Bestial Kinds

Bestials

The Bestial Kinds are those that resemble the animals of the land and air but walk with the sapience of other kinds such as duerthi, aelthi, humans, dragonkin, and the like. Their presence in the world seemed to exist at near the same time that humans did. The Bestial Kinds walk upright like men and have dextrous hands complete with opposable thumbs but keep those characteristics intrinsic to those beasts they resemble. Their legs and feet resemble paws, talons, and haunches adapted to the bipedal movement. Their hands may have features such as pads where palms would be. Their chests and arms are very humanoid with the exception of gliding Kinds such as the Chiropterae that make up the Elakansi culture and the Avians. These latter two examples either have hands, paws, or talons directly attached to wings or serve as wing and hand themselves (see the Ruto of LOZ:BOTW as a meta example). They often are less dextrous at baseline but can train to hold handheld objects others use.

Origins

Bestial Kinds have different origin points. A vast many came from Tarkaria which lies in southern Velas and where many of them live today. Others seemed to have originated in the jungles of southern Xatlaxa such as the Celatls of Celatua. The corvidae and the psittacidae come from an island between the Grush Archipelago and the Nahanguat league of northern Xatlaxa.

Dragonkin

Dragonkin do not count as Bestials. They do not resemble a sentient but non-sapient creature and although they look like reptiles they are actually warmblooded.

Societies

Societies of the Bestials are often dictated by region and cannot be pinned down to having a specific Kind-exclusive society, even in the same regions. The majority of bestials in Tarkaria 0 PR are low tech nomadic tribesmen or agrarian societies spread across the region. However, near the center of the territory is Treia City, the capital of the Tarkarian Union that is a representative Harmonistic city state. It is a cosmopolitan metropolis and one of the largest cities in the world that has fully taken to industrialization and modernization based on the advancements of the Skalovians. Paved city streets, smokestacks, extensive plumbing, and multiple luxury enterprises are found there. They are often at odds with the traditionalists that roam through the grasslands, forests, and steppes that seem them as giving up their culture to resemble the neighboring Thralish that enslave their kind. Celatua in southern Xatlaxa on the other hand is a large empire ruled by panterae and their neighboring nations often find bestial and human on equal standing. Also equal in being enslaved in their wars. The Khululekans are isolationists but have a tight confederation of different Kinds that are dedicated to defending their island. Sylvaras Zelien once visited the island from afar and thought of how cooperation between the Kinds of that island that included avians, mammals, and reptiles as a voluntary cause for survival could be codified in his future work. Bestials are also present as the majority of Shonanite Kinds

The Different types of Bestial Kinds, a List
Note, these names were given either by old Mekkhorian observers of the Kinds or Universal speakers 

Canidae (Wolves and dogs in Tarkaria and Mekkhor, Foxes) 

Cervidae (Deer) 

Aves (General Birds) 

Capriniae (Goats) 

Bovinae (minotaur-esque cows, buffalo, yaks) 

Alligator (forgot name) 

Crocodile 

Lizardmen 

Panterae 

Felinidae

Rodentiae 

Mustelidae (badgers)

Psittacidae

Corvidae 

Aaksi (Turtlemen) 

Philodota (Pangolinmen)

Elakansi (Bat People)

GURPS Species Document containing stats for them

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tTX9vMpcf1dPSp2mwBGB8MGSqhpXaylc9A_5b-o1zQc/edit?usp=sharing

Epithet
Biter and Grazer for carnivorous and herbivorous animal Kinds. Omnivores are often called either. These are often the names for those enslaved. The words became so synonymous with their presence in the nations that used them as forced labor that those Kinds around them and even the Kinds themselves would use them without meaning to demean those that they referred to or addressed.

A Timeline of Feudalism, Materielism, Harmonism, Equitianism, and Tierianism

Epoch 0

Around -20,000 ON

Kinds come out of primitivism or hiding with the flight of the Velassian empire. Most live in tribal societies that are either despotic or are based upon councils.

-5915 ON
Feudalism gains foothold in the Human kingdoms of Central Tys. This occurs due to the major conflicts and changes during the time: the first being Cold Death and the rise of the Pentaphany along with the fall of the Mekkhorsi empire which decentralized Mekkhor from its original systems laid down by the emperor and his archons. This set down major functional changes but the solidification to feudalism does not occur until the First Attack of the Worms. The Worms, giant strange beings with mind and biology altering powers that can make slaves of Kinds and modify their bodies, attacked the Lusmian gate, an underground gate the dwarves of Lusmia kept secure without knowing why it was there until now. The first attack pushes back the Lusmians to the edges of their borders in months. The Lusmians call for help across the world. They draw a force of arms from all over Velas. However, this force of arms came at a cost. The generals leading these armies would swear loyalty to the local kings that called them up in exchange for gaining titles and lands. They would levy warriors including what would become the iconic knight to fight in the kings' wars and at that time face this existential threat. Everything else that comes with Feudalism grew from these events.

-1983 ON

Materielism's first forms begin to sprout up from across the world with the rising mercantile class and increased trade between nations. It is an economic system that in its later consolidated forms that will be written works from authors such as the Ashriqi Rashad Ibn Sahar's The Keys of Prosperity will uphold these ideas as paramount: private ownership of the means, the spurring of competition, the gaining of wealth, innovation, industry, and profit as a means of incentive for business building, labor, and innovation.
-1624 ON
Orcini enacts the Decree Immutable, a set of laws that the king of Vilopoli is beholden to after the once preventable Crowned Famine occurs, which sets precedent for Constitutional Monarchies.
-1378 ON

The Great Unburdening A Xatlan and Velassian intellectual and philosophical movement concerning the nature of the gods, the criticism of justification of power for secular rulers both theocratic and aristocratic, and the kindist worth of individuals came about which revolutionized art, philosophy, and politics. Furthermore came the popularization of reason and rationalism through the movement. Over centuries its values would take an everpresent hold in the nations of Central Tys and the influence it had would increase. One effect was the increased separation of theocratic rule of secular lands with the dissolution of many a bishopric and the removal of temple-owned lands in secular nations. While the power of the gods were easily proven and their existence unquestioned (thus no deistic or atheistic traditions took place), their support for theocratic and aristocratic authority and rule were questioned. The tensions between secular and theocratic rule came to a head in -1332 ON when the high prelate of Alar, Iraticus IV, was assassinated by the Alarian paladin radical Romule Darat who was heard as saying, "Didst Alar remove mine fingers that hath war'd upon a false supplicant? Nay!" This would inspire a rash of similar movements against the high clergy of the Velassian pantheon. A counter-reformation would occur due to this monumental event, and the seeds for deep-seated grudges across centuries would be sown.
-1158 ON

The idea of political system of a representative government based on personal freedoms, private property, free will, rationality, individuality, sovereignty, and autonomy. These ideas are fed by the Great Unburdening of the -1300s and the philosophers, writers, thinkers, and artists that were prominent during that time. This will be known as Harmonism. It will not become gradually popularized until the -300s with the fall of the Zekkhorian Empire. By 0 PR only a tenth of the nations located in Central Tys follow it or at least have a merging of it and older forms of rule such as the Parliamentary system that accompanied the Constitutional Monarchy of Thrale.

-821 ON
Absolutist control of kingdoms and the abolishment of decentralized feudal power occurs across the world. Harmonism as an ideology is suppressed and power belongs to the head of state.

-783

Abolitionism starts as a movement to free slaves from the Zhekkorian empire.

-280 ON

A treatise containing criticisms of Harmonism, Absolutism, and Materielism is written by the Cymrien elf prince Sylvaras Zelien known as the Equitianist Declaration. He proposes a new form of government based upon public ownership of the means of production by workers and the abolishment of the class system, The means use would be organized by workers' councils to ensure their use for the public good. Equitianism promised a risen baseline of quality of life for all. Along with this, all kind-based supremacism was to be cast aside and the proper end of slavery achieved. The leech classes of slavers, materielists, nobility, and landlords would be abolished. The citizens of such a government would strengthen each other by their ability, give to each other by their need, and uphold the collective good. This would be known as Equitianism. This movement would become suppressed and mocked by Harmonists and traditionalists alike as utopian and unfeasible with the inability of peasants and working classes to remove themselves from common selfish concern along with their inability to rule themselves. Along with this, it would promote social mobility for the undeserving and lead to an anarchic welfare state where society would collapse without duty, profit, or competition to spur them on. However, the ideas gained root in very small groups across the nations. Some would remark that the Millers, a group of Thralish agrarians that expounded the use of the world's bounty for the common good and called for a ceasing of land ownership and a reestablishment of common lands of use had already been active.

-98 ON
The Thralish Civil War brings an end to the revitalized Absolutist rule of Thrale and a new form of representative democracy created to combine old traditionalist systems with full Harmonistic elements. This creates a trend that accelerates Harmonism into becoming the new major nation system of the world over the centuries

0 PR

The formation of two Equitianist nations occurs: The Uhlionist Equilibratist State of the Uhlionic Republic, and the Wakunan Zikaezian Equitianist Union of the Wakunan Unity State.

46 PR

With the end of the Great Unchaining, a massive slave rebellion in Thrale, comes the end of slavery.
48 PR
Following the disastrous Gromdalian War waged by the Uhlionic Republic and the Gromdalian Merchant Republic, Equitianists denounce Equilibratism as a failed experiment and bar all Equilibratists from future alliances and actions. This effort against Equilibratism and Uhlionism will be led by Regur Jharnsir, a prominent member of the Equitianist community and dwarven philosopher of Gromdal. However, disregarding the announcement, a great suppression of Equitianist gatherings, rhetoric, literature, and action occurs across the nations of Central Tys. The occupation of Klastte, the disastrous Gromdal War, and the machinations of the Uhlionic premier, Ural Kaitov, are used as justifications to remove equitianists as a legitimate group from the face off the world. The efforts that equitianists made against the institution of slavery are set back by decades by the slave owning gentry's great propagandistic campaigns to make a boogeyman out of the ideology and tie it to the effort of abolition. In short, much like how the enslaved thralls of the Scale Princes would overreach and cause harm to good godsfearing men, so would the enslaved races of bestials that harbour hate against their betters. By proxy, harmonist efforts toward abolition were set back as well and harmonist movements suppressed along with equitianists. The suppression of equitianism would continue with the pariah status that was placed upon the Uhlionic Republic and its relative self-isolation from the global stage until the 300s with the Great War of the Grush Archipelago where its ideas would be revived and percolate. Equilibratism would similarly be redeemed after centuries and Equitianist schools of thought would spread across the world. This would create new tensions between materielist harmonist nations versus equitianist nations and equitianist groups within those materielist nations.

Multiple groups are formed throughout the world as a response to the rising threat of Equitianism to their values and the weaknesses of Harmonism in its inability protecting the supreme kinds of the world along with having inefficient systems of government and a partiality for Materielist concerns over the virtuous. This autocratic ideology will be known as Tierianism.

337 PR
Equtianism and Equilibratism are revived as ideologies and gain in popularity spurring on conflicts across Velas, Xatla, and Aizarin. Tierianism also sees a gradual rise in popularity.

