God:
Name: Avhir, The Watcher, The Deal-Maker, The Northern Spirit
Dominion: Ice, Contracts
Appearance: Whilst within the borders of Svalberd, Avhir retains his true form of a gargantuan leopard seal, easily matching the size of a military galleon and with a monstrous maw capable of swallowing men whole. Avhir can also project himself out into the world, which makes him look like a small penguin not much taller then your knees.
Personality: Avhir is often ruthless but also holds a spark of cuiousity. Approaching his own subjects with a certain degree of disdain and just as open to entrapping or consuming them as outsiders, he is at least fair in his malice. Intrigued especially by acts of kindness or sacrifices by others, he seldom offers mercy but will sometimes spare victims of unnecessary pain if they amuse him. In times where he needs the assistance of his subjects he will approach them as a penguin instead of his true form, but otherwise never openly seeks out others; instead content to laze in the sun. In his more meek form he is less openly aggressive but replaces this hostility with sarcasm and cynicism.
Powers: Has full control over ice and snow, able to move, shift or generate either in abundance dependent on air moisture levels. Also can grant 'contracts' outside of his usual limits on strict conditions to mortals, with their breaking resulting in the mortal being transformed into a leopard seal. Otherwise has tremendous strength and speed in his own territory, and is a worthy adversary to most. Has no physical influence outside of his dominion but can still accept or broquer contracts.
Mortality: Unable to be killed whilst outside of his dominion but also unable to physically affect anything, he is indeed mortal in his true form but it would take a severe amount of lethal damage to take him down.

Nation:
Name: Svalberd
Terrain: A large Arctic wasteland with huge glaciers and icebergs at its north, open water in its centre and arid grassy tundra making up the rest of its land.
Wildlife: Abundant in fish and sea life, the tundra supports little life but the most resilient livestock. The polar North is home to little more then leopard seals, the victims of Avhir's contracts. These animals transformed to mindless beasts, converge on Avhir's location, and hundreds can be found lazing in his vicinity.
Species: A small population of humans inhabit the dry grassland and oceans of Svalberd, and a local population of bipedal Beorn work in closely with these humans. Beorn are large bipedal polar bears, with deep rugged voices and tremendous strength.
Culture(s): Most residents of Svalberd fall into two groups, either raiding, sea-faring pirates, Svalgaurd, or hunter communities of coastal fisherman, Svaluit. The spiritual leaders of these groups are priests to Avhir and practise rune-based magic, allowing them to command the element of ice or heal the wounded or ill.
Capital: Osh, the only city in Svalberd possesses an advanced defensive system. High ice walls and contrived war machines line its outskirts and a built up collection of shacks build up to create a towering clump of improvised housing, reinforced as time has passed. The only place to purchase foreign exports in Svalberd and the most outsider friendly.
Important Individuals: Silverfur, Beorn mystic leader.
Tyrol, Svalguard legend and notorious pirate.
Hooka Featherskin, Svaluit Leader and ambassador.

Name(s): Ialu the Enemy of Sanity, Lord of Near and Far, The Hidden One, He who is Always at the Shoulder, The Pale-Eyed King

Dominion(s): Illusion, dreams, insanity, mystery, plotting, manipulation, patience

Appearance: To nigh any being Ialu will appear as whatever he chooses, as his power over the mind allows him to alter even the perception of reality of those near to his physical form. When he manifests himself away from his physical body, whether in the dreams of another or in the real world, Ialu most often takes the form of a strange, speechless mist that has shades of every color men can see, and then some.

If one were to encounter Ialu's physical form and somehow penetrate through the god's shield of illusions, they would see him for what he truly is: an anemic and ancient man cloaked in robes woven from the softest clouds, with a great beard of white that cascades from his neck. If one were to look into the eyes of the dreamer-god they would see only milky white opals, blind to light and the world yet capable of perceiving intangible things such as dreams and thoughts.

