Background information on races, religion, and magic in the Old World campaign setting.
Contents
Non-human races in the Old World
Humans are the dominant race in the land of Donaille. Many of the Illustrious Kingdom’s denizens have never met a non-human; one hears stories of elves and dwarves and gnomes, but then again one hears stories of dragons, too—and who has ever seen a dragon? If such beings exist, they are to be found in lands far away; but more likely, they are wholly mythical. Monstrous creatures of vaguely humanoid form do prowl the wilderness, beyond Donaille’s borders—gnolls, for example, or kobolds. But these are hardly to be thought of as people. (Certainly they act more like wild beasts than any semblance of a civilized man.)
There are, however, some non-human inhabitants of the Old World to whom few would deny the badge of personhood.
Orcs and half-orcs
To the east and south of Donaille are lands which support only sparse habitation—various forms of desert, mostly. Dwelling in these harsh places are many tribes of people of the sort the “civilized folks” call barbarians. They are nomads, by and large (though small settlements exist, often huddled around oases or similar fonts of life). Some of these peoples are human (though they look different enough from Donellian stock that the one would never be mistaken for the other)—but not all.
In some ways, the orcs are not much different from the humans of the desert lands: they live in tribes (which are loose groupings of extended-family clans); they lead a nomad lifestyle; they support themselves largely by raiding settled peoples. But in their drive toward violence and chaos, in their seemingly innate inability to exist in groupings larger than a few hundred without turning on each other, and—paradoxical though it may seem—in their unswerving loyalty to their terrible god, the orcs retain enough of the alien to mark themselves as separate, even without the evidence of their appearance.
Still, need and advantage overcome greater obstacles than this; and in the times between raids, there is enough trade and peaceful contact between orc tribes and both the human peoples of the desert lands and, even, the settlements of Donaille’s outer provinces, that children of mixed ancestry are not unknown in those parts. In many villages and towns of the eastern and southern reaches, a half-orc raises no eyebrows if he walks down the street or orders a drink at the local tavern. In the heartland of the Illustrious Kingdom it is different; there, orcish features may provoke gasps of shock, or even violence. In the capital, especially, where beauty and refinement are prized, a half-orc will not find a friendly welcome.
Hobgoblins
The hobgoblins of the south claim that their kind ruled great empires in ages past. The histories of Donaille say nothing of this; yet anyone who has met these people in battle finds it hard to deny that such claims seem, at the least, plausible.
Though they’re tough and hardy, and unquestionably “monstrous” and imposing in appearance, the great advantage hobgoblins boast is their almost supernatural ability to fight in concert. To a degree greater by far than humans (much less orcs), hobgoblins are able to subordinate their individual will to a collective mentality, so effectively that they seem to operate in combat as something more like a singular entity than a mere grouping of warriors. But hobgoblins don’t just make effective soldiers; capable tacticians and leaders are found among them at a frequency greater than any other humanoid race can boast.
Such a talent for the military arts should make hobgoblins masters of the world, by rights (and many of them often say so). Unfortunately, the hobgoblin race is cursed with a fertility much lower than that of humans or orcs (without a greater lifespan to compensate). Whether this is truly some curse from the gods, or a natural phenomenon, none can say; but the fact is that the hobgoblin race has been slowly dwindling for many generations—and now (if the trend is not radically reversed, and soon) approaches its end.
In the meantime, some hobgoblins try to carve out a place for themselves through war and conquest. As there are no longer enough of their own people to form real armies, hobgoblin warleaders gather hordes of lesser creatures—savage humanoids such as goblins or kobolds—and lead them on raids against settled folk. Such incursions are fearsome, to be sure, but they’ve never amounted to a real threat. Other hobgoblins seek employment as mercenaries in Donaille, and in such capacities they often end up fighting their own kind, along with orcs or human tribesmen.
