Epoch 2 Introduction

After a big war over the homeland archipelago of the orcs where Skalovia, first drawn into the war via a disaster that concerned the Scourer pirates that have been a menace forever destroying a convoy of ships on accident when robbing them, emerges victorious and because of intervention by the kind supremacist and militant Alarian Crusader Orders (Alar is a war god) and Thrale an established harmonist and materielist power and their actions the Uhlionic Republic's image rises after three hundred years of stagnating in the world's eye as an uppity pseudopariah state. Along with this, they annex the archipelago and dissolve the twelve baronies. Great underground temples have started to rise seemingly from nowhere, all of them old temples dedicated to the old god of death, Xyz or "The Primordial" that was cast down by the new god of death Sothe. After 2 hundred of years of conflict, invasion, and a revolution the sea people, the xhenons that are sea animal people like sharks and stingrays, have started to normalize relations with the greater world and their great underwater cities that are usually inacessible to all but the water breathing xhenon start opening up. A new far away continent is found and its exploration possible colonization is just beginning. It is rather alien with strange biomes and a series of looming city-sized great towers spread across the landscape that rise above a dangerous but resource rich land. The stop of one invasion welcomes another as a far off empire, the original land that Uhlion the Broken and his cohort perfected gunpowder weaponry arrive with strange weaponry that resembles the firearms used by central Tys, the region containing the continents Xatlaxa, Aizarin, and Velas. Along with this, an even greater power may be lurking and slowly drawing forward with the name of an empire long past set to reclaim their homeland. The mundane tech level resembles mid-Victorian tech in weaponry with anachronicities across various realms of science and technology. Electricity has been fully harnessed, steam locomotives spread across the continents along with the great fleets of aeroships that slowly are transitioning from their magitek origins to mundane creation piece by piece. The phonogram, telegram, moving picture show, lightbulb, vaccine (replacing old divine and magic means), and the production line have all been invented and the slow and awkward transition of the first epoch of flame with Skalovia at the forefront is replaced with multiple rivals, big and small. Great revolutions and wars rise, organized crime becomes influential, magic and clerical hold on advancement is lessened but present, and foul monsters and beings prey upon the denizens of Tys. It is a new age and nothing stays still.

The Warmblooded Scaled: Dragons, and Dragonkin including Kobolds and Dragonborn

Dragons and Dragonkin

The dragon is one of the oldest creatures in Tys, having existed in the far past including the great Aelthi Velassian Empire and beyond. They are quadrupedal, scaled, winged beasts with the wisdom and intelligence of sapients and the power and strength of great monsters. They are also inherently magical, possessing control of Aeth almost from birth, and their anatomy and physiology seems to be imbued with the magical stuff in a way that is more logical and natural than the aeth-born monsters of Rokita, Kishi, and the like. Their coloration often denotes their breath weapon, with red dragons breathing fire, silver dragons breathed an almost nitrogenous freezing gas, black dragons being able to spew acid, and so on. They are warm-blooded and have slitted eyes. They can see in the dark and have hawk-like vision. They seem functionally immortal with dragons being able to age over 1000 years. Their development takes longer than other kinds with an analogous infantile baby state of a human lasting for five years as hatchlings, youth taking twenty years, and their adolescence not occurring until they are thirty years of age. Dragons tend to be solitary creatures with many happy to be alone and sleep on hoards of gold and jewels and goods. They do seek mates from time to time and the dynamic of those relationships change from simple matings that part with both parties satisfied to be able to reproduce, to political unions formed from cultural or individual wants or needs of power, to longer companionship and friendship that sometimes creates eggs, to full blown loving marriages. Dragons produce 1-10 eggs in a clutch. Dragons also are very prolific in being able to reproduce with almost all kinds. This ability seems magical rather than physiological in nature and the mother's species often determines the child's. Their heritage can be passed on through innate magical ability or physical signs like scales or wings. Dragons can be found in most places of the world, but often not in great clustered numbers aside from a few exceptions. Their solitary lifestyle tends to change with culture, like the Samdirians, Zethites, and Skalovian dragons. It seems as though these are not natural homelands of dragons but rather places they settled or conquered.

Zethite dragons seem to be of the same class that other dragons are but they differ physically. Their faces and snouts are more box-like and rectangular, with whisker-like tendrils upon them. Their bodies are longer and they are covered with fur with an underside of armored scale. They also seem to lack wings and fly via magical means rather than physical ones. Their dragonkin reflect this with furred bodies and boxy rectangular heads.

For much of history, a standard dragon had these things: A hoard and a cave. They built their hoard either through trade, raiding, extortion, and gifts. Over time, the wants and needs of dragons grew and they needed servants and companions to do things they could not. Interestingly, the rise of sapient kinds like men, celotl, cuetzpali, bestials, xhenon, avians, and the like seemed to have coincided with the first recordings of kobolds and dragonborn being seen. Duerthi, Aelthi, Dragons, and Xhenons existed before these types. Their dragonkin in some societies have looked upon their forebearers as gods. Dragons also found themselves participating in societies they lived on the peripheries of. They acted as advisors, as tyrants, as businessman, as agitators, and other roles. It was much, much rarer to find them found societies. However, three examples them doing as such in the form of Samdiria, Skalovia, and Zeth have happened and each of these nations are influential in their own right.

