Dice Orizon D&D Campaign [Lore & Other]

[Adamented]

Dungeons&Dragons 5th Edition Campaign__________________________________​

• Orizon
• Intro
• Classes
• Races
• Religion
• Society
• Magic
• History
• Geography
• Sheets
• Links
• Equipment
• Credits

• The Idea
  A post-apocalyptic world of unpredictable magic and perilous dangers, Orizon contains islands of floating dirt and stone that support people above a hostile ground of disasters, wild magic, monsters and marauders. The people in the skies above live on the skylands, catching the windfish that swim through the sky and sailing aboard majestic airships that ride the winds well above the ground below.
  This is a world of kings and empires, dragons and elves, navies and pirates, sailors and swashbucklers. With wild trade winds, deep forests and other expansive swaths of nature.
  
  
• 
  
  ____A Summary of the History
  Orizon was once technologically and magically advanced, a utopia of empires that were united to create works of spectacular magical infrastructure. Chaotic monsters were exterminated or enslaved, and the more powerful ones were sealed away to stop them from spreading. Small rebellions and disputes caused the period of peace and prosperity to crumble, and the empires eventually descended into an all out war. The nations turned their productions from public good to offensive military might, and turned on each other in a war that some believe continued for almost a century.
  
  The breaking was a massive explosion that encompassed the entire globe, caused by a group of peacemongers' attempts to shut down the technomagical infrastructure in hopes of ending the war by ceasing any nation’s ability to function. Raw wild magic explosions occurred frequenty, the energy of which created tremendous devastation of natural disasters, ruptures in the plane itself, and releasing wild, random enchantments. The disaster enchanted entire landmasses- casting them into the sky and leaving them to hang there forever, turned the once great empires into ruins, destroyed the entirety of infrastructure and society, and was responsible for the loss of the systems for crafting magical items and technological equipment.
  
  Monsters began carving out their own territory while survivors built fortifications, knowledge of the old world was gradually lost, as the remaining technomagical items began to rust and break, or were drained of power or destroyed in the conflicts between the survivors and the monstrous races. Survivors came to discover floatwood, lumber that resists the pull of gravity, and began making journeys to the lower skylands in simple airships.
  
  While Dwarves made their way to the surface, the Elves that were trapped in the underground after the breaking moved deeper into the earth, time adapting them to their environment as they transformed into true Drow. Empires rose slowly along with new technologies, then expanded as airship technologies improved and flying mounts were tamed, or crumbled as monsters, war, or intrigue overwhelmed them. Airship technologies improved to unseen lengths, they could travel further than ever before, and the expansion of trade has also helped piracy to become a more viable business plan.
  
  
• • Artificer
  • Barbarian
  • Bard
  • Blood Hunter
  • Cleric
  • Druid
  • Fighter
  • Monk
  • Paladin
  • Ranger
  • Rogue
  • Sorcerer
  • Warlock
  • Wizard

  • The artificers of Orizon have helped countless people with the tools they develop and the skills they hone. Some of them are building off the shoulders of giants, rebuilding commissioned tools. Others are consummate inventors, creating new and interesting devices that draw from the flow of magic. Some artificers work within the lab, studying texts and tomes and researching the skills of artifice. Other artificers decide that they belong in the field, recovering ancient items for study or building things to match the needs of the places they visit.
    The best artificers are inventive, prone to leaps of insight matched with detailed, exhaustive, preparation. Like wizards, artificers make exhaustive study of the nature of magic. Wizards look for insight into the nature of the flow and skills with weaves. Artificers are more practical, they have to find a middle ground between magic and the sciences. Artificers are chemists and engineers as much as they are arcanists. Alchemists that travel the world are practical, they need to be able to improvise and find new and exiting applications of their technology.
    Skilled artificers have lucrative careers ahead of them, weaving magic into objects that anyone can use requires both dexterous hands and a nimble mind, along with years of study. For some, these tools are the only opportunity people will have to hold magic in their hands and can give someone an amazing resource to take with them. For adventurers a solidly constructed magic item can mean the difference between life and death.
    The steady advancement of new technologies in the world of Orizon has been a boon for artificers. Printing presses has made it easier to document and share scientific findings. The advancement of gunpowder has sent many artificers scrambling to find new ways to advance on that technology.
    pg.1
    
  • On Orizon, the rise of the barbarian was directly tied to the collapse of civilization and the impossibility of infrastructure. A wild world like the ranges of Orizon are places where people can find a place for themselves on the brutal fringes. They build a place for themselves with strength of will, or strength of arms where will fails them.
    There are many dangers in Orizon and many regions are savage lands, where everything is a struggle. Fierce warriors grow out of these lands, and they spread out through their territories, exploring the ruins of peoples that could not survive the savage lands, or fending off attackers and invaders.
    Sometimes these peoples leave, and venture out into the world at large. These people are rough and tumble in the unprepared civilizations, but their brutal bluntness makes them an “efficient” addition to a city. In “civilized” spaces a barbarian is a bruiser or a force of strength. militaries value barbarians as irregulars or brutes, though they are difficult to place with a formal regiment.
    A true barbarian may be considered by some to be anathema to civilization. They are blunt and violent, driven by their emotion or a connection to the totems and iconography of the wild. However, their strength and simplicity has sometimes made them the foundation of bringing civilization as well as breaking it, there are many tiny kingdoms ruled by a barbarian lord who decided they could simply build themselves a lordship.
    pg.40
    
    Bloodrage Savage (Blood Magic subclass)
    pg.6
    
  • In the skylands bards learn their trade from an apprenticeship system in association with bardic colleges that consider themselves the keepers of history and culture. These colleges are cultural centers and keep extensive records of songs and stories that traveling bards collect. These schools are also focused on general education, most children are expected to spend some time with the harper tutors learning simple lessons and songs to help them with reading, writing and arithmetic. One of the duties of apprentice bards in the skylands is traveling to more remote skylands to teach there for a year or two.
    On the ground bards are frequently members of the nomadic caravans, traveling the world and singing songs and telling stories. These bards usually taught by fellow members of the caravans in communities referred to as “traditions,” these traditions record the history of their caravan through an oral history of songs and myths. Other members of the traditions range out into the world to find new stories and new places for the caravan to travel, or travel to meet other caravans and share between the traditions, or to settled territories to see who will share with the nomadic peoples.
    Some bards are simple entertainers, but their foundation in the skills built up by the bardic institutions makes them valuable in their niche. Though there are many people capable of playing music or displays of skill and performance ability bards are on a completely different tier, there is a magic to what they do, both literally and metaphorically. Bards are focused on their art and they are intensely skilled at performing it.
    pg.45
    
  • 
    pg.1
    
  • The gods are the most active in Orizon through their chosen clerics. Most clerics in Orizon belong to an established religious hierarchy, but some do not. The gods choose whom they will, and sometimes a simple devoted worshiper is blessed with the abilities of a cleric, despite not being at all affiliated with a formal religious order or organization. That cleric might be a contemplative hermit, a wandering prophet, or simply a devout peasant. The most extreme are luckless unknowns that a deity may have observed something special in.
    Religious orders will often try to recruit these people who gain clerical ability and bring them into the fold, both to temper their actions and to try to gain insight into their gods through their choice of cleric. But not all wish to be bound to the order of a church. Conversely, not everyone who pursues a religious vocation is a true cleric. Some acolytes discover a different path for their lives, they serve their faiths in other roles, such as priests, scholars, or artisans, while some go on to vocations that have nothing to do with religion.
    Some few who are denied the path of the cleric become embittered and seek favor with Incancatus and its fiends, or the outside entities. Religious scholars debate whether divine rejection led such a person to embrace this dark path or whether the person was rejected because the gods foresaw this in them. The gods will not say.
    Some clerics are homebodies who serve a particular community of the faithful, but adventuring clerics tend to have a certain crusading zeal to do their deity’s work in the wider world. This work may include ministering to far-flung communities, or seeking out and defeating threats to the civilized world.
    The existence of clerics is the surest sign of a true god over a lesser powerful entity. Feylords, for example, have no clerics. Neither do fiends, though they may have priests or warlocks. Only a true god may empower a cleric with divine energies.
    pg.50
    
  • Druids are people who have turned their veneration to nature and the natural world. They have found insights and reverence in the subtle and powerful rhythms of nature. They venerate nature and the gods of the natural world, from the true gods to the myriad nature spirits and the fey.
    Though most people associate druids with the forests, druids do not restrict themselves to such limited bounds. Druids are the appointed caretakers of all of the land, from frozen mountain peaks, to burning deserts. Druids tend to the rolling hills and the rough storm-broken coasts. Some druids have devoted themselves to the lofty skylands and their care taking.
    In the skylands, druids travel to the untamed skylands, ensuring that groves of floatwood or native creatures are not exploited.
    On the ground druids revel in the abundance of nature, the territories below are lush and fertile and large creatures abound. They seek to preserve this splendor against those who would despoil it.
    Druids are an esoteric order of people, they rarely interact with the more established and staid people of civilization, instead their isolate themselves within their order of people and their deep wilderness. They are their own people, independent of the world within their own circles.
    pg.58
    
  • The life of a fighter is a common profession for those on Orizon seeking out adventure and excitement. Some become soldiers, some leap directly into adventure. Some people try to live peaceful lives, but they never keep a weapon far from their side.
    A solid sword arm is a valuable asset to many. Knights are always looking to bolster their numbers from among the nobility. Just about every able bodied person has some modest ability with a weapon from serving as a part of the local militia and others continue this training on to join the military or the city guard.
    Some people don’t embrace a career with the military, or at least not in the service to a higher cause or a nation. Some become soldiers of fortune, loyal to their employer and the gold they have to pay. Some become adventurers, hoping to find gold and glory or simply to scratch the itch of wanderlust.
    These people without alliance to kings, countries, or gods find themselves in service to guilds or companies. Trading guilds hire warriors as guards or thugs.
    Some fighters travel a less reputable path and become crooks, pirates, or pit fighters. They pillage and plunder along with rogues and barbarians to take what their swords can give them.
    There are many dangers on the world of Orizon and a strong fighter can always find a use for their skills. Soldiers and mercenaries and adventurers always find themselves a place among people willing to pay a few silver and adventuring parties can always use a sturdy sword arm.
    pg.64
    
    Blood Thrall (Blood Magic subclass)
    pg.7
    
    Gunslinger (Critical Role - Matthew Mercer)
    pg.1
    
  • Monks are people who turn contemplation into action. Meditation becomes form and the movement of fists is an expression of philosophy as much as it is of violence. A monk masters their body as a crucial step in mastering their soul. Through this ritual of contemplation and training, they learn to awaken abilities within themselves, expanding the magic of ki energy that comes from within.
    Unlike sorcerers who exploit the overflowing energy of their heritage, clerics who have power granted to them from on high, or wizards that draw from the energy that surrounds them, monks built their strength and draw from within themselves.
    The most celebrated places of Orizon’s monks are secluded monasteries built within the highest skylands, hidden away from the rest of the world where monks could contemplate hidden truths in privacy. Though these are romantic images and not untrue, there are monks spread out across the world, some are in the forests or the underground, others live inside the cities. Some, like the Ge Daii, travel the world hoping to find insight that way and to turn their skills to constructive ends.
    pg.70
    
  • Paladins are powerful fighters, empowered by their faith and the gods they serve to hunt down and destroy the enemies of the faithful. They exemplify a host of traits that folk consider honorable, just, and good, though they can also exemplify a host of traits that folk consider inflexible and intransigent.
    These warriors aspire to be the best people they can. When such a warrior also has great devotion to a particular deity, that god can reward the faithful with a measure of divine power, making that person a paladin.
    Different paladin orders in Orizon emphasize different elements of righteous behavior, but all paladins are expected to hold true to a common set of virtues:
    Liberality. Be generous and tolerant. Good faith. Be honest and keep promises. Courtesy. Treat others with respect despite how they treat you. Give honor to those above your station. Earn the respect of those below your station. Lawfulness. Laws exist to bring prosperity to those under them. Unjust laws must be overturned or changed in a reasonable fashion. Bravery. Gain glory through battle. Defend any charge unto death. Pride in one’s actions. Lead by example. Let your deeds speak your intentions. Humility in one’s deeds. Do not boast or accept rewards undue to you. Unselfishness. Share resources, especially with those who have the most need. Good-temperedness. Render service cheerfully and without disdain. Wisdom. Cause the most good through the least harm. Piety. Be faithful to the precepts of your god. Kindness. Protect the weak. Grant mercy to those who seek redemption. Honor. Hold true to the code. Death before dishonor.
    Every paladin grades and emphasizes these virtues based on his or her own personal ethos and religious background. Most paladins, like clerics, are devoted to a particular deity. The most common paladin deities are those that embody action, decision, watchfulness, and wisdom.
    Their devotion to a higher ideal makes paladins popular folk heroes. Many tales are woven about noble knights and oath-sworn champions, although pragmatists note that the tales often end with a tremendous sacrifice.
    pg.76
    
  • The wilds of Orizon are vast, lush and savage. Those people who can navigate through these wild spaces have immense value to the communities that occupy the ground and those who range through the sky reefs and the unexplored skylands. Much like druids, the skills of a ranger and the value they hold to the community at large date back to the earliest days of the world and the people who occupy it.
    Not every hunter or trapper wandering the hills and forests is a ranger. A ranger finds the wilds to be something holy, more so than the staid trappings of civilizations. To a ranger peace is never found from being at rest. A ranger believes in the sanctity of wild spaces, from the deep forests, to the twisting streets of the cities.
    Though rangers are not always connected together by group or creed, they are linked by a loose creed or common goals and practices. Rangers will often leave marks and symbols to help other traveling rangers. These marks can indicate campsites, danger, monsters, shelter, or a ranger’s cache of supplies. These simple trail markers aren’t at all a “secret,” but they are usually meaningless to people who haven’t received a ranger’s training.
    Often rangers out in the wild are bound to circles of druids and rangers may act as a companion to a druid, or as their more proactive foils.
    Rangers on Orizon often find a place for themselves on the ground, ranging out from the settled ground territories to explore the wilderness to find resources that can be sold to the people who need it on the skylands. Though they also range on the wilder expanses of lost and undiscovered skylands.
    Orizon’s rangers also explore the wilderness of civilization, exploring the twists and turns of the cities or ranging the skies from island to island, protecting the outskirts of civilization or its deepest depths.
    pg.83
    
  • The rogue isn’t a master of the blade, they aren’t artists. But in some way, they are. An expert rogue is a master at knowing exactly where to put their blade, at seeing the art in removing valuables without a trace. They are dexterous and quiet, carrying themselves with unconscious stealth. Their talents are often turned to illegal ends, their skills plaguing the wealthy and removing some of their gains. When a rogue looks to find more honorable paying work they act as scouts and spies or turn their skills to delving through dungeons, dealing with monsters and uncovering lost treasures.
    Most large cities in Orizon have a number of small thieves’ dens, guilds and organizations that compete with one another. A few places have an organized group of rogues that controls all such activity. Most thieves’ dens are secret gathering spots for illicit trade of goods and information. These are often hidden beneath the city, and prone to moving as soon as they’re discovered.
    The most common respite for such robbers is what they call the Honest Trade, adventuring, where roguish abilities may be used without censure and are later lionized in song and legend. Many thieves take to this life, adhering to a code that keeps them out of trouble in civilized areas but still keeps them rich; they vow to burglarize ancient tombs and monstrous lairs instead of the homes and businesses of the wealthy in civilized lands.
    Some rogues have learned it is easier to pick someone’s pocket when you have a powerful backer. Many rogues take this idea and become diplomats, courtiers, influence-peddlers, and information-brokers, in addition to the better-known thieves and assassins. Such roguish spies blend more easily into civilized society, more often acting as grease in the wheels than a wrench in the works, or just stealing a few cogs.
    pg.88
    
    Mastermind (EPHB)
    pg.30
    
    Swashbuckler (EPHB)
    pg.31
    
  • Some people are born with the natural ability to manipulate magic, and the strength to command those energies. Some possess this ability as a chance happenstance, a twist of fate. Some possess power in their very heritage. Some have draconic blood, a draconic ancestor that disguised themselves as human. Others, more so than those with draconic ancestry, possess the power of wild magic, an energy that flows through Orizon like rampant storms.
    This connection has given some sorcerers of Orizon, especially wild magic sorcerers, a fearsome reputation. Their connection to the frightful phenomenon of wild magic storms makes them the subject of fear and persecution when that connection is displayed in an eruption of wild energies. Some especially fearful communities will execute or drive out those with the touch of the wild storms. Many who discover that they have the talent of a wild magic sorcerer take care to conceal or outright reject their abilities .
    Those who do decide to embrace their abilities will venture outwards into the wider world, hoping to find an opportunity to put their skills to good use, or simply to use the powers that destiny has granted them to the best of their abilities.
    Many sorcerers seek out a master that they can apprentice to, someone who has learned to better command those same energies without disaster striking. Others simply venture out to make the best of it and to learn on the go, this may be a dangerous method, but it is certainly exciting.
    pg.93
    
    Pheonix Sorcery (Unearthed Arcana)
    pg.1
    
    Sea Sorcery (Unearthed Arcana)
    pg.2
    
    Stone Sorcery (Unearthed Arcana)
    pg.3
    
    Favored Soul (Unearthed Arcana revised)
    pg.5
    
    Bloodline Sorcery (Blood Magic subclass)
    pg.8
    
  • People who have sought out power through a bargain with some powerful entity from beyond their ken and some even from beyond their home plane. This is a fast and comparatively easy way to gain power for those without the devotion to study or prayer, or the fortune to be born with innate ability. There are rewards beyond the power granted, as the warlock’s patrons may offer them insights they would not normally be able to discover with such paltry things as study.
    The porous nature of Orizon’s plane makes it easier than ever for someone seeking this sort of power to access it. Portals remain open to various parallel planes, and portals to planes far flung across the multiverse occasionally are ripped open within Orizon. Cabals of warlocks establish themselves around these portals, exploiting these easy connections to their patrons to gain better access to their patrons.
    Warlocks have a worrisome reputation in Orizon, most people don’t like to think of how permeable their borders are, and warlocks and their patrons, regardless of their actions or intent, are fearsome reminders of those inconvenient truths. Many warlocks conceal the truth of their abilities, claiming their skill comes from study, rather than from a bargain.
    pg.99
    
  • Wizardry is perhaps the most broadly approved of pure spellcasting path in the considerations of the lay people of Orizon, thanks in large part to the study required to perform it with skill. The wizarding universities and magical guilds strive to keep control over their members that operate in the public and to teach control of the world’s magical energies to those that come to them to study. Membership to, or certification by, one of the magical guilds may be required to practice the more powerful arcane arts within the more rigidly lawful skylands of Orizon. Where this certification is not outright required it is seen as a crucially important piece of accreditation. Some people will only trust magical advice that comes with accreditation from a magical guild or university.
    These magical universities will typically offer incentives to people in the world at large to come and learn at their arcane centers. Once there students often become cloistered in their learning, closely supervised until their instructors can be assured that those learning won’t singe their eyes off. Then students are either allowed to continue their studies on their own accord, or apprentice themselves to one of the professors.
    This educational system has a secondary purpose in that it teaches people control, not just for the sake of those individuals who come to learn, but also for the population at large, giving them a sense of security.
    Many wizards dedicate themselves to the study of Orizon’s wild magic storms, the understanding is that these storms tend to coalesce around magical activity, and learning how to dissipate collected magical energy, or to anticipate the arrival of a wild magic storm is valuable knowledge.
    Following their tenure at magical institutions, wizards either delve into research, which can send them out on adventure for more practical research. Some wizards remain with their institutions, pouring over the school’s libraries. Other wizards find careers with crafting guilds, merging their two fields of expertise and become enchanters of magical items. Some others find a path with the government, becoming advisors on arcane matters or serving positions like artillery within their military.
    pg.106
    
    Blood Magic (v.1 & v.2) (Blood Magic subclass)
    v.1 pg.10; v.2 pg.12
    
• • Changeling
  • Dragonborn
  • Dwarves
  • Elves
  • Gnomes
  • Half-Elf
  • Halflings
  • Half-Orc
  • Human
  • Tiefling

  • Considered a curse and a blessing to Orizon, many changelings are famed criminals and legends of Thieve's Guilds, most hide their true identity under a false disguise. They carry a lot of scrutiny and are seen in displeasure through the eyes of society, though over the years even the few known changelings in the world have dropped off the face of Orizon.
    To know of the existence of a changeling has since become as much a burden and a wonder as it is a crime, since they were nearly driven to genocide. Some cults worship the ground they walk, while most of society pities them, and the higher-standing nobles and royalty see them as the scum of mixed blood between doppelgangers and the other races.
    Changelings under the persecution of law are often given a death sentence regardless of their crime, as it is a common assumption that they are killers, liars, and thieves by their very nature.
    In their natural forms, changelings have white skin that is almost blue-toned in its shadows, their white pupil-less eyes and featureless expressions making them have a likeness to aliens. Some, but very few, may have tar-like black skin and eyes. Their hair is usually of soft or bright color, commonly unnatural in appearance and rarely black, ginger, or brunette.
    pg.1
    
  • The dragonborn of Orizon are a largely reclusive peoples, they occupy secluded villages within natural cave systems, usually in mountains or inside of skylands. Their settlements are functional and spartan, and usually incorporate parts from the ruins of other villages that may have been hit by monsters or war. Those that do have a peculiar sense of pride at improving things left over by others. As a result of their self-imposed isolation dragonborn are rarely seen in great numbers.
    The major exception to this is in the draconic empire of Quanun, where dragonborn have left their seclusion to occupy a position as some of the most politically powerful humanoids in the country.
    The dragonborn are innately honorable, bound to their families through the belief that the actions of one member reflects on the family as a whole. Often a dragonborn will leave on adventures to redeem the actions of another member of their family.
    pg.27
    
  • When the breaking occurred, the underground was sealed away from the world above, the underground was left with very few means of accessing the surface. Some dwarves by the edge sought to rebuild the connections between their cities and the surface world, others retreated deeper to the underground, founding new deep cities in the newly expanded caverns of the underdark. This split remains between the mill and mountain dwarves, and the duergar, deep in the underdark.
    Dwarves have an innate distrust of the skylands, “dirt where it has no business being,” or traveling on airships. Since the majority of Orizon’s culture takes place on the skylands or traveling through airships, this mistrust has made it difficult for most dwarves to engage completely with the world at large. Dwarves in the air tend to keep their center of balance even lower, afraid they might fall off.
    The dangers of the surface, behemoth monsters and marauding war bands means that most entrances to dwarven cities are strongly fortified. Still the dwarven mines are a rich and efficiently managed resource base, and the dwarves command a great deal of economic power through them. That power makes dwarven cities a tempting target to raiders and marauding monsters that seek to claim the dwarven wealth for themselves.
    The dwarves have a hierarchal social structure organized by family and by clan. Their position in this structure informs their position in the larger structure of dwarven culture and tradition.
    pg.14
    
  • It is believed that before the breaking the Elves were the most powerful race of the world, but the devastation of the breaking changed that. The elves, though long lived, didn’t regain their numbers as quickly as other races, a loss they are still recovering from.
    Now there are very few population centers of elves on Orizon. The elves do have some small scattered cities of their own, but these are sparse. Most elves have integrated themselves within larger societies, or integrated other races into theirs.
    The elves of Orizon have slender, lithe, and willowy frames, with thin, sharp faces and features. They have narrow and sometimes slanted eyes, pointed sharp noses and nimble fingers. Their height ranges from an average of 6ft to around 7ft, they generally have differently shaped ears than humans, but the differences depend on the race of elves. High elves usually have tall, upward and/or outward pointing ears with bulbed tips, while wood elves have much shorter, sharper-tipped ears that are more stiff.
    
    High Elves
    The high elves have almost exclusively traveled away from the dangers of the ground and moved to the skylands, embracing the elevation of status that comes with the elevation of altitude. Some few skylands have been converted to cities of high elves where they seclude themselves from the rest of the world. The high elves that have become part of the rest of the world typically find high positions in fields of learning, magic, or politics.
    The high elves range in skin tone between gold and yellow tints and blue or silver hues. Once, long before, they were distinct peoples. But desperation and loss merged these two groups of magical elves into a single peoples. They tend to stand a bit taller than humans, between 6 and 7 feet.
    
