Gryloas Campaign Setting!

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YAY! Look what I dug up from my hard drive! Some stuff I wrote long ago that was incomplete. After some editing with relevance to 3.5, I decided to post it here. Perhaps I'll add more later.

And yes, I don't like elves.

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Races:

Humans
Physical Description: Humans are the predominant race in the Gryloas Campaign setting and run the gamut of variety in terms of personality, alignment and character classes. They are mostly fair-haired and light-eyed in the northern mountains, dark and swarthy in the southern swamps, brown-haired and dark-eyed in the western and central kingdoms and copper-skinned and slant-eyed in the eastern empires. They are similar to the descriptions in the PHB in physical aspects.

Alignment: Regionally, the inhabitants of the north tend towards chaos and goodness, the south towards neutrality, the east towards lawfulness and neutrality and the west towards lawfulness and evil.

Relations: In the west, humans get along readily with orcs, as they are derived from the same strain. Still that does not prevent them from warring amongst each other frequently whenever the situation calls for it. They are suspicious of elves, though there are some who hold the fey people in awe due to their otherworldly grace and beauty. The reason for this distrust is due to the aloofness with which the elves hold themselves and their constant air of condescension and self-superiority. Elven Rangers have frequently attacked and wiped out many human lumber communities and small villages that have expanded too close to the edges of their sacred forests. Occasionally, Rangers have led armed invasions into human lands, intent on deposing the current ruler. Humans and orcs have joined forces time and again to repulse the elven invaders, hence the mutual trust and cordial ties between the two races.

Human lands:
The Kingdom of Gryloas is the dominant human power in the western lands. It is ruled by the Demon King, Arkados Blackmire with an iron fist. His will is enforced by his legions of battle-hardened troops that include many orcs within their ranks. All are equal before the law except the King. The government is feudal in nature, with many dukes, counts and nobles ruling their own respective fiefs and paying tribute to the King. Inter-territorial conflicts have been outlawed and any noble that wages war upon his neighbor can expect to have his family executed and his position supplanted by a King’s governor. Education is compulsory and paid for by the kingdom at least until the fundamental academic skills have been learned. Parents who are discovered not sending their children to school are publicly tortured to death and their children sent into orphanages. Many projects improving the lives of the common folk have been undertaken, with the King funding them by squeezing his vassal nobles dry of their hoarded wealth. After centuries of warfare, the ravaged lands of the west are finally recovering with numerous irrigation, flood control and building projects going on. Orcs come and go freely in human lands, though the same is not true vice versa. King Blackmire the First is considered to be a tyrant, but a good and effective one by most of his subjects.

However, there is another power that challenges the Demon King’s claim to the western lands. The Celestial Church still controls large tracts of territory and it has declared open war on the Kingdom of Gryloas. Inhabitants in the lands controlled by the Celestial Church tend towards lawfulness, goodness and neutrality. The common folk there are extremely downtrodden compared to those in the Kingdom of Gryloas, but they accept their lot due to their fervent faith in the teachings of the Celestial Church. There are no complains and no sign of public opinion and the peasants are only too happy to sell their lives whenever the local pastor or priest calls for it. None but members of the clergy are allowed to read, for knowledge is considered to be evil and only those blessed by the Celestial Knight can withstand the taint and scholars are burnt at the stake whenever they are found. All books must be surrendered to the Church. Blessed by the Celestial Knight, the lands controlled by the Church are guarded by legions of knights led by paladins and Archons, warrior celestials.

Religion: Humans in the Kingdom of Gryloas are a generally irreligious lot. They may utter the occasional prayer to Gliusnea Nightcrown, goddess of Tyranny and Justice who Arkados Blackmire worships but it is little more than lip service. The good-aligned folk worship Vanuesslon, goddess of Lore and Knowledge but they are few in number. A new cult has arisen though, and it is fast gaining in popularity. It is the cult of the Demon King, in which Arkados Blackmire is worshipped as a god-emperor and a divine emissary of Gliusnea Nightcrown. The Demon King has done nothing to suppress this adoration for it has begun to grant him powers beyond those gifted to him by his infernal heritage. The humans ruled by the Celestial Church worship the Celestial Knight, who is proclaimed to be the son of the One God-the Heavenly Lord. Celestial devotees are zealous in their worship. To them, the followers of other religions are heretics and infidels that must be crushed.

Language: Humans speak Common and occasionally, orcish. They are fond of learning obscure languages though, such as elvish and Grundian.

Names: Human names vary greatly, as in the PHB.

Human Racial Traits: As in PHB.

Adventurers: Human adventurers are usually warriors, as in the DMG. Many of them are rogues and occasionally, a few of them become Wizards and fully trained Fighters. There are rarely any sorcerers amongst humanity, though there have been a few. They are also the only race that can become paladins of the Celestial church. Humans from the north are frequently barbarians and powerful southerners are usually druids or necromancers. Clerics are also numerous amongst them. The only class forbidden to humans is the Ranger.

Favored Class: Any, except for Ranger.