Personality: It is said that Ialu's heart beats once in a century. His breaths are even fewer and farther between. The god sits in his throne and sleeps while life goes on and those in his dominion go about their business; though just because Ialu is asleep does not mean he is inactive. Rather, he is in the dream world weaving plots and manipulating the dreams and nightmares of mortals and gods alike. Ialu's intentions, motives, and thoughts are unknown even to his closest followers. Some say that his mind is alien and incomprehensible, but they would be wrong. His ambitions are very real, if secret.

In terms of his interactions with others, Ialu very rarely will directly intervene with matters or appear before his followers, preferring to be the puppet master that weaves webs of plots and intrigue to achieve his goals without drawing the ire or attention of others. He ensures that his land is friendly enough to neighboring kingdoms, though he is careful to limit trade so as to not allow his realm to become reliant on foreign resources. Similarly he strives to limit outside influence so that Saru does not become infected with other traditions, ideologies, or worst of all religions.

Rarely does he speak directly to other gods or get caught up in the petty wars between their domains, preferring to remain neutral with all unless acting otherwise would prove very beneficial. This does not mean that he does not get involved in the affairs of other gods, merely that he tries to hide his own involvement and work from the shadows. Rather than fight an enemy nation, he would prefer to cripple it from within, manipulating the dreams of its people and sending his priests to assassinate important people in an effort to create utter turmoil.

Powers: Within the realm of the sleeping Ialu's power is unfathomable; he can see the every thought and desires of the sleeping, appear before them in their dreams, and plant within their subconsciousness the seeds of whatever thoughts he might choose. In the real, waking world Ialu is much weaker. He is still capable of creating illusions the likes of which most mortals would find unimaginable, though this sort of magic becomes far more difficult if the targets are particularly intelligent or possess magical abilities. He can command almost entire control over the perceptions of those near him, can easily create lifelike hallucinations of all sorts within his own realm. When he manifests himself as mist, his mere presence can induce either a serene and sleepy air, or an aura of paranoia and nightmarish fear. The simple touch of his misty form results in an irresistible need for sleep, and mortals unfortunate enough to inhale the mist can find themselves possessed by Ialu.

However, Ialu holds very little power over the awake outside of his domain. Unless one invites the god of dreams into his mind or Ialu for whatever reason chose to leave his domain and come within the general vicinity of a person, he would be largely powerless to do anything to them. That is, unless they inevitably fall asleep, or enter the lands under his influence. Though it has not happened in living memory, Ialu could awaken from his slumber and travel the world in his physical form. While this would leave the god incredibly vulnerable, it would allow him to unleash his unadulterated and full powers anywhere in the world, if he physically traveled there.

Magic Items:

The Lens of Obscurity - An artifact of incredible power created by Ialu himself, it appears to the untrained eye as a simple hand mirror. Those who merely glance into its depths will find their souls pulled through the glass and into the dream world, effectively causing them to instantly fall into a deep slumber.

Those who possess magic strong enough to resist the artifact (or who are favored by Ialu) can instead stare harder, and see through the mirror as if it was a mere lens of glass. Through the lens one can peer into the dream world just as the god himself does, penetrating the minds of any people in sight wield great power over them. If one possessed a truly extraordinary amount of magical prowess, he or she would be able to use the lenses to contact Ialu himself, see the invisible traces of the god's work, and even sense the location of Ialu's secret temple.

The Lens of Obscurity are guarded by the High Prophet of Ialu, an extremely powerful sorcerer and a force to be reckoned with. The High Prophet uses the Lens both as a tool to communicate directly with Ialu while awake, and as a weapon to carry out the god's will.

Tears of the Night - Not an artifact, but rather a sacred potion with magical properties, made and consumed by Ialu's priests. A strange concoction, it is created by a mixture off many strange ingredients: powdered silver, opium milked from poppy flowers, the fumes of incense burnt within Ialu's holy temples, various herbs, and finally magical gems distilled from pure starlight using an ancient ritual. These components are mixed by alchemists and then blessed by high priests.