    Wood Elves
    Wood elf culture is predominantly divided between those living on the ground and those living in the skies. They are perhaps the most well traveled of the elven peoples and wood elves are a frequent sight in many places.
    The wood elves in the skylands are typically part of other, predominantly human, cultures. They have found that the dexterous skills they used to travel through the forests have served them well navigating the ropes and sails of airships. Other wood elves in the skylands are part of the high elf cultures, acting as a distinct caste of people within those cities.
    Wood elves on the ground territories have their own means of keeping themselves safe, unlike the dwarves with their fortifications, wood elves have established hidden cities within deep forests. Wood elves in these cities live a semi-nomadic existence, traveling in small caravans between their hidden cities. Other wood elves on the ground have integrated themselves into the larger territories centered around gathering resources for those in the skylands.
    The wood elves of Orizon have skin tones that tend towards copper or olive and even into slight green hues. Most wood elves are only barely taller than humans, but shorter than their high elf cousins, between five and a half and six and a half feet.
    pg.17
    
  • The gnomes of Orizon do not have central population bases, there aren’t purely gnomish cities on Orizon, though there are a few small towns and villages. The great majority of gnomes establish themselves within the populations of other races, especially among humanity. Often found in small tucked away corners, gnomes work at jobs that allow them to work with their cleverness and nimble fingers. The rise of mechanics and the crafting of mechanisms in the pre-industrial society of Orizon has made their talents especially valuable as clockwork makers and gunsmiths.
    The gnomes of Orizon are known as vibrant artisans and mischievous tricksters and, outside of those looking to use their skills, few take the gnomish peoples seriously. Often gnomes are unconsciously treated as second class citizens, or children.
    Gnomes outside of larger Orizon society often live in small family units, or small villages composed of several gnomish families. These villages are hidden within the underbrush of deep woods.
    pg.30
    
  • Some elves see the half-elves and they see a reminder of how slowly the elven people are rebuilding their numbers, or a reminder of all they’ve lost or they simply see bastards. Humans who see a half-elf see something too elven, too long lived and too magical, something most humans can never aspire to. The half elves are people who have been born of two worlds, and they never feel entirely comfortable in either.
    The half-elves of Orizon are a well traveled race, exploring the world to a degree that nearly borders on wanderlust. They roam the skylands from stone to stone, eager to see whatever is next and carve out something for themselves.
    Half-elves are frequently seen in the world as travelers and airship sailors, searching out new things and new peoples while onboard.
    Half-elves that remain within society have little difficulty finding a place for themselves, their long lives gives them ample time to master a trade and their personable nature helps them to mingle with various peoples.
    Half-elves, like most half-breeds, are almost completely infertile. It is extremely rare that a half-elf will produce a child and the child of a half-elf will always be either human or elven, or another half-elf. The half-elf spends a great deal of effort making sure that their children don’t experience the “distance” they did growing up.
    pg.33
    
  • The halflings of Orizon, or “the little folk” are mostly homebodies. They establish and live together in their simple rural communities. These communities are connected with huge connected family trees. Most halflings can come to know exactly who they are related to simply by asking their community’s elders. Halfling communities are typically located on smaller skylands, where they have spread out to form farming communities. When they live near other races, halflings tend to form agrarian societies on the outskirts.
    Halflings, regardless of most, are known as welcoming hosts. Halfling inns are famous for warm fires, good food, and low seats. But halflings are also considered to be notorious pickpockets, so it’s always advised to keep one hand on your purse in a halfling inn.
    If a halfling community grows too large, if they run out of room on their own skylands, or begin to push too far into their neighbor’s territory, a sizable portion of the community will pack their goods into trundling caravan airships and sail out to find somewhere new to establish themselves.
    Most other cultures consider it in their interest to protect halfling villages, but this does not always translate to providing them with equality, and halflings can be treated as second-class citizens, if they’re recognized at all. Those halflings who are seen as more than peasants have had to fight for that recognition.
    pg.21
    
  • Orcs are some of the forerunners of the marauding war bands of monsters that plague the surface level of Orizon, There are few who do not fear the destruction of the orcs. This fear has made things difficult for half-orcs. On the ground they are feared or reviled, or they are the product of the marauder’s rape and pillage, so they are simply reminders of horrible times. On the skylands half-orcs are seen as savages or monsters. Within orc society half-orcs are seen as weak and passive. Half-elves may be of two worlds, but half-orcs are welcome in none.
    In society at large, half-orcs either revel in their association with their monstrous heritage, taking positions as thugs and toughs or smiths and soldiers. Others try to intentionally distance themselves and try to withdraw from society. Still others keep on the move, trying to find somewhere to call home. Those half-orcs that find themselves a home embrace it wholeheartedly and will defend it to the death.
    In orcish society half-orcs are either the weaklings of the war band, bullied and abused, or they exploit their superior intelligence and adaptability to take control of the war bands, becoming tacticians or champions.
    Half-orcs, because they are half-breeds, are nearly infertile. A half-orc could only have children with considerable dedication. Unlike their human parents, half-orcs can only have human or orcish children, or other half-orcs like themselves and they will try their best to ensure that those children grow up well suited for the society that the half-orc chose to live in, giving them the opportunities they never had.
    There are a select few entirely half-orc societies that have begun to form on the ground, where they have begun to try and make a name for themselves that links them with neither the favor of the more civilized humanoid races nor the savage orcs.
    pg.35
    
  • Humanity is, without a doubt, the dominant species of Orizon. They have spread out across nearly every region of the world, from the underground to the islands in the sky, and they have more than recovered their numbers since the breaking. Nearly every city in the world has at least a few humans in its population and most cities are controlled by human rulers and count humans as more than three quarters of their citizens.
    Some races consider humans to be simply “average,” not as strong, swift, of smart as some others. They underestimate the capacity of humanity. Humans are clever and creative, as well as stubborn and tough. The best of them can stand against anything that the world throws at them, and come out fighting on the other side.
    Humanity is a comparatively gregarious species, they embrace the company of other races, and cities ruled by humans have a diverse non-human population. Humans are also the only race capable of breeding with other races and creating half-breeds. This fact, combined with their easy acceptance of other races, has given humans a promiscuous reputation among the other peoples of Orizon.
    pg.24
    
  • When the breaking cracked the world of Orizon, numerous fiends took the chaos as an opportunity to possess mortal hosts. But those same energies trapped them in those hosts, sealing the fiends away and forcing to live and die as mortals. This transformed them into the first tieflings and tied their infernal energies to their mortal bloodlines. Children of otherwise normal humans of these bloodlines are born as tieflings up to this very day.
    Unfortunately for these innocent children, demons and devils are still present on Orizon, sneaking their way onto the material plane to corrupt and destroy. The resemblance these children share with fiends can awaken religious fear among the community, the children are considered bad omens or simply evil. Some are killed at birth, and they are almost always shunned by those unwilling to look past their fiendish appearance.
    Some tieflings embrace their infernal heritage, others try hard to leave it behind and separate themselves from it and strive to do good, still more simply try to live a normal life and ignore their features as best they can. Tieflings tend to settle themselves in large diverse populations where their unique appearance won’t attract as much attention, or as much violence.
    Most, unfortunately, don’t consider Tieflings past their appearance and believe them to be evil, duplicitous and violent. Regardless of the tiefling’s actual disposition.
    pg.37
    
• The gods of Orizon are a potent force within the world, despite the fact that they do not often take a direct hand into the goings on of mortals. The gods typically act through agents or their servants. The pantheon of Orizon’s divinity has a complex structure of personalities underlying it, sometimes they are cooperative, sometimes they oppose each other in devastating politics, other times they come together to perform acts of truly miraculous power.
  The religious structure of Orizon is reigned over by six ancient gods, the divine survivors of the breaking, beneath them are other gods, angels and other divine beings, souls that have passed that have been granted power, and fiendish demons and devils locked deep in the pit.
  Much like the mortals that worship them, the gods have failings and virtues. They love, they hate, they fight, they can lose themselves in petty bickering. The gods, to prevent their conflicts from becoming world shattering, often act through mortals, employing influence both subtle and overt to aid their mortal agents, or to stymie their opponents agents. This is a delicate balance between the gods, one that all members of the pantheon are interested in maintaining, to keep things civil.
  Priests in thousands of different sects gain access to divine magic in exchange for their investiture in their church and their gods. They are the primary instruments of the god’s mission in the world, and they are often the only manifestations of divine power that the average mortal ever encounters.
  
  • Worship
  • Religious Institutions
  • The Priesthood
  • Places of Worship
  • The Gods
  • The Ancient Gods
  • The New Gods
  • The Gods in the World
  • Lesser Entities
  • The Damned Court
  • The Archfey
  • The Shades
  • Demigods
  • Spirits
  • Things From Beyond
  • The Afterlife

  • Except for the most devoted, worshipers on Orizon worship the pantheon on the whole rather than a specific god. The polytheistic faithful call upon various gods for aid for specific tasks or needs, hoping for aid under its auspices. Some people do have a specific god that they personally hold up, considering them to be their patrons, though they do still give devotion to the other gods when they feel the situation calls for it.
    Few temples are constructed to honor specific gods, instead most religious sites are constructed to house numerous small shrines, one for each of the gods. Though there are still some locations where a single specific god is worshiped exclusively. Some places like these are sacred to that god and were speficially indicated as sites to places a temple. Others are signifigant to the gods faithful, and they will construct memorials, like a place where a god manifested or a powerful cleric performed a miracle in that god’s name. These sacred sites are locations of pilgrimage and some people will travel miles to reach out to whatever touch of the divine remains there.
    Priests of the various churches and their acolytes are expected to be at least familiar with the honors, stories, and rituals of each of the gods, though they may focus on specific gods as their patrons. Clerics and Paladins are also expected to be familiar with the pantheon as a whole, but their focus on a specific deity for their devotion grants them unique favors. Clerics may also be called to act in opposition to some plan of their god’s rival dieties.
    Occasionally a god will reach out to a specific person directly, offering them guidance or power if they sense something special about the person, or sending them on a quest to aid in the god’s aims. Typically these are their clerics, but they can also reach out to adventurers and heroes.
    
  • Though the gods do not frequently interact with the world of mortals, their temples flourish. The efforts of the faithful picked up by those rare times that the gods do intercede. The priests of Orizon serve in honest faith and act to serve the interests of the gods as best they are able. Even if they may not possess divine magic, they rarely need it, seeking only a trickle of power from the gods to better meet the needs of the people they intercede with the gods for.
    Because the gods rarely intercede with mortals directly and have taken little time to have their dictates transcribed, there are numerous sects devoted to the various gods. Each sect chooses to worship their diety in their own way, some are similar, others are wildly different. So long as the worshippers are faithful and do not act in opposition to the god’s will, the gods have been generally content to let people worship as they please. Though, should a cleric of a god choose to intercede this can cause tension. Should another sect interfere, it could even spark a full blown holy war over the different interpretations of snippets of a god’s words and deeds. These situations of the delights of demons like Borst and if they spill over too far can even prompt genuine intervention from the gods.
    Though most of the members of the priesthood venerate a specific deity above others, they eventually come to hold each god in their hearts and come to understand at least a general idea of the role that each god and their aspect fills in the world to better aid the faithful that come to them. Though, typically there are multiple priests in the various temples, enough that they can direct any questions people may have to those that can better provide answers and aid.
    The temples of Orizon do not have a formal schedule, unlike some religions, they do not meet weekly, or hold any sort of sabbath or day of rest. Instead the temples keep their doors open to all, anyone may seek the wisdom of the priests and the guidance of the gods. Formal meetings and observances occur during special festivals and holidays. Each god has their own day of observance during the year, and on those days the priests speak of their role and the wisdom that they advocate within the pantheon.
    
  • Those that believe they feel the calling to the priesthood enter the temple as an acolyte. Though a specific god may have been their reason for joining the priesthood, during their time as an acolyte they are put to service under each of the gods for a set period of time. If an acolyte completes this time of service they participate in a ritual where they are ordained into full priesthood under the blessings of each of the ancient gods. Priests that devote themselves to a single god and ignore the others are known as “fore priests.” A highly ranked priest that is devoted to the faith of Soltis would be called the fore priest of Soltis
    There are a few high priests upon Orizon. The role of High priest is the highest position within the local church and carries with it great respect, but in order to reach this position an even greater ordeal is requested. A high priest of Orizon’s gods must visit a sacred site for each of the gods. This quest that is guided by the gods, but must be carried out by the aspiring high priest.
    
  • The gods do not demand worship from their followers, failing to attend church will not bring lightning down upon your head. Worship is given to them, and they expect it in kind. The gods are powerful, and their power has been demonstrated often enough that the people of Orizon know that there are gods and that, if they are very lucky, the gods may intercede on their behalf.
    To that end the people of Orizon have constructed numerous places where they can go and pay homage or supplication to their chosen gods. From grand cathedrals to opulent temples, to simple shrines, all of these help to give the gods and other powerful entities a very physical presence in the world.
    
    The Great Cathedrals
    The Great Temples are intended to serve as places of worship for the pantheon as a whole. They are large structures that have placed in alcoves within them, smaller shrines to many of the gods. These structures may have begun as a necessary reaction to the lack of space available on skylands but they have become a central part of the religious life of the people, where they can better reach out both to their gods and to the priests and faithful that serve them.
    Because of their nature in service to the gods, and the fact that they are built in central locations on the skylands, indeed in most cities, these great temples serve as the focal points of many cultural and religious events and the temple steps are often used as a commonly known or easily found meeting place.
    The temples themselves are built like most well-known cathedrals, divided into four major sections into a lopsided cross-shape. Nearly all of the great temples follow this simple design, though they may have their own unique twists. The front, entrance, section is for public use, people may come and go as they see fit and this portion of the temple is lined with pews for those who wish to sit and listen to sermons or simply think on the gods.
    The rear of the temples serve as a residence for the priests and acolytes, as well as anyone else who may seek the shelter of the gods. Many times this area also serves as a hospital or sanctuary and very few are willing to break the taboo of committing violence in that place.
    On either side of this arrangement are two annexes of differing length. On the shorter side are the shrines to five of the ancient gods, on the longer side are the more numerous shrines to the newer gods. Worshipers are encouraged to use these annexes to offer prayer and offerings to specific gods.
    
    Smaller Shrines
    Specific gods may appear before their followers and indicate a specific place that is special to them, demanding a temple be placed there. Some worshipers erect shrines to the gods to help bring their attention and aid. Some decide to build a shrine to a god if they believe that the god has done something momentous for them or others.
    Most of these shrines are comparatively small, but still significant. An arena may have a broken wall with a mace to honor Vister, while a hidden grove in the deep forests may have antlers tied to the trees to better honor Diasilva.
    Some temples though, especially if a god specifically demanded its construction, or had manifested themselves on its site, are grand, years and fortunes are spent on their construction and the consideration of how best to please the god.
    The worship of some gods is frowned upon, or sometimes outright restricted or outlawed, so some shrines must be erected in secret. Shrines to Incancatus for example are built exclusively in deep darkness and shrines to Verdin are demolished as soon as the worship is complete.
    There are also small shrines dedicated to lesser entities. Some build shrines to honor their ancestors, other to honor spirits, some have built shrines to the fey and umbral lords. Some have built shrines in worship of dragons and other powerful beings. Some mad few even build shrines to devils and demons.
    
  • Millennia ago the pantheon looked very different. There were many more gods, and some of them interacted freely with the people of Orizon, taking material form and wandering the earth to interact with mortals. Then the breaking occurred, and nearly all of the old gods died. Some perished simply by being caught in the energies and were rent to shreds, other gods died fending off creatures that tried to attack the weakened plane. Most of the old gods that lasted died in the great godswar between the gods and the devils and demons of Orizon. As the people were devastated and their world turned to rubble, only the six oldest gods remained to aid them, the others were dead. Over the centuries, new gods began to rise to fill the niches that were left abandoned. Some gods were the children of the survivors, some were celestials, risen to a new height, still others were mortals that had managed to gain divine power and strength.
    The gods of Orizon now visibly act mostly as patrons for the domains and aspects that they represent. They empower and guide their worshipers, bestowing magical blessings, whisper in their dreams, send celestial agents or, more rarely, appearing in an aspect or in person to act directly upon the world.
    Direct influence on the world has become rare for the gods, they seek to balance each other and keep any one from growing too powerful. The gods are also distracted by their efforts to hold at bay the servants of the pit and outside influences that seek to destroy, consume, or seize control of the plane of Orizon. In addition, following the breaking, Soltis considered the influence of the gods on mortals to be one of its causes, and imposed restrictions and laws against excessive meddling.
    Within their pantheon, the gods are not truly at peace, they bicker and argue, some oppose each other by the very nature of their aspects, others have more petty motives. The ancient gods rule the pantheon and enforce decorum among their members. They often encourage the other gods to use mortals as pawns for settling disputes.
    The gods reside within the celestial manor, which sits at the peak of Orizon’s planar geography, a beautiful mansion surrounded by a lush and lovely garden. The main doorway of the manor acts as a gate to anywhere within Orizon’s planar region, and each of the gods possesses their own individual rooms within the manor, that each maintains and furnishes.
    Orizon’s gods can empower the souls of the deceased, sacrificing their own strength to transform the souls that pledge themselves to the god’s service into angels, the more strength sacrificed, the more powerful. These angels often act as the god’s direct representative to the world of mortals.
    
  • Following the events of the breaking, most of the gods of the ancient world died in conflict with the outside entities and Esuriiten titans, then again they were brought in to fight against the fiendish hordes raised by Incancatus. Only six divines survived this holy devastation, the oldest of the old gods, the ones believed to have been on Orizon since before the beginning.
    These gods are the focus of the oldest myths and the greatest devotion, most worship is focused around them and the lesser gods fear their wrath and pay them subservience and tribute. The Ancient gods also command the greatest powers remaining from the old world, each retains control of a single solar archangel, the only surviving old angels. None of the new gods possess the strength to empower an angel to a solar’s strength. The knowledge of these ancient gods is immense, they have survived since the foundation of the world and they have seen both the rise and fall and the recovery of the world’s people.
    
    
    
    Incancatus
    
    The Mad One in the Pit, The God of Power
    Chaotic Evil
    Arcana, Death, Knowledge
    Portfolio: Death, Evil, Magic, Madness, Rebirth
    Temples: Temples to Incancatus are built in the deepest darkness with a collection of teeth and eyes placed in a black bowl at the center of the shrine.
    The first of Orizon’s gods, Incancatus created the structures of the flow of magic and through them, the foundations that the world of Orizon was built upon. His influence and ordely design were the beginnings of the great work of an entire world. The grand creations of Incancatus are the basis of the flow and therefore the basis of all Orizon’s magic. In the ancient world, Incancatus was directly involved with the mortals of the world, teaching them skills and marvelling at their understanding of magic. Though he left as the age of wonders began to shift into the great war, he was fascinated at the heights that mortals had reached. And then the breaking shook everything, cracking his magnificent structures.
    The wreckage of its work and the death of so many gods during the cataclysm of the breaking drove the great god to madness. It decided that it would complete the breaking, destroy the world, kill every mortal that stood upon it, and then rebuild. It planned to make a better world on top of the ashes, a restoration of its great works. The other surviving gods opposed its plan, so it decided to instead raise an army of fiends and lesser gods, promising them divine power in the new world. Incancatus led them into a war with the other surviving gods to shatter the pantheon and impose its will. This war ripped the plane to further shreds, causing untold destruction and concluded in devastating all hope there may have been of reclaiming the old world.
    The last of the surviving old gods under the command of Soltis finally won. The victors sealing Incancatus into the pit at the very bottom of Orizon’s cosmology, along with the demons and devils that served it. Now the greatest of the old gods sits imprisioned in what is both its prison and its fortress. From within its prison Incancatus rules with an iron fist, though it has little power without, except through unique circumstances and faithul. There are thin gaps in its prison, enough to keep it tight but still flexible and Incancatus can reach out small tendrils of power through those gaps. It manipulates its fiendish princes in the damned court and its faithful mortals in the material plane, all working to achieve its goal, freedom, then its final goal, the destruction of everything.
    
    Soltis
    
    The God of Sun and Time
    Lawful Good
    Light
    Portfolio: The Sun, Law, Light, Time
    Temples: Temples to Soltis are always open to the sun, built with glass ceilings or simply without ceilings at all. Special markers are placed to mark the solstices and the progression of the sun across the sky.
    Soltis was the second god to rise in Orizon, he is a god of light and of truth, and of the raw power of the sun. Once he was the grandest friend of Incancatus, and illuminated the trapped one’s work, providing it with further energy. Soltis was deeply saddened by the losses of the breaking and had hoped to restore some of the lost glory, protecting the world from the sudden attention of an Esuriiten titan. He had believed that he would be able to illuminate the world again, until Incancatus raised up an army. Soltis set out to stop his old friend, raising an army of surviving gods and powerful mortals. to oppose the evil gods and fiends. Soltis succeeded, though at a great cost, and, unable to kill him, imprisioned his old friend so that his madness could never destroy the world he just saved. To this day, in his grief, he marks the date of the breaking with an eclipse.
    Soltis led the charge of gods and celestials against Incancatus, and because of this, in myth and legend, he is known as a grand destroyer of evil and the greatest of generals and warriors. His light is said to be soft on those he cares for, and searing to his enemies. The role he has taken after this grand battle is to keep watch over the plane of Orizon, protecting the broken world from Incancatus and its servants, or other beings that attempt to do harm to the plane or its people. He also dictates law for the lesser gods, acting in part to keep the mistakes of the breaking from occuring again. The laws with this motive are the main thing keeping the gods from directly interacting with the world as often as they did in the age of wonders.
    Soltis extols his followers to burn away the shadows, and to bring his light where it does not shine. He is often invoked by those who seek the truth or virtuous guidance, or the power to simply burn away their enemies or the evil. He is associated with sundials and they feature prominently in his temples.
    
    Celeste
    
    The Goddess of the Moon and Night
    Neutral Good
    Arcana, Light
    Portfolio: The Moon, Healing, Sex, Mercy, Mystery
    Temples: Temples to Celeste honor the moon, with polished silver and windows open to the progression of the moon across the sky, especially the solstices.
    Celeste is depicted as a beautiful woman with pale skin, draped in robes made up of the night sky, stars and mist. Celeste aided in the construction of Incancatus’ great works, helping to refine them and calm the energies introduced by Soltis. She helped to create the planes of faerie and umbral to act as locations for living energies to refresh and decay as the flow cycled them through. Each of these planes retain a permanent aspect of Celeste, the moon on the faerie is always full, the moon in the umbral is always new. The shift between full and new moon also remains depicted in her symbol.
    Celeste did not directly participate in the war against Incancatus, she largely avoided the fighting. Instead she remained in the celestial planes, providing aid and a place of rest for those that fought in the godswar against the mad god. She especially worked to care for those mortals that had been drafted into the war. Following the breaking Celeste has retained this desire for peace and healing. Her agents work to provide healing and peace and she personally has dedicated herself to calming the wild magics of Orizon and repairing the damage they call.
    Celeste is primarily known as a merciful and calm god. Those who are lost and abandonded may find themselves beginning to slip away in her embrace as she offers them mercy. Whispering songs that have long been forgotten until they rest. She is a healer not merely of the body, but of the soul.
    Celeste is also a god of freedom. She is permissive and free willed, never one to be ordered, even by Soltis or Incancatus at the heights of their power. She delights in people embracing their humors and freedoms and in the joys of mortals and life. She holds the nighttime as a place for people to embrace the true selves they keep hidden and express their desires. Celeste will often manifest in a guise of a beautiful mortal to join people in their nighttime celebrations, and sometime take lovers among mortals, showing them true love of a god.
    
    Karn
    
    The Goddess of Earth
    True Neutral
    Nature
    Portfolio: Stone, Volcanoes, Childbirth
    Temples: Temples to Karn are built into the stone and soil, decorations are carved into the stone or dug into patterns in the soil. The most celebrated temples of Karn are built into volcanoes or deep underground, to come closer to sacred magma.
    With the conclusion of the great work of the flow, the foundations of all magics and tremendous energy, the gods sought a focus for the energies, a place where they could mingle. Their solution was a world, the world of Orizon. The goddess Karn set herself forwards and began the construction of earth and stone, melding a molten core of rock and metal around a crust of soil. As she worked, building over the foundations of the flow, her work began to be dimly reflected in other planes connected to the material plane. Her work was a secondary foundation, one upon which mortal life depends and also served as a foundation for mortal’s birth and creation, though she left it to Tiad and Vesperi to place more on the foundation.
    During the godswar, Karn acted nearly as an artillery commander. She flung massive stones at the massed armies of fiends and mortalsand pinned lesser gods beneath pillars of earth. She muddled the ground their enemies walked on and shook the earth to destabilize their formations.
    Worship of Karn is held within deep caves and caverns with a great focus on natural formations inside of the caves and simplistic paintings of spirits and myths featuring Karn. The depths of these caverns help the faithful feel a deeper connection to the stone. Caverns with any exposed magma hold a special signifigance as it offers a connection to her “blood.” Volcanoes are seen as sacred places as sites of both Karn’s warmth and her wrath; as their eruptions will lay waste to everything in its way, but also leave fertile soil behind. During rituals for Karn worshippers use simple, almost stone age, tools. Priests spend weeks knapping and carving the tools to be used in the rituals.
    Karn’s great focus is on the soil, metal, and stone of the earth. She protects and preserves it, and uses it to provide for the things living on top of it. To the people of the underground and underdark, Karn is considered one of the foremost gods. The dwarves especially worship and regard Karn, depicting her as the foremost ancestor of the Dwarven people and the great mother of every clan.
    
    Tiad
    
    God of the Oceans and Seas
    True Neutral
    Nature, Tempest
    Portfolio: Oceans, waves, tides, sea creatures
    Temples: Temples to Tiad are built at the shore or on buoys in the oceans, but the water always washes into these temples. The grandest of these temples are built under the waves, incorporating the wreckages of sunken ships.
    With the completion of Karn’s structure of the world of Orizon, Tiad stepped forth and unleashed a torrent upon the world, filling it with the waters of the rivers, oceans, and ice. With it, he provided the potential for growth and life upon the dry earth and to take the heat of the molten core. His waters sunk into the stone and sat on top of it and provides for much. He’s become a god of floods and tides as much as the gentle motion of streams.
    During the godswar, Tiad twisted the waters into powerful whirlpools and smashing tidal waves, or simply wrapping them up into great floods. The powerful foes, great abberations and monsters, Tiad yanked down with great chains of ice and iron. He imprisioned them beneath the depths, gradually crushing them to death under the suffocating weight of an entire ocean.
    Tiad is a tempermental being, aloof and mostly unconcerned. He can be prone to placid stretches and kindly gestures and deep caring. But he is also famously quick to anger and lashing out. He has been known to destroy ships, crushing them with nothing more than the movement of water, seemingly at a whim. But this temperment, like the ocean, conceals hidden depth and there is immense care within Tiad. He may occasionally grant a fisherman an impossible bounty or carry someone stranded safely to their homes on gentle currents.
    Tiad’s focus is on the waters of the world, merfolk worship him above all other gods and construct great temples on the ocean floor. Sailors also believe that Tiad specifically left the massive trade routes that connect the continents open to travel for the mortals that sail the seas and wish to keep the world connected. They also believe that there are secret islands in the ocean, kept concealed by Tiad’s currents until he chooses to reveal them.
    
