I am going to be running this game in the published world available in the free* Rulebook.
If you do not have a copy of the rulebook, I'll be publishing the basics here, on this site.


* If you are interested, you can get yourself a copy at:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/p...-Heroes-Free-Edition


;-P
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:37, Mon 22 July 2019.

Heaven has fallen. The world is broken. The Throne is empty.

More than a thousand years ago the Former Empires ruled in glory. Wonders beyond imagining littered the nations of that ancient age, even the least of men and women living with the luxury of a Bright Republic oligarch. Hunger, sickness, ignorance, pain... all the blights to which mortal bodies are heir were banished by the marvels of the Former Empires.

The agent of this mercy was the might of theurgy, the terrible High Magic uncovered by restless scholars of the old realms. With the secrets of theurgy at their disposal, sages were able to lay impious hands on the very levers of creation, manipulating cosmic powers far beyond the birthright of mortal humanity. The deep powers of the Creator were at their disposal at last, ready to glorify their kindred and exalt their causes.

And they had many causes. Bereft of material want, the Former Empires found other reasons to struggle. It was no longer enough to have a full belly and healthy children. The newfound might of theurgy would help them bring righteousness to neighboring realms that disputed the wisdom of their ways or the justice of their laws. Evil and corruption would be purged at last, and all the grieving sorrow of their misguided or malevolent neighbors would be healed by the light of their glorious truth.
Of course, every one of the Former Empires had its own truth to uphold. Their people wanted for nothing, but their material wealth simply left them to crave more intangible things. It was not enough that a neighbor was willing to keep the peace; the neighbor had to agree with them, had to submit to their laws and their ideals. And if this submission made their former neighbors into new subjects of their rulers, was it not a fair reward for a valiant pursuit of justice?

No one knows how long the wars tore open the nations of the old world. Some say they lasted centuries, others think it was only a few years before the ancient theurges sought to end matters. There would be no more fighting. The theurges would use their arts to ascend to Heaven, and there put their causes before the One. God alone would determine the true way that humanity was to live.

The angels fought desperately to keep back the invading theurges, but they were too few to withstand the human sorceries. A hundred-odd armies marched at the theurges' sides, great engines and terrible war-beasts grinding the celestial legions before them. Countless mortals perished, but the angels were driven back at last, forced to flee from Heaven and seek refuge in the fires of Hell below.

The triumphant theurges approached the holy heart of Heaven, the Throne of God where the creator of all would answer at last. And yet when the great doors were opened, when the thousand Names were spoken, when the burning wings of angels no longer veiled the sanctum, the Throne stood empty before them. God was not there. The theurges scattered in confusion and wrath.

Some were bitter, and swore that the Creator was never there at all, and that the One was merely a trick of angels. Others wept in terror, crying out that their impiety had led to God's abandonment of them. Most, however, saw not an emptiness, but a possibility. If God was no longer on the Throne, was there not room for another?

The Last War below did not cease, but it changed. Throughout the Former Empires, theurges and theotechnicians laboured to forge new gods, Made Gods, fabricating them from shards of plundered celestial engines and stolen artifacts from the house of God. Unimaginable power was poured into these hollow shells. Holy exemplars of their nations' ideals were enlisted to embody this force or fuel the golem-gods they created, and in time these Made Gods strode forth.

The destruction they wrought was incalculable. God after god stormed the halls of Heaven, searching for more power in its crum- bling engines and broken wonders. They fought each other on earth, churning up nations, and battled each other in Heaven's gardens, breaking loose shards of the celestial city. As they scavenged the ce- lestial engines, the world began to crack beneath them, the Former Empires splintering into scattered realms that drifted away from each other in the darkness of Uncreated Night. A few reckless Made Gods even attempted to seize the Throne itself, but their sacrilege left only their bones. They were not prepared to usurp the place of God.

There was no last battle. There was no ultimate struggle that marked the end of the Last War. There was only a slow winding-down over centuries as the Made Gods died. Some perished from the perils of Heaven, slain by vengeful angels or destroyed by powers they did not understand. Others were killed in battle, slaughtered by rival Made Gods or undone by the energies of mighty mortal weapons. A few simply became lost, trapped or hidden away in a shard of broken Heaven, far away from their home and their people. The Made Gods are gone.

