Notes on the Common Kin

 Here are some notes on the standard D&Dish races (focused on the "how our [x] are different," as you do) for a world I've been blogging about recently, a world which I'm now calling Elden Urd (inspired by Tad Williams' Osten Ard in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy).

Dwarves

Warrior mercenary companies, distilled spirits, artisans in metal and gems. They mostly dwell above ground though not entirely. The dwarven throne has been empty for ages; they are ruled by a republic.

Elves

Descendants of fey trapped in the Cosmos when it was made. To this day they care little for the gods. Extremely long lived and slow to reproduce so they are a dwindling people.

Gnomes

Preservers of some of the knowledge of the Age of Wizard-Kings. Artificers and makers of mechanisms.

Halflings

The people of the plains and meadows, sometimes called "grass runners." Some are settled in sod house villages, work farms and tend flocks, others are itinerant traders and entertainers. 

Tieflings

Descendants of Fiends, the fallen Titans. They sometimes face prejudice from the common folk, but among the sorts of people that consort with adventurers their ancestry hardly merits notice.

The Age of the Wizard-Kings

During the Titan War, the gods empowered human worshippers to serve their cause, and in response, so did some of the titans. The techniques they taught mortals are still employed by adventurers today. When the war was won, some of these champions were able to seize scraps of knowledge and fragments technology from salvaged weapons of the gods and from plundered titan strongholds, even from the outer precincts of Heaven itself. 

One wily titan, eager for revenge against the traitorous gods, gave mortals the secret of the paths of Immortality--a means to make themselves near equal to the gods. When the gods shut the gates of the Overworld, barring mortals from Heaven, their former champions began seeking their own apotheosis. What wouldn't be shared, they reasoned, they would take.

Connecting with the pillars that supported the cosmos--the so-called Spheres of Matter, Energy, Thought, and Time--mortals began to walk the paths to Immortality. In the process, they discovered more secrets of the Cosmos's creators. They developed technology that allowed them to conquer the world and usher in an age of advancement and wonder with flying cities, automata, and sagacious, living libraries. It was also an age of excess and violence with strange monsters crawling from the subterranean laboratories and towering war machines wielding eldritch weapons to lay waste to cities. This time was known as the Age of High Magic or the Age of the Wizard-Kings.

The end of the Age came when internecine fighting had weakened the Wizard-Kings such that they could not defend against a succession of threats: the forces of Chaos launching sorties into the Cosmos, and irruptions of the Underworld caused by the Lich Lords, and continued subversion by the fiends from Hell. In the end, a coup by chromatic dragons toppled the most powerful surviving Wizard-Kings.

The remnants of their power remain, though. In the ruins of sky cities or in the depths of the dungeons they built adventurers still encounter they creations, technology and servitors. Perhaps somewhere the secrets of Immortality await the lucky delver?

The Undying Kings of the Underworld

In the aftermath of the Titan War, with the withdrawal of the gods left from the world, humans were able to seize divine knowledge and tools as spoils of war. This theft would reverberate even far, even to the gloomy halls of the Underworld. 

There were the recently arrived souls of great mages and heroes, fallen in the war either fighting for the titans or the gods. These personalities burning with power and rage at the perceived injustice of the universe, resisted the pull of dissolution. Their souls would not enter the cycle of reincarnation. Without the Unseen Lord, God of the Underworld, to quell their rebellion, they ransacked the cities and forests of the lands of the dead to find a way out. Their frenzy cracked the Underworld itself, and they found themselves on the event horizon of the Negative Energy Plane. 

They stared into the abyss and the abyss stared back. And then, perhaps, something within it spoke. The great mages and heroes discovered a way for their intellects to live beyond death, and even to be returned to their physical bodies. To power these miracles, they would need to build receptacles to house the negative energy. The only accommodation necessary to utilize this new and seemingly endless replacement for their life force was a small one. They would just have to give up their souls.

These nine (so it is believed) Undying Kings, or Lich Lords as they are sometimes called, became the new rulers of the Underworld. When that was accomplished, they sought to extend their reach to the world of the living. They sent tendrils of Underworld rising up, and the swirling mists formed cysts of the land of the dead, the Shadowfells. From these bridgeheads, the lich lords raised armies of undead, led by mighty warriors, called Death Knights.

Their conquest of the world of the living isn't driven merely by a desire for territory. Their goad is the Negative Energy Plane, and its hunger for unmaking and entropy. Their own fates are tied to its eternal appetite, so it's needs are their necessity. The self-centered nature of the Lich Lords has hampered their cooperation, and that combined with the weakening of the Shadowfells in daylight hours has slowed their advancement, but the Undying Kings are not hurried as time is something they have in abundance.

This is part of this setting.

The Houses of the Dragons

The home provinces of the Draconic Empire are ruled by noble houses with a chromatic dragon progenitor. While not all nobles are sorcerers, few without magical aptitude ascend to real power. Those most often undergo the Ritual of Rebirth to be transformed into Dragonborn, a privilege accorded to the draconic-blooded sorcerers as well. 

