The Campaign Builder's Guild

Note - no discussion thread for Tasothilos, go right ahead and post comments here... once there's something to comment on.  I'll be hosting my stuff in a more organized fashion on this server as it gets developed.

If you are new to the setting, feel free to skip this initial post.  The second post in the thread gives an overview of what I'm trying to accomplish, and the third post gives a few 'back-cover' style selling points - the sort of blurb you'd read on the back of the dead-tree edition of Tasothilos in the bookstore, if there were to be a dead-tree edition.  Those two posts will give you a better idea whether Tasothilos is a setting you want to read more about.

Now, though, let me just make a [ic=Note to my Long Time Readers:]
Some few of you who are old-timers may remember the Tasothilos setting, either from the Wizards boards or from here.  Consider this to be Tasothilos version 3.0.  I did not have the heart to trash the old setting, but reading over my own material accumulated over the course of the past three years, I've been disatisfied with several features, the sorts of things that minor revisions were not going to be able to undo.  I'm not starting over, per se - the nations from Old Tasothilos will still be represented, the same NPCs and everything will be around - but a number of fundamental changes will be made:
 

The many-islands format is being partially scrapped in favor of an inner sea-type set up.  (Some nations will still be insular.)  While the islands were fun and I want to keep a sea-oriented feel to the setting as a whole, the naval setting was causing some logical problems (most importantly the migration of peoples).

*Although influence will still be deliberately noticeable, I'm moving further away from readily identifiable "this is pseudo-France, this is pseudo-Greece, this is pseudo-Russia..." towards something more individual.  The sound of the languages will still be the most easy hint to the cultural origins of the countries
*A (very) slight magic-level increase, coupled with a slight power-level decrease for many NPCs.
*Perhaps most significantly, I'm changing the base system.  Tasothilos 1.0 used D&D, slightly modifying the magic system and the class structure but leaving most everything else intact.  Tasothilos 2.0, the brief intermediary stage, was still a d20 system with classes and levels and all that jazz.  Tasothilos 3.0 has dumped everything from d20 but the basic idea behind the core resolution mechanic: roll d20 (in Tasothilos, 2d10 instead) and check either versus a static Difficulty Class or an opposed roll.  This thread is primarily devoted to setting, not system, but system will come up where it's necessary[/list] [/ic]

While the revision is in progress, all of the old material can still be found here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=329003).

Next up: An updated overview!

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Tasothilos (literally "The Central World" - a reference to the fundamental doctrine of the Ekeusian (major human) faith that the world has been destroyed and recreated once, and will be destroyed and recreated once more), colloquially sometimes called Algarlin by it's inhabitants, is by far my most detailed attempt at a campaign setting, and is being pieced together from notes taken in various journals and on scraps of paper.  (And adjusted, of course, in reaction to your earnest criticism!) Work on the project has been officially taking place since about July of 2004, but the oldest ideas presently incorporated can be traced back to as early as 1998.  (In fact, one minor NPC currently included in my setting notes is based on the recently-rediscovered character sheet of a PC I created for my first 2e D&D game in 1995.)

As mentioned above, Tasothilos has been in development on the Wizards of the Coast boards for about three years now.  However, I am starting semi-over, rebuilding Tasothilos using my improved body of knowledge on matters of lingusitics, economics, history, mythography &c, as well as correcting a few flaws in my design and a large number of inconsistencies that creeped in over the years.  Also, I'm using my own classless, level-less system to build the game.  However, as the setting dabbles only rarely in mechanics and is largely 'fluff', it should be fairly easy to adapt for 3.x Dungeons and Dragons or any number of other systems.  (Only a few things, like the magic system, will present some trouble.)

[spoiler=A Little History...]The fourteen deities of the Ekeusian religion (the major human faith of this world) were once mortal heroes (in fact, PCs in a previous campaign of mine) whose world was destroyed in their final, epic battle against their mortal enemy. That world was also a homebrew of mine, called Algorlund (named late one night while watching coverage of the 2000 Democratic Party primaries. Surprisingly, none of the PCs ever caught on until I revealed it to them). However, it was a schizophrenic, badly organized world with a lot of elements lifted directly from other settings (Netheril, for instance, appeared in my history and in one time-travelling adventure - lifted from Faerun without so much as a name-change).  It was also terribly high-magic without much logical thought devoted to it. Therefore, after that campaign ended, I decided to trash it and start anew, and honor the old PCs (who remain the longest-running group I've ever run for, at just over 4 years) as gods of the new world.  (various other people, items, places, divinities, locations and names have also managed to survive the transition from Algorlund to Tasothilos.[/spoiler]

My ultimate goal in this project is the creation of an interesting and distinctive world which is still largely a Western-European Fantasy style game. Also, I am very much working towards consistent internal logic. (I find the term 'consistency' fits with the idea of a fantasy world better than the term "realism".  Roleplaying doesn't necessarily have to be realistic, but it should make sense and be consistent within its own set of 'laws of nature'.)  The main thing which distinguishes this setting from other Western-European S&S settings out there, I feel, is the level of detail I've invested - the world is being built to be playable, but a large part of the process has simply been for the joy of building something using my scholastic background.

To borrow some parlance from the Guild, I see my world as having both Ethocentric and Divset features- there are several themes which bind together a lot of my design, but they are not absolutes and my hope is that they operate on a fairly subtle level.  In this, I'm aiming to imitate Earth history - while I find in my studies that certain trends and themes are repeated over and over, it's always on a subtle level.

[spoiler=Themes]
One of the themes of significance in this world is the concept of highly formal social classes - many of the cultures to be detailed later have rigid caste systems, for instance.  But this theme is often underscored by it's opposite - as I've been developing the setting, I find that stories of people transcending their native social class are abundant.  How does a world quite accustomed to judging people based on birth deal with adventurers and others who rise above their lowly origins?
Another theme is the importance of language, literature, history and myth - the peoples of Tasothilos have a fascination with this subjects bordering in some cases on obsession.  As a classicist and philologist with an interest in pre-modern literature generally, I find this is an area in which I can be most creative.  I have gone to work generating vocabularies and grammars of a number of the languages in the setting, particularly for the purpose of consistent naming/  The mythography I've indulged in so far is among my proudest work on the setting, even if it has no actual crunch value.  

Those two themes have been in Tasothilos since the beginning.  New themes I'm trying to highlight in the revision include:

The

importance of numbers and numerology - in Old Tasothilos, I largely accomplished this by the introduction of Arithromancers - mages who cast spells based on precise mathematical calculations.  While the Arithromancers still exist, I intend to bring this theme out more artfully and universally in the revision, as the occurence of certain numbers will mean certain things.
*Discovery: Much though the elites cling to the status quo (see theme one), Tasothilos is a world that is changing.  The gradual rediscovery of the ancient cultural legacies has given a stagnating society a breath of fresh air, and the finding of new lands in the South and East has created opportunities for daring explorers of all backgrounds to strike it rich - if they can deal with the native populations, both human and monstrous.[/list]
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Some Design Principles]

Rarer Magic: In order to build a sense of wonder and some semblance of internal consistency, I am limiting the occurence of magic. (Nothing affecting the actual class mechanics, which are balanced, just reducing the percentages of NPC spellcasters, enforcing expensive material components, making magic items rarer but augmenting their power etc.)
*Medium-High Power: For the most part, the movers and shakers in Tasothilos are persons of highly trained skill, and are much more capable than normal men.  They are not, however, demigods.
*Powerful Churches: Though deities will not make appearances in the world personally (indeed, there is doubt whether they exist at all), and priests for the most part are religious/political figures, not spellcasters, the churches will have a great deal of temporal power.

[/spoiler]

Reserved for 'selling points' - coming real soon

Here's at least one Long Time Reader (yay caps!) still interested. Don't hesitate to PM or email me when new material is posted. I'm not on very often anymore and I might miss it.

Anyway, go ahead and post. I can't wait to see what's been brewing in Rhode Island.

Túrin

When I first started the Tasothilos: the Second World project back in 2004, I designed it for the only (current) game that I knew very well at the time - the Dungeons and Dragons 3.x system.  It is my hope that interested parties should be able to run the game in that system if they choose to.  However, while designing I often times felt like I had to betray some parts of my 'vision' in order to make the game conform to the rules that I knew.  

When I brought the setting back to the CBG in spring of 2007, I had moved beyond D&D and tried to create Tasothilos using my own homebrewed d20 variant, which I called Axis Mundi.  Since that time, I have since taken things one step further.  The Tasothilos System is now a different monster altogether: It brings in elements from d20, Storyteller, Ars Magica, HERO, and the D6 system, in addition to several elements created wholesale.  The aim is to create not a generic system, but a system particularly suited to the kinds of stories I want to tell in the world of Tasothilos.

This thread is primarily concerned with the Tasothilos *setting*, not the Tasothilos *System*.  However, I will use this post to give a general taste of how the system functions, so if I ever post NPCs with stats, you will not be at a loss.

*coming soon*

I wasn't talking about the next 24 hours. I'm having this week off so I won't miss much. But if you keep it up as I'm hoping, I'll occasionally miss some of the new stuff as I'm busy with the next semester.

On another note, I didn't know you had your own d20 variant. What's that all about?

Túrin

There are several systems of note for numbering the years of Algarlin's History, but the one used by scholars and nobles in Salabria, which is most widespread and easiest to handle, is centered around the rise, height and decline of the Ekeusian Empire.  It divides history into 3 great eras:

Mar Parthikone (MP) - literally 'Before the Empire', refers to all time before the defeat of Messara by Ekeusion and the coronation of the first Emperor.
Yrmos Partikos (YP) - literally 'The Living Empire', refers to the 491-year long reign of the emperors of Ekeusion
Athil Partikone (AP)- literally 'After the Empire', refers to the 1497-year (so far) period after the fall of the Empire.



Algarlin: Algarlin is the geographical name by which natives of the Salabrian region call the entire world which they inhabit.  It encompasses two known super-continents (one but recently discovered) and large tracts of unexplored oceans.  The name comes from Algaril, a king of somewhat Adamic status in the Ekeusian mythology.  

Salabria: Salabria is the name given to the region of land which immediately surrounds the Salabrian Sea (q.v.) and to the nations located in that land.  It also extends to the islands within the Sea.  Thus, Philstaros, Andozia and Sanceline are all examples of nations which would be termed Salabrian, while Ferrund or Sakrtskaya would not, strictly.  (The former is sometimes lumped in with Salabria proper, the latter never is.)

Salabrian Sea:  The Salabrian is a vast inner sea located in the north-eastern portion of the continent of Ephos, the main continent of the Tasothilos campaign setting.  It is a deep, famously calm body of saltwater with an ancient history - civilization in some form or other has existed on the shores of the Sea for more than five thousand years.  The Sea is very rich in all manner of fish and (in certain places) pearl-producing oysters.  It is also dotted with islands - many are small and rocky, but a few of the great ones are large and fertile in their own right.  The point where the Salabrian connects with the greater Ocean beyond is called the Gate of Ephos, after ancient custom.

Tasothilos:  While 'Algarlin' is the name that the natives give to their planet in a geographical sense, Tasothilos is the name they choose to describe the world in a more metaphysical sense.  It translates as "The Central World", and the word sums up in brief the central notion of Second World religion.  Tasothilos and it's derivate pronunciations in other langauges obviously only occur in countries where Second World Doctrine has taken root.


Ekeusion: Ekeusion was the name of an ancient city which first flourished more than 2500 years ago.  In the century or so preceeding the YP era, it gradually assimilated a number of the surrounding cities and eventually developed into the capital of an empire which had influence all around the Salabrian Sea.  While the line of the Emperors terminated abruptly in 1 AP, the city of Ekeusion itself stood for several centuries longer as a vibrant (if turbulent) monument to the grand history of humankind before it was captured by goblins around AP 500.  These goblins and other unsavory creatures held the great city until very recently - in 1493 AP, the city was recaptured by a band of adventurers and for the past four years the slow process of rebuilding and restoration has been making the city grand again.  Ekeusion is the nominal form of the name, the adjectival form (used to describe the Empire, the language, etc) is Ekeusian.

This post was supposed to contain races.  Darn post limit - apparently 14,000 words is too much for one post.

I'll figure out something else to put here later - maybe a finalized map and some basic geography, or something.

Hey Kalos, stopping by for two quick thoughts.  #1, I want to see some of this mythology you've worked so hard on.  I'm a big fan of artificial religions, and I want to see what you can make with your fancy education. :P  If I missed it already, that's because I only got to the third post or so of this thread before posting.

Thought 2

Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?19950Sacred Geometries[/url] for inspiration here, as I have found it to be full of delicious flavor which is versatile enough for most worlds which seek to use a more subtle level of magic than standard d20.

What follows is a summary overview of the processes that went into creating Tasothilos.  It's posted more as an aside  than anything else, and people who are interested in the setting itself rather than the history of the project can skip it.
[spoiler=Click Here]
Warning, this is REALLY long, and it will likely only appeal to two groups of people:
1: Long-time Tasothilos readers who want to know a little more of the history of the setting
2: Guildmembers who know me and want to know a bit more of my gaming history.

That said, let's go!

[ooc]
In the Beginning
or, Kalos Merâ,¬,,¢s first World-building Project
     In September of 2000, I was a freshman in high school.  Iâ,¬,,¢d been playing around in second edition AD&D for five or six years (getting my start after reading about it in a Fox Trot comic strip and thinking it sounded cool), and on the advice of a fellow gamer I had finally updated to the 3rd Edition game rules.  (At this point, I still scoffed at the d20 resolution mechanic as being too simple-minded, but I liked the loosening of racially based class restrictions and the new system for multiclassing.)
      Around this time, I also began to want to run a campaign of my own.  Iâ,¬,,¢d done so before in the past, but they were usually short affairs (a middle-schooler has a short attention span) and usually set in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, rather than my own settings.  This time around, I wanted to build my own setting, using the new ruleset Iâ,¬,,¢d just acquired.
     Algorlund took me only about a month to build, and half of that was spent on the gods.  Previously having played mostly in FR, I was a huge-pantheon enthusiast.  I no longer have the complete list of gods, but the human pantheon had over 100 deities and most demi-human pantheons had upwards of 20.  I was *proud* of this.  (About 40 of these deities had actually been developed into something detailed, the rest were lists of names, portfolios, symbols, domains and favored weapons.)   Some deities were lifted entirely from other souces.  (Tharizdun, for instance, was imported from Greyhawk, though I recharacterized him a little bit.)
     Designing the nations and drawing a map took me one weekend.  The map too is lost, but as I recall it had four big continents arranged roughly in a circle around a central island.  Most of the action took place on the north continent, which was standard medieval european.  The west continent was marked with a big question-mark, the south continent had some asian influences but also some more european, and the east continent was a bunch of genie-run kingdoms roughly divided in four parts along elemental lines.  The central island was dominated by dragons.
     The history of the world took me one day to sketch out, though a year later I went back and did some revisions.  Again, I no longer have the details but I know that, for instance, I imported Netheril almost unmodified from Forgotten Realms, and several other souces gave me additional â,¬Ëinspirationâ,¬,,¢ of that kind.  (Henry V of England appeared in the history of one nation, renamed as Hanri V.  His crucial battle took place at a field called Arjincur.)   Algorlund appealed to what I thought was â,¬Ëcoolâ,¬,,¢ at the time, but there was a lot in there that wasnâ,¬,,¢t â,¬Ëmy ownâ,¬,,¢.

