Teredahar Locales: The United Republic of Din

Location

Din is a nation located on the extreme eastern edge of Teredahar. It is bordered by the ocean on three sides and neighbours the nation of Kurudar to the southwest, the Ashdar domain to the northwest, and Koldar to the west. The broders are defined by the Pale River, Koldar River, and Balsan River respectively. A portion of the border with Kurudar crosses the Torran Spine mountains and is not clearly defined due to its remoteness.

Climate

Din has a temperate, wet, seasonal climate, minimally effected by the mountains that pass through it. The ocean breeze brings with it wet, stormy weather and the occasional hurricane. Most of Din occupies latitudes analogous to the northeastern Unites States and maritime Canada. It is known for its harsh, snowy winters and warm humid summer. Areas closer to the southeast coast experience more moderate weather but are subject to the occasional hurricane. For much of Din's history the large volcano Thunderperch has been erupting, occasionally sending clouds of ash and volcanic fog over the country for months at a time. Much of the southern reaches are abandoned because of frequent lava flows that have caused the region to be called The Ashen Reach.

Landscape

Much of Din is coastal lowland forest and marshes. The Torran Spine mountains are young, sharp ridges that rise prominently from the rolling hills in central areas of the country. There are several wet, rainy islands located off the coast called The Kraken's Toes that are sparsely inhabited but dotted with ruins from naval wars long past. Finally, the areas surrounding and south of Thunderperch are barren, volcanic moonscapes devoid of all but the hardiest of life. 

Government

The United Republic of Din is one of only a few examples of a large, centralized government on Teredahar. It is unique among the nations of Teredahar in being a representative democracy not limited by caste, race, or magical ability. Directly elected representatives from each township or county meet at parliament in Dolvan Keep where they discuss matters of national and regional importance. This novel system of government only arose in the past decade when commoners rose up and overthrew an ancient dictatorial oligarchy largely composed of vampires and other ageless undead. There is no centralized magic school in Din due to the peoples' distrust of wizards and wizarding orders. Many magical scholars must travel elsewhere in search of higher learning.

People & Commerce

Because of Din's progressive stance on race it has become a haven for peoples without a nation of their own, predominantly Humans from all over Teredahar and clanless Dwarves driven out by the constant strife in Ashdar. Many people move to Din to escape past hardship and start anew. Its location along major trade routes makes access to raw materials easy, and thriving textile and metalworking industries have arisen because of it. Much of the finest steel in Teredahar now comes out of the forges at Redport and Dolvan Keep.

Next Time

Next article will cover where the land of Teredahar itself comes from and how it has been shaped by millennia of magic use. 

Teredahar History & Mythology - Origins of Magic

I realize this isn't quite the topic that was promised. I think this is more interesting, though.

Who discovered magic?

In the time of Ceratharidoun, before the cataclysm [1] destroyed the Elves' homeworld, each of the two worlds had its own sort of magic shaped by the world's nature and the races that arose there.

On their world the Elves first discovered magic when Ceratharidoun gifted a tiny sip of its power to the most devout worshippers. These priests-turned-magi became the first clerics. In time they formed sacred orders, split over disagreements, and reformed again and again. Different paths of worship evolved. Some chose to study their power as an intellectual pursuit, shaping it and discovering new uses for the raw divine power that was gifted to them. Always this power came from Ceratharidoun, regardless of what form it took or how it was used.

On the other world, the world of Dragons, magic took on a distinctly different form. With no all-powerful deity to beseech for power the Dragons has to look within themselves to find it. Centuries of introspection and study gave rise to the first magi among the dragons. Over centuries cunning dragons honed their natural affinity for magic into a fluid, expressive art and with it each mage could shape the world to his or her own taste. This expression has a cost, though. Just as one muscle can be over-trained at the expense of others, many Dragons followed their natural affinities to far. They fell from a vibrantly varied and colourful race into ten ideologically-stagnant camps, so separated and overspecialized that their bodies began to change into the Dragon "races" we know now.

The Coming of the Elves

When the first Elves arrived on the Dragons' world, they found that with Ceratharidoun dead and the Hebdomad missing they could no longer use magic as they were used to. It was not until their first encounter with Dragons that the Elves ever dreamed there could be magic from a source other than a god.