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Elves:

Physical Description: As in the PHB. There are three different kinds of elves in the Gryloas Campaign setting: The High Elves, the Imperial Elves and the Dark Elves. The High Elves dwell within the forests of the western lands. They have brightly colored hair and eyes. Shades of blue, green and even purple are not unknown in an elf’s hair and eyes. The Imperial Elves dwell in the eastern empires. They are mostly pale-skinned with golden eyes and dark hair, marking them as the Heavenly Lord’s chosen people. The Dark Elves are elves corrupted by the Anarchist. They are taller and more muscular than the other elves and have a grayish complexion. Their eyes are a hellish red and their hair is bone white. All elves can live over seven centuries.

Alignment: High Elves tend towards chaos and goodness. The Imperial Elves tend towards lawfulness, neutrality and occasionally, evil. The Dark Elves are always evil and chaotic. There are no exceptions within the Dark Elves. Those that experience a change in perspective die instantly from the Anarchist’s wrath.

Relations:

High Elves: The High Elves despise humans and hate orcs generally and treat Grundians with grudging respect. The reason for this dislike lies in their confinement within the boundaries of the only remaining bastion of their civilization, the city Quelan’ti’lael due to rapid human and orc expansion. Occasionally, their rangers make ‘population control’ forays into human and orc lands, killing as many as they can before vanishing back into their forests. They view humans and orcs as beasts and vermin and hence have no compunctions about their genocidal tendencies. Occasionally, the rare human might impress an individual elf so greatly that a friendship is formed. The most tolerant High Elf Ranger in history had to be Aalariel Arcmoon, the Ranger that forged a pact with a human noble called Cypher to guard his bloodline throughout the years. Since then, she has done much to improve relations between the High Elves and humanity, though her brutal death at the hands of the Princess Katherine Blackmire ended all such ties. Ranger raids have increased many-fold since then and Quelan’ti’lael is slowly incurring the wrath of the Demon King, who is planning to launch a massive military campaign to wipe the High Elves off the face of the world once and for all to protect his people.

Imperial Elves: The Imperial Elves have subjugated humans and orcs utterly in their eastern Empire. They treat them as cattle and beasts of burden with little value beyond their capacity for menial labor. Especially talented and intelligent humans are promoted to the rank of samurai but this practice has ceased since Tokugawa’s rebellion. The Emperor has exterminated every human samurai clan since then and forbidden the rise of any human above the rank of ashigaru, the lowly foot soldier. The Imperial Elves wage war frequently against the Lizard-folk of the Dragon Empire, and relations between the two races are best described as bitter hatred at best. An Imperial Elf will frequently attack a Lizard-folk on sight and vice-versa. It is anathema for an elf to display any signs of affection for an orc or human beyond those usually extended to favored household pets. The most famous scandal was the romance between a human woman and the noble Senjuro Yagyu, which resulted in the birth of the half-man named Magatsu Yagyu who would later prove to be the Empire’s savior.

Dark Elves: Dark Elves hate everything and everyone but they prefer to associate with humans for they seem to be the most susceptible to the Anarchist’s corrupting influence. They particularly hate the Imperial Elves and will do anything to hurt them even if they are killed in the process. Of course, they have no objections to painfully killing anyone they come across just for the sheer pleasure of it.

Elven lands:

The High Elves dwell within their city Quelan’ti’lael, a wondrous place of magically constructed architectural structures of glass and wood surrounded by the High Forest, an enchanted wood through which no human or orc has ever passed through safely before. Quelan’ti’lael is ruled by the Matriarch, an elf so ancient that she is thought to have been around since the days of the Chaos Wars, the conflict that separated the elven race. Elves spend their days in pursuit of art, beauty and music, forbidden any form of violence unless they become Rangers. The arcane arts are also forbidden to the High Elves. Any elf that is caught trying to delve into the dark secrets of wizardry or sorcery is executed by the Rangers. The same fate applies to any elf that commits a single act of violence unless he or she is a Ranger. The late chancellor of Gryloas, Kalvairn Levensrau was a renegade High Elf. He stole tomes of arcane knowledge from the Matriarch’s personal library, murdered his family with a dagger while they stood there unable to resist when they discovered his crimes and slit the throat of his Ranger lover when she tried to capture him. He was rescued by an agent of the Demon King but died subsequently defending the Demon King from an Archon.

The Imperial Elves are ruled by their Emperor in a feudal government, with daimyo ruling their respective fiefs and reporting to the Emperor. Unlike the High Elves, martial pursuits are strongly encouraged amongst the Imperial Elves. Many Imperial Elves are samurai and those that show an affinity for the arcane arts are sent off to the School of Elemental Mastery to become shugenjas in the service of the Empire. A secret police known as the Kage-Yagyu enforce the Emperor’s will behind the shadows.

The Dark Elves have no native lands. They are a disparate band of stragglers wandering around everywhere since their defeat at the hands of the Imperial Elves.

Language: The elves speak a fluid, musical and beautiful language that they are highly protective about. Imperial Elves have been known to fly into a murderous rage upon hearing a human mangle the words of their language and High Elves never use it in the presence of other races. Dark Elves tend to flaunt and mangle their own native language, loathing it as much as they loathe themselves and everything else.