Chronicles of the Fated
     One day, I may write up parts of Chronicles of the Fated â,¬' the only campaign ever run in Algorlund - for the Crossroads.  Both in-character and out-of-character, there are plenty of yarns that could be spun about the players and the characters, and their exploits.  For now, summary should suffice.
     After I had devised Algorlund, I immediately searched for a group to run it with.  The group that I pulled together consisted of about 8 people at the outset, though only 5 or so would show to any given game session.  (This percentage would be true throughout the long life of CotF.)  The only RPG most of them were familiar with was the Final Fantasy line, though a couple had played Baldurâ,¬,,¢s Gate and two had played SOME D&D before.
     The day that we were scheduled to begin the game, I was out sick from school, and the group elected to have someone else guest-DM the very first session.  From later reports, I learned that he had started them off in a bar, where theyâ,¬,,¢d gotten into a fight with some lumberjacks.  The PCs had escaped with the help of a halfling slave who got them some horses.  One of the PCs then killed the slave.
     When I got back, I improvised my way into getting them back on the plot outline I had set up.  The first adventure involved an attempt to investigate the disappearance of children in a small town.  I donâ,¬,,¢t remember how the plot was supposed to end up, because halfway through, I got tired of it and had them teleported away to the city of Sigil.  (The frequent inability of the party to fully complete quests would become a running gag for the group â,¬' they would either get distracted by their own problems or Iâ,¬,,¢d get a new idea I wanted to test out.
     The general idea of the campaign was that a raving mad, evil halfling superwizard was attempting to perform a magical ritual that would unleash a supreme primordial god of destruction on the world.  The key to his ritual?  He had to find the descendants of thirteen powerful heroes/monsters/demigods and sacrifice them.  It just so happened that the PCs were some of those descendants.  (Many more than 13 PCs participated in CotF â,¬' the total number is more than 25, in fact â,¬' but no more than 13 were ever active at one time, so there were some who had â,¬Ëduplicateâ,¬,,¢ bloodlines.)
     The game ran more or less for the entirety of our high school careers, with occasional breaks of a month or two when people got busy.  There was lots of drama inside the game and out â,¬' several romantic relationships were created between players, some of which are still surviving and some of which crashed and burned.  When it ended, the players had never actually managed to defeat the superwizard â,¬' they  were martialling armies and preparing to make a strike, though.  They were around level 16-17, all had magical items appropriate to someone several levels higher and, in fact, they had all become divine-rank 0 quasigods.  The game had in some ways become a bit of a self-parody:  Oniwalu always made stupid one-liners, Bimpnottin always collected curious souvenirs, and despite my own general preference for low-power games, I handed out spell-like abilities and magic items like they were candy.

Tasothilos: A New Beginning
     When high school ended, I got the sense that CotF was never going to actually be completed.  In my mind, therefore, I created a conclusion to the story where they had all rallied together to destroy the superwizard, but in the process they had destroyed all of existence, absorbing it into their beings.  When the battle was over, they became the gods of a brand-new world.  It was originally supposed to be just a conclusion in my mind rather than actual 'canon'.
In summer 2004, however, after I'd already gone away to college, I began to plan to build a new campaign world.  For six months, I simply sat on a bunch of concepts (naval theme, heavy politics, distant gods) and wrote up a few conlangs.  It wasn't until mid-fall 2004, during my first semester of college, that the ideas began to really crystalize, largely in conversations with a friend of mine, the young woman who played the character of Emiome. Together, we worked out a bunch of ideas that we thought would be cool, and she deserves a good deal of credit for providing various inspirations and criticism along the way, although the vast majority of the actual construction has been mine.
The setting was first posted on the Wizards boards in October of 2004, where I acquired my second great critic and idea-man, Turin, as well as helpful insight from several other regulars.  For the first six months or so I posted a great deal of material fairly regularly.  After that, my posting got more infrequent, though I continued to work heavily on the setting.  Ironically enough, actual concentrated effort on the setting probably ended some time around the time that our guild began, as schoolwork and real-life issues became too much to handle while giving so much time and energy to this creative endeavor.
In summer 2006, I spent about a week re-reading the entire Tasothilos thread on the wizards boards, and realizing how much my tone had changed and knowledge of things like religion and myth had improved (I've studied the subjects heavily in college.)  I planned to do a major update and revise the setting, but the plan faltered when the fall 2006 semester began, and I returned to disorganized brainstorming as my primary means of thinking about the setting
Now, however, I've got some more resolve.  I'm energized by a new map that seems more logical, several new theme ideas, a new take on several races, and perhaps most importantly, a new d20 system to work with.  I'm excited about the project in a way I haven't been since those early days on the Wizards boards.  
My pace may be a little slower than it was back then - my classes have gotten much harder and I'm balancing a girlfriend and an honors thesis project with this, but make no mistake, Tasothilos is a creative priority.  Expect to see good things in the future, gang.
[/ooc]
(Accolades to anyone who actually chose to read all that, by the way.)
[/spoiler]

Next up, Crit gets his wish as I post an overview of the major human pantheon.

Are you kidding, that was light reading ;)  I can't wait for the pantheon.

As Crit said, it really wasn't all that much to read. While the third paragraph was mostly a rehash of what I already knew, the first and second paragraph contained some interesting bits. Surely, Chronicles of the Fated must have been a fascinating campaign, and I can only hope I'll ever create and run such a longstanding campaign.

Let's take a look at Tasothilos d20. Most of the stuff you mention is hard to criticize without more information. In particular, I'd like to hear more about the dueling rules. That could be really cool, if done well.

Good calls on dropping multiclass penalties and alignment. Villainy Points sound like a good idea, though I'm not quite as sure whether crunchifying virtues and vices was such a good idea.

I imagine the basics of the pantheon will be largely as I know them? I suppose that's a good thing to start with, considering its importance in your setting, though I can't wait to see some new material. :)

Túrin

PS Thanks for the badge! You didn't say where to link it to, so I linked it here. I suppose that's alright?
Edit: I see you've done that too, so nvm.

Chronicles of the Fated was a whirlwind campaign, probably as much fascinating from a psychological perspective on the players themselves as it was in terms of plot.  By all accounts, it should have been a 'bad' campaign - several of the players were simultaneously trying to be the 'main protagonist', there were several interpersonal feuds and stuff, a couple munchkinny players, and I was an uncharacteristically Monty-Haul DM as well as very disorganized.  And yet, it remains the best-loved game I ever ran, both on my own account and for many of my players.

Dueling rules resulted from an impromptu thing in one of the playtest sessions for the magic system, and I've been trying to expand it and streamline it - it's still very rough and in need of (a) completion and (b) testing.  As soon as (a) gets accomplished, I'll host them on the site for anybody who's willing to give them a shot.  The goals are as follows: Keep the mechanics simple, allow resolution quickly, allow variety in fighting styles / tactics to have a mechanical effect on the results, and keep the mechanics simple (that one bears repeating.)  I'm putting in some serious time on that next weekend - you guys can be the judge of how well I succeed at those goals.

The 'Crunchification' of Virtues and Vices extends far less than the crunchification of Alignment did - it really is intended to be more of a flavory, fluffy element.  So far, the only 'crunchy' aspect of it is that spells/Abilities that would previously analyze alignment instead give the caster some indication of the 'nature' of the target, as reflected by virtues and vices that the character has been playing.  The idea is to create a much more subjective view on morality while still allowing (through Villainy points) that there are certain evils which ARE objective.

I *think* it should be fairly hassle-free, but I'm not averse to changing it or removine Virtue and Vice if playtesting indicates otherwise.

The Pantheon will be largely as you know them, but the write-up I'm doing now also features new material I don't think you've seen before.  As a preview, here's one of the 'stat blocks' that I'm working on:

[spoiler=Format Guide]
Name <-- The name of the god in the Old Ekeusian tongue.  Local pronunciations and spellings may vary.
Title <-- A two or three word description of the god.  These are not actual religious titles of the deities, but they help the reader to remember the godsâ,¬,,¢ identities.  Where multiple titles are given, it is because the god has multiple important aspects to remember
Physical Description:  <-- The manner in which the god is most frequently portrayed in artwork.
Symbology: <-- Symbols frequently associated with the god
Portfolio: <-- The domains with which the god is concerned, as well as common worshippers
Mythology: <-- The role that the god played in Old Mythology
Current Teaching:  <-- Current teaching about this god according to Second World doctrine
Vievnan Animal Form: <-- The people of Vievna have a curious practice whereby each deity has the appearance of a somewhat anthropomorphized animal in the Egyptian style.  That is discussed for each deity here.
OOC: <-- My own notes about the godâ,¬,,¢s earlier, PC incarnation.
 [/spoiler]

I've got six deities finished already, and I'm progressing at a rate of about two deities per hour.  The post will also include a never-before-scene list of the half-dozen or so most important 'secondary' deities.

[ooc]This IS really long, no doubt about it.  I can promise you there won't be another post this long for a good, long time.[/ooc]
    The Ekeusian pantheon is the major set of deities for the human race, consisting of fourteen principal deities.  As the name implies, it was originally the religion of the Ekeusians, an ancient people who lived on the coast, but worship of these gods was spread both by military conquest and (later) by peaceful missionaries.  Nowadays, all of the nations around the Salabrian Sea worship these gods, and several more distant nations worship deities that seem to derive from the Ekeusian faith  Aspects of this same pantheon are also shared with the gnomes, the dwarves and the halflings. (Elves and Orcs have no share in the human pantheon, instead sticking with their ancestral deities.)
     In addition to the fourteen central gods, there are a number of lesser deities.  About a half-dozen of these are fairly universal, the most noted of which is Lia, the wife of Oniwalu Ardalor.  The rest of them are more local divinities, perhaps remnants of earlier pagan faiths that partially survived the â,¬Ëconversionâ,¬,,¢ of their followers.  While these deities are worshipped by the common man, they only rarely have temples and have almost no clergy to call their own.
     It is important to note right up front that Tasothilos is a â,¬Ëdistant godsâ,¬,,¢ setting.  Ã¢,¬ËMiraculousâ,¬,,¢ manifestations may happen on occasion, and persons who pray to the gods receive spells from SOMEWHERE â,¬' but the gods never manifest themselves to mortals, and in fact there is no absolutely concrete proof that the gods even exist.  (Atheism is much rarer among the intellectuals of Tasothilos than it is among the intellectuals of Earth, however.  This is both because science has not yet progressed far enough to answer basic questions about the universe and the â,¬Ëhumanâ,¬,,¢ condition, and because people of Tasothilos are much more attached to their old ways and ancestral traditions than we are.

    The Ekeusian faith can be historically divided fairly neatly into two halves.  The gods began as a number of different pagan spirits in the earliest days of the Ekeusian people, but about 2800 years ago, they were formally codified by the poets Otho and Simo into a divine family/council, with the King of the Gods, Onaleus Ardalir, at itâ,¬,,¢s head.  This was the great era of pagan mythology akin to the Greek model, with countless tales of the exploits of the gods and men being written, sung, and performed in plays, and most of my mythology as Iâ,¬,,¢ve conceived it so far was â,¬Ëwrittenâ,¬,,¢ in this period â,¬' it is the Old Religion, very earthy and sensual and very exciting.
     Roughly 1600 years prior to the current date, however, a prophet/author re-imagined the gods in a new light â,¬' instead of a divine family who had been born of primeval nothingness, the author imagined that the gods had once been mortal heroes in a world *before* this one.  They had fought against the ultimate evil in the great battle at the End of that world, and as a result of their heroism, they became the new gods in the next incarnation of the world.  This doctrine teaches that the days are coming when a second Great Battle will occur, and at the end of it a third and final World will be created, one which lasts forever.  In this religion, some of the old myths have been re-interpreted as exploits of the mortal heroes prior to their becoming Gods, while other myths have been dropped from religious teaching altogether.  (It still survives in great works of art from the past, in addition to the occasional song or tale by an accomplished bard.)
    Although this mythology is a little less satisfying to the scholar or the romantic, it has succeeded because it provides both the elites and the downtrodden with something that they want.  The elites are told that they have their exalted positions in this life because of the glorious exploits their previous incarnations performed in the First World.  Therefore, they are entirely morally justified in enjoying their current existence.  Meanwhile, the peasants are promised that if they are virtuous, they will be able to become something better in the next incarnation of the World.  This religion has therefore proven quite stable and long-lived.

The Ur-Gods (an OOC name, their IC name is not yet determined) are, according to Old Mythology, the three generations of divinity who preceded the gods of the Ekeusian pantheon in much the way that the Titans preceded the Greek gods.  Their ranks are much smaller, however.  The full creation myth cycle will come later, but in summary, hereâ,¬,,¢s how it works:  The world begins with a primordial, monstrous wolf, Ortha.  She gives birth to Magir and Magi, the Creators of the Universe. (<*mag- â,¬Å"to make, createâ,¬Â)  Magir and Magi create a world, but Orthal devours it.  Magir slays Ortha, and then he and Magi create the world anew.  Magi gives birth to three daughters and two sons.  The daughters are Namri, Tithalia and Anarina, the sons are Durzir and Saros.  Magir gives Namri to Durzir and Tithalia to Saros in marriage.
Namri bears Durzir Lia, Myria and Suphi; Tithalia bears Saros Maxinir.  Angered that Namri failed to produce a son, Durzir kills her.  He then attempts to seduce Anarina â,¬' she scoffs at him, and Durzir puts out her eye in vengeance.  
At last he seduces Tithalia, and by her he sires Onaleus and Rholerex.   Saros confronts the two in the act of lovemaking, but he is killed. (Interestingly, Otho and Simo disagree as to which of the primordial adulterers killed Saros â,¬' Otho says Durzir did it, Simo says Tithalia was guilty.)  This draws the wrath of Magir and Magi, and the two couples wage a war in Heaven.  Tithalia is slain by Magir, but Durzir then kills his father Magir and commits the ultimate sin in violating his own mother.  The result of this twisted union is Alamir, though the birth proves fatal to Magi.
Durzir is now the Lord of Creation, and he rules over Heaven and Earth like a tyrant.  The gods, (all but Maxinir his own children) strive against him, but they still squabble amongst themselves, too â,¬' the children of Namri and the children of Tithalia cannot get along. At last, however, Anarina councils Onaleus to unite the two parties, and also to win over Maxinir.  Together, the six gods overpower Durzir and kill him.  Onaleus, who lands the killing blow, then becomes the new king of the Gods.  He adopts the one surviving member of the old order, Anarina, into his own family, calling her â,¬Ësisterâ,¬,,¢.

The rest of my mythology will come later, but I wanted to give you the current version of the creation myth in outline to give you a framework for what comes below.


What follows is a brief overview of the fourteen principal deities.

