Apr 29, 2025 10:54 pm
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World Lore
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Apr 29, 2025 11:09 pm
World Truths
The Old World: The savage clans called the Skulde invaded the kingdoms of the Old World. Our armies fell. Most were killed or taken into slavery. Those who escaped set sail aboard anything that would float. After an arduous months-long voyage, the survivors made landfall upon the Ironlands.
Iron: The weather is bleak. Rain and wind sweep in from the ocean. The winters are long and bitter. One of the first settlers complained, "Only those made of iron dare live in this foul place"—and thus our land was named.
Legacies: Other humans sailed here from the Old World untold years ago, but all that is left of them is a savage, feral people we call the Broken. Is their fate to become our own?
Communities: We are few in number in this accursed land. Most rarely have contact with anyone outside our own small steading or village, and strangers are viewed with deep suspicion.
Leaders: Leadership is as varied as the people. Some communities are governed by the head of a powerful family. Or, they have a council of elders who make decisions and settle disputes. In others, the priests hold sway. For some, it is duels in the circle that decide.
Defense: Here in the Ironlands, supplies are too precious, and the lands are too sparsely populated, to support organized fighting forces. When a community is threatened, the people stand together to protect their own.
Mysticism: Magic is rare and dangerous, but those few who wield the power are truly gifted.
Religion: The people honor old gods and new. In this harsh land, a prayer is a simple but powerful comfort.
Firstborn: The firstborn live in isolation and are fiercely protective of their own lands.
Beasts: Monstrous beasts stalk the wild areas of the Ironlands.
Horrors: We are wary of dark forests and deep waterways, for monsters lurk in those places. In the depths of the long-night, when all is wreathed in darkness, only fools venture beyond their homes.
The Old Gods
Niserie of the Five Eyes, Goddess of Knowledge: Niserie is a goddess both revered and feared. Legends say she was once a mortal seer who ascended beyond flesh and time, her spirit blooming into divinity through sheer will and endless seeking. Her five eyes — some say stars, others say moons, others yet say secrets themselves — gaze across all realms: the waking world, the shadowed land of spirits, the deep places of the mind, the strands of fate, and even the broken future.
Her worshippers are few but devoted: scholars who write by guttering candlelight, spies who trade whispers for coin, and wanderers who hunt forbidden truths. Offerings to Niserie are not made with blood, iron, or silver, but with revelations — each truth uncovered, each lie unmasked, is a prayer in her name.
Temples to her are rare, often disguised as libraries, abandoned towers, or lonely monoliths carved with ancient script. Her sigil is an open hand bearing five eyes, one on each finger, a symbol both of welcome and terrible scrutiny.
She is neither kindly nor cruel. To seek her blessing is to invite a flood of knowledge — and the burden it carries.
Katib the Silver Lord, God of Life: Katib is life's first breath and final sigh, the silver thread that runs through all living things. His form is said to shimmer like light on water — a robed figure crowned with a circlet of woven silver, his hands forever outstretched in welcome or warning. It is through Katib's mercy that blood flows, crops grow, and hearts endure.
Wherever life rises stubbornly from the stone and snow, Katib’s touch is felt. Midwives murmur his name during birth; farmers carve his sign into their fields; the dying sometimes glimpse his argent shadow standing quietly at the door, neither rushing nor delaying the inevitable.
His temples are rare and simple: groves where silver leaves glimmer under the sun, springs where the water runs clear even in winter, quiet halls where the sick are tended without payment. His priests are healers, oath-keepers, and, when need be, merciful enders of pain.
Katib’s symbol is a silver spiral — endless, flowing inward and outward at once, symbolizing life's unbroken dance between creation and decay.
He is kind but stern, joyous but grave. To honor Katib is to nurture life fiercely, to protect it without fear — and when the time comes, to let it go with grace.
Ariel, Keeper of Runes, Goddess of Nature: Ariel is the goddess of nature in all its fierce, wild order — not merely forests and beasts, but the deep bones of the earth, the hidden laws that guide the bloom and the flood, the storm and the stillness. They say she carved the first runes into the world's skin: symbols of growth, death, balance, and rebirth, etched into mountain faces, riverbeds, and the bones of ancient beasts.
She is often seen in dreams as a figure cloaked in ivy and mist, her face a shifting mask of seasons — young as spring, old as winter. Her hands are stained with soil and sap...forever creating, forever altering.
Those who revere Ariel do so with offerings of care: planting groves, restoring wild places, healing wounded animals, or honoring the old stones. Her rites are held in secret clearings, at standing stones draped with moss and vine, where initiates whisper her forgotten glyphs into the wind.
Her symbol is a spiral of runes curling outward like a growing vine — each mark alive, each syllable a promise.
Ariel is patient but relentless. Life will endure. Roots will crack stone. Rivers will carve mountains. Her gift is wild grace; her warning is unstoppable change.