Now there are only the heritor nations, the crumbled fragments of the Former Empires eking out a meagre existence in the far-scattered realms. The wonders of the former age no longer function, and the theurgy that once shook Heaven is now a brittle, capricious art wounded by the very destruction it caused. Kings and commoners alike must live in a world that no longer welcomes them.

Every year, things grow a little harder. The celestial engines among the shards of Heaven are often broken and always ill-kept, now that the angels have fled. Seasons grow uncertain and nature grows whim- sical or malicious. Sickness comes at strange times and monsters are birthed in hidden places. Sometimes the skin of the realm puckers and splits, a Night Road erupting into the realm from some fathomless depth of Uncreated Night. Creation unwinds slowly, but without halt.

But there is a new thing in the realms. Ordinary men and women are being touched by ancient power. The lost Words of Creation are igniting within the flesh of common humans, imbuing them in a stroke with the power that once required a Made God's shell to contain. It started only a few short years ago, but these "Godbound" are said to be the blessed by the descending fire of the fallen Made Gods. Their holy workings and celestial bindings are falling free from their dead husks, and descending to the earth to catch on mortal souls.

Heretics of the Unitary Church whisper that it was a plan of God that it should be so, that these Godbound will redeem the sins of their ancestors and restore the world that was broken. Others say that they are merely cursed ones, damned to relive the terrible Last War that destroyed the Made Gods before them. Yet in the present hour they are only men and women who have been given something more.



You are Godbound. You have inherited the holy fire.  Whatever your past life, however meagre a soul you may have been, the light of the Words has found you. Your world is slowly fading and the beasts of its twilight hour are rising up from the dust. Your people cannot hope to stand against them.

Will you be their savior, or will you be their epitaph?

The Nature of the Universe
The cosmos is divided into four great parts: Heaven, the realms, Hell, and the Uncreated Night that surrounds them all. It is difficult for the living to journey between these domains, and the only common way to do so is by the Night Roads that erupt in isolated corners of the realm. Traveling these roads is a deed for heroes and the recklessly mad, for the strange parasites and encrustations of Uncreated Night can make their narrow paths a deadly gauntlet for the unprepared.

The Nations of Arcem
The natives of this realm most often call it “Arcem”, after an old Patrian word for a place of refuge. Even the humblest peasant knows that it was greater once, that it was part of a vast and wondrous world with unnumbered marvels and unimaginable delights. But that was long ago, before the Shattering, and now the seas pour away in the darkness beyond the horizon and the people of Arcem are only a remnant of what was once great.

For most natives, this is a thing for philosophical regret. Most are too busy living their lives to concern themselves with the disasters of a thousand years ago. Do their nations not thrive in the present day?

The technological marvels of the Bright Republic, the magnificent poetry of Vissio, the grand architecture of Patria and the timeless culture of Dulimbai to the south... are these not wonders enough for any man? The past is good for salvaging, for the ancient ruins have many treasures and wonders, but the present is best for living.

Of course, things could always be better. True, there are stories of disasters in the hinterlands, of strange beasts creeping up from dark places, of curdled magic and vile wonders coming to pass in the cities of men, but there are more important things to concern the rulers than the talk of frightened peasants. What of the endless war between Patria and Dulimbai, or the depredations of the necromantic raiders of Ulstang, or the monstrous collapse of Ancalia and their doubtless-culpable magical experiments? These are the things that the rulers know and can see, and so these are the things that concern them.

Yet the common people see what the great do not yet admit. Things are changing in Arcem, and not for the better. Every year there are more monsters emerging from the shadows, every year there are more inexplicable magical disasters and natural calamities. The celestial engines are running down, and if they collapse, Arcem will fall with them.

For now, the people of Arcem are concerned with their own lives and the troubles they have always had. Soon enough, they may find new ones to overcome.