Alamir
The Mad Tempter
Physical Description:  Alamir does not appear evil at the first glance.  He is portrayed as a handsome, tall man in the height of youth.  Beardless, he has medium-length silver hair and usually dresses in a simple but elegant grey robe.  Sometimes, he is portrayed flying on silvery dragon-wings, though unlike Onaleus he is just as often portrayed wingless.
Symbology: Alamir has no clergy, so he has no official symbol of the faith.  In religious art, however, shades of grey are closely associated with Alamir.  Ice and flies are also frequently symbolic of him.
Portfolio:  Alamir is the dark tempter, the secret corrupter of men.  He is the god of lies and betrayal.  Traitors are said to have â,¬Ëwalked with Alamir a stepâ,¬,,¢.  Insanity, dark secrets, unnatural deaths and diseases are also lain at his feet.  He occasionally is called the god of blight and the god of winter, though these titles were not used until the Imperial period.  He alone among the 14 Gods has no temples within civilization, and while many people plead with the gods to protect them from Alamir, he receives no open worship himself in human society.  Secret cults of madmen who worship the Tempter are occasionaly spoken of, howeverâ,¬Â¦
Mythology:  According to Old Myth, Alamir was the result of the wicked ur-god Durzirâ,¬,,¢s seduction of his own mother Magi.  When the other early gods banded together to destroy Durzir, Alamir sided with his father.  After Durzirâ,¬,,¢s imprisonment, Alamir went into hiding on the Earth.  There, he mated with mortal women (and animals), bearing all sorts of monstrous young.  After he had raised an army of his own children, he made war on heaven in what Otho and Simo called the Serpent War.  He was defeated by the armed alliance of the other gods and went back into hiding, but not before ravaging Suphi â,¬' the result of this violent union were Olkhir and Antios.  He frequently appears as an antagonist to the great mortal heroes of myth, though he is always defeated with the help of one of the gods.  Unlike most of the other gods, he does not dwell in some supernatural realm above or below, but is said to wander the earth.
Current Teaching:  The divinity of Alamir was a problem for early theologians of Second World doctrine.  They claimed that the gods became gods because of great virtue in their mortal lives, but Alamir seemed to flatly contradict this.  The only possible explanation that they could come up with was that Alamir was in some way corrupted AFTER having become a god.  The usual explanation is that some element of the Great Enemy of the First World had successfully embedded itself in Alamir, and that this happened in the fulfillment of prophecy: The Great Enemy cannot truly be destroyed until the Last Battle of the Second World, right before the advent of Paradise.
Vievnan Animal Form:  To the Vievnans, Alamir is the black rat, and emphasis is on his plague-bearing side rather than moral corruption.  (Vievnans tend to see moral corruption has being solely the fault of the corrupt mortal, rather than a supernatural agent.)
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Alamir Galanodel was a half-dragon.  He joined the party late â,¬' his player was a friend of Eldonâ,¬,,¢s player who got brought in.  He was a very high-power gamer, which was alright in Chronicles of the Fated - since it was a high-power game.  He was not exceptionally clever â,¬' at one point, he actually blew an attempted bluff by the party by asking aloud, in full view of the dragon they were conning, why they were lying to him.  The Current Teaching section about him is actually pretty accurate â,¬' one day during meditation he found something very dark within himself.  He probed too deep, and found a certain madness.  Ever after that,  he had occasional bouts of insanity, though whenever he found one he usually came back with a certain amount of insight.  It WAS a fragment of the Great Enemy, as it turns out. [/ooc][/spoiler]

Ali
The Tyrant Warlord, the Sun Queen
Physical Description:  Ali appears as a warrior-lady in resplendent red armor wearing a red, four-horned helmet, or as a noble queen in a red dress wearing a black crown.  Like her sister Emiome, she is portrayed as being quite young â,¬' probably no more than 20.  In either embodiment, she is seen carrying a flaming sword of great size.
Symbology: The Sun Disk is Aliâ,¬,,¢s primary symbol, though her four-horned helmet and her flaming sword are equally prominent in art.
Portfolio:  Ali is primarily the sun goddess and the goddess of the summer season. Like her father Onaleus, Ali is also a political goddess.  According to the faithful of Ali, she is the goddess in charge of maintaining the political order, of punishing criminals, and of raising armies and conducting proper warfare.  Even in ancient times, however, charges were sometimes raised that the faithful of Ali had become more interested in the oppression of the underclass and maintaining the status quo than in â,¬Ëjusticeâ,¬,,¢.
Mythology:  After Oniwalu and his siblings had thrown down Durzir, he wedded Lia, his half-sister.  By her, he had two daughters, Ali and Emiome, the Sun and the Moon.  They were the first of the â,¬Ësecond generationâ,¬,,¢ of divinities (those not born of Durzir and the other ur-gods).  Throughout the mythology, she is a very stern, grim goddess, though brave and loyal.  When some of the other gods feared during the Serpents War, she and her father Onaleus and her uncle Maxinir rallied them to victory.  She is very concerned with the proper order of things â,¬' were she not, the sun would not rise and set in the careful pattern that it does.  She infrequently appears in the myths, though she plays a large part in the great war epics and other songs of large battles and the martialling of armies.
Current Teaching: Aliâ,¬,,¢s church teaches that she was a lieutenant in one of the great armies that rallied to defeat the Enemy at the end of the First World.  When her subordinates and even her commander cowered in fear and would not advance, she charged ahead bearing the standard and urged them to follow.  They teach that she alone of the 14 was actually killed by the Enemy prior to his downfall, but because of the intensity of her loyalty and valor, her spirit nonetheless survived to become one of the fourteen great deities.  The Church of Ali these days is best described as an extreme right-wing, pro-Aristocratic political faction, though of couse they represent a religious (Divine Right of Kings) rather than a strictly political view on these kinds of matters.  She is also much-worshipped by soldiers, who value her sense of loyalty and duty and the promise of great rewards for mortals who share those qualities.
Vievnan Animal Form: Vievnan faith teaches that the Sun and the Moon are great Cats â,¬' Ali the Sun is the mountain-lion goddess.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Ali is one of the most changed of the gods from her actual depiction as a PC, but I have good reason for her turn towards the despotic â,¬' her â,¬Ëbloodline ancestorâ,¬,,¢ was none other than the duke of the Nine Hells, Asmodeus himself.  In actual play, she WAS a lieutenant in a great army, and she did have a firm belief in order â,¬' she was simply a little â,¬Ësofterâ,¬,,¢ than her divine incarnation has become.  The player was the girlfriend of Rholerexâ,¬,,¢s player, and she joined somewhat late â,¬' she went to a different high school than most of us.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Anarina
The Lofty Prophetess
Physical Description:Anarina is portrayed as a severe, ageless woman with what we would call Egyptian features, dressed in a fine and modest white robe. Her left eye is missing, though her long black hair is usually hung in such a way as to obscure the socket.  She usually is shown carrying a tome in each hand: the one in her left is the Kuros Phaldes, the Book of History which shows every event which has ever happened; the one in her right is the Kuros Osomonturon, the Book of Things Which Will Be. As time progresses, the one gets longer, and the other shorter.  Other times, she carries a great scythe.
Symbology:A single eye is the primary symbol of Anarina â,¬' open books, serpents, scythes and caves are also closely associated with her.
Portfolio: Anarina is the goddess whose dominion is history, prophecy and fate.  It is important to note (as Anarinans and Emiomeans frequently point out) that she has dominion over the couse of events IN Time, but she is not herself the goddess OF Time â,¬' this is Emiomeâ,¬,,¢s domain.  (The specificity of this distinction is an invention of recent, highly precise theology and not contained in the early myths.)  She is also the goddess of secrets and hidden knowledge â,¬' many of the early Ekeusian natural scientists as well as more â,¬Ëmodernâ,¬,,¢ researchers pray to her.  She is worshipped by all people, but her priesthood is fairly small and confined to the prophets and a small network of non-prophetic clergy who support them.  Their prophecies are often cryptic but (so far) have never been wrong.
Mythology: Anarinaâ,¬,,¢s frequent title is Tonanda, â,¬Å"Eldest Oneâ,¬Â.  The title is an appropriate one, for she is unique in that she technically belongs to the generation of the ur-gods, being a sister of Durzir and a daughter of Magir and Magi.  The story goes that after Durzir killed his own wife Namri for bearing him only girls (Lia, Myria and Suphi), he tried to seduce Anarina.  The aloof goddess laughed at his clumsy advances, and in anger he put out Anarinaâ,¬,,¢s left eye.  The goddess had her revenge, however â,¬' it was she that gave council to Onaleus and his siblings when they plotted against and overthrew Durzir.  In thanks, Onaleus â,¬Ëadoptedâ,¬,,¢ Anarina into the family of the Gods.  She does not appear usually appear â,¬Ëpersonallyâ,¬,,¢ in the myths, acting instead through her various mortal prophets who quite frequently advise the heroes.  The one exception is that she is always a vocal counsellor in any â,¬Å"Council of the Godsâ,¬Â scenes in the epics or the myths, and she always advocates for the â,¬Ëcorrectâ,¬,,¢ course of action.
Current Teaching:  Anarina is said to have been a prophetess who gave advice to the hero Onaleus and his companions when he quested and foresaw both the doom of the Enemy and the accession of the hero, his companions, and herself to godhood.  Later, as the assault on the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s stronghold began, she appeared leading an army of great serpents and giant birds to join the battle.  Her eye, the new stories tell, was put out by one of the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s chiefest lieutenants, whom she then cut to ribbons with her sickle.  A story is told that while the rest of her peers created the world, she had no part in it.  Haughty Anarina said â,¬Å"Since the End of this World is entirely in my control, it is only fair I let you control the Beginning.â,¬Â
Vievnan Animal Form:  The Vievnans portray Anarina as a raven-goddess.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Anarina Tonandeâ,¬,,¢s player was a friend of Emiomeâ,¬,,¢s player â,¬' the three of us used to do MSTs of really bad fanfiction together over AIM on occasion.  For whatever reason, he never got asked to join the game until very late. (A theme for most of the A-names, it seems!)  When he did, he played a cleric who was a Song of Sakrata, a medium-ranking priestess of the god of prophecies with something of an Egyptian aesthetic. Oftentime, I would tell her cryptic clues that came to her in her sleep and it served as a good way of foreshadowing future events â,¬' I thoroughly enjoyed this use of the character.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Antios
The Joyless Shade
Physical Description: Antios appears as a grim-faced man with pitch-black eyes and hair, almost purely white skin, and dressed in drab clothing, usually including a cloak. He is almost always brandishing a dagger, and frequently he seems to be in a crouched position as though he is attempting to hide.  Among the faithful, it is considered one of the highest blasphemies by the faithful to portray him smiling.
Symbology:  The primary symbol of Antios is the outstretched palm â,¬' ready to take what is his, adherents say.  He is also associated with the color black, smoke, and daggers.
Portfolio:  Antios had a fairly sharp divide between the Old and the New mythologies in terms of his portfolio.  He began as a fairly straightforward god of thievery and murder who after his birth joined his father in the ranks of the â,¬Ëevilâ,¬,,¢ deities.  At an early date, however, a Church of Antios was set up â,¬' more of a philosophical school, really, but they adopted Antios as their mascot.  They championed a philosophy of self-interest and indifference to the suffering inherent in this world, and they believed Antios was their forefather.  So successful were they that the reforms of the Second World doctrine legitimized him as a hero, albeit a dispassionate one.  Nowadays, legitimate temples of Antios exist in several nations.  (There are plenty of thieves who still pray to this god under his older mantle, however).
Mythology:  According to Old Myth, Antios was born shortly after Alamir ravaged Suphi during the Serpentâ,¬,,¢s War.  He and his brother Olkhir were initially welcomed into the family of the gods, but Antios was exiled when he attempted to steal Onaleusâ,¬,,¢s sword.  Cast down onto the earth with his father, he too lurked like an evil spirit.  He eventually is said to have taken refuge in the mountains, where he taught the first brigands, thieves, highwaymen and murderers their trade.  The half-dozen or so references to assassins in the classical corpus refer to them as Sons of Antios.  He is also seen as an antagonist in the epic cycle.
Current Teaching: As mentioned previously, Antiosâ,¬,,¢s image was completely altered prior to the Second World Doctrine becoming accepted.  As such, when the gods were reinvented during this time, Antios was portrayed as a hero, a cunning rogue who remained stoic in the face of all the suffering that the Enemy created.  It is said that by force of will, he resisted a killing-spell that the Enemy cast at him, then proceeded to distract the Enemy long enough for Emiome and Onaleus to land the fatal blow that ended the First World.
Vievnan Animal Form:  Antios is portrayed as the wolf-god amongst the Vievnans, who put more emphasis on his violent than on his â,¬Ësneakyâ,¬,,¢ or â,¬Ëmoroseâ,¬,,¢ aspects.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Finally, one of the A-names who WAS a long-time member.  Antiod Emberinâ,¬,,¢s was one of the two players who first took interest in joining â,¬' he, Rholerexâ,¬,,¢s player and I were in a Health class together every morning and we talked about the idea.  When after the first six months the campaign moved to an online AIM format, he became fairly inactive â,¬' he was the kind of player who would participate in all the battles, and answered any questions posed to him directly, but otherwise didnâ,¬,,¢t say much.  When the game began, he was in a relationship with Suphiâ,¬,,¢s player.  When the game ended, he was with Olkhirâ,¬,,¢s player instead.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Bimpnos
The Grinning Trickster
Physical Description:  In early art, Bimpnos is ambiguously portrayed as either a short man or a child (itâ,¬,,¢s hard to know which).  In later art, he has become a gnome.  He is a jovial deity â,¬' in recent artwork, he is always portrayed in brightly-colored clothing, often standing in the middle of a halo of blue and yellow light.  He wears a cap flopped over to one side, always grins broadly, and sometimes leans over on a walking-stick.
Symbology:  Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢ primary symbol from antiquity has been a circle, though there is no explanation for the origin of this curious emblem.  He is also closely associated with his hat, wands, and gnomes generally.
Portfolio:  Bimpnos is a trickster god and the god of humor, and mirth.  He sharply contrasts with Ali, in that he represents the subversion of the normal social custom.  He is also seen as the special protector of children, and his more â,¬Ëseriousâ,¬,,¢ churches (there are few) actively champion the causes of the downtrodden.  He is something of a hero to the lower classes, though they also pray and tithe in order to avoid his pranks. Though not exactly worship, he also has received notoriety as a sort of trouble-making spirit among the peasants: heâ,¬,,¢s blamed for everything from splinters to the accidental burning of a loaf of bread.  (More serious catastrophes are the province of Alamir.)  Jokes are under his domain, as are curious collections.
Mythology:  Bimpnos is curious in the mythology.  Otho and Simo seem to have tried to omit him, not giving him any place in their elaborate and dignified creation myth.  Pressure from the populace seems to have forced them to â,¬Ëlet him inâ,¬,,¢ however, for he appears (albeit briefly) in the councils of the gods and other parts of their works.  Because of their reluctance, there is no written record of Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢s cosmic origins â,¬' he simply â,¬Ëappearedâ,¬,,¢ at some point after the downfall of Durzir and the crowning of Onaleus.  This mystery serves the Bimpnotians fine.  Outside of the two Great Poets, a number of â,¬Ëlesserâ,¬,,¢ poems about Bimpnos have sprung up â,¬' he became something of a monster-slayer in the mythology, always appearing to rescue the village of such-and-such from the hideous this-or-that.
Current Teaching:  The current line goes that Bimpnos was a gnome in the first world and a prankster.  He even went so far as to joke at the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s expense, laughing in the face of the ultimate peril and the most serious of circumstances.  His more philosophical churches therefore say that the lesson mortals should take from this is that a good attitude and a sense of humor are the most valuable things that any man can possess.
Vievnan Animal Form: Curiously enough, Bimpnos appears as the otter-god to the Vievnans.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]I first met Bimpnosâ,¬,,¢s player when we were both three years old in pre-school â,¬' we became good friends there.  We then went to separate elementary schools and middle schools, but we reunited freshman year of high school.  He was one of the original players, and also one of the ones with the most reliable attendance.  Bimpy was in some ways an extension of his own personality (most of these characters were pretty close to their players in terms of identity).  He spent a lot of time coming up with very elaborate pranks to play on some of the more â,¬Ëseriousâ,¬,,¢ members of the party, though he also engaged in his fair share of heroics.  Almost universally, he was one of the most beloved of the CotF characters.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Eldon
The Dread Judge
Physical Description: Eldon is an imposing figure.  His face, though flesh, is skeletally thin, and his eyes are dark.  He dresses in the style of the finest royalty, but all of the colors of his clothes are grey and black.  He is often portrayed with either four arms â,¬' two are flesh, but two are ethereal â,¬' or six arms (adding a skeletal pair.)  Frequently, he is seen sitting upon a throne of onyx, from which he issues his judgements to the dead.
Symbology: A silver coin is the primary symbol of Eldon â,¬' they represent the customary fee for passage to the underworld.  His throne, skulls and other â,¬Ëdeadâ,¬,,¢ things are frequently associated with him, as is the urn.
Portfolio: Eldon is the god of law, contractual obligations, and agreements.  He is also the god of judges and judiciary officials.  But more importantly than any of that, he is the god of the dead.  He sits apart from the gods in Heaven in the black netherworld below the surface of the earth below even the tunnels that the dwarves dig. (though unlike Hades, say, he has a seat in Heaven and does participate in some councils of the gods as well.)  There, he personally judges each soul.  The deceased must make a plea for himself, account the course of his entire life, and call to witness the mourning and sacrifices of his family and friends who still live.  After hearing all this, Eldon sends the soul on to one of the various afterlives (see below).  The clergy of Eldon take responsibility for the interment of physical remains, hear the grieving and the accounts of surviving family members, and accept sacrifices on the behalf of the deceased.
Mythology:Though Onaleusâ,¬,,¢s wedded wife was Lia, he was a philandering god, following in the footsteps of his father.  Shortly after his two legitimate daughters were born, in fact, he went and lay with Suphi, who bore him Xandos and Eldon, Youth and Death.  Angry, Lia demanded that they both be cast down into the darkest pits of the Earth.  Vivacious Xandos later won back a place in Heaven (see below) but grim Eldon came to like the dark.  (He later was readmitted to Heaven after he took Liaâ,¬,,¢s side in an argument with Onaleus.)   According to the Old Mythology, he sends souls on to one of four different afterlives â,¬' the very heroic go to be attendants at the feasts and banquets of the gods in Heaven, the virtuous live in a forest where they live comfortably and happily but not eternally blissful, the mildly wicked live in a city which is dreary but not torturous, and the very wicked are punished eternally with fire and other torments in the deepest bowels of the earth.  In the myths, Eldon is seen as somewhat of a sarcastic god â,¬' he sometimes interjects in the accounts of the lives of the deceased to offer pointed commentary on the foolishness of their actions.
Current Teaching: Eldon is said to have been a shade in the First World, a powerful spirit who raised from the dead to fight against the Enemy.  A wizard, he is said to have raised up all of the dead of the First World with him to join the battle.  According to Second World Doctrine, he will have a similar function at the end of the Second World.  This new vision of the afterlife divides souls into three different groups.  The very virtuous and heroic are sent to Heaven, where they prepare with the gods for the Last Battle.  Those neither virtuous nor wicked are kept around Eldon himself â,¬' they must choose before the final days whether they will stand with the armies of Good or not.  Wicked souls are still cast into a pit and tormentedâ,¬' they will escape during the Last Battle and rally around Alamir and the other forces of Darkness, only to be utterly obliterated.
Vievnan Animal Form:Vievnans see Eldon as the bat-god, for they have long thought bats to be agents of death sent to collect the souls of the fallen.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Eldonâ,¬,,¢s player was Rholerexâ,¬,,¢s playerâ,¬,,¢s cousin â,¬' he lived one town over, and went to the same high school as Alamirâ,¬,,¢s player.  He joined at a medium point in the game â,¬' before Alamir or Ali, after Emiome and Maxinir.  Eldon was his first character â,¬' a necromancer halfling â,¬' but he was the kind of fellow who could never make up his mind as to what character he wanted to play.  He got Eldon killed off, then played a gargoyle-type character, then played a monk (or something) with a giant dire-bear companion, and finally he asked if he could play Eldon again â,¬' this time as a ghostly character.  I agreed (it was late enough in the game that I could apply an ECL penalty for the ghost powers and still have a relatively balanced character).

