite their hidden strengths, may fail to stand up to the massive city's efforts conquer their lands. Furthermore, with the Twinbird embargo, few peoples seem able to come to their aid either.

Shrinetender Tribes

Culture and Lifestyle

The Bucolic Divine

The Shrinetenders are meant to follow no god, instead finding purpose within the unbridled nature abound them. These nomadic peoples live among nature as close allies to the wilds, both enduring its troubles and healing the wounds left behind by otherworldly corruption or outside influence. Druids, who follow the Old Faith, wield eldritch powers of ancient origin, sworn to shepherd nature and to kindle light. However, despite their tendencies to deny civilization's comforts, they are no enemy to the lands and realms abound. Where there is beauty, hope, kindness, laughter, and joy in the world, it is the Shrinetenders which work to foster its continued existence. To defend it, these people also need to live it themselves. As such, Shrinetender tribal societies tend to enjoy life to its fullest, practicing moderation and abstinence only when the alternative endangers oneself or others around one.

Dancing, crafting trinkets, making art, singing songs, appreciating the quiet and calm, enjoying food and drink, taking comfort in love, moving on from loss, and all other manner of earthly experience enriches the lives of these tribals. Shrinetenders put no capstone or milestone upon happiness, fulfillment, or joy. Both the old and young deserve all three, just as both should help others try and journey for them as well. Only when they have lived a life worth envying, can one work to foster the same experiences elsewhere in the world.

Unbreakable Taboos

Letting a shrine come to be destroyed is taboo enough in Shrinetender culture, and personally destroying one is a grand heresy that threatens to break the ancient oath established with Apotheosis. Should a deity die, then it is believed fate will take its toll upon the shrine, as is natural. The earth may swallow up the land it is built upon, a wayward tree might crush its form, or rivers will redirect to engulf the altar whole. Each and all, these are the natural ways. However, through mortal mistake and oversight, some shrines may come under threat, damage, or outright be destroyed prematurely. When such an occurrence happens -and it is not to be taken lightly- the elders of many tribes will come together to judge the fate of the individuals responsible. In this "trial", they divine whether or not the mortal's hand in a shrine's fate was a natural omen or conscious decision to defile sacrosanct traditions. Few crimes are worthy of exile in Shrinetender society, and not one is worthy of execution; even oathbreaking would be met with banishment.

However, to those who make it their life's work, ambition, and devotion to destroy or bring harm to these shrines, they will make ferocious enemies of the Shrinetenders. Practiced druids and wielders of natural, eldritch magics, few can truly prepare to make these ancient peoples their enemy. Should one get away with such an act, even these generally passive and serene folk will track that individual down for their days. Even more dangerous is to possibly invoke the ire of Apotheosis, who compelled the creation of these shrines himself.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

It used to be that the Shrintender tribes roamed unchallenged and uncontested throughout all of Kudor. However, with the creation of the Voxistanii Mageocracy a couple centuries behind, Shrintender tribes have found their ancestral lands being depleted and constrained by borders. Most tribes tend to live, or at least temporarily dwell, within the Heart Garden, a temperate forest that clings to the southeastern parts of Kudor. However, all around, the Shrintenders also lay claim to the Pinewilds, a comparatively massive region of coniferous forests and wetland taigas which often are subject to cold, harsh winters, yet mild and warm summers. It is not uncommon to see Shrintenders roaming the tundra or steppes of the continent, but generally they no longer approach those lands for fear of invoking the ire of the stronger and much more united Voxistanii.

The sharp mountain peaks that divide the tundra from the taiga are often referred to as the Glynnstone Sierras, which is named after the precious crystalline stones that jut out of the mountain face. Voxistan makes painstaking efforts to collect the stones, refining them into powder and essence necessary for many spells. The Shrintenders see the mountains as indomitable entities that house the wellspring of magical energies that interfuse with the land itself.

The scattered shrines about are often quaint, yet utterly simple and mundane for how ancient they are and how much weight their symbolic gesture holds. A simple columbarium, mausoleum, or altar is all they are; it is all Apotheosis asked for.

Hope Abound, Hell in Time

Generally, even for its flaws and constraints, Shrintender society is generally accepting and generous to both its own and outsiders. Children are encourage to learn the aspects of generosity and flexibility, and taught how to be proper students of nature. This way, children are expected to be able to adapt to change and stress and always remain learning from the world around them, all this to teach and shepherd others. This, in its most broad state, is the "Druid's Way". Shepherding others, much like how one guides a flock of lambs, into greatness and balance, so as to create a longstanding cycle of balance, is how druids from these lands create a manner of peace. Few people in Shrinetender society truly grow up without some hope for the future, even its exiles leave with the expectation they'll be able to provide for themselves.

However, recently, in response to persecution and another, different, cycle of vengeance and oppression, a new "druid's path" has formed. Much like how a great inferno cleanses a forest of its chocking overgrowth and hidden blights, so too can a similar wildfire cleanse those of ill minded morality and oppressive ambitions; at least, this is what druids of the "Circle of Wildfire" believe. Otherwise known as the Circle of Ash, its circle draws in the scared, overly ambitious, and lost every day with its promises of safety and fettered violence against the Voxistanii oppressors. All will be made whole again, as the wildfire claims it all in one great conflagration. To those who follow traditional paths, it is a circle whose evil was once unnecessary to them. Now, reluctantly, many tribes look to them for defense and answers.

Vaqar Silkwalkers

Culture and Lifestyle

Life upon Air

Living upon the air, though picturesque, is an arduous and often difficult feat. Lumber, stone, and any other building materials are rarities, so the Vaqar people build homes out of tarp, canvas, and their unique strands of silk. Their floating villages are swathes of vibrant red, blues, purples, greens, and more upon a pale and otherwise colorless sky. They connect each different floating "platform" with hempen rope, chains summoned with elemental magics, and little else. Young and old balance themselves upon thin bridges and ropes, walking to and from different homes and buildings. Both the respected and obscure live in tents and shacks, decorating them with runes, carvings, and ivy to mark their ownership. Their villages often show massive lines of durable thread reaching to the Aetherian Sea below, where they catch floating fish and scavenge skyweed for their source of food.

Flying creatures, like pegasi, griffons, roc, and more, often fly in and around these villages. There, they eat the scraps and treats left for them by the villagers, which accept their company and value them for the protection that they naturally provide. Oftentimes, barnacle-like growths often take hold on the undersides of these villages, which are often also harvested as delicacies.

Elemental Fundamentalism

Elemental Fundamentalism (or just "Elementalism" as a blanket term) is the study of elemental beings, the courting of their powers, and even the possible worship of their beings. Cults of elemental evil, scholars who travel to the different elemental planes, and those who summon elemental beings, are accused of practicing this "religion". However, the origin of the term was meant to describe the original Vaqar tribesmen and their use of the Elder Tempest's gifted powers. Though some do worship the elements as god-like beings, they are devoid of true divinity and henceforth cannot grant apostolic powers, which often drives many potential followers away. Elemental Fundamentalism, at its roots, is scholarship in all but name.

It is more of a subject of study, than a religion; more theology, than actual worship. Today, the Vaqar people treat Elementalism as such, with the same being true for their ancient ancestors. Trying to breach the planar veil, summoning elemental allies to defend their fragile homes, and materializing important resources from the different planes, are each and all the many uses the Vaqar people depend sorely upon. Of course, this only solidifies the animosity and hostility the gods-fearing world has towards the Vaqar Silkwalkers, reinforcing the cycle of cruelty against each other's kind.

Freely Trapped

Despite the ability to fly upon the winds, many Vaqar feel trapped within their own homes and villages. Children who grow up with a wanderlust soon find that they can walk their entire civilization in a manner of weeks, if they take it slow. Teenagers clamor for change and chaos in their lives, much like how the elementals wished to remain impermanent. Though these feelings might change in time, and often do upon reaching adulthood and contentment, many youths make it clear just how much their ancestral curse afflicts them.

In time, this often produces individuals who are so incredibly determined to see the world, to walk upon land, and to experience its richness, that they tread upon landed soil of their own free will. God curse be damned, these individuals often trade long lives in order to live ones where they can walk the soil of the earthen realms.

