IntroductionIn a world long ago dominated by humans and their foul steam machines, the surviving faery hang onto life in impoverished urban districts called Blights, little more than ghettos pressed in on every side by man's urban sprawl. The illustrious highborn, Seelie and Unseelie, once the rulers of vast kingdoms now hold court in the shadows, reduced to criminal gangs and vigilantes. Within the greenlight districts, encircling the ghettos like an infection round the rim of a sucking wound, the elves, most regal and beautiful of the fair folk, prostitute themselves in dens of debauchery. In the factory districts, gnomes, once the great craftsmen of the fae, sit chained to production lines, their creative intellects sentenced to endless drudgery. Beneath the city, goblins, once lords of the underworld, scrape by on the scraps of humans, building villages of trash in the dark pockets of polluted sewers. Beyond the city the dwarves labor as virtual slaves beneath the earth digging ever deeper for the noxious black ore the steel beasts of men crave. Those fairies not able to find a niche in this new nightmare live upon the streets or below them, beggars, thieves, pests. Special police armed with hated iron round them up like stray dogs and by the hundreds they stream into the detention camps, destined for forced labor and the experimental labs of human alchemists. In this grim future of fading magic and hope, you must decide whether to try and rekindle the mythical glory of your people or embrace the hopelessness of the Blight.
Brief HistoryOriginally the fates of men and fae were reversed. Humans were little more than animals. Wild, they lived in isolated tribal bands, domestic, they served the faery courts. Tame humans were kept as 'pets' but also served a purpose. Devoid of magic, humans could be filled with arcane energy, a process called enchantment, and used as the equivalent of a magical battery. Enchanted humans lived in a waking dream, minds twisted and perceptions altered by the magic coursing through their veins. During this time, the two faery courts fought an endless war whose original cause was all but forgotten. The Seelie considered the Unseelie evil and ignoble, the Unseelie considered the Seelie haughty and arrogant. Some faery races, like the notoriously Unseelie goblins, threw in entirely with one court while others, like the elves, were split down the middle by the conflict. Then came the first wizard. His origin is legend for the art of wizardry itself is long lost to humans, but the stories claim he found a way to peel back the fog of enchantment. Fairies called him Dreamwalker and his magic was said to be limitless in its power. In the decades which followed he took apprentices and the Fae soon faced a full fledged rebellion. Although the Dreamwalker found only a few who could practice his art, he knew the Fae's weakness and forged weapons of iron for his army of freed and wild men. Human historians call it The Wizard Wars while Fae remember it as the War of Broken Names for the manner in which wizard magic tore and transmuted the natural world, changing the very essence of things: their true names. In the end the faery lost, betrayed by the own, a race of elves now known as the Jarnalfar or Grey Elves, who attempted a ritual to allow them to wield the steel weapons of men. The rite worked but in the process ripped the magic from their bodies leaving them as pallid, emotionless husks. Reevaluating the war with their new, cold reason, they determined to swear allegiance to man. Their betrayal assured the downfall of the Fae and their own place of prominence as the trusted servants of powerful humans to this day.
Magic, Steel and SteamSince the beginning humans have depended upon iron, and later, steel. Iron, more than wizardry, won them their freedom, for the faery abhor the touch of ferrous metals. Among the magically gifted, simply being near iron causes nausea and for nearly all Fae, the touch of iron or steel burns like a hot poker causing the skin to split and blister. Grey elves, the betrayers, are the exception to the rule. Dogs of their human masters, they patrol the Blights armed with their steel rapiers and revolvers, hunting their own kind without remorse.
Modern humans no longer practice the art of wizardry. In fact, most scholars consider it to be merely a metaphor for technology. Human power is based not on the arcane but the scientific. Their technology is largely steam powered, fueled by a glossy black ore called dross. Dross burns with intense heat allowing boilers to create superheated steam driving truly massive machines. Rifles and revolvers are standard weapons among human soldiers and police. A powdered form of dross, blue powder, propels their lead missiles and complex actions feed automated firing mechanisms. Advancement in technology is driven by an elite class of learned scholars called alchemists and, more than they would admit, enslaved gnome inventors. Not satisfied with the phenomena of combustion and explosion, many explore the magical biology of faeries and fomori (monsters) employing tortuous methods of vivisection and radical surgery.
Faery sorcery, glamer, operates differently for each race of the fair folk. Elfin magic involves empathy and telepathy, while gnomish magic allows for supernatural speed and dexterity. Dwarves can use their glamer to read and even shape stone, while goblins can meld with shadows becoming all but invisible in the dark dank of their sewer homes. Grounded as it is in their biology, faery magic is instinctive but severely limited in scope. Not only is their magic restricted, it tires them like the flexing of a muscle and in places barren of magic like the urban human sprawl they tire far more quickly.