Life on the Dragons' world was not peaceful. For generations the Elves' growing nation of Tan'Rar was constantly besieged by the Dragons and their minion races trying to wipe out these otherworldly invaders. It was at some point during this conflict that scholars studying the Dragons finally learned how to use magic in the new world. These scholars became the first true Wizards and in time they trained others who continued to study the world's magic. With this new power the Elves of Tan'Rar were able to fight the Dragons to a stalemate. For the first time since the cataclysm Elvish civilization truly prospered.

Discovery of the Mana Well

During the Golden Age of Tan'Rar, Elvish scholars began to come to grips with what had happened to their homeworld and study the very nature of the multiverse. They learned of the great magical current that flows through every world and how to shape it to their will. They learned how to store raw magical energy in crystals for later use. And they learned how to trace magical currents back to their source. Eighty years of searching the great seas of the new world yielded a single point where magic was stronger than anywhere else: The Mana Well.

The Elves who stayed to study this well soon became imbued with leaking cosmic power. By studying the few remaining texts saved from the cataclysm the researchers at the Mana Well rediscovered Divine magic an brought the discovery back to Tan'Rar. To this day magic retains this dichotomy: arcane power from within oneself, and divine power from the Void.

[1] See previous blog post, Origin of the Elves


Next post will talk about the continent of Teredahar itself. I'll have a map of some sort to show you.

Birth of a World #2

The second Birth of a World livestream has concluded. It's now up on YouTube here.
I've uploaded my working notes on the setting to the blog. You can get them here.

Teredahar Campaign Setting: The Shards

What are Shards?

Shards are like planes of the standard setting's multiverse except that they are generally less expansive and more Earthlike. Each shard was once part of the Elves Earthlike home plane that shattered. The biggest difference is that shards move around. Each shard may be off on its own or adjacent to any number of other shards. Where they touch they form naturally-occurring portals that allow animals, weather, and even bits of terrain to pass through. Shards can even collide and bounce off or merge, bringing entire continents from one world to another with often-catastrophic results. They can also change properties over time as they drift around the multiverse and come move into regions with different elemental properties. In-between shards is impassible Void.

Are there still normal planes?

There are still energy planes and a Prime Material plane. The Prime Material plane is where Teredahar is located. The energy planes are each surrounded by a region of Void that their properties 'leak' into. Shards that pass into these regions become more like that energy plane. For instance, a shard passing near the Plane of Fire will experience extreme heating and droughts, and one passing near the Plane of Air will start having weaker gravity and land will start floating about. True planes don't move around and are considered "stable". Mages theorize that stable worlds occupy eddie pools in the great river of magic, and that if a shard were to drift into one of these pools it would stabilize as well and become a true plane.

How does travel between shards work?

If two shards or a shard and a plane are touching or overlapping, travel is as simple as walking from one to another. If they don't then you have to make a portal to cross the Void. Most spell casters can create short-lived portals when they cast summoning spells. Additionally, making a portal between true planes is a fairly simple matter for and experienced mage because they aren't moving so their mulitversal co-ordinates are well known. Making a portal to a shard, however, is relatively difficult even for the most powerful and experienced mages. Often this requires specialized training as the Wayfarer Guides receive and even then the portals don't stay stable as the shards continue to move. Only the thirteen Hebdomad (world-shapers) are able to truly see shards moving across the Void and make stable, long-lasting portals between them.

Artificial Shards

The most learned Hebdomad have mastered their near-godly power to such an extent as to be able to recreate a small portion of Ceratharidoun's (the creator-god of the Elves that split his power amongst the Hebdomad) creation. Through intense focus they are able to bring forth matter from nothing and create new shards within the Void. These shards may be only a few kilometres in size but they are large enough for entire cities of the Hebdomad's followers to arise. Within such a shard its creator has total control over everything, but they must maintain focus or it will begin to implode and eventually wink out of existence entirely.


Size & Stability both follow this hierarchy: True Plane > Shard > Artificial Shard

Next Time

The next Teredahar article will cover how the Elves shaped the present face of Teredahar and the world of Prime.

Weekly, Live, Interactive, Video Podcast

The first broadcast of Birth of a World was a moderate success. I'm officially branding it as a weekly, live, interactive, video podcast because I think that's the best description I can give the experience. It's looking like collaboration with viewers is going to be a big part of the process, which I like.

So far we've got a small mining town somewhere on a rail line through the mountains being troubled by a magma elemental/animated stone monster deep underground. The world has a vaguely Final Fantasy-feeling early industrial magi-tech society. The player characters were traveling on a train that got derailed by an avalanche in the mountains, trapping them in this town that's temporarily named "Red Potato".

