User:Guy/Lore

lore or something

The Shattering

Once, the continent of Krakenshield was a utopia ruled over by a benevolent and powerful council seated in a sprawling city capitol at the continent's heart. Just over forty years ago, a sky-shattering and horrific screech rang out across the world.

For reasons no one can agree upon, overnight the entire capitol was gone. The continent's entire governing body, and nearly half it's population, was gone in an instant. In its place is an accursed black sea where only horrors live. High above the sea floating weightlessly are countless mountains of solid rock—seemingly ripped out from the land below—like islands in the sky. Many rivers that once facilitated travel to and from the capital have been tainted gray with whispers of the accursed sea, becoming undrinkable, and home to previously-unknown monsters that have made them dangerous—but not impossible—to navigate with well-armored riverboats.

Since the Shattering, as its come to be known, magic storms have become more violent and monsters more numerous. With the world more dangerous than ever, long-distance trade has become unreliable.

With the country's spine severed and its veins clogged, the land's once precarious peace has broken into a disarray of factions and city-states all competing for power, control, and survival.

Worldveins - The Dark Depths

The worldveins are a labyrinthine cave system sprawling for seemingly infinite depths in every direction across the entire world, and have existed in some form for millenia. Some are a natural phenomenon, some have been excavated by man or monster.

Long ago, a true god—a tremendously powerful deity beyond understanding—threw his divinity and all his greatest treasures into the deepest depths of the world, casting it off to become a mortal and join his one true love in a life of simplicity. As the myth goes, the sheer power emanating from this divinity tore apart the world from within, and created the first worldveins.

Centuries have past since then, and seemingly none have found the supposed power at the world's core, though many delvers still seek it. The worldveins were always dangerous, where the air is frequently thin and monsters lurk around every corner—but have become evermore fearsome over the past few decades.

Worldhearts & Worldblood

"Worldhearts," a new form of tremendous magical power, has been tapped in these cavernous worldveins. Typically a worldheart has been a glowing, mystical stone sphere a few meters in diameter. Of the few dozen that are widely known the color, appearance, and traits vary wildly. Some create underground forests or marshlands, while others drain life from the vicinity, among numerous other effects&mash;many of which spread for miles. A few years before the Shattering, a spell was created that could tap into the vast mystical power held within worldhearts—called worldblood—which has been used to create or fuel spectacular feats of magic, such as airships, or an endless source of good. While worldhearts were (and sometimes still are) regarded as sacred, the recent strife has driven many city-states to begin tapping into the eldritch power these hearts yield.

Worldblood itself is a poisonous crimson fluid. A handful of people, sometimes called fearful names vampires or blood-drinkers, are not only capable of consuming the blood but can gain great knowledge and power through it—though it appears drinking the blood is still excruciating.

Hell

Formally "Inferno." The name given to a colossal, sprawling hellscape deep in the worldveins — home to demons and devils of countless varieties. 'Tis such a vast and diverse place it's almost like a world in of itself. Hell and its denizens are so often woven into tall tales that some folks seem unaware it is a very real place.

"We should all be thankful it's almost impossible to get here from there."

Continents

The world is covered with a Great Ocean. Upon its surface is the temperate continent of Krakenshield—sometimes called Kraken's Shield.

To its north, across the sea, is the mountainous iced-over Jotuncrown—or Jotun's Crown. Compared to Krakenites, Jotun are huge folk often towering dozens of feet in the air. Mammoths, colossal bears, and other megafauna are commonplace on the land and surrounding seas. Despite the immense size and power of the creatures here, they have little interest in the world beyond their coasts. The ice-cap continent they call home is the last vestige they can reasonably thrive in, as the long-lived residents here never adapted to other climates after the last ice age millenia ago.

To the south is a sprawling archipelago consisting of over a hundred different isles, though only a minority are inhabited. Collectively these are called Dragonbelt—or Dragon's Belt. Of course, the "continent" is home to many dragons. Often, but far from always, each isle is ruled over by a tremendously powerful ancient wyrm who surrounds itself with a horde, or worshippers, or whatever it most fancies. Krakenites fear "dragon raids"—what happens when a wyrm wishes for more treasure or disciples. Entire towns have been wiped out by the underlings of a single wyrm—or heavens forbid the wyrm itself. Not all dragons are so evil, of course, but few Krakenites know that. Thankfully a wyrm's ego is so great that it typically abhors the idea of teaming up with other wyrms; their infighting is perhaps the only reason Krakenshield continues to exist. There are disparate bands of seafaring folk who boldly steal from dragons, together named "pirates."

The Wild West

True to its name, this region is on the western side of Krakenshield. Of all the infamies that plague the Wild West, perhaps the most feared is the firearm. Firearms are more widespread in use here than anyone else on the continent--and perhaps even the world. It seems like every warrior worth their salt has one.

Large swathes of this region are controlled by small gangs who are sometimes feuding, sometimes cooperative. These gangs are collectively called the Gunsmith Cats; they are after all known for crafting firearms by hand, and catfolk traditionally call the region home. Despite their violent disagreements the Cats appear to mostly follow an idiosyncratic honor code. They're directly opposed by the Blackpowder Ministry, which is centralized in a well-fortified city that dwarfs all towns controlled by the cats. This city, Salt-Haven was once the Council's seat of influence in the region.

Whereas most of the wild west is a harsh wasteland, Salt-Haven is built upon an seemingly endless natural aquifer. Only in the past few decades has it become widely known that the aquifer is directly fed by a worldheart, which itself seems to be where all this water is coming from.

Once Salt-Haven had rail lines connecting it to many of the neighboring towns for transport of water and trade, but seemingly all of them have been destroyed beyond repair. If you ask the Cats, the Ministry sabotaged the rails; if you ask the Ministry, the Cats vandalized the rails.

Castle Crags

• A makeshift settlement on the east coast of the accursed sea, built using repurposed castle walls and other debris. Ratfolk, kenku.

Coral Grove

• Dense foliage of orange & pink alongside the northeast coast, secluded by the Chozo mountain range.
• Kitsune, kappa, etc.

Central Intelligence Agency

• may secretly know everything or might be completely incompetent, no one's sure
• plague doctors & masks
• really likes poison, drugs
• will kidnap & experiment on you
• swamp

Institute of Applied Whimsiness

• "The Institute"
• teenyfolk
• Would probably be unstoppable mages & machinists if they could get it together.
• "Why is there a gacha/vending machine here. WHO would use one—let alone put one—here."
• Responsible for way too many chimera species.

Vein Weavers

• arcane af
• very obsessed with the long-extinct elves; half-elves are like demigods to them
• probably cosplay as elves and make 420 elf variants on dandwiki dot com
• basically worship worldhearts as gods
• hate tf out of vergar

Vergar

• dorf
• obsessed with efficiency, mineral wealth, and worldheart-fueled machinery
• cripplingly strong drinking culture
• claim to be responsible for digging the worldveins (no one believes it)

Mindflayers

• i mean eldritch f—oh no WotC has already sent an assassin to my door