Hakorrlund

Culture and Lifestyle

Fight makes Right

Strength and justice go hand in hand within Hakorrlund. Such a mindset is a commonality among most of Cor'kivna. Strength is gained and proven in battle and hardship, and as such those aspects are seen as paramount and revered to the Hakorric. Those in power can only remain so should they be able to fend off the contenders and competition seeking to take their place. Those who are usurped through honorable battle are cast away quickly, as the winning contender takes their place with righteousness. Justice is dished out by those who are strong enough to form its laws and definitions, and the weak and meek must abide, be cast out, or challenge authority. The pecking order that forms from this is both enduring and fleetingly fragile, and infighting is common within the exarchate. As such, the exarch (the strongest of their kind) displays pure, inflexible, dictatorial authoritative power in order to quell rebellion and calm the masses in times of turmoil.

A strong and deeply inset warrior's culture thrives in Hakorric tradition. Life is worth taking, if it means one gains honor, respect, and (most importantly) strength from it; such is the same for having one's life taken, if the honor of sacrifice is great enough. Disputes are settled in duels between two individuals (or more), and if the grievance is large enough, duels to the death are not uncommon. So long as one side proves victorious and stronger than the other, their path, their ideals, and their honor is indisputable in the eyes of their society.

Struggle and Survive

Hardship takes an important place in Hakorric lifestyles, and is paramount to fostering strength of body and mind. Children, when they come to reach the age of 14, are sent into the Koorode Badlands as a rite of passage into adulthood and respect. They must survive and fight in that land, remaining far from home, for a whole year. When they do come back, they do so with the skull of the heaviest creature they had killed during such times. Children who come back before their time is over, or who come back empty handed, are treated as black sheep and devoid of respect. Parents who refuse to send their children into the badlands pay a massive price, as their villages treat them as second class citizens. This stigma remains for their entire bloodline, until a massive deed is done to restore the honor of every single failed member of that bloodline.

Children who die out in the badlands are given honorable burials back home, if their bodies were recoverable. This way, they are respected with the same honor as one who died in war; it also prevents them from coming back as a vengeful wraith.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

The near entirety of Hakorrlund is composed of dry, arid mesas, with trees and hardy shrubbery clinging to its cliffsides and roaming its shaded valleys. Small trickles of water flush through and around different mesas, providing some manner of lushness to the environment. The soil is rocky, with exposed ruddy red and orange stone peaking from the earth in jagged manners. The peoples of this land mostly cling to the cliffsides, carving homes and villages out of the cliffs and stone. Hardy "razorwheat" grows in the rocky, mostly infertile soil, providing some manner of sustainable sustenance for the people of the land. However, massive monsters and dire creatures provide suitable and favorable meat for the masses, of which is enjoyed far more than the dry, poor grain.

Nearing the Shattered Isles in the south, cold winds and long winters cling to the landscape. Mountains rise up from massive and strange impact craters, rich with ore that provides steady tools, armor, and weaponry for those brave enough to mine them. Between this cold realm and the dry mesas is a small sliver of soft soil sanctuary, known as Sakytine Gully. A depression within the earth, where rivers from the north pour into and soften the soil into arable land. The "rich" and wealthy of Hakorric society often stake claims to plots of land within this realm, taking in both slaves and servants to work the soil. Henceforth, the Sakytine Gully has acted as a major breadbasket and agricultural producer for every nation and realm that has existed in the region.

Many Hakorric settlements affix themselves within and around natural landmarks and formations. This gives them a unique look of blending in with their environments, hiding the bustling and tumultuous life within.

Such product has given the families that lay claim to these lands many different "boons" and cultural exceptions; such as esteemed titles, the privilege to not send their young to the Badlands, and exception from some of the exarch's rulings and taxes. All of this requires that these lands continue to produce food for the soldiery and citizenry of Hakorrlund.

Faith in Rust

The callous and draconian method of their "trials" is not lost on many dragonborn. In short, to many, it is akin to exile, and a method for many families and communities to get rid of contrarian beliefs. It is not uncommon for an irate neighbor or rival to challenge another's strength and honor. Should many others also back this claim, the only way to preserve such honor and respect would be to prove oneself once more. Returning to the Koorode Badlands once more is no easier than the first time, and often many don't return.

That being said, both those that failed their trials (and survived) and those that came back especially scarred often do so with a newfound resentment. Whether this resentment fades with time or becomes the fuel for their fighting spirit, it seems in the modern day some individuals have turned to a new faith to take comfort in. Some dragonborn come back with markings of dead languages upon their flesh and scales, never with the memory of ever gaining it in the first place. Only faint memories and recollections of a "King of Rust" remain in their minds, an entity which spurs them into fervor and frenzy. Many dragonborn bearing these marks have convened with each other, forming crusading parties ready and willing to tear down the land which abused them. All of this for the sake of rebuilding it back into their image, one which would better serve them and their nature.

Koorode Badlands

Wicked and brutal, these twisted and warped lands are the bane to all living creatures who dwell within it. Prone to searing heat and biting cold, with long years of drought only ended by months of tempestuous rains, this land only harbors the hardiest and most dangerous monstrosities Arikona hides. No nation lays claim to the land, and all who have tried were buried there and their people turned into monstrous evils. The land itself corrodes all around it, the landscapes, the tools, and even the creatures who dwell within. Rust and tarnish cover the earth, casting a sickly green and rusted orange color over the entire horizon. This land is stripped of all morality, as much as its stripped of life itself.

Culture and Lifestyle

No one Remains

No nation claims this land for its own, and even small tribes of strong warriors and hunters could hardly scrape a living from this realm. It is barren, and utterly fruitless. No culture surrounds its environment, nor has it produced a peoples who could come to form one of their own.

Oddly enough, this dangerous realm does provide something for the unscrupulous or those trying to hide. Bounty hunters, law enforcement, and all other manner of authority wouldn't dare follow criminals of many kinds into these lands. As such, sometimes slavers or black market dealers of infamous guilds would come here to make clandestine dealings. Here, they won't be chased nor will the law of the land punish them, for there is no law to speak of.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Pits of sulfurous springs, pools of acidic water, the carcasses of massive creatures, and entire forests made of petrified trees are the hallmark of this horrid landscape. The realm switches between the extremes, rarely ever maintaining a balance between hot and cold, wet and dry, or flat and bumpy. Years can pass without true rain, but when it comes it does so months at a time. Tempestuous torrents of nonstop storms assail the land with both hail and acidic rain, doing little to vitalize the realm below.

Ostrikk

Culture and Lifestyle

Survival of the Fittest

The huntrealm is populate by different clans, usually called "herds" or "blood bonded". These clans roam as nomadic peoples, always on the move to ensure their prey that they rely upon does not grow thin and weak. As such, each clan often demands intensive amounts of land to call their own, and oftentimes have to compete with other clans when their lands overlap. Usually these disputes are violent, but swift. Miniature battles and skirmishes between champions and venerated warriors from each clan often decide the fate of the competing parties. However, should a land become important enough, a clan desperate enough, or the rivalry bitter enough, entire clans have clashed with all their might. In these battles, only one side will make it out alive, having slain and assimilated their competitors at a great cost.

However, there is no saying that two different clans cannot act diplomatically instead. Trade agreements, non aggression pacts, and even "blood bonding" are all possible avenues of more peaceful conduct between different clans. After all, in the end, both clans only want to hunt those worthy of their strength, not slaughter those weaker than them.

Free and Proud

Cages, prisons, and cells are all abominations to the inhabitants of the huntrealm. Freedom is paramount, and anything less than the ability to hunt, walk, eat, and sleep where one wills is confinement at best and torture at worst. The sole reason why many other races populate otherwise mainly minotaur herds, is that the very same herds had emancipated them from their chains (should they have potential to be strong clan members, that is). Yet, all the same, confinement and imprisonment are among their punishments to clans and bitter enemies that they capture. From then on, it wouldn't be long until such prisoners would be sold to traveling slavers, ransomed back to their clan, or given up as sacrifice to the many gods they pray to. Furthermore, other rejects from different societies often find their way here, to be accepted among the huntrealm for their strength instead of their pasts or natures.

Should a clan's own ever be imprisoned, and should the member be valued even slightly, there are little lengths that the clan will not go to in order to free them.

