RIP - Fantasy

Tanion

Tanion is a fantasy world for RIP Fantasy. It is not a very detailed one, but simply a base for this system and things on it. It is not a very original or different world, but more like a cliché collection and safe choices, with dwarves underground, rampaging orcs, northern barbarians and proud and distant elves. The technology level is mainly similar to Middle-Earth - there might be more advanced clockwork devices in some cities and maybe gunpowder, but mainly those are seen as magic or unknown artifacts.

Tanion is unlike our own, but a place of jagged badlands, deep lakes of unknown creatures and high mountains of vast caverns. It is described here as known by Theerians, the largest known human civilization. It is a low fantasy world with high fantasy elements - dark supernatural creatures lurk in the forests and caves, necromancers bring dead back to life and high elves practise powerful magic, but all those are rare things for a commoner to see and usually only rumors and stories told in taverns.

The known world consists of a large continent known as the Mainland, Southern Islands, Land of the Damned and the Isle of the Gods. The western regions of the mainland and other land beyond the sea are all unmapped and unknown, only mysteries live.

Geography

Thee'tuon

In the eastern coach of the Mainland, there is a vast human kingdom known as Thee'tuon. It's the most medieval cilization in the known world, consisting of the lands ruled by the landlords, barons and princes from their small castles. Borderline of the Thee'tuon is everchanging as raids and revolts rapidly change borderlands, but generally it is limited to Kheirian Mountains, the Troll Moors and Dark Mountains in the west, Round Bays at the south and Jagged Mountains in the north, behind the Dark Sea.

Northern Wasteland

On the norhern wasteland, random human barbaric civilizations dwell. The land has large undiscovered forests of mighty and immense trees and steep rocky hills and icy rivers. Well known landmarks are Jagged mountains in the south and River Hurkuin that runs from Jagged Mountains to the sea. Northern barbarians do occasional raids to southern lands, sometimes destroying and pillaging everything north of the Dark Sea except for major cities.

Midland

In the mainland, a barren and rocky country is inhabitated by orcs and giants. Inside the mountains, large isolated or ancient dwarven kingdoms struggle against tough greenskins and hungry monsters from mainland. In the isolated mountaincliffs, random high elf cities lie with their long sleak towers and countless bridges. Some random human explorers have settled to borders of the Midlands, and a small dukedom of Ertoun tries to keep Griffon Pass in Kheirian Mountains open for caravans.

Western Desert

This barren and hot desert has the furthest known human civilizations. Desert nomads and kingdoms make their living by mining precious minerals which are shipped by large caravans to Thee'tuon.

Lost World

In the barren areas of the known world, ruins of the ancient unknown civilization can be found. These places are much sought after by the adventurers, thiefs and magicians, because strange artifacts of unknown powers can be found.

Long ago, mighty cities with gleaming long towers stand in the ground. But for the reasons unknown of, these cities were abandoned, and as their inhabitants left, so did the cities die. In the years that came, the nature once retook the land and buried the cities under dirt, earth, liche, scrubs and trees.

The Jungles of Greuinen

On the south, vast jungles of Greuinen cover the isolated islands and dangerous mountain range. Mythical beasts walk among the trees, and forest trolls and orcs live in their primitive huts or caves. Some random jungle elf and human tribes live there also.

However, on the coastline, humans have established trade ports, towns and fortifications as base for exploration and exploitation. The most famous is a small trade country known as Kwaeli, ruled by wealthy merchants, originally from Thee'tuon.

Southern Islands

These rocky tropical islands are south of the Mainland and Greuinen. Random savage tribes of humans, elves and orcs live there, among mystical beasts. The Secret of the Steel has never reached these far corners of the world, at least widely, and tribes living there use mainly bone and stone untensils, but some can work bronze.

Land of the Damned

Far in the Eastern Sea is the barren island known as the Land of the Damned. Not a long ago, this island was ruled by a mighty elven kingdom known as Lothlaria. The story told that in their arrogance they challenged even the Gods themselves. The wrath of the gods was horrible, and as the people of the Mainland saw the Second Sun raising, Lothlarian ceased to exist.

Nowadays, only barren land remains, but the curse remains. Those crazy enough to wander to this land cursed by the Gods themselves contract a strange disease and usually die within months.

Of the proud elves, only those few that listened to the warning of the messanger of the gods remain. They moved to the Mainland, and joined the few high elf cities in the midland.