Ancalia
Five years ago Ancalia’s peaceful, civilized monarchy was shattered by a massive outbreak of Night Roads opening throughout the country, disgorging waves of abominations and raising those killed by the Hollowing Plague. The survivors huddle in coastal redoubts and inland enclaves, aided by the ragged remnants of Ancalia’s famed knightly orders.

Atheocracy of Lom
The Voice of Reason rules this chill and cheerless land with the aid of his antipriest acolytes. The people are but pawns to their master’s theories and schemes, yet they fear to pray to the gods that so utterly abandoned them in the past.

The Bleak Reach
A thousand years ago this was an advanced and powerful nation. Now the land is cursed, a refuge for exiles and those no other land can tolerate. Reacher folk are hard, canny, and ruthless in their will to survive.

The Bright Republic
The sole technologically-advanced nation remaining in the realm, the Republic relies on its irreplaceable etheric nodes to power a sophisticated society of modern technology and political intrigue.

The Howlers
Savage raiders, peerless poets and famed beast-tamers, the Howlers shun writing of all kinds as a curse that destroyed their ancient nation.

The Kasirutan Archipelago
The finest sailors in the realm call these volcanic isles home, though they’re feared more for their pirating than for their ruthless mercantile dealings.

Nezdohva
The mechanical Iron Tsar and his automaton nobility rule this land of impoverished human serfs. Their human Artificer’s Guild has the best automaton-builders in the realm, and a liberty born of the tsar’s dependence on their arts. His patronage of their talents is all that keeps his fractious, ambitious mechanical boyars and auto-cossacks in line.

The Oasis States
Pyramidal city-arcologies rise amid the red sands, a wealth of spices and drugs grown within their hydroponic gardens. An inbred nobility cultivates their bloodlines for physical and magical power, while outside their walls the “sand prince” raiders pillage spice caravans and foreign goods.

The Patrian Empire
The Patrian legions are the best heavy infantry in the world, their armored ranks and steely assegais a bulwark against their ancient rivals in Dulimbai to the south. Their senatorial families scheme for influence over the plebian classes, while swarms of bitter slaves toil in their mines and finely-built homes.

The Raktine Confederacy
This patchwork of city-states, demesnes, and free towns was once a battleground divided between Patria and Dulimbai. In desperation, the sorcerers of Raktia unsealed the forbidden Black Academies in the mountains and used their secrets to conjure beasts to drive out the invaders. It came at a price; even today, Raktia is plagued with monsters.

The Regency of Dulimbai
Greatest of the nations of the south, Dulimbai’s mandarins came as an invading force a thousand years ago. Their Regent still pledges loyalty to a long-lost emperor, and their magistrates keep to old ways.

The Thousand Gods
Once this steaming jungle was a favorite site for theotechnical research by the other nations of the realm. Now the descendants of those arcanists are tribes of god-enslaved cultists ruled by artificial divinities of cruel and capricious nature.

The Toba Plains
Nomadic clans of herdsmen ride the broad plains, congregating around the massive stone monasteries of their revered lamas. These monks are proud and wealthy, and their disputes often leave the nomad clans divided and troubled.

The Ulstang Skerries
These icy islands lie under the cold hand of quarreling witch-queens, who send their sea raiders faring forth with dead men at the oars. Their warriors are mighty and pitiless, dreaded all along the northern coasts. Their robbery is bad enough, but all know that the corpses of the hapless souls they slay are taken north to be slaves... or worse.

Vissio
Home to the richest financiers and most ambitious artists in the realm, Vissio is a proud land of rival city-states and scheming patrician families whose deep rivers and seaports see most of the trade of the western realm. Their clockwork artificers are superb, and work many marvels for the merchant-princes and the assassins of the Order of Redactors.

Religion
Religion in Arcem is a chaotic thing at best. The nightmare of the Last War, the Shattering, and the death of the Made Gods left theological wreckage in its wake. Some people came to reject conventional religion entirely, such as the ascetics of the Empty Way or the militant atheists of Lom, but most people felt the need for some kind of spiritual consolation and guidance even if their old divinities had proven so very fallible. Just as importantly, many people dreaded the Hell that awaited them should they die without spiritual protection, and priests were begged for some salvation from that awful fate.

