Coin, Salt, Fire

I: Ancient History

About nine hundred years ago (which is as far back as anyone who cares to share their knowledge can reliably track), a war broke out between what are assumed to have been the global superpowers of the time. Among the combatants were the Matican Empire, an incredibly organized majority-human nation with advanced science, magic, and technology; the Eladri, a presumed-extinct race of elves dramatically more powerful even than the modern Aelfwyr high elves, each of whom was immortal, flawless, nearly unbeatable in combat, and an incredibly powerful magic-user; and at least one other side about whom nothing is known. Several other nation-states were forced to choose sides, including an empire of desert elves from the Southern Isles, a continent-spanning clan-coalition of dwarves, an alliance of wood elf communes, and a hobgoblin nation. All of these states were badly fractured in the conflict (if not outright destroyed) except the wood elves.

This century-long conflict culminated in an event called the Conflagration (or, more simply, the Burning). The skies rained fire and the seas turned corrosive, and the ebb and flow of magic across the world was badly disrupted. The world population decreased dramatically over the span of about a year--folk history holds that for every ten people, six died. The Matican Empire was reduced to ruins and survivors, the Eladri and the third faction vanished completely. The Aelfwyr high elves and the Asar wood elves have taken credit for repairing the world's magic and wildlife respectively, but many consider this claim dubious. In any case, the world did recover after the Conflagration, albeit slowly.

II: Modern History

In the year 785 After--that is, seven hundred eighty-two years after the Conflagration ended--a 21-year-old minor noblewoman named Alquine Aurelie ascended to the sovereign throne of a relatively important trading city called Port Vess on the isle of Kwnsil. Within a year, she has conquered a nearby city-state; less than a decade later the nascent Vessic Empire has conquered the entire landmass, re-christening it the Isle of Vess. Their unprecedented conquest is facilitated not only by firearms--a technology unknown across the rest of the world--but also by what should be an impossible number of spellcasters (called Havockers) and by great chugging, burning engines of war and logistics. Their conquest (and subsequent minority rule by the ethnically Vessic) sends waves of Kwnseviki refugees north to the continent of Aeldynn, where they are variously integrated, ghettoized, recruited to fight back against the Vesses, or used as scapegoats, as refugees often are. A decade after the Vesses' last conquests on Kwnsil, in 806 After, the Empire sets its sights on Aeldynn. However, despite all their gunships, establishing a beachhead on the continent turns out to be an incredibly costly affair--especially after nearly a coalition of Aelic city-states forms to fight the Vesses. No declaration of peace is ever signed, the Vesses just... stop sending ships. By 814 After, the war is generally considered over--but the assumption across most of the continent is that this is a temporary state of affairs.

Today, in 820 after, the uneasy (and unofficial) ceasefire has held. The seas are filled with out-of-work privateers turning to piracy, plundering trade routes between Aeldynn and the Southern Isles. The Aelic Coalition has begun to fracture, largely due to the infighting of the guilds (which hold much more real power than any government on the continent). The roads are as unsafe as ever, and another wave of ancient Matican construct-people have awoken recently. The market for buying and selling violence is doing nearly as well as it was at the height of the Second Vessic War. Three and a half decades after her coronation, the Imperatrice Alquine Aurelie des Vess doesn't look a day older than 21.

III: Religion.

Nearly every religion will tell you that their gods are real, and the gods of other faiths are false, or demonic, or simply different faces of their own gods. And yet, priests of all faiths cast spells--apparently given to them by their deities, saints, or cosmic powers. The two dominant faiths in the Western Isles are the Blood Faith and the Church of the North Star; the Kwnseviki primarily belong to the pre-Conflagration Old Faith, and the Vesses (allegedly) follow a Cult of the Imperatrice.

The Blood Faith. Practitioners of the Blood Faith hold that each Kind was created by a Kin-God, who watches over them. Elves have Corellon, orcs have Gruumsh, humans have Serafina, and so on. All adherents generally believe that all Kin-Gods exist, and can agree on a shared corpus of legends, but tend to have radically different perspectives--orcs and elves both will tell you that Corellon put out Gruumsh's eye, but disagree vehemently over whether or not they were in the right to do so. Traditionally, the Kin-Gods are portrayed as something akin to the platonic ideal for their Kind: elves ought to aspire to be as graceful and artistic as Corellon, and humans should try to embody Serafina's bravery and cooperative spirit. However, in the past few decades, another perspective has surfaced--a new sect that sees the traditional doctrine as a rigid and bigoted interpretation of doctrines meant to be read metaphorically. These Progressives see each Kin-God as a deity of a virtue first and a Kind second: a half-elf Progressive might pray to Gruumsh for bravery and Corellon for inspiration. Progressives and Traditionalists do not generally get along, but can almost always present a unified face when it comes to interfaith politics.

The Church of the North Star. A relatively recent religion dating to about a century after the Conflagration, the Church is an atheist faith that follows the teachings of the Prophet Alyssa and the Five Prime Saints (of which Alyssa is one). The Church believes in a Heaven-Beyond-the-Stars, which can be reached through virtuous behavior and the avoidance of sin. Each Prime Saint represents one virtue--Faith, Abstinence, Altruism, Justice, and Mercy, all of which are a touch more complex than their names would imply--and each virtue is opposed by a vice (Infidelity, Excess, Greed, Criminality, and Cruelty respectively). The Church can be dogmatic, but it is also had a considerable positive impact as of late--the incredibly well-funded House of St. Adrian, a Church-affiliated organization, is one of the only groups that has consistently taken in Kwnseviki refugees and helped them adapt to Aeldynn, albeit with the secondary aim of conversion.