The result of all this effort is a strange fluid black as pitch, yet reflective like a mirror. Warriors paint the substance upon their bodies before battle to repel evil and to draw the power and favor of their god. Wise men and philosophers drink small quantities to temper their minds, fortify their health, and increase their magical capabilities. The priesthood boil the tonic over fires and inhale the fumes, which can result in anything from death to personal encounters with Ialu himself, though it usually causes no more than a deep slumber in which the user experiences all manner of strange dreams.

Mortality: Ialu bleeds like you and I; to slay him would take no more than an arrow true to its aim or a sharp blade. Aware of his own great weakness, Ialu hides locked away deep within his first temple, tucked away in a corner of the world. Only a few beings know the location of this hidden temple, however the High Prophet of Ialu who holds the Lenses of Obscurity could tell you. What guardians or other defenses the temple might have are a mystery not even the High Prophet could know.

Almost always sleeping in the safety of his temple, Ialu will only reveal himself to others by entering their dreams or manifesting before them as mist. When he manifests himself in one's dreams he can be banished with great difficulty if the dreamer becomes aware of his presence and actively fights it, though this rarely happens. When he manifests himself in the physical world as mist, he can be neither banished nor slain. Killing Ialu would be easy, the difficulty lies in finding his secret lair or somehow forcing him to show himself in flesh and blood.

Name: Saranite Kingdom
Terrain: Most of the kingdom's domain consists of the vast sister-deserts, Sharu and Clysu. Sharu lies to the west and Clysu to the east, with the two split by the great Saran, also known as the Silver River. To the north of the two deserts where the Saran's tributaries originate is a large chain of mountains. Near the rivers are large, fertile floodplains where the vast majority of the Kingdom's population is clustered. Near the delta and sea are large forests, dense enough in some places to be called jungles.
Wildlife: The mighty Saran river is in many places plagued by hippopotamuses and crocodiles, yet it also has many serene parts inhabited by turtles, ibis, and the like. Many large fish live in the river, enabling the predators to thrive and Saranite settlements to possess substantial fishing industries far upstream from the sea. The deserts themselves are barren, blazing seas of sand rather than mere grassy steppes or savannas, yet there are still hardier animals like jackals, camels, and scorpions. The coastal jungles are home to the most biodiversity, possessing everything from elephants to tigers.
Species: The Saranite lands are home to two very strange creatures.

The first is the mighty bone vulture, the filthy king of all carrion animals. Bone vultures are massive, occasionally with wingspans wider than three men are tall. Their plumage is ashen and their eyes as black as the shriveled, dehydrated corpses that are left of those who die in the desert. Bone vultures have been known to attack men and carry grown adults away to devour, yet this rarely happens. The birds have an incredibly keen sense of smell or else some sort of magic, as it is said that one can sense a corpse from a dozen leagues away. In any case, the bone vultures wander the desert skies by night, always in search of food. They carry many foul diseases, and a scratch from their talons or wound from their menacing spear-like beaks will nigh always result in a fatal infection. The Saranites behold the bone vultures with both terror and reverence, for the birds are considered mighty, immortal, and sometimes even sacred, yet they are also associated with death, pestilence, and nightmares.

The second creature is known as the Scorpion Man. Even more obscure than the bone vulture, it is rarely if ever encountered. There are many that declare it to be no more than a myth, yet nontheless, once or twice every decade a band of travelers will claim to have encountered one in the desert. A twisted monster, the Scorpion Man has the head and torso of a man, but rather than legs his form gives way to the horrific, chitinous body of a scorpion. Usually about ten feet tall, the scorpion man has venomous saliva, massive claws, the stinger of a scorpion, and two humanoid hands with which it might equip a spear or similar weapon. According to legend, Scorpion Men are intelligent and malevolent, wield terrifying powerful dark magic, and live beneath the sand, plotting to one day clamber to the surface by the hundreds or thousands and claim the petty kingdoms of men for their own.

Culture(s): The Saranites are different from most other feudal societies in that warriors are not considered elite, but rather learned men. From bottom to top, their caste system goes: slaves, farmers, warriors/hunters/slavers, artisans, bureaucrats, scholars/doctors, philosophers, alchemists, and finally priests. This seemingly lopsided and rather complicated caste system ensures stability to a greater extent, and has developed due to the Saranites' history of relative peace and isolation.

