Campaign Information - Global Scale

This thread contains general information about the campaign world as it is understood by the world's inhabitants. That's an important distinction because, if I was writing this from the perspective of 12th Century Earth, you would see it factually stated down there that the Earth is flat.

Don't be surprised if something turns out to be incomplete or not true. Conversely, don't be surprised if it's all 100% true. This is just what almost every child born to the world would "know" about it by the age of ten.

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Section 1. The Gods and the Creation Myth



The Creation of the Prime Material Plane
In the beginning, our realm was void and without form or substance, and the gods knew the harmony and unity of a combined will and a collective harmony of life. Then one day, in the realm of the gods, an adolescent lesser deity named Schyzem developed a sickness. Unlike all the other gods and goddesses, who were able to remain ethereal and omnipresent, Schyzem's form started to become more firm, and found that his senses were more attuned and lively than they'd been on the ethereal plane. Schyzem referred to the disease as "corporeality", in deference to a word in the Holy Languages which means 'mixed blessings'. He travelled across the heavens to a place where he could reach Biveshin and seek counsel. But Biveshin soon fell ill as well, as did many of the other gods and goddesses.

In their corporeal forms, they found that they could create all forms of life that they'd never envisioned before, and enjoy the passions and pleasures of the mortal existence. However, they soon found that the longer they remained in our realm, the longer their personalities were tainted with thoughts of good and evil, right and wrong. Conflict erupted, and then war, and for the first time, the gods knew pain. Shattered by the experience, they rushed to find a way to reverse the effects, and discovered that all that they needed to return again to the purity of their own realm was to give up the connection which bound them to Schyzem - the ability to perceive each others' thoughts and emotions and understand each others' point of view.

Thinking that anything was better than the pain, they did so, leaving Schyzem alone in corporeality and departing to their world. The damage had been done, though, and although the pain had stopped, their differences of opinion multiplied, and their ethics remained diverged. Schyzem, meanwhile, took refuge in the worlds that the gods had created, bridging the gap between the mortal and divine realms and acting as the God of Death, escorting the souls of the departed to the deity which coveted them.

Section 2. Basic World Facts

* The planet Concordia is believed to have been created by Schyzem Himself, as His final act before delving into slumber and leaving the job of ferrying souls into the next world to the care of His minions. The precise location of His sleeping chambers on the planet remains unknown, though it is said that when infirmed elves feel the old age urge to leave their communes, it is to His place that they travel.

* Concordia has six continents, and according to legend, each of the civilized races - humans, elves, dragons, leerans, dwarves and halflings - was given a continent to call home.

* The planet is the third in a solar system of eight, and is believed to be the only one on which Schyzem allowed sentient life to blossom.

* Two moons, Goed and Kwaad, orbit Concordia, with lunar cycles of 20 and 34 days respectively.

* There are 252 days in a year, comprised of 12 months with 20 days each and 2 "holy internums" with 6 days each.

* The months of the year are:


*The days of the week are named:
kri-Ahn
kri-Beht
kri-Ciuu
kri-Docht
kri-eRoc
kri-Fiquy
Galadosh

* Because "luck" (DM planning) caused each day of the week and each month of the year to begin with a different letter, date shorthand usually involves just the key letter. For example, "kri-Ahn, the 12th day of OchiadMa, 716" would be shorthanded to A12O716 when written in the Common tongue. IL and IR are used for the two Internums, respectively.

* Each campaign post will include the date and time, and the phases of the two moons.

There's a neat website I remembered that lets you plug your calendar system in and get a flawless calendar. Here's the data that you plug into it:

{"year_len":252,"events":1,"n_months":14,"months":["IchMa","DuxMa","TrihMa","QualMa","CetMa","HejjMa","Internum of Life","OchiadMa","NewliMa","SiediiMa","VodiiMa","XoldiiMa","MaaedMa","Internum of Renewal"],"month_len":{"IchMa":20,"DuxMa":20,"TrihMa":20,"QualMa":20,"CetMa":20,"HejjMa":20,"Internum of Life":6,"OchiadMa":20,"NewliMa":20,"SiediiMa":20,"VodiiMa":20,"XoldiiMa":20,"MaaedMa":20,"Internum of Renewal":6},"week_len":7,"weekdays":["kri-Ahn","kri-Beht","kri-Ciuu","kri-Docht","kri-eRoc","kri-Fiquy","Galadosh"],"n_moons":2,"moons":["Goed","Kwaad"],"lunar_cyc":{"Goed":20,"Kwaad":34},"lunar_shf":{"Goed":0,"Kwaad":20},"year":1184,"first_day":4,"notes":{}}

Section 3. Key World History Events

About eighteeen thousand years ago, the Great Campaign began. This was an almost simultaneous, biological urge for the six races to intermingle with one another. This was a golden age for the planet, in which the food supply tripled, poverty and crime were barely existant and the technology level rose to the point where magical tomes could be run through a printing press, mechanical clocks could tell time, and great telescopes could see out into the solar system. Half breed races like the half-elves trace their lineage to this age.