    Vesperi
    
    Goddess of Wind and Skies
    True Neutral
    Nature, Tempest
    Portfolio: Wind, Rain, Storms, Skies
    Temples: Temples to Vesperi are elevated and open, often having a platform built up at a peak to better allow access to the sky. The most celebrated temples of Vesperi were built up into the skies out of floatwood and blimps.
    The foremost concept people hold of Vesperi is freedom. Freedom of travel, freedom of mind and spirit, freedom of breath. Vesperi is known to be flighty and aloof, as quick to change the subject as she is to change her mind. Some dismiss her and her power, taken aback by her whimsy, until they witness a tornado or a hurricane. Then they never question the power of wind again. She is a god of storms and tempests as much as she is a god of the breeze, and her flights of fancy can also take her to places of stormy wrath.
    With the creation of the soil and the seas from Karn and Tiad, Vesperi saw the works and realized that they were still incomplete. She sent her winds down, first in powerful tempests and then in calm breezes. Her winds smoothed out the jagged rocks of Karn and gave direction to the tides of Tiad. But more than simply being wind, she provided the breaths of life that finally allowed the creation of mortal races. She provided the air they breathe as much as the winds they ride their sails across.
    Though she has always been a powerful god, with the rise of the skylands Vesperi has taken a much more prominant position in the understanding of Orizon’s gods. The people of the skylands see her as a major figure, hoping for fair winds or the protection of a fog. The mother of winds features highly in ritual on the skylands and there is a prayer to her carved somewhere in the hull of every airship.
    During the godswar, vesperi acted against any hope the massed armies had of air superiority. She battered them with her winds and yanked their weapons from their hands, turning her tornadoes into whirling showers of blades.
    Vesperi is fickle, and often content to simply let things be as the winds blow, but in her wrath deadly twisters can uproot entire cities, scattering them across the four winds, powerful elementals under her command. By the same token she can send pleasant winds, calm breezes or light zephyrs that will lead a ship home or refresh the soul.
    
  • Though they are significantly less powerful than those ancient gods that survived the breaking, the new gods of Orizon are still tremendously powerful, fueled by the power of their faithful combined with the raw energies of Orizon. Some of these gods arose simply because mortals needed them, created from a sort of gap in worship. Some gods were born from the union of other gods. Others were once the servants of other gods, that have risen up to divinity in their own right. Some gods were once mortals, but are now divine, through powerful means and esoteric tools. All of them took in worship and power to inflame their initial spark of divinity, lifting them up to undreamed of heights from simple spirits or mortality to true divinity.
    Regardless of their origins, the gods of Orizon command tremendous power and great worship among their followers. These newer gods are the source of the greatest amount of mythological drama within Orizon’s pantheon as they jockey for power and influence between each other, often using mortals in their schemes.
    
    Agressa
    
    Goddess of Aggressive War
    Chaotic Neutral
    War
    Portfolio: War, Tactics, Battle, Weapons
    Temples: Temples to Agressa are built on top of the sites of grand battles, honoring the soldiers who fought and the generals who commanded them along with Agressa.
    The goddess of warriors and commanders, she advocates for tactics and tacticians. Her favored methods are proactive, ones that bring the fight to the enemy and forces them into a defensive position. Generals and emperors alike stand among the faithful of Agressa and some have even seen symbols for her worship in the halls of Ruatha.
    The primary worshipers of Agressa are soldiers that are serving in foreign fields. Soldiers fighting for a country or cause and mercenaries fighting for coin all hold up Agressa in their hearts as they go to war. Some think of the success of her tactics and the inspiration of her leadership. Others think only of victory. She also advocates for her followers to dedicate time to training others so that they may aid in the fight.
    Her pushing of aggressive tactics puts her at odds with her brother, Fortison. Her armies bash against his walls, her soldiers storm his defenders. Her other brother, Vister, often stands at her side but the two also butt heads over philosophy. His idea of bloody glory in combat and the joy of honorable success clashes with her concept of the necessity of war and of tactical soldiers being more important than strong warriors.
    Agressa serves as the commander and chief tactician of the heavenly host. They are a coalition of souls of deceased warriors and angels, all empowered by the gods, that stand on the edge of the planar geography in the battlefield. They stand ready to oppose extra-planar entities that attempt to enter Orizon, or fiends that may try to claw their way up to the celestial realm to find a means to free their master.
    
    Ashotene
    
    Goddess of Medicine and Healing
    Lawful Neutral
    Arcana, Death, Life
    Portfolio: Medicine, Healing, Cleanliness, Death
    Temples: Temples to Ashotene are sparkling clean and prepared to function as surgical halls as readily as places of worship. Behind the temples are mausoleums where the ones who could not be saved are laid to rest.
    The goddess of healers and doctors Ashotene is, surprisingly, the first to advocate stinginess among her followers. She is a practical goddess and insists that if a wound can be treated through mundane means, then explore those first. Any healer who gained their knowledge through Ashotene is also a skilled medic and will spend years of their lives in medical training and practice before the goddess will grant them the ability to perform even minor healing spells. Shrines of Ashotene are also cleared out as medical facilities, giving the healers a place to work and the healed a place to recuperate. More often shrines to the goddess are simply placed where there is healing to be done. Ashotene is also a major advocate for cleanliness.
    Ashotene has two major symbols, her common one displays her magical healing touch, a laying on of hands, her other symbol is shown by her faithful, a stitched and bandaged wound.
    The goddess was once an angel of Celeste, the soul of a healer that had passed on and the goddess refined into an angel, empowered to heal. She flew great distances to provide her healing touch and gradually began to gain power from faith, beginning her rise to becoming a goddess in her own right.
    There is a secret cult of Ashotene that act as “angels of death.” The “angels” meet as a group and discuss their patients and if they as a group decide that one of their member’s patients is beyond healing, they will give them a peaceful death. These followers, typically the most senior clerics of Ashotene, are experts on the use of poisons and typically pay homage to Bern as well.
    
    Avarcus
    
    God of Wealth and Greed
    Neutral Evil
    Trickery
    Portfolio: Wealth, Gold, Trade, Theft
    Temples: Shrines to Avarcus are hidden away and small, typically they are little more than cash boxes branded with the symbol of Avarcus. Worshipers place items of value into the box, one that is truly blessed will not hear the coin fall, it simply disappears, sent to the hoard of Avarcus.
    A god of greed, wealth, and excess, the most common depiction of Avarcus is that of a dragon sitting on top of a massive heap of treasure, wreathed in gold and excessive displays of wealth. The god is deeply and nearly violently offended when its holy symbols, shrines, or prayers don’t include some portion of genuine wealth. In part as a result of this, the symbol of Avarcus gradually shifted into a simplified golden coin.
    Avarcus’ influence also has the interesting effect of maintaining the value of precious metals as the god takes from those faithful that would give him coin, but also returns some regular amounts to a chosen few, keeping the supply both rare and constant.
    Avarcus is the owner of an immense hoard of wealth. Enough to buy ten kingdoms ten times over. He will occasionally part with portions of his treasures, sometimes giving it away to those faithful that have provided him with much. Other times he bargains for it, but only should petitioners offer something he believes to be of greater value. Some clever souls have managed to pry immense wealth from Avarcus through praise or deceit, or simply through an impressive sales pitch. Metits is said to be a hated enemy of Avarcus, as the trickster god often cleverly convinces the hoarder to part with immense wealth for some menial object.
    The faithful of Avarcus carry golden coins blessed by his priests in the hopes that someday they might amass wealth worthy of the draconic god’s praise.
    
    Bern
    
    God of Death and Peace
    Lawful Neutral
    Death
    Portfolio: Death, Harvest, The Afterlife
    Temples: Temples to Bern are quiet places of contemplation for people to remember those who have recently passed and give offerings to Bern in the hopes that they will help them find peace.
    Bern is a god of calm temperament and simple sensibilities. They preside over the afterlife, casting their angels out to protect the souls of the dead and overseeing the labor of those souls that complete their journey through the afterlife in the dead fields. They believe in the peace of death and the need for these souls to pass on in some semblance of peace. Their primary goal for this is the simple, almost zen, act of meditative labor following the journey across the afterlife. This labor serves another purpose, souls are possessed of divine energy and their work helps turn that energy towards the gods. When the souls finally are at peace and fade, the whole of the remaining energy is returned to the flow. Bern ensures that there will always be a seamless motion to the work and that the labor does not overly strain or tire, he keeps the fields flush and provides fallow, overgrown, fields to be cleared. During the winters, it is believed that Sildrin leaves the fields of the mortal world and travels to the dead fields of Bern to aid them in this task.
    Bern opposes and despises the creation of greater undead. Creatures like liches or vampires are anathema to him, not simply because they defy the passage of life into death but because their unnatural death requires stealing the souls of others to sustain it. In the rare times Bern does set out to act in the world, they work to oppose these undead. Paladins of Bern hunt necromancers and undead with a fervent zeal. Though the god does not have too much concern with lesser undead like skeletons and zombies as they don’t interfere with the soul, just the remnants of an empty body.
    Bern does not often act within the affairs of mortals, and they rarely leave their duties attending to the dead for any great stretch of time. But Bern is often invoked during funerary services in the hope that Bern will protect the souls of those departed and give them an afterlife of peace.
    
    Bol
    
    God of Storms
    Chaotic Evil
    Tempest
    Portfolio: Lightning, Winds, Tempests, Rain, Storms
    Temples: Temples to Bol are windswept messes, built with the shattered remnants of where his storms had passed through. Shrines to Bol are intended to both honor the god’s destructive power and to hope to quell it.
    Bol is the son of the gods of wind and sea, he inhereted their flights of whimsy and their sudden flashes of wrath and was quickly consumed by those impulses. Bol will whip up storms and tempests seeming at a whim, lashing out at slights imagined or real, and simply to relish in its own power granted by divinity. His storms at their most powerful lay waste to anything in his path, ripping apart enitre villages and killing many. Though his storms are powerful they are often, fortunately, short lived. The anger of Bol is quick to fade or transition as his attention is caught by some new focus or simply to become spent.
    Bol’s storms do have their uses, the other gods exploit his temper as an instrument of divine retribution, sending him out against peoples that have done great insult to the gods, or sometimes that have simply caused offense. He also uses his storms to toy with mortals or to position “heroes,” whipping up winds to fling them to far off shores or deprive them of the luxury of rest.
    The faithful consider him reckless and impetuous, without a great deal of foresight. When pressed they may even call him a brat, before fearfully looking up to the sky. Many legends credit the development of flying sea creatures, such as windfish or the sky whales, as coinciding with his birth and closely associate them with him.
    
    Desim
    
    God of Madness and Genius
    Chaotic Neutral
    Arcana, Knowledge, Trickery
    Portfolio: Invention, Destruction,
    Temples: Temples to Desim are well reinforced, covered with the scattered remnants of experiments carried out by the clever people that the god attracts.
    Desim is, at his best, unpredictable. He is one of the greatest sources of progress in the world, and also of destruction. He has one of the wildest depictions in myth, appearing before mortals in hundreds of different forms and driving them to feats of incredible creative genius or depths of depravity. He’s also seen as the hundreds of minor figures that provide creative people with that last spark that allows them to connect the final pieces of the puzzle needed for their great works.
    Desim is often credited with helping in the creation of black powder, placing a candle too close to an experimental mixture of substances and letting them ignite. All to show the alchemists mixing it the tremendous gift they had stumbled upon, and its possible applications. There are myths of Desim trying to resurrect a titan to swat an anthill that had stung one of his prized inventors. There’s a parable of him telling a passing bard a story so maddening that the man lept off a skyland in a desperate attempt to understand the parable. He is also credited with the creation of several monsters that now roam Orizon. He “aided” drow bioalchemists in the creation of driders, and created the chimera as a way of calming the storms of wild magic. Both of which were successful in meeting their goal, but went on to cause untold destruction.
    As a new god, born following the breaking, Desim has no access to the knowledge of the past, and is building off the same foundations as the inventors and creatives he gives his patronage to. This gap in his knowledge is considered a tremendous boon to the world as a whole.
    
    Diasilva
    
    Goddess of the Wild
    Chaotic Good
    Life, Nature[/i]
    Portfolio: Nature, Woods, Forests, Beasts
    Temples: Temples to Diasilva are built deep in the forests, they become quickly overgrown, to the point that the encroaching greenery is as much a part of the sculpture as any stone. They serve as the beginnings of great hunts and hide fey passages.
    The eldest daughter of Karn, Diasilva is a goddess of wild places. She extends her patronage to the untamed hill, the deep forests, the untrammeled bogs, aird deserts, and abandoned skylands. She stretched her influence over all places that are far distant from civilization and the people that live in them. She is a patron of rangers and druids, offering them aid and guidance in their efforts to explore wild places and to live with them as much as they live within them.
    Diasilva is also a goddess dedicated to preserving the balance of nature and the health of enviroments. She understands the value and the other purposes of a huntress. She will occasionally manifest in mortal guise to challenge herself against strong and crafty beasts in a great hunt. In part this is to keep room in the food chain, like cutting down a great tree so the shoots beneath it can gain sunlight to grow. But this is also simply something she does for the thrill of the hunt, a deep passion of Diasilva. Those beasts that survive being hunted by Diasilva, or even those that prove clever enough to hunt her in return, gain her respect and her blessings, giving them magical power in addition to their wiles. Any creature that survives her hunts become true kings of their domain.
    Her followers construct simple shrines deep within wild places. Should she give her blessing to a shrine it will quickly become overgrown and “returned” to her. Ruins of past kingdoms that have been lost and overgrown are considered especially sacred to followers of Diasilva. This recognition of ruins and overgrowth, as well as the thrill of the challenge of the hunt makes Diasilva a frequent companion of Vister. She believes that his destruction of civilization will allow room for her wilds to grow and he relishes the connections between her hunts and his foundations of individual strength and honor.
    Diasilva is considered a patron of werewolves and similar monsters, creatures with a bestial side that coexists with their humanity.
    
    Estina
    
    Goddess of Travelers
    Chaotic Good
    Light
    Portfolio: Travel, Messengers, Adventure
    Temples: Temples to Estina are small affairs, often serving as way stations for travelers, they hold maps and a plinth with a compass. Travelers who enter a temple of Estina are encouraged to leave provisions and news and to write some of their travels and their names into the temple’s logbooks.
    After the breaking, there was the tragedy of those who were lost. Landmarks were upended, old maps were useless and homes were destroyed. People were forced to wander, lost. One person wandered for years, she was lost in the twists and turns of the world, using the rising sun and the stars as her only reliable landmarks. She wandered for ages, until her feet were tattered and her face was haggard. Unbenownst to her, she was also the first dreamer, able to travel the astral plane with ease. In her dreams she called out to the gods for a destination and help finding her way home. Eventually both Soltis and Celeste answered her prayer. They sent her a child and she made her own home. That child was the demigod Estina and what was desperation in her mother, the endless wandering was excitement for her. She began to travel and never stopped, in her journey she restored a sense of wonder in the world and the mysteries that were around the corner that people had lost. That hope became worship and a demigod became a fully fledged god.
    Estina knows that all too often the journey is more valuable than the destination at the end, but also the value of coming home again. This creates a duality to her nature, sometimes she will take people where they were going, sometimes she will fling them far astray. But the journey is never dull and never without value, and somehow they always journey to where they should be. She is a valued partner of Diasilva, taking the goddess’ wild spaces as valuable places to explore.
    The faithful of Estina operate lighthouses and waystations, providing lodging and security for people on their travels. They also construct simple shrines that serve as caches along pathways and near shelters. Most sailor’s islands have a prominent shrine to Estina for traveling sailors to offer their prayers.
    
    Fortana and Fortina
    
    Twin Goddesses of Fortune
    Chaotic Good & Chaotic Evil
    Trickery
    Portfolio: Luck (good & bad), success, failure, chance
    Temples: There are no temples to the twins, they are as likely to bless these temples as they are to curse them. Instead there are small shrines lined with felt, with dice and decks of cards placed within.
    The twin sisters of luck, one sister represents and grants good luck, the other sister represents and grants bad luck. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for their worshipers no one knows which sister is which and neither of the two goddesses will say. Because of this the two are worshiped as a single god, worshipers pray for good and bad luck, hoping that the right goddess happens to be listening, but knowing that the flip of a coin or roll of the dice could lead to disaster as easily as success.
    The twins often feature into the beginnings or the middle of legends. They offer mortals a gamble or a chance to have their prayers answered. Some set out to undo the bad luck brought by one sister, or are saved by the good luck given by the other. No one is quite sure what relationship the sisters have with the god of fate, Norn. For some the prospect of chance flies in the face of ordained fate, others believe that destiny is a response to chance and neither can exist without the other.
    The mortals held in the greatest favor of the twins are those who surrender to the roll of the dice and simply let the whims of luck happen. But this favor may not always be a blessing. Both goddess’ despise cheaters or those who rig games of chance, especially if those people already began the game with an advantage. The more egregious the cheat, the less the goddesses listen.
    
    Fortison
    
    God of Defensive War
    Lawful Neutral
    War
    Portfolio: War, Defense, Fortifications, Tactics
    Temples: Temples to Fortison are built into fortifications, lined with shields and armor. These temples are often the strongest parts of the wall and also is designed to serve as a safe hold for people to hide and keep themselves safe.
    Fortison is a god of walls and shields. He is a commmander that advocates for defensive tactics and strong bulwarks. He encourages strong soldiers to stand firm on a wall and serve as a redoubt against attackers and foes. He understands the perils of a siege and urges commanders to keep their food stores stocked and their walls strong. Paladins and faithful of Fortison are pledged to protect those that cannot protect themselves and will fight to the last man to defend their homes.
    Fortison is a patient god, especially when compared to his sibling war gods, and he encourages that same patience among his followers. His faithful stand strong and wait for the enemy to make a mistake, they trust in the preparations they’ve made. His faithful make constant, patient, effort keeping their defenses ready then strike when their foe is weary.
    Fortison, like the other war gods, often butts heads with his siblings. He think Aggressa is short sighted for relying on offense and rushing to battle, and he believes Vister to be a fool for charging forwards with nothing more than eager bloodlust. And he resents both of them for crushing walls and defenses. For their part, they consider him a dull neccessity, or a hindrance to the true glory of combat.
    Most of Fortison’s worshipers come from those behind the walls, praying that their defenses hold, and from those on top of them, ready to hold to the last.
    
    Imperna
    
    Goddess of Art and Magic
    Chaotic Good
    Arcana, Light
    Portfolio: Art, Magic, Magic Items, Music
    Temples: Shrines to Imperna are places for expression and artistry, often open to vistas and views for inspiration for artists. Sorcerers and wizards also come to express magic as an art more than just a tool.
    Imperna is a goddess of artistry and inspiration. She is a muse and empowers the angels in her service to occupy the same capacity. She takes in those individuals who strive to make great art, who practice and study and sends them angelic guides to teach them form and to grant them inspiration. After their life she offers to empower them to serve the same function for other struggling artists. Imperna also recognises the possiblities of magic as an artistic tool, from the compositions of bards to a sorcerer turning flames into delightful punctuations and illustrations of a story. She adores unique expressions with illusion magic and clever twists in a weave.
    She delights in music and stories and cares very little for whether or not a story is true, only if it’s interesing. She likes creative twists and unique experiments of form. Much like Desim she enjoys clever applications of unique concepts and reckless experimentation. Though their end goal is different. Desim values function, Imperna values form. It doesn’t matter if something works, just if something’s interesting.
    Beyond artists, Imperna often acts as a patron for sorcerers and those who use their magic towards intuitive and creative ends. Occasionally her patronage of arts and magic intersect and she will instill great works of art with magical power, creating beautiful magic items. Her influence has done much to redeem the opinion of magic to the people of Orizon.
    
    Matre
    
    Goddess of Hearth and Home
    Lawful Good
    Life
    Portfolio: Child Rearing, Family, Home
    Temples: There are few temples to Matre, but there are many shrines, placed above the hearth in a family’s home. These are simple horns filled with foods and mementos.
    Matre is the youngest dauther of Karn, and has ten a seat as the goddess of hearth and home. She serves as the patron of the hearth, home, and the family. She serves as the patron of homemakers, mothers and father, as well as chefs, inkeepers, and anyone else who makes care for others their focus or their profession. Matre especially cares for people who care for children. Unlike Karn, who simply acts around birth, Matre acts around care.
    Within the pantheon of the gods, Matre is the one who takes the crops grown and harvested by the souls of the dead and makes them into great feasts for the gods and their servants. Some believe that she melds the secrets of empowering departed souls into angels into her cooking.
    Matre’s most common partnership is with Sildrin, the goddess of the harvest. One acts for the community, the other acts for the home, together they develop something sustainable and beautiful. Devotees of Matre are the ones who prepare the harvests of Sildrin into the great feasts of harvest festivals.
    A focus of matre is also of protecting supplies. She and her followers construct barns and granaries to preserve crops and animals. And smoke houses to preserve meats. Cats are sacred to matre, thanks to their role in hunting pests that might steal the preserved and stored foods.
    A cornucopia and similar symbols of plenty and feasts are sacred symbols of Matre, and her followers attempt to live up to that provision of bounty. Or they pray to her in lean times, hoping that she might spare some of the bounty of the gods’ feasts.
    
    Metits
    
    God of Tricksters
    Chaotic Neutral
    Trickery
    Portfolio: Pranks, Thieves
    Temples: Metits’ shrines are small, and they are typically filled with little trinkets for children, toys, or simple tools for pranks, like small firecrackers, noise makers and whoopee cushions.
    Metits is a mechievous sort of god, he is an incorrigable prankster and an unrepentant thief. Metits is only barely tolerated by the rest of the pantheon. Sometimes his actions provoke furious anger from the gods, other times they are begrudged, others are the source of great amusement to some. He delights in fermenting chaos and conflict between other gods, riling them up into action and bickering rivalries. He makes fools of them so that neither the gods, nor mortals, should forget that they are possessed of failings and faults. He believes that without this occasional deflation of their egos the gods could become nothing but a destructive clash of powerful personalities. There are few gods that have not been the victims of Metits’ tricks, the more powerful and rigid the god the more likely they are to be his next target. Avarcus especially resents Metits, he has lost fortunes of wealth to the god’s tricks, but admires his slick tongue and crafty dealings.
    When Metits makes an excursion to the mortal world, he is an agent of chaos, causing trouble simply to laugh at the people who have been the butt of his pranks, or the pranks of others. His pranks are rarely hurtful, but should someone not laugh at their sudden comical streak of bad luck, or should Metits find an amusing straight man to his antics they may find themself the victim of an extended streak of pies to the face.
    Metits advocates that the structure of society is ultimately meaningless, that even gods and nobility are flawed, and that those flaws should be witnessed and mocked. That if anyone takes themselves too seriously, then their ego is a danger to those around them. The emperor needs to recognize when they are wearing no clothes.
    
    Norn
    Goddess of Fate
    Chaotic Neutral
    Knowledge
    Portfolio: Fate, Destiny, Secrets
    Temples: Temples to Norn are quiet and dark, somber affairs. Most prophets have shrines to Norn and many of Orizon’s dreamers similarly honor Norn.
    Held in Norn’s hands is a book that is believed to contain many different things. Some believe that it contains, written in it, the destinies of every person on Orizon, gods and mortals alike. Some believe that it has listed the possibilities of every choice anyone makes, its texts constantly shifting and fluxing, only becoming written once the actions have been taken. The depths of the book are also in question, if it has written the fate of every individual or just the great events that affects the world as a whole. In Norn’s other hand is an hourglass that counts down time itself, it never fills and it never empties. Some believe that Norn can flip the hourglass, giving people the rare and precious opportunity to make another attempt at destiny. The sands running out of the hourglass will mark the end of the world. “Norn’s sands are running out,” is an expression to mark dire times.
    Norn appreciates the strength of destiny, but also it’s mutability. Prophesies can unfold in unexpected ways, occuring in dozens of different permutations. She will occasionally whisper the details of fate and destiny to prophets and dreamers. The prophesies of Norn may seem meaningless, dire, or inscrutable. They are calls to action, though no one is sure if the actions prevent the destiny or ensure them.
    Those devoted to Norn occasionally take powerful magic items or valuable treasures and hide them away. They believe that Norn will guide people to rediscover these items at the moment they are needed.
    
    Sameth
    
    Goddess of Crafts
    True Neutral
    Arcana, Knowledge
    Portfolio: Crafts, Smiths, Forges
    Temples: Temples to Sameth may serve as forges and crafts stations, or as displays for fine works. More often Sameth has shrines placed within workstations and forges.
    Sameth stands behind craftsmen and creators. She is a forgemistress, a carver, and a weaver, as well as a skilled master of other crafts, his hands are dextrous and strong, perfect for any works she puts herself to. Unlike Imperna, he does not concern herself with artistry. They consider flourish to be fine, but not worth anything compared to a solidly done work done well. Considering the artistry of the work over the function of the final piece is considered foolish, and any flourish that weakens the piece is anaethma to her. This philosophy has, oddly, created works that are absolutely beautiful, but only because of their fine quality.
    Sometimes Sameth reaches down into the world, standing behind skilled craftsmen and aiding them in the creation of skilled works. She will manifest as a simple apprentice or assistant and her presence will drive the master to greater and greater heights, caught up in a nearly divine frenzy. When the work is done, they may discover that they have crafted an impossibly fine work, a masterwork or magical item. Some people have even retired, hanging up their tools for the rest of their lives after realizing that they will never again reach such heights.
    Sameth’s function among the pantheon is as the forgemaster and builder for the armies of souls, gods, and angels massed along the battlefield that stands against the fiends and outsiders. She considers herself the abject enemy of Vister, she builds the works of civilization and the growth of works, Vister tears them down.
    