Dragons have no set morality like all kinds on Tys and their coloration tends to be born from magical or physiological effects. Culture is what often influences their morals and thought. Samdiria's libertarian culture often produces dragons that live in a sort of half-way state between their old traditional living and the societies they encountered. Property is of paramount importance along with a celebration of selfishness. However, that celebration of selfishness also acknowledges that aiding others can increase the quality fo life for the self. There is a deep vein of competition, but not to the murderous ends of the old pre-Uhlionic Skalovian regimes. The scale princes were often the worst examples of the callousness, pride, and vanity of nobility. They build their great hearthsholds as city state hoards where all their subjects were personal property like their many jewels and gold pieces. Skalovia's extremely harsh but bountiful landscape made it profitable to cultivate subjects and have their chosen classes of subjects, dragonborn, rule over the others in a strict hierarchy with the princes at the top, followed by their thrawl-regents, followed by the pureblood dragonborn nobility, followed by the myriad of kinds under them like humans, dwarves, elves, and the like, and with the smaller, weaker kobold masses that made up their workforce of enthralled slaves that worked the fields, mined the quarries, and died by the hundreds to millions based on their overlords' whims. Zethite dragons take a much more harmonistic approach. Although their society and nation is isolated by the great Ichor Peaks, they see themselves as not above anyone. Their separation from the world is to maintain harmony in their place. They rule themselves as a hereditary oligarchy and spiritualistically imbued nation that seeks peace amongst all else.

Kobolds have not had a prosperous time on Tys for most of the species' existence. They are often given servile positions or treated as outright slaves, are generally weaker than other kinds, are smaller and average four feet in height, and seemed to have been created (or at least taught as much) that they are to serve. The kobold mortality rate remains high until the creation of the Uhlionic Republic begins curving it. Their mortality came from their young curiosity and weak forms being preyed upon by monsters and their rulers, their use as fodder for their patrons and overlords, and their overworked nature in Skalovia and as servants for dragons. The invention of the Danilovsky musket and the creation of the Uhlionic State was a giant step up for kobolds in terms of equalling other kinds in political and violent power to remove tyrants and deter would-be conquerors and increasing their quality of life by having them form an egalitarian society that respects their rights as kinds (and three-day weekends help). The natural superiority of the dragon is called into question and can be denied when cannons, piercers, and the musket can be used to kill their "natural betters". Then this idea of "natural betters" not deserving their inherited power and having it taken from them spreads when it comes to naturally weaker kings and princes, although harmonism and its more liberal forms attempts at forming egalitarianism will become the majority over time over equitianist thought being put into action in Skalovia.
Dragonborn ten to have humanoid shapes and grow near the same size as humans. They have tails as often as not and are blessed with weaker forms of breath weapons as the dragons they resemble.
Kobolds mature quicker than other sapient kinds, reaching adulthood at 10, seemingly a design in their forms to create servants faster. They can live for up to 168 years in many cases, however, which may be a minimal form of inheritance from the dragons they resemble. Dragonborn tend to resemble humans on Tys and live around 100 years with the spread of divine will and aeth-based magic being used to purify their food, drink, and remove microbes and diseases that would cause faster mortality.
Dragonbortn and Kobolds do not have the ability to procreate with other races like dragons, although interestingly there are viable and potent mixtures of them and cuetzpali lizardmen. They can also reproduce with eachther as kinds and similarly to dragons, the resulting fruit of their union often relies on the mother but they can produce either dragonborn or kobolds with traits and characteristics of each parent. That goes the same with lizardmen where often young take after one parent or the other in the majority of their phenotype but still acquire the minority inherited parent's traits to a degree.
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The Energies List and their Interactions

The Energies

These are the forces that are used by sapient kinds to power abilities and spells. They come from different sources and overlap in places. They are learned, gifted, and applied differently from one another.

Kah Focused life energy
Users Monks
Shi Focused necromantic energy
Users Necromancers, Vampires, Ghouls
This covers the whole Necromancy tree.
Wo-ehl Focused devilish energy
Users Devils, Pactsworn, Fiends
Aeth Focused magic energy
Users Spellcasters, Wizards, Sorcerers, Magicians
Heka Focused old energy
Users Witches, Talamhviri Choruses
Will Focused divine energy
Users Paladins, Clerics
Will also covers the Necromancy tree in parts. With notable exceptions being the use of stealing energies and other malevolently read spells.

Counters
Kah disrupts Aeth. Attacks of Kah users (generally those that were trained by a master and have innate attacks like the monk template in this blog) gain an armor divisor of 2 when made on magical creatures like most monsters in the world (wendigos, drekavacs, elokos, wihwins, caoranachs, etc.)
Kah and Will disrupts Shi. This is represented by things such as DR being lowered by things powered by these (see the Gravestone Scythe in the equipment section) or damages being increased or special effects and afflictions caused on the counters.
Kah and Will both gain armor divisor (2) on attacks using Innate Attacks (like the monk's) assumed to be powered by these and Kah or Will imbued weapons and equipment (like the Gravestone Scythe) when attacks are made on Shi powered targets such as zombies, ghouls, and vampires
Will disrupts Wo-ehl. Attacks on devilsh anima gain armor divisor (2).
Heka disrupts Will. Attacks on angyl anima gain armor divisor (2).

Other effects may also be added such as Stun, Itch, and the like.


Mechanically
For GURPS purposes, the energies are narrative background for why spells and certain abilities work. They technically pull from different sources, but generally if there is a difference between how GURPS does magic or the equivalent of ki versus how I've designed certain weaknesses or strengths it will be worked into the users via advantages or spells they have through the existing game mechanics. While GM discretion is advised in deciding when to apply counters and ascribe energies to characters, there will be expansion upon these rules over time where the definition of what the energies mean to how they affect gameplay.

Joker's Wild

When you come to a near-death situation, you can choose to pull the card. However, the GM will choose five things from your character sheet you stand to lose from using the card and you have to pick 1 to permanently lose. That could be a point of an attribute, a weapon, a piece of equipment, a spell, or an advantage. If it wouldn’t naturally make sense, then a devil shows up to slow down your perception of time and it will be a trade between them and you. It also has to be a thing you cannot buy back immediately and if you can buy it you are forced into having the PC live an in-game year before they could get it back via a quest or another deal.