Back when Tasothilos used alignments, I saw Eldon, Ali and Oniwalu as forming a triad.  Ali represented Lawful Evil government, Oniwalu Lawful Good government, and Eldon Lawful Neutral government.  Though Iâ,¬,,¢ve dropped official alignments from the system, I keep some vestiges of that triad in the way the gods are portrayed.
[/ooc][/spoiler]

Emiome
The Laughing Witch
Physical Description: Emiome is portrayed as a beautiful girl only recently entered into womanhood, perhaps 17 or 18 years old.  She has a slight frame and is always dressed elegantly, and in bright colors.  Her hands are often aflame with magical power.  Her hair is long and brown, her eyes wide, and her visage always smiling.  She is frequently portrayed with Amrulir, a small fae dragon creature who is her companion.
Symbology: Emiomeâ,¬,,¢s primary symbol is the crescent moon.  She is also associated with starlight, the night sky generally, fae creatures, and sapphires.  (Most other gemstones, save Myriaâ,¬,,¢s pearls, are associated with Suphi.)
Portfolio:  Emiome is the queen of night and the smiling goddess of the moon.  She created the stars to honor mortal heroes and to delight her father the Lord of Heaven.  She is also the major god of magic and spellcraft, though some casters honor Bimpnos or Olkhir.  As moon-goddess, she is also the protector of maidenhood, and she has rejected many suitors, including her uncle Rholerex.  She is the god of revelry, exultant poetry and wine, and has taken on an aspect as the goddess of freedom â,¬' several rebellious groups invoke her as their patron, though the â,¬Ëmainstreamâ,¬,,¢ church denies their goddess would be involved with active rebellion and argue that the freedom in question is more spiritual in nature.
Mythology: Emiome is the second-born of the younger divine generation, following shortly after her sister Ali.  While her sister is stern and methodical, Emiome is free and capricious â,¬' though no less loyal.  She invented magic, and she also invented joy.  After the Serpentâ,¬,,¢s War had cast down Alamir, Emiome was the first to break into jubilant dancing and convinced the other gods to have a great feat in honor of the victory.  She is serious when she needs to be, however â,¬' she fought alongside her sister with her newly developed magical spells during the war, just like the other gods. In the myths, she is frequently found helping out mortal heroes â,¬' she is second only to her aunt Myria when it comes to giving tokens and magical presents to help mortal heroes accomplish their goals.  Itâ,¬,,¢s worth noting that while Emiome is always joyful, she has an acidic wit and is just as capable, during many of the Council of the Gods scenes, of lashing out critically at those she disagrees with.
Current Teaching: Emiome was a beautiful witch in the First World, adherents say.  She was in control of a great guild of wizards (for magic was much more commonplace in the First World than in the Second).  As the final battle with the Enemy approached, she raised an army of her sorcerous followers to join in the fray.  It is even said that she helped Onaleus deal the final blow to the Enemy: while Antios distracted him, Emiome held the villain in place with a freezing cold magical ray, allowing Onaleus to land the killing sword-blow.
Vievnan Animal Form: The Sun and Moon are cats to the Vievnans â,¬' Emiome the Moon is the leopard-goddess.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Iâ,¬,,¢ve known Emiomeâ,¬,,¢s player since roughly the second grade.  She went off to go to a private high school, but we stayed in touch through instant messenger and when the Chronicles of the Fated campaign moved to an online format, she was one of the first to join up.  She was a time-traveling princess/sorceress who had been taken prisoner by a dragon and was rescued by the party.  Joining with her pseudo-dragon familiar, she proceeded to bring a much-needed sarcastic and clever foil to Oniwaluâ,¬,,¢s dopey and earnest.   Itâ,¬,,¢s worth noting that there was a lot more sarcasm

Iâ,¬,,¢ve lost touch with a lot of the Chronicles players, but Emiomeâ,¬,,¢s player has actually played an active role in helping to shape Tasothilos â,¬' a conservatory student, she inspired most of the musical stuff in the world so far.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Maxinir
The Warrior Poet
Physical Description: Even in human lands, Maxinir has almost always been portrayed as a dwarf.  His beard, frequently braided, is a rich brown color but almost always blackened at the edges with soot.  Usually, he is in war-gear (if not, he wears a blacksmithâ,¬,,¢s apron.  He carries a hammer and an axe and wears a great helm with three horns.  His hands are always covered in soot.
Symbology: The hammer is the primary symbol of Maxinir â,¬' it is the symbol of his creative as well as his destructive potential.  A horn of mead, the axe, and a well-cut gemstone are also symbols of his.
Portfolio:  Maxinar is a dwarf-god â,¬' the dwarves, in fact, believe that he is an embodiment of the dwarven father-god.  He has dominion over mountains and stone, and over masonry.  He is the smith-god, who forged most of the weapons used by the other gods.  He is also dedicated to more pleasant crafts, having forged fine jewels for his nieces Emiome and Ali.  He is the minerâ,¬,,¢s friend and has lordship over all precious metals.  He invented beer and ale and has dominion over all alcohols save wine, which is given over to his beloved niece Emiome.  He is one of the war-gods, embodying battles, personal valor and individual heroic feats as opposed to Ali, who is god of armies. Lastly, he is the god of epic poetry who taught Otho and Simo.
Mythology: Maxinir is the only child of the union of Saros and Tithalia before his mother was seduced by Durzir.  For a long time, he bore ill will towards Onaleus and Rholerex, blaming them for the sins of their father and he refused to join in their struggle against the tyranical king of heaven.   It was only after Onaleus, under Anarinaâ,¬,,¢s guidance, made peace with Maxinir that together they were able to slay him.  Maxinir, in an act of penance for his earlier rage, made a shining suit of armor for Onaleus and forged a sword of divine metal.  At several points in the epics, there are prolonged scenes of him forging a special magical weapon to give to a hero in battle.  He is also specifically invoked by both Otho and Simo at the beginning of their poems, as he is the father of their craft.
Current Teaching: Maxinir was a great dwarven warrior in the First World.  As Onaleus and the others joined together to fight the enemy, Maxinir made great weapons and armor to help them in the battle.  He also composed a poem, now known only to the divines, which recounted their various exploits.  In the final battle, Maxinir lead an army of dwarves and cut down many ranks of the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s twisted legions, preventing them from coming to their masterâ,¬,,¢s defense.
Vievnan Animal Form: Maxinir is the badger-god to the Vievnans.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Maxinirâ,¬,,¢s player has the longest gaming history with me â,¬' I met her when her parents and mine were at an annual conference around the time that I was in fifth grade, and we saw each other yearly for about four years.  She introduced me to Myriaâ,¬,,¢s player, and to a group that theyâ,¬,,¢d been running online with some friends of her family, run by Xandosâ,¬,,¢s player. Iâ,¬,,¢ve played several campaigns with that group over the years, though Iâ,¬,,¢ve almost completely lost touch with Maxinirâ,¬,,¢s player.
Maxinir joined some time around the time that Emiome did, though she was only with the group for a short time before participating in both my game and the other game became too much for her to handle.   Her character made a lasting impression, however, and I have brought him back to fill a much-needed spot in the pantheon.
 [/ooc][/spoiler]

Myria
The Wandering Hero, the Sailorâ,¬,,¢s Friend
Physical Description: Myria is variably portrayed.  When her oceanly aspect is being emphasized, she is portrayed as a great, queenly woman with blue skin and wild green hair, wearing royal regalia liberally covered in pearls.   Travelling, she is often pulled in a chariot driven by dolphins When her other aspects are being emphasized, she is a young, caucasian woman of perhaps 30 in light armor (formerly a breastplate, now usually mail).  Her eyes are an oceanic blue in either guise, however.
Symbology: Myriaâ,¬,,¢s primary symbol is the dolphin.  Other symbols include the horse, the sword and the pearl.
Portfolio:  Myria is the Queen of the Sea, and all rivers, lakes and streams owe fealty to her.  The magical philosophers named her the god of Elemental Water, for while Onaleus brings thunder and lightning, he must petition Myria to unleash Paluros, the Rainbringer, whom she keeps as an attendant.  Besides this, she is also the goddess of travellers, sailors, merchants, and commerce.  All pious persons make a prayer to her before they begin to undertake a journey expected to last longer than a single dayâ,¬,,¢s ride.  She rules over horses and horsemanship, as well as animal husbandry.  In recent times, she has become the goddess of luck and she is seen as the special patron deity of all those who call themselves adventurers.
Mythology:  Myria is one of the elder generation of gods, the middle daughter of Durzir and his lawful wife Namri.  She alone of her sisters initially attempted to overthrow her wicked father, and once the revolt was fully underway, she was one of the three who fought most vehemently against Durzir. (The others are Onaleus and Maxinir.)  In reward for her service, Onaleus gave her the choice of lordship over any aspect of creation she wished.  She was enchanted with the depths of the ocean, and made this her choice.  Though she has a seat in heaven, she attends to her brother and sister gods only when thereâ,¬,,¢s a particularly pressing matter which requires her attention â,¬' most of the rest of the time, she maintains her own court at the bottom of the sea, and spends most of her time on Earth.  She is the special patron of many of the great heroes, giving them favors and counsel.  She particularly opposes Antios, and is particularly close to her niece, Emiome.
Current Teaching:  Myria was a wandering knight and a princess in the First World, who brought a long-oppressed people out of obscurity and forged a naval empire.  In the final battle against the Enemy, she provided a fleet which blockaded his ports and prevented him from escaping by sea.  While her sailors took care of this, she rode her horse into battle and single-handedly routed an army of demons the Enemy had summoned to his aid.
Vievnan Animal Form:  Myria is the horse-goddess to the Vievnans, who place more emphasis on her role as the protector of that animal than on her role as the Sea-Queen.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]As I said before, Myriaâ,¬,,¢s player was introduced to me by Maxinirâ,¬,,¢s player around the time I was in seventh grade (sheâ,¬,,¢s a year older).  I only met her in person twice, but she was one of my closest â,¬Ëonline friendsâ,¬,,¢, especially through the ups and downs high school.  A bit of a crazy7 girl at times, but very sensible at others.  She was also very, very good at gaming, and at figuring out puzzles.
One night after a game, I was telling her all about some of the fun things that had happened in the last Chronicles session, and she asked if she could join.  She played a wandering knight type character, sort of a feminine alâ,¬,,¢Lan Mandragoran in that she was the last heir of an utterly destroyed kingdom.  She and Emiome bonded well, and she was also pretty close with Bimpnos.
[/ooc][/spoiler]