Kah and the GURPS Monk Template

The GURPS Monk Template

120-150 Points
Primary AttributesDX+1 [20]
Secondary AttributesFP+2 [6]
Adv
Ambidexterity [5]
Combat Reflexes [15]
Enhanced Dodge [15]

Innate Attack: Crushing 4 [20]; Melee C,1 [-20%]; Stunning Affliction [+60%]; Limited Use 10 times a day [-10%], Costs (1) Fatigue [-5%]) [13]

Trained by a Master [30]
Skills
Pick One Primary Style for 12
Boxing DX+3, Brawling DX+4, Judo DX+2, Karate DX+2, Sumo Wrestling DX+3, or Wrestling DX+3.
Pick One Weapon Style for 8
Tonfa DX+2,  Staff DX+2, Flail +1 (for nunchaku)
Acute Sense (Pick One) 1 [2], Hiking HT [1], Observation Per+2 [8], Search Per +1 [4], Swimming HT +1 [2], Climbing DX-2 [1],
Disadvantage
Choose One or More Disciplines of Faith Asceticism [-15], Monasticism [-10], Mysticism [-10], Ritualism [-5]

Kah

Kah is the energy given off by life. Unlike magic which uses an outside overlapping force whose energy is pulled into the world, Kah comes from within. The use of Kah can be found in every culture and Kind in Tys. It can serve as an important alternative to magic or even synergize with magic. The limitation of Kah is the massive amount of concentration to keep using it for extended periods of time. Many Kah users have been trained by masters dedicated to the art who have different strictures, rules, and methodologies in using Kah consistently. To keep focus and keep the power, sometimes an ascetic life is needed, or strict ritualism, or the focus of pain, or an overwhelming will to keep it. There is no superior form and each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Kah is not only used by monks, however. Its power can be imbued in objects to make them supernaturally more than what they already were. The Alarian Order uses Kah, even though they mistake it as a blessing from Alar, to imbue their armor with bulletproof toughness and imbue certain artifacts with supernatural properties such as chalices that ward flames or gauntlets that can break stone fortifications. The Wakunansi imbue Kah into icons and tools to make those objects have supernatural qualities like causing rain, building spontaneous tunnels, or protection in combat.
The nations of the world often value expert Kah users and even a few have institutions such as the Ess'Wunn Order of monks in Wakunan whose monks serve the State and the people. The old regime of Skalovia used monks of the Cult of Gor to act as assassins and proselytizers. Many agencies related to spycraft and magic value Kah users as their abilities allow them to excel in certain ways the mundane and the magically studied or gifted cannot. Kah is often used as an antimagical force because its practitioners can inwardly prevent magic users from accessing the energy by filling the focus points one uses magic with such as the mind, an instrument, the blood, or a tool with Kah that counteracts the magic's focus.
Kah is the opposite of Shi, which is the force that gives rise to necromantic energies. Interestingly, it is not antagonistic toward Wo-ehl, which is a form of energy given by the Woehltriv or devils and Woehltan or demons. Its antimagical properties also make Kah users very valuable in fighting monsters as their magical nature and the protections they receive from it.

Kah as an Institution Across the World

The prevalence takes multiple forms in different societies. Due to the difficulty of using it to the point of pragmatism, its users are technically a class of elites that have something the majority do not, and that majority includes the ruling classes. Often, how popular kah is in a region and the behaviors that region's populace has to it often depends on whether a king, queen, council, parliament, or otherwise favors it or not. Along with this, its form in society also depends on how they wish to treat it. It may have a laissez-faire attitude applied to it and it may be somewhat formalized in clubs and schools including martial arts establishments and special kah pugilist clubs. It may be standardized and be ordered into organizations that serve rulers directly. It may be banned entirely, especially in those lands where magic-users have a vested interest in removing a power that hurts their ability. In these places, it may be an underground practice kept alive by the spirit of tradition along with a possible revolutionary sentiment. 

Regardless, one common feature kah has across the lands is that true masters that can teach one how to use it number in the few. Those dedicated to its practice will travel hundreds of miles and leagues to find these masters and be taught. This is where those places with institutionalized kah use such as Wakunan have an advantage over others by its increased availability and mutual protection from the state. The masters of Ess'Wunn kah use are also heavily aligned with the Wakunansi equitianist government and are invested in the peace of the land. Those holding harmonist views may be allowed within but those of nations or groups that hold enmity against the ideology may be turned away. Tierians are turned away entirely. Hence why kah-use pugilist clubs in Thrale and the masters that run them are seen as very valuable and are funded by the harmonist materielists of Thrale and elsewhere.

One could attempt to learn how to use Kah on one's own. It would be much, much more difficult. It is doable. 

GURPS

Self Teaching In mechanical terms, a self-taught kah user would have to spend 60 character points to be self-taught. However, in making one's own style by necessity, techniques are lowered by two difficulties to learn which can pay for itself. Along with this, those talents and skills related to kah (chi/ki in GURPS terms and specifically those covered under Forceful Chi and Inner Balance in GURPS Martial Arts) are also lowered by two difficulties (to a minimum of easy). 

Kah Powers using GURPS

Kah Powers are techniques, spells, powers, and advantages one may take in ROF. They may be taken only after obtaining the Trained by a Master advantage. They cannot be used by vampires, ghouls, wights, ghosts, or any creature that does not breathe and/or uses shi. A character must spend the full character points for each.

Requirements Trained by a Master and at least one Discipline of Faith

Advantages one can take with TbaM that are Kah powers

Altered Time Rate (Only once every other advantage and technique is taken)

*Kah Empowered Limbs* - Reflavored Claws (Representing kah strengthening the hand rather than turning one's hand into a claw.)

Damage Resistance (Pick one)

Enhanced Time Sense

Innate Attacks (Choose from the Martial Arts book or make one's own. In MA there is: Breath of a Dragon, Flying Fists, Ghost Knife, Hand of Death, Mega Kiai, Soul Blast)
Regeneration

Resistance to Kah attacks (Ki/Chi by GURPS terms)
Talent: Forceful Chi, Inner Balance

The cinematic abilities that need Trained by a Master as a prerequisite. One cannot take them without it.

Techniques

All cinematic and non-cinematic techniques are available as possible choices to take.

Spells

Kah users can also buy and use the Awaken, Grace, Lend Energy, Lend Vitality, Might, Recover Energy, Truthsayer, Vigor, Wisdom spells as reflavored powers from GURPS Magic. No prerequisites required.

Adventure Hooks

Flashpoints

These are hooks based in major events in the history of the world that would make interesting scenarios to play in. GMs and players can use these hooks to either make history play out as it does in the assumed epochs or change the face of the world for good and strike out their own fate. Some of these will have modules designed for them but they are also good starting places for self-made adventures in the Riddle of Flame setting.

Epoch 1
Nothing Ever Stays Dead The dead rise from the sea in legion to march on Skalovia. You must transport one of the greatest minds of the Epoch of Flame to Fort Geria, the greatest bulwark against them, or risk losing the man who can help free millions again. It is you, what you have on your back, and five hundred miles on foot to the fort with the undead and worst creatures of the night clawing behind you. Survive.
Players in this scenario have a number of choices:
1) They could play the survival scenario straight and lead their ward to the military fort so his designs could save the world from unending death.

2) They could attempt to steal him away and force him to work for their masters or themselves. Magics and bedevilment can break any man.

3) They could be selfish and try to escape alone and earn the ire of a rising military superpower. That nation could or could not be dead, however.

4) They could be evil and give the man over to the Undead Lords and Dracoliches that would see him die and then fight in a campaign to snuff out the living in preparation to fight a greater threat.

Secret (Drag over to see, GMs only) They could have been cornered by the raised corpse of the sire of a hero of the Skalovian Revolution and cursed with a brand to follow a simple command: In 14 days, place their hand upon the sun that sundered their rightful rule over vermin or die. The effect this act will have is a mystery. Either carry the will out of the betrayed, or find a cure among the magicians of the State.
Variable Scenario with this: The opening act follows the escape of the characters from a doomed port. Any who fall during this can still yet live but be branded to carry out this mission.

Break My Chains You are a subhuman bestial. Raised to be chattel in the land of Thrale. Kicked in the dirt. No more. Steal your dignity back from the end of a gun. Kill the slavers, the overseers, and the masters. Be chased by the law and outwit them. Cause so much damage that the institution of slavery is more trouble then its worth and free millions from its yoke.

Players in this scenario have a number of choices:
1) Play the pacifistic route and lead slaves in escape from the nation.

2) Make the hypocrites burn and free your downtrodden Kinds with the raiding of plantations.

3) Receive help, resources, and manpower from outside sources, such as the bestials from the homes of Tarkaria, the Urkain Kingdom of Ruk who would see a rising power humbled, the spy agencies of Skalovia and Wakunan who would work in secret to break the chains of the workers of the world and strike a blow at a rival, the knights of Alaria whose vendetta against the Thralish goes back centuries.

4) Track your progress through the millions of Drosch spent to destroy your uppity insurrection.
5) Possibly deal with supernatural forces to gain an edge at a terrible price.

Only Man You are a rebel. You are a templar prefect. You are a spy. You are an opportunist. You are an idealist. It is you and an archipelago on fire in the fires of revolution. Take part in the second great uprising of the Epoch of Flame, the Chuayco Dominion Overturn. Help, hinder, crush, save, or profit off of the revolution. Fight theocrats and their summoned angyls from their legalistic gods. Kill the blasphemous rabble and root out their cells to cement the dominion of your god. Help the rebellion or hinder it in subterfuge in shadowy methods away from the light. Profit off of the war by going around the island selling weapons and get caught in more than you bargained for. Fight for the freedom of the people and influence the future they will have but be cautious as the revolution is not united and many different agendas are at play.

Players in this scenario have a number of choices:
1) Fight in the revolution as guerillas, saboteurs, assassins or on the front lines on the side of the rebel groups or the holy dominion.

2) Help steer the factions of the war by persuasion, trickery, subterfuge, diplomacy, negotiation, and by pure economiics. Play them against each other.
3) Beseech the nations of the world to help in your cause. Many would see the archipelago nation that takes massive tarriffs from their trade be split asunder.

4) Carve out your own kingdom, work to create a harmonist republic, a people's equitianist state, a pirate kingdom, or your own religious dominion.

5) Get caught between forces of ideology and survive or be blown asunder.

The Right of Kings and Man You are a kingsman. You are a rebel. You are a mercenary. You are a pure human. You are an ex-slave. You are an opportunist. You fight for justice. You fight for the people. You fight for pay. The Thralish revolution has come. The old Kingdom of Thrale and its many indignities and injustices is to come at an end. This is a war between individual heroes and the people who follow them. Between old regimes and new warlords. Between countrymen. Between master and enslaved. Will you fight for the stability of the old regime which you have only ever known? Will you fight for a new commonwealth that carries with it the voice of the people? Will you fight for gold and glory and meet old enemies and make new ones? Create the new Thrale from the ashes of the old. Will you follow history and make a new powerful republic, or carve out your own fate and change the course of time?

Players in this scenario have a number of choices:

1) Fight on the front lines on multiple fronts with the Royal Thralish Army or the New Thralish Union Army.

2) Fight a secret war for the rebels or for foreign forces or even purely malevolent ones.

3) Beseech help from the outside.

4) Keep the Union unified, or carve out your own kingdom, republic, or state.

5) Decide how to approach the Elakansi that have seen their homes in Mount Thrake conquered in the past few decades. Will they be allies or be swept away in the rest of history.
Epoch 2
The Great Archipelago War
Epoch 3

Thematic Modules

These hooks are based on the smaller stories of the world that still hold within them great repercussion for the kinds within. Rather than taking place within a range of time, they are able to be played within any epoch in any year. These are wars beneath history's gaze but those that write history exist due to the safety granted to them by sacrifice, manipulation, deceit, or blood.

The Unseen Guardians You are a Lusmian. You are a Fleshsworn. You are a defender of the peoples on Tys. You are of the rightful heirs of the planet. You fight in an alliance with benevolent necromancers, dwarven engineers, and mercenaries. You control the minds of biothralls and monsters as a malevolent lieutenant intelligence. Will you stay the course and drive back the entities of the deeps, breakthrough and conquer the topside for the great worm, or perhaps find your own path that could lead you to change sides or find your own way. The War in the Deeps begins again in the Epoch of Flame.

Players in this scenario have a number of choices:

1) Serve as paladins under the exemplars under the watchful eyes of the ancestor spirits, serve as mercenary adventurers biting off more than they could chew, or fight a Fleshsworn of the great worms and lead your forces in a cunning campaign to break to topside.

2) Call for help from the nations of the world and receive it in the form of unique soldiery, cutting edge mundane technology and magitek, and ancient and new magicks.

3) Serve on the front lines as a battlefield commander, a lowly soldier, or a special class of militant.

4) Root out the Worm-Beguiled in Lusmia and on Tys, those that work for the forces of the deeps with or without their knowledge.

5) Actively sabotage the effort to destroy the nations of Lusmia, Kesst, Liresku, and Klastte.