Fortune and Calamity rules

This is based off of Edge of the Empire's Destiny Points

All players roll 1d4 at the start of the session. The die results determine the starting number of Fortune and Calamity points and the total number of Fortune and Calamity points.

1- 1 Fortune

2- 2 Fortune

3- 1 Calamity

4- 2 Calamity

Pool The points are then added up into a pool that can be used at any time of play, before or after a die roll.
The Pool is shared between all players, with the Players controlling Fortune and the GM controlling Calamity.

Flip When a Fortune point is used, it is turned into a Calamity point. When a Calamity Point is used, it is turned into a Fortune point.

Totals With 4 players, there should be a maximum possibly 8 points and a minimal possible 4 points in play at a time.
Fortune
Fortune can subtract 1d4 from a player's roll. 1 die max. Costs 1 point.

Fortune can give another d6 of damage to a roll up. 1 die max. Costs 1 point.

Fortune can cause a good or advantageous event to occur to the players. Costs 1 point.
Fortune can allow a single critical success on combat rolls, social rolls, and reaction rolls. Costs 3 points.
Calamity

Calamity can add 1d4 to the target of a roll. 1 die max. Costs 1 point.

Calamity can add 1d4 to the target of an enemy's roll. 1 die max. Costs 1 point.

Calamity can give another d6 damage to a roll. 1 die max. Costs 1 point.

Calamity can cause a bad or disadvantageous even to occur to the players. Costs 1 point.
Calamity can allow a critical success on combat rolls, social rolls, and reaction rolls for an enemy. Costs points equal to the amount of players at the table plus any remaining calamity points.

Rules for GMs If you are the GM that finds it hard to force disadvantages on your players, then you must choose to use this on every fourth roll and 13th inside a combat (and then you start over) and every 7th roll outside of it if appropriate. This is roll per your NPCs and you do not count the PC's rolls in counting. This will allow a back and forth between player and GM that makes sure the players end up with points and that neither side will gain from hoarding them.
Rules for Players If you have gone one real-time hour without using a Fortune roll, then you must immediately use for one of (but not each of) the next 3 rolls the player side does of the players choice, meaning two players could have rolled and passed it up and then the third has to take it. This is not strictly on the dot in terms of time. However, if 15 minutes pass the hour and the players were made known they had to use it, then the GM should roll a calamity point if available on the next test.
Rules for Both One can never cancel out a Fortune or Calamity by spending a point to counter another to uselessness or stacking effects for example the 1d4 bonus or penalty.

The Seas and Oceans

Aizarin

Aizarin

Epoch 1

The Holy Firmament

Overview A nation ruled by martial law of the knightly order that founded it, the Firmament is as familiar to war as their patron god, Alar, although saying as such may be labeled as blasphemy and punished. The firmament is heavily populated owing to both very fertile farmland and the blessings upon the land by their clerics. The Firmament was founded by crusading knightly orders fighting Alarian heretics on the Wahdalian peninsula in defense of multiple holy sites. The Wahdalis, as they were called, surrendered after a long and bloody war and were subsumed into a new crusader state that was founded beyond its original parameters. It now attempts to continue its eternal crusade into Aizarin and find themselves at odds against the Arjit (bug people) ruled Zoth Republic and the Zhuan empire (with a wide diversity of Kinds).