Olkhir
The Raging Sorcerer, The Peacecrafter
Physical Description: Olkhir is portrayed as a tall man of elven features.  His skin is a deep reddish color, and his eyes burn a bright orange or yellow color.  He is almost always drawn in a sorcererâ,¬,,¢s robes, clutching a magical staff.  His most distinctive feature, however, is his left hand, which has been stripped of flesh and is completely skeletal.  (In some of the more â,¬Ëpeaceableâ,¬,,¢ churches of Olkhir, the flaming eyes have been toned down, but the skeletal hand and the deep red skin remain.)
Symbology: The skeletal hand is the most common symbol of Olkhir.  Other symbols include staves, scrolls and dragons.
Portfolio: Like his brother Antios, Olkhir has a complicated portfolio.  According to old myth, he was the god of suffering, misery, and pain.  He is also a god of magic, ruling over dark powers rather than the gentle magic of Emiome or the chaotic magic of Bimpnos.  He created dragons and many arcane monsters, and may have created demons.  However, like Antios his church was seized early by a philosophical movement.  This movement claimed that pain, suffering and the like were forces for good in the world, because they helped to purify the soul.  Seeking to avoid sadness and pain was foolish, they argue.  Instead, these emotions should be embraced.  Volkir thus became the god of elegaic and mournful poetry as well.  This gentler, if no cheerier, version of Olkhir has gained some acceptance in several countries, though cults to his darker side still exist.
Mythology: Olkhir was the second son of the ravaging of Suphi by Alamir.  Unlike his brother, Olkhir was never cast down from Heaven, because he never committed any sin against the gods.  However, during the great wars of men, he frequently backed the â,¬Ëlosingâ,¬,,¢ side and argued unsuccessfully with his fellow deities. Therefore, he grew distant from them and withdrew into his own tower in Heaven, seldom coming to meet with his brethren.  He often appears in the mythology, sending various monsters and inconveniences to fight against mortal heroes.  He sometimes goes to fight with the heroes himself, although he is always bested through some trickery or because the hero receives the help of a kindly god.  He is very morose, and complains often.  More than many, he is a jealous god.
Current Teaching:The moderate Olkhirians teach that their god was a philosopher and a wizard in the First World.  While the other gods-to-be went about raising armies and fighting the Enemy directly, Olkhir took a more indirect route.  He roused the populace to action, preaching that the suffering they would endure in the process of resisting the Enemy would be a good thing because it would stifle complacency and force introspection.  Through his teachings, most of the world turned against the Enemy and he lost much of his support base.  The lesson of Olkhir is that not only those who fight evil with violence may be rewarded for their virtues.
Vievnan Animal Form: Olkhir is portrayed most commonly as the dragon-god, though really he may be portrayed as any type of lizard or snake as well.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Volkir Amnesti, who would become Olkhir, was originally named Miliardo Peacecraft.  The characterâ,¬,,¢s name was changed once the rest of the party discovered that his player (who was an avid anime fan and general japanophile) had taken the name from some anime show called Gundam or such-like.  (The Peacecrafter title remains as a nod to this development.)  He was a brooding sort, though many of his in-character philosophical contributions turned out to be lyrics from songs he was listening to.  He was part of the party from early times, though Volkir/Miliardo was not his first character â,¬' that was Aristarchus, a contemptible bastard (in the playerâ,¬,,¢s own words) that got killed off when the party turned on him (with the playerâ,¬,,¢s full consent.)  Volkir turned out to be not much better, but at least he didnâ,¬,,¢t kill NPCs outright.

Most of the time.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Onaleus
The Just Knight, The King
Physical Description: Even now that he has been formally stripped of his title of King of the Gods, Onaleus retains a royal aspect.  He is portrayed as a silver-haired man of a lean but powerful build, and he possesses a great pair of white feathery wings.  He carries in one hand a golden-colored sword and in the other hand a lightning bolt, and he wears full armor (earlier a breastplate, nowadays usually full flate armor â,¬' both gold in color.)
Symbology: Even though he has been â,¬Ëdethronedâ,¬,,¢ by the faiths, the primary symbol of Onaleus is still the crown, though the thunderbolt is arising as another powerful symbol.  He is also associated with eagles, falcons and all other manner of noble birds, in addition to clouds and a golden sword.
Portfolio:  Onaleus has had his domain change a little over time.  In an earlier time, he was the King of Heaven, with dominion over the other gods.  He was also the god of lightning and of kingship.  The magical philosophers associated him with the element of Air, as well.  After the fall of the Ekeusian empire, he was â,¬Ëdethronedâ,¬,,¢ by the other churches (who were riding an anti-royalist sentiment at the time) and he became instead the god of courtly love, chivalry, knighthood, honorable combat, noble music, and noble values.  He is in some way a counterbalance to Ali these days â,¬' while she represents pragmatic and oppressive politics, he represents more of an idealized mode of government.
Mythology: Onaleus is the second son of Durzirâ,¬,,¢s tainted union with his brotherâ,¬,,¢s wife Tithalia.  From the start, he hated his father for the illegitimate fashion in which he had been born, and when his father killed his grandfather and assumed lordship, Onaleus began at once to work against him.  Once he had unified the other deities, he overcame Durzir in a great battle and slew him personally, assuming lordship. He is the father by Lia of Ali and Emiome, and by Suphi of Xandos and Eldon.  He is a philandering deity with many other children as well â,¬' in addition to his wife Lia and her sister Suphi, he also courted a number of nymphs and other semi-divine beings.  Myria more than once had to intervene on behalf of one of her river spirits or lake nymphs who was receiving unwelcome attentions.  A great number of the mortal heroes of the myths can also trace their lineage back to Onaleus having taken a liking to a mortal woman.  At the end of the mythic cycles of Otho and Simo, however, Onaleus is tricked by Lia and is forced to swear a mighty oath that he will be faithful to her, one which the poets assure us he has ever after upheld.
Current Teaching:  Onaleus was a warrior in the First World, a member of a winged race which no longer exists and whose name is no longer rembered.  He was a pious knight and the guardian of a temple of one of the great gods.  He was wronged personally by the Enemy, and as a result he was the catalyst for the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s destruction.  He travelled throughout the First World, never flinching from his quest, gathering the necessary resouces and allies to fight against the enemy.  He led the assault on the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s stronghold, and raised a whole world to follow his banner.  It was he, with the help of Antios and Emiome, who dealt the final blow that brought down the Enemy and the First World with him.  The lesson that Onaleusâ,¬,,¢s church teaches is the tremendous power of perseverance and dedication.
Vievnan Animal Form: Oniwalu is the eagle-god, the king of the skies.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]It is wrong to speak of a protagonist for CotF, because I never saw it that way during the actual run of the game.  But reading over the session logs from the past, I think that if the game were to have been a CRPG, then Onaleus (or Oniwalu, as he was originally named) would have been the central character.  He began as a somewhat dopey Don Quixote knock-off but evolved into the pinnacle of the somewhat-slow-but-virtuous knight.  In the era before Jessica Simpsonâ,¬,,¢s chicken-of-the-sea extravaganza, he was famous for his hilariously dunce-like quotations (naming your favorite Oni-quote became a popular post-session event.)  He was one of the founding characters and, though my records are inexact, he certainly had one of the highest if not the-highest attendance rate of anyone in the group.  I believe that about a third of the PC dialogue was spoken by him, as well.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Rholerex
The Ward of Nature
Physical Description: Rholerex appears as a very tall man with wild brown hair blowing in all directions, interspersed with twigs and leaves.  He wears a crown of oak, and in his hands he often bears a cornucopia and a scimitar.  He has a distinctively fae or elven quality, and he is often accompanied by bears, wolves, and other large predatory animals.  Sometimes, he is portrayed having a pipe in his mouth.
Symbology: The wolfâ,¬,,¢s head is the primary symbol of Rholerex.  He also is represented by the pipe, and by all manner of plants, trees, and wild beasts.
Portfolio:  Rholerex is the god of the wild.  His are the swamps and the deserts, the mountains and valleys and all the terrain of the earth â,¬' but most of all, his are the forests.  It is said he wanders the forests still, in the guise of a spirit or in the guise of an animal, protecting his charges from human exploitation.  He has dominion over all trees and green plants that grow on the face of the earth, and also over wild animals; wolves and bears are particularly closely associated with him.  Though it may seem paradoxical for the Treefather, his too is Fire, natureâ,¬,,¢s most destructive secret.  So say the magical philosophers, anyway, and the clergy agrees with them.  Rholerex is venerated by woodsmen and placated by peasants forced to collect timber to build their homes and feed their fires.  He is also worshipped by the druid-cults, strange half-civilized men who spend half their lives in trances.
Mythology: When Onaleus slew Durzir, he half-expected that he would have to fight against his own older brother, Rholerex, in order to claim lordship of heaven.  It was a great surprise when Rholerex voluntarily gave control of the skies to his brother, instead requesting only that he be given control over the Earth.  It was Rholerex who nurtured the Earth and cleansed its wounds after the ravages of the Revolt of Onaleus, and did so again after the Serpentâ,¬,,¢s War cut even deeper.  He is an aloof god â,¬' although he is amorous and there are a few myths about him wooing a forest spirit or a mortal woman, he does not have many interactions with his brethren deities.  (One noteworthy exception is a myth found only briefly in Simo which declares that he once loved and courted Emiome, only to be rejected by the virgin goddess. He hardly appears in the epic war cycles at all, except to protest the great injuries which wars bear on his charges and to urge peace.
Current Teaching: Rholerex was a druid of the First World, who was sorely vexed when the Enemy wrought great destruction on the natural order of his World, and was driven to act when at last the Enemy even slew his own brethren, the fellow members of his order.  Rholerex lifted up the trees and the animals of the earth, turning them to fight against the Enemy.  When the very world itself was against him, how could the Enemy ever have prevailed?
Vievnan Animal Form: Rholerex is the bear-god, and the Vievnans emphasize his less welcoming, more destructive aspects.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Rowe, as he was usually called by the party, was played by one of the two players who first inspired me to throw together Chronicles of the Fated. (The other was Antios).   Originally, this player created a different elven druid called Neiden, but at some point after the campaign went online he decided he wanted to change to Rowe.  I canâ,¬,,¢t remember why, now â,¬' because the characters were largely identical.  It might have been a statistical redesign or something.  Heâ,¬,,¢s a good fellow who brought several of the other PCs into the group (including Eldonâ,¬,,¢s player and Aliâ,¬,,¢s.)[/ooc][/spoiler]

Suphi
The Great Mother Earth
Physical Description: Suphi is always portrayed as an exceptionally comely and curvaceous woman.   She is always portrayed naked â,¬' in modern art she has long dark locks which hang down to avoid offending the sensibilities of the viewer.  She always wears flowers in her hair, and she is frequently seen carrying corn and other crops in her hands.
Symbology: A stalk of corn is the primary symbol of Suphi.  She is also represented by any number of images considered obscene in this more â,¬Ësterileâ,¬,,¢ time, and by gemstones.
Portfolio: Suphi is the Great Mother Earth.  While Lia watches over marriage and Bimpnos over children, the actual miracle of birth is under the domain of the Mother.  She guards over the fertility of the earth, too, and she is one of the most-entreated of the gods among the rural peasantry, for she controls their lives and livelihoods.   From her original role as mother has arisen a second role, almost as important â,¬' she is the goddess with dominion over the sex act, over carnal passions and pleasures, and over love.  In this aspect, she is much-prayed to by young suitors who desperately pray to win over the affections of a desired spouse.  She is also associated with the element of Earth by magi.
Mythology:  Suphi is the oldest legitimate child of Durzir, the first daughter born to Namri.  She is thus the oldest of the gods besides Anarina.  She had an important part in the Revolt of the Gods â,¬' she lured Durzir into lowering his defenses with her seductive wiles while the remainder of the gods lay in wait to attack.  After the ascent of Onaleus, she bore him (illegitmately) Eldon and Xandos, and after being raped by Alamir during the Serpentâ,¬,,¢s War she bore Antios and Olkhir.  She also has a fair number of mortal lovers and is the parent of more demigods than any other divinity except for Onaleus.  Aside from her role as parent, she is not very prominent in the major mythology.  However, she was very, very important in a wide number of rituals performed by the ancients, and some of these spawned minor myths in order to explain the ritual actions.
Current Teaching:  By the time that Second World Doctrine was created, Suphi-worship had become focused entirely on her role as the matron of sexual delights and her earlier, more earthy and fertile, domains had been forgotten.  The architects of the new religion attempted to rescue her from what they considered to be a â,¬Ëlowâ,¬,,¢ use of such a venerable deity.  They explained that Suphi had indeed been a prostitute in the First World, but that she had repented of her base profession when she met Onaleus.  In one of the most blatantly mythological elements of Second World dogma, she is said to have spontaneously conceived and given birth to three great eagles which carried Onaleus and his companions into the heart of the Enemyâ,¬,,¢s country to confront him.  Her deification is held up as proof that the womanâ,¬,,¢s place as the bearer of children is godly and righteous.
Vievnan Animal Form: The Vievnans emphasize the fertility aspect of Suphi and downplay her role in romantic and sexual love.  To them, she is the great cow-goddess.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]I had known Suphiâ,¬,,¢s player since about the 4th grade, and I played a few highly improvised, barely-by-the-rules games of D&D with her in middle school before I found my regular online crew.  She was one of the first players in CotF, though her attendance was occasionally spotty she was there throughout.  She created Suphi (originaly Suvj, pronounced Soovdge) as a prostitute/rogue, though she never actually had any customers.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Xandos
The Spirited Youth
Physical Description: Xandos is always portrayed as a physically perfectly, well-muscled young man of twenty or so, with olive skin and medium-length black hair. He is sometimes portrayed with a short-trimmed black beard, sometimes with a clean-shaven face. He is dressed in huntsmanâ,¬,,¢s leather armor. He almost always is portrayed carrying a bow.
Symbology:  The bow is the major symbol of Xandos.  Flowers, the stag, and young men are all taken to be symbols of his.
Portfolio:  Xandos is the god of hunting and of archery.  He is also the god of male beauty, of youthfulness, and of the maturation into manhood.  In some cities, no man is considered to be an adult until he has been blessed by a priest Xandos.   Athletics are in his domain, (the many great athletic festivals of ancient and modern times are dedicated in his honor) and he also is in contrast to the several wargods in that he is the god of peace-time, self-reflection and self-improvement.  He is the god of the visual arts, particularly sculpture among them.  As such, he is much prayed-to by artists who seek his divine inspiration in their works.
Mythology:  When Xandos and Eldon were born, Lia in her jealousy cast both of them down into the lowest pits of the Earth.   While Eldon stayed there and forged a kingdom out of the souls of the dead, Xandos labored for seven years trying to return to heaven.  At last, he was granted pardon and a seat among the councils of the Gods when he wove an elaborate garland of flowers for Lia and sought repentance for his fatherâ,¬,,¢s sins.  After that, Xandos dwelt with equal frequency in Heaven and on Earth â,¬' during the springtime, in particular, he was thought to dwell on the earth and relish in the rebirth of the natural world, while fearing the power of Alamir he fled to Heaven during the winters.  In the myths, he often challenges heroes who seem to be too proud to great contests of strength.  Though he usually wins, occasionally he loses and heaps great accolades upon those who defeat him.
Current Teaching: Xandos was an orphan, a mere youth in the First World, and yet he was one of the first to rally to Onaleusâ,¬,,¢s cause, and fought alongside the winged knight with equal vigor.  The relationship between the two was very much like that of father and son, and Xandos protected his surrogate father from certain danger on more than one occasion.  He is said to have engaged in single combat with the Enemy, grappling with him before the rest of his companions arrived and the battle proper began.
Vievnan Animal Form:  In Vievnan theology, Xandos alone has a purely human form.  He is also seen as the creator of mankind in their eyes.
[spoiler=OOC]
[ooc]Xandos had been a long â,¬'running DM of mine from about sixth grade onwards. He didnâ,¬,,¢t join the Chronicles of the Fated until extremely late, however, and he only joined for three or four gaming sessions.  I kept the character as one of the fourteen gods, however, because his role as the archer god / god of youth fills an important vacancy and because it allows me to create a life-death-rebirth cycle, which my mythology had otherwise been lacking.[/ooc][/spoiler]

Agria:Agria is the guardian of Heaven.  She appears as a warrior-maiden in the Myrian style, adorned in breastplate and carrying a shield and a spear.  