Capital: Akkhe
Important Individuals:

God
Name: Ruhn (Roo-hin)
Dominion(s): Comedy, Fear, and Mischief as well as their incarnations, Actors, Comedians, Poets, and Criminals
Appearance:

Having a rather irritating habit of changing appearance whenever it suits him, Ruhn’s appearance is not definite. However, Ruhn will appear most often as a court jester over 7 feet in height with various outfits, but will change his shape into odd and unsightly amalgamations of various creatures and objects on a whim.
Personality: Viewing the world as a perfect preservation of chaos, Ruhn treats the world as a playground of experiences. Allowing his subjects to do as they please, and exercising his rule over them only when absolutely necessary, Ruhn rules with a lackadaisical touch that is no doubt the cause for Lorak’s anarchical state. He is not in control of his emotions, and prefers it stay that way. Constantly shifting between the fun loving smile and the fear inspiring scowl, some of his subjects have theorized their deity to be insane. Those subjects are usually never seen again.
Powers: Being able to appear and disappear in clouds of smoke allows Ruhn to constantly cause mischief among the populace and other gods, and this is only aided by his ability to disguise himself as any creature and he has through nothing but practice become rather good at voice imitation.
Magic Items: Ruhn possesses a small bauble or false scepter which has the sometimes useless and sometimes useful ability of either striking someone with an lung straining amount of laughter or a mind and body crushing level of fear. Ruhn does not decide which, the bauble is random every time.
Mortality: Ruhn’s body is merely a vessel for his consciousness and his essence. In order to kill Ruhn once and for all, one must destroy his body in it’s entirety. For instance if his whole body was destroyed save for an eyeball, his entire consciousness would still reside in the eye-ball.

Nation
Name: Lorak
Terrain: A desolate wasteland constantly ravaged by war, terrible standup comedy acts, dramatic plays that refuse to end and more often than not famine and drought. Nearly all savannah plains and desolate flatland, the terrain of Lorak is dominated by a central plateau on which sits the only city, Dorun, the capital. And beneath this plateau sits the only source of water. A large aquifer that feeds into the various springs and ponds that dot Lorak’s terrain.
Wildlife: An assortment of small mammals and birds, there are no top predators save the humans that call Lorak home.
Species:The humans that call Lorak home are some of the happiest and scariest of the world. Comedians, actors, poets and criminals are an odd mix for a population and there is a pervasive lack of artisans and craftsmen. Food is often hard to come by, and the people’s survival is often left up to what can be stolen, or earned through performance.
Culture(s): As is laid down in Ruhn’s hopes for his people, there is only one rule, experience life. This “One Commandment” culture is as you could imagine rather chaotic. A true anarchist state, the people only survive by either using each other or helping each other.
Capital: Dorun, the city of Fear and Fun. A sprawling city of coffee houses, nightclubs, casinos and racketeering, Dorun was founded by Ruhn to be a place where artists and criminals could coexist. Where comedians could tell jokes, where actors could act, and poets could embrace the muse. Everyone seems to either be enjoying life together or fighting to the death. A truly awesome sight where Ruhn’s vision of the world experience can be realized.
Important Individuals: Lucky Rob the Mayor of Dorun. Sheila Brun: Actress, assassin. Boris Agavaran: Musketeer, standup Comedian, convicted murderer, Commander of the Musketeers of Lorak

The preferred guise of Ophion is that of an immense snake. Although said to have been hundreds of feet wide and many more long in his entry to the world, said to have stolen the sky and eaten the moon, but his power has waned. In the fullest manifestation he is still capable of, he is a more modest two hundred feet long; this is still too large to navigate some of Nechushstan's monumental architecture, occasionally lending him to shrink further.