Government Religious Knightly Grand Chapter Martial Law headed by a Grand Master picked from an Inner Circle. The Inner Circle are an oligarchy of 7 chosen by other Circle members that rule the nation. They decide laws, they dictate borders, and they dictate diplomacy and policy. The regions are split up into marches and ruled by a master of the order chosen by his fellows. The marches are required to tithe manpower to the army. It is considered Traditionalist.
Kinds Humans, Aelthi, Duerthi.
Environment The Firmament takes up the mass amount of a peninsula known as Wadahlia. The eastern coasts of Wadahlia give way to desert into around 20% of the peninsula. Past that are giant rolling green hills and fertile land that takes up around 50% of the nation centered in the middle. Large forests exist near the middle along with multiple small ponds where much of the freshwater comes from. The lands do not grow higher than hills. The northern, western, and southern coasts. are mainly grasslands.
Origins The Holy Firmament was once an alliance of chapters of the Alarian Order, a knightly order dedicated to the god of war. This order acts as errant knights that hunt monsters, bandits, and demons along with generally being used to hunt heretics or whomever the Alarian prelate has declared blasphemous (like Equitianists). A simple call for action by the Wahdali Sultanate, an Aizarin confederation of independent princes, snowballed into a large scale invasion. Upon entry into the nation, it was found that the Wahdali sect of Alar had fundamentally changed multiple facets of the original religion that came from the continent of Velas. They were iconoclastic and allowed those without power investiture to perform certain rituals that they were not allowed to. Including women and bestial kinds. The Alarian religion has no discrimination based on Kinds but unlike Sothe, Liestra, and the Twin Gods they disallowed the involvement of female kinds until -1334 with the Alarian Reformation that was a response to the Great Unburdening. This chapter, known as the Brotherhood of St. Bromae, both Kinds that deviated from humans, aelthi, or duerthi were subhuman and not worthy to war in Alar's name and women's role was to make soldiers and make homes. This chafes incredibly with the Gravestone Templars of Sothe, many whom are women and are as proficient and zealous fighters. Notedly in terms of public relations, Gravestone agents are liked (but feared) and allowed throughout the entire world including the Court of the Night. The Alarian Order Chapters, including the Bromae Brotherhood, have to have special permissions or own the land too enter it. The invasion in -297 PR was fought by not only the Brotherhood and their knights, clerics, and paladins but also many foreign soldiers and mercenaries out of zeal or want for plunder. The invasion forces finally won in -256 after alternating times of war and peace with pushes and pulls of territory with the Brotherhood gaining the advantage eventually. In their victory, they established a formal state inquisition and burned out any remaining heretics, mages, and kah users.
Trade Trades silently with many Velassian nations. One major trade being plunder barter for special equipment, both Magitek and Divinely blessed. Trade in special Aizarin goods like silk, cinnamon, specific spices, and herbs.
Religion Nominally worships the whole Velassian Pantheon, but focuses mainly on the god of war Alar, having been an extension of the Alarian Order. All other gods outside of the Pantheon are banned, even those that are accepted to be alternative interpretations of the pantheon.
Culture The firmament is militaristic and heavily religious culture; this is fitting for a nation established as essentially a crusader state; the cross planted being the Holy Icon of Saint Bromae, paladin of Alar. It has an extensive police state and its own secret police in the form of Alarian inquisitors. These inquisitors descend from the same ones that slew the Scarlet Prophet for heresy when they invaded Skalovia.
Magic Magic is banned as blasphemous in the Holy Firmament. Only clerical and paladin investiture is allowed. They do not follow the Epiphany of Innocence for Magicks decreed in -7345 declared by the Sothe blessed figure, saint Uril. All magic users are to be killed. Kah users are similarly lumped in as sinful and similarly have the ban put upon them.
Military The military is a mixture of professional soldiery chosen from the peasantry and knights chosen from the nobility as a sort of tithing process every fifteen years. Children as young as 12 can be chosen to join and be trained in the ways of war. Their highest warriors are the Companions of St. Bromae, paladins wearing blessed armor and using blessed weapons that make them powerhouses in combat, able to strike at a dozen enemies at once with their melee weapons and use devastating blessings on the battlefield and to empower the lesser. Their general forces are spearmen, man-at-arms professionals for melee combat, bowmen, crossbowmen, light harassment and routing cavalry, heavy barded and plated lancing cavalry, their specialized heroes in the form of the Companions, the supporting medics and empowering clerics of Alar, and mercenary artillery in the form of trebuchets, ballistae, and Lekkenic Fire throwers. The Firmament's Levies seem backward to many in Tys in Epoch 1 when the world is slowly transitioning from spearmen and archers to linemen and cannons. They have many tricks up their sleeves to keep up. For one, they keep with them holy relics enchanted to lessen or even turn back firearm and arrow-based weaponry alike along with imbuing their lesser troops with increased morale and strength. Along with this, their specialized Companions are gigantic powerhouses on the battlefield that can break men's wills and bodies in great numbers. Furthermore, they do not reject the Broken's firearms on account of their creation being 'blasphemous'. They indeed do use them, they just adopt them slowly and Aizarin is not close enough to Velas when much of the continent start to make their own weaponry in large numbers to regularly trade and outfit many. Also, until meeting the Zoth Empire and their Heaven Engine, their ways worked. However, they are now at a stalemate as of 0 PR.
The Alarian Order has close ties to the Firmament although they are separate organizations. The Order does recruit from the Firmament more than any other nation; the amounts of new initiates gathered are only second to Alaria.
Aesthetic (Meta) Imagine if the military oligarchy of Sparta had survived into the late middle ages and adopted plate armor but had a mixture of dress, barding, and features that resembled the Spartan Hoplites of old and the newer historical Basileia Rhomaion (or remaining Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire). Imagine a historical spartan hoplite mixed with a spartharii mixed with a central European knight of the 1300s from Germany or France put together.

Epoch 1

The Fall of the Firmament

Monsters
Jaewan Principality
Jri Theocracy
Union of Nikao
Temura Khanate

Wakamoto

Perfect Harmony

Wakamoto is a beautiful island nation that hosts the Wakamotoese Empire. The Empire is known for its beautiful art, its unique cuisine, and its fearsome samurai who to a man wield the power of kah to defend their homeland and the crane emperor. Wakamoto is one of the more prosperous nations of Aizarin due to the luxury of division from the Rasp across the water. While the north is often under attack by the forces of the Rasp, the rest of the nation is freed to develop and hone their crafts. Graceful perfection is sought by every Wakamotojin from the lowly peasant to the courtiers of the high palace and its pursuit is ingrained in the culture of the realm. This culture ingrains duty to one's betters and one's place is to be known and acted within. The Wakamotojin are told this knowledge of one's place is what keeps the nation safe from the terrors outside its borders. The Crane Emperor's power is to be unquestioned. His power helps his legitimacy. The Crane Emperor is part of a near-unique phenomenon of living anathema. His god-like abilities can be unleashed to devastating effect. He can create large typhoons, terrible hurricanes, and colossal tsunamis. Not only can he create them, but he can also stop them as well. Many lives have been saved by the Crane Emperor and this is why his people have utmost love and respect for him. However, many fear his servants, the samurai, more than respect them. 

Samurai

Samurai, or bushi, are a class of warrior created for the protection of Wakamoto against the Rasp. They are raised from the young of noble families to become fierce fighters. Their main outward weapons are the spear and the bow, but what makes them very fearsome are their kah abilities. Each samurai is given monk-like training to master the life energy in order to combat the undead that invade the island from across the water. They have special abilities from this training along with increased power in their attacks. They can even use their training to affect their weapons and their spears, swords, and arrows can be enhanced by their abilities. Special monasteries train the samurai in these abilities and these monasteries have produced many masters of kah. 

Samurai are defenders of the nation and the strict class code of Wakamoto. They cannot give up arms and farm with the peasants. They are prevented from becoming the leech class of merchants. They cannot rise to become rulers. They make sure that the lower classes stay in their place to promote harmony. Peasants are to farm. Craftsmen are to create. Those that would raise their hand against their betters see that hand cut off. Those that act in unbecoming or uncouth manners are to be physically punished. One not bowing one's head to one's better loses that head. It is in this way they are feared by the people of the nation they protect.