Faery KindThe fair folk are a diverse people unified only by their magical inheritance and their hatred for iron. Although many faery races are marked by their beauty and slender pointed ears, these features do not hold true for all kinds, certainly not for the twisted goblins or statuesque trolls. Faery culture also varies widely, though, all venerate the essential nature of Names. Each faery possesses a true name, held in secret, and given only under oath, intoxication or torture. To violate a command given with one's true name, a so-called geas, is to bring a curse upon one's head. Whether real or not, most faeries believe so intensely in the power of oaths and true names that they become self fulfilling prophecies.
Elves or Alfar come in many varieties from the noble High Elves to the wild and care free Wood Elves. Most now live in the Blights where many employ their natural beauty and sensuality to make a living as pitiful prostitutes and, occasionally, expensive escorts. More successful elves have branched out into other arenas of human vice opening up gambling dens and hosting illegal troll fights for roaring crowds. Most noble among the elves, the Highborn or Sidhee (Shee) can trace their lineage back to the very first of their kind. In antiquity they ruled both courts but in modern times they are more often the heads of underworld syndacites. Elfin magic involves the communication, both emotional and cognitive, between minds. Gifted elf sorcerers can control the shifting breeze of emotion within a mind or implant thoughts, but for most their empathy only adds a deeper sting to the endless degradation of their people.
Inventive craftsmen gifted with bright, creative minds, gnomes once plied their tinker trade for Seelie nobles. Now they are fodder for human factories who make cheap use of their quick, dexterous fingers along rapid assembly lines. Some gnomes still work as inventors, but since only humans can legally submit patents they do so either illegally or under the watchful eye of human corporations who then benefit from their designs. Much of current steam technology originates from gnomish schematics stolen and copied by acquisitive human entrepreneurs. Gnome magic, sometimes called wyrding, allows them to expand and contract the flow of time giving the appearance of startling alacrity. Although a powerful gift, wyrding is strenuous and only a workshop of gnomes combining their glamer can keep it up for any length of time.
Once a proud and wealthy folk steeped in honor and tradition, dwarves or dvergar have been reduced to a state of slavery. Some live as tramps and beggars in the Blights, but most dwell in cramped mining camps working tirelessly beneath the ground to feed humanity's endless thirst for dross, the ore which powers their technology. In ages past dwarves mined not for dross but mithril, a rare metal with properties similar to iron, but not dangerous to fae. Humans, aware of the danger mithril could present, allow it only in the form of tools such as the hammers and wrenches used by gnomes and the picks swung by Dwarves. The glamer of the stout folk is connected with their rocky environment. The stone sense allows most dwarves to 'read' the rock around them sensing dangers like gas pockets and treasures like mineral veins. Gifted dwarven sorcerers called Stone Shapers can even mold rock and earth with their mind, but few such gifted individuals survive today.
Practically born into the Unseelie court, most goblins still serve its current criminal underlords. Gifted thieves and assassins, goblins use their natural magic to cloak themselves in shadow, a useful talent in social situations as well for most would prefer not to see such repugnant creatures in the light. Goblins fiercely resist humanity even from within the bowls of their cities. Unemployable in the extreme most goblins exhibit a combination of antisocial neuroses ranging from kleptomania to sadism. They subsist as thieves and beggars, vanishing into the labyrinthine undercity when pursued by human authorities.
Strongest of the faery, trolls were once the preeminent warriors of their kind serving both Seelie and Unseelie courts with unquestionable loyalty. Modern trolls live in disgrace often serving immoral human politicians and Sidhee crime bosses. Reduced from noble knights to common thugs, the story of the trolls is among the saddest of all the faery people. A sparse few manage to hold onto their honor, but many who try wind up begging on the streets alongside goblins. In appearance trolls are tall and broad-shouldered with thick hair often worn in braids. Horns sprout from their forehead, curving into impressive racks in elder males. Troll glamer, referred to as the mountain blood, runs through all their kind allowing them to regenerate wounds rapidly. Legend tells their glamer is fueled by a righteous cause allowing a troll to fight nearly endlessly in the defense of honor or virtue.