Dwell Within Twilight You are a monster hunter. You are a simple frontiersman. You are an unfortunate expedition member. You are an explorer. You are the monster. You hunt the creatures of the night under the noses of kings and rulers. You live a quiet life that is to become perilous. You are a simple soldier seeing monsters beyond his paygrade. You are a thrill-seeker whose thrills have turned to horror. You are the apex predator, the top of the foodchain, and no Kinds nor gods can stop you. Join hunter leagues or strike out as a small group to hunt the beasts that lurk in the shadows. Escape with your life from death and live to tell the tale. Defend your brothers in arms against creatures malevolent. Kill, slaughter, feast, and rule the world in primality as it ought to be. Brave men and monsters stalk the night. Whom do you hunt?
Players in this type of scenario have a number of choices:
1) Hunt beasts of the night for profit, for glory, for vengeance, for duty, for piety, for sheer primacy or hunt those that would shroud the world in the nonsense of civilization and show them the heart and soul of every being.
2) Flee for your life from threats you cannot handle and hide and using cunning and instinct to survive the day. Hunt down soft prey whose blood will stain your gullet tonight and match their unnecessary difficulties.
3) Make a living off of monster parts and bounties and forge alliances and friendships with those victims and the threatened, or make pacts with forces that see you as nothing but wild animals and indulge their pretension and become stronger by your experiences and scars.
4) Follow simple paths and seemingly cut and dry beasts and attacks and find your way into their dens and legions and realize the threat you face is greater than you imagined. Build up your place in the hierarchy of blood and strength and subdue other monsters to serving you and unleash your nightmarish hordes against those deluded in their false securities.



Truth in Cackles and Prayers You are a witch-finder. You are a cultist. You are a hapless victim. You are a charlatan opportunist. You hunt those in the service of the lords of the Tithe Realms for piety, revenge, duty, and profit. You remake the world in your master's image or yours for power, youth, wealth, and immortality. You live and work and are swept up in horrid threats to the soul. You care not for prayers of self-righteous zealots nor malefic chants of pretentious lunatics but will sell weapons, wares, and use them to your advantage at the possible cost of your soul. There is a dark ongoing war beneath the marching soldiers and war machines of the greater nations. Of purity and damnation. Of faith and of horrid truth. Of strong wills and iron hearts. Will you serve the light, cast your soul in the great dice game of the devils, survive another day, or stay just close enough to the edge to prosper but not fall? In the Devils Danse, you carve your own way.
Players in this type of scenario have a number of choices.
1) Play as those who hunt devil worshippers and destroy their works or play as the enlightened who see the truth of the world that fight against the ignorant self-righteous prudes.
2) Stumble into and stop plots by devil and demon worshipper alike or work with great cabals and your patrons to bring the world to your master's heel or your own.
3) Smite those who would raise infernal apostles in the name of the gods with the help of their angyl avatars or smash down the hypocrites and false believers and their pitiful summons with apostles crafted by your masters.
4) Stop the world from becoming infested in mind and soul before it's too late or seize powers in shadows or in pure physicality to shape the world in your image.

Disavowment You are a spy. You are an intelligence gatherer, saboteur, thief, assassin. You are either for hire or claim loyalty to a person, group, or nation. You are silent and subtle, loud and explosive, charming and silver-tongued, intimidating and bloody-fisted, loyal and true, reluctant and forced, idealistic, reasonable, pragmatic, extreme. You have naught but your cunning and a steady weapon hand, the backing of the world's most powerful nations, a personal contact network that gives you just enough, the black market and its seedy dealers. Fight the invisible war. If you lose, you never existed.
1) Infiltrate and act in foreign or hostile nations using quick wits, ingenuity, invention, and your gun, blade, or fist.
2) Root out enemy agents, destroy them outright or cause them to stumble into their graves.
3) Disguise yourself, play your part, wear a million different masks. Lie, seduce, trick, murder, steal, scheme.
4) Use the most advanced gadgets, weapons, and gear of the time along with special unique magitek along with a possible talent for the arcane.
5) Build up a cadre of comrades, a personal contact network, trust no one, be at the leash of a handler, act freely, be loyal, get your own.

Be Gay, Do Crime! You are an officer of the law. You are a criminal. You are a special investigator. You are a high-class assassin. You are a beat cop in way over his head. You are the fall guy who takes the bullets and the jail time. Is criminality an inborn disease in every Kind's soul, a manner of pure greed and vice, or a problem due to societal ills? The question is almost moot in the heat of the moment and the bang of guns and most bobbies and scoundrels don't care to or don't ask that question. You are looking for a score to set you for life and to be honest sometimes cops are about as honest as criminals and intentions of both don't vary that far from each other. Are you honest, pragmatic, or corrupt as the face or hand of the law? Are you honorable, pragmatic, or ruthless as a criminal?
Or, go down the middle and be vigilantes. Are you a violent man with a gun and no impulse control, a masked avenger with ethics (that are murderous to pacifistic), a guy in a t-shirt and a symbol carrying heavy weaponry, or a truly heroic person looking to stand up for his fellow kinds outside of the law.
Choose.
1) Do crimes and make big money or stop crimes (and possibly take the money anyway.)
2) Bust heads of no-good lowlifes and meddling coppers alike.
3) Play honest and by the book, go outside the law as a cowboy cop, or fall to greed and be like any other thug just with the protection of a badge. Only steal from those that can afford the loss, forget about morals and get your own, or gleefully kill and murder your way to riches.
4) Infiltrate syndicates and legal organizations alike, gain their trust and secure yourself influence, or root out corruption and treasonous scumbags.
5) Act for duty, honor, tradition, legacy, greed, avarice, hedonism, or pure chaos on all sides.

[11:57 AM]

A Sample of The Laws of the Nations

Epoch 1

Note: Restriction of Movement refers to the ability to leave villages, townships, and cities alongside the ability to change habitation. It also refers to the ability to leave nation borders.
Note: These laws are are a survey of laws one might brush up on and are not comprehensive. Along with their use in-game, they also show the differences in law between governments that follow Equilibratism, Democratic Equitianism, Harmonism, Totalitarian Theocracy, and a much less awful Theocracy. Except for Thrale's slave laws, any of these could be applied to a similar nation.

The Uhlionic Republic - Uhlionist Law

• Innocent Until Proven Guilty
• "The Law of the Commons"
• Theft incurs 2 weeks of community labor alongside a return of items stolen or an equal value paid back to the victim in Rugels and mandatory rehabilitation sessions with a Union Councilor three times a week for four weeks including the original 2 of labor. Freedom of movement is restricted until the conditions are completed and for one more month after.
• Murder incurs 20-100 years of removal dependent on Kind lifespan and placement into a rehabilitative work camp. They are to perform hard labor along with seeing a rehabilitation counselor once weekly. Parole opportunities in 5 years.
• Freedom of Movement for Mages Mages must register with the Magicks Institute upon entry into the nation or proof of ability and report to an Institute agent every week. Failure to do so will lead to deportation for non-URES citizens and rehabilitative sessions with an Institute Agent every weekday for three months.
• Charm Spell w/o Consent Summary Execution of offending magician under confirmation of victimhood by a Kvoretz Equalizer agent.
• Provos may use this as a last resort under sanctioning by a higher Kvoretz councilor.
• Proscribed Items Tierian Manuscripts, Devil Worship Manuals
• Landlords No
• Squatters Rights The Right to Housing dictated by the Law of the Commons shall not be infringed upon and those that have left a domicile or any other habitation empty and have another home cannot remove new settlers but will have their private possessions returned and the possibility of being paid reparations by the new squatters on a set basis under the eye of a council court. If the habitation is the only one the old owner had they can either request a shared habitation, a council operated process of a compromise or gradual move out of the current squatters and their ability to be homed in a transition home for as long as it takes for them to find a new one, or the original owner may pursue the transition home option and be found or choose a new uninhabited space.
• Markets are to be kept to specified zones that may be expanded or minimized.
• Public Ownership of the Means vs Private Ownership of the Means Refers to those industries that generate the production of raw materials, facilities, machinery, tools, and services. Hospitals, housing, prisons, civil services including power, water, agriculture, sewage, and heat; research, and war material producing locations are to be Publically owned, controlled, and regulated. The private business concerned with specialized food services, small scale craftwork (meaning involving less than 20 citizens), theatre, recreation, and the like are allowed but are to be supervised by the State and will follow the Law of the Commons including but not limited to the restrictions, regulations, safety, and quality controls set forth by the State.
• Premiership Lifetime appointment by members of the Apparat.
• Old Skalovian Hierarchies With the founding of the State, the descending hierarchical tiers of dragon, dragonborn, and then kobold and otherKind are banned. Violation will incur imprisonment, rehabilitation, or deportation dependent upon the severity of practice.
• Discrimination based on Kind hierarchy Banned by pain of sentencing to gulag.

Wakunan - Zikaezian Law

• Innocent Until Proven Guilty
• "The Law of the Commons"
• Theft incurs 2 weeks of community labor alongside a return of items stolen or an equal value paid back to the victim in Rugels and mandatory rehabilitation sessions with a Union Councilor three times a week for four weeks including the original 2 of labor.
• Murder incurs 20-100 years of removal dependent on Kind Lifespan and placement into a rehabilitative work camp. They are to perform hard labor along with seeing a rehabilitation counselor once weekly. Parole opportunities in 5 years.
• Freedom of Movement for Mages Mages must register with the Magical User Registry upon entry or when a citizen comes of adult age and if seeking habitation in Wakunan report status and address every year. Failure to do so will lead to forced registration for non-citizens and 
• Charm Spell w/o Consent Five years of community labor alongside reparations paid to the victim in value of how much damage was caused by the victim put under the spell. Restriction of movement for ten years.
• Proscribed Items Tierian Manuscripts, Devil Worship Manuals
• Landlords No
• Squatters Rights The Right to Housing dictated by the law of the Commons shall not be infringed upon and those that have left a domicile or any other habitation empty and have another home cannot remove new settlers but will have their private property returned and the possibility of being paid reparations by the new squatters on a set basis under the eye of a council court. If the habitation is the only one the old owner possesses they can either request a shared habitation, a council operated process of a compromise or gradual move out of the current squatters and their ability to be homed in a transition home for as long as it takes for them to find a new one, or the original owner may pursue the transition home option and be found or choose a new uninhabited space.
• Markets Markets are to be kept to specified zones that may be expanded or minimized.
• Public Ownership of the Means vs Private Ownership of the Means Refers to those industries that generate the production of raw materials, facilities, machinery, tools, and services. Hospitals, housing, prisons, civil services including power, water, agriculture, sewage, and heat; research, and war material producing locations are to be Publically owned by the State and controlled and regulated. The private business concerned with specialized food services, small scale craftwork (meaning involving less than 20 citizens), theatre, recreation, and the like are allowed but are to be supervised by the State and will follow the Law of the Commons including but not limited to the restrictions, regulations, safety, and quality controls set forth by the State.
• Premiership Direct voting in democratic elections across the nation shall decide the premier in a pure popular vote. They have 5 year terms with term limits of 4.
• Use of Historical Wakunansi Harems and Gender Hierarchy The historical use of matriarchical harems and the assignment of a hierarchy based on gender and selection is forever banned. Female matriarchs as a role are banned. Partriarch harems are banned. Female and male gnolls may not claim superiority in a civil union both in monogamous and polygamous houses. In any civil union with multiple partners, each member shall be treated with equal value regardless of gender. Any violations of this law will have the offenders penalized by imprisonment, be rehabilitated, and possibly have their civil union revoked if found necessary based on factors unique to each situation of offenders.
• Discrimination based on Kind hierarchy Banned by sentencing to rehabilitation center.

Thrale - Old Thralish Law

• Innocent Until Proven Guilty
• Criminal and Civil Law
• Theft Murder incurs three months of prison time or a fine of $1000-$100,000,000 in Drosch to the local courthouse dependent on value stolen.
• Murder Murder incurs lifetime sentence and imprisonment with the possibility of the death sentence based on the degree of murder. Parole opportunities in 25 years.
• Charm Spell w/o Consent Four months of jail time alongside a fine of 10,000 Drosch.
• Aiding Slave Escapes or Unruliness Damages paid to master of slave in equal value to what was lost including dead slaves.
• Proscribed Items Devil Worship Manuals
• Owner's Rights Any squatters are to be treated as invaders into private property and will be issued a warning and then forcibly removed if they do not heed that warning.
• Markets Markets may be established anywhere.
• Public Ownership of the Means vs Private Ownership of the Means Public ownership only extends to the civil services found in the courthouse, mayorship, governorship, and chancellorship. Public ownership, meaning government-run, can be established but it is discouraged and is not to replace private ownership. Private ownership of means is free for all to pursue.
• Supreme Chancellorship Representative voting in democratic elections for those in ownership of property shall decide the Supreme Chancellor. They have a 5-year term with term limits of 3.