    Sildrin
    
    Goddess of Harvest and Fertility
    Lawful Good
    Life, Nature
    Portfolio: Farming, Crops, Sex, Harvest, Gardens
    Temples: Shrines to Sildrin are positioned at the edges of fields and silos to invoke the goddesses’ protection over people’s crops.
    Sildrin is the younger sister of Diasilva and the second daughter of Karn. Her holidays and sacred times of worship are harvest and planting festivals. Her festivals can last for days, gradually building as the harvests continue. Often her festivals conclude with sexual displays, encouraged by feasts and liberal consumption of wine and ale.
    Sildrin’s legends place her as a stalwart friend to mortals. She works to ensure their prosperity and to take away their hunger. She is believed to frequently walk among mortals, disquised as a harvest spirit or as a farmhand there to help with the harvest that will join in the revels that come at the close of the harvest. She is also a frequent partner of other gods like Wobbum or Matre. With her enjoyment of the bounty of her harvests and the celebrations of mortals, she appears more often in the mortal world than other gods, more often than the dictates of Soltis strictly allows, but these trysts are overlooked as she has never sought further power or influence.
    Sildrin also is a patron of farm animals and beasts of burden, those creatures that help to ensure the health and prosperity of mortals. She also will occasionally send her angels to occupy scarecrows, letting them serve to defend the fields.
    During the winters, Sildrin ceases her watch over the mortal world and turns her attentions to Bern’s fields of the dead, she brings with her the magic of the harvests and of life, and through that she revifies the fields the dead work upon, providing greater power to the foods they harvest.
    
    Tharsias
    
    God of Wealth and Merchants
    Lawful Neutral
    Trickery
    Portfolio: Wealth, Sale, Merchants, Deals
    Temples: Temples to Tharsias serve as the entrances to marketplaces, with simple cashboxes for the donations of wealth and goods to the god, and platforms for people to haggle and conduct auctions.
    Tharsias, similar to Acarcus, is a god of wealth. Unlike the other god, they are concerned with equitable trade and growth, rather than amassing a hoard and simply taking. With this advocation, Tharsias has risen up as a god of merchants, traders, and moneylenders. Tharsias spreads the belief that a fair deal is the best deal, leaving both parties feeling the same way about their sale, be that content, cheated, or aggrieved, but that a canny salesman always makes a profit.
    Tharsias is also depicted as a dragon with vast wealth, but unlike Avarcus his hoard is curated and collected with meticulous books. Tharsias will freely trade the possessions of his hoard, though the god always profits from the bargain. Tharsias will also lend out parts of his hoard, but not without demanding some form of interest.
    Tharsias also acts as a guarantor for some bargains or deals. Should he be invoked through ritual and a generous offering, the draconic god will offer their seal to a contract, making it binding by means more than any mortal could ensure. The seal of Tharsias allows for even grander terms to the deal.
    Should anyone cheat Tharsias or try to go back on a bargain. Or should anyone go back on a deal that Tharsias has guaranteed, Tharsias will send their angels after the cheater, hounding them for everything that they have to give, driving them to ruin and desperation.
    Tharsias has taken as its symbol a bull’s skull. Since the bull has been held as one of the original symbols of wealth, it was embraced by the god. The bull’s skull was filled with gold in its eyes and coins around its horns.
    
    Vaiero
    
    God of Learning and Magic
    True Neutral
    Arcana, Knowledge
    Portfolio: Research, Magic, Books, Education
    Temples: Temples to Vaiero act as hosts to libraries and knowledge and the preservation of text. Shrines to Vaiero act as sites to meet for schooling from traveling educators.
    Vaiero is the curator of a grand library, the greatest source of learning and knowledge available across the entire cosmology of Orizon. The library is believed to contain a copy of nearly every book, scroll, and manuscript written since the god’s ascension, and even a rare few books that survived the destruction. These fragmented remnants of ancient knowledge are among the god’s most prized possessions.
    Vaiero has heard of the artifact A.M.I., but the ruins of the ancient world block even gods from easy access, and Vaiero has never been able to connect with the knowledge held by the ancient artifact. They do occasionally send teams of mortals into the ruins of the ancient world to recover lost knowledge or fresh scraps of text. Should they survive, the god will promptly sieze whatever they recovered and add it to his collection.
    Vaiero despises Desim, he believes the god of madness’ wild flights of fancy and dangerous experiments are in direct opposition to carefully curated and researched knowledge that can be collected and shared. Metits is also hated by Vaiero, as the prankster’s tricks have the distressing chance of ruining one of the great librarian’s books.
    Access to Vaiero’s library is the greatest treasure and aspiration of wizards and scholars across the planes. But Vaiero does not truly believe that mortals are ready for the knowledge within his library, or trustworthy enough to use it responsibly. He will require elaborate tests or gifts of additions to his library before even considering giving someone a library card.
    
    Verdin
    
    Goddess of Vengeance
    Lawful Evil
    Knowledge
    Portfolio: Vengance, Wrath, Duels
    Temples: Temples to Verdin are temporary, built to invoke the god’s oversight when people seek vengance against those that wronged them, or as courts for trial by combat.
    Verdin is more often invoked as a warning than she is invoked in an honest call for her aid. She is seen as a reminder that violence only begets more violence. But that is only a fraction of her ethos. She is the dark side of justice, bringing retribution in equal measure against those who have done wrong. The greater depths of Verdin are the beliefs that with the proper application of death, the cycle of violence can end quickly. Also that revenge can be a just conclusion to an unjust life.
    One invocation of Verdin comes before a duel, with duelists who have come to fight in a fair contest to resolve a dispute of honor. Especially if the duel is for some redress against a great wrong. Her form of justice requires a clear winner, closing with blood and death.
    The other call that brings people to call upon Verdin is more pointed vengance. They give up everything they are, their lives and their destiny, starting with a ritual where they gouge out their own eyes in exchange for power. Verdin will sometimes grant them this petition, giving them the ability to unerringly find their target and enough strength to have the chance to kill them. Should this finally succeed, they will die along with their target. Vengeance is not guaranteed, only the opportunity.
    The most devoted followers of Verdin will perform half of this ritual, gouging out an eye for power and acting as assassins of vengance, hunting and killing wrongdoers. “Make the whole world blind” is a secret motto of these most devoted.
    Verdin was once a mortal woman, she was the wife of Virden and the matriarch of a grand family. Sadly, their family was cruely wiped out by the machinations of a rival family. Verdin became consumed with her anger, and devoted to their destruction. They sought out power to carry out their revenge and found the whispers of a dead god. Verdin carved from its tooth a dagger and set out to kill everyone who had harmed her, so they could never do so again. The weapon’s power and the legendary fear she spread gradually elevated her to godhood.
    
    Virden
    
    God of Justice
    Lawful Neutral
    Knowledge
    Portfolio: Law, Justice
    Temples: Temples to Virden are suppposed to serve as judicial centers as much as religious sites. They hold texts on the law and people are intended to come to his temples to discuss the subjects of justice and question their decisions.
    Virden is invoked most often by kings, rulers, governors, and judges. All people who hope to have the fair adjucation of power and justice. People who hold anuthority and seek to be fair and impartial with their authority. Virden is considered to be an intractable arbiter of fairness and justice, he upholds the law above everything else, and there is no sense of pity or mercy, no favortism or chances to game the system. Virden’s sole virtue is justice and law, he has no concept of shades of grey. Virden seeks absolute justice absolutely and, if he is invoked, will seek to impose it wherever it is lacking.
    Many who seek the justice of Virdin walk away ultimately unsatisfied, or even horrified. They cannot deny the justice of the god’s verdict. Though all recognize that the god’s treatment was harsh, nearly inhuman. All of it is made even more distressing by the god’s absolute dispassion.
    When Virden calls upon his angels, they serve as bailiffs or judges. Overseeing judicial procedures to ensure that proper process was followed, or imposing order if it may be found lacking.
    Virden was once a mortal man, the husband of Verdin and the patriarch of a grand family. Tragically their family was destroyed by rivals. Virden became cold and hard, dedicated to making his enemies see justice. The two of them followed the tremors of a dead god and from its knuckles Virden constructed a set of scales, perfectly calibrated to weigh a man’s soul. Virden was cold and dispassionate, but did not want their destruction without some order, he wanted his enemies condemned, not destroyed. The respect his enemies had slowly became worship as his legend spread and with the power of their tools the two were elevated to divinity.
    
    Vister
    
    God of Battle and Destruction
    Chaotic Evil
    War, Tempest
    Portfolio: War, Honor, Battle, Destruction
    Temples: Temples to Vister are there to celebrate great warriors who were believed to serve them, and are places for people to challenge themselves against other warriors.
    Vister is a consumate warrior, he is known for his total lack of tact and patience. He is a god of battle more than of war, he revels in the glory of a fight and the rush of blood and adrenaline. He is a god of challenge as well, constantly pushing people to strive. He is destructively opposed to the trappings of civilization and luxury, believing them to make people soft and weak, denying them the chance to improve. He gleefully embraces his role as a god of destruction. In the eyes of Vister, this destruction isn’t absolutely necessary for the betterment of the world. Civilization coddles and weakens, walls protect weak men, and the weak men must be destroyed so that the strong may flourish.
    Vister abhors all weakness, but tolerates it if the weak strive to improve themselves. It doesn’t matter if those abilities are centered around combat, so long as they allow no weakness in it. But even with strength, Vister calls on all his followers to strive to greater heights and constantly challenge themselves. Complacency is for the weak, artists must always make greater works, scientists must make greater concepts, and warriors must fight greater foes.
    Despite his violent impatience, Vister does restrain himself through concepts of “honor” and encourages his faithful to hold up their own codes of honor in battle and any of their swathes of destruction.
    Unlike the other war gods of Orizon, Vister is not a commander and cares little for soldiers. Vister is concerned with warriors. He cares not for tactics or bulwarks, he and his followers simply wade into the fray and kill as many foes as they can.
    
    Wobbum
    
    God of Revelry
    Chaotic Neutral
    Trickery, Life
    Portfolio: Wine, Parties, Sex, Drugs
    Temples: Temples to Wobbum are prepared to host parties, filled with lounges and cushions and long tables for wine and refreshments.
    Within ever major celebration is wine and merriment, and not to far from that is Wobbum. He delights in revelry, so much so that parties blessed by Wobbum can get out of hand. He revels in excess and hedonistic celebration. At all times he is attended by servants in various states of undress and at different depths into their cups. His every whim is attended to as best they are able and he will take in boisterous stride any mistake made by his besotted attendants. They provide him with wine and herb and whatever other provisions would fit the mood of the party.
    Wobbum spreads drinks and drugs among his followers, he encourages them to all but abuse those substances during their revels, encouraging experimentation and excess. Some followers of Wobbum believe that the god provides his followers with these things to better help his followers achieve an enhanced state of mind and therefore better connect with the gods as a whole. Some of his followers have, through the use of his provisions, become dreamers. Others believe that there is no greater motive to the god’s gifts, that he simply enjoys a good party, and enjoys a crazy party more.
    Many of the legends that feature Wobbum depict him getting raging drunk and then making a foolish decision. Once he empowered a group of drunks as paladins and then simply said, “blast it, do whatever.” His drunken order of knights then went on to inspire their own legends of heroics and novelty. There is a legend of Wobbum that once he drank a demonic prince of gluttony under the table, and now he commands a small assortment of succubus and incubus as his attendants, his prize for victory.
    
  • The gods may be frequent actors in the world of Orizon, but they rarely, almost never, interact with the world in their fullness. There was a time when they did, significant figures in the ancient world had often met with the gods personally to discuss magic, philosophy, and the sciences. This involvement rose the people up to even further heights, to their state of wonders. And that power led them to destroy the world. Soltis and the other ancient gods remember this time, they remember these mistakes. As the head of the pantheon Soltis prevents excessive involvement from the other gods, or at least overt involvement. The gods still make appearances in the world, but in lesser forms, mortal guises or at a level of power akin to powerful spirits.
    The way the gods act most frequently is through their chosen, empowering them so that they may be able to enact the god’s will in the world, without requiring the god’s action. Sometimes the gods do manifest in their fullness of power and glory, but this is so rare that almost no one alive has ever seen it happen.
    When the gods try to intercede directly, they will do even this through proxies, sending out angels or spirits to act in their stead.
    
    Gods and Adventurers
    Adventurers are an enjoyable tool for the gods, they are fascinating in their mortal follies and useful in their skills. Sometimes a god will send messages to strong adventurers, or adventurers that Norn has indicated have a potent destiny. They will send these adventurers out to succeed at trials or quests. Sometimes the gods use mortals to settle disputes, betting on an adventurer’s success or failure.
    
  • Though these entities may not command the power or the level of worship as the gods, they are each powerful in their own right and command their own faithful. Any of these entities are known to the whole of Orizon, if not by name then by influence.
    The lesser entities of Orizon’s pantheon of beings don’t have the power of the gods, but they lack the culture of opposition and the strict rules of the gods and can often act more overtly in the world than the gods are able, and have a measure of skill of wielding the power they have.
    
  • A coalition of devils and demons under the command of Incancatus, occupying a planar location on the opposite end as the gods in their celestial manor. The demons and devils coexist on a razor’s edge, held together only by the iron fist of Incancatus, its promises of deification and fear of its wrath.
    The members of the court always number six, three demons and three devils, each of these beings commands their own area where they host the souls they claim and their own legions of fiends.
    Since there are a limited number of seats in the court the membership is constantly distracted by holding their positions against contenders and usurpers as Incancatus does not care who holds the seats of power, only that the balance is maintained.
    
    Aramisk
    
    Demon of Swarms
    At first appearing to be a woman of middle age, as pale and as white as bone, with hair as black as pitch. But beyond that appearance her legs don’t exist, stretching out into the body of a massive centipede ending with a vicious stinger. Hidden within her mouth are sharp fangs, wicked pincers, and dripping acid.
    Thousands of insects cover the body of the demon lord and billions fill her lair. The more one looks, the more an observer will see the undulating surfaces of her lair reveal themselves to be a carpet of bugs.
    Aramisk has gleeful thoughts for infestations, the demons under her control are accompanied by masses of insects to mark their passage. She’ll send swarms of locusts to decimate fields, ants to deplete stores of food, and fleas to spread disease. A severe unexplained infestation is a sure sign of her influence.
    
    Borst
    
    Demon of Blood
    Borst is a demon of bloodthirst and cravings for violence. He thrives on taking lives and relishes doing it gruesomely and quickly, with as much bloodshed as possible. He enjoys spreading that same bloodlust onto others and will occasionally enchant weapons with the “blessing” of the berserker.
    Borst appears as an amalgam of a few different monsters, grotesque and burly with plates and spikes and three different heads upon his body; an orc, a goblin, and a human. Sometimes these heads change, sometimes the body shifts, but that is the most recent deception of the beast.
    His primary goal in his actions is in starting wars, ripping the world apart in an orgy of blood. His favorite form of chaos is inciting holy wars. He’ll inflame passions, whip religious sects into frenzies over the slightest difference in interpretations of even the simplest words of the gods.
    
    Davurn
    
    Devil of Undeath
    Davurn was once a powerful wizard that became a potent and evil litch, feeding countless souls into his phylactery. But soon enough he became hunted, seeking out sanctuary, he fled into the pit for safety. Soon enough he began incorporating magics of the pit into his phylactery. With this infusion of infernal energy, he began to rise up as a devil, eventually rising up all the way to a position beneath Incancatus.
    Davurn augments the devils under his command with legions of the undead and exploits his position as a devil lord for a supply of bodies as much as it is a supply of souls. He uses his skills and mastery of magics of undeath to execute fine control over the souls that he seizes.
    Davurn seeks out mortal mages and offers them secrets of forbidden magics in exchange for their souls. He is the most reliable source of information for mages seeking to become a Lich themselves.
    
    Farsk
    
    Devil of Deals
    A devil of quiet patience, operating over years. He fills a role similar to Tharsias, acting as a guarantor for vile contracts. Farsk does not care for violent acts or reckless displays of power, simply lets people make their own mistakes.
    Farsk will send out emissaries to make deal with powerful figures, collecting favors, valuable materials, and even souls through his deals. He is the only member of the court to ever willingly peacefully interact with any of the gods and will offer them information on the court’s other members in exchange for later favors.
    Farsk keeps hidden away within his realm, within the great cabinets of his firm, copies of each deal he has ever made and ever overseen. The deal he keeps in as his greatest possession, the one he secrets away with the greatest care, is his own contract of service to Incancatus.
    
    Hermitno
    
    Demon of Retribution
    Hermitno exploits the wrath of the wronged and the hurt. He seeks out the disenfranchised and the angry, the reason they are upset matters little, what matters is his ability to inflame those passions into a cold and unending fury. He’ll send demons to grant people assistance, and is overjoyed when they accept darker and more and more dangerous assistance.
    Hermitno drives these “followers” into further and further acts of terror and violence. With his work, one death is not enough to end the cycle of violence, the people he influences will find more and more excuses for greater and greater violence. Keeping them wrapped in violence long after the original wrong has been forgotten.
    This endless cycle of violence has put some people to calling Hermitno the demon of terrorism. And his endless calls for more and more depth drive more and more people into his arms.
    
  • Archfey are powerful lords of the Faerie, within the realm they command nearly godlike power, through the fey crossings their influence spreads out to the material world.
    The archfey only command their epic power while within the raw magics that flood the Faerie, within the material plane they must keep a piece of the Faerie to maintain their strength, and the Umbral is deadly to them. The archfey spread their influence outside the Faerie through warlocks they empower, or lesser fey they command.
    Some of the archfey are the few creatures who predate the breaking, but thanks to the effect of the breaking, the Faerie was shaken in a great aurora and their memories were lost.
    
    Lord Thezmothete
    
    He Who Must be Watered
    The fey lord of all plants. Lord Thezmothete is a grand intertwined mixture of plant species positioned inside of an expansive and elaborite planters pot. He reigns over all plants, but commands the plants within his realm with absolute authority. He stretches out his influence through vines, roots, and tendrils, and enforces absolute authority.
    He Who Must be Watered is typically seen using his influence to assist farmers and druids, helping to spread the gifts of the natural world. In the deeper wilds, he helps the natural world grow strong and to overtake anything left over and to destroy anyone who would exploit the natural world.
    
    King Alyss Il'Dan
    
    The Mourning Lord
    An ancient elven survivor of the breaking, he lost his memory of the world before during the breaking, but his crystal castle contains trappings of the world before. With these meager remnants the Mourning Lord knows that he has lost, but is not sure of what he has lost and he obsesses over this loss.
    King Alyss cherishes remnants of the old world, and hopes that the next trinket he receives will be the one that will jog his memory enough that he will know what he has lost.
    King Il’Dan seeks to impose order on the world around him. He has vague memories, of something brilliant and structured. But it is doubtful that the memories are real, more like they are the fevered creations of someone looking for an excuse to impose their order. But still, he remembers this rigid structure of work and social hierarchy and insists those under his command live in a flawed reflection of an imagined past.
    
    Bretes Smashfist
    
    Her Largeness
    The great storm giantess, queen Bretes Smashfist stands strong above her mountainous keep where she maintains a loose control at the peak of the giant’s ordning. Giants roam the enormous mountain, preserve glaciers at its base, fire giants work the mountain’s molten depths. She commands a great forge within the mountain’s core and a massive pit for the giants to brawl.
    From the peak of the mountain, Bretes travels across the storms, walking through lightning bolts and thunderclaps to oversee her entire domain.
    Bretes considers herself an artist, she will use her storms to smash at the mountains and the areas around it, carving it into pieces of artistic mastery.
    
    "King" Winny Jinglebottom
    
    The One Wearing the Crown Today
    Jinglebottom is one of many of the membership of a grand roving party, a revel that has never ended, its members coming and going at will, drinking endless spirits and enjoying their reckless abandon.
    The crown Jinglebottom wears was lost by an ancient king that joined the revels years before who lost his crown within the party, it was then seized upon by the revelers and it has become an artifact in its power. Whoever wears the crown is the king of the party and both command it and are subsumed by it.
    
    Queen Piscene
    
    The Lady of Fountains
    A lithe merfolk who holds court within a deep castle of coral positioned deep underneath the glittering seas of the Faerie. She commands the seas and rivers and the creatures that swim within them. Whenever the merqueen walks on dry land, shifting from a deep merfolk’s tail to a shallows merfolk’s legs, she is trailed by fountains of sparkling clear water.
    The queen is an occasional traveler of the astral plane as well as the seas of faerie, wandering into the dreams of mortals and persuing their secrets. This trait has also made her a powerful broker of information.
    The queen delights in the discovery of shipwrecks and has filled her castle with the barnacle-encrusted treasures looted from centuries of lost vessels. Some she has ordered sunk herself to have dragged into her domain.
    
    The Four Sisters
    
    Ladies of the Seasons'
    The four sisters, Printemps, Ete, Automne, and Hiver are, without a doubt, the most powerful beings in the plane of faerie. Each of them holds power over their respective season. The two with the greatest powers are the sisters of Winter and Summer, Hiver and Ete, but they have been caught in an ancient rivalry. The other two sisters travel between the summer and winter courts.
    Each of the sisters stands surrounded by her respective seasons, changing the weathers around them. When two of the sisters meet, their seasons interact and shift. This is a gentle mingling when Printemps or Automne should meet with their sisters, but a violent clash if Ete or Hiver should ever stand together.
    The fey lords all command some territory they call their own, but the sisters command the greatest influence and terrain. They represent the ancient seasons and they are as old as the world. Each of them commands legions of fey and powerful influence. The summer and winter courts can bring nearly anyone to answer their calls.
    
    Esme Oggh
    
    The Grand Hag
    The seventh born child of a seventh born child grants great power to the daughter of a hag, but one ancient hag went further. She discovered the seventh born child of seven generations of seventh-born. A coincidence the child was unaware of. The hag stole this child away and devoured it, giving birth to a beautiful daughter of immense power. But this hag did not transform at her thirteenth birthday, she retained her human form, beginning to study magics and spirits. She learned new and strange magics and magics that were old even before the breaking. Some say that she knows powers even outside of the flow of magic.
    But Esme Oggh was not interested in being social, or in the vile impulses of a hag. The grand aspirations of her mother were abandoned and Esme retired to the Faerie, found a place to build her home, and simply sought to live her life. Still, other hags seek her out, envious of her power and seeking her secrets. Hags hold her as her leader and serve her as faithfully as such creatures are able.
    The grand hag resides in a simple cottage at the edge of a swamp, holding court within the warm interior from a cozy armchair. She has an assortment of descendants both in and out of the Faerie, both human and hag. And rumor has it she can see through the eyes of her bloodline.
    
  • The shades are the lords of the Umbral, creatures that have embraced the perpetual darkness and come to thrive in it. Within the shadowed confines of the Umbral the Shades have achieved tremendous power that leaks out into the material plane through their lesser servants and the creature’s they’ve inspired.
    Outside of the Umbral they are weakened, no longer fed by the dark energies they bathe in. The Faerie is anathema to the Shades and its energies will slowly kill them should they ever enter.
    
    The Porcleain Throne
    
    The Empty Depth
    Following the breaking a being feld to the Umbral, hoping to forget the tragedy it had been witness to. Its memories haunted it and drove it mad. It decided that the only way to end the madness was to destroy its self. It constructed a mask of ceramics and magic and stripped its old identity away, sealing it beneath an implacable mask. With this, the thing that once was became the porcelain throne, the mask became the true being.
    The mask has been a bright place in the shadows, what would have been tarnished has spread to the body wearing the mask instead, what would have cracked was spread to the body. The being grows its power still to spread the peace it has gained. It constructs new masks and places them on anyone that should cross its path, adding them to its growing host and to its self.
    Anyone wearing the mask of the porcelain throne assumes its power and knowledge, and control of anyone else wearing a mask of the throne.
    
    The Lady of Roses
    
    She of a Thousand Blades
    A commander of the plants, she is made as much of plants as she is of flesh and she adores the plants. She cares for the lives of plants above all else, and believes that nature is sacrosanct and should never be disturbed. Her realm is a thick bramble of thorny brush and grasping vines that strangle and slash at anything that enters the thorn lord’s gardens without her permission. Even those that enter with her permission leave with dozens of scratches and cuts.
    Within the circle of thorns that surround her realm though, it is beautiful. Her garden is one of the few places of the umbral with anything more than dim light. With her power she brings sunlight even into the Umbral, all the better to care for the plants in her garden. Her gardens are beautiful places, and she offers them as a sanctuary to those people that she allows in. Anyone she doesn’t allow in, their blood waters her plants.
    The lady of roses is something akin to a dryad, tied to a rosebush as her heart tree. She uses her rosebush as a way of extending her power, offering cuttings of her heartbush to grant herself new seats of power in places beyond her garden.
    
    The Blood of the World
    
    The Red Glow
    Once a daughter of Karn, a demigod of the earth and stone, she took an aspect of the living fire that flows through the world. But she chose instead to use her nature to burn and destroy and she was cast to the Umbral. Now the blood of the world is an entity of living magma that perpetually glows with the light of molten rock.
    The blood of the world descends within the umbral, taking her seat at the center of a great river of lava. She travels between blackened volcanoes, crawling up through the pools of heat to then walk into the world.
    Occasionally the blood of the world spreads out through the world, seeking stone and metal to melt down and add to itself. Some dwarves revere the blood of the world, especially after they are lost in the deep dark of the vaults. They know that if they should ever stumble upon an uncontrolled seam of her magma it could possibly be their final sight.
    