With the lower body of deer and the upper body of elfin lads and lasses, the faun, sometimes called satyr, are known for their wild and lascivious nature. Once they traveled among the courts, neutral troupes of bards, actors, and poets who entertained Seelie and Unseelie lord alike. Modern satyrs ply their trade as entertainers in greasy bars and sometimes in the beds of the more exotic whore houses. Like the elves they resemble, fauns are a sensitive people who feel the plight of faery kind more acutely than many, a pain which resonates in the melancholy tones of their music. A handful of faun have experienced success as singers and even risen to the ranks of devas but, unable to profit from their vinyl records, they remain little more than the pampered slaves of human production companies. Faun glamer sometimes called the Revelry allows them to dissolve the barriers that exist in minds. Typically this involves the loss of inhibition leading to drunken parties and poor decision making, however, it also serves a more sublime purpose. Fauns can act as muses breaking the barriers that keep artists, philosophers and even scientists from their great epiphany.
Undoubtedly the smallest of the faery (most stand under eight inches) and the most common, the Pixie infest the Blights like cockroaches. Though rounded up by the hundreds every day, their populations still manage to rise. In the ancient past, the Pixies served as the messengers and attendants of Sidhee Lords and Ladies. The castles of the highborn once contained thousands of pixies all buzzing about in an orderly swarm, cooking, cleaning, washing, waiting. Now with their masters and mistresses dethroned, they are like worker ants deprived of their queen, aimless and hopeless. In the crawlspaces and attics of Blight tenements their populations explode. In fact, Pixies breed so fast that some claim breeding is their glamer. In reality, pixie magic is entirely invested in their flight which shouldn't physically be possible. While airborn they exude a cloud of glittering, diffuse 'pixie dust', an enchanted material which grants them buoyancy and is highly sought after by human alchemists.
The Grey Elves or Jarnalfar were among the most respected of the Highborn in ancient times. Knights of the Seelie court, they even earned the respect of the Trolls on the battle field. Students of strategy they knew that without steel they could not hope to contest the humans and so sought to allow themselves to touch the hated metal. In this they succeeded, but the unintended consequence of the ritual ripped the magic, and along with it emotion and feeling, from their minds and bodies. Recast in cold logic, the Jarnalfar reappraised the situation and decided to side with the humans against their own kind. They became the trusted servants of the wizards and later the alchemists. Incapable of dishonesty, immune to fear and error they became the unflinching arm of the human military machine. Grey elves continue to serve modern leaders: politicians, corporate executives, and influential alchemists. Although completely devoid of magic, their brains have retooled their unused emotional circuits for rational thought resulting minds that operate like computers. Grey elves see conflicts the way chess masters see their board, playing the game hundreds of moves in advance.
Close cousin to the Pixies and a once scholarly race of fair folk, the small Wisps served the Seelie courts in areas that required some degree of organization and knowledge, such as that of scribes, assistants and librarians. Now, subject to human rule, the Wisps are treated only a little better than wild animals, due to their smaller size (they average around a eight inches or so in size). No longer scholars, the Wisps have degraded into working as mindless slaves. Some have been forced to serve humans as general laborers and are housed in metal to keep them from escaping. Others are subjected to the poor and hopeless life of being no more than a light, sharing metal containers with other Wisps as they take turns using their glamer to provide illumination. And finally, the last have become the lab rats to alchemists, who expose the folk to vile experiments, for whatever reason. The glamer of the Wisps, called Transcendence, allows the Wisps to go beyond the laws of Physics for a short amount of time, allowing for impossible feats such as intangibility and unaided flight. Unfortunately, Transcendence does not work with metals like iron or steel, which prove to be successful materials to trap Wisps with. While transcended (as they call it), the wisps release a gaseous substance called Luminen from their bodies. Luminen, a phosphor, is energized and activated by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, creating a white (sometimes blue) light around the Wisp. Unfortunately, the phosphor decays quickly and only lasts a few seconds before no longer glowing again. Luminen, to humans, is categorized as an aether, and it is for this reason, that alchemists conduct their horrendous experiments.
Others- The fae are a diverse assemblage of races, but I leave the rest to be designed either by players or by me during the course of the game.
EnchantmentAlthough humans are no longer enslaved en mass by faery nobles, many remain enchanted. The difference is that these humans seek it out. Many prefer the waking dream of enchantment to the harsh reality of working life and dens exist both within the Blight and along its edges where humans drink in magic and drift in a euphoric haze. Modern enchantment (collectively called glams) comes in a variety of forms: an inhaled vapor called aether, an imbibed liquid nick-named mana, and a snorted powder called, unsurprisingly, fairy dust. Enchantment addicts often wander the Blight and usually end up dead and penniless in one of its rancid gutters. Some humans, however, are reminiscent of the wizards of old and are able to channel magic when imbued with it. Unlike the legends, however, these persons are not wise and thoughtful magicians, but deranged maniacs who have little to no control over the wild energies they unleash. These so-called wyldings make up one of the most feared gangs in and outside the Blight and can be spotted, at least when they are glamming, by a bluish glow around their irises.