Much like orcs, hobgoblins are just common enough a sight in the towns of Donaille’s southern provinces that their presence is usually accepted, if grudgingly. Further north, their kind is a rare enough sight that most common folk are likely to flee from a hobgoblin’s presence, while a noble’s guardsmen may reach for their swords at the sight of one. And in the capital, where perfumed courtiers, scribes, and guild artisans disdain overt violence as a mark of the lowest breeding, the average hobgoblin is quite unlikely to “fit in”.
(Note: a hobgoblin player character may be a full-blooded hobgoblin, or may have mixed hobgoblin/human ancestry, as per the player’s discretion; this does not affect the character’s game statistics.)
Tieflings
Tieflings are the product of fiendish blood mixed with mortal stock. Or so the stories go, anyhow. Certainly their appearance, varied as it might be (there is no such thing as the “typical” tiefling), quite reliably evokes the demonic or the diabolical—horns, a tail, reptilian scales, slit pupils, a forked tongue, or other features associated with those beings whom the myths identify as hailing from spiritual realms of evil, are all commonplace among the tiefling race (if such they are; there’s little consensus among scholars whether to view tieflings as a people separate from any other, or merely as aberrations within, e.g., a human bloodline).
Attitudes toward tieflings in the land of Donaille are, strangely enough, a mirror image of the way that half-orcs or hobgoblins are treated. In Stavronne, the capital of the Illustrious Kingdom, tieflings are seen as excitingly exotic; their strange appearance tends to lend them an air of mystery, and their supposed fiendish heritage evokes the forbidden, the sinful, the transgressive. Having a tiefling among one’s associates is, for many young aristocrats, a way to signal one’s rebellious nature without actually committing any acts that would risk one’s legal status (or one’s immortal soul). (Translating this fashionability into personal benefit is another matter, of course; many’s the tiefling who has found this to be the greater challenge than merely gaining acceptance into the capital’s social circles.)
On the other hand, the ignorant peasants and barely civilized feudal lords of Donaille’s hinterlands will look at a tiefling and see a fiend, a monster to be driven out or slain. Tieflings traveling in the outer provinces are well advised to hide their nature—or else to be very good in a fight.
Magic in the Old World
The following are the major ways in which magic in the Old World differs from that in most other settings.
Long-range teleportation magic (teleport, etc.) is believed to be theoretically possible, but the secret of its use has been lost.
Magic that allows travel to other planes (plane shift, gate, etc.) doesn’t work, and, so far as anyone knows, never has. (According to legend, anyone who has ever attempted to use magic that purports to enable planar travel has, to all appearances, simply died or vanished, with no evidence that they actually went anywhere in any literal sense.) The concept of traveling to other planes of existence is generally considered by scholars to be either confused or mythical. So far as is generally known, nobody has ever traveled to another plane, nor even proven conclusively that other planes actually exist.
(Transitive planes such as the Astral, the Ethereal, and Shadow are somewhat of an exception; magic that allows travel to, or perception of, such planes is known, although very rare. Such domains are considered to have an existence of a spiritual rather than physical nature. Similarly, magic that summons or calls extraplanar beings does exist—but, again, the idea that the home planes of such entities are real places which it is possible for a mortal to actually visit is rejected by most scholars. It is said that outsiders are exceedingly reluctant to speak of their home realms, which is generally viewed as confirmation that said realms are not “real” in the way that the mortal world is.)
Resurrection magic exists, but its use is frowned upon. The church of Pelor teaches that bringing back the dead takes life from the world; and that resurrection is permissible only in those cases when the Great God Above decrees that the return to life would give back to the world more than it takes. (The Faithful of the Sun are not the only ones who can return life to the dead, of course; but other avenues of returning from beyond the veil of death are said to bear various terrible prices.) Those few who have been resurrected remember little of what (if anything) they experienced between dying and being revived.
Spells which conjure physical matter (create water, wall of iron, etc.) do not create material ex nihilo, but draw it from the surrounding environment. Where the material to be created is scarce, casting the spell is difficult. (More powerful spellcasters have an easier time of it because they can “reach further” outward from their location to draw forth the matter to be conjured.) For example, create water is, ironically, quite difficult to cast in the desert (and gets harder to cast in any given location each time the casting succeeds, as what little available water there is in the arid environment is quickly exhausted). It is generally accepted that conjuration magic can only draw material from natural structures, not from creatures or artificial works (although stories exist which suggest otherwise).