His scales are, normally, a ruddy gold tinged with red. Two short limbs sprout from his chest, and forward-pointing hooks line his body, 'the better to carry the world away with.' His heart burns bright as a sun, only barely contained, and his voice flashes with fire. In the farflung time of his arrival and during both periods of deep calm and wrath alike, the gold peels away to the black of the night sky, and the red glow gives way to starry blue-white.

When he must guise himself as a man, going forth in astral projection, he is known to take the appearance of a great man with golden-brown skin, two heads taller than the tallest in many nations and built as a giant, with braided beard down to his chest and braided hair down to his center back. A large turban, both rimmed and crowned with silver and studded with countless gemstones, the center setting dominated by an irridescent diamond, sits heavy on his head, and he is clothed in a heavy and richly decorated kaftan in the same color as his scales, changing its color in the passing of night and day.

While viewed by the cults of the Allgod-born deities as capricious and exceedingly demanding of his followers, the cult of Ophion speaks of him as generous beyond all others, granting boons beyond his demands in return for absolute loyalty. There is truth in both sides; on the level of rulership, while he offers no tolerance towards cults of the 'lesser' gods whom do not pay greater fealty to Ophion's throne (and thus risk their scorn) he is lenient- if watchful- towards those worshipers of familiar spirits whom do, allowing their secondary faith in his 'loyal vassals.' And, while his rule is absolute, it is also heavily distributed amongst both his serpent-spawn, the native spirits and the mightiest mortals, and through this policy of hierarchism combined with absolutism many great works have been wrought through his lands. His is a devil's bargain of loyalty for prosperity, promising vanguardship in ultimate liberation from the world itself.

On the personal level, Ophion bears hubris beyond hubris, unfailingly declaring the world as his empire in rebellion, the gods as 'rebellious lords' and his territory as only the personal demesne of His lordship, rather than the sole demesne. His words are most often sweetly-smug, promising all one may desire, occasionally sagacious in impenetrably riddlic nothing-saying when asked for counsel or challenged in wisdom, and on rare occasions wroth, prophesying every portent of doom and anguish for spite of the lesser over pride unearned. He is known to take a distant paternity to his subjects, granting miracles regularly in demonstration of his personal love of the mortal folk, or else seeing to it that those lesser would-be divinities who have sworn to him grant those miracles outside his portfolio in his stead.



Ophion's power portfolio is largely of a grandiose, sublime nature, the gross over the subtle, and where there is subtlety, it is on the border of grossness. Over the passing of the lesser heavens he has a degree of influence yet, setting the stars temporarily right and wrong and thusly meddling with the significance of days, much to the frustration of both astrologers, whose starmaps and predictions can be made obsolescent for some span, and ritualists, whose works are uncovered by Ophion's agents and spited. His knowledge of large-scale metaphysical workings is great, although the fine work often falls on those of small enough form and mind to attend it, and his general wisdom is relatively deep, though he grows indignant where proven wrong.

His physical might is immense, and he posseses the power to channel starlight through himself into destructive magic, or to swim through the glowing air as if it were water, as well as subtler manipulations along the lines of divine parlour tricks; dancing lights and simulacrums of bright fog. Despite the scale of his personal power, however, he is often quick to tire, or else conservatively lazy, seeing to it that personal weight-swinging is kept to a minimum. Thankfully for the realm, he is possessed of skill in direct brokering of power by compact, amplifying the power of the minormost near-divine familiar spirits in particular, and has seen many lesser mythical creatures flock to him in hopes of standing alongside or usurping their betters in the middle and high-grade powers, much to their frustrations, as these vassals, both willing, able, and relatively numerous, are a great boon in the wars of containment fought against Ophion, although the degree of lack in standardization can make the raising of levies cumbersome.


Not so much an item as a place, the World that Was is, depending on whether one asks Ophion or one of his rivals, a fenced-off fragment of Pleroma, or a counterfeit pocket dimension. Whichever is the truer nature, its substance is tied up with Ophion's own. Carried in the burning radiance of his heart, entry is through Ophion's fanged maw, ink-shaded and full of terror. Braving through this entryway, in the correct frame of mind, is a rite of passage into the deeper circles of Ophion's personal cult, where men sacrifice their old selves and are remade in his image as living weapons against 'ignorance and ruin.'