Some of these religions actually work, in the sense that they provide miracles to the faithful and keep those buried with their rites from descending into Hell. Far more work in the sense that they provide solace and moral meaning to their believers and clearly map out a set of social obligations that lead to a functioning society. Others are less functional, teaching their adherents a way that can only lead to bloodshed, loss, and ruin.

The Church of the One
The most common faith in the realm is the Church of the One. Its believers are known as Uniters and their faith the Unitary Church. The Church remains dedicated to revering the absent Creator and adhering to the sacred books of their prophets and saints. It is organized by nation, each country’s church under the oversight of a patriarch or matriarch, under which are bishops for each episcopacy and priests for serving individual churches within a bishop’s see. Ascetic monks and nuns can be found in monasteries and nunneries, seeking service to the One through prayer and private labor, though some go out into the world to provide hospices and preaching. In theory, the united patriarchal council may nominate a Great Father or Great Mother to command the entire church in a time of dire need, but this has not happened for centuries.

Ancestor Cults
Prominent in Dulimbai, Kasiruta, the Toba lands, and other Ren societies, ancestor cults appeal to the honored dead to protect their heirs and uphold their nations. Through offerings and remembrances the living can ensure that their beloved ancestors remain secure in the spirit world and capable of bestowing blessings upon their children. Ceremonial offerings of food, incense, and spiritually-charged writing give the ancestors they strength they need to avoid Hell and grant their favour.

The Doctrine of True Reason
The grim men and women of Lom are the only full nation of atheocrats, though numerous smaller cells exist throughout the realm. Lom itself was founded by refugees and survivors from the nightmarish techno-theocracy that once ruled the Bleak Reach, and in bitterness they forever after forswore all the gods. In the centuries since, the Atheocrat of True Reason has ruled in that cold land, sending forth antipriests as missionaries to the south. Those converts they win are often from among those scourged by parasite gods and other divine plagues, people embittered against divinity and seeking protection.

Lesser Faiths
A swarm of minor creeds can be found in the cities and villages of the realm, most of them revolving around a locally-important spirit or heroic ancestor. Few of these faiths have any real power to save, though a few have priests that actually can ensure a peaceful eternal rest to their followers. Sometimes this safety can be granted with a simple ritual or sequence of prayers, but other faiths require expensive or bloody rites to ensure that a soul is safely anchored to the sleep of the mundane realm. Occasionally these rites go awry, and the soul is left to persist as some form of undead. Less often, these rites are intended to create such revenants, either to serve the cult or to act as loci for their devout worship. Few undead find their state comfortable.

Magic
Almost every culture of the realm has some native tradition of magic. Even in the technological enclave of the Bright Republic, the theotechnicians use their arts to maintain the etheric nodes. The nations have their own attitudes toward sorcery and its practitioners, but every peasant in the fields knows that wizards exist.

Few common folk ever encounter a true sorcerer. Only the most talented village hedge-practitioners have any real magical power, and those men and women who do have the natural gift for the art have better things to do than make the locals gawp at their powers. Most prefer to remain among their peers in magical academies or isolated cabals, or else conduct their own research in the discreet privacy of a distant home. Others sell their services to the wealthy and powerful, some for influence, others for the gold that enables their research.

Magical artifacts are not unknown to commoners, but these artifacts are very rarely “mundane” in their effects. The amount of effort required to create even the smallest permanent enchantment discourages the creation of trivial artifacts, and items that perform some mundane purpose are considered a great waste of effort. Why spend a fortune making a mug that chills beverages, when a hundredth part of the price would buy enough mountain ice to chill ten wine cellars? Why fabricate a pump to provide running water to a noble’s palace when a tiny fraction of the cost would buy the life’s work of a dozen servants, any one of which could do far more than pump water?

Instead, artifacts are created to be of practical use to those who commissioned them. They do something impossible to mundane servants and arts, and the effect is pronounced enough to be worth spending a rich man’s patrimony to have it.

