Aedamphia

My first D&D (incidentally, ran in FKR style although I did not know nor cared then if it was a "style") campaigns all took place in various parts of a composite world I built through play.
These blurbs of setting are retold by me with minimal editing, from stuff I ran between age 9 and 16.


Going back first to the basic cosmogony of the universe in which the nameless planet (henceforth, the world) sits.

The Forgotten Age

The universe is not the creation of any magic or god-like entity but a random happenstance, governed by my school-level understanding of how the actual universe we reside in probably came to be. Fast-forward billions of years, and eventually a sapient species evolves and develops technology so advanced it is undistinguishable from magic. One of their starships crashes on the world of Aedamphia. None of the aliens survive, but remnants of their technology remains.

In the meantime, inhabitants of this world develop into various tribes other the world, coming up with the use of tools for hunting and gathering, fire, herbal medicines, artistry, animal husbandry etc. These lil' guys occasionally fight, love, explore the world and generally try to survive. One difference with our usual understanding of our world though, is that inhabitants of theirs may, through sheer force of will and belief, make the impossible possible, on small-ish scales at least. Early practitioners of magic are priests and shamans, spiritual guides to their tribes who eventually learn to channel the shared will of their families and tribes into more potent magic, and often end up becoming the de facto leaders of these tribes too. So you have hunter gatherers led by belief-fuelled sorcerers going around a mostly mundane world for a while.

Some of these sorcerers, as they would conclave together at key times to share knowledge both esoteric and worldly (although there was no difference then), banded together to pursue the mysteries of the ancient fallen stars, and discovered the starship, and dedicated a great part of their lives over studying its mysteries, until a handful of them understood enough that they produced the Keys to Divinity, abstract artifacts that grant individuals powers akin to that of gods. These divine sorcerers would later take for each others the names of concepts they would embody through their power - the Ruler, the Conqueror, the Seeker, the Protector, etc. They were immortal, wielding power only another of their own could counteract, and their tribes would grow, assimilate and destroy others not patroned by a walking living God.

The time before these is known as the Forgotten Age, because one of the first things these sorcerers-turned-gods did was erase ancient history and myths, killing the past so that they would have always been eternal for their tribes.

The First Age & The War of Betrayal

The First Age then, would be one of turmoil, but also great change. The Seeker, most powerful of the sorcerers, sought to deepen their understanding of the universe and the secrets from the stars. They manipulated life to create elves, dwarves, halflings and cats (who in this world have always spoken and walked upright as we do), controlled mutations from the human genome. The Conqueror unified thousands of tribes, establishing the Old Empire, only to be betrayed by the other Gods, jealous of his worldly power. He would be known as the Destructor for his undending war of expansion, an engine of chaos, and trapped under the earth in stasis. He had to stop his expansion at the Great Desert south of what would later be known as the Shaq'Tar, and so the history of these lands and the ones south of these is vastly different from what I'm retelling, as it has been free from the Sorcerer-Gods for way longer.

Still in the First Age, the Ruler would come to be known as the Emperor and initially ruled over eveything west of Shaq'Tar and east of the great jungles, knowing better than to prod the Green too much after the failure of Kurosh. He built the great cities of Maghmatema, Az, Ygnès, Elysium and Teskelia.

During the war that would be known as War of Betrayal, between the Conqueror/Destroyer and his former allies, the Seeker, who had grown distant from humanity after manufacturing elves, dwarves and the likes, made a pact with a coven of powerful witches - all-female followers of the Art (the ancient belief-fueled magic), to teach them nearly all he knew and grant them a spark of immortality in exchange for their loyalty. The Witches' arcane power would play a pivotal part in the War of Betrayal, but as soon as it ended, the patriarchal Protector and the covetous Seeker turned against them and a holy crusade was launched against them. Nearly all of them were slaughtered, and the Art would only then be taught by remote, comparatively weak wizards and clerics of Harmony (through a process similar to what the Seeker shared with the witches). One, who sold her name, shadow, and years to the Art, survived in stasis and a great prison was built around her in Maghmatma.