You can watch the broadcast in its entirety on YouTube over here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZbkGZMzwwYc.

Next broadcast will be fleshing out the town with a map of its surroundings and a few NPCs. I'll also be mapping out the mines as an adventure location if there's time. You can watch every Wednesday at 9:00pm Pacific at http://twitch.tv/Too_Many_Knives.

Teredahar Hisotry & Mythology: Origin of the Elves

I'm starting a series of articles covering my personal campaign setting (not to be confused with the one being worked on in the Twitch stream). This setting is called Teredahar and I've been using it on-and-off for over 10 years. These articles will be answering questions that my players have that are out of scope for the actual game sessions, and helping me organize 10 years of notes into something sharable. Like everything on my blog this is all Creative Commons so if you want to use it go right ahead but please say where you got it.

Mythology of Teredahar: Origin of the Elves

Genesis

In the beginning there were two worlds adrift in the river of magic: one where events were shaped by nature's cause-and-effect, and one shepherded by a singular cosmic will. When it invented language the will named itself Ceratharidoun. When it invented living things with a need to worship, they called it their God.
For ageless millennia the two worlds ran their course. Cause-and-effect shaping one world, and Ceratharidoun's will shaping the other. In time, each produced life capable of thought and inquiry. Dragons, cunning and powerful, rose to become the dominant creatures of the natural world. Elves, inquisitive and cautious, became Ceratharidoun's favourite children and thus came do dominate their world.

Exodus

The oldest legends of the Elves tell us of the time Ceratharidoun made itself known to them. It came to thirteen chosen of its children as a being of countless faces. As a chorus, they spoke "I am your creator god Ceratharidoun. My will shaped this world and all things that live are my children. Just as children must outlive their parents, so must this world outlive me. I place now, into the hands of yourself and twelve others equal fractions of my power and charge you with shaping the future of this world." And the chosen knew this was true, for at that moment the sun went black and the stars fell from the sky.
A year of absolute darkness followed. Death and destruction ran rampant as the thirteen found each other and learned to master their newfound power. When at last their powers were brought together they returned the cosmos to their world, the people named them Hebdomad, world-shapers, and worshipped them each as lesser gods.

Yet gods the Hebdomad were not. Just a year before they had been common people. Not a single king, priest, or grandmaster was among their ranks. Leaderless they began to quarrel and started wars that would last for generations and tear asunder all that Ceratharodiun had made.

It began as a great shaking, toppling buildings and tearing open great holes in the ground. Instead of stone beneath these holes, it is said you could see the blackness of eternity, the howling void between worlds. With a great crack, the world of the Elves shattered, its fragments propelled outward into the void. Aghast at the cataclysm their fighting had wrought, the Hebdomad vanished to places unknown.

The void is said to be timeless. It is not known how long they drifted, but in time a lucky few Elves rode a fragment of their shattered world until it collided with the other. On that alien shore they founded a new home and called it Tan'Rar, "guiding star".

Next Time

The next article will cover what the present-day aftermath of the Elves cataclysm is like.

Announcing "Birth of a World" on Twitch.tv

Next Wednesday at 9:00PM Pacific I'll be live-streaming the creation of a new RPG campaign world while answering questions posted by viewers about all aspects of the dungeon mastering arts. Regardless of what system you use this will be fun and informative. The stream will last 1 hour and will be uploaded to YouTube afterwards.

Follow me on Twitch.tv: http://twitch.tv/Too_Many_Knives

New Stuff

I've stated this year's PAX was not as inspirational as previous years, but really that's only partially true. I didn't leave with anymore storytelling energy ("mana" if you like) than I came in with, but after chatting with some of the D&D panelists I did come away with a few new ideas that might go "around" the storytelling.

I've got one of these now: http://twitter.com/Too_Many_Knives
And one of these: http://twitch.tv/Too_Many_Knives
And even one of these: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcmntmV9RJl7xa7LB10FXDA

It was impossible to get a consistent username across all three systems because "stone dice" was already taken on Twitch/Twitter and underscores aren't allowed in Google usernames. I didn't want to create an entirely new blog just for this experiment, but we'll see how things pan out. One lesson every DM learns is that naming things is hard. I'm just going to leave this here for now and let those few of you who might still be reading this wonder what I might be up to. You'll find out Wednesday night around 9pm Pacific time.