The great dragons seldom involve themselves in mere human politics; they are mostly content to rest in their lairs and receive what tribute is brought to them--though occasionally they may roam the countryside and take it from the common folk directly. Only the most senior members of the Houses consult with them, and even for that elite, it is a fearful summons to receive.

These are the eleven Great Houses currently. Two houses are in immediate contention for the throne as they are descended from the Empress herself:

• House Argaman: A conservative house in control of the much of the Spine mountains. They field an elite corps of Dragonborn trooped who where a personal guard to the Empress Pyrekhis.
• House Vyssinis: Less martial than many others, Vyssinis controls the fertile lands of the central islands. The wine of their vineyards is prized.  They are stereotyped as politicians, sometimes schemers, rather than fighters.

A third red House is descended from the Empress' slain consort, Angrazar:

• House Porphyrion: Nakedly ambitious, this House both plays to the people and touts its accomplishments on the field of battle. Its formal connections with the other houses are fewer than its Red rivals and it is seen as an upstart.

The other houses, descended from other chromatic dragons, are not directly in contention for the throne, but may support or hinder the three that are:

• The Houses whose progenitor is the green dragon, Esmaragd, 
•     House Harilak: Mystics known for their might at magic and divination. They seek stability within the Empire.
•     House Gwyrth: Holders of rich timberlands and farms. They are ever on the lookout for an opening to advance their own fortunes.
• The House whose progenitor is the black dragon, Mordax,
•     House Melacanthus: Genteel schemers whose swamplands provide the ingredients for the infamous black lotus poisons employed by their assassins.
•     House Karas: Merchants and smugglers, certainly, pirates, possibly, their lands are in the eastern marshes. They care little for who sits on the throne, so long as their operations are not disrupted.
• The houses whose progenitor is the white dragon, Isaz,
•     House Valko: Known for its remote holdings in the northern forests and its powerful sisterhood of sorceresses known as the Snow Witches.
•     House Brimir: Descendants of a tribe of barbarian reavers that worshipped the white wyrm, they hold fortresses along the Northern coast.
• The Houses whose progenitor is the blue dragon, Azarakh,
•     House Lazuran: A House in the arid southern regions with a strong martial heritage. They are scrupulous to appearances and fastidious about honor. They have no favorite among the Red Houses.
•     House Takilt: Strong in the magical arts. They are inclined to house Argaman because of a fondness of tradition.

There are persistent rumors of a hidden twelfth house, Typhon, who are adherents and priests of the Cult of Tiamat and work for her return. If such a group exists, its members live in secret among the other nobles and even common folk.

Preparing for a New Campaign

I think my group will finish up our current campaign in the Land of Azurth this year, and though with months to go some plenty of time to change my mind, I'm in the mood for something different. With a semi-new edition of D&D arriving around that time and other, similar options available (Shadow of the Weird Wizard, 13th Age--possibly with a 2nd edition) it will be a good time to do it, too. My prerequisites are that the system be close enough to D&D so as not to cause undue angst for my players who don't always appreciate new systems and so I have an easy time finding/adapting published material. My experience running at a regular clip for 10 years now is that I need to use premade material a lot to keep it going.

Right now, I'm thinking about expanding on the world introduced in my recent "Draconic Empire" post. Inspired by my recent consumption of some anime with the Japanese version of "generic D&D fantasy" I think that's what it will be with influence from the two settings of various editions of the Sword World rpg and Uresia, as well as hints of more console game-inspired settings like BREAK!!, Fabula Ultima, Exalted, and Icon (though more "standard D&D" than any of those). I also want to utilize as much official D&D "lore" and character options as possible to keep it familiar, though they may be given a slight twist.

Additionally, I'd like to try to capture the passage of time better, something like Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, so I think I'll try to use the Fellowship and Journey rules from One Ring (or it's 5e adaptation).

The Draconic Empire

To its foes, the Draconic Empire is perhaps the greatest threat to the peace. Rapacious and destructive as the chromatic dragons that founded it, it will enslave the free peoples of the world, burning what it cannot hold, either wittingly or unwittingly enacting the vengeance of the chromatic dragon's mother, the elder god, Tiamat. 

In the minds of most of the empires people, the liturgies of its priesthoods and the assurances of its diplomats, the Draconic Empire is the best hope for order and safety in a world beset by Chaos from without and enemies from within. If the Empire's hand must be firm, they contend, it is only because the stakes are so high.

What is not in dispute is that the Empire is the largest and mightiest state in the world. It was born from the rebellion against the Wizard-Kings and their allies whose sins in their pursuit of Immortality led the gods to withdraw their favor, leaving the world to its fate. After a period of war and unrest, a red dragon, mighty and cunning as any of her kind but more ambitious by far, seized a throne for herself and declared her empire. Many other chromatic dragons bowed to her, as did their kin and faithful minions, the hybrid Dragonborn. The Empress and her closest dragon supporters interbred with humans, creating sorcerous bloodlines, the Great Houses, who administer the Empire to this day.

The dread, red Empress has not been seen in some time. Officially, she has gone into seclusion to better focus her efforts on some great endeavor or another, but there are rumors that she simply disappeared and no one knows whither or why.