FomoriCalled fomori (fomor, singular) by the faery and simply monsters by humans, they are savage creatures and beings who lack any pretense of humanity though they may take vaguely humanoid shapes. Like the faery they abhor the touch and presence of iron and like the faery they exhibit inherited, intuitive sorcery. Unlike the fae, most are vicious predators who fed upon faeries and each other in the primordial enchanted forests. Some are cunning and intelligent like the serpentine gorgan and far-sighted cyclops. Others are brutish and savage like the massive, hideous ogre or the flesh eating minotaurs. Lacking the culture and organization of the fae, the fomorians never created kingdoms or courts. They existed and still exist in small groups, packs and clans. Although in the past they presented a real threat to both fae and man, many have now been hunted to extinction and those that remain exist either in hiding or beyond the fringes of civilization.
Iron PoliceThe Iron Police or Iron Brigade play the part of the boogyman in the nightmares of countless fairies. The law enforcement arm of the Office of Faery Affairs, they operate independently of the human police and with far fewer restrictions. Armed and often armored in iron, they patrol around and within every Blight investigating any case involving a fairy perpetrator and detaining any faeries they find outside Blight boundaries without the proper working or travel papers. They respond with particular aggression to instances of faery on human violence and often execute suspects on the spot. Although the bulk of the Iron Police are human ex-military they also employ Grey Elves, their most feared operatives. Unlike their human coworkers who favor heavy armor and weapons, the Jarnalfar prefer lightweight leather and small, precise weapons: rapiers, revolvers, and rifles. Ironpolice can always be identified by their badge, a crest similar to those worn by regular officers but marked by a sigil of crossed hammers.
FoodEvery human child knows the story, a brother and sister steal into a fairy palace. After pilfering the valuable mithril jewelry of the fairy queen, they are about to make good their escape when they come upon a bountiful table heavy with colorful fruits and succulent meats. Against their better judgement they take just a taste, but gluttony enraptures them and they stuff their faces. Unbeknownst to them the food was enchanted and eating it bound them forever to the magical land of the fae. Unable to leave fairyland they are trapped forever, forced to become servants of the fae queen's court. Stories like these, still told to children, are actually based in truth. Faeries are magical creatures and like all magical creatures they must consume magic in order to survive. Without it they loose their glamer and eventually wither and die like an animal deprived of an essential vitamin. Humans on the other hand lack magic and the staple crops which feed them: grains, taters, sprouts, beef, chicken and pork, also lack it. Eating faery foods in large quantities can even, as happens in the stories, enchant humans, though the effect is not nearly as profound as the drugs like mana designed specifically for that purpose.
While human produce come from vast cleared farmlands, barren of magic, the fae must take care to grow and nurture their crops in enchanted soils. Unfortunately the enchanted forests are all but gone and faeries, restricted to the urban Blights, can hardly engage in farming. The solution to the problem comes in the form of greenhouses and gardens, many fed on artificial lights. Mushrooms, grown in the foul loam of Blight sewers, also contribute to the faerys' caloric needs. Faeries hold varying opinions on carnivory. Some raise cockatrices in coops the way humans do chickens. Others like elves sneer at the idea of flesh eating equating it with the foul fomori. Goblins are probably the least picky eaters, snatching and gobbling down any Blight rat which looks queer on the hunch it might be magical. Despite these options for sustenance, hunger and wasting remain constant problems in Blights. The wasting afflicts fae who try to subsist on human foods or eat foods poor in magical content. Their bodies, starved for magic, will begin to break down their own tissues to keep them alive. The more magical a faery race, the more prone they are to the wasting and, not surprisingly, highborn elves (Sidhee) are among the most sensitive. Those afflicted by the wasting for long periods can permanently loose their glamer resulting in sad sights such as grounded pixies and crippled trolls. Eventually the condition is fatal. A plague upon the Blights, the wasting claims hundreds of faery lives across the world every day and has reduced fae life spans considerably from the multiple centuries they saw during antiquity to 90 years if they're lucky.