The Great Hunt

The animals and beasts that roam the land of the huntrealm are rarely truly natural, fairly dangerous, and never truly benign. Elk, bears, wolves, and other natural creatures must dwell alongside large monstrosities; gnoll flinds, chimera packs, manticore prides, roaming owlbears, vicious trolls, and more share these lands. It is these creatures which the clans of the huntrealm stalk and chase in their constant search for their next meal and worthy hunt. These hunts are rarely safe, and the weak or clumsy often fall or become seriously wounded. Those that remain feast upon their prey, sometimes even ritualistically feasting on their organs and hearts to acquire their strength.

The greatest of prey usually remain within the mountains themselves, and are regarded with caution and respect. Giants within the craggy mountains, dragons ensconced within the forests, tricksy fey for the seelie and unseelie, powerful aberrations such as beholders, and more are regarded as prey worthy only of a champion hunter. Individuals who can take down these creatures alone are regarded as heroes, but nothing is so honored as leading a hunt and sharing the glory of such a kill with clan and kin. Usually those that lead these hunts form their own clans, or usurp the current leadership as a popular figure in the herd.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

The Ostrikkan Huntrealm's craggy peaks, which are near impossible to scale, twist and turn at edges and curves at an almost unnatural level. The entire range creates a labyrinthine maze that spans the entire region, entrapping the realm and forcing its denizens to tread within the valleys, hills, and rivers of its creation. This is the common explanation as to why minotaurs are drawn to mazes and puzzles and have such great memories, for their ancestral homeland is, itself, one massive maze. Within the crag valleys, broadleaf trees grow thick alongside with massive ferns that spiral up hardwood trunks. Vines and ivy squirm and spread out upon the leafy soil like rope tied around wooden boards, reinforcing rocky heights and maintaining the shape of both hills and mountain edges. The dense canopy provides plentiful shadow and shade for hunter and prey alike to hide and ambush others, while the rivers that flow in and between the crags often are exposed to brilliant sunlight as they tirelessly carve their way through rocky earth.

Verdant moss clings to the sheer mountain sides, absorbing the waters flowing down from them and acting like purifying filters for what they cannot hold. Oftentimes, these mosses are harvested and repurposed for waterskins or ritualistic burnings; prized for their pleasant smell and the deep green flames they produce. Clean, clear droplets of dew slide down the crags and flow into the already gushing rivers. These rivers flow north, towards the Iversyl darkwoods to sustain and vitalize the lands within.

The Rumbling

Many monstrosities and dangerous beasts find the huntrealm ideal for living due to its massive potential for life, nutrition, and its carrying capacity. Even when civilization remains nomadic, and agriculture is spurned for hunting and gathering, true herds and clans can number their people in the thousands. However, this cannot explain every creature who remains to dwell within these lands. Sometimes, creatures appear from the deepest pits and forest corners that can only be explained away by demonic intrusion or divine intervention. Twisted creatures with endlessly ravenous appetites, when one comes face to face with such monstrosities only then do they remember that these realms were touched by deities of uncaring savagery and mutative nature.

Yet, even they are dwarfed in comparison to the titans the rumble and stumble in the darkness below the huntrealm's earth. Local legends and mythos take care to describe a sleeping behemoth that rests beneath the earth. Chains greased with sopoforic magics, licked by the tongue of a god, hold something truly massive and restless within the earth. As it twists and turns in its slumber, it quakes the landscape and redirects rivers. The elves of Iversyl worry that these tremors will break the crags, opening entrances and holes into their lands where the savage and barbaric peoples of the huntrealm will flood forth from. In recent times, such tremors have become more common, and it has only revealed just how much animosity and bitterness lies between the clans of Ostrikk and the elves of Iversyl.

Iversyl

Culture and Lifestyle

Reincarnation and Death

Elves, upon death, are believed to spend only short periods of time resting in their respective heavens. Afterward, they would be shunted out (unless the hells claimed them) and reformed into a new living body. Memories of a past life would fade with time, only accessed in brief, broken visions through trances during childhood. The elves of the tetrarchy believe that morality and achievement in a past life means enlightenment and ascendance in the next. Elves higher in the caste system earned their place through great deeds and acts in their past lives, at least to the larger society. Wood elves would be reborn as high elves, and high elves would be reborn as the fabled eladrin. Many refer to this system as downright cruel and abusive, as it opens many routes for oppression and strips many of those in the lower caste of intrinsic worth. Moreso, it closes many routes for achievement and great deeds that the elite would claim to otherwise ascend them. Despite this, this is an accepted origin for the drow, where even the lowest in the caste system revile and fear their nature.

A drow is often born into prejudice and hatred only a strict culture could perpetuate, where those reincarnated as drow must've lived lives of sordid violence and evil, and as such deserve to be maltreated for such acts. Their existence is a reminder of the horrors wrought upon elven kind in their youth as a race, and as such are rebuked wherever they are seen. In Iversylian culture, it is believed there is no escape from life as a drow. Either one's soul is consumed whole by the corrupting goddess, or reincarnation never opens another chance for the elf to lead a different life as a different elf. Forever damned to be a drow.

Grim Ambassadors

There exists another subrace to elven kind, one grim and yet not excised from the natural order like the drow. The shadar'kai, a pale reflection of elven kind, warped by negative energies and magics from the Shadowfell. Not all elves left for the Material Plane when they were exiled, some entered into the service of the goddess of the dead, Tenebrei. There, they found some manner of safety and purpose to replace what they lost. No shadar'kai is ever tormented by nightmare nor plagued by Vivinerra's corruption. In the grim lands of the shadowfell, and sometimes even beyond in the Material Plane, these elves are called on to end undeath in all its forms and to enforce the natural cycle of life and death.

Seen as emotionless and something akin to pagan, these elves are feared in Iversylian culture, but their cult and culture attract more people every day. Still elves, they have claim to the nation their kin have built, and act as ambassadors between the elves, the shadowfell, and the goddess of the dead. In return for the fourth spire, and a place in their society, these elves share their divine boons and powers in the eternal struggle against Vivinerra.

Nations and realms that would interpret the elves' panic for weakness would do well to think otherwise. Bearing a strong warrior culture, it seems the martial madness and prowess of Cor'kivna spreads even to the elves of Iversyl. Strong armies and championed warriors stand to defend their homeland whenever needed.

Biomes, Landscapes, and Realms

Iversyl is mainly located within the Darkwoods, a gargantuan thicket composed of both deciduous and coniferous trees that shed intense shade onto the lands beneath their thick canopy. Each different spire, as part of the wards that defend its people, enchant the lands around it to some degree. The Spire of Autumn, heralded by the wood elves, is surrounded by leaves in the twilight between summer and fall. Leaves of yellow, orange and brown sway in the wind alongside deep verdant pines. The Spire of Winter, heralded by the shadar'kai, coats the land around it in a blanket of snow, reminiscent of the grim and somber dispositions of its people. The Spire of Summer, heralded by the high elves, is abundant with life and bounty. Its trees sprout plentiful fruit and the flowers blossom into truly prismatic colors. The Spire of Spring, heralded by the eladrin, exhibits great change all around it. The realm exudes an almost nascent nature, where most forms of life are in an ever present state of infancy and youth.

These enchantments don't hold so strongly that the changing seasons don't take affect, but their influence can easily be seen by passersby most parts of the year. Each spire holds a walled sanctuary, holding the most important infrastructure and people within; the churches, the warehouses, the government buildings, and the homes of the elite. Outside these sanctuary walls, small villages and farms dot the landscape. Although none of them truly ever leave the sight of their spires, for fear of leaving the wards that protect their minds behind.

Aes Adei

Culture and Lifestyle

An Unending Thirst

The monks of the archive are ascetic, and want for little in their lives. Instead, all their ambition and desire is channeled into the thirst for knowledge and data. The elders of these archives are rarely rivaled in their expertises, and could converse for months upon even the most minor of details in many subjects of science, math, literature, and more. Furthermore, this thirst for knowledge also culminates in a desire to spread it, and the monks of this order both sponsor and personally create many establishments for learning in outside realms. Teaching language, writing, and the base subjects necessary to elevate one's station in life.