Prythian Dominion Law

• Guilty of Sin
• Canon Law
• Theft One Hand removed.
• Murder Execution
• Charm Spell w/o Consent Execution
• Worshipping False Gods Public Execution
• Enslavement Attempts or Human Trafficking Slavers and traffickers shall be executed and the cargo naturalized.
• Inspiring Blasphemy, Engaging in Blasphemy, Going against the Dominion Public Execution
• Proscribed Items Equitianist Literature, Harmonist Literature, Non-Prythian Religious texts, Devil Worship Manuals, Blasphemous Weapons including Firearms, and all media related to the described.
• Congregant Law Supplicants of the Dominion are not allowed to change domiciles unless under the order of the Dominion.

Sothe Palatinate Law

• The Eyes of Death are Upon You Cleric-created Zones of Truths shall be established in the courtroom and there shall be no presupposition of guilty or innocent, only degrees.
• Law of Saint Toruk, Chosen of Prythe
• Theft Confession, an act of contrition, and an act of reconciliation.
• Murder Confession, an act of contrition, and possibly an act of reconciliation dependent upon the degree of the murder. Sothe's beloved (Liestra) asks not for the murder of her chosen. There are times the eye of spring must be closed and the eye of winter opened.
• Freedom of Movement for Mages As by Saint Bromae's Epiphany of Innocence for Magicks in -7345 ON, mages shall have unrestricted movement in the Palatinate.
• Charm Spell w/o Consent Confession, an act of contrition, and an act of reconciliation.
• Landlords The high priests have divided the land into multiple tithings to be administered to and cared for.

The Grush Archipelago: The Homeland of the Urkain

Grush Isles 35 PR

The Isles

The Grush isles are home to the eponymous Urkain, the taller, tusked, dour-tone people of the archipelago. The isles are mountainous but generally have a temperate and cold climate which allows for the many forests that have sprouted upon them. The trees are notable for being gigantic and wide, and the forests themselves often easy to get lost in. Rather than being magically protected like the hagswoods of Skalovia or absentmindedly labyrinthine like the Wynde, it seems that the forests are naturally winding mazes of trunk, vine, leaf, and bush. The ground floor is the home of predators and their prey who have to equal killing ability and speed respectively with an animalistic cunning to survive. Indeed, were Urkain animals introduced to another environment, the invasive species may overrun the native ecology or at least dine so much that they die from their gluttony. Along with this, solitary chameleonic beasts often excel but their camouflage come at the expense of pure killing power that the pack beasts of the forests have. It has been argued whether these forests are natural or not. The Urkain isles have some of the oldest ruins in the world. Older than the Velassian Elvish empire. 

While the forests seem to not be purposefully magical, that does not mean that a manner of faerie creature and fiends in dark shadows do not lie within it. Proof of this comes from an Urkain water Djiinari tribe whose features are brighter than their neighbors. The Urkain have been mainly on their archipelago for many millenia on purpose yet seem to have a very tolerant nature towards outsiders once inside their borders. It is wondered if the Urkain are not the first and last form of their Kind as there have been references to different groups in the ancient histories of Velas that resembled them in parts. It is even theorized they may be some manner of human changed in some way, or possibly elf. While they are tolerant, they tend to not have racial tribalism but rather a communal insularity that has developed over the years. They like trade and do not discriminate based on Kind, but rather the social groupings that tend to transcend class and wealth. This may be the reason they became agreeable to the Council system imposed upon them by their Uhlionic occupiers in the 4th century PR. 

The Scourers 

The Urkain archipelago came to prominence with the rise of the Twelve Baronies. They had been known for slightly longer beforehand due to the almost cultural institution of the Scourers, or Nuaragha in Urkain. The Scourers are pirates and brigands that have operated around the seas of Velasia and Xatlaxa for at least as far back as the dissolution of the Mekkhor Empire with the account given to the Tragedie of the Lunavesta, a naval cog merchant ship from the Empire of Mekkhor making a long and perilous journey between Velas and Xatla. It was written, "Fiends of verdant hue and tusked countenances had ripped asunder the chests of the lower hold after keeping the nauarch at point by claymore. Speaking a strange and guttural language, the crew still understood the threat of death and dropped themselves into the sea."  This was among multiple accounts that led future Velassian traders to risk heavy tariffs by traveling through the Dai Empire's waters around Liresku. As said before, Scourers seem to have an odd place in Grush history. They are criminals, even under the law of the Twelve Baronies, but are tolerated to land and live on the lands of the Baronies for a few reasons. The Scourers' treasures from their raiding often pass from the hand of brigand to barkeep and then barkeep to a village elder and then elder to the baron. They were good for business. Along with this, they created a heroic nature to them that was similar to the adventuring companies of Velas. Legends, stories, tomes, and the spoken word spread their mythical status among the Urkain populace. The truth of the matter of them being the scourge of the seas was known by the Barons who often differed in attitude to them. They were split in number by if they wanted to actively root them out, stay indifferent to them in order to profit off loot exchanging hands, or actively help them. They were also often very well armed with good Urkain steel from the isles which deterred the tribes away from them along with the Scourer's deep belief in blood vengeance. 

The Wealth of the Isles

The isles have some of the largest deposits of good quality wrought steel among other materials including coal, copper, tin, and others including pyrinium found in the second epoch. It was not clear what this was for, although the future would hold it as one of the most valuable fuels in the world.

The Sea around the Archipelago, the Nua

The Twelve Baronies' absence on the sea when the kingdoms of Velasia and Xatlaxa often had their colors fly over the deep blue waves is explained for a few reasons. One, the baronies were often perilous to travel through due to the sea storms that occur around it. These storms would periodically become great hurricanes every few years. The isles themselves benefitted greatly from the rain of lesser torrents on the land, which watered the crops planted in the isles' very high-quality soil. Two, while the Nuaragha were known as sailors, their ships were often the size of Triremes that required much of its space for masses of rowers. The Baronies held similar ships of greater stature but often the larger one's ships are the more likely even in their buoyancy they would impale themselves and break upon the rocks of the archipelago's outer shorelines. The archipelago was formed from a series of volcanoes that indeed continue spewing but lack the great spouts of lava that flow down their sides. The magma continues spewing, but underneath the waves in multiple locations at a gradual pace that greatly contributed to the shallow and rocky nature of the outer shorelines. In the 6th century, it will be found that the earth beneath the waves seemed to have been full of astral material like the broken masses of many stars. It is possible that a similar shower that gave Skalovia its features and the valued hearthstones that came out of it rained upon the seas and indeed struck beneath the sea which caused two things. One, the broken parts of stars became embedded into the ground. Two, a series of impacts may have pierced so strong and deep that the veins that fed the volcanoes created new mini volcano vents in the ocean which contributed to the relatively shallow nature of the shores around the archipelago. Hearthstone-like material was found in the isles but rather than using its life-saving warmth the denizens of Grush that live in a warmer climate use the material for legendary metal creations. The Prime Temple of the Twin Gods has four fixtures of hearthstones serving as the eyes of the gods Dhaegoth and Vhaegoth. 

Dhaegoth and Vhaegoth

It may come to a surprise that one would be mistaken in thinking the Twins were Urkain gods. They seem to be worshipped by a majority of urkain, their depictions and texts often fall in line with urkain values and they are usually associated with them. However, through archeological research in the 5th century, it seems as though the Twins had existed for longer than the urkain's presence on the isles. Archaeological dig sites have shown primitive iconography that depicts different figures bowing to the theological figures. It has even been brought up that the Twins may actually be an amalgamation of Liestra, Astres, and Alar passed on by missionaries from the ancient missionaries of the Five that survived their travels over the sea despite the Nua Ragha. However, the prelates and their clerics deny this claiming that if they were then they would have heard their gods say they were. This is still in dispute but involves a secret theological theory of deific aspects that is kept hidden from the world and even in the most privileged of circles it's still not known. In practicality, they are their own unique gods. Vhaegoth represents craftsmanship, loyalty, perseverance, and peace while Dhaegoth represents self-sacrifice, duty, order, and valor. The Twins are called such as they look exactly like each other according to theological text and were born when the primordial elements of the sky struck the isles and from one element came two. In general, they are kind, benevolent, and protective gods. Their temples are often charitable and most medical knowledge is vested in the clerics of the Twins and their acolytes whom do not need power to practice. Apothecaries are often founded or supported by the temples and keep grand amounts of knowledge on the different varied herbs of the islands that have multiple uses including medicinal ones. Of interest is a form of the wilt herb that also grows in Wakunan. Both species of the plant grow in rougher ground. In times of crisis, the temple have been able to summon collossi, avatars of the Twins that stand fifty feet tall and have been used from repelling underground invasions to keeping bulwarks from falling and spreading a flood to the island towns. The temple holds services on the 8th day of their 9 day weeks.

Scourer Sect

The scourers have their own view of the gods that take more malevolent aspects. Vhaegoth is seen as the god of pride, supremacy, stubbornness, relentlessness, and war. Dhaegoth is seen as the god of sacrifice, zeal, chaos, and prowess. Indeed, the scourers have their own cult and clergy but tend to see their worship as more of an active process than one of supplication. Their raiding is worship. The sect also seemingly has different powers and indeed seem to have some power investiture within them, being able to summon strength and their own miracles.

The Nuaragha are not worshipping false gods passing themselves off and claiming to be true ones. Apparently, these grimmer forms exist through proof of the powers of the clerics. Although interestingly to certain theologians, their powers tend to be lesser than the majority sect and while they have their own colossi they are lesser in size and are closer to the angyl and fiend summons of the other temples and of devils respectively.

Culture

Urkain are hardy folk that appreciate both cunning and strength in accord. While most scholarly Urkain are found on the Thakhs, the capital fortress cities from which the barons rule from, there is much folktale lore in the archipelago about cunning tricksters as there is about heroes performing feats of strength. Urkain often disdain gaudy displays of wealth or prestige to the point of rolling their eyes at the flamboyant and vain dramatics of an Orcini opera or another statesman. Pride is an inner thing that is earned and acknowledged rather than worn openly. Even their highest rulers are most often dressed in practical mixtures of fur and armor to signify their station. The gold and jewels that pass into their hands are mere resources for currency. Unless it would have use at a temple of the Twin Gods. The smiths of the Urkain benefit greatly from the abundance of good quality metal on the Grush archipelago in both the expert quality of their wares and the respect they have among their communities. Often Urkain hang items such as expertly crafted swords, practical but daunting sets of armor, and tools hung on the walls of abodes. Fishing culture is large in the Grush archipelago along with shepherding. The mainstay of the Urkain diet is some sort of sea trout with bread and mutton as the odd treat. Sugarcane does not grow well in the isles but is a key ingredient in certain dishes. They will receive a source of sugar by aeroship trade with Skalovia, Thrake, Huatec, and Wakunan began. Being by the sea, sailing, swimming, fishing, and surfing are common activities by the Grush inhabitants Urkain woodwork is also masterful but often relies on gigantic amounts of labor to safely cut the massive trees down and then turn them into a building and crafting material along with providing a guard force for the beasts within. Paper is common among the Urkain and they invented the earliest printer. Aside from writing books and manuscripts, it was useful to hang with messages to give notice. Minimalistic theatre is popular in the archipelago and among expatriates. 

The Twelve Baronies

In ages past, the urkain were in conflict with each other. Tribe and tribe fought over the lands and warlords ruled the day. The different packs of urk had not formed into the communal Roqua that they would base their society around. The original forms of the Nuaragha struck fellow urk long before the quiet mutualistic relationship they have in the future. The formation of the modern Nuaragha may have come from this time from dispersed tribes that reformed on the outskirts of the bodies of lands. Chaos ruled over the islands. Worship of Xyz, the primordial, was widespread and death was at once terrifying and satisfying to deliver. The strongest of the urk thrived during this time and the weak, elderly, and infirm were cast into death. It seemed natural

What first brought the warring tribes together was a combined time of great famine, drought, and plague known as the Veq in Grushite. The Veq killed two-thirds of the population and devastated the lands. There was nothing to steal or war over and the survival-of-the-fittest society that had developed had failed the people in the face of nature which cared not how many scars or heads one could collect.

Over the islands many attempted to find any answer to the possible extinction of the urks. A tribe of blue-skinned urks, shunned by others as mutants, fled from the islands and landed in what is now known as Ruk. Others attempted to beseech the energy of death and took to shi, and others tried to find salvation in anything. 