The Old Faith. Most people don't know three things about the Old Faith: it was the Ancient Matican faith and predates the Conflagration; its adherents follow six primary deities, each of whom means a different thing to every sect that follows them; and its modern practitioners have a reputation for strange, unorthodox, or even abhorrent rituals. (It is unclear to what extent this is based in prejudice against the Kwnseviki refugees who practice the Old Faith, though that almost certainly has something to do with the religion's dark reputation.)

The Green Faith. Druids--and those associated with them--follow local nature spirits rather than gods. "The Green Faith" is less of a singular religion and more of a catch-all for religious sects that follow the spirits of the land--sects that are as unique and varied as the land is. Many Asari (wood elves) consider themselves adherents of the Green Faith.

IV: Geography and Major Powers

Aeldynn is the largest continent in the Western Isles, lying to the north of the Isle of Vess and an island chain called the Athidies, which is relatively isolated and home to numerous kinds of beastfolk. The largest cities on Aeldynn are Vanderston and Port Oak, each of which have sway over several nearby towns. Most other settlements are city-states, some of which (such as Whitepearl or the goblin-city Khim-do-Nomog-Geaya) are quite powerful in one way or another. Towards the center of the continent is a mountain called Mount Saël, at the top of which is Lorelana Sanctuary, the last holdout of the Aelfwyr (high elves) on the continent and thus the only source of the incredibly fine goods made by elves. The north of the island--across a wide mountain range--is largely tundra, inhabited primarily by gnomes and a few dwarves. The only major city in the north is Hoheweissetürme, a relatively isolated (but very populous) majority-gnomish metropolis. The Isle of Vess lies to the south of Aeldynn, across the Strait of St. Adrian.

V: Guilds, Companies, and Organizations.

While city- and nation-states are nominally in charge, other organizations hold most of the real power on Aeldynn. The Goldsmith's Union. A continent-spanning financial institution. Union banknotes are the only reliable paper currency on the continent, and their vaults are by far the safest, thus, despite their high fees and extremely monopolistic practices, they are tolerated (though liked by almost no-one). Also heavily involved in financing gold and silver mines on the continent--and perhaps surprisingly, they've retained enough of their roots as finesmiths to produce a wide variety of fine jewelry. The Shepherd's Guild. Sheep produce wool and parchment. Wizards need parchment, and everyone wants wool. These three simple facts--along with a near-monopoly on the transport and trade of wool--have made the once-humble Shepherd's Guild very, very important indeed. The guild no longer deals with sheep directly at all--why bother, when regulating the market (and charging every dyer and trader guild dues) is much more profitable? The Lyssolei Academy for the Arcane Arts. Headquartered in Vanderston, the Lyssolei Academy is (allegedly) an academic institution and a political one second. However, they have become substantially more important (and, consequently, pushy) in the past few decades as Aelic states have scrambled to assemble enough arcanists to combat the Vessic Havockers. To that end, the Academy has begun a sort of interdisciplinary war-magic program--promising mages are taught to fight, and skilled and intelligent soldiers are taught magic.

The Fellowship of Leechers. The Leechers appear to be simultaneously undead hunters, necromancers, undertakers, doctors, and a death cult. They are incredibly reclusive, and not well-liked--but everyone is grateful when a pair of Leechers show up in town to treat an epidemic, banish a ghost in a local cemetery, or clean out a ghoul den. Folks are less grateful, though, when they come--robed, hooded, and silent--to collect the body of a loved one who, in desperation, sold their body to the Leechers (to be delivered upon expiry). Where the Leechers get the coin for these payments--or to fund their medical care, which they generally provide for free during times of crisis--is impossible to say, as is what exactly they do with the bodies they acquire.

The Indigo Company. A major mercenary company, immediately identifiable by their dark blue tabards. Well-equipped and well-organized, they are not known for producing individual heroes: their real strength is in tactics and numbers. Considered the gold standard of reliability and competence among mercenary companies.

The Leaden Shield. A smaller mercenary company legendary for their spellbreakers and bodyguards. It is said that against even a pair of Leaden Shield mercenaries, nearly all assassination attempts will fail.

The Bloodaxes. A smaller, majority Kwnseviki mercenary company known for their fearlessness, their drunkenness, and their pre-battle rituals dedicated to a god they call Tjernon Bestrashniy. Not especially reliable, and far from well-equipped or but absolutely ferocious in combat. Unlike nearly every other company, the Bloodaxes almost always fight to the last man.

The Whisper of Lace. Nearly nothing is known about the Whisper of Lace--only that people (usually people of note, but not always) sometimes show up dead, without a mark on them, and with a silk lace handkerchief tied around their eyes, and that a group called the Whisper of Lace is supposedly responsible. It's generally assumed that they're an organization of assassins, but there is no proof of this--indeed, there is no solid information on what they call themselves, how or why they do what they do, or that they even exist.

The Ruskin & Reynolds Company. Headquartered in the major fishing port Whitepearl, and integral to the local economy, the Ruskin & Reynolds Company is the only major supplier of pearls on the continent--which, because pearls are frequently utilized in magic (most notably in identifications and divinations), gives them a niche but relevant near-monopoly. They also take advantage of their position on the far east side of the Western Isles to import (and levy company taxes on) goods from the Northern Isles. Horror stories abound about how the Ruskin & Reynolds company treats its merfolk "workers"--but since they essentially run Whitepearl, no-one has the capacity to do much about them.

The Church of the North Star. The Church has something that the temples of Kin-Gods do not: unification. The Basilica of St. Alyssa the Prophet is located in Vanderston, and tithes from all over the Western Isles are sent there. That, plus the fact that the Church trains priests and paladins in significant quantity--even more useful in the past few conflict-ridden decades--means that the Church has significant political power.