Of course, this thirst can often lead to benign and baseless trivia. Useless subjects of fiction and media driven by delusion and boredom must be sifted through and scuttled in order to uncover true knowledge and data upon a specific subject. In more dire cases, the search for knowledge can bring a monk into a dark route through forbidden secrets. Today, many suspect that sects of occult worship and learning have taken root in the archives, and that many monks have begun to abandon their original purpose in favor of more selfish pursuits.

Rip out Corruption

Corrupt public officials, warlords bent on conquest, and tyrants wiping away history play the main roles within the nightmares of the Aesite monks. To their patron god, knowledge must never be truly hidden nor destroyed, but kept safe and built upon. Corruption in nations naturally destroys knowledge and askews the truth, so naturally monks of this order also aid in holding nations to their oaths, promises, and social contracts to their people. This has prompted the monks to blacklist Twinbird scholarly circles and its royal family from gaining access to the archives, as its propensity for propaganda and past acts of burning down libraries has earned it the order's ire.

They also deal with more "arcane" corruption as well. Dictators making deals with fiends, public officials replacing their churches with cults, and profane cultists opening ways in for otherworldly influence all are targets of these monks.

All are welcome to learn from the archives, other non-humanoids are no exception either. Dragons, naga, cursed folk, and fey often seek out the endless library halls for one purpose or another.

Chapter Four: Gods and Glory

Divinity is an important aspect to the people of Arikona, and divine influence has seeped into every corner of the world in some way or another. Most peoples of the world, even if they are not host to divine power or unique zeal, worship one or two different gods. Farmers pay tribute to Tessarius, the Leaf Mother, to protect their fields from blight and vermin. Scholars pay heed to Apotheosis, Grand Archivist, for his claim over knowledge both seen and unseen. Assassins follow in the footsteps of Vivinerra, the Night Terror, to muffle their steps and poison their blades. Barbarians sacrifice in the name of Hvaelger, the Savage Maw, for even a portion of his strength and rage. Worship is rooted so deeply into Arikona to the point that, without it, the world would be unrecognizable. The direct acts of the gods in shaping history up into this point have been so utterly significant, that mortal kind could rarely ever deny their right to divine power.

Modern Worship

In modern times, most worship has been regulated and controlled by an organization known as the Holy Lotus Tribunal. Propped up by Twinbird power, and finding its foundations within the Corvinian Theocracy, it has outlawed many gods seen as overly pagan and outwardly seditious. Churches to these old pagan gods have been torn down or repurposed, sacrifices and tributes to these gods has been stigmatized as unholy and cult-like, and worshipers who have refused to convert have met with terrible fates. At least, this is the case within Vingoth. Outside realms and nations pay no heedance to the Holy Lotus or the Twinbird, and as such worship their original gods freely despite the diplomatic tensions it causes.

Cor'kivna still remains loyal to its gods of war, fire, and stone, while small sects of Guest and Vivinerra worshipers remain in the cracks of Kivnan society. Kudor, or at least the Shrinetenders, widely have little faith in the many gods, but respect all pantheons nonetheless. Their neighbors, the Voxistanii Mageocracy, solely believe in gods that grasp the weave, and shows small, subtle patronage to Ytol, the Sentinel of Planes, and Lillian, the Weave Warden. The nomads of Vaqar do not even worship gods, unless in extenuating circumstances, but outright revere elementals instead. The archivists of Aes Adei are devout servants of Apotheosis, forever serving in his name and his missions.

Character Creation

Understanding where your character stands in the religious world should be considered. This generally can give you an idea what place in the world your character has, whether they are an abject believer of Holy Lotus purity or rebuke the organization in its entirety.

Furthermore, picking one or two gods to worship, even if your character isn't a cleric, paladin, or divine caster, can also add some depth to your character, their experiences, and their ideals. Choosing no gods to worship is also a valid choice that absolutely adds to a character's depth.

Warriors of the Red-White Rose Coalition often are associated with devils and pagan gods, all due to propaganda devised by Twinbird influence. Here, a warrior is symbolized leaving his duty and people behind for an unknown deity; trading purpose for superficial wants and desires.

The Paragon

"Gods of the First Light", "Arbiters of Law and Beauty", "Those that Endure"; the gods of the Paragon are among the mightiest, eldest, and most influential deities in the world of Arikona. The highest of outsider gods defer to their judgment and tremble in awe at their power over reality. With such power comes distance, and those of this pantheon are often vague and sparse in their commands to mortal kind, only directly intervening when the realms are in imbalance and entropy dares threaten the world. Communications with their disciples are limited, but despite this distance they never truly leave their own alone.

Ytol

"Sentinel of Planes", "He who Holds the Line", "Earth Shaper"; these titles refer to Ytol, sentinel of the planes and elements. He is the watcher who forever repels and rebukes otherworldly and elemental influence from entering and corrupting the Material Plane. The greatest warrior who fought against the Primoridals and elementals, he would forever stand guard and remain vigilant against their intrusion and invasion. He binds the elemental planes away from entry, chaining its influences forever away and making planar travel incredibly difficult to the chaotic planes. He is the one who would break the Primordials and their children, and would form and fashion the world from their bodies.

Though he is a god, and one of the greatest at that, his duty supersedes his domains. Worship, sacrifice, and tribute towards him all goes towards his goal of preventing chaos and entropy from truly taking hold in the world once more. Having lost many beloved children and servants in the fight against entropy, he holds a bitter vengeance and animosity for true chaos which ironically culminates in a furious storm of divine lightning and fire. His followers seek out cults of elemental evil and root them out, rebuke and destroy those who would break open the planes, and cast out summoned elementals and extraplanar creatures.

Within his heavenly realm, Apotheosis never relents in his endless study and philosophizing. Legends say his wings, made of the parchment and paper of books he has favored, grow ever so larger and more powerful the more he learns.

Tessarius

"Leaf Mother", "Our Verdant Progenitor", "Lady of Tooth and Thorn"; these titles refer to Tessarius, goddess of nature and all that entails. She is a personification of fertility, plant growth, and the arbiter of new birth in the world, an utterly integral being and mercifully benevolent in that manner. Though nature is a force of pure neutrality, if not utterly removed from such conflicts and mindsets, she herself is a force of beauty and life in the cosmic struggle against entropy and chaos. Her presence in the realms sparks the ever marching force of growth, adaptation, and birth in the animals and plants that choose to dwell in her light. She is worshiped for a good, bountiful harvest by farmers, and given tribute for a healthy and safe birth for laboring mothers.

Her followers seek to protect nature in all its forms, while cherishing both the ugly and beautiful. They hunt down defilers of nature and of rebirth, those who shirk life for undeath and harm the pregnant creatures and peoples of the world. Their churches and temples are often examples of overgrowth and fertility, with plants spiraling up pillars and ivy taking over walls. There, they feed the needy creatures and peoples of the world, sheltering those without mothers, and chant their admiration to their goddess.

Tenebrei

"Mother Moth", "Our most Solemn End", "The Great Equalizer"; these titles refer to Tenebrei, goddess of the dead and usher of those seeking the afterlife. A reaping figure, who collects and safeguards souls of the recently departed, she is seen in equal measure of fear and respect for her grim purpose. A reminder that all living things will die, her domain will include all in good time; kings, beggars, archmages, and even some gods are destined to enter her purview one day, and be subjected to her judgment. Though she watches over a domain of entropy, she seeks only to compel the living towards progress and make space for the new souls entering the world. Her form is attributed to moths, creatures of silence and wisdom in the world. They cling to places of stillness and follow the final light of death, much like her followers.

Her clergy are meant to give peace and reprise to those dying, amending their suffering and granting sinners clemency in their final moments (even if it means lying). They seek out those which would circumvent death through any means. Lichdom, fiendish pacts, otherworldly influence, and all else draw the attention and ire of the goddess of the dead, who commands her followers to rebuke them wherever and whenever they see them. Crusading parties forever remain oathbound to hunt undeath and necromancers, all the way from the dunes of the Godgrave desert to the heights of the Ostrikk peaks. These followers are nothing if not devoted to their goddess, and her order inspires them to act even if it ends in their deaths. To them and their goddess, dying in her service is merely another means of communing with their matron goddess.

