Patrona (Campaign Seed)
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Patrona[edit]
Patrona is a low-fantasy magical medieval setting, meaning it doesn't have magic everywhere and the typical level of technology among the civilized peoples is medieval in nature. In addition, it also has a lack of a lot of species of magical creatures, although most of the typical races from D&D are present, except for some notable cases, like Drow and Gnomes.
Continents[edit]
Ginda[edit]
Ginda is the largest and northernmost continent in Patrona, with a large variance in climate from the relatively warm forests of Fyrse all the way up to the tundra and ice sheets up in the far north. It is the most recently settled continent in Patrona history
- The Hangun Republic
The land in this country contains a large proportion of the coastline of Ginda, but mostly consists of a large central plateau, with forests and plains scattered across it, all bordered by mountains or the sea. The temperature is warm to hot during summer, and usually has mild winters in the southern region due to the presence of the sea, preferring it to rain rather than snow & freeze.
The Hangun Republic was formed from a collection of Arnian colonies that decided to rebel against their father countries. This was both for political and fiscal reasons, as they wouldn't have foreign kings dictating their actions, and interrupting their commerce as a result. A revived version of the Arnian League formed for this occasion, excluding the young Republic of Vaelstro and Gatalsca, called the Coalition of Arnia. The Hangun rebels were able to fend off the invading armies due to their extensive militia training, with their experience with arms due to fighting amongst goblins, orcs, and other beasts of the untamed northern continent. It did not help that the coalition was divided and fought for their own political gains and conquest rather than truly fighting in step as an alliance.
The Hangun Republic mostly consists of large farming communities with fairly well-protected cities, each given a reasonable garrison of well trained soldiers, along with the populace, especially in the northern towns, as a well equipped and trained militia to almost be on par with the soldiers themselves. Due to the low population density, the roads can prove to be dangerous, so caravan guards and arms among travelers are not uncommon, given that there are still small bands of monsters that lurk the continent in search of easy prey.
- Kingdom of Oakenville
The Kingdom of Oakenville, sometimes referred to as the "Kingdom of the Northlands" is the largest kingdom of humanoids in Ginda. It is centrally positioned on the continent, and land-locked as well. Its access to sea trade is namely through the halfling vassal states to the west, or through Hangun to the south.
The Kingdom of Oakenville began as a collection of northern colonial fiefdoms of the newly established Republic of Hangun. These northern fiefdoms were not very fond of the republican style of the Hangun Republic, and after a hundred years of political unrest, they finally rebelled. The two forces met on the field of battle north of the Kakrenoff Gap, where the forces clashed fiercely. Curiously, no army won that day, and before casualties became severe after some clashing and vicious skirmishing, the Hangun Republic made a deal to give the fiefdoms independence, since there was no hope in spilling more blood. The fiefs thus won their autonomy from the republic, and formed a new kingdom such that they could continue their feudal ways.
Oakenville centers its trade around the great city of Oakenville, which rests at the bottom of a bluff across an ideal ford across the Oak River. The Trintosh Mountains feature several mining communities, where they have access to a wide array of valuable metals including mithril, in addition to a good supply of coal and iron.
Dinda[edit]
Dinda is largely considered the sister continent to Ginda, in terms of geopolitics. Dinda is the continent of the elves, whom have long lived there in peace with their respective kin, from the Sun elves, Wood elves, and the High elves. The elves mainly keep to themselves, and when they trade, only really trade with the ports of Ginda or that of Hiverblin, the continent of the High elves and men. Occasionally, clashes with the Sun and Wood elves spring about, mainly in regards to resource control over forest harvesting rights. It is most notable that Dinda also contains the largest library and mage's guild, owned by the high elves, sometimes referred to as Arcaneaus in grecian literature, or as "The Hall of the Arcane" in Gindan literature.
Dinda is largely categorized by gentle mountains and many rolling hills covered with forests, with elven civilization sometimes managing to poke their way through the trees, or the occasional port on the coasts.
Barbaria[edit]
Barbaria is a dark continent to the southwest of Ginda, troubled by poor, mild temperatures and near constant rain and storm. Its vast plains are home to the Sjelvig, descendants of the northmen that legends say are cursed to wander aimlessly across the desolate continent of Sjorntar, the northmen name of Barbaria, meaning "cursed land." Barbaria has a few forts which make petty examples of fiefs, but largely the Sjelvig live a nomadic lifestyle breeding their stocky horses and managing herds of cattle or reindeer. The continent is largely plains, rolling hills, and tundra on the high plateaus. Thunderstorms ride through normally, and it would be considered an unusual day to not see one on the horizon, no matter what time of year. The weather is pretty much the same terrible show year-round, and as Thelius the Hangun adventurer put it "it takes apart a man's soul to spend a year in this dreary place. The brief reprieve of the golden plains lit up by the sun is stolen to let terrible rain and thunder follow."