They do so to protect the harmonious order and the Crane Emperor. The Crane Emperor's harmony is upheld by the samurai. To break harmony is to doom the nation.

Onmyodo

Magic is outlawed to all but a few special families. Any caught doing magic that are not of those families are put to the death. These families report directly to the emperor and are trained in an ancient tradition to produce Onmyodo, court mages. Onmyodo serve as direct servants to the emperor and aid his warriors in their battles. 

Oni

Oni are monsters that are produced by the followers of Oni King, the anathema of battle. Oni were created by the Oni King in Wakamoto. Oni are special in that they occupy a halfway space between anima, servitors made from the aspect of an anathema, and monsters, spontaneously created creatures powered by aeth. The Oni king does not occupy the hellish Tithe Realms of the Woehltriv and the Woehltan. Indeed, he has his own realm outside of the Tithe Realms. The Oni King once walked the earth as a man and was slain, but the combined fear of him and the belief remaining worshippers turned him into an ascended large red horned beast. The Oni King has a cult within Wakamoto but it is very difficult to be an open cultist in such a society. The Oni King after his ascendancy has materialized into the world and in his visits he created a new line of oni fallow.

Oni Fallow

The Oni King's fallow resemble him with red skin, horns, fangs, and white hair. They are capable of the ferocity of their sire but are not predisposed to it. They are not forced into being monstrous and can live normal lives. Unfortunately, the Crane Emperor has a permanent edict of genocide against these Oni-blooded which has driven those that give birth to them to leave them on hills to die of exposure or murder them once born. Those that survive even this are to be killed. A diaspora of oni fallow exists around the world and they can be found as far east as Xatla. Some have even settled in Thrale which has been kinder to its fallow population. Although they have had more difficulties than Velassian fallow in establishing themselves.

The Wakamotoese Language

Wakamoto much like the majority of Aizarin did not adopt Universal like Velas and Xatla did. The Rasp and the Cursed Realm makes trade more difficult and as such, they do not have the rate of interaction that facilitated it from taking hold. Some merchants may know it and the invention of aeroships may make its use much more common.

Wakamotoese Trade with Skalovia

Wakamoto made a trade agreement with Skalovia in Epoch 1. The Skalovians were briefly confused about why someone would would make the three month trip to do so but then realized that the Wakamotoese had been made known of their firearm weaponry. They wanted it as an extra weapon for the defense of the island and lacked the religious ban against firearms that the Pentaphany enforced.

The Cult of the Emperor

The subjects of the Crane Emperor worship and revere the emperor as a living god. This cult has been syncretized with local animist beliefs. All other religions are banned. To worship other gods is to invite a death sentence.

The Monasteries

The monks do not worship the Crane Emperor like the rest of the nation does. They have their own religion separate from the cult of the emperor. They are allowed to keep this privilege due to their training of the samurai and their knowledge of kah. Their religion is of the old animist traditions of Wakamoto and they can use heka along with their kah.

Epoch 0

The Blood Struggle
In a time of famine, it was decided by the emperor of Wakamoto that each kind would have to battle to choose the surviving species of the kind. Those that refuse would be killed off in their entirety for defying the god-emperor in their selfishness. This was decided after refusing to prepare for a foreseen famine which was advised by his court and by the onmyodo. That is one of many reasons Wakamoto will rise in Harmonist sentiment and boil into revolution. To date, three kinds of hare has been extinguished, six bird kinds have been extinguished, one kind of wolf, and the red fox kind has been also almost been entirely extinguished and left the white fox kind.
Food: Rice wine, Cinnamon Sweet Rice,
New Xheolia
Zhuan Empire

Epoch 2

342 PR - 353 PR

The War of the Fallen Emperor

In 332, the unthinkable occurred. The Crane Emperor died after millennia of rule. How it occurred is a mystery. Natural causes? The loss of faith naturally bringing down an anathema? An ancient conspiracy by the Oni King come to fruition? A Harmonist or Equilibratist plot? A samurai plot for their decreased importance with the slow reclaiming of the Rasp? The Pentaphany bringing down a false god? A new Crane Emperor reincarnation claiming the essence of the old? An anathema taking his place? So many explanations were given and each of these had their own reactions with the people high or low. His death meant that there was no longer a singular powerful force to stop the natural disasters of Wakamoto. There were ways to soften them or outright stop them but it would require a major reshuffling of society that had been in stasis for thousands of years and had known little else. Any reshuffling would come without the lynchpin anchoring Wakamotoese society. Multiple groups would attempt to claim the throne.

The Craneblood Society

The Craneblood society were a number of aristocrats and samurai families which claimed they held the blood of the Emperor. The Crane Emperor had created a few lines in the past and held wives. The Cranebloods were certain that of their kin they had the heir that would either become the emperor or produce it. Much of the old guard of Wakamoto including most samurai were drawn to them in hope they would produce a new Crane Emperor and bring life back to the traditional ways. Many of their supporters were courtiers, samurai, and noble families which had prospered under the Crane Emperor's rule and would see it continue rather than see Harmonist or Equilibratist upstarts claim it.

Ikimasu League

The Ikimasu League (Ikimasu meaning "The Way" in Wakamotoese)were those influenced by the spreading ideology that reached their borders from increased aeroship trade with Thrale and Mekkhor. They were made up of mainly middle class and lower samurai families along with merchants that had been popularly seen as lesser and parasitic throughout Wakamotoese history. Merchants mainly were doing their job but they acted outside of the social parameters of harmony which made the upper classes wary of them and the pursuit of profit made them threatening as they could serve as visual examples of those excelling without the old harmony system. Many samurai of the Ikimasu League chafed under the rule of the old guard that made up the Cranebloods as many were forced from their homes to make way to the old strongholds of the north. This was seen as corralling dissidents. When the Rasp was fought back, this was especially seen as lacking any other purpose than control. The Ikimasu League grew large with these lower gentry able to speak to the lower classes, however a new movement that had been in the making for three centuries would become a competing factor.

