You are an undead in a typical fantasy world (but a little spooky, like Ravenloft (but not as bad as Ravenloft!)).

--The country you are currently in is: The Queendom of Sefonia

--Major cities: Vierna, Trevisi

THE GODS (in alphabetical order):
--Anthan, god of the sun
--Celadel, goddess of justice, oaths, and vows
--Daigath, goddess of death

Any one of these three gods might decide to make you an undead, if any one of them is mad at you (or pleased with you? In certain circumstances?)...

--The queen of Sefonia is officially the mortal head of the church of Celadel.

--Sefonia used to have wars with its neighboring country to the east, Ossau. The current peace treaty has lasted a little over 50 years... The problem is that each individual county of Sefonia now has a minor baron or duke that wants to fight with one or more of the other barons or dukes of Sefonia. The Queen frowns on this, but has had trouble stopping the various feuds and skirmishes.

----SO, this means there are lots and lots of ancient and old castles, dungeons, ruins, barrows, cemeteries, tombs, towers, abandoned buildings of all types, and ancient, old AND NEW battlefields all over the place, as well as lots of tiny villages and decent-sized townships.

--Like any fantasy setting, this world also has lots of: fighters, thieves, clerics and paladins. It has some: barbarians, mages, warlocks, druids, bards (just not as many as it has fighters, thieves, clerics and paladins. Personally, in your undead opinion, it has WAY too many clerics and paladins). Other types of people to be aware of: witches and cultists.

--Like any fantasy setting, this world has monsters... mostly goblins, kobolds, ogres, gretchlings (some people say gretchlings are "like goblins but worse." Some people say that just making comparison is really unfair to goblins and that really, apart from their goblin size, gretchlings are "more like mini-ogres." Some people point out that making this comparison is unfair to ogres).

--There are also deer, wolves, wild boar, elk, the usual animals... and giant insects.





It's a fairly typical fantasy world. Vaguely pre-renaissance (or early renaissance?) tech. Clockworks are known to exist but people think of them as something only certain kinds of wizards mess with, mostly. There's no gunpowder yet... why mess with bat guano when magic exists? Windmills exist but aren't common. Waterwheels, same.

The kingdom is officially a monarchy (queendom) but civil warring among the nobility has made it so the queen basically just tries to keep the nobles' bloodshed to a minimum, which she mostly manages to do, more or less.

The queendom has an old national enemy to the northeast but they're currently as sick of fighting us as we are of fighting them so there's a fairly solid truce right now... although everyone expects that that'll only last one or two hundred years if we're lucky, fifty or less if we're not.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:32, Sat 02 Apr 2022.

THIS STUFF, YOU REALLY DON"T HAVE TO READ IF YOU AREN'T INTO SETTING DETAILS:


Sefonia has 7 provinces, each with a city of the same name:

--Vierna. The capitol city, in the center of the country.
----Who's in charge: The queen, who is officially the head of the church of Celadel, goddess of justice.
----Why's it strong: Lots of powerful paladins and clerics of Celedel. (It's also the richest of all the cities.)
----Physical features: farmland and woods


--Trevisi, the second-strongest province after Vierna. Second richest city, too.
----Who's in charge: the city council of merchants, led by Baron Trevisi himself.
----Who's REALLY in charge: The head of the thieves' guild.
----Why's it strong: lots of spies, assassins, thieves, rogues, bards, etc.
----Physical features: farmland and ranches (goats, sheep, cattle, chickens, other)


--Sternza, the third-strongest province
----Who's in charge: Duke Sternza himself.
----Why's it strong: lots and lots of fighters, mercenaries, cavaliers, archers, etc.
----Physical features: woods and forests and farms and the coast

--Hazrith, the fourth-strongest province.
----Who's in charge: Baroness Hazrith, the most powerful mage in the country.
----Why's it strong: magic and mages.
----Physical features: Mountains

--Zelgud, the fifth-strongest province.
----Who's in charge: Duke Zelgud, a cleric of the sun god
----Why's it strong: Lots of powerful paladins and clerics of Anthan, the sun god.
----Physical features: plains and farms and dry desert

--Fenmark, the sixth-strongest province
----Who's in charge: Duchess Fenmark
----Why's it strong: Combat engineers. Kobolds are a small percentage of population
----Physical features: Hills and valleys and rivers and streams... with excellent bridges, dams, aqueducts, roads, walls...

--Vertoht, the weakest province
----Who's in charge: Baron Fenmark
----Why's it strong: Because its clerics and paladins are dedicated to Daigath, the goddess of death, and no one wants to mess with them
----Physical features: Wetlands and marshlands... lakes and rivers... collectives of farms here and there

--Pendrell, the lost province:
----Who's in charge: No one. Duke Pendrell tried to take over Hazrith and Hazrith turned Pendrell into a huge swamp. It's now called Pendrell Swamp, or, more often, the Dismal Swamp. Lizardmen and Snakemen inhabit it mostly now (although humans and other people do still live there)...

---

                                 People, but Very Cold Climate
                               snow on the ground almost all year

                      Trevisi                                      Zelgud
                   farms and ranches                            plains and desert


  Fenmark                                Vierna                          Zelgud/Sternza
 Hills and valleys                   farms and woods                       border


          Hazrith
        Mountains    Pendrell           Vertoht
                        Swamp         Wetlands and lakes              Sternza
                                                                    forests and the coast

---

Vierna center
Trevisi, nw
Sternza, se
Hazrith, sw
Zelgud, nw
Fenmark, w
Vertoht, s
Pendrell, ssw
Farther to the northwest (well, west by northwest): Nation of Ossau
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:23, Mon 30 Oct 2023.

More about the Setting:

Most big monsters died long ago, or moved down to the caverns that run below the world.

--Dragons, accursed by ancient magics, became smaller and less smart-- drakes. No one knows if any real dragons are still out there anywhere.

--Giants, accursed by ancient magics, became smaller and less magical-- these are now called grendels. No one knows if any of the real giants of old are still out there anywhere.

--Most elves, weary of human ways and decades of war against the hobgoblins, departed for the fey realms. There are only one or two elven communities still in existence, their villages usually (though not always) hidden by magic...

--Most dwarves headed downward, into the bowels of the earth... weary of humans and decades of war... or were they in pursuit of the hobgoblins against whom they and the elves warred for so long, seeking to finally finish them off...?


--The Anskra, the mysterious people who once lived in the Pendrell province but who became nomadic when a magic spell from Baroness Hazrith turned the entire Pendrell area into a huge swamp. Now, they are known for their rapier swordplay, their curses, and their fortunetelling.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:24, Tue 15 Aug 2023.

2000 to 4000 years ago was the time of the Arikh dynasty//empire.

The Arikh wielded great magics-- it was they who accursed and weakened the dragons and the giants.

When a magical disaster destroyed the capital city (they accidentally opened a portal to the Elemental Plane of Ice, which is why it's so cold to the north), the Arikh dynasty/empire fell apart and the Hobgoblin Wars started within just a couple of centuries.

Anthan, god of the sun, was in this time known as Anzahir.

Eventually, civilization proper started up again to the south, with the founding of Sefonia.

(This is all mostly for my own reference, so I can keep track of it for Nasir's thread)

Nasir and his (living) thief colleague are on the trail of Shrake, a sinister-sounding fellow who somehow ordered the death of Farrowell, an archeologist/sage specializing in the Empire...