This is a rough conceptual version of the new map I'm designing for Tasothilos.  The basic relative layout will look like this, though the size, shape, etc of coastline is liable to change.

(http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8880/roughconceptualmap1ti.jpg)

Color Key:
The area in red will be the home to MOST of the kingdoms that dedicated Tasothilos readers have been exploring so far- Andozia, Sanceline, Ferrund, Vievna, etc.  Most of these insular nations have been re-written as coastal continental kingdoms, though Miloa, Akmet and Philstaros (at least) are still insular.

The grey area are the great mountain ranges - smaller ranges (not pictured) exist in the red area.

The pink area is the domain of the great orc empire.  A few other small nations of the various other races exist here as well, but the orcs are the dominant power.

The big yellow area in the middle is a vast desert.  Ever since first seeing Star Wars, I've had a fascination with desert culture, so one of the crucial parts of the remapping plan was to get a desert in the picture.  Still no concrete idea what's gonna go here though.

The light green area is the domain of Sakrtskaya.  It's a LOT bigger now, but remember that Sakrtskaya is a convenient name for a number of feuding principalities with similar culture and religion, rather than an actual nation per se.

The white area is tundra or sea that is dominated by icebergs.

The remaining dark green areas are 'blank spots' on the map.  I'll fill them in a little later.

Edit: Taectenatl is located on a continent across the sea to the east.  I'm currently planning to design at least 1 other major nation on that continent to rival Taectenatl.

I can't see the map. :(

The deities remain very cool. I very much like how you've detached them from the original player characters that inspired them (which has been a gradual process, as I learned watching Tasothilos develop). I also like the new alignment-less version. Ali, in particular, has become much more ambiguous, which I like a lot.

A question: am I correct in assuming that nothing in the "mythology" entries is considered canon anymore by the people of the Salabrian area? That the "Second World" story has completely replaced the stories of the Ur-Gods?

Túrin

Read the whole 'OOC: Some History of Tasothilos' post - very interesting to hear the human story behind a setting's creation. Thanks for posting it! I wish more worlds described the real-world aspect behind the setting.

You are for the most part correct - the architects of the Second World doctrine tried to incorporate some of the most prominent parts of the mythology, rationalizing them as exploits of the gods in the First World, pre-ascension.  However, the majority of the mythic corpus, most notably of course the creation of the world,  was dismissed as superstition.  It lives on now only in art and a few obscure 'pagan' sects.

One significant exception is the Serpent's War, which survived in a modified form.  In the 'new' version of the myth, the Serpent's War is not an already-evil Alamir rising from exile to challenge Heaven, but instead a formerly-cooperative Alamir revolting in an attempt to crown himself king of the Gods in place of Onaleus.  The rest of the myth survives fairly well - he raises up an army of twisted creations from the Earth, is defeated and cast down by Onaleus.

I'll try to host a smaller version of the conceptual map on the site rather than rely on Imageshack - it's become increasingly unreliable for me.

As far as the OOC history goes, I think in general it's very helpful to know the framework in which the creator is constructing his world, and I believe that an OOC explanation of the project history is one of the best ways to do this.  I'd encourage more people to make such posts so we know where they're coming from.

The next three things I'm going to post, though not necessarily in this order:

(a) I'm going to edit the earlier post which I reserved for Races of Tasothilos.  As I explained earlier, I'm keeping the standard races in name and general shape for 'ease of use', but they're heavily modified statistically, aesthetically and (especially) culturally, so an overview will be helpful.  Several of the races (dwarves and halflings especially) were never really detailed directly in the old project.

(b) A more thorough overview of Second World Doctrine, as it was something that I never really explained before except in summary.

(c) an essay on Magic in Tasothilos, updating and expanding on the role of mystical forces in a fairly non-mystical world.

Once all that is done and some finalized version of the map is complete, I'll begin the long process of revising and updating nations from the old thread, though I'll intersperse some more new material so that old readers aren't just reviewing stuff they've seen before.

Quote from: Kalos MerYrmos Partikos (YP) - literally 'The Living Empire'

Didn't you say earlier that Yrmos Partikos is genitive, which made the literal translation 'Of The Living Empire'?

Túrin

That was the case based on an early version of the Ekeusian language which was essentially "Ancient Greek only I changed all the words."  (It was actually, I believe, Yrmontos Partikou - the correlation to Greek is immediately apparent to anyone with any familiarity with the langauge.)  One of the major developments (unseen in the threads because my linguistic musings are only of interest to a very limited group) of the past three years has been transforming a language that was phonologically, morphologically and syntactically almost identical to Greek into one that is phonologically almost identical and only has some morpho-syntactic influence from Greek - making it more my own langauge.  

The form of 'Yrmos Parthikos' is liable to change as the syntax of my Ekeusian becomes more evolved.  I will assure you, however, that the abbreviation (YP) and the rough translation (something about the Empire being alive) will not change.

I'm very impressed by the mythology, which is one of the best I've ever seen. It genuinely has a mythical feel to it, particularly the creation and earlier myths. I like also how there is a consistent feel to all of it. One thing I'd like to see though is some sense of how the New and Old Faiths are actually practiced.

Haven't read through everything yet, but wanted to first say I couldn't agree more with your basic design principles:

1. Emphasizing consistent internal logic  :D
2. Rarer magic  :whoa:
3. Medium-High Power  :yumm:

I love the fantastical magical power that a character can achieve in d&d, but it's just always been difficult for me to conceive of a world where that kind of power is commonplace and to still have the world make some kind of sense. :soap:

[note=Magic is Rare] In reading the following, it is possible one might get the impression that magic is a somewhat common occurrence in Tasothilos.  This is not the case.  While magic is in theory quite universally available, in practice very few harness itâ,¬,,¢s powers because it takes a great deal of time and money to do so.  Further, the returns one gets for the investments are rarely sufficient to make the enterprise worthwhile.   Most peopleâ,¬,,¢s encounters with magic are limited solely to untrained, very simplified Willing â,¬' the sort of thing brought on by stress that might just as easily be termed an â,¬Ëadrenaline rushâ,¬,,¢.
As an exercise, I did some rough calculations: the human population of Salabrian region of the world probably hovers somewhere around 70 million in 1497 AP.  I estimate that around 40,000 souls - less than one tenth of one percent of the population - have any use of magic beyond the aforementioned untrained Will. Of these 40,000, only perhaps 2,000 are 'professional', fully trained wizards of one tradition or another - this amounts to about 3 men in 100,000.[/note]
In the Tasothilos setting, magic has a strangely variegated character.  It is at different times dramatic or subtle, mechanical or philosophical.  Provided he is clever enough and has the proper resources, a man from any walk of life may dabble in the mystic arts, and yet only the very strongest minds ever come close to mastery.  In this brief essay, I shall set out the fundamental nature of Magic in Tasothilos and also summarize its most common manifestations.

[/b]
The Ekeusians produced the most thoughtful and prolific magical philosophers and practictioners that the world has yet seen.  Therefore, when discussing magic it is common for Salabrians to use a lexicon of terms derived from the Ekeusian tongue, built up and refined by over two millenia of tradition.  This language is rich and loaded with philosophical as well as technical vocabulary.  This lexicon is complicated by widely overlapping metaphorical speech: magic is variously compared with the practice of art, with the exercise of the mind, and with the creation of poetry, among many other activities.
Groups not influenced by Ekeusian tradition, however (other races like Elves and Dwarves are the most common examples, but also some of the more distant races of men like the Sakrtskayans, Ferrundar and Taecs) have vocabularies (and indeed, magical philosophies) entirely distinct from the common Salabrian versions.  For that reason, in this article, I will use a number of more universal coinages from Greek on familiar, accepted models.  Understand that these are strictly OOC terms, used for their convenience.  Nobody in Andozia calls himself a Logomancer â,¬' he instead would speak of an athundrapir.  A dwarf on the other hand would call the same man an Ahillak, the orcish term is mangiit, etc.

[/b]
[ooc] The following section is the â,¬ËEkeusianâ,¬,,¢ point of view on magic, and represents many dozens of generations worth of philosophizing and theorizing.  It is not necessarily the view of other practitioners, and it is not even necessarily the â,¬Ërealâ,¬,,¢ reason that magic works â,¬' but it is an explanation consistent with observation (for the most part, though see the note below on "Magic Words".)[/ooc]

At itâ,¬,,¢s most fundamental level, Magic is defined as a particular ability of the directed will to manifestly influence reality.  The arcane philosophers of old played with this definition in a number of ways: indeed, Aphileus called any action undertaken deliberately, even something as mundane as shaping a ball of clay in oneâ,¬,,¢s hands, a magical act.  While the notion has a sort of romantic attractiveness to it, unfortunately it also blurs a useful, if arbitrary, line of distinction.  For the more practical purposes of adventurers and other modern practitioners, magic is defined as the ability of an individual, with a concerted act of will, to achieve results disproportionate to his actions.  The shaping of a clay object does not fall under this category â,¬' physical dexterity and skill is exerted in proportion to the quality of the craft.  The production of a globe of fuel-less flame or a spontaneous burst of speed or strength are magical actions, on the other hand. The nature of this principle may seem to be somewhat obscured when one examines permanent effects or magical objects, but the arguments of philosophers down through the centuries have quite competently explained that these, too, are an expression of will.
The will can be exerted unaided, or it can be directed and guided by ritual, incantation, or other accoutrements â,¬' though these different practices look wildly divergent, they all operate on the same fundament of directed will.

Before discussing some of these different traditions, a few more general notes should be made:

Unlike the Force of Star Wars or the One Power of the Wheel of Time, in Tasothilos

magic does not require an innate gift.  While some persons, and indeed some entire races, are gifted at magic and able to perform it more easily than their peers, with some practice and training, ANY person can, in theory, work magic.  Said training is extremely hard to come by, however, for it requires immense amounts of time, a leisure possessed only by a rare few.
* Logomancy, Ritual Magic, Arithromancy, and all the other magical â,¬Ëcrutchesâ,¬,,¢ that occur in the Tasothilos setting have all flourished because direct magical exercise of the Will is exhausting.  Even for those well trained in spontaneous â,¬Ëcastingâ,¬,,¢, all but the most trivial magics put strain on the the magician.
* Magic is an intrinsic part of nature.  Everything that exists was shaped by some form of primordial Will, and thus everything that exists contains some potential â,¬Ëmagical energyâ,¬,,¢.  For this reason, the idea of â,¬Å"Antimagicâ,¬Â or â,¬Å"Dead Magicâ,¬Â zones is utterly nonsensical.  It is possible for a caster to counteract or dispel the magic of others, and to disenchant or destroy anotherâ,¬,,¢s magical artifacts, but these are specific acts of magic in themselves.  No blanket â,¬Ëantimagicâ,¬,,¢ exists.  [/list]

[/b]
[ooc]Iâ,¬,,¢m not entirely satisfied with the term â,¬Å"Willingâ,¬Â â,¬' it replaces an earlier term â,¬Å"Channelingâ,¬Â which I feel is overused and not particularly appropriate to whatâ,¬,,¢s being expressed.  I am willing to entertain suggestions as to a better term.

Also, the mechanics of Willing are the one part of the magic system still highly in flux.  In the old system, there were simply a set of magical skills that PCs could purchase ranks in like any other skill.  A skill-based mechanic is still what Iâ,¬,,¢m working towards, but the specifics are not yet settled.[/ooc]
Willing is the barest and purest of magical acts.  To engage in Willing, the user simply focuses his mind on the effect that he desires, and forcibly â,¬Ëwantsâ,¬,,¢ it into existence.  If he Wills strongly enough, then the wished-for effect takes place.  While it is somewhat simple in explanation, Willing is extremely difficult to execute.  In addition to taking tremendous amounts of willpower, Willing is also physically exhausting to practice.  The reason why some magically-minded individuals still use Willing is that it has the benefit of flexibility â,¬' in theory, literally anything willed for is possible.  That said, all but the simplest of Willings tend to fail, simply because the visualizations of reality are so intricate, and the requisite mental strength so steep.
Because the visualizations necessary for successful Willing are so complicated, there have been several attempts by philosophers and magicians over the centuries to develop techniques which break it down into more manageable pieces.  The most prevalent of these is the Elementalist school founded by the philosopher-mage Minil, which teaches adherents to visualize their effect as a combination of the four primordial elements of Fire, Air, Earth and Water, and Will these into existence in the proper proportions.  This school is very useful for combat wizards, for obvious reasons, and is widely applicable elsewhere, but it has its limitations.  Other schools exist, with the second-most-prevalent being the Trinitarian school of Boraleus (which focuses on Willing that affects living beings in Body, Intellect and Spirit.)

It should be noted that unassisted Willing, unlike some of the other forms of magic, is an all-or-nothing affair.  If someoneâ,¬,,¢s will is not strong enough to produce the wished-for effect, nothing happens at all.

[/b]
Because the act of Willing is so difficult and so uncertain, many different â,¬Ëcrutchesâ,¬,,¢ were devised by the ancients to help provide mental focus and a certain predictability and regularity to magical exercise.  (The collective Ekeusian term for all of these is panalar, â,¬Ëhelpersâ,¬,,¢.)  By far the most common of these is logomancy, or magic powered and directed by words.  The logomancer creates magical effects by speaking aloud words which help to channel his mental energies in exactly the right way.  There are two distinct forms of logomancy, one clearly older and more ubiquitous than the other.

Ritual Magic is the older strain of logomancy, one which appears in nearly every civilized society to some extent or another.  Ritual probably evolved from primitive prayers to the gods and religious rites â,¬' as people spoke aloud prayers, they found that certain formulas worked and produced results, and others didnâ,¬,,¢t.  Over generations, careful experimentation produced a great body of magical formulas that work.  (The formulas exist in theory for every language, though current societies tend to preserve the magical formulas of ancient tongues rather than experiment on modern languages to find new formulas.)  Even though other forms of magic have since been discovered, Ritual is still used because it is capable of the most powerful effects, although it also is imperfect in its protection against the fatigue of Willing.
     When a group (and it is almost always a group, though a few less-powerful â,¬Ësolo-ritualsâ,¬,,¢ exist) uses a Ritual, they designate a leader, who will actually execute the Willing.  They then must recite a number of incantations, with each participant having an assigned duty and set of speeches.  Most rituals involve elaborate dances and sets of gestures.  Rituals are also alone among magic forms in that they involve required material components â,¬' these are usually consumed by fire or by participants, but sometimes they are reuseable.  The average length of a ritual is about half an hour, though some go on for a day or more and a few are as brief as 10 minutes in their duration.  At the completion of the ritual, the leader uses these aids to his concentration to perform the act of Willing, and the effect is achieved.  (Because Ritual is somewhat imperfect, the leader is usually greatly fatigued by the effort.)