There is not much to see in Barbaria, other than it has been rumored that there exist ruins of things from ages past. The only notable commerce is that of the fur trade, and other than that, Barbaria is a very unexciting land.
Arnia[edit]
Arnia is the largest continent in Patrona, with a wide variety of cultures, from the desert dwelling people and sultanates of Twt'avel (Twitwavel in Gindan literature) to the more temperate dwelling "proper" Arnians, to the rogue kingdoms, to the Grecians in the southern peninsulas, to the vast wastelands to the east where the mysterious People of Niv are rumored to live. As such,Arnia, without being a far-flung continent on the edges of the world, is anything but a boring place for adventures.
Danken[edit]
Danken is the continent of the Chi'un people, a people who have exiled themselves to this continent and have a rather homogenous society. This place is not welcome to outsiders, with the only "free" port to be the pirate colony of Tarin, which frequently gets raided and razed by Chi'un lords to re-establish control of their domain. Needless to say, an outside adventurer would need a Chi'un disguise or lineage to maintain any sort of security, since mostly Chi'uns are merciless in their xenophobia. Indeed, the only outsiders in Chi'un are very few select retainers, mostly those of Jiren descent, which are almost bred like projects to do their purpose for the Chi'uns.
Asinga[edit]
The continent of the Jirens, Asinga is a relatively small island continent. It is xenophobic like the Chi'uns, but is at least tolerable in respects that it will at least give certain parties permission to travel through their lands. The Foreign Quarter in Jirensyo, the capital, gives foreigners refuge in an otherwise distrusting land. Other than producing items such as silk, and exotic items like rice wine, it is a rather resourceless place, which has largely led to years of stability, since most of all the feudal lords have similar things of value to each other.
Magic[edit]
History of Magic[edit]
A brief overview of the history of magic suggests that magic was much more powerful, especially before the conclusion of The God Wars. Ancient magics are said to be much stronger, and almost impossible to cast to the typical magic user. It is suggested by scholars that either the material plane of Patrona used to be much closer to that of the other planes, the sources of magic, or that the intellect and civilizations of old were vastly superior in their skill.
Magic Meta[edit]
Magic in Patrona is much weaker than other D&D campaign settings. While a low level 1d4 spell will still do typical damage, higher level spells should be halved or reduced significantly to better match abilities of an equal level fighter. Examples of reducing effectiveness of spells would be damage, range, radius and so on. In addition, some very powerful spells, such as those allowing easy flight or shapeshifting, should either be very exclusive and costly, or not very effective. Also, magic is costly, and at least in RP aspects cause the character to become fatigued, especially when casting rapid powerful spells in short succession. The point is to make magic casters and items not very powerful such as to make non magic users totally unable to fend for themselves. While some artifacts may be very powerful, or even certain great wizards, the typical level of magic power includes mostly utility spells to fix things, copy scrolls, enchant items, limited scrying and so on, with a few battle spells thrown in the mix.
The key is to have a not have an outrageous, overpowered high fantasy environment where players go overboard and become untouchable since they will likely have magic, where not everyone else has it.
Magic Users[edit]
Most magic users are priests, which invoke the divine powers of their deities. Wizards are the next most common class of magic users, whom are usually either employed by noble houses, advisers to town councils or governments, or even sometimes serve in the military. Other magic users are craftsmen, whom employ their selective study of magic to imbuing weapons, armor, and other items with special abilities. The least favorite class are the necromancers or witches, which study the dark magics and aren't particularly approved of for obvious reasons. Other magic users include adventurers, which are frowned upon for different reasons than witches and necromancers, mainly because they tend to make some trouble once they set foot in town.
Training in magic is not too difficult, as long as someone has adequate mental aptitude and sufficient constitution for its use, as magic drains energy in Patrona. However, it does take memorization and practice, and it can be thought of as a martial art to be proficient in its use, especially for battle, where preparation is not a luxury. Most people do not take to magic as the training does take time and energy, where the results aren't always too impressive that cannot be done without technology, especially for the commoner.
Technology[edit]
Technology is of a medieval type, with steel being the primary material for weapons and high quality armor.
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