Local SettingDrezlen grew up along the southern rim of the Ellendacks, the steep snow-capped moutain range which slices across the northern border of Torreth, the largest and most influential of the three nations of man. It is a constitutional monarchy ruled by a royal family, the Torr, who can trace their lineage back to warlords and wizards who battled the lands original dwarf, elf and gnome inhabitants. Torreth's power derives from dross and Drezlen, with its easy access to the deep earth mines of the Ellendecks and the stable flows of the Blackwash River running south to the sea ports, is the source of that power. Although not the capitol (that would be the port city of Nyssus, at the mouth of the Blackwash), Drezlen is the second largest city in the nation and the third largest city in the world. Enriched not only by dross, but minerals, gems, and mithril which lace the ancient mountains, Drezlen's mine bosses wield power comparable to the royals in the south. Like all cities in Torreth, magistrates and officials are elected by male human land owners, but everyone knows that the executives of mining and smelting companies hand pick the available candidates.
The city itself owes only part of it's stone architecture to human hands. Much of the merchant and all of the noble districts are the carved stone remains of an ancient Dwarven clanhold, its true name now long forgotten. The magistrate and the city council (representatives of all major business interests) reside in the old Dwarf King's palace, a domed structure which juts out above the granite cliffs like a stone aviary. The rest of the city spills out of the peaks and into the foot hills like an alluvial fan. At the base of the city, the Blackwash springs fierce from its underground confines and barges jostle for room on her sloshing surface. The Blight festers like a sore between the docks and the impoverished commons where human laborers rent tenements only slightly less fire-prone than those which house the fae. The Drezlen Blight provides most of the dwarf labor for the mines and foundaries and gnome workers for the metal shops. Its greenlight district caters to prospectors, gamblers, drunks, enchanted and other desperate fools who think a pouch worth of mithril dust will buy them happiness. Faeries rounded up by the Iron Police are either imprisoned in the city's massive dungeons (another artifact Drezlen's dwarven past) or shipped south to the dreaded detention camps in the secluded spruce forests.
Details, details, detailsBelow are optional hider topics for players who want more detailed information about the world. Be aware that some of the material below could be considered spoiler.
Called the Noble Science (often by its own practitioners), alchemy allowed humans to rise from a scattering of slaves and tribes to the dominant species on earth. If historians are to be believed, the legendary powers of the ‘wizards’ were in fact early alchemical techniques misinterpreted by primitive observers as sorcery. In principle alchemy differs little from our chemistry except that it deals with a different kind of energy in addition to heat: magic. Many materials, inorganic and organic, flesh and wood, metal and stone, contain trace amounts of magic. Some, like the saturated brains of a wyldling or the iridescent ores of mithril, contain so much that they literally exude it into the air. Alchemists practice both the mundane arts of chemistry, so called Low Alchemy, and the arcane arts involving the controlled release of magic locked in substances, so called High Alchemy. In nearly all cases the magic released in alchemical technology and experiments is meant to be released as heat (as in the case of dross) or explosive force (as is the case for its derivative, blue powder). Alchemists recognize that magic is capable of doing far more than ‘blowing things up’, but they also recognize that the sophisticated biology of faeries and monsters is far beyond their ability to replicate. Instead, they make do with fairly simple reaction series to convert magic into heat or heat into magic. Most of the time these reactions go off as intended following the complex equations of alchemists, but occasionally experiments go awry. The most common consequence is a sudden and unintended release of raw or wyld magic. Identical to the chaotic energies wielded by wyldlings, such accidents have literally turned whole labs and their technicians inside-out. Alchemy is also practiced by the fae who, human historians grudgingly admit, invented the science. In fact, faery alchemists still hold jealously to many of the recipes involved in making enchanting drugs such as mana and faery dust which is one reason the glam trade remains centered within the Blights.
Faeries and fomori are not the only magically gifted creatures on the earth. Creatures from the bold and beautiful to the small and vicious frequent both the wilds and the dark corners of the urban sprawl. Some, whose feathers, horns and other parts are invaluable to alchemists, have been domesticated and are bred, often in cruel, cramped conditions. Unicorns, once the noble mounts of faery princes, graze upon yellowed grass in fenced paddocks while the phoenixes, symbols of life itself, are bred and slaughtered like chickens in foul, factory coops. Some magical creatures managed to adapt to human cities, like the serpentine basilisks who can be found slithering through the murk of city sewers or the ceilican, the vanishing fae-cats, who hunt mice in the back alleys of Blights. The greatest of beasts, the dragons, survive only in remote mountain peaks constantly harried by hunters driven mad by the price of rare draconic ingredients on the alchemy markets.