Names: The High Elves tend to name themselves after the elements or sights of nature, frequently combining the two. Moonflower, Starsong and Heartblossom are very common names amongst the High Elves. The Imperial Elves are very particular about their names and their titles that denote their lineage from their ancestors that fought in the Chaos Wars. The Yagyu clan is an example, though it has fallen into decline and obscurity since the death of its patriarch and the disappearance of its heir. The Dark Elves have abandoned their surnames or clan names and frequently adopt human or orcish names.

Adventurers: Elves seldom adventure. High elves seen outside of their city are always Rangers, unless they are renegades on the run. Imperial Elves are mostly samurai, attended to by a host of human and orc retainers and Dark Elves are mostly sorcerers, monks or fighters.

Elven Racial Traits:
High and Imperial Elves: As in PHB, except that the favored class for the High elf is the Ranger and that for the Imperial Elf is the samurai.

Dark Elves: As in MM, with the addition of Strength +1, Wisdom –2. They have all the abilities listed in the MM as well as the ECL but they may choose any class as a favored class except for Ranger.

 

A map would be nice.

On Dark Elves, of course you mean Strength +2, Wisdom -2.

 

Of course! Stupid typo.

Dark Elves: +2 Str, -2 Wisdom.

Edit:

Here's more! Next up, the Lizardfolk and Grundians! Then I'll start on the classes!

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Half-elves: A hybrid between the two vastly different races often results in a stunted, twisted creature that grow to become psychotic and self-destructive as the years go by. Without exception, the most comely of them are always short in comparison to a full-blooded elf or human, even if their limbs are of perfect proportion, which is rare indeed.

Alignments: Half-elves tend towards chaos and evil. A deep sense of self-loathing fills the majority of them and they often wish to lash out and hurt any and all around them. However, one of the greatest heroes to have ever graced the world was a half-elf by the name of Magatsu Yagyu. There were no bounds to his compassion and courage. Imperial scholars have maliciously speculated that his actions were born from a need to overcompensate for the distasteful circumstances of his birth. Those same scholars were found brutally killed in their homes many years after the death of Magatsu Yagyu, however.

Relations: Half-elves are killed at birth amongst the High Elves and treated with deep, condescending pity and disgust by the Imperial Elves. They are grudgingly accepted amongst humans and orcs, though.

Half-elf racial traits: As in PHB.

Orcs:

Physical description: Orcs are bestial looking, green skinned and heavily muscled humanoids. They vary little in appearance no matter where they stay. For all purposes, they are similar to the descriptions in the MM as far as physical aspects are concerned.

Alignments: Orcs tend to chaos and neutrality, being too dull-witted to most of the time to choose between the axis of good and evil. Exceptionally intelligent orcs are not unheard of, however. Such individuals usually rise to positions of great leadership in their orcish communities and their alignments often affect those they lead.

Relations: Orcs are usually ambivalent towards humans, not really knowing how best to regard their overwhelming friendliness. They bear a certain measure of wariness when it comes to dealing with humans though, for humans have a reputation for wiliness and cunning from an orcish viewpoint. Orcs hate elves and usually attack them on sight in the western lands. In the east, they tend to cringe and cower in the presence of an elf as they have been taught from birth that they are little more than worms barely fit to grovel at the feet of a noble elf.

Orcish lands: In the Kingdom of Gryloas, orcs mingle freely with the humans, so the human fiefs can be technically deemed as orcish lands as well, though the Demon King might beg to differ. There are ridges of highland that crisscross the western lands. Fierce orcish tribes dwell upon them, raiding low-lying settlements when they have to and leading a harsh, nomadic existence at other times.

Language: Orcs are fluent in orcish and know a smattering of the Common human tongue, at least enough to communicate with humans. The orcish language is a harsh sounding language consisting of many grunts and snorts. Only an orc, or half-orc can speak it properly. Human throats are often impossible to emphasis certain terms with their vocal cords.

Names: Orcs living amongst the humans tend to adopt human names, though often there is such an assimilation of cultures that the reverse is often true. The highland dwelling orcs usually name themselves after their ancestors or after a certain, distinguishing physical characteristic. Glarg Knifehand is a common name for an orc that has lost his hand and has replaced it with a stump-knife.

Adventurers: Orcs are frequently adventurers, often dragged into the vocation by their human friends without really knowing what is going on. Many of them are warriors or rogues, except for the highland orcs, who are mostly barbarians.

Orcish racial traits: As in MM, with favored class as barbarian.

Half-orcs: A hybrid between a human and an orc frequently results in a good blend of the characteristics of both races. They are similar to the description provided by the PHB as far as physical aspects are concerned.

Alignments: Half-orcs tend to no particular alignment, although it all boils down in what kind of upbringing they receive. In this aspect, they are extremely similar to humans.
Relations: Half-orcs are readily accepted in the western human lands and suffer from no particular form of social stigma amongst the highland orcs. In fact, they are accorded a measure of grudging respect due to the cunning and wits inherited from their human parent, which from an orc’s viewpoint, are formidable indeed.

Racial Traits: As in PHB.

[ September 22, 2003, 05:56: Message edited by: Shura ]

 

Hey shura you wanna finish this topic off please?