The Circle of Harmony, Shaq'Tar, Elven Exile & The Dwarves

The Protector, terrified at the prospect of another Conqueror, built his powerbase in faith, and over generations, refined the Circle of Harmony into a powerful cult dedicated to the worship not of the Immortals themselves, but to the abstract concept they were "meant" (in his philosophy) to embody. And in the process, made himself the Holy Father of said massive cult and eventually seceded from the Empire in The Quiet War. This led to the creation of the sovereign theocratic nation of Aedamphia, as well as the Western Kingdoms and the independence of Kurosh.

Note that Shaq'Tar's independance from both the Conqueror and Emperor's influences stemmed from it being mostly arid wastes and impenetrable mountain ranges. By the time the Conqueror realized that verdant valleys and countless riches laid in the exile of the Cats, their Grand Vizier (another immortal) seared the earth and created the fracture that splits the desert apart and makes it highly impractical to try and get east for the sorcerer-gods and their followers. Laëlith would be built on that fail centuries later by merchant-princes and wizards, and become the richest city in the world thanks to the trade from both sides of the chasm (yay for airship technology gleamed from the south, beyond the Great Desert).

Around that time, the Elves left the continent to explore past the Leviathan's Kingdom (the southern ocean) and find a better life for their kin. The Seeker disappeared into the depths of the earth, to find more lost tech of from the stars. The Protector built Solarion, Lyah and Thuaire. And more sinister things happened in Aedamphia:

The Dwarves of Brumaire, isolated from the world after digging their homes into the great underground, had come to understand and take for themselves some of the mutagenic arts of the Seeker, and created a new kin - slaves - in the form of the Salt Gnomes, made to be genius tinkers unable to walk above ground as rain (or any water mind you) would melt them into nothingness. It took less than a century for the Gnomes to rise up against their masters and exterminate all dwarven women, as well as sewing the mouths shuts of any dwarven men. Their longevity would suffice to keep the survivors as slaves themselves for a few centuries. This would go entirely unnoticed by the inhabitants above ground until much later in history.

The Second Age / Recent History
Ok so this is the state of the world in what would become known as the Second Age.

The elves are gone, the dwarves are enslaved by their creation the salt gnomes whom they had enslaved themselves, Shaq'Tar is fairly isolationist but Laëlith is rich, there is peace between the realms, and nobody knows what's beyond the Great Desert, cause the drowning sands are impossible to cross and the ocean's coasts are so brutal no ship ever comes back. This is when my two semi-parallel first campaigns started. I'll spare you their personal tribulations, and only focus on the Big Picture. But this is recent history essentially, decades ago.

- The last witch escaped containment.

- Shaq'Tar slowly began to wage war with Aedamphia, first in the form of political destabilization and isolated raids.

- A Paladin from the Circle of Harmony was banished, the very first.

- The Seeker emerged from the earth, and walked towards Maghmatema, followed by mesmerized followers.

- The Emperor, apparently turned senile, gave up power in a series of political machinations orchestrated by the traitorous Andrade Montecchio.

- And then Maghmatema blew up as a giant beam of burning light nuked the whole region, shortly after the Seeker met in private with the Emperor.

- Refugees from the Empire fled to Aedamphia, and Shaq'Tar used the opportunity to occupy the eastern part thereof. Unwilling or unable to fight back, the patriarch left the lands to the grand vizier and vied for peace.

- About a year later, a black dragon, building-sized, appeared as if from nowhere, latched onto the Tower of Harmony. This was the climax of a series of incursions of the supernatural into the world, following the cataclysm of Maghmatema. It turned human and spoke to the Patriarch before riding west beyond the jungles.

- Shaq'Tar mysteriously withdrew its troops back to the desert kingdom.

- A party of bizarre adventurers led by a flying man-crow from beyond the south desert uncovered the underground dwarven/gnomish kingdoms and freed the remaining dwarves, before waging a war on all remnants of slavery in the west, and eventually being backed by a reluctant patriarch to abolish all slavery, domestic included.

- Helohim Na'hada, and then Solarion, were visited by the Seeker. The burning light destroyed the Shaq'Tar's capital, but Solarion was protected by a great magical shield as the Black Dragon came back, carrying on his back another motley crew of weirdoes, including the fallen paladin.