Lillian

"The Weave Warden", "Mistress of Magic", "Crone in the Clouds"; these titles refer to Lillian, goddess of magic and defender of the weave. When time was young and the world was still unmade, she was the goddess who would take the Primeval Aether and refine it into the Weave, the source of all magic. From then on, she would devote herself wholly to its protection and secrets, warding it from those who would abuse magic and damage its source. Hoarders of arcane secrets, mages who disregard their ethics, and those who would seek to rend magic from the realms are her enemies, the ones who gain her ire and vitriol.

Her followers, both invokers of arcane powers and acolytes of her divine gifts, seek out arcane secrets hidden from the world (and henceforth her) in order to take power from magic's abusers. They seek out those who would use magic to selfish and destructive ends. However, the worst heresies in her domain are the occult, magics not entirely derived from the weave or the divine. Old and rarely benign, these magics of often dark or otherworldly influence are never to be trifled with by the sane. Wizards and apprentices of most backgrounds, although not all devotees, understand she should be respected and deferred to in the practice of the arcane and her warnings of the occult.

Her title of "Crone in the Clouds" derives from her heavenly domain, which is a never ending landscape of puffy, cotton-like clouds that span the realm.

Ilm

"Gilded Godfather", "Heaven's Splendor", "He who wakes always"; these titles refer to Ilm, god of the sun and its embodiment. Ancient legend states that, in the first dark, the Paragon were fighting a losing battle against their ancient enemy. For their future, and for his family, Ilm would rise higher than thought possible, cradling himself in the sky and forming what would become the sun. This lantern of radiant light allowed Ilm's god-siblings to beat back the world's horrors and remake the world, and would later on be the source for life's most base fuel.

His followers mimic this radiant light wherever they go, casting light upon lies and bringing hope to places of abject despair and pain. Paladins and clerics travel to overlooked and shadowed corners of the earth, bringing the light of life to those who will accept it. This faith is also built upon sacrifice, where one must give up much to truly shower light upon the world around them. The revolutionary which gives their life to oust tyrants, the eldest sibling which breaks the cruel cycle their parents put in place, or the curious soul who invites pain and harm upon them for the sake of learning; these are all examples of Ilm's sacrifice, where one must suffer so others can create a better future for the rest.

Ulm

"Slumbering Star", "Dreamweaver", "Moon Matron"; these titles refer to Ulm, goddess of the moon. Ilm's equal and opposite, Ulm inhabits the sun's rival within the sky, the moon. Her presence in the sky alleviates the sun's endless duty for a mere night, giving the vigilant god of sunlight reprise and rest. Her domain inhabits the space between dusk and dawn, and rules over the twilight within the star cradling sky. She is a goddess who embodies the comfort night should provide, and a patron to those who wish to make their dreams reality. She ends the pain of others through slumber and sleep, allowing wounds of mental and physical nature to be mended (or ignored). She communes with her followers from visions within dreams, allowing prophetic counsel to those of lucid awareness and vague intervention to those who dream too wildly.

Her followers reach out into the darkness and shadows formed from night, seeking the monsters of men and beast that try to make it their domain. There, they sunder their enemies and outwit them with clever cunning, all in the sake of making the dark a safe, restful place to take refuge from the sun's blistering rays. Fiends who dwell within shadow, deathly figures who stalk the darkness, and brutal thugs who skulk within the night looking for prey are each and all enemies to the followers of Ulm. Furthermore, she compels her followers to seek the beauty within their dreams, and to usher such endless creativity, color, and imaginative grandeur into reality.

Wreathed in beauty only found in dreams, and cloaked in moonlight of silver and blue, Ulm is a resplendent star of sanctuary and twilight found in the comfort of night.

Onalla

"Queen Shield", "The Holiest of Hearths", "The Civil Sword"; these titles refer to Onalla, goddess of civilization and peace. The most "human" of the Paragon, she inhabits a domain that can only be fulfilled through the presence of mortal kind and its inherent ability to cooperate. Simply enough, she is a goddess of all the good that comes from, and should come from, civilization. She is the patron of a peaceful home, a lively peoples, and a community that works for the betterment of all its members. She is the goodwill that puts food upon tables, the force that ignites every warm hearth, and the walls which hold back the tides of chaos. How the community she oversees does this is not her concern, so long as it is a wholesome and decent means to an end. She will not bend different peoples and different cultures to a singular, binary path to civilization and cooperation.

A godddess of gold and ivy, she embodies mortal kind's achievements and their ability to overcome the powers and forces that far extend their own. Her followers oversee justice, preserve the rights of even criminals, and rebuke tyrants at all costs. Violence, though needed at times, is a final resort for her followers, unless their mission is to defend the victims of violence itself. However, when the walls of man are torn down, and homes turn into prisons, all of her ilk will be called to the blade and hammer to take back what was torn from their lives. The busy and difficult road back to recovery and growth is one most Onallans are familiar with, so much so that hardship goes hand in hand with the prospect of peace for this religion.

To carry the power of destruction, to be armed with the tools of bloodshed, yet keeping close the discipline and restraint to never use them. That is the Onallan mantle of responsibility.

The Pagan Many

There exists many gods outside the pantheon of the Paragon. Lesser and greater gods of obscure and mighty domains slip in between the cracks and niches of society. Some hardly have any following, while others may even rival the Paragon. "Pagan" may even give an otherwise inaccurate connotation about the gods that dwell within its category. In reality, all it stands for is their difference in origin and power to the gods of the Paragon and the society that their worship has sprung up around. Even with this difference and distance, most of these gods still must defer to the Paragon's power over reality and the world they created. Usually, to many pagan god's thanks, they do not interfere in their worship, unless their domains begin to overlap with other gods or their own. In history, there have been a faint few times where the Paragon have needed to act as arbiters of justice between bickering deities or entire pantheons. During those ages, the structure of power, dominance, and authority was displayed out clearly in the Paragon's favor.

Filianore and Hvaelger

Two sides of the same coin, these two pagan deities embody aspects of war, one side honorable and strategic while the other cruel and wrathful.

Filianore is a goddess that inhabits a warrior's courage and conduct. She displays the more honorable side of war, where champions duel to spare the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, where laws and treatises ban destructive magics and weaponry, and where innocents will not be caught in the crossfire. This goddess' doctrine acts also as strategy, mastering the art of warfare in order to limit its destruction. Her followers hone their skills to perfection, fighting fairly and displaying both honor and valor upon the field of battle. These warriors also act as diplomats, seeing to it that treaties of peace and armistice are enforced properly (as war without peace is just slaughter, and slaughter inhabits neither god's domains). In times of peace, these warriors seek out realms without order to bend the land back into rights. There, they also seek out followers of Hvaelger in order to challenge them to duels and battles for the honor of their lady.

Hvaelger is a god that inhabits war's cruelty and brutality. Though he maintains a sense of honor, it does nothing to stop his brutal rampage and onslaught against the realms, vying for long, drawn out wars and bloodshed to weed out the weak and undeserving. His followers are encouraged to act upon vengeful desires, to destroy and purge those which have wronged them in any manner. They abandon reason only to embrace war and bloody conflict, although those that fully lose their minds and succumb to bloodcraze are subject to be slain by their siblings. The war god has no place for the feeble of mind and tactic. Although his methods and means are cruel, the war god will never backstab or betray his own following, nor will he employ deceitful tactics upon his enemy. In war he fights fair, if perhaps savagely, and loss is met with just as much honor as it is humiliation.

Ferrgon

God of the forge, and master of metal, Ferrgon is a demanding taskmaster that rewards fairly for a job well done. His following hope to parse even glimpses of the creativity, ingenuity, and talent which he uses to craft masterworks and artifacts. These worshipers go out into the world, converting their worldly experience and memories into raw inspiration to craft their masterpieces. Some gods, bereft of other means, beseech him to create weaponry and gear for their champions, the price often steep and costly for such commissioning. Dwarves, gnomes, and smiths of other civilizations often sacrifice small trinkets and tokens of their creation, praying that their forges and tools will survive their strenuous duties for years to come. Rarely, adventurers trekking forbidden and dangerous ruins will find old creations of this stoic god, forged from the hardiest of materials wrought by his bare hands and fists.