Torren the Howling Maw, God of Storms: Torren is the god of storms — not just the rain and thunder, but the untamed fury that breaks ships, flattens towers, and drowns the unready. His presence is felt in every crashing wave, every crack of lightning that splits the sky. Some say he was born from the first scream of the world as it tore itself into sky and sea.
Depicted as a vast, shadowed figure with a gaping mouth from which winds and thunder pour, Torren is less a god of balance and more a god of raw power. He does not punish; he simply is — a force that can neither be bargained with nor ignored.
Fishermen, sailors, and wanderers pray to Torren before daring open waters or mountain passes. Warriors might offer him cries of rage before battle. His shrines are rough and temporary: stone cairns stacked against the wind, driftwood altars lashed together before being claimed again by storm and tide.
His symbol is a jagged spiral or broken circle — like a mouth opened wide, forever devouring.
Torren is wild, merciless, but not evil. His storms cleanse as well as destroy. Those who survive his trials often claim to be forged by him — made stronger, fiercer, more free.
Mara of Nowhere, Goddess of Trickery: Mara is the goddess of trickery, mischief, and illusion — but not simple laughter or petty theft. She is the deep, unsettling truth that the world itself is a labyrinth of shifting mirrors. No oath is too sacred, no law too rigid, no fortress too strong to escape her touch. She's the whisper of laughter when a plan unravels or a certainty proves false.
Legends say Mara was born from the void between the stars, a place of endless possibility where nothing is what it seems. She is often imagined as a hooded woman with many masks, each grinning or weeping or sneering — and yet her true face is said to be unknowable, even to the gods themselves.
Those who honor Mara are spies, gamblers, jesters, and wanderers. They leave offerings of riddles, broken coins, or half-finished songs at crossroads, ruins, and old wells. Her "temples" are places between places — a flickering campfire that vanishes at dawn, a forgotten road that leads somewhere new.
Her symbol is a crossroads with no center: four roads meeting, but instead of a center point, there’s only empty space — a blank hole or swirling void. A mark of Mara’s love for choices that lead nowhere, and paths that trick the traveler.
Mara is not cruel for cruelty’s sake; she teaches through uncertainty, reminding mortals that pride, certainty, and power are illusions waiting to be shattered.
Gagardin the Red Dragon, God of War: Gagardin is the god of war — not just the clash of armies, but the spirit of conflict that shapes all things: the forging of warriors, the testing of strength, the burning away of weakness.
He is said to have taken the form of a vast red dragon whose wings could blot out the sun, whose breath turned armies to ash. Some say he was the first to wage war against the gods themselves — and though it is also said that he was defeated, he was not destroyed.
To follow Gagardin is to embrace strife not as tragedy, but as a crucible. Warriors, chieftains, and conquerors call upon him before battle, offering him broken weapons, spilled blood, or the ashes of fallen foes. His faithful do not seek peace; they seek worthy enemies, fierce struggles, and a death remembered in song.
His temples are fortresses and pyres — places of stone and flame, where weapons hang like offerings to the inevitable. Great banners, scorched and torn, bear his sign.
His symbol is a flaming spear crossing a broken shield — a mark that says, victory or death, both are gifts.
Gagardin is fierce, but also has some semblance of honor. He respects courage, despises cowardice, and demands that power be earned, never given. His followers aren't supposed to slaughter innocents, or engage in crass manipulations and subterfuge.
There are many New Gods, but the two most prevalent are listed below.
Veyla, the Waking Mirror, Goddess of Transformation: Veyla is the New Goddess of transformation, ambition, and the hunger to become more. She is worshiped among the restless, those who believe the world should be shaped to their dreams, not accepted as it is.
Veyla appears as a figure cloaked in shards of mirrored glass, shifting and remaking herself constantly — sometimes a queen, sometimes a beggar, sometimes something entirely inhuman.
Her faithful build shining temples filled with trinkets, places where prayers are whispered not for forgiveness, but for opportunity. Success, beauty, power, escape — Veyla offers glimpses of them all, if the price is paid.
Her symbol is a broken mirror, pieced back together but forever flawed — a reminder that no transformation comes without cost.
Orvann, Keeper of the Forge, God of Invention: Orvann is the god of creation hidden in shadow — invention, cunning, and the quiet, relentless forging of new things. Where Gagardin rages in battle and Ariel sings life into the woods, Orvann works in stillness: the silent workshop, the hidden plan, the unnoticed hand guiding fate.
He is depicted as a hunched figure of soot and ember, hammering unseen at a forge that glows beneath the world. It is said Orvann gave mortals their first tools, their first machines — and their first ambitions to master even the gods themselves.
Those who revere Orvann are inventors, spies, conquerors who also want to build a legacy. His shrines are hidden in back alleys, deep mines, and behind false doors.