This is when Dhaegoth and Vhaegoth rose to prominence. The Twins original priests were those that went into the deep ancient ruins that littered portions of the lands, those that were untouched by scavengers. They found within the chiseled lore of the Twin Gods, those righteous siblings that led the precursors of the urks to ascendancy. These priests were also those that organized the tribes into the Roqua, the combined communities that ensured the survival and prosperity of their fellow urk. With the hard work of the priests and the surviving urkain, stability was achieved and hope was kindled. Those that would not let go of the old ways were exiled and forced upon the outskirts would become the Nuaragha. Their original forms were not powerful enough to prey upon the Roqua, having been some of the hardest-hit tribes. So they turned their eyes to Talahvir, and much later shipping lanes between Velas and Xatla.

The Baronies came about from the largest and strongest tribes having their chiefs take upon the mark of the heavy brow, or the Tyrq, and became Tyrqan. Twelve was chosen because it was a holy number of the Twin gods, repeated often within the ruins, and it allowed them to administer to the surrounding roqua and not give any one Tyrq too much power. The word "barony" was given by Mekkhorsi that interpreted the system in a way they understood since they were not supposed to be opposed chiefs, kings, or anything else.

Veq was a natural occurrence upon the land. However, in the proselytizing of the Twins, the priests of Dhaegoth and Vhaegoth described it in the humanoid form of a demon to help the urks understand the nature of the threat to their survival. This, unfortunately, became the final catalyst to form a new woehltan, Veq the Pestilent who takes the form of a patchwork of disease victim body parts. Veq was not created by the urks alone but rather the combined fears of plague actualized. 

 The Undead Menace of the West

One of the first tests of the Twelve Baronies and also the legitimacy of the Twin Gods' chosen clerics was the repulsion of the festering undead from the great cold continent that now holds the Undead Confederation. Liches, vampires, wights, and others saw the archipelago as a fine place to expand that would allow them a great number of subjects to animate to their will with the Veq. The unity of the Twelve Baronies and the roqua allowed them to fight a grueling series of wars against the undead forces. The savagery they had chosen in the past with which to wage war with became replaced with the valor, bravery, and comradery of a new combined host, the Grushrukh, or Gathered Horde. This army was reinforced by the clerics and first paladins of the Twin Gods along with the first Shakh, trained wyrds drawing upon the power of Heka to rain permanent death upon their enemies. This is the time several heroes emerged that sliced through the armies of undead to destroy their animators. Rhond the Heavy, a known heavy drinker and eater that wielded a large club that smashed hundreds of undead. Ghraeln the Boastful, a warrior known for her prideful recountings but could back up her words with her dextrous use of a glaive. Khoss the Sanguine, who was a renowned leader and fought a duel with Vaelen Ghost-Eyes, the right-hand wight and personal bodyguard of the lich leader of the first invasion and won with a fatal wound. His legend would spread like wildfire and he was said to be blessed by the Twins. He was known as the first paladin and is perhaps the first known kind to have gained the power of gods without being given it by a superior cleric. He would become an Anathema and essentially the patron saint of Grush. Those tribes that would become the nuaragha also aided their fellow urk in this time and the surrounding legends around these heroic figures spread to them that fought the undead on the sea

The urkain would repel more invasions over time and gain their particular martial tradition from it. Scale Princes would look upon the invasions and make even those prideful lizards rethink attacking them. Along with this, the most valuable obvious resources of good quality iron and timbre were unneeded by those that made their hoards in resource-rich Skalovia.

Grush and Talahvir

The people of Talahvir has an almost one-sided loathing of Grush. The Nuaragha have raided Talahvir for eons and the heroic visage the pirates have in Grush is the opposite of what is written and told in Talahavir. These raids are written down and sung in the great choir repository of the sonalians and some even serve as the semantic components of sonalian spells. The majority of the Grush urkain barely have a thought for the Talahvirians but the Talahvirian's history and politics have been heavily affected by the raids of the Scourers. Their disdain for steel and cultural proscription of it comes from the history of it being used on them by the tusked raiders. Their modern sonalian choirs and their consistent upkeep are also a result of preparing for regular raids. Talahvir has never outright gone to war with the Grush. The reasons for this vary in that it could be seen as wasteful or that the chiefs of Talahvir intentionally keep from creating a full military force that may threaten their power or that they prefer the nuaragha's raids to continue because it keeps the people united and looking away from their rulers.

The Whispered Ban

There has been a long-secret ban against foreign influence and foreigners in Grush. The homogeneity of Grush's culture is a result of its rulers disallowing any other from taking root. The agents of the Twin Gods are the central force that allow this. The temple of the Twin Gods has the ability to permanently erase memories as one of its miracles. It is unknown why institutional rulers of Grush do this. It may be just to hold on to power and remove competing influences including the powerful temples of the Pentaphany. It may be unknown influences outside of the rulers that directly or indirectly cause this like the nuaragha, the Arcanium, an anathema, or something more secretive.

Epoch 2

The Grush War

Technological Epochs in ROF

This page needs a lot of work
The Epochs of Technology GURPS Tech Level and Baseline of Tech

Techs are asynchronous in their development. Development tends to be slower than the real world for weapons.

General Tech

• Epoch 0 882,421,944 ON to -27 ON 1-3 (Stone Age to Medieval)
• Epoch 1 -27 ON to 273 PR
• TL 5
• Technology on a timeline that includes that which was in common use up to 1839 in 0 PR.
• Electricity will be experimented with throughout epoch 1 before
• The camera will be invented in 68 PR, preceded by the very expensive magitek light capture device in 3 PR.
• The Telegraph is invented in 87 PR
• The Steam locomotive is invented in 153 PR, preceded by the very expensive Magitek Carrier in 63 PR.
• The Projector is invented in 169 PR.
• The black and white soundless Movie is invented in 199 PR
• The Radio is invented in 203 PR
• Black and white talkies are invented in 213 PR
• Epoch 2 312 PR to 603 PR
• TL 6
• Automobiles are invented by 383 PR
• Mundane biplanes are invented by 428 PR
• Epoch 3 612-Now
• TL 7
• Note: This is just for mundane tech that would mirror the real world. It has no basis on limiting Aeroship or magitek that could mimic equivalent weapons found further than the equivalent timelines on Earth.

Weapon Tech

Before 0 PR has a restriction being able to use analog weapons made in 1589 and before except for gunpowder weapons. The extremely early forms of them existed since -189 PR but will not take off until -27 PR in Skalovia and then select nations will be fully armed with them by 20 PR

• 0-39 PR has a restriction of being able to use analog weapons made before 1820 on Earth
• 39-70 PR has a restriction of being able to use analog weapons made before 1823 on Earth
• 70-113 PR has a restriction of being able to use analog weapons made before 1827 on Earth
• 113-141 PR has a restriction of being able to use analog weapons made before 1831 on Earth
• 141-183 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1834 on Earth
• 183-210 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1839
• 210-246 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1842
• 246-274 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1849
• 274-293 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1856
• 293-315 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1862
• 315-323 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1869
• 323-347 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1873
• 347-361 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1889
• 361-392 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1898
• 392-452 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1908
• 463-503 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1917
• 503-542 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1928
• 542-576 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1939
• 576-590 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1945
• 590-612 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1957
• 612-621 PR is restricted to weapons made before 1969

Note: Magitek is not restricted to this for things that resemble later creations. They will be rarer and more expensive by 100x as a baseline.

What does this mean for playing the game? Essentially if you are using GURPS's supplements or a homebrew then the mundane tech of ROF is limited to what was made in that max year. Realistically, technology is changing over time in the world as well. There probably are the first attempts of a cartridge fed rifle as far back as 212 PR.

Why did you make it like this? I'm going for a specific feel for a world that is both high fantasy but evocative of the real world in multiple ways. I wanted to represent Napoleonic Warfare tech to what the standard fare was in the Franco-Prussian War to World War 1 and 2 but still have magic and elements where just because the tech is there doesn't mean you have an automatic win button. There are not a ton of orthodox high fantasy settings that aren't outright steamtech-centric (which we have elements of) with the Napoleonic Era to World War 2 in mind. Games like Enter the Deadlands (very awesome setting) and Call of Cthuhlu (very in depth representation) have done this sort of timeframe on Earth and have done it very well.

Flight of the Aelthi

A thing happened. The majority of the Aelthi Empire that ruled Central Tys for millenia fled to parts unknown. The remaining aelthi in Velas are those that didn't want to go and were seen as deviants. It was an apocalyptic event that reset technology back to right before bronze age tech. Humans were relatively primitive. This occurred in the -10,000s PR.

The Drathi are those Aelthi that came back to Velas changed. They warn of the return of the Aelthi. No one listens.

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Thrale: Thrake's Vale and its Major Civilizations

The Thralish Commonwealth

The National Rags to Riches Story

Epoch 1

Thrale is a nation found within the southern region of Velas known as the Anchor. Its name is a shortening of Thrake's Vale, but others in the nation claim that it was named as a spiritual successor to the proto-kingdom of the Mekkhorsi Empire, Thralonika. It is inhabited by a human majority that first colonized the land hundreds of years ago. It is known to be a very wealthy nation with deeply harmonist and materielist culture and a powerful military.

Thrale as a Geographic Region: Its climate, biome, land features, and animals

Thrale is a temperate region with mild summers and moderately cold winters. It has very wet springs and snowy winters with a high amount of average precipitation a year. Many rivers cross Thrale and end in tributaries to Leviathan Bay. Thrale's most notable feature is a towering mountain found in the center of the region named Mount Thrake by the later Thralish people that modern Thralish claim lineage from. The mountain was at one time a spewing volcano that laid the foundations of Thrake millions of years ago. The translated name of the region meant Thrake's Vale named after the area around the mountain in older Thralish before the adoption of Universal Tysian. Mount Thrake at one time was thought to be a god in and of itself before the adoption of the Velassian pantheon spread by the Zekhorians.
Montane forests take up much of Thrale's biome. They cover around 3/5ths of the land stretching out in a radius from the mountain. The areas in the region furthest from mount Thrake are generally flat grasslands and are made up of good farmland fed by regular rain. Going nearer to Thrake, the land becomes hilly and the forests thicken and the temperature becomes moderately colder. Rich mineral deposits and useful herbs lie near to the mountain. However, so do monsters, brigands, and stranger things. The majority of Thrale's civilizations lay near the fertile coasts. While technically part of the Thrake region, the immediate northern area leading to the Satie Sea is often treated separately being made of rougher marshlands and steppes. The immediate west lies the grasslands and deciduous forests of Tarkaria where multiple bestial tribes have historically lived.
In terms of animals Thrale is quite varied. Thrale is home to a suite of reptiles including snakes, newts, sand lizards, and sea turtles. Its mammal grouping includes deer, moose, wolves, hares, rabbits, voles, beavers, rodents, mice, squirrels, moles, shrews, hedgehhogs, bats, foxes, wildcats, raccoons, and seals. Many species and groups of birds gather in Thrale's forests and coasts from birds of prey to herbivorous birds. Along with this are many sea creatures both mammal, fish, and more fantastic.

Before the Kingdom of Thrale

The Elakansi

It is unknown who the original inhabitants of the Thrake region were. However, the earliest living group in history that still persists today are the of Elakansi, which seemed to have originated from mount Thrake itself, the culture having no references to migration like others have. The Elakansi are named as such because of the earliest name of the mountain in their language being Elakan. The translation of the name in the Elakansi language meaning the Partitioning Peak, although this was not the first meaning of the mountain. The similarity to the name of the region and later nation of gnoll-inhabited Wakunan has been theorized to possibly come from an ancient root language, but no proof has been substantiated that this is the case. The Elakansi mainly inhabit mount Thrake itself, and have been able to observe the world around them while up in their safe perches. Tribes have ventured from the mountain to ply the lower forests and coasts for food and resources but often they historically met bad luck and ruin. Their mountainous culture allowed them to avoid the eyes of the Velassian Elven Empire and the progressive waves of human tribe conquering, assimilation, and settlement of Thrale

The Elakansi society is based upon societal units made of multiple families known as kyrn in which the heads of villages known as kyrn braugan form a league made up of each family head, the braug. The kyrn brauga exists as the leader council of each village and direct the kyrns to insure their survival and prosperity. The Elakansi resemble bats, but lack the ability to properly fly, but they do have the ability to glide and it serves them well when traveling from cliff to cliff in their mountain home of Thrake. Along with their gliding ability, their hands and feet are built to climb very well on even steep surfaces. They live within natural and Elakansi-built caves and on the dug out mesa-like cliffsides within the mountain. They live on a diet of gathered berries, insects, fungi, and vegetables either found or grown in their villages in farming plots. They mine out and build cave farms for fungi and insects and create plots upon wider plateau-like areas in the open caverns of the mountain to grow other food. The limitation of sunlight is solved by the Elakansi's use of the energy kah, an inner life energy found throughout living things. Each Elakansi is trained in its use and the most talented and proficient of them become kah-cyq, or essence weavers. Kah-cyqs can channel their power using totems in a similar way to Talahviri Eukorr, choirs, and their metal resonance techniques. However, kah-cyqs often can work alone versus eukorrs. The totems are used to build up kah within and then release that energy in multiple ways including punching large tunnels through Thrake and empowering plants and crops to grow. They are also fearsome warriors and multiple historical figures among the Elakansi are kah-cyqs.