There are two major forms of magic: that of the lesser arts and the secrets of high theurgy.
- “Low” magic is a remnant art, a discipline of scraps and pieces assembled from the wreckage of the Former Empires. It is dependent upon its traditions, those arcane legacies that have preserved its remains and adapted it to the limited resources of this latter age.
- “High” magic is something deeper and stronger. Theurgy, as it is called, is the art of appealing to the true powers of creation and invoking the deep laws by which all things were made. While many with the natural aptitude can take up the laborious traditions of magic, only Godbound and the mightiest arcanists can wield true theurgy.

Today, the Low Arts are maintained through various Arcane Institutions and Organisations, such as:

The Academy of Thought
The Academicians of Thought have their greatest school at the Bronze Collegium in the great city of Xilong in the Dulimbai Regency, where they study their arts alongside the chroniclers of dead realms and the reckless investigators of god-husks and lost artifices. They proudly claim to be heritors of the philosophers of selfhood that aided in the selection and priming of individuals for their eventual transformation into the Made Gods. As such, they are a notoriously atheistic tradition, ever prying into unseemly matters and profane secrets, and the ancestor-cultists of Dulimbai regard them with distinct mistrust.

The Cinnabar Order
A priesthood of scourging flame from the red sand deserts of the Oasis States, the Cinnabar Order works its ways in flame-shrines and monasteries of ash. Their adepts bring sourceless fire to the inhabitants of the great pyramid-cities. Each likely boy or girl is obliged to spend long years in study before they are permitted to leave the shrine where they were trained. Some are enlisted by a city in need of another flame-sorcerer, while others travel to the wet lands for their damp green secrets.

Curse-Eaters
Grim heritors of ancient theotechnic disaster recovery methods, “curse-eaters” are an informal brotherhood of initiates trained in the lifting and banishing of hostile magical effects. While they are honoured for their utility in dispelling dangerous magic, the wise also understand that they can lay down the same blights they lift up. Most are glad to receive them and glad to see them go once the work is done.

The Empty Way
Some see the secrets of the ancients as a path to power and control. They wield magic as a tool, using the ancient invocations and occult prayers to compel the tattered remnants of divinity to obey their purposes. The adepts of the Empty Way turned their back on such profane behavior long centuries ago. Since then they have kept to themselves in isolated monasteries and remote hermitages, taking as disciples those souls who sought refuge from the world and a path toward perfection of the soul.

Adepts of the Empty Way are found throughout Arcem, though most often as Raktian hermits or monastics who follow a Uniter version of the doctrine, or Toban lamas and their disciples who use their arts to defend and advance the interests of their monastery. Individual mystical practitioners are also found in Dulimbai, along with a scattering of Lomite atheist-monks in the far north.

Hedge Magic
A practice that requires years of laborious study, hedge magic teaches its pupils the subtle knowledge of the common folk, their cures and planting-times and luck-charms. In most places this tradition is thickly encrusted with the superstitions and traditions of the local practitioners, leaving a vast amount of effort to be expended before any true magic is learned.

The Merciful Hand
In the wake of the Last War the loss of life was incalculable. Where only some of the secrets of the past could be preserved, the arts of magical healing were among those most often rescued. Ancient divine protocols of succor were passed down among numerous nations and peoples, and the ensuing body of knowledge came to be known in many lands as the Merciful Hand. These adepts are honoured in all civilized lands, and only monsters or the truly barbarous would dare to harm them. Custom demands that they give at least an hour or two of their labor wherever they might stay the night.

Seers of the Bright Eye
The making of the Made Gods required a more than mortal awareness of the flow of arcane energies and divine numina. While the rarefied excellencies of awareness that went into creating these artificial gods is long since lost, the Seers of the Bright Eye have managed to retain the more prosaic arts of foretelling and far-seeing that win them their current coin and influence.

The Theotechnicians
The Made Gods required a priesthood of theotechnical servitors, trained in the due maintenance and preservation of the elaborate edifices of occult artifice that supported their divine power. Each god had his or her own maintenance priesthood, of course, but the shared principles and secrets of the tradition have long since survived their original patrons. Today, the Bright Republic still maintains a reliable tradition of theotechnology in its sophisticated etheric engines and industrial infrastructure, but the deepest secrets of the arts are preserved by the jungle sages of the Thousand Gods.