[note=Magic Words]The curious behavior of Magic Words seems to suggest that they have a life and power all their own â,¬' which is in some ways incompatible with the Ekeusian notion of Will as the true foundation of Magic.  The magical philosophers have been struggling for many years to adequately explain these behaviors but so far have been unsuccessful.
An alternative school of magical philosophy, one which regards Word and not Will as foundational to magical practice, arose in the 3rd century YP and had a certain vogue for about fifty years.  Itâ,¬,,¢s principle claim was that it could adequately explain the behaviors of Magic Words, but it stumbled itself when dealing with unassisted Willing and other types of magic.[/note] Spellcasting is the younger sibling of Ritual Magic, and it is less common.  While Ritual Magic is quite powerful â,¬' perhaps the most powerful of mortal magical techniques - itâ,¬,,¢s many demands such as expensive materials, great amounts of time, and the like made it very impractical for more short-term magical demands and especially for combat.  The Ekeusians, therefore (as well as some other groups independently, like the Elves, Ferrundar and Taecs) began to experiment to see if formulas could be condensed into shorter, more powerful versions.  In so doing, they stumbled upon what the Ekeusians call the kalathunaios â,¬' the magic words.  This is a language of mighty syllables which, when spoken correctly, align the mind immediately and precisely such that the Will of the caster might be executed flawlessly and quickly.  This language is universal â,¬' whether a Taec or an Elf is researching a given spell, he will arrive at the same set of words.
These words have two curious properties.  First â,¬' when internalized and committed to memory, one of these spells exerts a great pressure on the mind, a mere distraction in most cases but dangerous to the sanity if one should attempt to intake a spell too complex.  Indeed, a single simple incantation is generally enough to take normal manâ,¬,,¢s mind to its limit.  It is only through a combination of natural genius and careful practice that one is able to expand the â,¬Ëcapacityâ,¬,,¢ of oneâ,¬,,¢s mind for spell-words.
Fortunately, then, the second property of Spell-Words is that once uttered, they vanish from the mind of the utterer.  The reason for this is variously explained â,¬' some say, for instance, that the Magic Words are actual crystalizations of the Will which are destroyed in speech in order to fuel the Spell.  It is, however, iron-clad fact that once a Spell is cast, the caster must study (really, discover â,¬' see below) the words again.
This magical language is so subtle in itâ,¬,,¢s pronunciation and form that it cannot be directly represented in writing.  Instead, most spellbooks are in fact elaborate grammars and lexica, designed to reproduce the steps necessary to â,¬Ërediscoverâ,¬,,¢ the magical syllables each time the reader studies the text.  (Some other methods exist for indirectly recording spells in books, and these will be discussed at a later time.)

[/b]
While Ritual and Willing are ubiquitous and Spellcasting was independently developed by several different peoples in Tasothilos, Arithromancy is a purely Ekeusian art.  It is a brand of magic unsuited to flashy displays, unlike much of Spellcasting.  However, in the arts of divination and (especially) of enchanting items, its power is unparalleled.
Arithromancy grew out of the writings of a single author, Mathalir of Parmati, who published his work Observations sometime around 130 MP.  The basic principle of the Observations is that in addition to physical mathematical laws, the universe also obeys a number of metaphysical and magical mathematical laws.  By observation and calculation involving these laws, Mathalir said that it should be possible both to predict and to influence the outcome of future events.
For nearly a century, the Observations was neglected by the magical community.  Around 50 MP, however, the work was discovered by the archmage Onalanir the Great, who wrote and published his Commentary on the Observations â,¬' a work almost as comprehensive in itâ,¬,,¢s scope, and much clearer in itâ,¬,,¢s presentation, than the original.  Onalanir was a dabbler arithromancy, no serious practitioner â,¬' but he is called â,¬Ëfatherâ,¬,,¢ (Mathalir is called â,¬Ëgrandfatherâ,¬,,¢) by many modern Arithromancers because he began the work of actually putting Mathalirâ,¬,,¢s formulas into practice
[note=Sacred Geometry?]Some of the ideas here are close in rough conception to Luminous Crayonâ,¬,,¢s Sacred Geometry.  This is coincidental â,¬' even the geometric portions of Arithromancy are quite different from LCâ,¬,,¢s excellent system.[/note]
The basic principle of Arithromancy is that there are particular signs and meanings in all numbers (and, through a process of Gematria, all letters), that these meanings are regular, and that by calculation predictions can be made on the basis of these meanings.  At itâ,¬,,¢s origin arithmetic, in time Arithromancy benefited by the introduction of  both algebra and geometry.  The former teaches adherents how to manipulate mystical numbers to achieve some magical effects (on a generally subtler level than Spellcasters), and the latter is the foundation of the production of arithromantic magical items.
Arithromancers are rare, even for magicians.  Typically, one first trains as a logomancer and becomes quite adept at that form of magic before learning anything of Arithromancy â,¬' for this reason, Arithromancers are awarded special honor and recognition in magical community.  (Non-practitioners find both groups equally esoteric.)

[/b]
Least, and youngest, of the three Major Arts is Lyramancy, the practice whereby a musician may magically influence the minds of his fellow men.  Since ancient times, men of the Salabrian Sea have known that music has strange power to influence menâ,¬,,¢s hearts.  Some of the early natural philosophers even catalogued the effects of various chords and keys upon the spirit.  But Lyramancy as an actual form of magic was not discovered until around the year 550 AP â,¬' making it an art less than a millennium old.
Lyramancy is perhaps the subtlest of all magic.  It has no ability to affect external reality in any way â,¬' itâ,¬,,¢s sole power resides in the influences it can have upon the minds of men, elves and other intelligent beings.  A practicing Lyramancer is a musician who carefully tunes his instrument and studies the effects that various notes have upon their listeners.  While he plays, he concentrates his Will on his audience, choosing whatever notes harmonize best with his intentions.  The combination of his tunes and his words both weaken the resistance of his audience and increase his own concentration, so that he can actually change the minds of men.
Lyramancy does not allow a practioner complete control over his targets in any way.  He is only able to bring about slight changes â,¬' an implanted mood, a changed opinion, or a temporary unmindfulness, for instance.  Although slight, combined with a skill at non-magical bargaining and manipulation, lyramancy can give the adept user great influence.

[/b]
While Logomancy, Arithromancy and Lyramancy are the three most well-known forms of â,¬Ëaidedâ,¬,,¢ magic, there are a few other, Minor Arts that deserve at least passing mention while Iâ,¬,,¢m writing on the subject of magic.  The elves practice a form of alchemical magic based on the combination of plant ingredients â,¬' though weak in combat terms, applications of this art have made their forests grow quite tall and their fields provide quite plentifully.  Dwarves are said to have a form of magic that involves the manipulation of fire, earth, stone and metal.  Finally, there are two different (known) forms of necromancy practiced in Algarlin.  The Old Western form of necromancy is as old as Ekeusion, but has recently become much more common owing to the necromantic lords of Nidiata.  The Eastern form of Taectenatl focuses on the power inherent in the blood of sacrifical victims, both human and animal.

Interesting to see someone else try to tackle the whole "this isn't the first world" idea.  I like the idea of honoring your prior players/work by incorporating them, as well.

Themes
Social class is often a theme in literature, but you don't see it in many campaign settings.
"language, literature, history and myth" - three of my favorite things!  And one, not so much.  Though I have worked with language a fair bit in a prior setting.  Still, it would be interesting to see what you do with it.

QuoteI have gone to work generating vocabularies and grammars of a number of the languages in the setting, particularly for the purpose of consistent naming/ The mythography I've indulged in so far is among my proudest work on the setting, even if it has no actual crunch value.

The importance of numbers and numerology[/quote]Mechanics[/b]
Not really something I'm real into anymore, but I'll have a look.

Gnomes are aquatic?  I'd have to say you're better off just making a new race.  It sounds to me like you may be keeping the name gnomes just for the sake of keeping the name.  Perhaps I am mistaken; however.  I'd at least be curious why you went this route.  Being an earth-spirit is kind of part of the definition of a gnome, so...Just like you wouldn't suddenly decide a fire elemental was the going to have the traits of an air elemental, like being made of air...But, prove me wrong.  Maybe you have a great reason.

Interesting class settup.  I like the tiers.

New alignment system has promise, though I'm one that'll almost always come down in favor of no system and just letting people be people.

Actually, your conception of magic sounds vaguely like mine for Kishar.

Glossary
Glad to see someone else keeping a glossary :)
It should be standard for any setting that introduces many concepts outside the norm or new terms

Pantheon
You've got a well-developed pantheon and mythos.  I admire that.  You mention elsewhere 14 gods (I didn't stop to count).  Did your campaign really have 14 players?  That's a BIG game.

"Distant gods" - again :)
I like the OOC insight into the development of the characters.  It's a great insight into the campaign.

Map
The image does not appear at all for me.

Magic
The sidebar is helpful in determining what is meant by rare.  I like that touch.
You've put a lot of time in this.  It looks good.  Also, it's a nice divergence from the typical style one sees.
I like the scientific edge of arithromancy.  It sounds very different (in many ways) from the ideas of magic I use for Kishar, but also with some significant similarities.

You're idea of lyramancy is cool, too.

Overall
I'm glad I read this, it's a good start and you have my encouragement.  Again, kudos for the preservation of an old world/party in spirit.
But I have a question: what made you decided to drop the archipelago format (one post seemed to indicate you once had this format and backed away from it)?  I always thought that was a great format for a roleplaying setting.  I actually made much of Kishar like this for this reason.

I'm currently working on the races post, which I expect will be updated tomorrow evening.  But I thought I'd take a few minutes to respond to recent questions/comments.

Quote from: f_hayekHaven't read through everything yet, but wanted to first say I couldn't agree more with your basic design principles:

1. Emphasizing consistent internal logic
2. Rarer magic
3. Medium-High Power

I love the fantastical magical power that a character can achieve in d&d, but it's just always been difficult for me to conceive of a world where that kind of power is commonplace and to still have the world make some kind of sense.

Social class is often a theme in literature, but you don't see it in many campaign settings.[/quote]"language, literature, history and myth" - three of my favorite things! And one, not so much. Though I have worked with language a fair bit in a prior setting. Still, it would be interesting to see what you do with it.[/quote]Rare magic: :)
Medium-High Power: I was going to give this a  :roll:, but your explanation sounds all right.
Powerful Churchs: :) Yay for making religion important with gods doing stuff all the time![/quote]Gnomes are aquatic? I'd have to say you're better off just making a new race. It sounds to me like you may be keeping the name gnomes just for the sake of keeping the name. Perhaps I am mistaken; however. I'd at least be curious why you went this route. Being an earth-spirit is kind of part of the definition of a gnome, so...Just like you wouldn't suddenly decide a fire elemental was the going to have the traits of an air elemental, like being made of air...But, prove me wrong. Maybe you have a great reason.[/quote]New alignment system has promise, though I'm one that'll almost always come down in favor of no system and just letting people be people.[/quote]You mention elsewhere 14 gods (I didn't stop to count). Did your campaign really have 14 players? That's a BIG game.
The campaign, like I said, ran for 4 years.  During that time, many players joined and many left (sometimes very quickly - Snoop Frody Fro, the halfling 'bard' best forgotten, lasted two weeks.)  Further, many players had more than one character during the run of the thing.  I no longer have a comprehensive list, but I'd say there were at LEAST two dozen different PCs that appeared at one point or another during the game's run.  That said, usually the number who showed to any given game session was around 6-8 - still large, but much more manageable.

QuoteI have a question: what made you decided to drop the archipelago format (one post seemed to indicate you once had this format and backed away from it)? I always thought that was a great format for a roleplaying setting. I actually made much of Kishar like this for this reason.

Much of early history of Tasothilos hinges on migrations on a massive scale which was growing hard to explain within the multi-island context: stone age peoples simply didn't move that frequently on that great a scale across open water.
*I like war stories in my campaigns, and the multi-island format largely requires that combat be primarily naval, while the inner sea format allows both naval and traditional warfare.
*In a similar vein, having nations that actually physically border one another gives a bit more tension and opportunities for direct conflict (border disputes, etc).[/list]

Basically, the inner sea format has all of the features of multi-island format that appealed to me and none of the inherent disadvantages.

Thank you, Tybalt, f_hayek and Phoenix Knight for responding - please feel free to ask any more questions that might come to you as you read.

Attempting to include the (again, very rough) map as an attachment - can people see this?

If so, here's the color key again for your convenience:

Color Key:
The area in red will be the home to MOST of the kingdoms that dedicated Tasothilos readers have been exploring so far- Andozia, Sanceline, Ferrund, Vievna, etc.  Most of these insular nations have been re-written as coastal continental kingdoms, though Miloa, Akmet and Philstaros (at least) are still insular.

The grey area are the great mountain ranges - smaller ranges (not pictured) exist in the red area.

The pink area is the domain of the great orc empire.  A few other small nations of the various other races exist here as well, but the orcs are the dominant power.

The big yellow area in the middle is a vast desert.  Ever since first seeing Star Wars, I've had a fascination with desert culture, so one of the crucial parts of the remapping plan was to get a desert in the picture.  Still no concrete idea what's gonna go here though.

The light green area is the domain of Sakrtskaya.  It's a LOT bigger now, but remember that Sakrtskaya is a convenient name for a number of feuding principalities with similar culture and religion, rather than an actual nation per se.

The white area is tundra or sea that is dominated by icebergs.

The remaining dark green areas are 'blank spots' on the map.  I'll fill them in a little later.

Taectenatl is located on a continent across the sea to the east.  I'm currently planning to design at least 1 other major nation on that continent to rival Taectenatl.
(//../../e107_files/public/1170374929_3_FT24785_rough_conceptual_map_.jpg) (//../../e107_files/public/1170374929_3_FT24785_rough_conceptual_map.jpg)

Woohoo. I can see the map. Is that the North Pole up there? And why is Sakrtskaya suddenly so far away?

As for Taectenatl, will they still have variants of the Ekeusian deities in their pantheon? How are you going to explain this?

I loved your post about magic. Lost of stuff is explained flavourfully without taking away from the inherent mysteriousness. In particular, I like how you handled your people's thoughts on magic philosophically (with lost of opposing schools, without a decisive argument ever definitively settling a dispute) as opposed to treating it more definitive, one-sided and really, scientific.

Elementalist Willing sounds a lot like evocation, and Trinitarian Willing sounds like enchantment. Will there be a school of Willing corresponding to each school of magic we know from D&D?

Is Arithomancer actually more different to achieve game-mechanically (actually requiring Logomancer ability, perhaps), or is this purely in terms of flavour?

How close is Lyromancy to the spells bards can cast?

Is elven alchemical magic still used as an explanation for their good crops and hence their easier lives?

Túrin

It is the North Pole, or at the very least the arctic circle.  I'm not quite sure how far north I want the continent to extend; I will settle this before finishing the map.

Sakrtskaya and Taectenatl were moved so far away because they are the two most culturally distinct of the nations of Tasothilos and I wanted logical reasons for maintaining those cultural distinctions.  Sakrtskaya is still accessible (there are small trade-routes that run through the desert, where ambitious Salabrian merchants pay off the strange local guides in order to get safe passage) but not quite as easy.  This is the geographical equivalent of cutting Sakrtskaya off from the Myrian Road network of currents in Tasothilos '1.0'.

It had always been my intent to have the Taecs worship deities that Salabrians claimed were Ekeusian derivates.  As with many things, whether these actually ARE warped Ekeusian deities or whether they are simply natively grown divinities is obscure.  The Salabrian explanations for the connections, though, will likely involve things like ancient mariners who got lost, landbridges now sunk, etc.

I'm glad you liked the post about magic - it was specifically my goal to give AN explanation of how magic works without giving THE explanation, if you know what I mean.  On the nature of Willing, I haven't quite settled on the number of schools, but I know that it won't be quite a one-to-one correspondance and there probably won't be more than ~4 'major' schools.  Elementalism, for instance, covers Evocation but also Transmutation, while Trinitiarianism covers enchantment but also necromancy, healing, etc.

The Arithromancer, in my current conception, may well become a Master Class (see the hierarchy of classes above.)  If not, it will be a series of feats that a magus can take - so yes, they will be mechanically different.  While use of Arithromancy will not strictly require abilities with Logomancy, it will be the general rule that most Arithromancers start out studying word-magic, or at least Willing.  Very few otherwise 'mundane' individuals suddenly take up Arithromancy.