Isle of the Gods

Far, far to beyond the Land of the Damned is a mysterious rocky land known as the Isle of the Gods. No man has ever walked that ground, and anyone sailing close to that land is turned back or never returns.

Human Cultures

Measures

As expectable, these common measures apply mainly to human civilization, although dwarf and some elven tribes also use them.

Day: The basic time unit is a day, which is approximately of same length than a day in Earth. Most cultures and places do not known any more precise timing system, but just use concepts relative to a day, like dawn, dusk, midday and midnight.
Hour: In Theu'tuon, state scholars long ago defined a more precise time unit called an hour. 12 hours are equal to time between midday to midnight, as there is 12 months in a year. Some old mechanical experts travel from large cities to cities, fixing all large clocks that show the royal time.
Month and Year: Tanion has one moon, which orbits it in approximately 30 days. Months have different namings in each culture and not all cultures have named them, but one year is equal to 12 months. The number of the year and new year change from culture to culture.
Pace: One pace or footstep is equal to around one meter, and is commonly used measure. As pace is different from people to people, this is not very precise measure.
Stone: The most common weight measure is stone, which is about one kilogram. Many cities have official weighting stones which are used for official weightings.

Religions

Many humans are led and controlled with various religions, most with no real impact in life but giving spiritual life and inner peace to followers. The northern barbarians have multiple gods, for farming, war and fishing, but do not openly pray nor worship them. However, Thee'tuon have only a few gods, with dominating religions of the Talon, the mighty omnipotent god. His temples, churces, exist in every bigger city or town, and He is worshipped by strong and powerful priesthood. People sacrifice food and animals to Talon on the holy days of the year. However, Talon rarely interfaces with the mundane world and priests with unnatural holy powers via possession or similar ways are extremely rare.

Humans also worship other gods, from ancient god of the oceans to the bloodgrazed god of slaughter. Some has even found 'gods' from various powerful spirit realm entites, giving their followers unnatural powers. Anyway, all religions including human sacrifice or dealing with demons or dead are usually prohibited in all places, resulting in burning as a witch if ever performed. Only some isolated places may have such a religion as commonly accepted, and in places like this strangers may find themselves as new sacrifices.

Law

As expected, law is diiferent in each kingdom and area, and each landlord applies them as he finds suitable. In general, however, slavery is prohibited in all 'more civilized' areas. However, this does not apply to serfdom, other races or wives, in most cases. Of course all kind of thievery, burglary, murder, assault and so on is prohibited in all places, and sentence is usually a loss of arm or life, but as social status and wealth of the criminal increases, so does the sentence lessen.

Magic

While not totally unheard of, wizards, shamans and other practisioners of magic are rare in human population. Maybe 1% of all are gifted, and not all of them even know that. So, a small town might have one local shaman or druid, while larger one could have a few. A bigger city then might have a feared and powerful wizards' guild with half a dozen or so sorcerers and other magic users and a dozen apprentices, and some rogue shamans and other practioners.

Countries and Kingdoms

Thee'tuon

The most advanced human civilization in the known world is on the eastern coast, the kingdom of Thee'tuon. The capital city is Ree'olun, located at the delta of River Hean. The mighty castle of king Venuon lies therein, as does the Great School of Magicians and High Temple of Talon. All Theerians speak Theerian, although the language has many dialects and can be hard to understand in the fringes of the kingdom.

At the fringes of the Thee'tuon, small kingdoms not bowing to King Venuon exist. Some of them are soon overrun by the royal army, but many are left to be and beneficial trading is performed with them. Likewise, many barons have complete control over their territory as long as they pay little taxes to the king.

Ertoun

Dukedom of Ertoun is a small country located just behind the Griffon Pass and Kheirian Mountains, in the Midlands. It is currently ruled by Duke Gkeran, who once was a mighty warlord of the Thee'tuon. Ertuon has a signifant role of keeping the Griffon Pass open, defending the Thee'tuon from orc invaders from Midlands and trading with Khat'kuram, the largest dwarf civilization. People of Ertoun speak their own language, which is a mixture of northern savage languages and Theerian, but many can speak in Theerian, too. As in Thee'tuon, Talon is their major deity.