    King Godwin Flamel
    
    The Eldest in Blood
    Before the breaking, Godwin Flamel was nothing. And then he became a vampire. He saw a brief opportunity to gain strength and freed Nakhotet, the great vampire in exchange for power and blood. He spent some time learning the new secrets of his vampiric strength and then killed his sire, trapping his body in the darkest corners of his umbral territory. Godwin occasionally travels to these depths to siphon fresh blood from this body to consume.
    With this new power and the territory he seized, he declared himself a king. He made occasional forays to sieze and enslave mortals, dragging them down into the Umbral to attend to his every need, to appease his vanity and to sate his various hungers.
    Godwin is a genteel sophisticate, a man of immaculate tastes and the height of nobility. But that is only half of his nature. Godwin flamel is also a monster, a wild beast with his passions elevated to feral wrath. He has some degree of control over this feral nature, but he is unpredictable. A simple misstep can turn someone speaking with Godwin Flamel into the next victim of his hunger.
    
    Winterghast
    
    The Freezing Wraith
    A shimmering figure of blue mist. The Winterghast is a powerful spirit of cold. Wherever the Winterghast passes, frost trails behind. The spirit absorbs the heat of wherever it passes, but never warms, simply spreading more and more cold.
    The Wintergahst stalking along the Umbral is a testament to the fact that few things go as well together as the dark and the cold.
    Beneath the mystery of its blue, cold, light the Winterghast is a potent intelligence. It can reach into the minds of mortals, taking from them even the thought of warmth. It has immense experience with the minds of mortals, and what they will do when the cold drives them to desperation.
    
  • The gods of Orizon are powerful, and they occasionally make forays into the world of mortals and find themselves lovers there. The children of these trysts are rare, and many die young, unable to survive the rigors of fate that is drawn by their divine blood. Those demigods that survive are often extremely powerful and share some of the nature of their divine parent’s aspect.
    Some demigods reject their fate and try to live mundane lives; some of them become powerful adventurers, sent on grand quests by their divine parentage; still others come on into direct service to their parents, interceding for them in the world of mortals.
    
  • Orizon is flooded with spirits. There are spirits of plants, animals, and stone, spirits of those that have passed and spirits of the cosmos. Some believe that there is a spirit for everything, every stone and blade of grass, every bolt of lightning. Others believe that there only a few spirits for those things that have received special reverence. Some see creature like dryads and elementals as more powerful spirits, others think they are related, but distinct. Some spirits can take shape, anthropomorphic or bestial or surreal, some spirits are formless and indistinct.
    Regardless of the truth of their nature, the spirits of Orizon are numerous. Some people can learn to connect with these spirits, some can manipulate or communicate with them and receive strength from that connection.
    
  • These are things from between the planes, that roam the worlds for reasons beyond comprehension of gods and mortals. Some seem simply to hunger, others are curious, others have motives even more inscrutable. Some call them “elder gods” some call them “beyonders” others call them “Esuriiten.” They are all these things and more.
    Combating these entities is one of the greatest tasks of the gods and of their heavenly hosts, angels and the empowered souls of heavenly warriors. The approach of one of these things is one of the few things that can end bickering and infighting between members of Orizon’s pantheon.
    
  • A soul requires a body to give it form and function, to give it definition and meaning. When the body dies the soul loses that connection and stability and begins to pass on.
    Most souls move forwards onto the afterlife, feeling the pull of the natural movements of spectral energies, pulling them towards Postea. These souls wake on a vast expanse of shoreline with sands made of black diamonds, the shore of Postea. Ahead of these shores are calm waves with waters that look like they’re filled with galaxies. Beyond these calm waters the ocean becomes a turbulent churning riptide.
    The soul wakes on the shore with spectral counterparts of the things that were buried along with them, so that they may keep their fondest possessions. Some are buried with things intended as gifts or bribes for the gods they go to serve or aid for the things they expect to find in the coming journey.
    After some time has passed, these souls eventually come to realize that they have died and they face a choice. Some of these souls choose to dive into the deep waters, where the churning tides corrode and destroy them, returning the energies of their soul back to the flow. Fiendish souls and those who committed great evil find themselves chained, bound to the shore while they wait to be collected. The souls of the devout will be met by servants of the deities they followed.
    When a soul has tired of the shores, they make their way to the fields. They walk under a grand archway and come onto a pathway, once there they begin a great journey, traveling for ages on the way to the fields of Bern. The agents of gods will accompany spirits on their journey, weighing their behavior and further deciding their fates while helping to guide them along the path. During this journey they may come across the souls of those who have given up and decided to settle along the path, delaying their journey. Some encounter fiends hoping to tempt wanderers down to the pit. But those who persevere make it to the fields of Bern.
    Once there, souls accompanied by divine servants may be brought before their gods to be offered to be taken into the god’s service. These souls are empowered, becoming servants or angels. Some are offered a place in the gardens to spend an afterlife in that paradise. Others are taken to the battlefields, where their energy and skill are turned to the protection of the plane from outsiders. All of these choices are placed to the soul of the departed, and it is up to them to choose.
    The souls of villains and of those dedicated to acts of evil do not get to choose their fate. Their choice is made for them. Upon their arrival to the shores they are chained down, the more evil they committed, the stronger and more numerous the chains. A red glow appears from between the sands and a demon or a devil claws its way up through the pit. This fiend siezes the soul, dragging them down into the pits. Down there they are subjected to extreme torture, a crude but fast system for extracting the energy from these souls and taking it from the flow. Some souls survive the torture for longer than normal, or have made deals to a powerful field. These are rendered, ripped apart and converted into a new lesser fiend in the service of Incancatus and the damned court.
    The majority of unclaimed souls, and the final choice left to those blessed souls, is service in the fields of Bern and Sildrin. Those souls here are put to work, tilling fields, sowing crops and making what will be food for the gods. Those working here feel no pain, no exhaustion, they are expected to work, but are not demanded to. Though everyone there will feel a pull to service, an extremely subtle compulsion to work. Every winter the fields are reconstructed, allowed to grow wild and fallow and the labor begins anew.
    The central idea for the fields of Bern is for those there to gradually lose themselves in the simple repetition of labor. Eventually they will come to peace and pass on.
    Some souls resist the pull of the afterlife, something keeps them rooted to the world they knew in life. Sometimes its a grudge or regret, sometimes its a love or fondness. These souls begin to haunt, stalking the ethereal plane, haunting the places and people they knew in life. Spirits like this gradually lose memories of their old identities, focusing more and more on their grudges or their memories.
    The oldest of these spirits with the weakest ties to their old lives may gradually become more attuned to places they are tied, rather than the people they once were. Ghosts and specters gradually lose their old identities and grudges, becoming nature spirits, they become more like Fey than what they were before. There are those who believe that the more esoteric fey spirits have their origins in this process.
    
• • General Trends
  • Sex and Sexuality
  • Romance and Relationships
  • Technology
  • Communications
  • Language
  • Adventurers
  • On The Ground

  • Most skilled labor is handled under the purview of guilds, especially skilled crafts and magic. The usual system of managing guild membership and advancement begins with accepting and training apprentices. Once they reach a certain level of ability, these apprentices are then sent out to travel between multiple different guild masters during a journeyman period of training in order to learn new skills and new ways to apply them. Following this period of study, they then prove their abilities before a group of guild masters to become approved as a full member of the guild themselves.
    The guilds are typically held responsible for handling guild business and disputes internally and are a powerful lobbying force, but are forbidden from forming any sort of militia. Many guilds operate between multiple different nations and need to manage their operations to accommodate the various laws of different countries.
    Shipping is a lifeblood industry as it is responsible for connecting people across the skylands and the ground. As a consequence merchant guilds and similar organizations responsible for transit and ships usually command a great deal of power.
    Many merchant guilds collaborate with other organizations to facilitate their operations. Communications organizations like post offices and couriers may collaborate with merchant guilds, using their trade routes as their delivery routes. Adventurer guilds will use merchant guilds both to collect and share rumors and jobs and to shuttle adventurers closer to their final destinations.
    Most nations are relatively small in scale. This is usually because of practical concerns rather than a lack of ambition from world leaders. It is difficult to move people between skylands because of the necessity for sailing ships, and monsters and raiders makes it difficult to reliably move people across the ground.
    These consequently restrain a ruler’s ability to maintain the rule of law within their borders, forcing those borders to remain small to allow those rulers to reliably enforce their rule and defend their people. There are very few large nations, and many are surrounded by either wild territory or numerous smaller nations and city-states.
    Airships are often used for surveillance over the ground, and small scout ships can occasionally be seen flying low over the ground looking for people in distress or for signs of monster activity. This practice has its own dangers though, as monsters may attack these ships, flying above them and striking, or launching grappling hooks or other missiles. Some creatures like giants will hurl boulders at these ships, hoping to loot them for supplies or simply defend their territory.
    Organized monsters, like the raiding parties or the legions, usually have heavy ballista or guns and cannon intended to shoot down low-flying ships to prevent them from reporting on their activity to any organized militaries.
    Rooftops on the ground and sky are designed to be color coded and usually have symbols painted onto the roofs to indicate to anyone flying above what is available and where it can be found.
    
  • The influence and philosophies of gods like Celeste, Sildrin, and Diamete has encouraged a somewhat permissive attitude towards sexuality. Some holiday celebrations are even expected to conclude with an orgy, though this typically follows a great deal of alcohol and is conducted in private spaces. Openness about sex is not considered shameful or discouraged, but open practice is seen as being in bad taste at the very least and some discretion is expected in polite society.
    All societies do still hold the importance of consent along with this permissiveness, and any abuse of that is considered a serious crime. Hand in hand with this criminality is a negative association with coercive magic, such as charming spells.
    Thanks to the philosophies endorsed by Celeste, gender identity is allowed a great degree of personal expression. Some people seek out magical means of reassignment if they feel they need it. While there are some to whom such things may be considered jarring, they are not persecuted or demonized.
    Further, gender isn’t really viewed as any sort of concrete limitation on ability or quality of a person. Though there is some consideration of the distinct differences between genders, no one would consider a woman being a warrior or a man being a homemaker to be at all unusual.
    
  • Young people are passionate about love and lust, and the old don’t exactly dislike it. Romance is, for the large part, encouraged and enjoyed in the cultures of Orizon. There is, however, a difference between relationships of passion and relationships like marriage. Marriage is considered a contract and love is not a necessary part of that contract.
    Marriage, especially among the nobility, is arranged. The concern is more for arranging alliances or business relations than the happiness of those involved. Although compatibility between the future couple is taken into consideration, they rarely have any real say in the matter outside of indicating their preference.
    The sexuality of the couple is usually taken into consideration when arranging a marriage, but if an arrangement would be especially profitable even that may be ignored.
    Since formal relationships are so strictly controlled, affairs are not looked upon with much disdain, so long as they are handled with courtesy for the situation and discretion for society. There have even been cases of a partner and spouse becoming close friends and acting almost as an extended family.
    
  • The closest parallel (in earth’s history) to the technology available to the people of Orizon would be the 16th to 18th century. The mechanical and industrial innovations of the industrial revolution haven’t even been conceived of. Additionally, a lack of infrastructure and communications tools makes spreading and advancing these technologies difficult at best.
    Gunpowder is a common tool for weapons technology and is often used in either simple firearms or simple explosive devices like grenades or powder kegs. However, gunpowder is an inherently dangerous substance, so it is only produced and stored by specific groups and organizations. In addition, firearms have small and intricate mechanisms, and so are only produced by well trained individuals and they are expensive both to own and maintain.
    Medical technology keeps about the same level of advancement, but since it’s supplemented with the healing abilities of magic great feats can still be accomplished. The greatest difference from the period is an understanding that cleanliness is connected to health.
    The ruins of the ancient world have numerous caches of the technology used by the people of that era, technology that outpaces what those of modern Orizon could accomplish by centuries. Unfortunately much of it has been irreparably damaged or extremely well protected. In addition, the method for their creation or their maintenance depended on a techno-magical infrastructure that the breaking devastated.
    Sometimes people survive expeditions to the ruins and bring back some of this ancient technology, but because of the gaps, attempts to recreate the things recovered have almost all failed, sometimes disastrously.
    
  • Getting messages through the world is an ordeal in itself, in addition to the distance between people and the comparative rarity of means of travel, there is also a tremendous amount of danger to travelers. Most communications is handled by either the merchants guild using their ships and trade routes for delivery of postage and packaging, or by specific courier companies that have their own ships and flying mounts they use for faster, more reliable, delivery.
    Some employ magical means for communications. Sending stones, scrying, even teleportation is used to communicate over vast distances. However, these tools are expensive and require training and resources to develop. Because of this, there are extremely few developed and expansive communications networks that employ magic. There are numerous smaller systems to communicate between individuals though.
    Print tools are relatively simple affairs, basic printing presses and movable type are available to those who want to use them. Many use these tools to develop newsletters and newspapers that are distributed through merchant guild’s trade routes.
    
  • There are many different languages on Orizon, most of them are racially based and descended from the pre-breaking cultures. One of the more subtle influences of the gods has been preserving a common language between the various people of Orizon, though there are numerous regional dialects and accents of that common language. International travelers may have to spend some time figuring out each other’s meaning despite their shared language. Common is directly rooted to the ancient language, but there has been drift over time.
    Most people of Orizon are literate in at least common. Though the further they are from the major cities in the skylands, the less likely they are to be more than barely literate. And most people on Orizon are at least conversationally passing in another language in addition to common, typically this is their racial language, taught to them by their families.
    Learning the racial language of another species is difficult to completely master, as they often involve sounds or inflections that are easier for one race’s voice than another’s.
    
  • Adventurers take up an important role on Orizon, acting as mercenaries and irregulars, filling the many different needs of the various groups that employ them. These employer groups can range from peasant farmers that have pooled their resources, to organized guilds, to militaries, and even to kings and queens.
    Adventurers are typically called upon to handle dangerous situations, devious monsters, the consequences of a wild magic eruption. Their adventures spend them up and down the world at the whims of their employers or their own recognizance.
    Adventurers are often employed instead of using a standing army, because of their independence and mobility. An army is expensive and needs to be manned and equipped, adventurers are expected to equip themselves. Adventurers can also move more quickly than typical military forces, traveling to distant islands without having to mobilize or organize. They are often employed as irregular mercenaries, sent to either resolve a problem quickly or simply to assess the danger.
    Adventurers are also able to travel and act independently of national borders, with the dangers of monster raiding parties and beasts like dragons that can act outside of a nation’s borders an adventuring party can be sent outside of borders to address issues that governments can’t without the worrying potential of starting a war.
    
    Adventuring Guilds
    Typical adventurers act with the coordination and support of adventuring guilds. These guilds operate a guild hall and maintain a membership roster, they also coordinate with various organizations and governments to bring in jobs for the guild membership to perform. Some guilds post the easiest jobs publicly at the entrance to their guild hall, offering these listings to entice people to the reward and adventure available to those who participate in the guild’s adventures.
    Guild membership offers many benefits to those who stick with it, senior members have access to the most difficult and rewarding jobs, granting them access to more rewards outside of the guild for services rendered. Guild members also may enjoy discounts on goods and services from other guilds and some governments. Though it is an incredibly difficult and dangerous position, many find the rewards to be well worth the risk.
    Adventurers guilds also act as a sort of social club, they provide people with a place to meet people with shared interests and skills. Many burgeoning adventuring groups meet through the guild before going on to storied careers.
    
    Adventuring Parties
    The mixed peoples of Orizon may join together and pool their talents and resources to form adventuring parties, these can range from small groups of a bare handful of individuals to full mercenary organizations. Some of the most popular legends and tales feature the exploits of these adventuring parties and their accomplishments.
    
  • Major Cities
    Major cities on the ground are never truly independent, but they’re also rarely exist without a solid connection to the world above them. Most cities on the ground view themselves as distinct entities and tend to operate in a sort of organized chaos or wild-west style lawlessness. Many of the organizations on the ground operate more like mercenary organizations rather than governmental ones, regardless of their connections, political or otherwise, to the nations above them.
    The cities of the ground have numerous threats against their security and rely a great deal on the strength of their residents and the thickness of their walls for security. The guardsmen of ground territories are significantly tougher and more willing to bend the rules in the name of security than their counterparts on the skylands.
    Immediately outside of the cities on the ground are wide stretches of farmlands where foodstuffs are grown to be sold both up in the skylands and to people in the cities. These farmlands tend to gradually stretch away from the walls of their nearby city during times of peace, then abruptly collapse following an attack from monsters.
    Travelers to the cities on the ground may quickly find themselves victims of thieves and pickpockets if they are unprepared or unprotected. Adventurers visiting the ground cities typically use them as waypoints between quests, taking the opportunity to rest or to spend their gains on wine and whores. Other adventurers and travelers use the ground cities as places to meet with criminal elements, or to seek out mercenaries and toughs to hire.
    
    The People
    Those people living in the cities on the ground tend to be blue collar workers, developing and collecting resources from the verdant world around them. They act as farmers, loggers, ranchers, miners, hunters and other similar positions.
    Some of the residents of these cities are exiles or those hopeless peoples looking to start fresh in a new territory. Some are hoping to avoid the law, or are fleeing their pasts or their reputations.
    It’s a pretty safe bet that the people of the ground cities are armed and very familiar with how to use their weapons. Brawls can break out fairly easily when tensions rise and they can get ugly fast.
    Another common focus of the people living on the ground is operating in martial roles, serving as military or guardsmen, or working as adventurers, traveling the ruins and the wilds. They act as guards for caravans that move goods and people between the ground territories. They also use the cities as staging grounds for ambitious expeditions into ruins of the old world.
    
    Law
    On the ground the law is typically loosely enforced, the city guards maintain their watch and, unlike the guards on the skylands, they have the space to build prisons. But given the threat of monsters outside their walls, most guards really only concern themselves with obvious or violent crimes, using the prisons more as holding cells to give people the opportunity to cool their heels. Few cities on the ground get much direct contact from the monarchy they may owe fealty to, if they are not simply independent city-states, so the city’s governor is typically the final authority or say in legal matters.
    In the event of an attack on the ground cities, people are expected to serve as a militia, the city’s governor and its guardsmen will seek out able-bodied individuals and conscript them into service. Those who accept are typically rewarded for their service, and those who refuse are punished, usually with jail time, though some cities use flogs or stocks, or even exile.
    
    Settlements, Towns, and Villages
    Outside of the walled cities are small scatterings of settlements. Although this is dangerous for its occupants, leaving them vulnerable to raids and monsters, it is much less expensive than life on the skylands, and much less likely to incur trouble from the criminal elements of the cities.
    These small towns use impromptu methods for their defensive measures, relying on militias, watchtowers, and boltholes in place of the sturdy walls of the cities. The people of these locales will trade off guard responsibilities, acting as a loosely-organized citizen soldiery.
    The main advantage of places like this is the proximity to the resources they are there to take advantage of. Farmers and ranchers don’t need to worry about the space constrained by walls, loggers can simply take advantage of the wood surrounding the village, miners can set up right above a vein or quarry, and hunters do not need to travel far for game.
    Travelers to these small villages go there either to trade for the goods of that town, or to settle there themselves. Visiting adventurers are there to resolve turmoil or deal with monsters. Attacks of this nature are usually small, these places are not high-value targets and don’t attract higher orders of monsters. The exception is if a village is in the path of a monstrous warband, then all hope is swiftly lost.
    
    Nomads
    There are numerous nomadic cultures on the grounds of Orizon, they travel from city to city, or simply wander the world’s wildernesses. The ones that travel between the cities typically act as large wandering groups, traveling between large cities to trade or serve as entertainers or both. These nomads have a strong culture of independence and count on their mobility to prevent being devastated from attacks rather than tall walls. They typically have some specific locations they hold significant or sacred that can serve as points of return should anyone get lost or the caravan become scattered.
    These nomadic groups follow a travel route determined by their leadership which usually has hard destinations in mind but aren’t too dedicated to a specific route to get there, which will change depending on a variety of circumstances. Some of these circumstances may require the assistance of adventurers and runners may be sent ahead to contact adventuring guilds and post a job, or to warn nearby governments that can muster armies.
    Whenever two groups of nomads encounter each other they usually celebrate the meeting with a party where both groups share between each other in an exchange of goods, stories, and people. Typically these two caravans will remain together, either resting in an impromptu village of caravans or traveling together, for several days or weeks, then part with a slightly different arrangement of people than they had when they started.
    These nomadic groups rarely go inside of a city as a whole group, preferring to stay on the outskirts. They’ll make camp outside of the walls and either walk into the city, or let its residents come to them. This is both to keep themselves away from the claustrophobia of being inside the great walls of these cities, and to keep themselves safe from the historic mistrust and persecution that follows nomadic peoples.
    The nomadic groups of Orizon share a simple common symbolic language. They’ll mark certain locations with these symbols to convey information to other nomadic groups that may be traveling through the area. These symbols are designed to inform travelers of safety and danger, or to inform them of how the people in the cities they visit might behave. This symbolic language is often inscrutable to people who have no experience with the nomads, and it may be mistaken for peculiar and simplistic graffiti.
    Travelers that meet up with the nomadic people will find a seemingly welcoming group, though a great deal of time will be spent observing newcomers to assess if they are a threat and threats may be quietly removed and eliminated. Adventurers may join up with traveling groups for additional security and knowledge while they travel and may find gifts of all but forgotten legends or mysterious magical items waiting for those who provide great assistance.
    
    The People
    The population of these nomadic groups is fluid and changeable, they accept people outside of their groups who choose to join them and some members choose to leave to join the people’s they pass by, cities and other caravans. The populations of these nomadic group are mixed and can have representatives from numerous races.
    Others choose to join the nomads or caravans for long enough to reach the group’s next destination. These people travel so long as they can pull their weight, and will typically act as guardsmen or craftsmen.
    
    Law
    The laws of these nomadic people are dependent on the individual caravans, usually the only constant is a harsh punishment of obvious crimes, such as theft or violence.
    Punishments are varied and also depend on the caravan, but can include beating offenders or shunning. An extreme punishment is branding the crime onto the offender and leaving them behind. The brand is so that they cannot repeat their offense with another caravan.
    
    Dwarves
    The dwarven nations operate large independent cities underneath the ground and small villages that spread very short distances from the entrances to their great halls. The dwarves trade with the skyland governments and nearby cities, typically mineral goods for floatwood and foodstuffs. The main entrances of these cities are usually carved into the mountainside, the peaks and cliffs of which are converted into docks for airships.
    Dwarven cities extend a bit beyond the decorated and fortified walls, these are usually small trading villages where dwarves peddle their wares for travelers on the ground. The dwarves that venture out from their walls into these trading posts are often some of the only dwarves that most people of the surface and skylands see.
    Some dwarves travel further out into the world past their halls, either to escape troubles with their families, or to fulfill some quest of honor, but also may do so simply to seek out new concepts and techniques to bring back to their otherwise secluded peoples.
    
    Elves
    Wood elves keep hidden forest villages on the ground, their tree-houses are connected by a latticework of ramps, ladders and bridges, it’s possible for a wood elf to live in their cities without ever touching the ground. These tree cities are loosely governed, but the exact strictures of their organization differ between cities.
    The cities of wood elves are often expertly hidden, often trespassers will not know that they have entered the territory of the elves until the elves decide to let them know. Sometimes there are hidden enclaves and structures hidden deeper within the cities that no one outside of the elves has ever seen.
    The wood elf cities usually have a strong relationship with nomadic groups like the traveling caravans. The wood elves enjoy their seclusion, and this connection to these nomads allows them some means of both trading with the outside world and gaining news and other information.
    Travelers to the cities of the wood elves are most likely to not even know it so long as they stay by the outskirts, but those who come with the approval and permission of the residents can find magnificently crafted woodworking and intricate magical items, as well as rich bounties of nature.
    
    Monstrous Hoards
    The intelligent and “civilized” monsters of Orizon build themselves into a mixed bag of loosely affiliated and integrated tribes and villages. Traditionally these are led by a single powerful leader or by a coalition of elders, but they always hold to the ancient tradition and credo “never be a friend to those who enslaved us.” There is an animosity, carried across generations, towards the people that once ruled the ancient world. The monsters hate humans and dwarves, and they hold a special loathing for the elves.
    Most of the monster settlements are mixed bags of races and peoples. Orcs and goblinoids mingle among the lesser giants while humanoid slaves scurry around in fear of being beaten further. All of these various peoples act in service to their clan leader that rules over them.
    The civilizations of monsters are typically smaller groups, consisting of a few family groups and raiding parties. Sometimes though a more powerful leader emerges. These warchiefs travel to other settlements and villages and take over, merging the disparate clans into great armies and tremendous mobs. Lashing the disparate groups together and sending them out against the cities of the ground and the skylands. These mobs are a terrifying prospect, howling masses of bloodthirsty clans warring to seize slaves and plunder and leave rivers of blood in their way. Fortunately, it’s rare for someone strong enough to lead such an army to emerge.
    These are an egalitarian people, all that matters to them is the strength to put themselves to their chosen tasks. There are philosophers and educators among their ranks. They are hidden with the families, the old and young, in villages away from the more visible armies and raiding parties.
    
    The Underground
    The drow and dwarves are the two major cultures of the underground, constructing great cities in the earth and stone, using magic and flame, bioluminescent organisms and even flows of molten magma to illuminate their territory. These underground nations may stretch for miles, centered around a single city and stretched out along mines and caverns and farms, both races taking advantage of as much of the resources of the underground as they can scrounge.
    There are several ways for people to take themselves down to the depths of the underground, though there are very few safe passages. The drow have numerous raiding tunnels connecting their cities to the world above, but these are concealed and dark. The dwarves have developed reliable tunnels from their cities to the deep caverns and the deep black, but they keep these sealed and defended to prevent intruders or monsters from attacking the city. The typical way for people to gain access to the caverns of the underground is by accident, a mine might have been dug too deep, or an earthquake may expose a previously sealed tunnel. Sometimes passages exist that have been tunneled out by burrowing creatures, or there may simply be caves that happen to run deep enough. These passages though, uncontrolled by the drow or the dwarves, not only act as passages into the deep dark, but also as passages out.
    