Vivinerra

Vivinerra, goddess of lies and nightmares, matron to the corrupted, and queen of spiders. A sinister goddess by any means, and reviled by half the world if not all of it. Her following are comprised of those entrapped within deceitful designs, unwilling servants, recipients of baleful pacts, or those blinded by vice, sin and ego. Hers is a dark domain, one where the shadows and shade mutate and change all that they touch, clawing the sanity away from the heroic and highlighting the dark desires and urges of the vulnerable. She torments mortal kind mostly with equal effort, however she spares a special interest towards the elves of the world. She delights in tormenting their truly immortal souls, haunting their lives and dragging them into despair and depravity. Sometimes, the Night Terror picks unlucky elves to sink her fangs into for life, never relenting in their torture even after multiple reincarnations. All of this, for the sake of turning them into drow, her favored creations, and later on devouring their souls.

Her following encourages change and corruption in the world, mutating natural cycles and states into a tumorous version of what they once were. Blackmailing politicians and heroes into servitude, manipulating powerful entities into malign action, and warping the ambitions of the virtuous and honest are each and all methods to drag outside souls into depravity, corruption, and loss. Her favored few, a coven of witches, hags, and occultists, named the "Wretched Hollow" are exception to rarities in her faith. They are showered in boons and gifts, given powers and purposes. She tempts other lesser clergy of her following with acceptance in these ranks, all for the sake of driving them deeper into her worship and ideals.

The Guest

A stranger to the realms and an outsider from an alien, eldritch beyond. The Guest is an entity of enigmatic and mysterious origin, nature, purpose, and agenda. She slipped into the world hundreds of years ago, when the moon changed into a vacuous hole devoid of light and divinity. Later on, this moon would gain its namesake "The Vacuous Star", and would reoccur at random intervals every few years. Forcing her way through, she slipped into the realm and caused panic, mania, and untold fear wherever she roamed; only ending when she hid among the deepest recesses of the world, away from the gods and those that would hunt her down. This day was named the Stranger's Crisis, and set in motion events that would plunge entire realms into chaos and disorder. No being alive saw her aberrant form, not without descending into madness or repressing the image forever. However, those that dream of her see the vague shape of a humanoid woman cloaked in a veil of inky black that extends beyond the farthest stars. Beneath her veil, a woman's face can be barely made out.

Since her appearance, her existence has garnered the attention of many, and even attracted a following of utterly alien-minded worshipers. No individual outside the doctrine understands the ambitions of these worshipers, and many even doubt that the worshipers totally understand their actions themselves.

A goddess of fear, panic, mania, and the unknown. What is known of her (which is little), is that her very existence wards off research and understanding. For little reason, otherwise mundane people sometimes begin communion with The Guest, being called into some form of (barely understood) divine mission. Its not even entirely divined if she is an evil entity, although the occultists that say they worship her certainly commit a fair amount of despicable acts. Worship of her as a god brands one as a heretic, blasphemer, and enemy of the Holy Lotus Tribunal. Even study into her form and presence can so much as label an individual as a cultist.

The Vacuous Star

Hundreds of years ago, when the vacuous star first appeared in the night sky, thousands of people began to glow with a deep indigo hue. These peoples, each and all, were bearers of Voanite blood, a bloodline of sorcerers with cosmic powers. This glow allowed witch hunters, persecutors, and violent mobs of fearful citizenry to single out many Voanites, chase them from their homes, and even execute many more. Much of the violence might not have even been spurred on by the panic and mania taking root in the minds of many, but a symptom of systematic hatred and fear placed upon the Voanite people and their magical capabilities.

Even today, whenever the Vacuous Star reappears within the night sky, those of Voanite blood begin to glow again. No longer able to hide, the star singles them out one by one, leaving them to the mercy of their neighbors.

Chapter Five: Character Creation

With the nations of the world established, and potential gods to be worshiped, players can create characters attached to the larger world. Speak with your DM if you wish to implement something tailored specifically to your character, such as a noble bloodline, custom pagan god, a unique guild, or anything akin to those. When picking your race, make sure to consult with your DM if they have any specific lore, connotations, or unique history within the world at large. Below will be base information for the PHB races, but will not include other monstrous races or those included in future books, modules, or outside sources.

Peoples of Arikona

Dwarves. The dwarves of Arikona aren't so much different than most others in different settings. They dwell within mountain holds, ignorant and isolated from the grander political world above, and take care of their own to the best of their abilities. The ones without clans and holds to live within mix alongside the other common races, valued for their labors, crafts, and steady endurance in the field of battle. However, in Arikona, their propensity for living longer than most can turn them stoic, callous, and jaded to the world's larger woes.

Duergar are a different breed altogether. Born from bloodlines who worship Vivinerra, they often grow up within darkness and deceit their entire lives. Deprived of craft, fulfillment, and the warmth of true kin, many duergar turn their resentment both inwards and out onto the world and its people.

Elves. The elves of Arikona are an ancient race in their own history. The time they've spent on the Material Plane as a civilization is limited and barely remembered. Instead, up until a couple centuries ago, they've lived within the feywilds. In Arikona, they are a race often seen with awe, bewitchment, and no small amount of fear. Their laws and traditions are fickle to many and outright tricksy to others, causing some tension with other lands.

Drow, like duergar, are elves who have been touched by Vivinerra's corrupting influence. Endorsing murder, extermination, and courting with fiendish patrons, drow societies are often evil and treacherous to their core. The few that are lucky enough to break free or develop consciences have shown that, like many other races, they are capable of great good and heroic deeds.

Halfings. There have been no triumphant halfling armies. No halfling heroes ascending to godhood. No nation of halfing descent has risen from the hills where they reside. Good, solid, honest working folk, many blame the halfing people for lacking in ambition and greatness. In reality, these small folk are content to live off the land, foster large families, and make friends with all who will take them. By living in human lands, the barons and soldiers that protect their realm also protect halfing homes as well. In return, halfings are happy to trade their produce and goods to lords, ladies, and visiting merchants; although, in that same manner, these trusting folk are often subject to manipulation, extortion, and deception.

Humans. Undoubtedly the most common race within Arikona, there are few niches or environments humans cannot fill. Even in other lands, like Iversyl or Hakkorlund, humans tend to fill within the cracks and gaps of their societies. Due to their short lived nature, and ambitious desires, humans can often be looked upon as greedy, short sighted, and inconsequential in the eyes of grander designs from longer lived entities.

Dragonborn. A prideful peoples, often bearing militaristic warrior cultures where individual strength of body and mind equates to worthiness and station. A dragonborn will always strive to be self sufficient, never asking for help unless it is truly needed. Honorable to a fault, even the most crooked among them carry some code of conduct or decorum. Subtle and scientific pursuits often avoid most of this kind, but the few exceptions prove that dragonkin wizards, sorcerers, and scholars can rival masters within other realms; not that these paths garner glory and merit in their own culture.

Gnome. Inventors, illusionists, and alchemists of maddened ingenuity, to overlook gnomes as "small folk" can be costly if not outright foolhardy. Their hands have invented complex machinery, mechanisms, and even constructs from simple wood, water, and string. Though most gnomes generally carry joyous and selfless dispositions, gnomish engineers have been consulted on great projects of war and destruction in the past, if only for the simple want to see if they were capable of such projects. Living within hidden hovels or introverted districts within human cities, gnomes manage their own communities with equity and equality between men and women, and young and old.

Half-Elves. Making the best of a horrible situation, many half-elves often live a century too long or a century too short for the communities they live within. Human parents fade quickly with time, and elven parents are often outgrown and "outmatured" by their half-elven children in due time. Many half-elves leave their homes for more fitting company, only to be left wanting.

Half-Orcs. Much like their half blooded cousins, half-orcs are often exiles and black sheep no matter where they go. Orcish clans rebuke them, and human communities fear them. Oftentimes, half-orcs mostly find acceptance within the company of pact-bound patrons, the divine bond between god and follower, or in the eyes of their employers who value their strength and desperation. This makes them valued enforcers, warlocks, or acolytes of some larger entity.

Classes, Choices, and Conditions

Each class, no matter how removed from a backstory, will carry connotations of lifestyle, ideals, and experience. A fighter usually has a background of athleticism, combat, and bloodshed. Wizards usually have studied intensely at academies or under mentors. Clerics often are loyal and expressive of their faith, carrying a history of preaching and belief in others.