Northern Barbaric Kingdoms

On the north, there is countless savage barbaric tribes and villages. They are called savages by the Thee'tuon, but when compared to savage elf tribes, they are quite civilized, and know the secret of the steel. They forge big swords and axes and do occasional raids to the south, but mainly hunt animals and farm the land. Now and then, small kingdoms are formed by mighty warlords who build castles and rule many small villages close to them. Northerners speak their own languages, but the two most common are known as Freuin and Harpein, the first spoken mainly in the northern parts of the Wasteland, while latter mainly in eastern portion, south of River Hurkuin.

Rewueron

In the southwest, behind the Troll Moors and Dark Mountains lies kingdom of Rewueron, which controls the trade routes to southern jungles and westward to the nomad kingdoms. Many ships sail Round Bays to Thee'tuon ports, shipping fruits, silk and gems. People of Rewueron speak their local language, Rewian, although many speak also languages of desert nomads or Theerian. This kingdom, rules by King Rtutho, is mainly controlled by the priests of Wape, He Who Stalks The Woods, a dark and merciless god. Human sacrificies are not uncommon, while these dark priests perform their rituals in long sleek tower of dark green marble.

Nomad Kingdoms

Behind Rewuoron, Nomad Kingdoms border the Western Desert. These nomads live their isolated life in arid towns built near river Qua'quan or scarce oasises. Nomads are very reserved people and very sucspiously regard any starngers. They speak many languages quite different to Theerian.

Kwaeli

This small trade country, ruled by the wealthy merchant nobles, is located to eastern fringe of the southern part of the mainland. Kwaelians speak their own dialect of Theerian and worship gods of sea and woods, which provide them trading goods and safe ship routes. Because of the beneficts of the trade with Thee'tuon, no wars are waged between these countries.

Other Civilizations

Elfs

After the fall of Lothlarion, there exist only two distinct elf cultures.

High elves live in their fortified and guarded cities on the mountain cliffs of the Midland. Only a few of them remains, but they are usually protected from assaults of the rampaging orcs or other creatures with powerful sorcery magics. The closest known is Haulothr, located north of The Troll Moors, in the west side of the Kheirian Mountains.

Savage elves, usually known also as jungle, forest or wood elves, live in tribes in deep forests and jungles. They are usually considered as barbaric and uncivilized by the high elves, dwarves and civilized humans. Most savage elf tribes live in the jungles of Greuinen, speaking local dialects of the ancient elven language, and use bone and stone weapons and utensils.

Religions: It is uncertain that high elves worship any deity, althought they previously did. It is said that they originally had direct connection to gods before their race angered the gods, and so high elves worship no gods anymore. On the other hand, savage elves worship their own gods of the wilderness, like gods of the sky or animals.

Law: Not much is known from elven laws. High elves are expected to have a law typical to very civilized culture, but it is rumored to include only them, and all other races have no rights nor any position. Savage elves have rules similar to most savage cultures, and thus concentrate on tribe and its survivality.

Magic: maybe one tenth of elves are gifted, and magic is often used, either as elven items or as spells to protect their lands.

Dwarfs

In the mountains of the Midlands lie vast mines and underground kingdoms of the dwarves. Once they all were populated with proud dwarves, but nowaday only a few of them are inhabitated by the dwarves anymore. All dwarves speak their own language, and use runes as writing media.

Khat'kuram is the largest and wealthiest of the dwarven kingdoms still active, burrowed deep under Kheirian Mountains. It is ruled by the king Gramruon 'Grim', old but powerful dwarven warlord. Its main entrance is close to Griffon Pass, main gateway from northern plains to Midland. They mainly trade minerals with Ertoun kingdom for food.

Religions: Most dwarves still worship their ancient god, Tuhdum, He Who Burrows Deep, althought some isolated dwarven communities have adopted to human religions. Some dwarves even worship demons, becoming corrupted so-called dark dwarves.

Rune magic: Some gifted dwarven master smiths can craft magical runes into items, binding spirits and mana into them, making them more durable, sharper, and have extraordinary powers against unnatural advisories. Other kind of magic is very rare among dwarves.

Orcs

Where there is no large other civilized people or no big hordes of monsters, there is orcish villages and tribes. Orcs are the second numerous race in the known world after humans, and only their endless war among themselves keeps them from expanding too quickly.

Religions: Orcs worship their might gods of warfare, bloodshedding and courage. Their names are hard for human to say, because Orc language concists mainly of combinations of grunts and consonants, but Gr'gh'ghoo is a very common Orc god.

Magic: Some orcs are shamans, or more rarely druids or necromancers, or become possessed by demons. However, they are about as rare as gifted among humans.