Blayden
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The Continent of Eredane
In the ageless time before the dawn of history, there was a war in heaven. In desperation, the lords of light severed the black spirit of the dark god Izrador, casting him out of the celestial kingdom.
The gods succeeded in vanquishing their brother, but Izrador corrupted their magic and turned their victory against them. As the fallen gods spirit was severed from his physical form, so too was the celestial kingdom severed from all contact with the material realm. The lords of light discovered that they could no longer commune with their mortal children. This cataclysm shook the foundations of the world and came to be known as the Sundering.
The dark god fell to the earth, his foul essence staining the land with its evil shadow. Weakened and bodiless, Izrador retreated to the ice and cold of the far north. There he slumbered, slowly recovering his strength and dreaming of vengeance across aeons of time. Empires were built and crumbled to dust, races were born and died, and the Shadow in the North grew deeper and darker.
Three times the dark god rose, and threatened the nations of Aryth with iron and fire. The first time he was defeated by a proud host of elves, dwarves and Dornish men lead by Aradil the Witch Queen.
The second time, races of good held the Shadow off long enough for aid to come from an unlooked for ally. By the time of the third rising, the free peoples of Eredane were battered, bitter and distracted by their own infighting as well by the insidious corruption sown by the dark god’s spies over the years. Four of the land’s greatest heroes fell prey to his dark promises and betrayed their people, leading his hordes from the north, claiming their title. They became the Night Kings.
This time, the dark god won.
The dwarven clans were broken and retreated to their holdfasts deep within the earth. The elves withdrew into their fast and ancient forest, abandoning all to the Shadow. The Dorns, tamed by a power from across the sea in the Second Age were betrayed from within and fell swiftly.
One hundred years have passed since the Shadow fell. The elder races – those of a good heart and fey ancestry who have battled Izrador for millennia – are being systematically hunted down and exterminated. The great forest of Erethor has become an island of light in a darkening world, its elven keepers fighting a never-ending battle against besieging hordes of orcs, giants and goblinoids. The surviving dwarves clans have locked themselves in their mountain holdfasts, and the streets of once-proud subterranean cities have become meat grinders for the orcs who are sent in to root them out.
The lands of men are ruled with an iron fist by the minions of the Shadow. Cities lie in ruins, and the commoners in isolated towns lock the gates against the darkness each night. Literacy, magic and weapons are illegal, and ignorance spreads across the land like a terrible plague.
No one race or culture has the might to stand against Izrador and his foul legates. The dwarves are valiant, but caged in their mountains. The elves are skilled, but have neither the numbers nor the resources to fight off the orc hordes forever. Yet there are some few who would join their knowledge and skills, the better to fight the Shadow that has fallen over both peoples. And those few are hunted.
The continent of Eredane is set on the world of Aryth. A map can be seen as below.
Races of Aryth
Human, Dorn
Those humans descended from the houses of the Old Kings, known commonly as the Northmen, still live in the lands north of the Sea of Pelluria. Those that remain in the environs of their ruined cities live at the will of their orc masters and survive off what subsistence they can grow, poach, or scrounge. Others huddle in subsistence communities on the vast stretches of hill country and tundra, left to lives of misery only occasionally interrupted by orc patrols and legates seeking provision and tithes. Those that choose to run as outlaws, bearing illegal weapons and raiding supplies from the dark god's chosen, must always be on the move lest they be hunted down and slaughtered.
Dornish people are big, even for humans with broad shoulders and long limbs. They have pale skin and green or blue eyes. Their hair ranges from gold to red and was once worn long and bound with metal rings, each ring commemorating a battle in which the individual had fought. Now most Dorns, even many women, shave their heads as a symbol of shame at their defeat by the forces of Izrador. Dorns once wore painted leather coats, fur boots and heavy woolen kilts and gowns whose patterns marked their house allegiances. Now they are lucky to have dirty rags in which to wrap their hungry bodies.