General knowledge of magic is at a very low level in the Old World. Most commoners have never seen a single spell being cast, nor met a spellcaster. Perhaps a handful of true scholars of the arcane exist in all of Donaille—and these hoard their knowledge jealously. Even most educated people have only a vague idea of how magic works, or what it can do, or anything else about it. Wielders of magic (of any kind)—with the exception of priests of Pelor—are treated with either suspicion and fear, or with fascination, envy, and greed (the latter being the more common attitude in the capital, while the former is the default in the hinterlands).
Magic items in the Old World
Creating an enchanted sword, or some other such magic weapon or item, must be possible, surely—such things exist, so someone must have made them, once. Yet you’ve never heard of anyone actually doing such a thing. Perhaps the few great wizards and sorcerers who live in their remote towers know the secrets of magical item crafting; or perhaps the king’s court wizards labor to create enchanted items for His Exuberant Majesty. If these things are true, however, they are certainly not generally known.
Such magic items that exist tend to be highly valued as family relics, and never sold. Folks of the lower classes, who dare not even dream of ever owning so much as a spoon +1, whisper stories that all enchanted items bear curses that ensnare their owner and inflict some horrible fate upon him, with the worst such curses attaching to the mightiest of magic weapons or enchanted armor. (Such tales might be attributed merely to “sour grapes”, however.)
Wizards know the means of inscribing spells onto magic scrolls, and such scrolls may even be found for purchase, if one knows the right sorts of people. Alchemists (who may be found in any decently-sized town) can brew potions which mimic the effects of certain spells, and these too may be purchased.
Gods & religion in the Old World
Worship of Pelor, god of the sun, is ubiquitous in Donaille. The Shining Lord’s clergy are the dominant religious power in the Illustrious Kingdom; indeed, their influence extends as far as boundaries of those lands which owe fealty to His Prodigious Majesty (although the nobles who rule the outermost provinces often leave something to be desired when it comes to material demonstrations of their faith, and indeed some of them pay homage to other, lesser gods, as well).
The Radiant One, in his unfathomable vastness and multiplicity, is worshipped in many ways. The faithful may offer prayer and supplication to the Great God Above directly, of course, but many find it more congenial to address intermediaries, instead; thus the church acknowledges a multitude of saints, angels, celestial servants, and a variety of other entities which are perhaps not quite gods, yet represent some particular aspect of Pelor’s power and influence. A knight might pray to Raziel before going into battle with barbarians, while a trapper might make an offering to Cernunnos before going into the woods for furs. All such acts of worship ultimately glorify the Shining Lord—thus teaches Pelor’s church.
The human barbarians who dwell in the lands to Donaille’s east and south usually follow Pelor as well, although the form of their worship differs greatly from that which is common among the “civilized people”. Some tribes also cling to a sort of ancestor worship, though they do not see any conflict between such practices and the solar faith.
Orcs worship Gruumsh, their terrible god of rage and conquest. They also pay homage to the One-Eyed God’s favored servants—mythical warriors of ages past, now revered as demigods—and other divine and semi-divine beings who serve Gruumsh.
Hobgoblins generally distrust gods, and have no shared faith as a people. Those hobgoblins who find faith generally follow whatever god whose worship best suits their ambitions in life. (For hobgoblins living among the humans of Donaille, this is most likely to be Pelor—piousness is a good way to gain acceptance in Donellian society).
One sometimes hears rumors that cults of evil gods, or fiends, or other dark powers, lurk in the dark corners of the land, and that the secret members of such cults conduct horrible rituals in their patrons’ service—acts of depravity, sacrifice, and worse. Most such rumors are surely fabrications, or the imaginings of the ignorant and foolish.
Timekeeping in the Old World
The Pelorite calendar is used in Donaille.