Setting stuff goes here

1.0 - Recent History ~

A terribly bad magical thing happened about eighty years ago which resulted directly or indirectly in the removal of the organised leadership structures of a most of the countries in the known civilised world.

2.0 - Science and Magic ~

Science in the forms of Kemics (a derivation of Alchemic) and metallurgy have been developing slowly along safe avenues for the last fifty years or so. Recreational drugs with soft mood changing effects are commonplace throughout the civilised world. The easy production of an alloy known as tortured steel which is capable of being fashioned into springs which can be wound incredibly tightly has led to a range of new, although somewhat noisy ranged weapons known as springbows. These are now common armaments for the majority of military and guard / watch forces.

Places

Jali ~

Key Words: Safe, Cautious, Neutral, Powerful

Terrain: Flat, Arable, Rivers. The capital Jalithan sprawls across a reasonable portion of the country.

Rulership: Council advising a ruling Theocrat. Current ruler is the High Priest of Inia, who has been in charge since the beginning of the Age of Caution (Approx 50 years).

Relationships: Jali has strong involvement with almost all of the known civilised world both through trade and militarily. While Jali doesn't have a large standing army it has unparalleled special forces who are able to act to secure Jali's interests in the world.

Jali also provides authentication and verification for more exotic trade goods and jealously defends it's status as the place you need to get approval from if you're trading in anything unusual.

Morn ~

Key Words: Money, capitalism, aristocracy

Terrain: Hills and swamps. Low stone walls and coniferous trees.

Rulership: Bank

Relationships: Trade

Morn is a capitalist meritocracy, here money is power. After the shattering, Morn's various feudal lords entered into a vicious and bloody struggle for power, which settled into a stalemate between three lords who were unable to gain any real edge over each other, but all of whom had wound up in debt to the same moneylender in the course of their conquests. Under the threat of calling in his debts, the moneylender positioned himself as ruler and now the aristocracy of Morn purchase their titles from the bank yearly.

Morn believes in trade and the free flow of money, but is subscribed to the shattering accord and so will only countenance trade in approved kemics.

Rivermeet ~

Key Words: Independent city state

Terrain:

Rulership:

Relationships:

The Almighty Dominion of Zun ~

Key Words: Religious, dictatorship, military, expansionist

Terrain: Dry, sandy, arid.

Rulership: The Almighty Dominion of Zun is, unsurprisingly, ruled a s controlled by the church of Zun in line with the faith's beliefs.

Relationships: The Dominion has a very rocky relationship with it's immediate neighbours as a direct consequence of trying to repeatedly annex them over the last 50 years.

In the aftermath of the great disaster that marked the transition from the age of progress to the age of caution, a group of Zunites decided to impose their own brand of order over the small kingdom they were resident in. Their success was so great that they were able to gain control over three adjacent kingdoms before a solid opposition to them could be mustered.

The Shattered Kingdoms ~

Key Words: Monarchy, military, conflict

Terrain: Greatly varied

Rulership: Each of the 7 shattered kingdoms is ruled over by a single ruler, however as each of the kingdoms shares a border with the Almighty Dominion of Zun, they have a strong military alliance and it could be argued that the High Commander of their joint forces truly holds the power.

Relationships: Relationships between the kingdoms are often strained as a result of half a decade of intermittent war with a barely contained enemy. In fact, all their relationships are defined in terms of the ongoing conflict.

The Void ~

Key Words: Foggy, Alien, Empty, Fast Travel

Terrain: Fog over hard stone, punctuated by bright tears back into the real world.

Rulership: None .

Relationships:

The void is widely agreed by scholars to be a space outside the normal world with hundreds of connections between it and the world scattered throughout it. Spots of light are visible through the perpetual fog, creating a bizarre, flat constellation that allows trained individuals to navigate. These spots of light look like brilliant white ragged spheres that allow travel from the void back to the real world, those leading to major cities where the gates exploded are brightest of all, and they are roughly, but not exactly correlated in layout to the distribution of those gates in the actual world.

Travelling back to the world from the void is as simple as walking into a twist point from the void side but getting to the void in the first place is harder, not least because twist points aren't visible or even usually "open" in the world.

Unity of Harmony ~

Key Words: Commune, isolationist

Terrain: Forested, arable

Rulership: Limited

Relationships: Almost none, as the unity has been in isolation since the shattering.

Faiths

Cereth - Goddess of Progress ~

Beliefs: Death is preferable to stagnation.

Structure: Somewhat diminished.

Inia - Lady of Preservation ~

Beliefs: Change is bad.

Structure: Hierarchical, with a very, very strong base of power in Jali, where the high priest is the ruler of the country, and the country has strong influence over it's neighbours.

Megdus - The Destroyer ~

Beliefs: Don't get so attached to things. Megdus teaches that no one should become overly attached to material possessions. Worshipers of Megdus take a wide variety of approaches to this, with some living a minimalist life, others carefully trading away all their possessions over time and a select few seeking out items that others have become too attached to and removing them.

Structure: There are understated shrines and areas of worship to Megdus scattered across civilised lands, with most run or tended by a priest. The church doesn't have a particularly strong political presence at any level.

Nasset - Bladefall ~

Beliefs: Nasset is the patron of combat. His church teaches that martial discipline in all forms can be a good and positive influence on an individual, and teaches it's followers to fight well and honourably, but only when necessary.

Structure: Nasset's churches often double as training areas for a variety of martial disciplines appropriate to the area they're in. Prayer and more traditional observances are a core part of worship. Each Church is run by a Master-At-Arms, with regional oversight from a Grand-Master-At-Arms. The highest rank in the church is the Supreme-Master-At-Arms, who sits on the Grand Council in Jali. Unlike the Zunite church, advancement through the ranks is made by the recommendation of more senior church members.

Ritt - The Chancer, The Gambler ~

Beliefs: Chance favours those in motion. Fortune sides with those who dare. Luck is blind.

Structure: No fixed pattern for places of worship, shrines and churches about the place often near places where people might gamble or are very much down on their luck.

The Wanderer - The stranger in the dark ~

Beliefs: The church of the wanderer has but two rules: Permit no tyranny and make an impression. It encourages standing up for what's right and not letting evil happen unchallenged. There are also rumors that there is a third commandment that has something to do with hunting demons.

Structure: The structure of the church of the wanderer is hard to discern. Many of his clerics operate as vigilantes or bounty hunters and as such don't advertise where they operate from. There are shrines all over the place though, often maintained and supported by those who've been helped by a member of the church in the past. It is known that the church has large resources, generous benefactors and a wide reach even if it has few open worshipers.

Zun - The Mighty ~

Beliefs: The strong should rule the weak. A strong man should never bend his knee to a weaker man.

Structure: Strongly hierarchical, with it's rulership based in the kingdoms it holds to the south. Advancement is mainly through single combat.