Jindomei

The Jindomei (a shortening of People's Alliance) were an equilibratist group and one that had been building under Wakamotoese society for a considerable amount of time. Though they may deny it, the Jindomei began with those that spoke to the officials of the Skalovian embassy (an embassy that contained its own clandestine agitprop department) and learned of Uhlionic Equitianism. They were taught well to keep this knowledge a secret and they slowly and silently spread the ideals over time. One of their largest bases was found in the south of the nation and the first supporters down in the south were the Kaze people. the Kaze are some of the oldest inhabitants of Wakamoto and the creators of the animist tradition of Zei which the monks of Wakamoto draw upon in their own religion. Zei also teaches the use of beseeching local kami, or spirits, to draw upon the energy of heka and perform invocations. The Kaze's culture was suppressed, bastardized, and taken from them by the Wakamotoese millennia ago in a series of wars. They have had to hide their traditions in all this time and keep them alive. They were some of the first to heed the Equilibratist call. The peasants of the south also took well to the ideology. The lower classes often were punished the most by the removal of southern samurai because they had the privilege of being able to farm alongside the peasants. Without Onmyodo to help their crops nor another resource they could openly use like Liestrian miracles or heka they would be hit the most by poor crop yields. The old guard of samurai that stayed in place of those sent to the north were also callous thieves and brutes that hurt and murdered multiple peasants. Equilibratism was seen as a way to remove these oppressors through an alliance of force for the peasants and they were joined in arms by the ethnic Kaze. A few samurai were sympathetic to the ideology as well which tracks with history of Equilibratism gaining adherents in the nobility that turn against their classes (see Uhlion the Broken and the Black Prince). The final group that contributed greatly to the alliance were the Oni fallow. The few that stayed behind and the diaspora abroad gathered under the Jindomei banner in order to seek justice for the way they had been treated in the past. They were expelled from the nation, had genocide committed against them, and then left the nation finding that most realms were not kind to them. The Jindomei gathered many of these fallow in order create a stronghold where they could be free. Some did join the Ikimasu and these were usually the oni fallow that had issues with Equilibratism or were found in the north where the Ikimasu were stronger. The Ikimasu did uphold emancipation for the fallow in the end. The diaspora of those clans that had fled during the blood struggle also returned in large part where the Ikimasu and Jindomei promised them the ability to see their homelands again.

The War Itself

Tensions built up over the years with false claims of a new Crane Emperor being born. The Cranebloods saw the different factions gaining power and placed the nation under martial law. Although honestly it wasn't that much different from before and indeed it showed to the Ikimasu and Jindomei what the old guard and Cranebloods thought of them. War began in 342. Now a very interesting phenomenon occurred. The Jindomei suddenly revealed weapons such as breech-loading rifles, gun-platform aeroships, and Drazhnev rotator cannons at the same time that the Ikimasu revealed Thralish rifles, clipper aeroshhips, and Pearlhart rotating guns. The Cranebloods had their own supply of modern weapons along with near half of the kah empowered samurai in the nation. The kah-enhanced arrows quickly lost their luster when being shot by properly rifled guns, however. The Ikimasu and Jindomei squeezed the Craneblood contingent in the center of the nation until they enacted a brutal dual-siege of the capital where the crane regent lived. Then, there were the two armies. The Grush war had only ended a decade beforehand. Enmity between harmonists and equilibratists was high. However, during this time a series of typhoons and a great tsunami had devastated key settlements for both sides. Rather than risk a war that would surely lead to starvation and slaughter, it was decided that the nation would be split into a northern portion and a southern portion. The North Ikimasu Republic, and the South Jindomei People's Republic.

Changes to Wakamoto

Outside religions were allowed within the nation for the first time in generations. The samurai remaining either had to transition to a non-warrior class, leave, be expelled from the nation, or be put to death for crimes against their countrymen. All fallow were welcomed within Wakamoto along with those whose clans had fled. New organizations consisting of magicians, heka users, and clerics were built to combat the natural disasters. The crops flourished under new magical and miraculous help.

North and South

However, tensions still remain and it is rumored in hushed tones that each side could swarm the other in a moment. Their patrons and now allies would enjoy their ideology to take full hold. It is even said that spies and agitators from each nation are embedded with the opposite nations in Wakamoto...

The Zothic Republic

Overview The Zoth Republic was the first known true representative republic in the world and the home of the Arjit (bug people) and the Jaleaq (arachnids including spiders and scorpions). They live in the Banelands, named either in pride by its inhabitants or in fear and hatred by its enemies.  Around 75% of the citizenry inhabit great underground cities beneath the desert where one major trade is the continued mining and expansion of the city. The Zoth Republic was born out of conflict with the [Worms], much like Lusmia, and its once multiple disparate warring tribes unified into a diverse and formidable force. It has constant tensions with the Holy Firmament, the nation that neighbors it to the east; New Xheolia, a nation of sea Kinds to its west; and the Zhuan Empire, a very ancient regional power.