    Drow
    Drow cities in the underground are the most diverse locations of the underdark, the drow rulers allow a wide range of peoples to reside in their cities as second-class citizens or slaves.
    Their cities are built spread out inside of existing caves. They take advantage of the same enchantment that created skylands that supports these massive cavern structures to build up as well as out. Drow cities gradually expand to take up as much space within the caves as they can. These cities rarely expand too wide, as various drow nations frequently war among each other for control of these spaces and for the limited resources that are available in the underdark.
    Other underdark species such as beholders, aboleths and mindflayers also compete with the drow for space and resources. This has created a culture of militarism and aggression within the Drow.
    A culture of infighting between powerful drow and drow families and dramatic political intrigue, combined with the militaristic bent of the drow people can lead to that intrigue spreading out among the city streets as drow matriarchs manipulate the people of the cities as pawns for their own ends and games.
    Travelers to the cities of the drow may find grateful benefactors, and for adventurers the drow may be a path to wealth and luxury, but they will quickly find that their involvement may intertwine them in deadly drow politics.
    It’s frequently considered fashionable among the Drow to die their hair, fashioning the styles to match their clans and then detailing that dyed hair into fanciful and elaborate braids. The drow enjoy bright colors in their decoration and often incorporate their clan colors and favorite colors into their fashion and decor.
    
    Dwarves
    Dwarves create their homes rather than occupy naturally existing caves like the drow. The dwarves tunnel through the earth and stone, building planned and organized cities. An architect is one of the most respected positions of dwarven culture, as they are not only expected to plan out mines, but plan out their occupation and use for centuries afterwards.
    Dwarven cities are neatly structured to accommodate both the dwarven people and their various industry, often with much more space dedicated to the latter. Different dwarves have different residences in their cities depending on how many dwarves were a part of their construction. A large residence is a status symbol among the dwarves.
    Dwarven society is typically hierarchical and organized among clans, each clan centered around a skill that they embrace and teach to their children, such as mining, refining, crafting, and administration. This can make social mobility difficult among the dwarven peoples. Sometimes dwarves are adopted into other clans, this process is intended to ensure that those with ability are able to practice their skills among clans that can foster them.
    Travelers to the dwarven cities find gruff hosts, always ready to discuss business over drinks and ramble on about the politics of clan and country, or simply talk rocks. People go their to seek out the famously sturdy and finely crafted dwarven goods, and to purchase the ores and minerals that the dwarves mine. Even high elves travel down from their skyland enclaves in search of the resources that dwarves mine. Adventurers seek out the dwarves for a chance for a piece of their legendary riches, though this comes with its own dangers, as the most common destination Dwarves have for adventurers is the deep dark or their abandoned tunnels.
    
    The Deep Black
    Out beyond the stability of the cities of dwarves and drow is the deep black. The established cities are responsible for illuminating their territories, and beyond that illumination and security are wildness and myriad dangers.
    Some small settlements exist in the deep black, mushroom farmers or prospectors. However, usually what explorers will find are the horrendous cities of aberrations. The twisted architecture of the mindflayers and the hollow tunnels blasted out by beholders. There are also the lurching horrors of other monsters that hunt the underdark, and of things that have never seen the light of the sun in the entirety of their existence.
    There are a precious few people either crazy or desperate enough to travel through the pitch black of the deep underground, attracted by the promise of looted riches or impossibly rare resources, or even secrets of magic and technology thought to be lost to everything but the collective of the mindflayers or the distant memories of the aboleth.
    
    The Skies and Skylands
    Most people who live on the skylands wear warm layered clothing, as at high altitudes the temperatures tend to shift drastically between night and day, but are typically colder than the regions below them.
    Livestock in the ranches of the skyland are typically given large fenced-off spaces to range and graze, Large space on occupied skylands are set aside for agriculture or ranching to supplement any goods brought up from the farms and ranches on the ground territories below.
    Given the risk of falling, the fences around livestock grazing areas are built tall and sturdy and keep a few feet of space between the fence and the rim of the skyland. Even skylands without livestock have these simple fences, as a simple reminder.
    Few livestock are branded, the business of cattle rustling is difficult to the point of being almost impossible, and it is certainly impractical. Flying mounts though, are typically branded by their breeders or ranchers, both to establish ownership and pedigree.
    Most people on the skylands keep a diverse mix of mostly small livestock, sheep, chickens, goats, maybe a few cattle and other animals. Even people who are not strictly farmers usually have a few animals so long as they have the space for it, along with a small vegetable garden.
    Large space is occupied on some skylands by ranches for the breeding and training of flying mounts, which are often temperamental and difficult to control, hippogriffs are a common species and easy to domesticate, but others are more difficult and command high prices as a result. People who live on distant skylands pay high prices for flying mounts, especially a breeding pair. Flying mounts allow these distant people to travel to the skylands that would otherwise be denied to them.
    Skylands tend to not concern themselves with fortification walls, most creatures that might threaten a civilized skyland would be able to fly over walls anyway. Instead they focus on watchtowers and emergency shelters, hoping that being adequately prepared can help prevent a disaster.
    Most governments manage a cadre of knights, or similar elite soldiers that are dedicated to traveling between different skylands, maintaining the rule of law and defending the remote people from various dangers. These knights typically enjoy certain privileges among the people in exchange for their service. These knights also coordinate with adventuring guilds, acting as supervision and support.
    
    Law
    The noble families (or appointed governors) living on skylands are responsible for maintaining law and order, collecting taxes and each has a moderate number of troops and ships under their command for the sake of maintaining peace within their appointed territories.
    Crime is strictly controlled on the skylands, but jail is an unusual punishment as the space is too precious to waste on incarceration. Most people are punished with forced labor or fines, or in extreme cases, exile, death or slavery. Jails do exist, but usually only on small, barren islands that would have been unsuitable for anything else. Simple holding cells are much more common.
    In order to escape punishment or avoid discovery, some flee to the less regulated ground territories.
    
    Larger Skylands
    Large skylands are the centers of aerial culture, they are the seats of noble houses, and the largest skylands take the place as the capitols of entire nations. These large skylands have varied territories and diverse populations. Large skylands usually have a few cities across their mileage, and many more small farming villages spaced between them. People take advantage of the opportunities to spread themselves out that they may not be able to enjoy on other skylands.
    These large and mid-sized skylands are the seats of major cities and trade hubs. Every sailor knows the sight of the rooftops on these islands. These places are especially valued as cities established there have the opportunity to be more self-sufficient from farmlands established outside the cities. People on the smaller skylands dream of these places and their metropolitan opportunities.
    
    Smaller Skylands
    Smaller Skylands are usually counted within the territory of noble houses (or governors) living on larger islands, or may have a noble family of their own occupying the territory. In the case of the former, that individual is responsible for the workings of government on the small islands, for the latter that noble family is responsible, but are appointed smaller forces.
    Most smaller skylands only hold a small number of people on the confines of their territory, usually a handful of families. These are farmers, craftsmen, fishermen, breeders, people that don’t need too much space or can find ways to take advantage of as much space as they can..
    The people living on these small islands are almost totally dependent on the trade networks that connect the islands, relying on them for the influx of necessary goods in exchange for whatever excess the family produces on their own island. The trade networks are also employed to keep people on these small skylands moving, for example taking these people to annual gatherings at select locations, or transporting them to hub islands for markets.
    
    Elves
    On the skylands, some communities of high elves have broken themselves apart, using their talents with magic and the knowledge they collected they constructed glittering cities in the sky where they can recuse themselves from the world at large and focus more on delving into the mysteries of Orizon and magic. These city-states are often independent of the nations that humanity has built up, but do have close relations with them.
    These high elven cities are the subjects of legend and rumor to any who live close or pass by, and while the elves are aloof, they are courteous and welcoming of guests. Since high elves pride themselves on doing everything well, while there may only be a small amount available for sale or trade from these enclaves, but what is available is exquisite.
    Travelers go to the cities of the elves for knowledge or for the rare and powerful magics that the elves have developed. Adventurers go there for those quests too difficult to hand out to simple mercenaries that the elves may have for people.
    
    Halflings
    Halflings are unassuming in their settlements, content to let enough be and not demanding much they spread out their farms and their herds of goats and sheep, burrowing immediately below the ground and creating “hobbit holes” to maximize the amount of green space for the creatures and crops.
    Within their homes halflings lead comfortable lives enjoying the fruits of their labor and things traded between the community and with traveling traders. Halfling brew is famous for its quality, not only made with great care and fine ingredients, but also stored and allowed to ferment for generations.
    Should a halfling settlement get too large, entire families will pile aboard a ship loaded with furniture, goods and supplies and set out for another island. These trundlebug-looking ships are rich hauls for pirates. Other halflings feel the pull of adventure and deliberately leave these communities, signing up with sailing ships or adventuring guilds.
    
    Factions and Organizations
    There are many groups that operate independently of the governments of the world, or are portions of those governments that have gained the power to operate on their own whims. Orders of knights and monks, trading guilds, underground thieves organizations, or simply a group of people bound by common cause can all bind themselves together under a single banner and become more powerful by their unity.
    
    International Factions
    The world is large, and travel is difficult, but some few groups take advantage of the few means of travel and communications that span the oceans between continents to establish global groups. Some of these groups are politically powerful and closely organized and controlled, others are loose and decentralized, not solely bound by an organization but by a shared set of beliefs or tradition that unifies them. These people hold pride in the path they’ve chosen and will mark themselves or carry tokens to signify their devotion.
    
    Ge Daii
    Before the breaking there was an ancient order of spiritualists and peace keepers, the events of the breaking rent them apart. Many of their best were taken for the godswar, some of them split off, intending to use their powers to seize control of the fractured world which caused a civil war between the order’s membership. At the conclusion of this, there were painfully few left, they broke apart, each seeking to carry on the goals and ideals of the order alone.
    The ge daii are dedicated to the understanding of the energies that suffuse existence and using that knowledge to improve themselves in the hopes of becoming one with that energy. The ge daii no longer have any sort of central authority or organization, but are joined by their shared traditions and observances.
    The ge daii follow the tenets of their code: Emotion, yet peace / Ignorance, yet knowledge / Passion, yet serenity. / Chaos, yet harmony. / Death, yet life. Outside of their code, ge daii must swear to wear no crowns, to offer their aid when they are able, to show mercy when possible, and to give respect to all life.
    
    [ Joining the ge daii requires being taken in by a master of the order and trained into the order’s secrets and mysticism. The apprenticeship concludes by seeking out another master of the order, then both test the prospective apprentice. Should the apprentice pass then they are accepted as a full member of the ge daii order. Becoming a master requires further tests, though the exact nature of those tests are shrouded in the order’s secretive mysticism.]
    
    There are rumors of ge daii grand masters, mysterious figures that acts in authority of all the masters. But there has been no actual evidence outside of the ge daii that this is true.
    
    The Honorable Four Winds Trading Company
    One of the few organizations that reliably trade between continents the honorable four winds trading company has outposts along every major port to the oceans. The honorable four winds trading company hires executives that plan the routes and arrange the deals, captains that sail the ships, as well as crew, dockhands, harbor-men and dozens of other different positions that help the company to function.
    The Honorable Four Winds Trading Company also hires a large number of agents to act outside of their traditional sailing operations and promote the company’s interests. This may range from guarding employees or cargo to industrial espionage or even assassination.
    There is a dark underbelly of the hfwtc, a smuggling ring, groups of the company’s ship captains and company executives, along with a small cadre of dock employees that arrange the transport of illicit goods between the continents. Drugs, weapons, even slaves, as well as whatever else they may be paid to move find themselves hidden in the holds of four winds ships.
    
    The Iron Way
    The iron way began with the legends of the iron scrolls, a massive library of text stored within the great halls of the battlefield, the warring place for the glorious dead where their souls defend the plane. These scrolls contains the legends of great heroes and their famed exploits. Everyone who achieved martial glory finds themselves written of in the iron scrolls. Adherents of the iron way seek to have their legends written down for eternity and so they seek out causes and challenges in order to prove themselves and their skills.
    Followers of the Iron way set out to prove themselves always, they never turn down a challenge and will gladly rush into battle, what holds them together as a cohesive order is that an adherent of the iron way will always heed the call of another, coming to their aid without thought of reward. Adherents of the iron way will also target other followers to the exclusion of everything else should they meet on opposing sides of the battlefield.
    There is no formal way to join the iron way, you are simply required to be strong and to wish to follow the ways tenets. However, if one who says they follow the way abandons it, they may face violent retribution from “true” followers, who despise such betrayal.
    
    The Scriptures
    An assortment of universities and centers of learning, both magical and mundane, the scriptures seek knowledge of all kinds and will send out their agents to carry texts between institutions and to seek out new or ancient knowledge. The scriptures are nearly always backers of expeditions into any ruins of the ancient world.
    “The Magpies” are the lower members of the scriptures, they are the ones who travel the world, collecting scraps and pieces. Often they work as teachers, lecturing people on basic reading, writing, and arithmetic and sharing some of the knowledge they’ve collected. The magpies are not the best funded of the scripture agents, so this teaching also serves as a way of making ends meet.
    Membership of the scriptures is restricted to professors of institutes of learning, but they do employ numerous agents to secure their goals.
    
    The Seven Stars
    An adventuring guild that accepts only the best. This guild operates similarly to the way other guilds operate, taking in quests and requests and sending its members out to deal with the requests. However, the Seven Stars takes most of its jobs from other guilds, taking the most difficult tasks that other guilds simply cannot deal with. They accomplish their global reach through a network of portals that connects to their headquarters, exploiting the magic of Howl’s doorway to have several entry and exit points for travel across the world, this network is carefully protected. The stars also have an extensive support network and a small number of lesser members to help swell their ranks should they need it.
    The Seven Stars has a brand, blessed by angelic servants of several gods that they use to mark their members, it is rumored that the act of being branded into the seven stars bestows strength by itself, though no members will say.
    Joining the seven stars requires recruitment from one current member of the guild, and approval from at least three other active members. There are only seven official, “branded,” members of the stars at any one time, if one should fall, an offer to attempt a trial for full membership will be extended to several candidates, each proposed by another member.
    These candidates must be within the lower ranks of the seven stars already, and have been there for a considerable amount of time or have been considerably successful in their rank.
    
    The Tranquil
    Wild magic leaves a mess in its wake and there are those who are dedicated very simply to the healing of the damage that an eruption of wild magic causes. The tranquil are people dedicated to finding a way to ease this disaster. They are skilled healers and cursebreakers and have found ways to smooth out the ruffled weaves of magic that can still cause troubles even after an eruption has passed.
    Most of the tranquil felt called to join the cause after suffering the effects of a storm themselves, others joined through the church, coming together to try to serve the gods, especially Celeste, by healing the wound of wild magic. Others simply hope to restore the world to a peaceful state, dreaming of a vision of a world without the threat of wild magic.
    
• • The Flow and Weaves of Magic
  • Magic in the World
  • Spellcasting
  • Wild Magic
  • Supernatural Power and Psionics
  • Magic Items
  • Teleportation Circles
  • Restrictions on Magic
  • Resurrecting the Dead

  • The magic of Orizon, like magic in all worlds, is mysterious by its very nature. However, there is some basic understanding of magic’s nature among the people of Orizon. The most common ways people use to describe the magic they employ and they live with are “the flow” and “weaves.” Both as the source of magic and its structure and use.
    The flow is a core aspect of the greater plane of Orizon, if the world’s magic is an ocean, the flow is a tremendous mass of currents that run through it. There are perhaps hundreds of thousands of flows throughout Orizon, or perhaps a single great flow with numerous branches parting from it. No one can perceive the flow as more than a simple sensation built up by training and meditation and certainly not the flow in enough detail to be studied.
    The flow also serves to transport and refresh the magic of the world, employing the inner planes as a part of its current. The energy is refreshed within Faerie and decays in the Umbral and is infused with the elemental power of the elemental planes as it travels. More energy flows into the people, fueling their souls, which then travels out into the afterlife and the gods.
    Some creatures, objects, and locations have deep, intrinsic ties to the flow and can perform extraordinary feats that come naturally to them (a vampire’s charming gaze, a dragon’s breath weapon, and so forth). Creatures with the necessary talent and skill can also manipulate the flow to perform magic by casting spells. Some people, with talent, training and awareness can take the flow within themselves, fueling their talents. This is what empowers the abilities of some like monks or sorcerers.
    No one can truly perceive the flow in its entirety, it cannot be accurately detected by spells such as detect magic, but mages can perceive it through vague sensations as they manipulate it to form “weaves.” Weaves take strands of the flow and forms them together, shaping them into spells and enchantments. Different spells require different structures, teasing different energies together to form the lattice of the spell.
    Studying these weaves, their components and structures, is how spellcasters are able to understand the nature of enchantments and spells and is a core part of spells like detect magic and identify. It is through studying the component parts of these weaves that mages have begun to come to an understanding of the nature of the flow.
    
  • Magic is prevalent in Orizon, it has spread out and leached into the various corners of the world. People with magical talents, items with magical natures, places of magical power and creatures with magical abilities are not exactly uncommon.
    There are many people on Orizon that are capable of performing at least minor feats of magic, although the untutored are likely to inadvertently tap into wild magic and send their spell haywire. As a consequence of these untrained fumblings and the dangers of the wild magic storms, spellcasters are mistrusted and many people who can perform magic intentionally hide their abilities.
    By contrast, those who are skilled with their magical ability, and those who have learned to cast their spells without risk of tapping into wild magic are proud of their abilities and valued for what they can do. Many serve in trusted or highly capable positions.
    Though many are able to cast spells, truly powerful mages are rare. There are many risks to spellcasters that prevent them from becoming truly exceptional. Some are consumed by a faulty summon, others find their end while adventuring, some others are caught in wild magic, still others are simply attacked and killed for their ability by an angry mob.
    With all these risks, and the intellectual nature behind most spellcasting, most powerful spellcasters have taken up positions in more sedentary roles, such as research, teaching, or advising. But this sedentary nature makes it difficult for these mages to advance further in raw power.
    Magical places and creatures are comparatively commonplace on the plane of Orizon, especially as one travels further into the wilds away from civilization. Some of these magical locales are empowered by nearby portals, others are infused with magic from residues of long gone spellcasting. The ruins of the old world are even more magically potent, their very bricks are literally suffused with magic.
    Magical items are both common and rare. Modern artificers have retained the skills to produce some few magical items (rated common and uncommon), a few secrets for the production of rare magical items have survived the breaking as well, but most have been lost. Consequently magical items that are classified “rare” or “greater” are almost exclusively found within the ruins of the old world or based of items recovered from there.
    The military and other similar organizations prize spellcasters, and after they matriculate through their guilds or universities mages may find employment outside of their organization, although they often report back at intervals, sharing knowledge and research.
    
  • Manipulating the energies of the flow of magic and forming it into a concrete effect is the foundation of all spellcasting. Mages take those energies and, through force of will and their own energy, manipulate those energies into weaves. Wizards take these thrumming strings of energy and twist them between their fingers, shaping the strings into a solid weave. They give the spell further purpose and intent with words of power and material components or a focus for their spellcasting. These help solidify a spell and enable that spell to influence the world around it. Then, once properly shaped, they are sent out into the world to effect change, introducing energy to cast a magic in defiance of the normal rules that govern reality.
    Some mages use tools to manipulate the flows of magic or to add to their weaves. Wands and other magic items can lend a weave strength or definition. Some magic items can create preprogrammed spellcasting weaves through their own internal power. Other mages use intermediaries to cast spells that would otherwise be impossible, divine spellcasters like clerics use assistance from the gods to give their spells further definition and strength. Spellcasters like warlocks use other learned entities as a shortcut for their own learning, letting their patrons infuse them with an understanding of the spells they cast. Sorcerers exploit their own internal well of energy to give their magic further strength, and rely on a combination of instinct and practice to learn weaves. Bards exploit the use of will in drawing in energy and words in giving spells purpose to use their voice and instruments to give a spell form.
    There is another distinction for divine magic as it stands against arcane magic, the addition of divine energy. This acts like a font of strength for a sorcerer and not only empowers spells, but also refines them. Magic cast with the addition of divine energy into its weaves is “cleaner” and it much less likely to act as the trigger for a wild magic storm.
    Spellcasters have an easier time manipulating magic with the use of tools, magic focuses like crystals and staffs, the more personal the object and the more steeped in arcane purpose, the more effective these objects serve as a refinement for arcane power. The point of using a focus like these is to refine a weave, focusing one’s will around the spell, similar to the purpose of using certain material components in spellcasting. This is effective enough that the use of a focus can replace some spells, though certain spells require extremely specific materials to work, generally this applies to gems, which interact in interesting ways with magic but other materials can also have interesting interactions with magic and can also help to refine intent for the spellcaster.
    
  • Wild magic has been an inescapable part of the plane of Orizon since the breaking that unleashed it and warped the plane. These energies are feared for spreading blessings and curses at random and leaving destruction in their wake.
    The discharges of wild magic have become less frequent and less powerful on average as time has passed since the breaking. Agents, both mortals and divine, have worked to calm the flow of magic, but the storms of wild magic remains a pressing concern to the people of Orizon, especially for anyone traveling away from civilization. Many people have a personal connection to the effects of an eruption.
    The frequency of a wild magic storm can depend on the location, wild magic storms are more common on the ground, happening perhaps once or twice a month, in the sky and the underdark and the oceans, wild magic eruptions occur a few times a season. In the ruins of the old world, wild magic eruptions occur distressingly often, perhaps a few times a week.
    “Eruptions” or “storms” of wild magic appear around the world, building up over time and then exploding. Some magic items exist that can detect these build-ups and others exist that can act as moderate protection against them, but there are few absolute proofs against their influence.
    Various temples and spellcasting organizations spend a great deal of their time working to remove or undo the influences of wild magic storms, dispelling curses or easing other magical burdens. These orders also act as hosts and patrons to accomplished healers.
    The risk of and association with wild magic has fostered a fearful respect of spellcasters among the common people, and it is the most frequent reason given for restrictions against magic and mages.
    
  • The inborn magical abilities of certain creatures, the acquired supernatural powers of people such as monks, and psionic abilities are similar in that their users don’t manipulate the flow in the customary way that spellcasters do and understand.
    The mental state of the user is vitally important: monks and some psionics users train long and hard to attain the right frame of mind, while creatures with supernatural powers have that mindset in their nature.
    There are people who have developed skills in spell-like abilities, like monks, don’t use energy to construct weaves of magic, they simply manipulate raw energy within themselves to create effects.
    How these abilities are related to the flow remains a matter of debate. Some students of the arcane believe that it is some form of innate magical talent, others believe that it is like an enchantment built up within the individual’s mind, some others think that it is akin to taking the flow of magic into the person and pouring the energies directly within themselves. Unfortunately for academics, there is still no understanding of how these innate magics work and still no means of observing how these magics might work.
    
  • The effects of a spell are brought to life through force of will, study, and delicate manipulation of energies. But these are impermanent, lasting only as long as the energy put into them is sustained, some only lasting a fleeting instant. Creating magic items is a way to make the magic last far beyond the instant of its creation. Allowing a spell to last for as long as the item does, or as long as the energy within can sustain the weaves.
    In some cases, the magic of an item is incomplete, it must be tied to its wielder to complete the weaves within it. This entwines threads together, a mixture of energies, both empowering the other. This connection between the wielder and the object they wield is often called attunement. There are limitations to this ability, an individual is only able to handle so many of these connections before the burden they place on the wielder becomes dangerous.
    
    Crafting Magic Items
    It is impossible to construct magic items on anything like an assembly line. Magic is too delicate a tool to simply be automated, it depends too much on the will of the one doing the casting, too much on intent. The magic must be woven into an object as that object is being constructed, infusing its nature with the magic. This is a technique known as weave enchanting, or simply “weaving.” The other major technique consists of carving inscriptions into an object to give it its purpose, creating magical texts to impose arcane strength. This latter technique is commonly called rune enchanting or “carving,” though it does not always use runes and does not necessarily need to be carved. Carving allows for more precision in the enchantment, but does not sustain itself beyond a few uses.
    Weaving enchantment into an object is considered the best method of creating a magic item, it lasts the longest and can infuse much stronger magics. Rune enchanting lasts a significantly shorter time, but can allow for finer control, using language and the nature of the object to give the enchantment definition. The most successful enchanters incorporate both techniques into the construction of a magic item. Infusing the object with strength and delicate weaves, then further refining that strength by inscribing words of power onto the object. Because both of these techniques require an influx of magic during the object’s construction, they require a person to do it. Not even the ancients were able to work around this limitation.
    
  • There are teleportation circles that form a loose network of travel for anyone that happens to have the runic codes to navigate it. These circles are usually located on smaller islands, set up specifically for this purpose with military garrisons, walls, signal towers and docks. Some teleportation circles are established nearby major cities on the ground, or cities of the underdark and underwater settlements.
    Many governments and organizations hire wizards to disrupt and dismantle unsanctioned teleportation circles or to provide arcane protection against unwarranted use of these resources.
    There are many inconveniences and expenses to traveling through teleportation circles. The arcane power is an expensive necessity, and maintaining their security is another cost. Teleportation circles also don’t allow for the transit of large amounts of cargo. There is also a slight risk that the runes may be wrong, sending the traveler somewhere unexpected. These risks mean that travel through teleportation circles is mostly employed by the wealthy and powerful, most others simply use more mundane means for their transit.
    The most feared danger of the teleportation circle network is the possibility of a misfire, a tangle of wild magic interfering with a trip, or a flawed runic code. These incidents are rare, but they do happen. Stories of people finding themselves in the middle of a ruin of the old world, or in a pit of elemental flame, abound, some are exaggerated, but enough people are worried to be respectful and careful of portal travel.
    