Elakansi living is not without conflict. While not clearly resource-rich, multiple dragons have attempted to conquer the mountain with a few succeeding and either extorting or outright enslaving the bat-like people. Mount Thrake is not far away from Yaegless, a place of origin for scaled dragons. While not great smiths, they had the fearsome power of the kah-cyqs to fight off these tyrants. The same power that allowed the totems to dig large tunnels also allowed them to carve out the dragons' flesh. This type of concentrated power was not available in other areas outside of Thrake which made fighting the creatures perilous. Even tahlaviri eukorrs cannot create such a singular force but eukorrs can also often fight for longer than kah-cyqs. Many of the weavers have died from exhaustion fighting dragons that it is almost assumed their bravery will result in a martyrdom. Aside from those great threats, monsters exist on Thrake as they do everywhere. Great flying things, chameleonic ambush predators, pseudo-kindlike abominations, and more existed. There have been wars over farmland between kyrn braugans as well because even with the empowerment given by the weavers, it was seen that there was only so much to go around. Along with this, some Elakansi took to banditry.

The kyrn's isolation upon the mountain is partially due to their natural fear of the great forest of Thrale, the Wynde. Falling to the forest from the mountain was seen as a fate worse than death for the Elakansi before their world was opened up by the action of the Thralish. The mountainous terrain they are used to and are optimal in surviving in falls to winding great trees and monsters. It has been said in their culture that the forest occupied a sort of hell in their cultural cosmology.

They became great masons and much of their culture and history is represented by great works of art chiseled and carved into caves and mountainsides. Along with this, their histories are recorded through a mixture of the spoken word along with chiseling of history in the Elakansi language. Much of Elakansi tools are based upon stone due to the lower forests beneath mount Thrake being difficult for them to return from. They also used roots, vines, and sinuous materials in their daily lives. Religion was very affected by their use of kah, and they based it around the inner energy in each life. They believed when they died, they would be reborn into the things they were used as sustenance for or become part of by like the soil or stone of the mountain. Even being eaten by monsters or animals was not seen as a worse fate as the dead were considered to help the living by weakening the monsters via their energies.

The Elakansi culture would be isolated for much of its existence, although there was trade here and there between them and their neighbors below. Not until the aeroship was created would contact increase greatly, and lead to a great diaspora after the mountain's conquering.

The Human Civilization of Thrale

-800 ON

The civilizations surrounding Thrake's Vale considered civilizing the wild forest too much effort be worth it, hence why it was not colonized other than the pirate colonies that began the nation.

The majority of Thrale was heavily forested and infested with monstrous creatures along with magical phenomena that would not be superseded in its danger until the continent of Shudder was found. Much of what is now considered the western half of the nation was also a continuation of Tarkaria that is inhabited by tribes of nomadic bestials who were well suited to the dangerous terrain. Human presence in Thrale began with pirate and smugglers holds on the southeastern portion of the nation and would progress to villages and further colonies. The oldest of these being the city of Crebar. The humans of Thrale are a mutt-like mixture of multiple civilizations in their blood. Some arrived in Thrale as the original seabound pirates of an older age, some arrived in Thrale as vagrants, others were tribes and cultures running from threats both mundane and magical such as those that fled south past the Wakun desert (before it was rehabilitated into a savannah) from rising powers and empires such as Mekkhor or the Scale Princes. Expansion and colonization proceeded at a snail's pace and conflict would break about the multiple peoples where multiple conquerings and assimilations would occur. This very heated melting pot did gradually increase the ability of the Thralish to further master Thrake's Vale, the lands around mount Thrake. They would receive the ability to make more advanced weapons, better armor, receive magical aid (especially by those who fled from the Pentaphany before the Epiphany of Saint Bromae). Along with this, they would find that the land, once cleared of monster and its magical hazards removed or at least cordoned, was resource-rich with very good soil, a varied ecology with expensive furs to be sold, untapped mining resources, and more. However, as said, continuing on was slow. Along with this, those bestial tribes would conflict with the colonists at times for many reasons. There were times that the colonists had trampled over a holy space for the bestials such as a grave built after a significant battle and they would demand compensation in the form of supplies that the colonists would not give at times. Other times were expansions into bestial heavy areas justified by taking the land from uncivilized creatures that surely were made of the same stuff as monsters to walk like men but have the abilities of beasts. There have been aeth-based monsters that resembled men found in the past which supported this justification in the eyes of the colonists. 

Thralish society from its beginning was out of the traditional spheres of influence from the rest of Central Tys. Here there were no landed men unless one proclaimed that land theirs or took it. The growing cities also had not the influence of regents nor did they require charters to be subservient. They resembled the warlords and city-states of old, but they also lacked old lineages to back up claims that the princes and kings of lands like Ravois and Orcini could make. The prototypical thinkers of the Great Unburdening found a refuge here when they were chased out of their home nations. Those values would spread here with only the regional powers of the local rulers to attempt to snuff them out. Harmonism would grow here and it would be exported across the known world.

In the beginning, the temples of the Pentaphany did not take hold in Thrale with the strong secular power they held in Mekkhoria. However, they did have powerful religious presence. Living in the first cities and on the frontier was tough and the settlers would attempt to find comfort (and power) in whatever they could. The clerical power from that worship also served as a large boon to the struggling colonists and was one of the first examples of power that did not need to be given by a prelate as it traditionally had been done for millennia. While first declared as heresy, later, the first of these clerics, Regdra of Weybrid, would be sainted in the temple of Liestra. While the Pentaphany was not overpowering as it was in Mekkhoria, it was often a key institution in the villages and cities. It would provide food to the needy, heal the sick, and also provide paladins to fight against threats.

The Wynde

The majority of Thrale is covered by a winding, overgrown, and monster-infested forest known as the Winde to the human inhabitants. The flora and fauna within the forest are extremely diverse with animals such as wolves, mountain lions, deer, and the like coexisting with beings like whisper-walkers. It takes a very long time to "tame" the forest by cutting it down and making space. Those cultures like the Tark bestials essentially do not bother and instead learn how to traverse the forest and learn how to survive in a place they consider unconquerable. They call the paths traveled for millennia the Wild Paths and know not to stray away from them. Learning the Paths is culturally important for the Tark. The forest was not naturally made and in fact, much of it was made for extremely a frivolous purpose: recreation. The old Velassian Empire morphed the forest into their own interconnected and shaped form using their fantastic magicks. The land around mount Thrake was a vacation spot that many flocked to in the times before the modern kinds. What remains is the result of thousands of years of neglect and the unstopped growth of creatures and plants within the great forest. One can walk and traverse that old space but it is fraught and likely to lead to travelers plummeting to their deaths or being caught by nasty beasty or simply getting lost. Underneath the forest, however, are great big ruins built into the earth that are found throughout the nation. They are hidden beneath the great matrix-like canopies and may have been designed to be hidden from the treetops. Their purpose is unknown but they may have serve any purpose from military bases to experimental labs. Here is where adventurers make a large amount of their wealth from the scraps left behind that include potent magical artifacts.

The Elakansi fear the Wynde, the Tark respect the Wynde, but the Thralish seek to conquer it. Large amounts of resources have gone into mastering the forest via logging and settlement creation. Moving out from the original smuggler settlements, one can find their fortune in the forest. The logging efforts create giant amounts of lumber which is used to make homes and sold to naval companies. The coal and ash from burning the trees is used in heating, cooking, and as fertilizer. Past the trees themselves, the pelts and pieces of the creatures within, both magical and non-magical, are very valuable and many are exclusive to Thrale. Then there are the old perilous ruins where brave explorers can make their fortune upon use or sale of the trinkets left behind by the old empire. Over the course of centuries, a great rending of trees has taken place to create large spaces and paths to build settlements and roads upon. The frontier is not for the faint of heart and those willing to fell the forest must also deal with the dangers uncovered. Opening the forest also creates greater danger between those that travel the Wild Paths due to the displacement of creature and monster across the forest along with the physical destruction of the paths that require new ones to be found or great diverting of journeys to occur that may leave the Tark without the sources of food they rely on to survive for a dangerous amount of time. This has caused tensions to raise between the Tark and the Thralish for many years. 

Adventuring in Thrale and the Formation of Adventuring Companies

Adventuring in the nation began as a way of attracting far off mercenaries and warriors to Thralish shores in order to help clear out the deep forest and protect work camps from attack by bandits and monsters. It was one center of many for adventuring and helped ramp up the practice. What really drew parties was the discovery of Vellassian ruins in the deep brush. Really what was left was scraps from the old civilization but those scraps were magical fortunes that could be used and more often sold for great sums. Adventurers were often seen as uncouth and a necessary nuisance to civilized nations that would rather their armies and personal agents deal with problems of the day, but in Thrale they were immortalized in their entrepreneurial spirit. Adventurers often would settle in Thrale as landowners and business owners, turning their youthful spirit and energy into capitalizing the investment of their peril in the dangerous forests and ruins. Materielism would take hold in Thrale powerfully partially because of the values adventuring engendered upon the nation.

Slavery

-500s ON

Expanding west and north, there soon came to be a problem once the -500s ON began. The frontiers became too dangerous for Thralish citizens to willingly move out from the protected villages and cities in the southeast. Prisoners were more likely to run than to stay and farm. Along with this, there was an overabundance of bestial prisoners from the wars and they were strong from harsh living in the wilderness. Rather than kill them and skin them for their fur, the oligarchy decided that enslaving them using the power of covenant rings and putting them to work in developing the frontier would be a better use for them. Covenant rings were a set of one ring with one ring or more that were more anklets than finger rings. The rings were originally made for bodyguards and their wards and would allow each to feel what the other felt and was thinking, but they were modified to allow a one-way relationship where the dominant party could punish the submissive party. These were known as dominance rings and they were key in allowing the humans of Thrale to force the bestials to labor and submit. While there were not enough rings for every bestial, there were enough to put them on popular tribe members or key family members that would be punished if the others attempted to fight back. Along with this, the rings would kill the other party if either the dominant or submissive one died. This forced most of the bestials by fear of their friends or family dying for their actions into working along with whips, chains, harsh punishments, indoctrination of their young, and examples being made out of the non-compliant. Slavery became a giant moneymaker with labor costs minimized and with the growing of several profitable crops in megaplantations. By the full expansion in the north, rather than just relying on conflict with the beasts, there would be full incursions into Wakunan to gather the strong gnolls there and expeditions past Thralish borders in the west for more bestials. This was made easier by the workshop industry of mages making dominance rings, and it became profitable to export them from other nations. Enslaved bestials over the generations would change in form from their wild and free fellows, almost mirroring domestication of livestock and animals. Multiple attempts at revolts would occur along with the progression of abolition attempts, especially around the decades on both sides of 0 PR. However, until the Great Unchaining, it would stay as an institution for centuries.

Magic was outlawed for slaves. Any divine spark seen in them would be put down and labeled heresy by local priests if found. Reading and writing was outlawed. Their old animist beliefs were outlawed. Each had to adopt Thralish names and convert to the Pentaphany under threat of death. Wild Path rituals were outlawed. They worked long grueling hours in dangerous frontiers and were disarmed of the ability to defend themselves against the monsters and creatures of the forest, having to need their overseers to fight to keep their employer's property in working shape. The terminally sick, the infirm old, and the disabled were "mercy-killed". Families were torn apart in slave sales that did not require children nor spouses to stick together. Their culture was worn down to nought and their distance from the Wild Paths and Tarkaria nearly severed their old connections. Escape was near suicide if the only place to run was the Wynde. Those old ways of survival and traversal had been burned out of their minds to use well again. 