Environment The majority of the nation, around 60% of it, comprises of a region of Aizarin known as the Banelands, a mixture of badlands, desert, oasis, rivers, plateaus, and mountains. Where Skalovia is murderously cold for the fall and winter, the Banelands are torturously hot during the summer and spring. To cross them, special crystal formations that create a huge cooling effect in a 100 yd radius are needed. Rather than being the result of the magic stuff of stars, these are earthborn crystals that are touched by the Aether found in underground caverns.
Origins The Zoth republic is an old place, untouched even by the ancient Velassian empire. It grew sapient kinds of unknown origin. Some theorize spontaneous Aether formations out of the local fauna, which is a similar theory to the rest of the Kinds of Central Tys. Some possibly think they are lab experiments that escaped their labs, and are possibly offshoots of the [Worms]. In any case, they have a history of tribalism and insularity. Originally, the land was split up into a few hundred tribes known as Feis. The Feis warred for good farmland, water sources, and when they were found, the great inhabitable caverns that grew fungi and edible flora and fauna. They were left alone by the old Aelthi Empire, the rising Cao empires, and their neighbors. They rose to prominence with the second invasion of the [Worms]. All the tribes were going to be driven to extinction, with a distinct lost being the total indoctrination of the wasp Feis. This was until they discovered the Heaven Engine. The Heaven Engine was a glowing cylindrical thing shaped like a giant machine tool that gave those that interfaced with it powerful abilities and the ability to inflict godlike destruction. It was used to drive back the worms. All the tribes that used the engine looked upon the destruction the engine caused and the deaths of many of their people. They destroyed old grudges and formed a council union that was in -5323 PR. They declared the land to be Zoth, or "Unified" in the shared language known as Tijling. This was an oligarchical and Kind based union that faced much strife. That council eventually became a proper republic in -103 PR after a civil war and the exclusive use of the Heaven Engine by the Archons. The Archons are an all-inclusive group that any can join, and their heads, the Hiearchs, are voted in by the public among the Archons' members.
Government The Zoth Republic is ruled by a president democratically chosen by direct voting from the citizenry of Zoth. He precedes over an executive branch and bureaucracy that runs multiple arms of the nation. The president has term limits of 10 years and an individual may only be elected once. The legislative arm of the republic is the Chorus, a congress that is voted in by representative members called Singers per Section, the municipal division that comprises an area and the people within. The Chorus numbers 1 per district which comprises 10,000 citizens minimally and 15,000 citizens maximally. Any more or less requires redrawing of Section borders. This can cause massive bureaucratic headache, but citizens can opt in to choose themselves as part of a local district until their restructuring finishes. The Sections are administered by Section Departments. This system does not discriminate between city and rural regions (or really oasis and regions that border the desert). The nation comprises of around 20,000,000 citizens. That adds up to 2000 singers. The singers write in laws, decide on important matters, and are required to be consulted before the nation goes to war. Then there is the judicial branch which is technically also theocratic. These are the Archons, and they are both the supreme judges, ruling on legislative matters and allow or veto policy, but also act as priests to the great Heaven Engine. They would be considered Harmonist.
Culture The culture is a very individualistic sort. The deaths of most of their Kinds left the Zothians to reevaluate the worth of each member of their species. They were the first to adopt a Kindist attitude: they espoused the importance of sapient life, its matters rather than external divine or supernatural input, and express the value and inherent goodness of kinds when they are not forced into conflict. They showed the unification in the face of the [Worms] as proof of this when they could have ran and left the world to their mercy. The common needs of kinds are emphasized. Even the cult of the heaven engine is not quite like other organized religions. It's more accepted that it is a part of their daily life and that rituals are good to show their appreciation to it. (Metawise, it's similar to Shinto in that way). Their very government and upbringing is made to express the value of the individual. They took well to materialism when it spread from Xatlaxa but also agree with aspects of equitianism, often hybridizing the economics of the two.
Economics The Republic of Zoth massively trades with the rest of the world. They trade in silk, special minerals, medicines using chemicals from their mines and processed in the undercities, and trade in their unique beasts and monsters. They were one of the first to trade with the State of Skalovia just like Kesst and Wakunan.
Magic Magic users are allowed to freely enter and exit the Republic. Although they deny it, the heaven engine is also very clearly Kah based and many monks and Kah users have said as such. They did not have magicians or supernatural powers until the engine, but they welcome foreign ones and send off their own young to magical universities to return and use their gifts.
Military The Zothians know the value of deterrent force. They will be one of the first to fully outfit their forces with Skalovian muskets. The variety of the kinds in the nation also use their individual strengths in different roles. Scarab and Beetle kinds act as heavy frontline infantry with large curved blades to soften up battle lines or breach defenses in sieges. Moth kinds serve as harassment and router units, using their flight to act as dragoons with a lot of flexibility. Scorpion kinds tails are often used as spears above heavy defensive shields, and they have been recently outfitted with muskets along with many other kinds. The military is not worshipped in the Banelands but it is respected.

Jri Foundland

Jaewa

Zhao

Magraghalia

Nikao

Temura

The Cursed Reach

Wahdalia

More to Come

Epoch 2

Wing Mafia

WIP
The Wing Mafia is a criminal organization made up of Avians, Corvidae, Psitticidae, and other winged Kinds (including Elakansi chiroptera). It was formed in the 200s after a famine in Corvidia and conflict against Lathe sea people in Tarkaria had many flee to Xatlaxa. They found squalid living conditions and their quality of life worsen as a minority Kind in the human, lizardman, pantera, and snakeman majority nations of Ezaxtlan, Huatec, and Celatua. The majority tried to live the best they could in an honest way of life. Not the four families, however. The Rhadi, Wrott, Orthic, and Plathi families made an alliance to get rich or die then to be left in the mud. They attempted to make a living that resembled their tough ancestors of old and went to bounty and monster hunting. They do continue this (and many Wing chapters act but also hide themselves as hunters) but found it wasn't enough to live more than subsisting and the work was dangerous. Children needed their mothers and fathers to be able to raise them instead of being killed by monsters and criminals in jungles. So, a number started their own thing. Fake lotteries, tariff-dodging smuggling, taxless gambling, protection rackets, and other ones. Over time, the families drew others from outside their own respective kin. The organization stretched out, became bigger, started making money that allowed them more influence than ex-Tarkarians could have dreamed of. They dressed in the latest fashion of the day, bought expensive cars and carriages, and a few even bought some prestigious pieces of magitek to flaunt including a private ten-person aeroship. All that wealth built through sweat and blood. Their sweat, their victims' blood. The mafia has been paid to union bust, to scare off and beat up protesters, to intimidate foreign businessmen, and to assassinate figures. They are vehemently anti-equitianist and often work with big economic and political figures to point them out and keep them silent.
The Wing Mafia is now an underworld fixture that stretches from the coast of northern Nuhungat to southern Ezaxtla, but they present themselves as legitimate businessmen and call themselves "the guild" in public. They vehemently deny any such organization as the mafia and each vows silence upon their induction. They've adopted a few odd southern Xatlaxan traditions that even the majority has left behind years before the Epoch of Flame began. Their strange rituals don't make them any less dangerous and these in their way need to be wary of a knife to the gut or a bullet ripping at them in a dark alley at night.

