User:Mobius/EaA

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Introduction

This is my homebrew setting, and I'm essentially setting it up as I run my campaign; I'm putting what I have here since there seems to be enough to be going along with. Nine-tenths of it is original (if not terribly unusual) material and some themes are borrowed (or outright stolen) from books and so on. It's at a fairly standard tech level, with some other stuff thrown in when it seems interesting. The campaign has gone from level 1 to 4 so far.

Overview and Geography

The action takes place in two opposing countries: Exton in the west to southwest and Alsmith in the east to northeast, both fairly large, with a straight north-south border between them in the middle of the map. Exton is vaguely European, Alsmith partly that but with an Asian feel as well. They are in a more or less constant state of warfare thanks to religious differences. Exton has a large coastline along the northwest edge, curving off to the south (though there's another, unnamed country to the north) while Alsmith is landlocked but for one small inlet of a sea that touches their southern border. There's a tall east-to-west range of mountains along the top of the map in Alsmith, and a lot of the rest of their terrain is hilly; Exton is flatter.

Religion

The main sources of conflict between Exton and Alsmith are their religious differences; Exton is Quintarian and Alsmith is Quadrene. These are from the excellent Chalion series by Lois McMaster Bujold, so see that for a more complete explanation, but in brief, both countries agree on the existence of five deity-ish beings: the Mother and Father who came into existence when the primordial chaos split in two so that it could perceive itself, the Son and Daughter who were born of the Mother and Father, and the Bastard who was born when the Mother spent a night with a good demon the night before he died in battle fighting the other, evil demons. Quintarians believe that the other four all love the Bastard just as much as the rest of the family, and that the Mother loved the demon, so worship all five as gods roughly equally; Quadrenes believe the demon raped the Mother, and call the Bastard a demon too. Therefore Bastard-worship is, to them, heretical and blasphemous. Neither view is necessarily right; I tend to lean toward the Quintarian because Exton are the good guys and it's just nicer, but that could be fixed. These could take the place of the standard DnD gods, which is the way I intended it; however, the PCs in my game came with the players' prewritten backstories, and one was a cleric, so I was pretty much tied to the standard pantheon. Therefore I said that those gods exist, but merely as masks worn by the greater five gods, sometimes in tandem; Wee Jas, for instance, is an aspect of the Father and Bastard. I'll give you the gods' domains, as that's probably the best way for you to get the idea of their portfolios:

Father of Winter: Air, Darkness, Death, Protection, Law Mother of Summer: Earth, Creation, Healing, Protection, Sun Son of Autumn: Fire, Animal, Community, War, Sun Daughter of Spring: Water, Community, Healing, Knowledge Bastard of things out of season: Darkness, Death, Chaos, Magic, Luck, Artifice, Trickery

All of them are inherently benevolent (well, except the Bastard, if the PCs are Quadrene--an evil Quadrene cleric of the Bastard, who worships him while believing him a demon, might be interesting).

History

For as long as the Bastard has existed--which was after the birth of civilization and language, for a human saint gave his life to lend his soul to the good demon who was the Bastard's father--there has been conflict between Quintarians and Quadrenes. When the great eastern Quadrene emperor conquered the land that would later be Alsmith, Exton fought back and stopped his advance; later that great empire fractured and Alsmith was left its own domain, and the two have been at war more or less ever since. There have been times when the fighting stopped, renaissances and enlightenments where the religious differences were overcome and trade grew, but none of them have lasted longer than a decade or two; sooner or later war returns. Emperor Galus (the leader of Alsmith is still called Emperor, though it's hardly an empire) succeeded his father fifteen years ago at the age of sixty-five, in the middle of a war, and over four years through great political acumen managed to bring the war to a halt, almost against the will of his Senate and half his citizenry. For the next six years trade and diplomacy slowly grew; things looked good for a little while