That's not to say they did not try to free themselves. Freed slaves that could survive the forests became bandits. Revolts would occur again and again and the power of their masters, the state, and the danger of the forest would keep them from truly succeeding. The dignity of the Tark was disregarded. Those young born of Thralish and Tark blood were left on hillsides to die of exposure or were added to the master's property depending on whom they took after. Those that looked less non-human would sometimes be raised by their fathers and lived in between worlds. Magic was used to make them look fully human and their Tark identity was broken from them by whip or word. Some of those lines that had the beast bred out of them would rule over those their blood unknowingly

The Territories

Much like neighboring Ruk and Wakunan, Thrale grew rich from trade and its society reflected the respect in wealth that grew from it. Social mobility was subject to money and power was subject to money. Of those that benefitted most were the heads of the ten territories, those colonies that grew on the eastern and southeastern coasts of Thrale which grew from the original smuggler and pirate territories. These were made up of different powers that treated each other as rivals. Outright war was rare as it was assumed that the precarious situation the colonies had would not be able to sustain such resource-draining action. Rather, the territories competed through spectacle, through outdoing each other, through funding new and novel magical experiments. Along with this, adventurers could align themselves with the heads of the territories and then essentially be shown off by them. Their prestige and feats being used to one-up the others. The position the adventurer held was known as the Gallant seat and it was a rotating position that could change arbitrarily on a whim, but the Gallant was given wealth and land while in the seat along with essentially acting as chief of other adventurers. The authority of the Gallant changed in degree from territory to territory from a proper position that could give orders to just a fancy title. However, it was a cushy job and many would want it.

The rivalry of the territories would one day become an alliance in the form of the Oligarchy of Barton. The Alliance of Barton was made of the richest landowners in Thrale that unified their lands in the face of the invasion of the colossal and seemingly barely sapient sea monster zhurine Zhos and its servants.

Zhos the Corrupting

Zhos's greatest threat was its eminent land corrupting manner. With a horrid song of a language long forgotten, it could spoil crops, call terrible storms, and worst of all it could turn men into beasts with horrifying transformations. Indeed, its very being seemed to lock its corruption into place as the land was seemingly impossible to heal via miracle or magic until its demise. Its invasion destroyed the original founding settlement of Barton and with it close to 10% of the entire population. There was not time to entreat other kingdoms or nations to aid the Thralish as the monstrous thing writhed and continued to cross the land in seemingly mindless hunger. The Alliance was formed by help of the heads and their gallants. They and any adventurers in the land were to drop anything they were doing, drop any grudge they held, and were to come together to destroy the thing. However, this was not an easy nor automatic process. The different heads wanted something out of the alliance and had their own angles and agendas to pursue. They saw the event as something to profit from and argued for weeks in how to proceed. It was not until the writhing tentacles of Zhos were over the hill and casting the meeting house with shadow that they were forced by their Gallants to come up with a deal immediately. After a hasty retreat and the sacrifice of multiple adventurers, the heads formally declared the alliance with the Gallants as acting generals. After years of hard fighting, their armies eventually defeated the abomination and were able to destroy it by venturing into its heart and cleaving it in twain

Disturbingly, the name "Zhos" was only found after the fact by the clerics and mages cleaning up the lands disturbed. The name had shown up in corrupted places and what was really disconcerting was the fact that it was in universal script. This led to the idea that a cult may have gathered to worship the thing.

This war expanded the political power that adventurers had by keeping them separate from the militia but still playing key parts alongside it. It also expanded the powers of the Gallant seat from being simply a trophy position to a proper seat of authority. While intending to break their alliances after the war, it was found to be economically and politically expedient to keep it after the intertwining of their forces and territories in combatting the threats. They declared themselves the Nine and their authority was established.

The Oligopoly

Life under the Oligopoly, as the Alliance called itself, changed for the settlers of Thrale. New taxes, regulations, and the united army of the Territories quickly established the legitimacy and power of rule. Along with this, the temples recognized the Oligopoly as legitimate rulers in exchange for leased land, allowing them to expand their own influence and keep an alliance with the rulers of Thrale. The settlers and the original heads had an understanding between each other that allowed a good degree of liberty for the common man of the Thralish frontier. There was a dynamic give an take that seemed fair. With the Oligopoly, all other institutions including the basic family unit had to submit to the ruling body. In the days of the Alliance, this made sense as the nation had to be tooled to war and the people seemingly knew their roles and were happy to play them. A grisly fate waited for them otherwise. However, with the aftermath, those powers that seemingly were raised for the specific emergency were now being tightened and institutionalized.

Reckoning for the Few

The Oligopoly was always opposed by other Thralish groups. Largest among them were the Plurality, an alliance of businessmen and adventurers that pushed for Harmonistic and Materielist reforms against the now authoritarian state. The Oligopoly's generals and officers in the war against Zhos were given positions of power and those adventurers and settlers with land and business holdings were finding their positions undermined and threatened by the government. Much later near the epoch of flame, the Neo-Millers, an Equitianist group, would also rise up as an opposing force to the Oligopoly.

The Dearth of the Nine

Around the turn of the 1st century ON, the power of the Nine was weakened greatly by the Dearth, a large famine accompanied by a plague that was said to be preventable were it not for the Oligopoly's stubbornness. Stores of grain that were necessary to dole out during the famine and that were made for that purpose were sold off to foreign buyers. The shipment of clerics needed to combat the disease for the growing population of Thrale that was orchestrated by the prelate of Liestra were denied the coin necessary for their transport from an Alarian port. As such, many starved and grew ill. Great riots, including slave riots, broke out during this time and many were suppressed by the Gallant forces, state retinues of soldiers whom at this time were paid and fed well by the Nine. At this time the Plurality beat the drums for reform but essentially did something setting them apart from the rioters. At the point the Gallants were beaten and bloody, the Plurality would essentially extort from them powers on a village by village and municipal basis to stop the chaos. The Plurality was made up of middle-class adventurers, merchants, and landowners that were equipped to outlast the Dearth along with being able to solve the problems of the state. The Oligopoly slowly had their government's powers bleed out from them when they were hiding in their estates away from the plague and the famine. Under the cover of a disaster, the Plurality took the part of victimized and victimizer and with their expanded powers began to overwrite the laws of the land first locally, and then across the reach of the realm. This was not immediate but what was put into place subverted multiple powers of the new centralized government and slowly decentralized it and allowed it to be attacked over the years. Eventually, a new normalcy was being settled into place over time and living institutions like the temples supported it from the pulpit and the laws would support it in time. Essentially, a quiet revolution was taking place that would shift powers from the old to the mercantile classes. 

Before they realized what was happening, the Nine found themselves to be nothing but figureheads near the end of the Epoch of Steel. The sovereign parliament would be entrenched by then; first as seemingly a guidance council and then as the real base of power of the nation.

Thrale and The Epoch of Flame

Thrale's Station in the First Epoch

By 0 PR Thrale has spread west and covers about two-thirds of what is considered Thrake's Vale. The coastal cities have developed into large developed areas helped by the wealth being brought back by the explorer companies along with now freed resources hidden under a forest canopy. Along with this, the mass of timber from the trees of the Wynde have been converted into shipbuilding materials and domestic trade companies ramp up in power compared to foreign trade companies and merchants that the developing nations has had to rely on before. The explorer companies thrive and set up shop near hotspots of monster activity and large ruin accumulations. Contrary to the map (light blue for Thrale, dark blue for Elakansi and Mount Thrake), not all of the painted landmass that is pictured have been cultivated to Thralish tastes. Rather, that is what is claimed by settlers of Thrale even if they do not personally have the land cultivated toward their use. Thrale is a growing regional power and it is the home of notable mage colleges that employ professors from across the known world. 

Along with this, the use of kah and martial arts schools using it has been spreading across the cities with a similar diverse set of teachers. The natural competition of kah versus aeth-use has also spread to Thrale and been encouraged by those mages hailing from the Arcanium that disdain kah's natural disruption of aeth-based spells and creatures. 

The sovereign parliament coordinated many continent-spanning actions such as the multi-front defense against the underwater Xheolian empire, the second great worm invasion, and grew its trade empire wider with the adoption of aeroships a "Thralish invention" (stolen from Skalovian designs)

Thrale will be one of the first nations to recognize the power of firearms and gunnery outside of the commonly accepted niche use of the Skalovian kobolds. Very interestingly, these designs were not stolen from Skalovia as others like the Klasttic kingdom's were, but seemingly gifted by an outside figure who is shrouded in mystery. Along with this, similar ideas of industrialization would spread in Thrale just as they did in Skalovia, using the same techniques and methods as well. Yet there was no proof of research subterfuge by Thrale.

However, Thrale will have a healthy diversity of older and newer military weapons and tactics. Firearms are given to militias as one of their first weapons to learn in order to have a working force of volunteers to defend settlements and keep property in line. Along with this, its ability to overwhelm armor popularized its niche use for that work. They would be taught archery and focus upon it more as a main weapon along with the spear and shield. The uneven terrain makes Thrale unfavorable toward cavalry work along with proper optimization of Skalovian-style line regiments. However, flying mounts are extremely useful if expensive. Small but well-trained companies of flying cavalry made up of the wealthy scions of the higher classes in the cities help to serve as quick-response units. 

Thrale's most important defense is a consistent offense of adventurers clearing out monsters and brigands. The role of the Gallant has been outlawed but the different explorer companies do coordinate in switching companymen in and out to keep getting paid by a collection of different settlements and property holders. The largest concentration being by the wealthy estates of mining and logging settlements and slave-run farms. Often those settlements that have less profitable pursuits such as sheep herding or fishing villages will go months without the sight of an adventurer, and when they come some take advantage of the built-up problems and exhort more than is reasonable. There is not much impediment to these types on the frontier and they only answer to the explorer companies, if they even belong to one.

By Epoch 2, Thrale would find itself sitting in a throne as a bonafide superpower of its day. However, it would clash heavily with the reascendant Republic.

A Haven for the Damned

Thrale began its existence as merely a region with a notable number of pirate outposts so its reputation of harboring less reputable types is long founded. Along with this, the region was used as a dumping place for the nations of Central Tys where it could let its criminals, defaulted debtors, and other unruly sorts fester. Included in the unfortunates were many groups of fallow, devil and demon-touched folk that resembled kinds but with corrupted features and skin. Often scapegoated against, fallow would be run out of towns and ports or arrested en masse and either flee or be forcibly deported to Thrale. They did not find a warm welcome in the slowly developing colonies either and often found themselves attempting to live lives of peace on the frontiers which held its own dangers. Bestial groups that walked their paths near the frontiers often found them to be novelties and while they would normally ignore other settlers they would approach the fallow out of curiosity. They were outside of the influence of the old religions and the historic Pentaphany so they did not know the unsavory reputation that fallow had. They would trade with these strangers and a few would even intermarry with them and provide haven and a place in their tribe when some would be driven off even the land they cultivated. In the cities, the fallow transitioned from living in poorly kept ghettoes and being given the work of pariahs to taking on roles and responsibilities within their communities mainly due to times of population shortage like disease, monster attacks, or famine. Essentially they were thrust into power and positions they would not have before due to a shortage of menfolk dying and the refusal to allow women to take their places. These horned, blue skinned, silver streaked, or otherwise strange looking folk would end up gradually taking the roles and positions of those that looked down upon them. This was a rare occurrence, however, but those settlements hit the worst by a lack of manpower still have prominent influential fallow communities today like Cresomyard and Calta Mal. 

Djiinari were often not given the same opportunities as fallow were and many fallow communities that had become entrenched into the power structures of their settlements were not looking to share what they worked for for generations.

Morph-Pattern Outfits

One piece of Thralish fashion is literally inspired by scraps. Delving in ruins near the settlement now known as Romneytes, adventurers found what appeared to be the closet of some older Velassian prince or princess. The fabric felt like a strange contradictory mixture of soft silk and metal knurling. Putting it on, the fabric changed color and displayed different patterns based upon the local color and light conditions of the area, but only partially and incompletely as if what allowed the fabric to change had been damaged or ran out of energy. It was called "pattern-morph". It was brought back as an oddity to a trader who gave a pittance for it, thinking they could hock it on someone as a novelty. Hock it they did to a hunter and leather tanner, Rogurd Thane, who saw great potential in the concept. Thane had been attempting to hunt a very illusive creature in the wild known as a whisper-walker. These were camouflaged animals that used the sap of trees as their main sustenance. They were very fast and had long bendable bodies that made them very hard to catch, and they seemingly could tell fake sap for genuine sap when trappers attempted to catch them. Along with this, their movements were near completely silent and for those that could get close the movement of their appendages sliding upon surfaces were like faint whispers. Their camouflage ability looked very similar to the Velassian pattern-morph and Thane wondered if one of the base materials was the skin of the whisper-walker. He set up a trap using the material and to his delight, it worked. It would later be found that during mating season, whisper-walkers severely drop their guards to attract prospective mates and have a sort of biological cooling system used in order to produce clutches. Hunters often could not take advantage of this because they would gather in trees or hard to reach crevices where their bodies would fit. However, the material tricked the whisper-walker into letting its guard down and made it immobile, allowing it to be struck. Thane would go on to use this trick many times and would make clothing out of the material. First he sold capes as luxury fashionable items and then moved on to making entire outfits out of it when his store of pelts was large enough to take the risk. Along with this, the original fabric was used to advertise these whisper-walker leather as of being of prestigious ancient design only known to a few. This garnered a lot of attention from the very wealthy settlers of Thrale and decades after he introduced it the fabric can be seen at many a gala and ball.