- The Seeker and the Protector both left the material world shortly after, without fanfare, entrusting the rest of history to humanity now rid of all the Sorcerer-Gods, having revealed the Seeker's quest to eradicate all their remaining shards of divinity before departing the world.

- The man-crow, a fervant devout of Harmony, took over the Circle of Harmony and brought back older heretical practices - a reformation that was met with much turmoil, and also led to a civil war within Aedamphia, and then with the Western Kingdoms, unified under the banner of Baroness Bianca Delgado.

- War between the Baroness and the new Circle of Harmony led to the use of a powerful remnant artifact of the fallen stars, which tore a rift through time and space, creating two separate instances of the world. One where the Baroness won and slowly took over the known world and reshaping it entirely as she absorbed and fueled the shard of divinity she took from the surviving Witch until she became the Overlord...

- And another one, in which the Circle and the Baroness both were destroyed, leaving Aedamphia with no spiritual or military leader, and ripe for the bandits and warlords of the ruined empire to the north.

[I'm not going into the whole Baroness timeline thing because that campaign was a 12 year old's take on Berzerk and it is best left as a vague "grimdark dimension" that occasional demonic incursions pop up into this timeline from.]

- Then, the Elves came back with golden ships and gunpowder, and decreted that Aedamphia without ruler should be "guided" back to stability by their hand, and so they did a lil' colonialism, which is where things are at currently. Schisms between heretical/reformist (and actually "older") and classicist (newer, comparatively) practices of the Circle of Harmony with remnant errant clerics. Wild Wizards (of all genders, a Witch is really a special, extra powerful type of old Art practitoner) still hunted by family lines of wizard hunters. Magical beasts emerged from the nukes used by the Seeker to kill the Gods, roaming the lands; warlords and bandits fighting to reclaim bits and pieces of the ruined Empire and trying to rebuild. Surviving dwarves and gnomes on a genocidal war against each others. The cats of Shaq'Tar still vibing in their corner of the world, mainly concerned with more and more frequent demonic incursions into their lands.


--- Now, what about the part of the world that didn't have to deal with sorcerers with the ambitions to rule as gods over creation. ---

CosmicOrrery: yesss colonialist elves. my favorite. my main thoughts are A) this could provide some nice  layered history and B) what area of the world would be the most interesting to actually play in?

Halloween: They're like, eco-fascists who blame humans for the magical catastrophe cause they felt the ripple at home, and it kinda wrecked their continent so they're trying to take over this one.

Well, Aedamphia itself is less fucked than the Empire but still has civil unrest so it's good if you want noble houses, guilds, and such. Plus the elves. High adventure, high fantasy.

The Empire is essentially the borderlands at this point and has lots of ruins from fallen stars so it's very OD&D-like.

The western kingdoms and Kurosh are more low fantasy, quieter, quasi medieval.

Shaq'Tar is DESERT KINGDOM.

And beyond the desert well, I'm getting to it.

The Edge

--- Ok so remember how belief shapes the world and making magic out of it, The Art, was lost because of the Gods? Well the Gods never got past the drowning sands.

South of the desert, you've got a verdant land surounded by mountains to the south and east, desert to the north and ocean to the west. It is called the Edge, because the mountains of Mordavia (where the Ducks live) are the literal end of the world. After that you fall into the emptiness of space, forever. The Edge is also a part of the world where reality is much more malleable, also because of the continued influence of belief. For example, it always had magical beasts and creatures roaming about, these weren't brought forth from the nukes.

To the north, there's the drowning sands, and then a desert still unhospitable, but not entirely devoid of life. There live the Corwids. These are People of all shapes and sorts, whose intuitive mastery of the Art constantly reshapes subtle aspects of the world around them. Thus they survive, somehow, in the firey hell that is the Great Desert. These are a strange commune who all hold onto sometimes absurd, always extreme beliefs in regards to reality or aspects thereof, and whose minds and bodies have twisted to reflect these. This is where the Man-Crow who believed men always could fly and abhored all bounds came from. They're goblin lil' weirdoes and most people leave them alone. Their "tribe" has been there since the earliest of times. One of their ancestors had found a piece of the falling star. And ate it.