The world is called Earth by the humans and Ilaya by the fae. Much of its surface is boundless, unexplored ocean. It is orbited by a single large moon potmarked with craters resulting in pronounced tidal cycles. Rising above the vast sea are two massive continents connected along a north-south axis by a vast archipelago. In the north is the larger, Korivar where the nation of Torreth holds dominion. Korivar is a cool, rugged continent which ranges from tundra to temperate woodland. Its northern half is scythed by a vast mountain range called the Ellendacks while it's southern half is consumed by vast forests of spruce and then hickory. On its northwest corner a swelling prominence of icy cliffs and green fjords forms the country of Hralmar. Though not a formal nation, the belligerent jarls and their warrior thanes impact the southern peoples through consistent raids up and down the coasts and riverways. Far to the south, the continent of Gorvana is a circular mass of flat arid land with a fertile rim of jungle and coral reefs along it's northern coast. The nation of Gorvan, taking its name from the land, stakes its claim to this harsh territory. Most of Gorvan's wealth comes from iron with rich mines located in the center of the continent. Between these large continents lie a string of islands, many volcanic, the so called Phoenix Isles. Here the vast trade of empire of the Kiasyd finds its great atoll capitol. Although the Kiasyd lack mineral wealth, they rule oversea trade and harvest valuable spices, sugars, and fruits from their island plantations. Sailor stories speak of lands beyond these but both oceans and sea serpents conspire to keep vessels from venturing more than a ten-day or so from the coastline.
Torreth is a constitutional monarchy dominated by the royal family, the Torr, who rose to prominence during the Wizard Wars. Originally, their rule was absolute and extended south across the Phoenix Isles. Unfortunately, the growing wealth and influence of the mercantile and industrial classes resulted in the loss of southern territories during the Kiasyd Rebellion. At home compromise demanded the authoring of a constitution to limit the monarch’s power. Today the Torr remain the heads of state ruling through the eldest male in their central family line. However, much power has been ceded to officials who are mostly members or pawns of the merchant classes. Ostensibly officials such as city magistrates and councilmen are elected by landed male citizens, but in most cases they are preselected to support the interest of financial elites. In contrast to Torreth, the Kiasyd are highly autocratic. Ironically, they began as a democracy when they broke away from Torreth, but their famous admiral, responsible for the utter annihilation of the Torr navy at the Seige of Nyssa, decided to establish a ruling lineage rather than abide by will of the people. What evolved was a seaborne empire fueled by trade and expensive luxury goods like sugars and spices. The imperial line has never given an inch maintaining absolute rule with the knowledge that without a navy no revolt against it is possible. Kiasyd’s main enemy, of course, is not rebels but faery pirates who chose to risk the gallows over life in the hot malaria-infested Blights. The Gorvani, who took the revolt against the fae to its logical extreme, long ago scoured their realm of magic. Some claim this is the reason for Gorvana’s barren, lifeless appearance. Modern Gorvani bow not to kings nor emperors but priests. A theocracy adamant in their praise of the One True God (Maru) and their hatred of all magic, they look upon the northerner’s ‘tolerance’ of fae with scorn. All three great nations, Torreth, Kiasyd, and Gorvan; kingdom, empire, and theocracy, have bumped shoulders since their birth. Skirmishes and small wars occasionally break out over this or that territory, but with the rising influence of the merchants, who desire stability above all things, wars have decreased in frequency. Hralmar is a different story, driven not only by greed but glory, its numerous warrior clans constantly test the resolve and fortifications of southerners. Although Torreth has tried to subdue the Jarls before, the narrow isthmus leading to their cold land and the rough seas which surround it both conspire to thwart aspiring conquerors. Like the Gorvani, the Northmen also see no reason to keep fae around. Though they will occasionally take elf-maids captive, they generally kill fae on sight considering them evil and deceitful by nature.