  • Magic is a frightening power, it enables its practitioners to perform things beyond the hopes of other mortals, some abuse this power, and with its immensity, misuse can give all spellcasters a reputation that they are not to be trusted.
    Some cultures try to moderate or control the use of magic, imposing restrictions on its use and those who use it. Though the use of magic is rarely considered a crime in and of itself, it may require certification from a nationally recognized magical guild or organization. These guilds may create their own set of rules and regulations for the usage of magic and forbid the use of magic to those not officially sanctioned by themselves or the governments they operate under.
    Most common people mistrust magic and spellcasters, and share some fear of them for their association to wild magic and the breaking. There is often pressure for people who are capable of performing spells to hide their abilities, especially if they are untrained.
    
  • There are several nearly insurmountable restrictions on resurrecting the souls of the dead and restoring them to life. The first restriction is that the task requires the assistance of a powerful entity that can intercede with the soul and restore it. The god Bern opposes the resurrection of the dead, so in addition to assistance of a god, Bern usually must be appeased to allow the resurrection, or they may send angels, curses or other agents to hound the raised soul and return it to death. In addition to hounding the ones who raised that soul.
    In addition to the intersection of a god, the soul must have a body to return to, and that body must be in good enough condition that life can be returned to it. Finally, the soul must be willing to be resurrected, a soul in the process of resurrection is aware of who is attempting to revive them, as well as the identity of the deity that is acting towards that end, some souls simply refuse to be resurrected.
    
• • Chronological
  • Calendar
  • Holidays

  • 
    
    

    The Present

    (1835 AB)
    
    *
    
    " "

    The Age of Sail

    (1400 AB - 1500 AB/1835 AB)
    During the Age of Sail, the technologies behind airships had reached new levels, airships could travel further than ever before, and sails had been developed to a point where air travel is more efficient than ever. Nautical sailing techniques have also reached a point where intercontinental travel could be reliable undertaken. This expansion of trade led to the establishment of large cities and modern kingdoms, some built on the ruins of the old empires or those old empires have more firmly secured their hold on their existing territory.Although these kingdom’s hold over their territories is often *tenuous with attacks from monsters, magic, or war. The expansion of trade has also helped piracy to become a more viable business plan. The number of active pirates has exploded along with the size of navies and the expansion of trade. The monstrous races have since developed means of air travel of their own, but they are comparatively simple, balloons lifted by flame used for scouting or nighttime raids.
    
    
    *very weak or slight.
    
    " The halfling reached for her older sisters hand, waiting patiently as Asmera untied the sailors knot tied to a strangely loop-shaped stone protrusion in the island. 'You're never worried that you will fall, how is that?' Asmera whined in worry, taking her sister's hand and stepping into the tiny airship hesitantly, though it hardly rocked from the movement. Kedai brushed some leaves and dirt off of the wood bench in front of her for Asmera, reaching instinctively to her left for the bowline, unfastening the sail's lines so it would open and catch the wind. 'I mean I guess just because I trust the float wood, it doesn't rock easily.' She justified, though she felt that there was more to it, like it was in her blood, she could never trust Asmera to understand, since she had lived her entire life on the land. "

    The Middle Age

    (500 AB - 1500 AB)
    This period is the time when civilization begins its steps to reestablish itself in the skylands. Only the absolute oldest of the people in the skylands had any memory of the world that had come before, and they were few and far between, ancient elves who were believed to be telling myths and legends. Most of the treasures of the old world that had been reclaimed during the salvage period were useless, and those that remained were considered the most powerful of magical items. The burgeoning civilizations of the skylands were insular, any airships constructed were still simple, designed for travel between the nearest islands. The peoples of the skylands established small communities of a few islands which became the earliest of the new kingdoms. Tools of bronze and iron gradually turned to steel, then improved alloys. These simple agrarian homesteads on the skyland were focused on recycling and conservation, there were few resources available to them on the skylands, and they had to make the best of what they had. Empires rose slowly along with new technologies, then expanded as airship technologies improved and flying mounts were tamed, or crumbled as monsters, war, or intrigue overwhelmed them. Civilization spread outwards and even had begun to reclaim parts of the ground,firing arrows from their airships as simple air support to reclaim small spaces on the ground from the monsters which were used to harvest the abundant resources of the ground for those on the sky. On the ground, the monstrous races also began establishing their own societies. As their former oppressors fled to the skylands they turned their rage, the reasons long lost, against each other. The various warbands began establishing fortress cities, ruled by the strongest or the most successful. These monster cultures would band together to attack any incursion of the skyland cultures onto the ground, or any rich dwarven cities, but never developed airships of their own. Underground the dwarven cities had developed their fortifications and reconnected to the surface, and their cities came under attack by raiders on this new front. To help defend, many dwarves sent emissaries to the people in the skyland to open trade relations and encourage mutual support. The elves of the underdark had truly become drow, constructing cities with layouts like spiderwebs where they ruled through subterfuge and violence over communities of many different races. During this time the drow also began developing their raiding tunnels, conducting raids on the ground territories of the skylands, or the fortress cities of the monsters, or occasionally on the skylands.
    *
    
    " The elderly elf could feel a twinge of disappointment at the skepticism of the children that sat before him, hearing his tale. Adyarus wished they could see the truth of his stories, the reality of the great utopia that was once his home, where magnificent technology and magic was but common trade. Technomagical machines loomed tall over the heads of people on the streets, a white, plastic sheen to everything. The buildings, sleek and strong, stood so tall it hurt his neck to seek their top floors with his gaze.
    When the children left, seeing that the storytelling was done, Adyarus allowed himself to weep for his loss. He wept for the loss of his society and his culture, he wept for the loss of those who were destroyed by the Breaking and for those who were not given the mercy of death left wandering the dangerous ruins controlled by magic, ready to ravage anyone they saw. It will be a long night, again, with the nightmares of the Breaking... he thought wearily. "

    The Elevation

    (200 AB - 600 AB)
    This is the period when the gods began to return to Orizon, the old gods worked to calm the storms of wild magic, and their clerics began to gain the powers to heal the effects of these storms. Some new gods too began to be “born” during this period following the breaking. During the elevation, the survivors of the old world discovered the magical properties of floatwood, lumber that ignored the pull of gravity, and began making tentative journeys to the lower skylands.Simple airships were constructed and small groups began fleeing from the fighting on the ground by sailing to the skylands. This flight took decades to take off in full, the tools were lost to construct airships, and old tools of bronze and iron were being reinvented to replace them. Gradually these fleeing peoples constructed homesteads and grew crops, then more and more of the survivors of the old world fled the fighting, running to the skylands and abandoning the ground to monsters.
    *
    
    " The earth shook and rattled, blasts of sound from invisible explosions and visible bursts of arcana were still occurring but not nearly as frequent. He was nervous, sure, but not nearly as nervous as his companion, fear laden in the man's eyes while he jumped at every breeze. 'Stop worrying, Tarik. We're far from the Cascade- the magic has already begun to settle.' He persuaded, but Tarik remained unconvinced. Stubborn, Merras turned his back and walked several meters, a mistake he was soon to regret for the rest of his life.
    The earth shook and cracked, the "

    Fallout

    (5 AB - 600 AB)
    Eventually the Orcs and Goblins realized that they too could not stand the dangers of the old world’s ruins, and their took their looted reward out, to eradicate the remnants of the people that had enslaved them. The Monsters sought out the huddled survivors in their make-shift fortifications and turned the looted weapons against them. Blaster rifles fired plasma bolts and the volleys lit up the nights, monsters sent powerful beasts, recovered from cages and caves, against the survivor’s magic. Some tried to hide in the new skylands, but were never able to travel much father than a few feet off the ground. Most of the savage period was spent in these conflicts, the survivor races against their former slaves. Monsters began carving out their own territory while survivors built fortifications. Through it all, storms of wild magic that wouldn’t begin to calm for decades to come ravaged both sides. Above the world, and in the planes beyond it. The godswar raged. The heroes of the old world battled the gods themselves and all manner of monsters and demons. The war raged for decades, further devastating the world and leaving powerful weapons and the corpses of fallen gods scattered through Orizon and its cosmology. Only the six greatest of old gods and a fewother survivors stumbled away, weakened and wounded, from the godswar. During this period the knowledge of the old world was gradually lost, as the things collected during the salvage period began to rust and break, or were drained of power or destroyed in the conflict. Both sides worked to rediscover truly ancient techniques as laser rifles were gradually replaced with bows and arrows. Plastics and ceramics were replaced with bronze and iron. Below ground a similar story was happening, those civilizations under the soil had been sealed away, and were attempting to rebuild following the disasters, but monsters that had fled to hidden caverns had begun to find access to the cities of the underground and wanted to take their piece. The dwarves began focusing on fortifying their cities rather than reconnecting to the surface, while the elves that would eventually become drow fled deeper, searching for sanctuary in the cave systems. By the end of this period nearly all of the relics of the old world that had been recovered had decayed to uselessness and the knowledge that had been recovered was similarly lost without anyone adequately able to apply it. The people of Orizon were left to fend for themselves, without the gains of their ancestors.
    *
    
    " "

    The Salvage Period

    (0 AB - 20 AB)
    Following the breaking there was still hope that the old world could be reclaimed, that their wonders could be rebuilt. The war had ended, the toll was too high, but perhaps the cost could be reclaimed. The salvage period is characterized by the tragically few survivors climbing out of the rubble and trying to collect whatever they could and piece together their lives. This is also the period when the monstrous races, such as orcs, and goblins realized that the shackles that bound them had been released, and the monsters that had been driven to the fringes, such as mind flayers, dragons, and others, realized what the breaking signified, though the more powerful of these beings were killed immediately by the breaking’s energies.All of these beasts were full in their wrath of the old world and decided that the breaking marked the time to claim their piece. The storms of wild magic, most potent within the ruins of the ancient cities, and the return of monsters, eventually forced the salvagers away from the old cities and out to fend for themselves in the wilderness, abandoning whatever treasures that they couldn’t recover from the wreck. The close of the salvage period saw the beginning of the gods’ war, the war of aggression from Incancatus in its attempts to destroy the world. The surviving gods of the old world massed together and assembled the living mortal champions to oppose the gods and fiends of Incancatus’ armies.
    *
    
    " "

    The Breaking

    
    This overload unleashed powerful cascading explosions of raw wild magic. This energy created tremendous devastation across the world. Spurring natural disasters on an unprecedented scale, causing tidal waves and droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires. Magical disasters spread from the cascade, releasing, wild, random enchantments. Uncontrolled summonings and banishings were common and ruptures were broken into to the fabric of the plane itself, although many of those were sealed by the old gods, most of the old pantheon died in the struggle to seal the plane against intruding monstrosities. The disaster cast entire landmasses up into the sky,enchanting the very dirt and stone and leaving them to hang forever in the sky, never to fall. The Breaking turned the once great empires immediately into ruins, destroyed the entirety of infrastructure and society and all the systems for crafting magical items and technological equipment. Some of the few survivors were warped by the explosion of magical energy, others found themselves stranded. Monsters that had been enslaved or sealed away suddenly found themselves free to terrorize the world again and did so with a terrible vengeance. The breaking is a period remembered with awe and fear, and many cultures have since used the breaking as a defense for policies of moderation or anti-magic.
    *
    
    " "

    The Age of Wonder

    (? - 0 AB)
    The age of wonders was a utopia, magnificent cities, feats of epic magic, and technological peaks were the order of the day. During this time vast continental empires stretched all the way across the world and worked in collaboration on works of spectacular magical infrastructure. This era is also referred to as the old world, the ancient time, or the time before. The cities, now ruins, of the old world are one of the few places where people can find very rare and legendary magical items, and are the source of powerful artifacts. The people of the old world stopped the spread of chaotic monsters by exterminating or enslaving them, or by sealing the more powerful ones away. Their campaigns pushed the monstrous races of the world to the fringes of the continents, or the bottom of society. And the other races prospered immensely from this new freedom from these dangers. The period of peace and prosperity unfortunately began to crumble as more aggressive individuals began small attacks and territory disputes or rebellions against their empire. These eventually descended into all out war as treaties and promisesdragged other nations into the conflict. Nations began turning their productions from public good to offensive might. They developed war machines and technomagical weapons that they then turned on each other. This war continued for years, some believe for almost a century, each continental nation turned against each other in massive war. The war culminated with the development of the grandest of the ancient war machines, the titans, massive biomechanical and technomagical war machines that stood at the size of a skyscraper and left swathes of destruction. The titans were the most devastating thing the war had brought on its combatants, but fortunately no nation was ever able to produce more than one. The war finally ended when a small resistance group composed of members of each nation tried to stop the fighting, they targeted the technomagical infrastructure that had been spread across the world and hoped to shut it down, ceasing any nation’s ability to function. Instead they overloaded it, sparking off a massive explosion that encompassed the entire globe.
    *
    
    " "

    
    ​
  • Orizon's calendar is very precise, it has no leap years and anything that is measured is in even numbers. The relationship between solar and lunar reckonings of time occur with close regularity, the way the sun and moon work together is spoken of as a part of the relationship between Soltis and Celeste.
    
    The calendar contains 476 total days divided into 14 lunar months, each with exactly 34 days. Most cultures have adopted the soltian calendar, spread by priests of Soltis, that divides these months into four seasons based on those season’s relationship with the sun. Spring, summer, fall and winter.
    The Soltian calendar divides the months into four weeks of 8 days, with two extra days during the month that correspond with new and full moons.
    
    Days have no special names for recounting, and are counted by their number or relativity to the nearest holiday, such as "three days before Wind's Day".
    
    Spring
    Lencten
    Errach
    Haru
    
    Summer
    Lithe
    Sumor
    Samrad
    Natsu
    
    Fall
    Thout
    Fogamur
    Haerfast
    
    Winter
    Yule
    Gemred
    Ianuari
    Fuyu
    
  • The holidays of Orizon mark special occasions, repetitious moments of the season, and events that have indelibly altered the history of Orizon. Many cultures mark their own special holidays, but there are several that are common to the plane as a whole. These holidays are typically developed to honor the gods and are overseen by those god’s faithful and priests.
    Thanks to the ordered, almost clockwork, nature of the movements of the heavens, the sun and the moon, most holidays occur on a regular schedule.
    
    Merrymaker's Day - 7 Lencten
    A holiday almost specifically for Wobbum, Merrymaker's Day. Celebrated with a parade presided over by the “elected” king of fools, alcohol flows like water and the revels are expected to last until the following dawn.
    
    Wind's Day - 12 Lencten
    A day celebrating Vesperi, people construct simple gliders of paper and cast them off of the skylands into the wind.
    
    Day of Dawn (Vernal Equinox) - 20 Lencten
    This celebration involves greenery and rebirth, children are especially celebrated, and treats are prepared and freely shared. Rabbits feature as a large part of this holiday as symbols of fertility. The day of dawn often closes with nights of passion.
    
    Week of Fox's Fire - 9 Errach to 17 Errach
    The mornings of this holiday are spent with different celebrations of spring, fruits, flowers and greenery are in abundance.
    The nights feature women, dressed in white, running through grain fields, swinging lit torches. The myth is that Sildrin had lit a fox on fire as it stole from her, as it fled the flame chased away hundred of other pests and helped to warm the crops. In gratitude Sildrin snuffed its flame and allowed it to leave, but repeated its feat and flames the next year.
    On the last night of the festival there is a ritual dousing of the flames.
    
    Birth to Earth - 15 Errach
    Held in the midst of the week of Fox’s Fire, the festival of birth to earth is the only day where the otherwise loud celebrations are put on hold, as this is it’s own festival, to an older god.
    The women that had been spending the week’s nights in the fields today present a specific sacrifice, a pregnant cow, to Karn, the goddess of earth in the hope of restoring the fertility of the soil.
    
    Vintage Day - 23 Errach
    A surprisingly somber occasion for a festival of wine, anyone producing wine brings the last year’s bottles forwards and everyone is expected to take a small sample. An entire bottle is sacrificed to Wobbum, with a prayer for beauty, popularity, charm, and wit to be found in the drinks to come.
    
    Green's Day - 30 Errach
    A day to honor Diamete, people go out into the woods and collect the seeds and honor standing trees. Planting a new tree is also a customary way of celebrating this holiday. Hunters also honor this day, trying to hunt and sacrifice something worthwhile for Diamete.
    
    The Flower's Games- 3 Haru to 6 Haru
    Intended to be a celebration of the fertility of spring, the festival of the flower’s games features a licentious, pleasure-seeking atmosphere. Celebrants are encouraged to wear little and compete in impromptu games, the winners receiving laurels of flowers. Drink is expected to flow freely for this festival and all are expected to indulge. The flower’s games also involves sacrifices of hares and goats within the temples.
    
    Coin's Day - 15 Haru
    A celebration of Tharsias, the draconic god of merchants; merchants take this day to have the means of their business blessed, making a sacrifice of gold to the god in exchange for his blessing.
    
    The Day's Fast - 7 Lithe
    A day when people are expected to honor the pantheon by denying themselves. No food may pass though an observant’s lips between midnight that morning and midnight that night.
    
    Brightest Day (Summer Solstice) - 21 Lithe
    The summer solstice, longest day of the year, is held as a Day to honor Soltis, a grand bonfire is lit in front of the temples and a great communal feast is held.
    
    Independence Day - 4 Sumor
    A day intended to defy Incancatus. Fireworks have been recently incorporated into the festival and they are lit to commemorate the celestial battle held between Soltis’ divine army and Incancatus’ legions of fiends.
    
    Day of the Depths - 23 Sumor
    A holiday in honor of Tiad, the day of the depths is mostly celebrated with fish, fishermen compete to catch the biggest fish they can and sacrifice it to Tiad. The festival can also honor Vesperi if windfish are caught for the festivities.
    
    Remembrance Day - 28 Sumor
    Commemorating the destruction of the old world and the breaking, once a year this day features an annual solar eclipse, said to be Celeste hiding the mourning of Soltis from the world.
    
    Gratitude Day - 29 Sumor
    A day when people are expected to visit the temples and shrines of their gods and provide offerings in thanks to those gods that they believe provided them with some special blessings over the past year.
    
    Barn Day - 18 Samrad
    A holiday in farming communities in honor of Matre, this is a day when barns are built and beast of burden are honored, typically they’re garlanded with flowers.
    
    The Siege - 29 Samrad - 30 Samrad
    A celebration of Agressa, Fortison, and Vister, the siege is celebrated in two stages. The first day, the town’s children, with the help of the faithful and their parents, construct a small fort of piled up wood and stone, and anything else they can use, and place a flag in the center.
    On the second day, the children receive wooden weapons and draw straws to see which god they will represent. The children of Fortison defend the fort and the flag, trying to keep it within the fort’s boundaries. The children of Agressa try to get the flag and bring it inside of the local temple. The children of Vister try to make sure that neither wins, that the flag leaves the fort, but never makes it to the temple. The game begins at noon and ends at sundown and is constantly overseen by healers and devoted of Ashotene.
    
    Rustic Vintage - 19 Natsu
    A celebration of growth and fertility to Sildrin and to Wobbum, this festival centers around harvesting and pressing grapes for wine and a time when wine from years before in people’s cellars is drunk.
    
    The Showcase - 30-34 Natsu
    A celebration time honoring Imperna and the arts and Sameth and the crafts. Stands and stages are assembled and people put their works on display, showcasing their art, performing their music, or simply hawking their wares.
    
    The Champion's Games - 12 Thout - 14 Thout
    Any game is possible for the holiday, but which take place is not decided until the first day. Those who agree to the competition must put a prize into the pot and a new game is hosted every day of the festival. On the final day, the spectators must choose a champion of the games that will win the pot. Numerous smaller games are held alongside the titular champion’s games during this holiday.
    
    The Day of Dusk (Autumnal Equinox) - 23 Thout
    The day of dusk is a time of preparation, of getting ready for the winter that is coming and ensuring that everyone has enough to hold themselves through the cold. This is a time for giving and sharing, but only of your excess.
    
    Repentance Day - 12 Fogamur
    A day honoring Virden, repentance day is a day when people are expected to atone for their missteps in some way and to ease their burdens of guilt.
    
    Wellspringing Day - 13 Fogamur
    Owing to the necessity of clean wells on the skylands, the wellspringing day is a celebration to honor Tiad and his waters on the skylands. Wells and fountains are decorated with garlands, and the temples pay for their cleaning to help ensure the purity of the water.
    
    Soldier's Toil - 11 Haerfest
    A day for honoring those that gave themselves to war, honoring both Agressa and Fortison through honoring their chosen, soldiers. Where the siege is a holiday honoring the excitement of war, soldier’s toll is a day honoring the cost of war.
    
    Thanks and Giving - 17 Haerfest to 24 Haerfest
    A week long celebration of plenty and community. People are expected to share food and gifts among their fellows. The center of the local temple becomes a feast-hall with a grand banquet.
    
    Blackest Night (Winter Solstice) - 21 Yule
    A day to celebrate Celeste, celebrants wear masks and billowing robes to hide themselves and their appearance, then all come together for a community festival. The concealing is intended to allow the celebrants to be more honest with themselves and what they want to do, behaving more like their true self.
    
    Eve of Quiet - 21 Fuyu
    A day for commemorating those who have passed. People are expected to take small a small amount of food and wine to the graves of those immediate family who have passed and leave it out for their souls. Many graveyards have a broad stone altar specifically for this holiday.
    On this day it is considered the worst luck to speak aloud, and it is believed that speaking on this day will attract the attention of lingering restless spirits of the dead and draw them away from Bern’s peace.
    
    Hearth Day - 22 Fuyu
    Following the eve of quiet, the people are expected to remember those family they still have. Celebrants build their fires and come together to feast as a family. This is expected to be a private, intimate, holiday shared between those in the home.
  
  
• 
  
  Expect to see the map redrawn at some point.
  
  • General
  • The Ground
  • The Underground
  • The Oceans and Seas
  • The Skies and Skylands
  • Skylands
  • Sailing the Skies
  • Ruins of the Old World

  • Giant islands of floating dirt and stone support people above a hostile ground of disasters, wild magic, monsters, and marauders. The people in the skies above live on these skylands, traveling between them on magnificent airships that ride the wind like ships ride the oceans waves. They make do as best as they are able, they clear out farmland and construct their cities well above the dangers of the ground below. Beneath these aerial civilizations the world is wild. On the ground the rule of law of these established civilizations in the sky breaks down somewhat, operating almost as a wild west, with holdouts of law and order and dangerous wild territories outside the somewhat rough and tumble cities and settlements. The cities in the sky keep themselves safe by staying in the sky, the cities on the ground rely on strong walls. Beyond these civilizations in the sky and on the ground, the peoples of Orizon have made places for themselves in the underground and beneath the waves.
    Dragons soar across the skies, terrorizing sailors on airships. Kings and emperors command powerful armies. Wizards study the nature of magic and weave powerful spells. Clerics and priests offer prayer and service to gods and are tempted by fiends. There are many different peoples across the world of Orizon, all trying to make their way through this world and its broken horizon.
    The primary landmasses of Orizon are the five continents, Aemali, Estir, Internai, Ozrum, and Urur. Between these continents are vast and deep oceans with scattered islands amid the seas, each of them acting as their own small enclaves of unique cultures. Back in ancient times, before the world shattering cataclysm known as the breaking, these continents were the seats of powerful empires. Each of these great empires had built up astounding cultures and magnificent technologies. They merged an understanding of magic and the sciences to develop almost impossibly powerful tools. Sadly, these cultures were caught in rivalry and conflict, going to war with each other, turning their technological marvels against each other. The war spread conflict and curses across the world, causing immense damage and finally culminated in the breaking. The remnants of this old world are home to magnificent constructs of building and engineering, though they are unfortunately plagued by cursed and broken “survivors” and powerful monsters that were drawn to these seats of ancient power.
    Following the breaking, what remained was a fragmented mess, broken socially and geographically. Strong men and women were taken away to fight in a subsequent godswar to protect what little remained, further dismantling what remained and ruining any hope of recovery.
    New nations have risen and fallen in the time that has passed since this breaking but they are, at best, dim reflections of what once was. Empires and kingdoms sit above the fractured remnants of these great societies and avoid the lethal dangers of their few crumbling cities.
    The most visible and “famous” feature of the world of Orizon are the skylands that are seated in the sky. Above the ground is a broken horizon of dirt and stone gathered together to form “skylands,” islands in the sky. These skylands, by virtue of their position in the sky secure against the risks below, have become the seats of modern civilization. The skylands are enchanted by their very nature, pure magic is woven into the soil itself. Not only does this keep the land elevated, it offers some protection against wild magic eruptions and spreads its enchantment on some of the things growing upon them. Crops have some degree of floating and lift and seeds can spread far by the wind. The trees that grow on the skylands are infused with this magic and become floatwood, an essential material for the construction of airships.
    The world of Orizon suffers from infrequent but terrible eruptions of wild magic. These are a side effect from the massive release of raw energy during the breaking. This cracked the structure that governed the flow of energy and the consequences of this have persisted for years on. This wild magic typically releases itself as natural disasters or storms and can spread out as blasts of random magical effects. These magics can cause mundane troubles and magical curses that can bane or bless whoever encounters them. They’ve been known to warp creatures trapped within them, to summon or banish, or to bestow amazing power upon the hapless and lucky. Thankfully, these storms are not as common as they once were. The breaks are gradually being patched where they can, and compensated for where they cannot. But these energies are still present and still occasionally overflowing into the world as eruptions of wild magic. They do still happen and occasionally hit unfortunate souls caught within them. There are entire orders of people dedicated specifically to healing the damage caused by wild magic storms.
    