His symbol is a single glowing coal cupped in a blackened hand.
The Old World: The savage clans called the Skulde invaded the kingdoms of the Old World. Our armies fell. Most were killed or taken into slavery. Those who escaped set sail aboard anything that would float. After an arduous months-long voyage, the survivors made landfall upon the Ironlands.
Iron: The weather is bleak. Rain and wind sweep in from the ocean. The winters are long and bitter. One of the first settlers complained, "Only those made of iron dare live in this foul place"—and thus our land was named.
Legacies: Other humans sailed here from the Old World untold years ago, but all that is left of them is a savage, feral people we call the Broken. Is their fate to become our own?
Communities: We are few in number in this accursed land. Most rarely have contact with anyone outside our own small steading or village, and strangers are viewed with deep suspicion.
Leaders: Leadership is as varied as the people. Some communities are governed by the head of a powerful family. Or, they have a council of elders who make decisions and settle disputes. In others, the priests hold sway. For some, it is duels in the circle that decide.
Defense: Here in the Ironlands, supplies are too precious, and the lands are too sparsely populated, to support organized fighting forces. When a community is threatened, the people stand together to protect their own.
Mysticism: Magic is rare and dangerous, but those few who wield the power are truly gifted.
Religion: The people honor old gods and new. In this harsh land, a prayer is a simple but powerful comfort.
Firstborn: The firstborn live in isolation and are fiercely protective of their own lands.
Beasts: Monstrous beasts stalk the wild areas of the Ironlands.
Horrors: We are wary of dark forests and deep waterways, for monsters lurk in those places. In the depths of the long-night, when all is wreathed in darkness, only fools venture beyond their homes.
The Old Gods
Niserie of the Five Eyes, Goddess of Knowledge: Niserie is a goddess both revered and feared. Legends say she was once a mortal seer who ascended beyond flesh and time, her spirit blooming into divinity through sheer will and endless seeking. Her five eyes — some say stars, others say moons, others yet say secrets themselves — gaze across all realms: the waking world, the shadowed land of spirits, the deep places of the mind, the strands of fate, and even the broken future.
Her worshippers are few but devoted: scholars who write by guttering candlelight, spies who trade whispers for coin, and wanderers who hunt forbidden truths. Offerings to Niserie are not made with blood, iron, or silver, but with revelations — each truth uncovered, each lie unmasked, is a prayer in her name.
Temples to her are rare, often disguised as libraries, abandoned towers, or lonely monoliths carved with ancient script. Her sigil is an open hand bearing five eyes, one on each finger, a symbol both of welcome and terrible scrutiny.
She is neither kindly nor cruel. To seek her blessing is to invite a flood of knowledge — and the burden it carries.
Katib the Silver Lord, God of Life: Katib is life's first breath and final sigh, the silver thread that runs through all living things. His form is said to shimmer like light on water — a robed figure crowned with a circlet of woven silver, his hands forever outstretched in welcome or warning. It is through Katib's mercy that blood flows, crops grow, and hearts endure.
Wherever life rises stubbornly from the stone and snow, Katib’s touch is felt. Midwives murmur his name during birth; farmers carve his sign into their fields; the dying sometimes glimpse his argent shadow standing quietly at the door, neither rushing nor delaying the inevitable.
His temples are rare and simple: groves where silver leaves glimmer under the sun, springs where the water runs clear even in winter, quiet halls where the sick are tended without payment. His priests are healers, oath-keepers, and, when need be, merciful enders of pain.
Katib’s symbol is a silver spiral — endless, flowing inward and outward at once, symbolizing life's unbroken dance between creation and decay.
He is kind but stern, joyous but grave. To honor Katib is to nurture life fiercely, to protect it without fear — and when the time comes, to let it go with grace.
Ariel, Keeper of Runes, Goddess of Nature: Ariel is the goddess of nature in all its fierce, wild order — not merely forests and beasts, but the deep bones of the earth, the hidden laws that guide the bloom and the flood, the storm and the stillness. They say she carved the first runes into the world's skin: symbols of growth, death, balance, and rebirth, etched into mountain faces, riverbeds, and the bones of ancient beasts.
She is often seen in dreams as a figure cloaked in ivy and mist, her face a shifting mask of seasons — young as spring, old as winter. Her hands are stained with soil and sap...forever creating, forever altering.
Those who revere Ariel do so with offerings of care: planting groves, restoring wild places, healing wounded animals, or honoring the old stones. Her rites are held in secret clearings, at standing stones draped with moss and vine, where initiates whisper her forgotten glyphs into the wind.
Her symbol is a spiral of runes curling outward like a growing vine — each mark alive, each syllable a promise.
Ariel is patient but relentless. Life will endure. Roots will crack stone. Rivers will carve mountains. Her gift is wild grace; her warning is unstoppable change.