In all things, the Leerans tended to hold a dominant role in society, but everyone believed that this was simply the result of fair and honest competition. Until a few half-Leerans came into existance and revealed the startling truth - that the entire leeran race was possessed of the ability the gods left behind, the natural psychic power to read others' thoughts and emotions completely.

Uprisings occured on all the continents, and much of what was gained during the Golden Age was lost. In the end, every last pureblooded leeran was hunted down and killed, but most of the other races were similarly decimated. None of their numbers ever did recover, although humans did reproduce about three times as fast as any of the others. The time was ripe for the degenerate races to evolve.

Some say that the orcs, gnomes, goblins, and other races were genetically engineered by the leerans towards the end - the spiteful biological weapon of a dying race. Whether this is true or not, what is known is that the degenerate races, while not as intelligent as the civilized ones, have one major advantage - they reproduce like rabbits, faster even than the humans. As the fragmented post war societies rebuilt and new governments were formed, the people found themselves needing to be consistently vigilant against attack.

The Second World Meeting
According to Legend, when the Leerans were defeated 15,000 years ago and Portal Magic was lost to the world, the six continents were completely closed off to one another. Inexplicably harsh oceans prevented extensive sea travel, and no intercontinental communication was possible. But all of that changed a thousand years ago when a dwarven archaeologist on the former Leeran continent, accompanied by a team of adventurers, was able to successfully navigate to an ancient island pyramid, turn off one of the beacons which was apparently causing the harsh ocean weather, and use an old scrying system to establish communication with the other continents once again. The first signal was as wide-band as one can get - every man, woman and child on the planet received the sudden Sending from the dwarf, providing instruction for arcane casters on how to bring the various nations' rulers or their representatives into a demiplane of thought during a significant lunar alignment for a summit meeting of global significance, what would become known as the Second World Meeting. A young orcish tribe that had developed on the western part of Edronn, the former Leeran continent, had a gifted and wizened elder who was able to perform the rituals required, and their Chieftain, Yarik Oolann, eagerly joined the meeting's attendance, happy for the recognition of equality with the other races and eager to bring peace and prosperity to his corner of the world.

That didn't quite match the agenda of the other delegates.

Yarik learned some hard lessons that day; that he and his orcish brethren were considered by extracontinental forces to be nothing more than a parasite race created by the Leerans to stick it to the true owners of the planet. That the invitation wasn't selective because it couldn't be, otherwise he would never have been considered worthy enough to be there. The story says that even in the face of that bigotry, Yarik attempted to be reasonable and rational, asserting that since he was there, perhaps they could still find an accord that would allow everyone to coexist in harmonious solidarity. To suggest that the idea was rejected out of hand is to understate it. Violence in the demiplane was supposed to be impossible, but they expelled him by striking him with some kind of specialized radiant weapon, ripping a beam of pure light into his back that followed him to his real body in our world. This mark, the Lightscar, is where his future empire would take it's name from.

Once returned to his tribe, Yarik Lightscar was infuriated, and insisted that if his people could not assert their right to exist peacefully, then they would do so by using their superior strength to MAKE the world listen. He challenged his tribe to expand beyond their borders, vowing that his grandson's grandson would sit on the throne of the human kingdom that he inhabited. So began a long campaign that nearly wiped his tribe out, but with the help of other likeminded allies among the kobold race, Yarik's descendents made good on his promise, and the nation of Dailinor became the first territory, known as the Lightscar Nation. Seizing it was a pittance compared to the challenge of holding it, as this first successful orcish campaign resulted in a coalition of human nations dedicated to ensuring that their spread would go no further. Thousands of orcs and kobolds died defending their new border, and it took nearly a hundred years for the human nations to finally concede the territory entirely.

Since then, the Lightscar Empire has conquered several other nation territories. Most recently, near the year one thousand, Warchief Naj Lesez personally held a millennial new year's celebration from the throne of Castle Owlstone, in what used to be the nation of Brecca.

For those who have declared worship of a God or Goddess, this is where you find information about your chosen deity.

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