Southwest of the desert, there's mountains surrounding an inner sea. Cloudpierce floats atop the mountains, in the sky beyond the clouds. It is a city that seeks to ascend to the sky, and it is tied down by gigantic chains as to avoid leaving the world entirely. Powerful psychics with elongated skulls live there, commanding mechanical men and studying natural sciences away from concerns of the ground-walkers. Their tribe, likewise, found a shard and made other uses of its power. Their lineage are all powerful psykers from birth and a great part of their culture stems from the need to quickly learn to regulatet one's emotions to avoid mayhem.

Within the inner sea, another tribe built atop an archipelago a great city called Clémence. Pirate lords that have on occasion went all the way to Thuaire and Aedamphia, never letting any ship escape if they reach the inner sea to protect the Edge from the False Gods.

Alongside the East river that feeds into the inner sea is the bulk of the Edge civilization. Agrarian tribes who built walled cities to protect themselves from untamed wilds, and who still worship old myths as patron deities. Pocket gods they bring with them on long journeys. They keep cordial but distant relationships with the Citadel and Gnomegrad.

What the fuck is Gnomegrad? I'm not too sure, the Edge I ran while almost always high. I think some gnomes dug tunnels beneath the desert and escaped there.

The Citadel is an industrial tech level city-state governed by a literal Ivory Tower inhabited by philosophers who rejected the notion of belief-fueled magic and try to enforce Absolute Reality. Their instruments of anti-magic are used by Regulators, who roam the lands and destroy any source of magic they find. They are a somewhat recent power and have yet to gain hold on their neighbors.

The Wolf's Wood is inhabited by wolf-women (think Princess Mononoke not furry - for once) who keep an insular, matriarchal commune in harmony with nature, using powerful Arts to compensate for their lack of industry or built infrastructure.

West of that is Trevor's Bog, the first Grue, of which very little is known (because it eats visitors), and to the east are the Troll Tribes, who solve their conflicts with games of chance and wits, abhor physical violence and generally have been content to herd cattle and live as nomads for centuries. Their tribe slowly mutated into their current shape through the Arts.

The Citadel, before it was taken over by the philosophers, was a place of high magic rival only to the cloud city, whose most powerful wizard was a master of the Art that could probably have equaled the Seeker. And so he made people, cause that's what these types do. He made the faeries, more precisely. About as tall as a hand presented for a high five, asexual and agender little androgynous folks, comely and artful, highly empathetic, and each granted a single spell triggered by something, sometimes easy sometimes hard, sometimes hardly impractical. One such faery would teleport each time she sneezed.

How exactly their creator came to disappear, or how the wizened philosophers took over is a mystery to this day, the isolationist nature of most tribes making it particularly difficult to keep records of factual history.

What remains is that faeries slowly wither and die if kept in cages, and so the regulators hunted a good third of them. Another third joined the philosophers in a contract to bring them powerful Arts that led to their industrial (magitek) revolution. The third group are punk as fuck and just kill Tall Folk on sight, hiding wherever they can and relocating when their little havens of safety are discovered, seeking allies in the wolf-women, the trolls, and other tribes to hopefully one day destroy the Ivory Tower.

--- The Edge doesn't have much in the way of layered history, in great part because I wrote it from the perspective of players, who explored that part of the continent coming with their Aedamphian biases.

Mordavia is a weird mix of nordic viking Ducks and transsylvania. It was never explored in detail, but Duck PCs can come from there. The vampireslords are also ducks.

Shaq'Tar had a whole campaign arc but it wasn't really about the civilisation and politics, it was mainly exploring the desert and some ruins. I'd say it still has slavery for non-cats who can't pay their debts, and a culture of flaunting the ability to waste time. Time is money and those who can lounge and be lazy and just do fuck-all for months on end are at the top. Lots of hedonism, meditations to turn inward and explore the truths of the soul once the worldly becomes boring, and little interest in conquest save from rogue factions of greedy guildmasters, who once took over after the Grand Vizier died to the Seeker's hand, with the help of his secret police.