Those whom pass through the initial blackness, and do not find themselves indefinitely lost, find themselves beneath an unfamiliar sky and wreathed in fog. Twin moons, static in their setting and said to be Ophion's own inner eyes, gaze down on the visitor, and stars charted in no known sky of Roa cast their light through the gentle mist, lending a serene quality to the moss-draped marble ruins. This mist is ever-nourishing to the rampant overgrowth, and exotic flowers both gently pale and radiantly bright dazzle visitors. The land will often seem to recurse on the traveler, and has often been compared to a rolled-up scroll, either end of the resulting pillar placed end-to-end; this is an oversimplification, as walking in one way from the same place may find oneself in entirely different destinations.

Despite its beauty, the World that Was can be terribly dangerous. Serpent-men, both living and dead, rove the expanse to challenge visitors, interlopers and imprisoned alike, else making themselves meditative squatters in the ruins who ill like to be disturbed, and marble guardians set in sharply euclidean shapes patrol unceasingly & without emotion, pearlescent eyes set in every facing that blaze with death-light. Ophion has been known to astrally project himself to mock or tempt those entrapped. The unprepared will find themselves pushed to the brink by peril, but rarely are they killed outright, the nature and purpose of the realm being a supposed 'alchemical adversity.' Thusly can one find entire communities of mad sages and hard-bitten men-at-arms, trapped for years, or decades, even those descendant from the entrapped, who have never known the land of Roa.

Normally, there is no sun; the night never ends. No living, reliable account of day in The World that Was exists outside either the Cult of Ophion, considered unreliable by scholars outside of its ranks for reason of fanaticism and their accounts often ruled as mere metaphor for the cultist's self-actualization into a tool of Ophion, and the entrapped clansmen, whose accounts are ruled as hallucination-derived wishful thinking and the speakings of ongoing but unadmitted converts.


Ophion, though existing outside of the game and rules that the Allgod's children are participating in- and hence, not inside the same compact as they- is not immortal, and neither made mortal in the same fashion, nor is he under the potential protection of the Allgod from fratri-deicide. He is quite open nonetheless in the fact that, in order to penetrate this reality- supposedly- he had to bind his power and present being into an ageless, implacable, yet ultimately mortal quasi-divine form. In so doing, he broke the normal barriers separating this reality from the supposed superreality, thus allowing him to descend and begin his campaign of conquest and liberation from 'the stifling nature of this matter and the chaos of anarchy.'

If Ophion should succeed, he promises an endless frontier of possibility and wonder for those in the world, even those whom are his foes to the last; if he should die, and fail to bring this reality up, on the other hand, he either does not know, or will not say the world's fate, but is clear in his sayings that he will be scattered to the greater cosmos, all that he has brought together as himself over time uncounted and space endless being no longer, and that he will not be able to return.

He has come close to death by divine might before, yet by trickery, has always escaped the deathblow, often even spiting his enemies in so doing, as when he struck down the great god-king of the barbarian hunters Corcanocht through his servant, the Father of Widowers, leading to his present state as a mummified, dying idol, and Ophion's survival, though cowed and humbled.

"Let no one who lives impugn the holiness of Nechushstan and its cause. What a foolish world has seen as calamity, we have realized as hope. What a fearful world has fallen away from, we have marched proudly to meet. What an evil world has seen as its death, we have seen as our salvation! And all shall find their way out again, that none may doubt our virtue!"

(Combination between core continental African, east Indian and Levantine species, focus on 'exotic' fauna)


(Large serpents slithering, walking or flying;
Unconventional or original species should be followed by a description/picture.


(Late Turkic seminomads, Levantine ascetics, Greek philosopher-republics, Sikh religious militants as example potential groups, miracle-modified serpentmen, lizardfolk, medusae and other naga as both subgroups of national subgroups, and belonging to their own over-subgroup of the blessed with potentially distinct intercultural values)