Alternate world details

[I will put changes and updates from the initial posting in bold.]

Eliste has been making use of the device you found to open small portals, through which she sends intelligent animals that can prowl about without being suspected as being spies. They have returned to her with a great deal of information. She has also used her own powers to do some investigation, but it has proved to be very difficult and she hasn’t learned nearly as much as hoped.

A few days after the above was passed on, she mentions that her spy animals seem... different. She's not sure what it is, but they are acting a bit less animal-like.

In this world, the Elves never left the land of the creators, and the dwarves never appeared.  This meant that the forces of evil that were mostly destroyed in your world’s early history have run almost unopposed for millennia. Humans have been on the world for thousands of years, but they never expanded much outside of one large town and a few surrounding hexes. This town is located were Aertael is. Terrain is identical, but there are no roads or other towns. The town has been shrinking over the centuries; ruins of another wall about half a mile out are visible; the current town is about two miles on each side. The areas outside the walls are heavily farmed and grazed. There aren’t many food animals; meat is a luxury.

The total population is about five thousand, and has been diminishing for centuries, and they can barely hang onto the area they currently hold. They believe that the monsters around them are gathering for a push to overwhelm the town. The general attitude is that they are going to kill as many of the monsters as they can on that final day, before they are wiped out.

The commander of the army rules the society. Children represent a smaller percentage of the population than in your city, and the elderly are not as common either. She has seen no extremely old people at all. 

There is only one temple, that of Lorien, who seems very similar to Erevan Elesere, but his priests are all Good aligned or Lawful/Neutral.

There are no luxury goods, and education for the young ends at about ten, when all time is spent eithe providing necessities or on military duty. Everyone is at least capable of acting as support personnel (putting out fires, bringing wounded to the temple of Lorien, and so on). 

Magic of all types that seeks to find knowledge or the like will not work at all. Eliste believes this is due to interference from the one evil god whose minions rule nearly the entire world, and also because your deities have no connection to this world.

Those who cast clerical or druidical spells will be able to get normal daily spells without any issues.

Magic here has no absolutes – items that normally do, instead count as 100% magic resistance at the level of the caster. An example is Amulet of Proof vs. detection and location – it adds 100% to the chance to not be seen. This will be worthless against the most powerful inhabitants of this world.

Combat is very different here, due to some metaphysical differences in the nature of matter and energy. Attacks never miss, it’s just a matter of how much damage they do.