Later, anthropological evidence upon the ruins found that the pattern-morph fabric may have actually belonged to an underclass of animal keepers and leather makers, meaning the high classes were essentially using peasant apron material. Despite this, the pattern-morph has spread wide as an expensive luxury item as far as Wakamoto and beyond.

It is a proud piece of Thralish culture and often one of the most immediate things one can associate with the nation. 

However, its production is carefully guarded via protectionist policies to the point that smuggling whisper-walkers out of the nation to start new schools of them is punishable by a lifetime of prison. 

Its item description can be found in the equipment post

https://riddleofflame.blogspot.com/2020/03/weapons-equipment-tools-armor-ground.html

Equitianists out of Thrale

With the fall of Klastte and the failed aggression of the Gromdal war, equitianism was seen as an evil totalitarian ideology that would lead to the destruction of everything a decent man would hold dear. Including the removal of their rightful property with its inane edicts against private property. Abolitionism was seen as an outreach of equitianism and its progress was set back by centuries by true and false association. Equitianist literature like the writings of Zekaezi, Zelien, Jarnir, and the like were burned as aberrant pieces of propaganda. All equitianist groups were forcibly disbanded and any licenses or charters they had revoked, even those that had no association with the Equilibratists of Skalovia. This antiequitianist hatred would be high for many years. One thing influencing it were the bordering equitianist gnolls of Wakunan that were allied to Skalovia, even if they had not participated in the Klasttic war nor the Gromdal war. Another were rumors and accusations of equilibratist spies in Thrale leading to witchhunts. Now, this was entirely true but those leading the searches were often completely off the mark from the true Blyska Initiative spies. 

Equitianism as an ideology is fundamentally opposed to Materielism. Which did not suit well with the burgeoning materielists of Thrale that were growing out of the older merchant class. While the flames of anti-equitianism would heat up at times, even at their lowest was a smoldering tension between the two that would come in direct conflict in the second epoch of flame.

The Great Unchaining of the First Century 33 to 46 PR

The great revolts stuck in this period. The Great Unchaining came about with the fall of the abolitionist movement following the scapegoating of abolitionists, both harmonist and equitianist, as secret equilibratists that wanted the nation to devolve into totalitarian tyrannical rule. The Massacre of Port Brau and the occupation of Klastte was pointed to as the natural endpoint to any work by those aligned with the enemy, especially those wishing to take away the natural property of good gods-fearing gentlemen of the community. All abolitionist groups were forcibly disbanded and many were arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason. Those that escaped either sunk back into greater society and hid their earlier sympathies in fear of their livelihoods or fled to the forests to help the bestials. Along with this, great manufacturing of covenant rings was begun again to quell revolt attempts that had been agitated.

The Martyrdom of the Chained

In 33 PR, a plan that had been in consideration for centuries was put into action. Those sympathetic to the Tark slaves had always considered the effect of fear the covenant rings had upon the other bestials that kept them in servitude. The rings were put onto the most respected and revered of the slaves and they were a constant reminder that dissent would be met with the punishment of those related to the bestials. The rings and the threat of violence against their loved ones were one of the largest reasons why the bestials were kept in servitude for so long. Agitators for freedom told those slaves they could speak to in secret a last resort method for breaking the power their masters had over them: allow those under the control of the rings to kill themselves and free the rest to rise up. The rings were extremely expensive and forged from materials requiring the use of rare magical artifacts along with great effort by the enchanters. The selective use of being put on those that would make the largest effect on the morale of any would-be dissenters was a cost-saving measure. Whips and chains can only go so far but these kept a majority in line. Until the threat was rendered moot.

Not every enslaved bestial was aching for rebellion. They had centuries of conditioning, torture, and cultural upbringing that taught them their place was a righteous one and their masters were kind for taking care of them. The burning rage of indignation also was under the surface and for every hundred complacent or merely compliant bestial there was one that felt the rage of their fathers. Along with this, traveling abolitionists agitated these and others. It was decided by key slaves and those abolitionists and runaways of five key giant estates, the largest in Thrale holding the greatest populations of slaves: Keeler, Frake, Wennic, Rodern, and Layne what needed to happen to free the bestials. These were located in the northeast of the nation.

On the spring solstice, a majority of those bound by the covenant rings committed mass visual suicide in full view of the other slaves in dramatic ways. Throats were slit within the chapels they were allowed to worship in, they fell from the tops of their master's houses, they fought past pain caused by their masters to strike them down and die from the effort and pain, and anything else they could think of.

The Rage

This was the breaking point. The rage of centuries flared. From these five plantations came a swathe of thousands of armed slaves that spread like wildfire to others to free even more. Masters were struck down, estates were burned, and for the first time they used their animalistic teeth that was used to mock them against their captors. The Thralish army was called to quell the revolt. Sympathizers came and aided the bestials including a swathe of adventurers from the companies. However, the first wave of revolts was stuck upon the northeastern peninsula. The bestials only had what they could take from the masters and the guards they killed within the region. They would have to fight an asymmetrical war against the better armed and organized military.

However, this first spark inspired a gigantic wave of revolts across the nation. All over, from the cities to other plantations great riots and rebellions occurred. It cost Thrale a fortune to keep putting down over 13 years. The power of the nation was such that it could have permanently destroyed the great revolt but by the point their coffers were running low they would have had to destroy almost every rebel. Which also removed a large amount of their labor force to even rebuild. They lucked out with the capture of a respected leader of the northeastern rebellion in 46 PR. They were able to talk out terms with the others using him, and the revolts were finally ended along with the practice of slavery. However, the thumb on this beloved figure allowed them to force the bestials into making concessions. 

The End of Slavery

The Great Divide was put into place, a policy of segregation that allowed the humans of Thrale to keep the labor of the bestials even if they were not directly under their thumb as before. Many bestials became sharecroppers, performing work they had done before on subsistence living. Many bestials were uneducated, removed from their roots, and were exhausted from the fighting and fraught situation of their lives as well. The freed gnolls had Wakunan to go to and it was very accepting of Tark but it was unknown to them and the savannah was an entirely different place. Tarkaria was similarly a different world. Even before their captivity, the tribes of the Wild Paths had split from their cultural connection to those tribes. A minority of the freed Tark did however make the trek to Union City. They would also find some of their old leaders assassinated by human extremists and the freedom of the bestials would lead to one of the first true Tierian organizations, The Gentlemen of the Vale, which would agitate for a return to slavery and when that failed used their influence to keep the Great Divide. The bestials were also not fully free citizens and lacked privileges the true human born and fallow-born had. Thrale accepted the terms wanting peace, but peace in the form of the absence of tension rather than the presence of justice. However, they were free.

Epoch 2

Thrale is Glorious

At 273PR, Thrale has expanded its borders to butt up against Ruk, Wakunan, Tarkaria, and Samdiria. Its attempts to settle around the bottom of the great mountain are stymied by the monsters coming out of the untamed forests along with the effort of the Elakansi that are wary of them from Thrale's dealings with the Tarkarian bestials. The Thralish have built a large and wealthy nation built upon its agrarian power, its widespread craft industries, its plunder from old Velassian ruins, its large trading company fleets, and the development of its cities. It has the second-largest presence of magic users and magical colleges built from it being a center of magical research due to the artifacts found in its findings along with the cultivation of the nation as a reasonable alternative to the extremely hierarchical and power-hungry magical culture of the Arcanium, a Greater Samdirian nation that is home to the most powerful wizards in the world. The death rates of the Thralish universities are at least a magnitude lower compared to the trial-by-fire attitude of the Arcanian ones. Along with this, it has cultivated a large and prominent adventuring culture that also extends into mercenary work which makes and bring back a large amount of wealth to Thrale. It is a major cultural center producing music, theatrical production, literature, philosophy, and a variety of art. Thrale is a stronghold of religion as well with the Pentaphany's shrines and temples reaching into the wilderlands and rising high in its cities. Many clerics and paladins hail from it.

Economically, Thrale has profited massively from adopting Materielist and Harmonist policy and the Oligopoly's downfall and the transition of central government becoming the Sovereign Parliament of the Nation. Over the course of more than a century of decentralization and the breaking of the original power of the Nine, Thrale has become a revolutionary nation in its own right and causes as much legitimate concern to long-landed aristocrats as the radicals of Skalovia. Once again, the position of Harmonist Materielism was strengthened against the aristocracy of old with another example that could be pointed toward and inspire others to rise up.

However, Thrale did not squander its political potential as Skalovia did in its blunders of the Klasstic and Gromdal wars. Instead of a hidden and cloistered fortress like the Uhlionic Republic became, it was a thriving beacon of its values of individualism and profit that played its cards extremely well and set the course of Central Tys toward a majorly Materielist and Harmonist course. It also used its influence and soft power against many states along with more secretive and direct movements such as the support of Harmonist forces in the Lireskite Revolution. 

The Spread of Materielist Harmonism

Materielist Harmonism is baked into the core of Thrale and through trade and its gathering of soft power and influence it was spread across the world to the point that by 273 PR, 2/3rds of the known world had converted to the system. Thrale helped spread it greatly its acquisition of vast wealth was shown in its ships, in its architecture, and in the values of the nation. Its culture was spread through trade and over time many places started to resemble Thrale in one form or another. It held constant vigilance against that ideology and philosophy that was against it: Equitianism, and specifically the authoritarian Equilibratists.

The Grush War

Thrale came to the aid of the Twelve Baronies based on their earlier trade relationship along with their hope that they could stop Uhlionic expansion. While tensions with the Republic had simmered to near nothing with most of the world with the passing of nearly two centuries, Thrale saw its possible revival as a waiting threat waiting to drop. Wakunan, still allies with the Republic, never lost its place as a massive trading nation and its influence of Zikaezian Equitianism spread through its contact with other nations. However, that soft power was more easily stopped. Zikaezians do not have the militant zeal of the revolutionarily proven Equilibratists although the ideology had spread farther. The other weakness of it is that Zikaezian ideology is a pseudo-nationalistic force as it was designed for and ran by the gnolls of Wakunan. They also had to keep a large level of neutrality to keep the prosperity afforded to them by trade to the point of seriously considering severing their alliance with the Republic. However, this special relationship would continue for the sheer fact that without the Republic, Wakunan does not have the military capacity to defend itself against those that would plunder its cities and conquer it for their wealth. Including Thrale whose borders had just reached it. Historical fear of Thrale and Alaria has kept them firmly aligned with the Republic. Alomg with this, they profited massively from aeroship trade with the Republic. Thrale could not afford action against Wakunan. The shadow of the Uhlionic Republic always loomed against their supremacy.

Finally, it was no longer a shadow with the Republic's declaration of war against the Baronies for destruction of a trade fleet and military action to dismantle the pirate Nua Ragha that the archipelago harbored, intentionally or not. With their own aeroship fleet, Thrale had been trading with the Urkain as well and trade contracts had been a constant competition between the free trade companies of Thrale and the Ministry of Trade of the Republic. Along with this, they had signed an old agreement that the archipelago, if under attack, would have Thrale come to its aid. However, this also put them in league with the New Firmament, a collection of mercenary and militant organizations that claimed a lineage from the Alarian Knightly Orders of old. The New Firmament were secretly Tierians and their involvement mucked up a clean alliance action that may have caused the other nations of Velas and Xatla to attack the Uhlionic Republic from fear of overaggression. Instead, the war that was a police action between the Republic and the Baronies became one where the Republic was defending near half the archipelago against Thralish and Firmament aggression.

Thrale and the Republic fought to a draw over decades, and from that ceasefire came a centuries-long rivalry and the changing face of the planet as Equitianism was re-legitimized and the most powerful Harmonist nation in the world was challenged.