Artheria is a world I made about 8 years ago, and have ran 2 separate campaigns in it. It has well established characters, continents, kingdoms, and a rich history that has developed over a long period of time. (My former players are now epic level NPCs, who ideally will stop in every now and then.) This game takes place 1000 years after my last campaign. That game, the players went from level 1 to 14-15 before I moved away from San Diego, and I had a story line set up to take them into the 22-24 range. This game takes place under the story assumption that the players failed in stopping an epic cataclysm, called The Reckoning.
The reckoning was an event in which an adamantine colossus rose from the desert sands of the continent of Entrar, a huge, 40 foot crystal flying into the sky behind the colossus. The creature was unstoppable, and systematically marched around the globe, activating 5 other crystals, fire, earth, water, negative, and positive energy. The creature destroyed many civilizations that stood in its path, the immortal elves suffering the most.
After all 6 crystals were activated, the adamantine colossus marched to the center of the ocean, in an area called the maelstrom, and stood, a pattern of lights emitting from its form. The center became a perpetual cyclone... clouds began to spread over the globe, lightning storms abounded... continents were torn from the ocean floor and slammed into each other. large chunks of earths, from the bottom of the sea to the middle of cities, began floating into the sky. Parts of the world began having altered gravity, planar travel became both easier to perform but unstable, the underdark flooded with an onslaught of ocean... and from underneath the deserts of Entrar, an unknown power corrupted the Minotaur race, who had their largest labyrinth under those sands, and turned the race into a hugely more powerful, corrupt, cunning magical monstrosity. The minotaurs began to capture and twist the surrounding races, becoming a blight upon the underdark. The nearby fire giant tribes were captured, and bonded with a cursed, mind controlling, power enhancing armor. From there, the minotaurs influence spread to the surface...
Meanwhile, from beyond the stars, strange creatures began to arrive on Artheria. Creatures of paragon and psuedonatural origin arrived on the planet... crashing down encased in mysterious powerful ores. At the same time, planar rifts began to open around the planet, causing sometimes permanent connections between any number of planes, both inner and outer.
Even more fearsome, throughout the entire star system, even on the sun itself, ancient seals, made by gods both known and unknown, were broken... and abominations, cast off god creations, were freed.
All these epic powers began to battle for control of the 6 enormous crystals...
1000 years later, every major race has had to adapt to survive... and not much of humanity is left. Every race is stronger than the standard versions, and almost all classes have been powered up as well.
At a glance...
Humans are very adaptive, skillful individuals, who, while more often of mixed heritage than other worlds, are very similar to you and me. They gain more feats and skills than any other race, and they gain more traits at character creation, which shall be discussed later. Half-elves and half-orcs are a trait that can be rolled, and are not options at character creation.
Elves are natural hunters, and are offensive powerhouses. On Artheria, they are similar to Tolkien, living for thousands of years, having innate arcane power and ranger skills. All elves have favored enemy bonuses, track skills, and weapon skills of rangers, and elven rangers are exceptionally skillful. Elves can always cast in light armor, regardless of class.
Dwarves are the toughest race on Artheria, having massive hit point bonuses and natural damage reduction (DR). Dwarven paladins and barbarians are exceptionally hardy. Dwarves are also fans of advanced engineering and black powder weapons, they even have their own magi-tek. (More on that later)
Halflings are the bravest race on Artheria. The innate fearlessness of the halfling folk has grown to new heights. Halflings are the number 1 caravan running race, facing the darkness of the land where no other races will. This has granted them resistance to the darkness, and a celebrity no other races have, especially among the non-corrupted monstrous humanoids.
Gnomes are the most eccentric, odd race on Artheria. The Reckoning has caused a great change in the gnome people, a good amount of them are genuinely insane or 'mad scientist' gnomes. They're tough, have stronger than normal arcane power, and the most unique trait tree of any race.
Overall changes to general assumptions from standard DnD mythology:
All monstrous humanoids come in two varieties, corrupted and not corrupted. The corrupted varieties all have spell like abilities, and are significantly stronger and deadlier than standard variants. The non corrupt varieties are now more neutrally aligned, and alliances between human or halfling towns with goblins or orcs or goatfolk is not unheard of.
In the underdark, the Drow are now more neutrally aligned as well, as they suffered very heavily the last 1000 years, and have now allied themselves with the dwarves for mutual survival. Duegar have succumbed to the darkness entirely, and are feared as invisible stalkers, striking from nowhere and hauling off their victims for horrible ritual.
Races with planar blood or monstrous humanoid mingling are much more common than standard, this is a side product of the reckoning and the constant planar traffic of the last 1000 years. A full 20% of humanity is of some altered bloodline by this point.
All lycanthrobes, (except elven Lythari) are universally evil. No matter what the alignment listed in the monster manual, it is automatically changed to some evil. They are also stronger than listed in the book.
The elf and orc pantheon has also been more intertwined, orcs being directly descended from elves. In my world, Gruumsh was once an elven god named Lytana, who was cast out for falling in love with a mortal. (This story was central to the game I mentioned above from several years ago) The birth of the orc race was on this planar world, and from here they branched out too the multi-verse.
Artheria is a unique world, full of epic dangers, powerful, colorful characters, and surprises around every corner. I will go much more into detail on specifics at a later time, thanks for reading!
“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
―
J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Fellowship of the Ring
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