Despite the world's woes and troubles, these times are hardly all grim, dark, and cruel. Homes are built, children are born, love is found, and wonder is never too far away in this floating world. These are the aspects that drive heroes to save the realms, or fuel their ambitions that burn them down.

Barbarian

d4	Background
1	You were an outlander of an obscure tribe, captured and dragged into war like a tool to be used.
2	You were a child of aristocracy, abandoning noble blood for a life of free savagery and exhilarating battle.
3	You were a peasant warrior with nothing but their rage to guard them, you left home to raise your station.
4	You were possessed by a wrathful spirit of nature, who still yet guides your rage.

Bard

d4	Background
1	You were an often impoverished minstrel, who quickly squandered whatever short lived famed you garnered.
2	You were an artist who fell into infamy when your creations sprung to life an attacked innocents.
3	You were a diplomat dedicated to fostering peace in post-war Vingoth.
4	You were a warrior bard, singing tales of valor and courage from your experience in wars.

Cleric

d4	Background
1	You were an acolyte of a pagan god, on the run from Corvinian Godhounds.
2	You were a cleric of the Holy Lotus, bent on purifying the holy orders of the world.
3	You were a devoted cultist, but fled the cloister for the freedom other gods provided.
4	You were a chosen cleric of a god, but fled your life and destiny.

Druid

d4	Background
1	You were a Shrinetender tribesperson, cut off from your home due to the Twinbird embargo.
2	You were a spiritcaller from the Wisterian Islands, come to spread your teachings.
3	You were a member of a hidden druid grove that was destroyed by soldiers mistaking you as their enemy.
4	You were always a friend to nature, now you've sworn yourself to defend it as well.

Fighter

d4	Background
1	You were a deserter from the Red-White Rose war, fleeing judgment from all ends.
2	You were a bodyguard for important nobility, before you were framed for their murder.
3	You were a mercenary for an obscure company, trying to cut ties with its brutal and bloody baggage.
4	You were an enforcer for a network of criminals, you kept the rabble in line until they finally betrayed you.

Monk

d4	Background
1	You were a thuggish pugilist, trying to reform yourself and refine your skills with monastic teachings.
2	You were a monastic warrior of the Holy Lotus, trying to distance yourself from its oppressive ways.
3	You were a defender of the Aes Adei Archives, only to be exiled for a grave error and sin.
4	You were a warrior monk from Wisterian lands, seeking to free your people from Twinbird rule.

Paladin

d4	Background
1	You were oathbound to an entity whose true horror was mostly hidden, now you seek freedom from it.
2	You were sworn into a pagan faith to defend the deity's temples and shrines, unbeknownst just how hard that would become.
3	You were a paladin who followed only the letter of your oath, only to find a god's wrath and be hunted down by irate acolytes.
4	You swore your oath in a time of duress, and now you must navigate the rest of your life bound by it.

Ranger

d4	Background
1	You were a hunter who had slain a pagan god's favored beast, gaining its attention for life.
2	You were a bounty hunter, until a job too good to be true ended in catastrophe. Now you have an equally as large bounty on your head.
3	You were a scout for a military detachment, who never found your way back to the main caravan.
4	You were a guide for travelers in a wildly dangerous region, only to have been kidnapped by those you were guiding.

This Ironclad Warden, an exile among the people he once fought for, is just one of many warriors of the Red-White Rose war. Should his past be recovered, and his face identified, he will be hunted down as an enemy of the state, treated like an insurgent fighter.

Rogue

d4	Background
1	You were an insurgent fighter, until a traitor had gotten many of your comrades captured and killed.
2	You were a spy for the Twinbird Empire, until you finally had seen enough devastation wrought by imperial hands.
3	You were an impoverished pickpocket on the street, until an imposing guild took you in as their own.
4	You managed to get into contact with the Ophidian Umbra, and were changed by their strange yuan'ti magics.

Sorcerer

d4	Background
1	You were born of Voanite blood, and command sorcerous magics of frightful, cosmic origin.
2	Your bloodline was somehow blessed by dragon's blood, giving you a semblance of draconic power.
3	You were influenced by the presence of otherworldly planes, and since then have controlled grim magics of death and shadow.
4	You were a mad wizard's experiment, given innate powers at the price of your dignity and health.

Warlock

d4	Background
1	You made a pact with an undying lich, in a bid to attain the same immortality such creatures are known for.
2	You were desperate and a cult offered to fulfill all your needs in exchange for something unknown to you.
3	You forged a pact with an angelic being, who uses you as a loophole to work around their god's intentions.
4	You were a scholar of the occult, and stole away a fraction of power from an entity of the Far Realm.

Wizard

d4	Background
1	You were an apprentice under an abusive mentor, who broke free of their grip at a great cost.
2	You were a magical prodigy, who has earned the envy and ire of many of your peers.
3	You were an invoker for a god, an acolyte who commands arcane might instead of divine powers.
4	You were the laughing stock of your academy, until resentment compelled you to cast a diabolical spell over the entire school.

Have Fun With It!

Whoever your character becomes, make it a great story and have fun with it to the end. Even a character with a minimal background can become a beloved pillar of the party, so long as you are enjoying yourself.

Chapter Six: Homebrew

This chapter includes homebrew content that players could use freely when creating characters.

*Additional homebrew content

Subclasses

Cosmic Bloodline

Old and ancient blood runs through your veins, belonging to a people of great repute and proximity to a cosmic alignment. Nearly always, characters with this bloodline belong to the ancient Voanites, people of the cosmic city of Voan that landed upon Arikona as a meteor in ancient times. Those of this bloodline wield magics that originate outside of the Weave, spells that can manipulate matter and draw power from the constellations and distant, cold celestial bodies. Not all of Voanite blood come to gain sorcerous powers, henceforth made exiles by their own people, but your veins have erupted with powerful magics and ancient potential.

Cosmic Magic

You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Cosmic Spells table. Each spell counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.

Sorcerer Level	Spells
1st	Detect Magic, Meteoric Pebble*, Color Spray
3rd	Misty Step, Levitate
5th	Sleet Storm, Shooting Stars*
7th	Ice Storm, Dimension Door
9th	Telekinesis, Create Orbit*

Gravitas

At 1st level, you have slight control over gravitational forces which you can use to redirect attacks against you. Whenever you are hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to subtract the attack roll against you by 1d4, potentially changing the outcome. This die increases to 2d4 at 8th level.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest.

Child of Constellations

At 6th level, you can create glowing, ethereal constellations within the air from which you draw power. As an action, you can spend 3 sorcery points to summon a constellation of your choice from the list below. The constellation lasts for an hour and hovers around your body. It disappears early if you dismiss it (no action required), are incapacitated, die, or create a different constellation.

Stars of Ruin. Miniature stars crumble and collapse to form a rune of ruin. While this constellation is active, you can force any creature that you can see within 30ft that must save against your spells to make its roll at disadvantage. You can only use this feature once per round.

Stars of Prosperity. Lines of starlight collect in great number to make a rune of plenty. Whenever you or a creature that you can see within 30ft deals damage or receives healing, you can increase the dice rolled by one die. You can only use this feature once per round.

Stars of Chaos. An image of falling stars and colliding meteors form a rune of chaos. While this constellation is active, you can change the damage type taken by any creature you can see within 30ft, including yourself. The damage type must be changed into fire, cold, lightning, acid, or poison damage. You can only use this feature once per round.

Stars of Law. Perfectly ordered and stable stars form a rune of unfettered law. While this rune is active, you can force any creature you can see within 30ft of you, including yourself, that has advantage or disadvantage on any roll to instead roll as normal. You can only use this feature once per round.

Walk upon Stars

At 14th level, a corona of stars appears over your head and nebulae drift around you to form a cloak permanently. You can use a bonus action to dismiss or recreate the stars.

While the stars are active, you gain a flying (hover) speed equal to your walking speed. Additionally, your natural steps are weightless (though your weight remains the same) and do not disturb the ground below or leave tracks.

Walking Nova

At 18th level, your body teeters on the precipice of the Material Plane and being one with the cosmic beyond. As an action, you can spend 5 sorcery points to transform into a starry form. While in this form, you gain the following benefits.