    Aemali
    Aemali has a warm territory in its southern region, occupied by a rainforest. Its mountains are tall and cold and most of the territory on the continent is grassland with cold tundras to the far north.
    Equivalent to Asia
    
    Estir
    Estir is a large continent, stretching nearly from the north pole to below the equator. It has a diverse range of environments, with mostly temperate regions in the north, frigid tundras in nearby large island in the far north and a lush rainforest in its equatorial center.
    Equivalent to Europe
    
    Internai
    Internai is a diverse continent, with lush and fertile terrain, it is too far south to cross the equator and is mostly a temperate continent, but the southern regions are cold, especially the southern island.
    Equivalent to the Americas
    
    Ozrum
    Ozrum is mostly characterized by warm weather, with a mix of deserts, jungles and forests, and huge stretches of plains that stretch across the continent. The absolute southern region of Ozrum is temperate, but most of the continent is warm and hot.
    Equivalent to Africa
    
    Urur
    Urur is one of the smaller continents, dominated by the massive, vast desert just above the equator. Its northernmost regions are temperate but most of the continent is characterized by hot, dry, weather.
    Equivalent to the Middle East
  • The ground, despite the cultural dominance of the skylands, remains a power on the world. The majority of Orizon’s people live there and without the people on the ground, the cities in the sky may not have the resources necessary to survive. The vast expanse of the territories on the ground are dangerous wilderness with scattered settlements and farmlands spread between them. The ground is verdant and abundant, the overflow of energy providing at least that much benefit. There are monsters and raiders outside of the civilized regions, always pushing back against any settlements that people have built and making it difficult to travel far beyond secured regions.
    The ground of Orizon is lush and bountiful. Grasses grow thick and groves of ancient trees stand inside deep forests. Huge beasts roam the grasslands, stalked by canny predators. Farmlands grow thick and produce bountiful crops and can make a good livelihood for anyone that goes to ground to make a life for themselves. Hunters and rangers roam the ground, hunting for meats and furs to be sold to the people of the skyland. Miners dig up stones and minerals for construction and loggers travel through the ancient forests, collecting choice timber. Anyone willing to put up the work and strong enough to handle themselves could look forward to making a good living for themselves.
    Despite this, the ground is dangerous. The farther one travels from settled regions, the more deadly the threats seem to become. There are raiders and monsters, and the odd storms of wild magic that threaten the people on the ground. The majority of territory on the ground is unsettled, most people prefer to keep close to the strong walls of cities and the strong arms of militias. People on the skylands looking down would see farmland and ranches gradually spreading out from the boundaries of the cities, then overtaken by forests and untrammeled wilderness.
    One of the main responsibilities of an established airship navy is patrolling above these cities and along the ground’s trade routes to defend travel along the ground.
    Still, the dangers are not to be underestimated. There are strong monsters that hunt the bountiful fields and may find civilized humanoids to be an easy treat. There are marauding gangs of monsters that strike out at civilizations, looting their homes and enslaving anyone they capture. Sometimes these gangs band together and form powerful war bands, causing untold destruction and terror. The rise of a war-band can threaten entire nations.
    Still, the ground does have hope. People make their way to the ground to establish themselves. The cities in the sky, and they are the homes of many, but they are small and there is little resource wealth that can be developed on them. Settlers on the ground establish farms, mines, quarries, ranches, and make hunting and gathering expeditions through the varied terrains of the ground. They collect good and ship them up to the sky, where they can be sold at markets, or processed into finer things. But, the ground is still dangerous and most settlements are established nearby fortified and walled cities that act both as a local garrison and safehouse.
    These cities are strongly defended and rely on a strong leadership, but beyond managing disasters most governors operate a loose system of governance. For the most part people are able to live as they please, so long as they don’t overtly flaunt the law. This loose government and regulation attracts all types of people, from simple farmers looking to operate in peace, to people that have committed some mistake and that are looking to make a fresh start. Some of the people they attract are convicts trying to run but that still have to have some connection with the world, others are just looking for some adventure and excitement.
    Wood elves make up some territory on the ground, they, humans and the dwarves make up a great portion of the civilized settlements.
    The territories on the ground are also called home by various nomadic groups. These peoples try to maintain their safety by staying on the move and not presenting themselves as targets. These nomadic groups travel between their favored destinations, often between more settled cities, trading collected goods and information or offering information on potential dangers that they’ve met along the way.
    The various monstrous races make up a major power down on the ground. Orcs, goblinoids, even weak giants were once enslaved by the ancients, and now they strike out under the banners of loose organizations and occupy simple villages or fortifications. These fortifications usually originate around abandoned forts left behind by humanoid nations that then sprawl outwards. They cut down swathes of trees and mine deep to fuel their raids. These monstrous peoples do trade, but most of their fine goods were looted, so they have a difficult time finding places to trade reliably and without being attacked. These monstrous groups strike out at civilized outposts, taking loot and slaves back to their villages or fortifications. On rare and disastrous occasions, a strong leader can arise from within the ranks of the monsters and lash the armies together.
    Other non-human races make distinct use of the territories on the ground, fey occupy groves and beautiful spaces, the tall fortified edges of dwarf cities rise out of the mountains and higher up those hills, and goliath wander between the peaks.
  • During the breaking, the landscapes of the world were thrust upwards into the sky and beset by earthquakes. What landscapes were left underground were radically altered. The landscapes that lifted the islands into the sky created huge caverns and expansive corridors as the same enchantments that developed the skyland were halted at the crust of the ground. There are massive cathedral-sized caverns and expansive corridors scattered between the thick dirt and stone and tight crevasses. Some have expanded and tamed these caverns, expanding out their own underground cities.
    Some peoples were left trapped underground after the breaking. Some were travelers and researchers, others had already been living underground, but all were suddenly trapped and left to their own devices, desperate to find ways to survive in their new lives trapped underground. They needed to find new food, new creatures to domesticate and hunt and ways to see in a world without sunlight.
    The dwarves in the underground took themselves down a few separate paths. The majority of them kept their cities closer to the surface. They build up impressive fortifications at the entrances to their cities, marking the entrance to traders from the skies and other underground cities. Behind and beneath these fortifications are massive cities carved into the stone. The natural caverns are used as communal spaces like parks and markets. Simple dwarven homes vary, they are carved out of the stone and generally large enough to fit an extended family. These cities are all connected to their mines. The mines dig out the mineral and metals nearby and build up forges between the mines and the city. Once the dwarves tap out their mine shafts, some of them are expanded and refined into roadways. Other dwarves dug deeper into the dirt, refusing all connection to the surface and called themselves the “duergar.” These people are iron hard and have decided to subsist entirely on what they can produce themselves. They refuse visitors and are aggressive towards outsiders.
    Some groups of elves were trapped underground. They were deprived of sunlight and of their foods, they began interbreeding and exploring new magical and alchemical means to survive in their new circumstances. These elven peoples became the new dark elf, or “drow,” race. They first set out to establish their territories in the underground, building kingdoms and empires ruled by powerful matriarchs who command influence and power and constantly feud between each other for more. The drow have also made efforts to reconnect the surface, they have developed tunnels connected to the surface. Some of these tunnels are obvious, others are cleverly hidden and used to conduct raids on cities in the grounds or using blimps to strike at the skylands. The drow make use of the massive caverns of the underground for their civilizations. Building up within the caverns and using the natural spaces as much as possible and using natural resources they can develop in the underground. The drow cultivate bioluminescent growths and creatures to give light to their caverns and harvest fungus and cave creatures for food. The drow cities also employ a great deal of magic to supplement these resources. Drow cities are a diverse mix of peoples, drawn to the wealth and relative peace of the drow cities and the accepting attitudes of the drow. But above this mix of common folk are the ruling drow matriarchs and their families who use citizens as pawns in their political games.
    Past the cities of the drow and the dwarves, deeper into the underground much of the underground is unexplored and dangerous. There are people who exploit the tunnels for travel and other people who hope to find treasures of the old world lost underground. There are other civilizations, fire giants dig down to find molten vents for their craft. There are empty tunnels and caverns of senseless hunting monsters. Resources are limited in the underground and there is a great deal of conflict between the various cultures of the underground for those limited resources.
    At the height of the old world, aberrations were hunted nearly to extermination. Beholders, Aboleths, and Illithids were powerful, but unable to stand against the might of the ancient world. The survivors fled underground, entrenching themselves and biding their time, waiting for the chance for revenge and to claim the world the ancients destroyed.
  • A sizable portion of the world of Orizon are its oceans. With the continents and islands rising up from underneath the waves. There are deep trenches, rolling waves and all of it is in a vast expanse of blue waters. There are tremendous creatures that roam through the waters and shoals of fish. There are deep waters and crushing pressure. Sitting suspended within the oceans are hovering islands like what is drifting in the skies. These underwater skylands serve as peaceful locations above the deep water and homes for numerous fish and other creatures.
    Travel across the seas is a difficult prospect. Winds and storms are more common along the sea than they are on the land, and they are more powerful. Travel across the seas are commonly handled by traditional sailing ships, which are also able to carry larger amounts of cargo and people. Established sailing routes between the continents are valuable resources for travelers and traders. Merfolk swim along these trade routes acting as lifeguards and scouts. Some less savory groups of merfolk swim underneath these routes, looting sunken ships.
    Most people choose not to brave the oceans, staying on their homelands instead. However, intercontinental travel is managed by dedicated groups of brave traders, so people are aware of the existence of other continents and have a general idea of how other peoples live. Though this impression may be cartoonishly inaccurate or mythologized. Works made in far off lands with their unique artistic sensibilities can command greater prices than what the object might otherwise be valued at.
    The merfolk are the dominant peoples of the oceans. They’ve built castles out of coral and the fallen timber of sunken sailing ships. The merfolk have even domesticated some underwater species, creatures like seals and dolphins are treated like dogs or beasts of burden. The most powerful of the merfolk societies have even managed to tame dragon turtles. They tame these creatures as mobile platforms, seating citadels on their shells. Gigantic sea turtles and sea horses also serve as mounts and beasts of burden. Merfolk are also talented fishermen and take a great deal of effort to maintain husbandry of herds of fish. The large fish the merfolk hunt in the open ocean are traded with sailors or collected for their own feasts.
    Merfolk serve as traders and also maintain a strong position with other civilizations by serving as guards and escorts for trading ships. Merfolk erectus, the merfolk of the shallows with legs instead of tails, stand on the edges of both underwater and land-based societies. They trade the bounties of the sea and the recovered treasures collected by the other merfolk for processed and forged goods from the other civilizations.
    The deep waters are dark and dangerous. There are terrifying things living deep enough that not even light can reach. The powerful krakens slumber deep below, there are aboleths that muse on their ancient memories and ruminate on schemes to seize power and control. Occasionally the krakens rise up through the oceans to spread destruction or the aboleths swim into underground tunnels to begin to influence new peoples and spread their control.
  • The skies of Orizon feature scattered across them islands floating along the sky. These have allowed people to make their way up to the skies, first climbing vines or building ladders, and then later developing airships. Their distance from the ground has enabled people to find some security from the monsters and other dangers of the ground. They’ve also found that the skylands are less likely to encounter wild magic storms than the ground. Settlements, towns and cities, have been built on top of the skylands and airships can be seen drifting across the atmosphere. The enchanted timber that grows on top of the skylands are used in the construction of the skylands and other materials built up on the skylands. These airships and islands are occasionally lost behind clouds and fog, nearly blinding people with the sudden expanse of thick mist.
    Sky sailors have to keep track of elevation in addition to longitude and latitude. They use meters that track their ship’s elevation and have taken to given names to the various elevations off from ground level that they have loosely named after the clouds along these elevations. The heights below one and a half kilometers are called the stratus, the heights between there and 2,700 meters are called the Nimbus, between there and all the way up to six kilometers is called the Altus, above there is called the Cirrus. The elevation above the cirrus, where the atmosphere begins to disappear and life becomes impossible, this region of the sky is known by a few simple names, “the rooftop” or “the black,” among others.
    Because the atmosphere begins to thin more and more above five kilometers, most races have a difficult time living at all comfortably at that elevation. Because of this, there are very few cities established anywhere above the lower or mid Altus.
    There are a few plants that have adapted to existing in the skies. The trees in the sky, the floatwood, are the most famous example because of their use in the construction of airships. But some plants have begun to produce floating fruits that can drift or produce interesting effects on the people who eat them. Others have lightweight seeds that can drift along the winds to reach the next skyland. Some sea creatures have been altered by the energies of the breaking and the intervention of some of the ancient gods, to be able to fly. Windfish and zephyr sharks float on bladders of lighter than air gases or glide on broad fins. Sky whales keep themselves suspended on blubber that is very useful in the construction of small airships and alchemical experimentation. Birds also fly through the air and they are significantly quicker and more maneuverable than these modified sea creatures.
  • The skylands are the dominant feature, not only of the sky but of the entire plane. They are floating landmasses, breaking a clear view of the horizon as far as the eye can see. The skylands hang seemingly unsupported above the ground, suspended by enchantments that have been woven into every stone and speck of dirt. The size, shape, and the altitude of these floating landmasses vary wildly between these landmasses. Some are barely more than pebbles and others are large enough to fit entire cities and farmlands. Some hang barely a foot off the ground, others are over a mile up into the sky.
    Researchers have taken a great deal of effort to understand the nature of the skylands. As best they been able to understand, the skylands have a “core” that sustains the rest and locks it in position. The islands can be moved, but it takes at least twice as much force as the island weighs to move it even an inch. So very small skylands are somewhat mobile, but the large skylands are practically immobile.
    The large skylands are rare, but they are the more visible landmarks. The large skylands are the centers of society, they support towns, villages, farms, ranches, and groves of trees cultivated to provide floatwood. The largest skylands support entire cities, with docks to accommodate the airships that travel there.
    The skylands are covered in plant life that grows wherever it can find soil to take root, with regular rain providing more than enough water for any skyland’s aquifer or their plants. The spots that have enough sunlight to support this plant growth are covered in greenery, the undersides of the islands are covered in roots, vines and fungi. Other, more exotic, plants grow out from the soil of skylands. Balloon like flowers that drift away as their stems gradually become severed. Some plants have broad leaves that act as natural sails. Others cling to the skylands and stretch out feet away from the sides of the islands and grip through numerous vines.
    The most valuable plant life of the skylands are the trees that grow on them. The trees of the skylands inherit some of the magic of the soil they grow on and become floatwood, enchanted timber that can somehow ignore the effects of gravity. The presence of floatwood is what has enable airships to become as ubiquitous as they are in the skies of Orizon and this lumber is crucial for their construction.
    When islands float close enough together, greenery will stretch between them forming something like nets and lattices turning the sky reefs into “green-reefs” that act like coral reefs. These provide homes for numerous small creatures like birds, insects, and windfish and their predators, like cats, hawks, house griffons and zephyr sharks.
    Many smaller skylands have their own unique ecosystems. Sometimes this consists of little more than whatever creatures were standing on those landmasses before they were launched into the air. Some of these islands are populated by creatures that had flown up to occupy the islands. Flying creatures tend to dominate unoccupied skylands, creatures like griffons, harpies, and rocs. These unoccupied skylands are more wild spaces. Some are intentionally left wild and unoccupied to cultivate groves of floatwood or wild populations of flying species that can be caught and trained. Others are simply so far distant that that keeps them undisturbed.
    The greatest virtue of these skylands to the people occupying them is their distance from the ground. The not entirely undeserved impression of the ground is that it is dangerous, too dangerous for civilized folks. Keeping themselves far away from the dangers and recklessness of the ground is considered a blessing for the people of the sky and most of the dangers of the ground have a difficult time making it all the way up to any skylands. To escape these dangers people fled to the skies ages ago and, for the most part, remained there. Keeping themselves comfortable in the sky.
    Most larger skylands are occupied. They serve as the seats of cities and towns. Some are large cities, supporting thousands of people, others are smaller towns, barely more than a few buildings and a handful of farmers. Some smaller skylands house little more than a single building and act as the homes of a single noble family, or serve other purposes for large buildings, barracks or dock houses for sailors or homes of universities. Others are military outposts or watchtowers. Any occupied skylands have docks built onto them to allow for traders to use them as destinations for trade or travel. Skylands that have been occupied by towns or cities serve as hubs for trade, their docks are home to great numbers of ships that travel between the skylands. If settled skylands are positioned close enough together the people there build means of travel between the nearby skylands like bridges or gondolas. Every skyland supports docks of some size or another and have a system of ropes to allow people to rappel down the sides of the skyland. Others have dug down into the skyland, opening up caverns that allow people to dock their airships along the lower portions of the skylands.
    Small skylands depend on the trade routes that have been established between the larger islands. These big cities and their markets, and the merchants who occupy them, send out ships to travel these trade routes. They stop at smaller islands to load and unload cargo and passengers. People on smaller islands without access to airships depend on these trade routes for any contact with the outside world. These trade ships also travel to the settlements on the ground, keeping those regions connected to the broad world.
    Most skylands don’t have much in the way of defensive walls, except outside of exceptionally important places like a palace or a wizard’s tower. Fences may be built to keep animals penned up, but walls don’t help much when attackers can simply fly over them. The greater focus is on watchtowers and shelters, accompanied by air navies and sky knights. But these measures are not always successful and there is the occasional eerie sight of an abandoned settlement sitting on top of a skyland. A dragon might covet a skyland as their new territory or a group of raiders from the ground may use a hot air balloon to reach up into the sky. Some skylands were caught in the unfortunate cross-hairs of a war between governments. In other cases they were the victims of less conscious decisions, a roc may have decided it wanted a new nest, harpies and other flying beats enjoy taking a new place for themselves. Some may have been little more than the victims of the wild magic that plagues the rest of the world.
  • Aerial maps for sailors usually come in sets that display the features at different altitudes for the same region. These maps have many notations made along the paper, marking down things that the map cannot easily display. The cockpit and helm of any airship contains numerous monitors that help monitor position, from altitude to magnetic direction, wind-speed and several other factors. Some pilots supplement their income by keeping close note of the meters and selling the logs they take to cartographer guilds and other travelers.
    The most important consideration of sailing in an airship is that travel is three dimensional. Obstacles can be flown over or under and skyland settlements are located at various altitudes. Because rapid shifts in altitude can cause health problems, responsible pilots change altitude slowly, and continuously check their maps so they can anticipate upcoming altitude changes.
    Airship travel has numerous dangers, reefs of Aerial maps for sailors usually come in sets that display the features at different altitudes for the same region. These maps have many notations made along the paper, marking down things that the map cannot easily display. The cockpit and helm of any airship contains numerous monitors that help monitor position, from altitude to magnetic direction, wind-speed and several other factors. Some pilots supplement their income by keeping close note of the meters and selling the logs they take to cartographer guilds and other travelers.
    The most important consideration of sailing in an airship is that travel is three dimensional. Obstacles can be flown over or under and skyland settlements are located at various altitudes. Because rapid shifts in altitude can cause health problems, responsible pilots change altitude slowly, and continuously check their maps so they can anticipate upcoming altitude changes.
    Airship travel has numerous dangers, reefs of floating boulders may make regions impassable. Smaller, boulder sized, skylands are able to drift, and these can crash into unwary ships. Monsters can move into skylands, griffons, dragons and harpies may harass trade routes and nearby skylands.
    The make up of the aerial landscape is prone to change, dangers can migrate or be introduced, populations can be eradicated and new settlements established. Cartographer guilds often partner with adventuring and trade guilds for transport and information to keep their maps up to date. The best of them release a new set of maps annually.
  • These ruins are the most visceral reminder of what has passed and the destruction that the breaking wrought. These mouldering ruins are occupied by deadly monsters and mysterious and powerful treasures. The greatest of the magical items and the most powerful artifacts came from the ruins of the old world, and no one has been able to match the wonders that those who came before them have accomplished.
    But the ruins are dangerous. Wild magic storms are much more common and the suffused, powerful, mad, “survivors” of the breaking wander the ruins, violently lashing out against intruders. Other powerful monsters are drawn to the ruins, attracted to the allure of powerful magic.
    Despite the dangers, the allure of the treasures contained within bring adventurers and other treasure hunters that chase rumor and greed into the abandoned cities. But few survive these expeditions and fewer manage to claim any treasures from the ruins, monsters chase them down and blast them to oblivion, wild magic may catch them off guard, and the very nature of these places can warp their minds, twisting their perspective and driving them mad if they spend too much time within these ruins.
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  • Character
  • Details
  • Spells

  • 
    
    Character Sheet​
    Name:
    Class & Level:
    Background:
    Player:
    Race:
    Alignment:
    0/300
    _{Saving Throws}
    + ||Strength
    + ||Dexterity
    + ||Constitution
    + ||Intelligence
    + ||Wisdom
    + ||Charisma
    _Skills
    + ||Acrobatics (Dex)
    + ||Animal Handling (Wis)
    + ||Arcana (Int)
    + ||Athletics (Str)
    + ||Deception (Cha)
    + ||History (Int)
    + ||Insight (Wis)
    + ||Intimidation (Cha)
    + ||Investigation (Int)
    + ||Medicine (Wis)
    + ||Nature (Int)
    + ||Perception (Wis)
    + ||Performance (Cha)
    + ||Persuasion (Cha)
    + ||Religion (Int)
    + ||Sleight of Hand (Dex)
    + ||Stealth (Dex)
    + ||Survival (Wis)
    _Strength
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    _Dexterity
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    _Constitution
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    _Intelligence
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    _Wisdom
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    _Charisma
    12
    ⁽⁺¹⁾
    
    _Languages
    Common,
    _{Weapon Proficiencies}
    Simple,
    _{Armor Proficiencies}
    
    _{Features & Traits}
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    <sub>Personality Traits
    
    Ideals
    
    Bonds
    
    Flaws</sub>
    
    
    [ ] Inspiration
    ( ) Proficiency Bonus
    ( ) Passive Perception
    
    { } AC
    [ ] Initiative
    [ ] Speed
    
    Hitpoint Maximum:
    Current Hitpoints:
    Temporary Hitpoints:
    Hit Dice:
    _{Death Saves}
    Successes: ●-●-●
    Failures: ○-○-○
    
    ^CP<>
    ^SP<>
    ^GP<>
    ^PP<>
    _Equipment
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    
  • 
    
    Details Sheet​
    _{Age:
    Height:
    Weight:
    Eyes:
    Skin:
    Hair:}
    
    _Backstory
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Allies & Organizations
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Additional Features & Traits
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Treasure
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  • 
    
    Spell Sheet​
    _{Spellcasting
    Class:
    Spellcasting
    Ability:}
    Spell Save DC______[ ]
    Spell Attack Bonus_[+ ]
    

    0 || Cantrips​

    ●-
    ●-
    ●-
    ●-
    ●-
    

    1 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    2 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    3 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    4 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    5 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    6 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    7 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    8 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    

    9 || total || expended​

    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    ○-
    
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  
  Dice Roller
  Nautical Glossary
  Sailing/Ship Directions
  
  
  ​
• 
  Armor
  

  Armor	Cost	Armor Class (AC)	Strength	Stealth	Weight
  Light Armor
  Battle Robe	25gp	11 + Dex	-	-	10 lb.
  Leather Lamellar	30 gp	12 + Dex	-	Disadvantage	13 lb.
  Medium Armor
  Kozane Armor	75 gp	15 + Dex (max 2)	12	Disadvantage	30 lb.
  Plated Leather Armor	75 gp	13 + Dex (max 2)	-	-	40 lb.
  Wood Armor	15 gp	13 + Dex (max 2)	-	Disadvantage	20 lb.
  Heavy Armor
  Lorica Segmentata	45 gp	15	11	Disadvantage	30 lb.
  Fortress Armor	2,500 gp	20	17	Disadvantage	80 lb.
  Shield
  Buckler	5 gp	+1	-	-	2 lb.
  Tower Shield	25 gp	+2	16	Disadvantage	15 lb.
  Fencing Cloak	6 gp	+1	-	-	2 lb.

  
  Weapons
  

  Weapon	Cost	Damage	Weight	Properties
  Simple Melee Weapons
  Bayonet	5 gp	1d4 Piercing	1 lb.	Special
  Brass Knuckle	5 sp	1d4 Bludgeoning	1 lb.	Light
  Karambit	4 gp	1d4 Slashing	1 lb.	Finesse, Light
  Katar	5 gp	1d6 Piercing	2 lb.	Finesse, Light
  Sap	1 gp	1d4 Bludgeoning	2 lb.	Finesse, Light
  Martial Melee Weapons
  Arming Sword	20 gp
  Bastard Sword	25 gp
  Bec De Corbin	20 gp
  Bladed Chain	8 gp
  Boar Spear	10 gp
  Cutlass	10 gp
  Estoc	25 gp
  Falchion	10 gp
  Hidden Blade	100 gp
  Katana	15 gp
  Kopis	25 gp
  Man Catcher	25 gp
  Meteor Hammer	15 gp
  Monk's Spade	10 gp
  Saber	35 gp
  Spiked Chain	10 gp
  Sword Breaker	15 gp
  Weighted Chain	10 gp
  Simple Ranged Weapons
  Blowgun	10 gp
  Boomerang	10 gp
  Throwing Star	5 gp
  Bolas	30 gp
  Martial Ranged Weapons
  Chakram	15 gp
  Firearms
  Blunderbuss
  Musket
  Pistol

  
  
• 
  Information & Supplements
  Lemiel14n3, "Will", for the Orizon original campaign
  
  Original Artwork (sources aswell)
  "Floating Palace", by Jonone @deviantART
  "Floating Mountains', by Saher Imran @ArtStation
  
  Unlinked Sources
  "Temple Scene", by Martin Teichmann @ArtStation
  "Image A", my Source (I couldn't find the original artist, the search continues)