In all the lands north of Gorvan, people pay homage to a pantheon of anthropomorphic Gods. If historians are to be believed, some of these Gods are in fact humanized versions of the faery Gods, a hypothesis supported by the similarity of the names. For example, the creator God of the Torren, Dagon, sounds much like the creator Goddess of the fae, Dagda. Unlike the fae however, who hold to only a few deities; Dagda, the mother of all, Pan, the Father of the Wild, Lleu, the moon child; the humans boast hundreds of Gods and Goddesses for every kind of activity from farming to fucking. Houses even come equipped with their own patron Gods to watch over them complete with doorstep altars and livingroom shrines. Multiple temples stud the cityscape of northern towns and cities and most municipalities lay claim to a patron deity. Drezlen is no exception to this rule, showering special veneration on Klados, the Divine Smith. In the arid southern continent of Gorvana, religion is radically different. Far more organized, priests are all part of a single hierarchy answerable to a single divinely appointed figure, the Archon. Gorvani believers trace their faith’s revelations to Narok, supposedly a wizard and an apprentice to the Dreamwalker himself. In their holy book, the Narokian Codex or simply the Codex, the wizard’s followers record his teachings and acts, how he forsook his own magic when he realized its evil nature, how he lead his followers on a bloody purge to purify the southern lands of fae. According to Narok the world is a battleground between a good deity Maru and an evil demon Grex. Grex spawned the fae and the fomori and created magic as a temptation to lure humanity away from the eternal salvation offered by Maru. On the opposite side of the earth, the Northmen hold to deities not unlike those gracing doorsteps and temples in Torreth and Kiasyd. However, their Gods are a tad more fierce in demeanor, demanding courage from their followers and allowing entrance into their heavens only to those who die in glorious battle. The Kiasyd differ significantly from the Torren pantheon only in their placement of the emperors, dead and living, within the ranks of Gods.
In the time of the fae, powerful Queens of both Seelie and Unseelie courts dominated the political landscape. Kings ruled in legendary times too, but more rarely. The dominance of men in the patriarchal civilizations of humans is, therefore, a new state of affairs rather than a matter of tradition as some would argue. Sadly, the current state of society shows little evidence of change. Even in Torreth, the most progressive of the three great nations, women can not vote and can only own property in the event of their husband's demise (hence the prominence of widows among the wealthy elite). In Kiasyd wives rule their household and estates with iron fists, but are powerless by law outside their walls. In the far north and far south things are much worse. The codex, despite being written by a male magician, rambles on about the evil of witches making the menfolk of Gorvan inclined toward misogyny and paranoia. In the past, fears of the glam-trade and wyldling addicts even lead to the burning of people at the stake, mostly innocent women. The Northmen of Hralmar, a staunch warrior people who venerate strength above all things, hold little reverence for the feminine and, though their bards tell stories of warrior women, their own women remain chained to gardens and stoves. Ironically, only within the oppressive shadows of the Blight can women find some measure of freedom. Faeries still mostly hold to egalitarian views of gender and none of the unofficial posts within the underworld of the ghetto is restricted on the basis of sex. She elves and dwarven matriarchs can be found at the helm of criminal organizations and labor unions alike and almost all brothels recognize an elderly elven dame as their owner. Sadly as soon as these powerful women step outside the bounds of the Blight and enter the human world, they are seen once more as chattel. Of course, from a writer's point of view all of these hardships only make playing a female character more challenging and interesting.
Trains dominate land transport in Torreth with iron rails criss-crossing every corner of the kingdom. For short distance transport, striders, steel automata supported upon jointed, hydraulic legs carry both people and supplies. The military, for its mechanized divisions, employs both armored striders and more slow moving tanks. Aircraft are far more limited for, although dross burning engines can produce huge amounts of power, they also weigh a ton. Getting them airborne has proven a challenge and as of now only large dirigibles inflated with hydrogen have proven up to the task. Since these are highly flammable, ground transport remains the preferred method even if slower. Primitive modes of conveyance -- horses, mules, and ponies -- still subsist among the poor and particularly the fae who shrink from the steel confines of machines. In the past, of course, faeries tamed and rode more exotic mounts -- griffons, unicorns, even wyverns -- but as those creatures are now largely extinct and the fair folk confined to Blights, few if any have the chance. Upon the ocean, steam propelled ironclads top the food chain, but wooden sailing ships still appear for a number of reasons. For one, they remain cheaper to build, for another they require no dross to fuel and, when they ride abreast of the wind, can outpace most steamships. The fae also prefer wooden ships to iron ones for reasons that should be obvious. Submarines also exist, though, only the Kiasyd with their emphasis on naval might, have mastered that technology.