The Wing Mafia as an organization starts to officially form at 243 PR. Their prototypical form in the alliance of the four families starts in 229

Template and NPC Profile
Wing Mafioso

Wing Mafioso ST 9 [-10] DX 11 [20] HT 0 HP 12 [4] Basic Speed 5 Basic Move 5 Quatli .402 Revolver 1d6+2 pi+ (1.5 pen mod) Acc 1 100/1,000 2.2/0.23 RoF 3 Shots 6(5i) ST 9 Bulk -1 Rcl 3 Cost 250 LC 3
Guns (Pistol) Skill 11

Weapon

Damage

Acc

Range

Weight

RoF

Shots

ST

Bulk

Rcl

Cost

LC

Pen Mod

Quatli Revolver, .402

1d6+2 pi+

1

100/1000

2.2/0.23

3

6(5i)

9

-1

3

250

3

1.5x

Clothes $200 (Flat Cap $20, Tweed Jacket $40, Cotton Button-Up Shirt $30, Woolen Black Trousers with Suspenders $40, Wool Socks $10, Lace-Up Pointed Leather Shoes $60) 2lbs
6 rounds+6 in their chambers 2.76 lbs $9.2, cigarette case 0.1 $20, 7 Cigarettes $1 -, $1d6-4d6 in loose money.

I recommend using the Mobster template from GURPS WWII Templates on page 12

Gravemarkers

Gravemarkers

The Chantry of Sothe are a special order of monks and sisters that vow their lives into carrying out Sothe's will. They ensure that the natural rest of all under his domain is secured against those that would disrupt his order including murderers, Woehltriv worshippers, malevolent necromancers, and warmongers. They are a hospitaller faction that also has an errant militant wing in the form of the Exemplars of the Crow Father of the organization collectively known as Gravestone. These are white veiled and black-clad templars that wear blessed armor that protects against devilish powers, necromantic influence, and mundane weaponry through stifling or outright negating effects. The exemplars hold "Scythes" which are more like poleaxes with more curved edges that are similarly blessed to strike down the wicked. Unlike the Alarian order and its Firmament Templar offshoot in Aizarin, the Chantry are a non-political group that tends to not take sides in ideological fights unrelated to the Crow Father's dictates. As such, they are often freely allowed into even nations often seen as having non-protheistic bents to them like the Uhlion Republic or the Magocracy. Indeed, they are even allowed into the Court of the Night, with the conditions laid down by the Sothe Prelatic and the Viscount of Twilight involving them only in action against those wishing to expand illegally from the Court's borders. However, they are still not allowed to murder on a whim even those they think are guilty and as such must often find just cause in their actions to be allowed their privileges.
The Exemplars all have power investiture in them by the Crow Father, given to them by the High Prelate. They receive this with their Icons, skull masks marking the covenant between them and the god of death.


History to come later.
Stats to come later.

The Exemplars of Sothe NPC

	STATS		SECONDARY STATS
ST	16	HP	20	PER	10
DX	12	FP	15	Will	13
IQ	10	SPD	6.5	Move	6[5]
HT	14			Dodge	10[9]
Weapon	Skill	DMG	RNG/RCH	Parry
Gravestone	17	2d6+7 imp	1,2*	0U
Scythe		2d6+6 cr	1,2*	0U
		1d6+5 imp	2,3*	0U
[1] Always fine
[2] Armor Divisor (2) and causes Severe Pain Affliction to
demons, undead, shi users (necromancers), and aether-based monsters
Spell	Skill	Cost	Maintain	DMG	Time to Cast	Dur
Astral Block	15	4	2	_	2s	10 min
Fear	15	1	_	_	1s	10 min
Hail	15	1	1	1d-2s	1s	1 min
Icy Breath	15	1 to 4	_	1d+1 per FP	2s	1s
Repel Spirits	15	4	2	_	10s	1 hr
Sense Spirit	15	1/2 to 1	_	_	1s	Instant
Solidify	15	50	10	_	1s	1 min
Extra Skills	Traits
Diplomacy 13	Blessed	Combat	Disciplines of	Duty (Order	Great Vow
First Aid 13	(Heroic Feats)	Reflexes	Faith	12-)	(Never refuse
Innate Attack 15			(Mysticism)		any request
Occultism 15					for aid)
Observation 12	Hard to	High Pain	Higher	Patron	Power
Running 15	Kill 4	Threshold	Purpose	(Temple of	Investiture 3
Savoir-Faire (Temple) 15			(Carry out	Sothe)
Survival 12			Sothe's will)
Theology 15	Reputation +2	Trained by	(True	Unfazeable	Weapon
Throwing 14	(Sothites)	a Master	Faith)		Master
					(Gravestone
					Scythe)