The Dornish people once swore fealty to the Old Kings of the Great Houses. The nobles were fiercely loyal to their people, who repaid that devotion by adhering to familial codes of honor in both social interactions and in battle. In the days of the old, death was seen as far preferable to dishonoring one's clan; every action a Dorn undertook, whether repairing his farmstead's wall or meeting a foe in battle, was to reflect proudly on his King. But with the betrayal of the Night King Jahzir, Gregor Chander, and several other Traitor Princes, most Northmen are now only loyal to their own skins and swear fealty only to their stomachs. The shades of their ancestors, which traditional Dorns honor with altars, prayers and sacrifices, would weep to see what has become of their once-great people.
In the centuries since the Sarcosans came to Eredane, the Dorns have become excellent riders, though they still prefer to fight on foot. Their weapons of choice were spears and greatswords, though some chose to carry large battleaxes. Today, orc patrols kill armed humans on sight so the rare Dorns who go armed use whatever weapons are available.
Human, Sarcosan
The humans of southern Erenland are smaller and much leaner than the big Northmen. They have dark brown skin and black, shiny hair. Their eyes are the deepest brown and set in narrow lids that grant them hard stares when angry and bright smiles when pleased. They paint their skins with herbal salves that bleach intricate, pale designs on their faces, arms, and chests for nothing more than the haunting beauty it creates. They dress in flowing pants and loose robes that offer them both protection from the elements and the freedom they need to ride and fight.
Like the Northmen, these southlanders once swore allegiance to noble princes. With the rule of the Shadow, most of those sussars, or sworn riders, have been killed or sworn to ride as outlaws. Those that remain are traitors to their own people, and have become soulless and hollow tyrants under the control of the legates and their orc enforcers.
By the time the forces of Izrador had reached the southern cities of Erenland, the human armies had been crushed and only a few cities resisted. Cambrial and Alvedara were both razed for their refusal to surrender.
Sharuun, Hallisport and several other cities still stand, essentially as they did before the war. As a result, many southlanders still live in the cities their forefathers built. Unfortunately, the inflated false economies, brutal orc garrisons, and whimsically evil legates that plague these urban areas serve as a reminder that, while the cities may still stand, the spirit that built them has been all but crushed.
Sarcosan riders favor versatility and finesse over brute strength. They wield lances and composite longbows when on horseback. On foot, they often fight with a wickedly curved scimitar in one hand and an inward-curving short sword, called a cedeku, in the other.
Human, Erenlander
For more than 2000 years, the Northmen descendants of the Dorns and the colonial Sarcosans have lived together as two cultures unified by military, commercial, and royal alliance under the single banner of the nation of Erenland. In that time, they have also become kin through friendship and family. From the southern coast of the Pelluria to the shores of the Ardune, the peoples of both races have interbred and intermarried for so long that a new race of true Erenlanders has been born.
These people are a mix of their forebears. Not as large and pale skinned as their Dorn parents nor as slight or dark as their Sarcosan ancestors, their colorations and builds vary wildly. They are a transitional people between both Erenland's northern and southern regions as well as its past and future. Erenlanders are the true children of their kingdom, a people born of two ancient traditions but owing loyalty instead to one young nation. Though different settlements and even different families, hold more strongly to some Sarcosan and Dornish traditions, mos Erenlanders sense they are truly a unique people, something other than simply the combination of their ancestries.
Though the lack of cultural restriction means Erenlanders have greater social freedom, that freedom is not without greater social cost. Whereas respect for the past and hatred of the Shadow bind the Dornish houses and Sarcosan liegemen to their people, the Erenlanders have no such guiding lights or sense of unity. Indeed, it may have been their diluted loyalties that made many Erenlander communities fertile soil for Izrador's dark seeds in the Second and Third Ages. It is yet to be seen whether the Erenlanders of the Last Age will devolve into a directionless, broken people or will rise above the suspicions and betrayal of their time and unite the two bloodlines, north and south, Dorn and Sarcosan, that created them.