The iron allergy imposes a heavy limitation on faery technology, for the only metal which can substitute for iron or steel in most applications is mithril and it is exceedingly rare and difficult to work. Although mithril is superior to steel in nearly every respect, its rarity and resistance to the smith’s hammer means that one could never equip an army with mithril swords, forge an invulnerable mithril tank or support a skyscraper with a mithril superstructure. Most remaining mithril weapons and armor, once the prize possessions of dwarf kings and Sidhee nobility, now sit in the treasure rooms of human lords. Not only have the dwarven arts of mithril forging been all but forgotten, the use of the metal in anything other than a simple tool is highly illegal, punishable with a one-way ticket to the detention camps. Deprived of strong structural metal the faery make do with other materials. Gnomes favor copper and brass for their own mechanical designs. The elves are renowned wood-workers and bowyers. In the past trolls carved and lashed the bones of the great beasts they hunted into ribbed longhouses and fierce looking weapons. Taking advantage of their size, the pixie harvest the chitinous shells of large insects and beetles to fashion organic plate armor, shields and weapons. Goblins, though not the most skilled artisans, are famous jury-riggers making creative use of whatever floats down into their subterranean realm. Modern fae, of course, are forced, more often than not, to follow the ways of goblins and just make do. Improvised weapons are common in the Blight as are hodge-podge machines running not on gears and steam but ingenious systems of ropes, pulleys, wind turbines, water wheels and counter-weights.
Feared criminals, wyldings are not just your run of the mill glammers going into the Blight for their enchantment fix. Whereas magic ingestion merely intoxicates most humans, wyldlings find themselves able to actively release their built up energies as chaotic flows of vibrant magic. These erratic bolts are nearly as likely to rebound on their casters as strike their intended target meaning that wyldlings often carry scars from past accidents: a streak of emerald hair, a gnarled limb or maybe an eye opening in the flesh of a shoulder. Wyldling gangs control much of the glam trade as this means they are never too far from a fix, though their addled minds, ill suited for science, usually require the aid of a sober faery alchemist (cook). Some wyldlings can trace their addiction all the way back into the womb. The magical equivalent of crack babies, these so-called changelings are born from wyldling mothers who use glam through the course of their pregnancy. Born with the mark of enchantment already upon them (often in the form of strange eye and hair colors) changelings emerge into the world already addicted to magic. To them enchantment it is a natural state. Needless to say many fail to survive infancy. Those that do inevitably seek out the drugs that made them. In contrast to typical wyldlings, changelings remain more cognizant during their enchantment and can exert greater control over the wild magic they release.
Characters and GameThe game will focus on faery life within a Blight so obviously faery characters are preferred, but I will also accept humans if the concept is creative and relevant to the setting. Players may use one of the major races listed above or create their own species. For those choosing the later option, please limit your selection to known Western mythological archetypes and be aware that I reserve the right to veto anything that is, for lack of a better word, stupid. In a hider below the skeleton is a guide for designing a faery race without making the GM head-desk. New characters can be submitted using the skeleton below or one of your own making, so long as it contains all the necessary info. If there are elements of your submissions which should be secret please PM them to me or type them as spoilers.
Name:
True Name:
Race:
Court (if applicable):
Appearance:
Background:
Possessions:
Talents:
Glamer:
An acceptable faery race needs a few qualities. Most importantly it must be based, at least loosely, on a fairy myth from Western (European) culture. Yes I realize that other cultures have fairy myths but once I start allowing djinn, Iroquois rockmen and kitsune everything becomes silly very quickly. Torreth is based on European culture so European faries fit better. If we ever shift the story to exotic locales, I will allow more exotic faeries. The second rule to remember is that a faery race must not just fit our mythology, it must fit the mythology of the story itself. For example, the kelpie and the headless horsemen are both technically fae but they are more like demons and undead monsters than races of humanoid beings. They therefore do not fit the story which is about races of oppressed magical peoples. Finally, when designing a race's glamer (inherited magic) try to make it reflect that fairy's nature. Double points if you can make it relate to actual fairy tales (like the wyrding of gnomes allowing them to work with supernatural speed). Above all, however, keep fairy magic limited and somewhat subtle. No sprites that fart fireballs, please. I hope this helps and remember if you submit something be prepared for a critique or outright rejection. I am far far pickier about new faery races than I am about characters and I have to be because a poor character can be removed from a game with a well-aimed GM lightning bolt, but an entire race is not so easily edited out once added.
The game itself will depend entirely on player choice. I will follow my regular philosophy and place only two restrictions on player choice. One, at least try to keep the protagonists grouped together (I recognize this isn't always possible) and two don't completely ignore main plot. Although there will be a main plot, it will weave in and out of the game allowing for large amounts of filler and character-focused subplots.
Rules and CrapThe usual shit.
1) Adult players only. This is a story with mature themes like sex and drug use so yeah, 18+ only should go without saying.
2) Be mellow and don't harsh the GM's vibe. It's a game, so let's have fun and not take things too seriously
3) One post a week bare minimum unless RL calls, in which case just say something.
4) Decent writing. I'm not expecting literature, but make an effort and make it comprehensible. Grammar is meh, but dont B, sobad... I cant evn understan wat yr sayin??!!