• You gain resistance to all damage except force and psychic
• You exude bright starlight in a 120ft range outwards from you

Voanites, People of Ruin

Long persecuted and excised from their grand origins, the Voanite bloodline is obscure and hardly as prolific as it once was. From what can be traced, those of this bloodline come from the Voxistanii Mageocracy, as the realm descended from those who fled from persecution in Cor'kivna. It is not clear if the Voxistanii now view their culture as different or above their Voanite origins, but they seem to mistreat their cosmic ancestors with the same distrust and animosity as their ancient oppressors.

Alongside their stifled growth, they are also few in number because most Voanite families tend to exile members who do not exhibit sorcerous talents through maturity.

Entropic Soul

All came from something, but it is the founding belief of elementalists that all will go into nothing. In the ancient past there existed the primordials, which stood for entropy in all things -material, immaterial, and thermal. Though beaten and broken to form the world, sometimes their ancient oblivion would seep out and take chokehold of something living. Sorcerers of this kind are different in nothing but their souls to their other kin, whose powers are the result of catastrophically bad luck as opposed to being inherited. This ancient oblivion seeps into their soul without reason, devouring all until entropy takes its toll, but also giving off immense amounts of energy that come to from the sorcerer's magical powers and talents.

Magical Siphon

At 1st level, the nature of your powers lashes out to consume the material and immaterial around you. When you are targeted by a spell of 1st level or higher, or a creature fails its saving throw against your spells of 1st level or higher, you can use your reaction to immediately gain an amount of sorcery points equal to half the level of the spell casted.

Sky Warden

Metal is a rare material to be found in the Aetherian Sea, yet mettle can be found in plenty among the Vaqar Silkwalkers who live solely in these very skies. Their Sky Wardens are proof of such mettle. No mere militia, their communities have poured every ounce of resources and dedication possible to the training of these elite fighters, allowing them to wield elemental air and storm to supplement their swift and deadly attacks.

Unwavering Dance

Starting at 18th level, your Dance of Silk feature lasts for 10 minutes and lasts for the duration unless you end it (no action required) or die.

Divine Exile

Players wishing to play as a Vaqar Silkwalker should understand that such people are currently under divine exile by the Paragon god Ytol himself, so that they may never touch solid ground again without retribution. As such, speak with your DM so you can understand what you may expect as a person from this background. If you wish to play the subclass, but do not want the flavor attached to it, then speak with your DM on a substitute or alternative.

Ironclad

The Ironclad fighting style was engineered by the first knights and champions of the Era of the Iron Crown. Utterly devoted to their sovereign's prosperity, they sought to endure every challenge and obstacle in their way. Clad head to toe in heavy-duty iron armor, and put through grueling endurance training, those of this archetype stand tall and proud in the face of injury and pain that would break all others. Despite its ancient background, many Eiostan and Corvinian warriors adopted and added upon this millennium old art.

Sufferer's Strength

At 18th level, whenever you suffer a critical hit you can choose to add half of the damage taken from that attack on your next attack whenever you hit. If you choose not to, the extra damage is wasted.

Oath of Freedom

The Oath of Freedom ironically binds a paladin to the ideals and aspects of raw and often chaotic freedom. An embodiment of liberty on the domestic front and a blur of steel and radiant light on the battlefield, many who swear such an oath take it upon themselves to uphold the freedoms of all and retake them for the oppressed. Commonly, such paladins are forces for good even if their personal morals do not align as such. They espouse the freedom of soaring through the air as an attribute of divine grace, incorporating avian styles and designs within their idols, armor, weapons, and fighting styles.

Champion of the People

At 20th level, as an action you can emanate an aura of blissful winds. For 1 minute, you are immune to being Grappled, Stunned, Paralyzed, Restrained, and having your movement slowed in any way.

Whenever a creature makes an attack against you while within your aura, they must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they must direct their attack to another creature of your choosing within their melee range or not at all. If a creature succeeds on their saving throw, they are immune to the effect for the next minute.

Oath of the Morning

The Oath of Morning, as old as the god Ilm himself, embodies the mind that holds to hope even in the darkest of times. Sometimes called Sunwalkers, Hope's Hellions, or Blazebearers, paladins who consign themselves to this oath hold strong the hope for a new dawn, and seek to usher in new beginnings and better days. They break abusive cycles of power and pain, and are willing to sacrifice themselves wholly if it means their martyrdom will rouse people to a noble cause. They anoint themselves with symbols and icons of the dawn sun and clad their bodies in shining metal armor, representative of their hope for a new, shining beginning to an era.

Arbiter of the New Dawn

At 20th level, as an action you can assume the form of an angelic being, bringing forth hope and guidance in abundance for 1 minute. While in this form, you gain the following benefits:

• You have resistance to radiant, necrotic, and psychic damage.
• Your Aura of Courage feature extends outward to 60 feet
• Creatures within 15 feet of you gain the maximum hit points possible when receiving healing.

The Archivist

You've made a pact with a being that lords over a vast collection of occult knowledge. The true nature and alignment of your patron may be unknown, and may not even matter to you. Ultimately, such beings desire to hoard secrets and knowledge others may covet. Pacts with these creatures are especially attractive to those who wish to plumb their patron's archives and unearth hidden potential.

Such beings are often anathema to gods of open knowledge, and tend to hoard their collections with extreme jealousy and secrecy. Servants of these entities tend to shroud meaningful academia through misinformation and by hiding coveted academia.

Occult Apotheosis

At 14th level, you can overwhelm the minds of those around you with your surplus of knowledge. As an action, all creatures of your choice within 60ft must make an Intelligence saving throw or take 8d10 psychic damage and become stunned until the end of their next turn. A creature takes half as much on a success and isn't stunned.

Dreamer

Not all mortals dream often, but every mortal has slumbered and seen the dreamscape their unconscious mind has crafted for them at least once. Sometimes, individuals with especially aberrant and chaotic minds can dream so vividly that they allow entities to form within them, gaining shape and power from the mortal's vivid fantasy. Few are capable of this, and even fewer actually beseech said entity for power, aid, counsel, and purpose. Those that do, find themselves walking a tenuous and often enigmatic path alongside such a creature, awakening to new powers just as the entity within awakens to the world at large.

Awakened Dreamer

At 14th level, your dreams can come to manifest within the waking world. As an action, you can create an aura that spreads out 30 feet in every direction around you. All creatures of your choice, that are within the aura, including you, receive the following effects.

• Upon first entering the aura, a creature gains 20 temporary hit points
• While a creature still has these temporary hit points, they can cast a spell of third level or higher without expending a spell slot. When casting a spell in this way, the creature loses temporary hit points equal to double the level of the spell casted.

Spells

Create Orbit

5th-level transmutation (Wizard, Cosmic Bloodline)

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• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 150 feet
• Components: V, S, M (A miniature clothespin detailing a simplistic view of the Outer Planes)
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

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This spell creates a gravitational orbit in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point within range. All creatures within the range of this sphere, that aren't somehow anchored to the ground, must make a Dexterity saving throw as they are bludgeoned by immense acceleration and other objects picked up in its orbit. On a failure, they take 10d6 bludgeoning damage and are restrained as they fly through the orbit. While restrained in this way, the target cannot make any ranged attacks. On a success, they take half as much damage and escape to an unoccupied space 5 feet outside the sphere.

A target trapped in the sphere cannot willingly move on their own and must use their action to make a Strength (Athletics) check against your spell DC to escape. On a success, the creature is moved to an unoccupied space 5 feet away from the sphere. At the end of a trapped creature's turn, they are moved 15 feet in a direction you choose from where they last were. If this movement would force the creature into a wall or structure, the creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and they are no longer pulled by the orbit.

Loredump

5th-level enchantment (Wizard, Warlock, Artificer)

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Components: V, S, M (A thick book)
• Duration: Instantaneous

You impart a horde of overwhelming useless knowledge on a creature within range. The target must make an Intelligence saving throw or take 5d8 psychic damage and suffer one of the following effects of your choice:

Stupefying Silence. The target can only speak in faltering, stuttering words, and cannot form incantations or coherent sentences. Until the end of the target's next turn, they cannot cast spells requiring verbal components and suffer disadvantage on Charisma saving throws.

Logic Delay. The target's mental faculties are slowed and unable to formulate meaningful strings of thought. Until the end of the target's next turn, they cannot understand any language and suffer disadvantage on Intelligence saving throws.