Torren the Howling Maw, God of Storms: Torren is the god of storms — not just the rain and thunder, but the untamed fury that breaks ships, flattens towers, and drowns the unready. His presence is felt in every crashing wave, every crack of lightning that splits the sky. Some say he was born from the first scream of the world as it tore itself into sky and sea.
Depicted as a vast, shadowed figure with a gaping mouth from which winds and thunder pour, Torren is less a god of balance and more a god of raw power. He does not punish; he simply is — a force that can neither be bargained with nor ignored.
Fishermen, sailors, and wanderers pray to Torren before daring open waters or mountain passes. Warriors might offer him cries of rage before battle. His shrines are rough and temporary: stone cairns stacked against the wind, driftwood altars lashed together before being claimed again by storm and tide.
His symbol is a jagged spiral or broken circle — like a mouth opened wide, forever devouring.
Torren is wild, merciless, but not evil. His storms cleanse as well as destroy. Those who survive his trials often claim to be forged by him — made stronger, fiercer, more free.
Mara of Nowhere, Goddess of Trickery: Mara is the goddess of trickery, mischief, and illusion — but not simple laughter or petty theft. She is the deep, unsettling truth that the world itself is a labyrinth of shifting mirrors. No oath is too sacred, no law too rigid, no fortress too strong to escape her touch. She's the whisper of laughter when a plan unravels or a certainty proves false.
Legends say Mara was born from the void between the stars, a place of endless possibility where nothing is what it seems. She is often imagined as a hooded woman with many masks, each grinning or weeping or sneering — and yet her true face is said to be unknowable, even to the gods themselves.
Those who honor Mara are spies, gamblers, jesters, and wanderers. They leave offerings of riddles, broken coins, or half-finished songs at crossroads, ruins, and old wells. Her "temples" are places between places — a flickering campfire that vanishes at dawn, a forgotten road that leads somewhere new.
Her symbol is a crossroads with no center: four roads meeting, but instead of a center point, there’s only empty space — a blank hole or swirling void. A mark of Mara’s love for choices that lead nowhere, and paths that trick the traveler.
Mara is not cruel for cruelty’s sake; she teaches through uncertainty, reminding mortals that pride, certainty, and power are illusions waiting to be shattered.
Gagardin the Red Dragon, God of War: Gagardin is the god of war — not just the clash of armies, but the spirit of conflict that shapes all things: the forging of warriors, the testing of strength, the burning away of weakness.
He is said to have taken the form of a vast red dragon whose wings could blot out the sun, whose breath turned armies to ash. Some say he was the first to wage war against the gods themselves — and though it is also said that he was defeated, he was not destroyed.
To follow Gagardin is to embrace strife not as tragedy, but as a crucible. Warriors, chieftains, and conquerors call upon him before battle, offering him broken weapons, spilled blood, or the ashes of fallen foes. His faithful do not seek peace; they seek worthy enemies, fierce struggles, and a death remembered in song.
His temples are fortresses and pyres — places of stone and flame, where weapons hang like offerings to the inevitable. Great banners, scorched and torn, bear his sign.
His symbol is a flaming spear crossing a broken shield — a mark that says, victory or death, both are gifts.
Gagardin is fierce, but also has some semblance of honor. He respects courage, despises cowardice, and demands that power be earned, never given. His followers aren't supposed to slaughter innocents, or engage in crass manipulations and subterfuge.
There are many New Gods, but the two most prevalent are listed below.
Veyla, the Waking Mirror, Goddess of Transformation: Veyla is the New Goddess of transformation, ambition, and the hunger to become more. She is worshiped among the restless, those who believe the world should be shaped to their dreams, not accepted as it is.
Veyla appears as a figure cloaked in shards of mirrored glass, shifting and remaking herself constantly — sometimes a queen, sometimes a beggar, sometimes something entirely inhuman.
Her faithful build shining temples filled with trinkets, places where prayers are whispered not for forgiveness, but for opportunity. Success, beauty, power, escape — Veyla offers glimpses of them all, if the price is paid.
Her symbol is a broken mirror, pieced back together but forever flawed — a reminder that no transformation comes without cost.
Orvann, Keeper of the Forge, God of Invention: Orvann is the god of creation hidden in shadow — invention, cunning, and the quiet, relentless forging of new things. Where Gagardin rages in battle and Ariel sings life into the woods, Orvann works in stillness: the silent workshop, the hidden plan, the unnoticed hand guiding fate.
He is depicted as a hunched figure of soot and ember, hammering unseen at a forge that glows beneath the world. It is said Orvann gave mortals their first tools, their first machines — and their first ambitions to master even the gods themselves.
Those who revere Orvann are inventors, spies, conquerors who also want to build a legacy. His shrines are hidden in back alleys, deep mines, and behind false doors.
His symbol is a single glowing coal cupped in a blackened hand.