Dwarves
The dwarves are an ancient people and have a culture as rich as any in Eredane. Dwarven society is structured along familial lines, and like the Dorns, clan loyalty and honor lie at the center of their lives. Historical records indicate that in the First Age there were more than 600 dwarven clanholds spread throughout the Kaladrun Mountains. Now there are fewer than 200 and this number continues to fall as the Shadow advances.
The clan is the basic dwarven social and political unit. The smallest clans may contain as few as 100 individuals and the largest many thousands. Alliances between the clans are fluid, complicated affairs, most typically formed by intermarriage or common enemies. In bygone days, skirmishes between the various clans were common, but in the past centuries of war, such hot-bloodedness has instead been spent against the forces of Izrador. For matters of governance that affect all dwarves, great clanmoots were once called where representatives of each clan would meet in raucous assemblies to determine collective courses of action. The cantankerous and aggressive nature of these meetings is a reflection of dwarven clan relations at large.
In addition to the clan structure of dwarven society, there is another important social distinction within the dwarven culture. Most dwarves, about four out of every five clans live underground in their warren-like holdfasts that are carved out of the hard flesh of the mountains. The remaining clans are called the Kurgun, the surface dwellers. The Kurgun still live in the old dwarven surface cities of the southern Kaladruns that predate the First Age and the digging of the holdfasts.
Dwarves are a stout race, with short thick bones and heavy muscles. Their heads and chins - and most of the rest of their bodies, for that matter - are covered in thick hair in a variety of pale colours. These colours typically indicate an individual's clan heritage, as do the jewelled bangles they wear in their heavy braids.
Most dwarves live in underground cities that are warrens of chambers, rooms and great halls, all constantly being expanded by mining. The original proximity of the clans to one another, combined with their constant expansion throughout the millennia, have turned much of the central Kaladrun Mountains into a bewildering maze of tunnels and passages. The range contains countless pathways and chambers, both large and small, new and old, occupied and forgotten.
Since the fall of Erenland, the clanholds have severed almost all contact with the world beyond their mountains, and all their craft has now been turned to their race's continuing survival.
Halflings
Halflings are a race of tiny folk that some believe descended from a lineage of elvenkind in their past. They call themselves the Dunni or "the people" in their own tongue. They are dark-skinned, with coarse hair worn in small, intricate braids that mark their tribal membership. Their eyes range from common black to dark brown and green.
Where still free-living, the nomadic tribes dwell on the open plains in large hide tents they share with their extended families. The farming families have almost been wiped out by the advance of the Shadow, but a few groups still remain along the southwestern margins of Erethor. They dwell in cozy sod villages kept alive through their exceptional horticultural skills and the watchful presence of their wogren companions.
The halfling weapon of choice is the spear, with which they protect their flocks, hunt wild boar and skewer the occasional orc.
Gnomes
The gnomes are a clever and resourceful race. Though it is well known that they share ancient kin with the dwarves, they do not like to claim responsibility for the lineage. Gnomes are barely taller than the halflings, with only a slightly stouter build. They are bronze skinned but pale eyed, with jet black hair that they keep short as they are constantly in and out of the water.
Gnomish culture and history are characterized by their adaptable nature. Their nimble outlook on life allowed them to first move from mountain life to that of the coastal hills of the Ebon Sea, and from there to become adroit seafarers and river runners. Through all these years and new trading partners, the gnomes always knew that their conquerors longed only for land and goods. With the coming of Izrador this is not the case. They cannot fool themselves into believing that the dark god and the orcs will be content to let the survivors of the war live their lives in peace; whatever the eventual goals of the Shadow, the gnomes know that Eredane cannot survive. But the river fey's strength was not in war. So, as always, they bowed before their new masters and offered to serve. Or so it seemed.
Though the race has been subjugated along with the halflings, gnomes continue to enjoy a sort of freedom. Even the forces of the Shadow need to transport cargo and soldiers, and the river barges of the gnomes suit this purpose well. Most other races see the cost of this semi-freedom as the worst kind of enemy collaboration. What few realise is that the gnomes fight the dark god in their own way: as consummate spies and smugglers. It is their secret trade that keeps weapons, magic and information flowing amongst the free races of Eredane.
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