Lyramancy is a very limited brand of magic.  It has some relation to the 'bardic music' class ability, but it is carefully relegated to only those types of 'spells which directly influence the minds of men.  Inspiration, Distraction, Incitement to Violence - these are all well within the realm of Lyramancy.  It also is going to work on a much subtler scale than other kinds of magic.

Elven alchemical/'druidic' magic is still the explanation for their particularly abundant harvests and relatively effortless agriculturalism.

---
Thanks for your questions as always, Turin.  You help me cover all the angles.

You mention that magic is rare because most people don't want to invest the time and energy?  Two questions on that:
1) Does that mean that people are fairly accepting of it?  I ask because in many rare-magic settings, people fear magic.
2) You seem to indicate that it is more common among elves (at least the agriculture stuff).  It would make sense to me that it would be more likely to be worth the time to learn for any long-lived race.  I suppose the question, if there is one, would be, shouldn't it be significantly common among among long-lived races, if time is the only issue?

Well, saying that magic is rare 'because most people don't want to invest time and energy' was a bit of an oversimplification on my part.  There are many other factors that go into the rarity of magic-users:

Most People Aren't Smart Enough: I said above there was no inherent 'gift' required in order to be able to work magic, and that remains the truth.  However, magic is extraordinarily complex and for people of average intelligence it is exceedingly difficult to make progress.
*Most People Aren't Educated Enough: In Salabria, for a magician of any type to be able to read any magical writings, he has to be conversant with Classical Ekeusian, the language in which most materials are written.  What's more, obviously, he has to be literate.  (Unlike standard D&D, 'literacy' is not an automatic given for members of any class.)  In order to study magic - in particular, spellcasting - to a higher degree, he also needs to have a firm grasp on magical and mundane philosophy, mythology, literature, and history, as the ancient authors used a wide variety of allusions in their texts.  
*Most People Aren't Rich Enough:  Ritual spells have costly components, this has already been mentioned.  While other forms of magic do not have material components associated with them, the books which contain spells and instruction are themselves quite rare and expensive, because they are all manuscript (ie, hand-written) codices, and therefore take a long time to create.  Although the printing press has recently been created, spellbooks and other magical texts are not among those being produced en masse.  (for reasons why, see the next item.)
*Teachers of Magic are both Rare and Selective:  It is in theory possible for someone to teach themselves the use of magic.  This is, however, extremely difficult and quite rare.  Most people who pick up the arcane arts have a mentor and tutor who teaches them their first spells or a school of Willing.  This is made difficult for two reasons.  Firstly, teachers of magic are only as common as practitioners of magic - that is to say, not very.  More importantly, though, even the teachers who do exist refuse to share their knowledge with just anyone.  Some fear that their knowledge might fall into the hands of wicked men, while other less scrupulous wizards simply demand exorbitant prices for their tutorial services.  There is also a general philosophy that every new person brought into the magical community is potentially a threat and rival.  That said, magicians DO teach pupils â,¬' they simply are specific about the sorts of pupils theyâ,¬,,¢re willing to teach.[/list]

With that said, as to your questions:

Quote from: Phoenix Knight1) Does that mean that people are fairly accepting of it?  I ask because in many rare-magic settings, people fear magic.
2) You seem to indicate that it is more common among elves (at least the agriculture stuff).  It would make sense to me that it would be more likely to be worth the time to learn for any long-lived race.  I suppose the question, if there is one, would be, shouldn't it be significantly common among among long-lived races, if time is the only issue?

1) A big â,¬ËThat Dependsâ,¬,,¢ is the answer here. When talking about the literate, the educated, and the nobility, magic is less feared.  Many of the more powerful monarchs know of a wizard that they can consult in times of need, though only the Andozian Empire amongst the human lands maintains the position of Court Magician.  For city-folk, too, magic is a little less feared.  Among the rustics, however, magic is generally quite mis-understood, and therefore feared.  Witch-burnings and the like do not occur (except in Plaspont, but thatâ,¬,,¢s another storyâ,¬Â¦) but a known magician is going to be hard-pressed to win the allegiance and help of most peasants.

2) Among the elves magic is held to be more commonplace, although the elves have an incredibly strict caste system outlining who is allowed to use magic and who is not.  Since time is not the only issue, it is not *generally* the case that longer-lived races have higher occurences of magic-users, though.  The dwarves of Tasothilos live almost as long as the elves, and yet magic-use among them is rarer than among humans.

Actually, I really like your clarified explaination Kalos.  You should definitely add that to the post on magic, because it's really well done.

Also, your answers are good, but, they raise the question: is it because of cultural prejudice dwarves avoid magic, or for one of the reasons above?  I assume you were not saying they were less likely to be smart enough or have the resources?

It isn't so much cultural prejudice that causes the dwarves to be 'remedial' where magic is concerned.  It's simply that they lack a native magical tradition.  Dwarves were always too pragmatic in their thinking to give rise to either a strong theology or a strong philosophy, the two types of thinking most conducive in other races to magical development.  (Humans and gnomes tended to develop philosophically derived magical traditions, while orcs and halflings developed a more religiously oriented one and the elves, as already noted, went alchemical.)

Thus, dwarven magicians are forced to acquire their magical skills by learning non-native, human traditions.  Once they have done so, they are as proficient as any other race at the actual use of magic (exceeding most others, in fact, when it comes to the making of magical weapons), but because most teachers are reluctant to take on students of other cultures, let alone other races, dwarven magicians remain rare.

Progress Update:  Races have been taking longer than expected because (as usual for me) I'm cramming way too much information into the descriptions.  Nonetheless, proceeding in alphabetical order I just finished the gnomes.  Humans, Halflings and Orcs left to go.

As some bonus content, here's my newest version (hand-drawn - mostly in pencil-sketch but partially inked) of the map.  Be forewarned - I had to upload it via digital camera, because I have no scanner access.  However, I cleaned it up in photoshop a little, so you get the basic idea.

It was pointed out to me that the previous version sort of required that Salabria be in the tropics, since both orc-land and ferrund, on opposite sides of the map, were straddling arctic terrain.  As it is no small secret that the Salabrian Sea is supposed to be modelled on the Mediterranean, I've corrected for this by moving Sakrtskaya south into the tropics, where it feels quite at home.

The Bakhilun mountains merit some discussion, but I'll save it for the time being.

(//../../e107_files/public/1171305604_3_FT24785_map_.jpg) (//../../e107_files/public/1171305604_3_FT24785_map.jpg)

Are the races you've done posted?  I skimmed the earlier posts, but the only thing I saw was the original races spoiler.  Or are you doing them all before posting any (which I can understand)?

I feel your pain on reorganizing maps.  I've done that more than once for Kishar.  I'm glad things are shaping up for you.  The mountain "range" in southern part of the western continent have an usual shape.  Is this intended to be an important area?

Re: Races:  I want to post the races all as one.  I've got a post on the first page reserved for races, when I'm done i'll edit that to include them (I want them on the first page) and then 'bump' the thread to let people know that they went up.

Re: those mountains in the southwest: I'm not sure yet.  Originally only the lower, inked half of the mountains there were present.  I explain them as being a result of ancient continental collision between the 'Orcland' plate and the 'Sakrtskayan' Plate, much like the Himalayas.  Then, I decided to add some 'depth' to the range - it should be understood that the whole region enclosed by that range is mountainous.  Not sure whether there's anything there yet, or even whether it'll survive in my next incarnation of the map (Though the basic continental shapes are much more firm now than they were in the first conceptual draft on the previous page, in terms of landforms this is still very much a 'rough' draft.)

Whenever I go about creating a campaign world map, I tend to draw one or two versions of the map by hand per day, with each version changing some things and keeping others the same.  This carries on for about six or seven days until ideas really firm up.  I then scan the 'final' hand drawn version into the computer, where it can be more finely manipulated.  (This also allows me to use computer fonts for my labels, since my own script is rather poor.)

This is a day 3 map, meaning that things may well change quite a bit before the final version gets uploaded.

I tend to have a hard time drawing the same thing more than once, which is only bad if I was happy with the look I had...

So why does the map refer to "the Great Sea" instead of "the Salabrian" or something similar?

The Great Sea (less generic name coming, but like i said, that was a draft map) is the vast ocean which separates the two continents.  The Salabrian Sea refers only to the smaller inland sea in the upper-left quadrant of the map (look where all the mountains and labels are).  Although it looks small, remember that this map is on a vast scale.

That inner sea, and to a lesser extent the 'outer' coastline around it, is where 90% of the action of any given campaign will take place (in my mind, anyway - if by chance someone else picks up this setting and is more entranced by the exotic places, I say go for it).  With the exception of Taectenatl, Etaxor and Sakrtskaya (which have been moved to more foreign locations to suit their foreign cultures), all of the former island nations of Tasothilos 1.0 are to be found in that region.

As far as drawing the same thing more than once, before I make any given draft I ink the previous draft and set it underneath the new one.  That way, I can trace where I like what I had before and go astray where I don't.

Having read Tasothilos from 2005 onward, it was one of the main attractors to the CBG (that and limetom bugging me). I've now read over everything here in detail and eagerly await more. Although you've stated where you intend for the action to take place, do you have any thoughts concerning the lands to the far east (aka The Great Question Marks). What happens if you sail due south? Where is the equator of the world?

The equator passes just south of the 'land bridge' that connects the north-western and south-western continents - a little bit above where the name Sakrtskaya is written.  (Though more recent drafts of the map have changed the shape slightly, the same basic form still holds.)

Sailing far out beyond the sight of land Sea has only really been attempted by men in the past hundred years or so, and for that reason there are few reliable reports as to what lies in the far south.  The orcs, though far more comfortable with ocean voyages, do not chance the icebergs of the far southern seas very often.  The few that do have brought back reports of occasional rocky islands of with strange and monstrous bird-like inhabitants, and beyond lies a great land of ice and snow which has never been explored.
With advances in human seafaring, it's conceivable that attempts might be made to sail into the deep south during the lifetime of PCs who start in 1497.  Though probably unsuccessful, it would make for a great adventure...

Though I have actually got a couple of pages of notes about what lies at the north and south poles of Algarlin, I'm deliberately leaving the far east a mystery even to me - for now at least.  It makes it far more useful to me later on...

So it turns out that there's a post limit on replies to threads.  For that reason, all 14,000 words of my work on Races cannot be accomodated in a single post.  Instead, I'll spread it out over a sequence of posts.  This first one will address a few general issues as well as giving an intro to the format I'll use for talking about races.


[ooc]Note that the races of Tasothilos have been slightly â,¬Ërecalibratedâ,¬,,¢ on several counts.  They may not be balanced with core D&D.  My only concern is whether they are balanced with each other.

On a completely different but equally important note, the racial generalities drawn up here are far from universal.  It is very possible to find individuals, or perhaps even entire cities, tribes, and nations, that defy these racial generalities.  No attempt will be made here to cover the full possible range of dwarvishness, for instance.   Where the generalities especially break down is with the dwarves, elves, humans and halflings, because recent exploration has revealed entire civilizations of these races dwelling across the sea in the east.  While occasional notes about these wildly foreign people will creep in here, for the most part my concern is to discuss the races as they exist around the Salabrian Sea, almost all PCs will have their backgrounds in that region and that is also where most of the people they interact with will be from.

Later on, larger tracts on each of the individual races will be written up, and in these I will attempt to give a better picture of the diversity of the races.
[/ooc]

[spoiler=Format Guide]
After the Meta-name, a very brief description of the whole race in summary
 Name: Here are listed 2 names, separated by commas.  The first is the Late Ekeusian name â,¬' that is, the way in which human scholars and nobles of the Salabrian region will refer to the race.  The second is the raceâ,¬,,¢s own name for itself.  Since some races, like Orcs, Elves and Dwarves, do not have a single racial language but several, the dominant racial language is used for this part.  Both names are given in the singular.  (Note that humans have just one name listed, since the two are logically identical).
Physical Desciption:  What do members of this race look like?  Average height and weight are given, along with skin colors, hair and eye colors, and other distinguishing features.
[note=Generations]The generation statistic is included for a reason.  In addition to giving some insight into relative rates of population increase, it also gives some insight into relative cultural memory.  To an elven child today, the era of the Andozian Empireâ,¬,,¢s height (~1000 AP) is the time of his grandfather or great-grandfather â,¬' while to a human child, the same era is more than 20 generations removed.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: These four numbers introduce some critical facts about the lifespan of the race.  The first is the number of years that it takes for a member of this race to grow to maturity and be considered an â,¬Ëadultâ,¬,,¢.  The second is the average lifespan of a member of this race, assuming that the individual reaches adulthood healthily.   (Infant and child mortality greatly distort life expectancy â,¬Ëchartsâ,¬,,¢.)  The third is the approximate *maximum* lifespan for a member of that race â,¬' while some live beyond this point, these persons are quite rare, usually quite frail, and never long outlast this point.  The fourth is the average length of a generation â,¬' that is, the approximate age at which members of this race reproduce.  This number is very approximate and does not reflect all parts of society: for instance, in modern America, the average generation is about 30 years among college-educated and the upper classes, while among the urban lower class, it is rapidly approaching half that number.
Demeanor: The demeanor of an entire race is a very difficult to summarize, but an attempt at common racial personality traits is made here.
Lands:  This section details both those regions where this race dominates, and also the role that members of this race play in â,¬Ëforeignâ,¬,,¢ (usually human) societies.
After â,¬ËLandsâ,¬,,¢, some of the races have special sections which should be fairly self-explanatory
History: The whole scope of a raceâ,¬,,¢s history is too broad a subject to cover adequately here â,¬' instead, I try to give an approximate summary.  These histories are (as with many things in Tasothilos) simply what the race believes and claims as itâ,¬,,¢s own history.  The objective â,¬Ëtruthâ,¬,,¢ may be similar, or may not be.  In several races, especially dwarves and halflings, this racial history is closely intertwined with religion.
Magic: Each race approaches magic in a different way, and some races (particularly the elves) have forms of magic all their own.  In this section, the raceâ,¬,,¢s attitude towards magic is summarized as well as
Languages: A general statement on the nature and descent of the languages spoken by this race.
Major Religions:  How do members of this race worship?  If several variants exist, each will be summarized.
 Adventurers:  What drives creatures of this sort to a life of adventuring?  Several different hooks are supplied here.
[spoiler=Statistics]  Here follows the statistical part of the race.  Ability Modifiers are included first, then size, base speed, and then any special abilities or powers.[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

[ic=A Note on Half-Races]
Half-breed â,¬Ëracesâ,¬,,¢ do not exist in Tasothilos.  Humans are capable of interbreeding with *any* of the other races, but the blood of other races is somewhat weaker compared to human blood.  Thus, all offspring of these unions are statistically human, though they might show some minor aesthetic hints of their strange heritage.  (Humans with some elvish lineage might have slight points to their ears and be slight of build, while humans with dwarvish heritage might be exceptionally hairy.)  These â,¬Ëhalf-breedsâ,¬,,¢ are exceptionally rare, (with â,¬Ëhalf-elvesâ,¬,,¢ being the most common, as the offspring of human masters and elven slaves) but owing to the subtlety of their appearance they do not tend to face strong societal prejudice.
The ability of humans to mate with just about any sentient mammalian humanoid is a particular property of their race.  Matings that do not involve one human partner (a gnome and a halfling, for instance) are not capable of producing offspring.
[/ic]

[/size]
An expansive and remarkably adaptive people, found nearly everwhere on the surface of Algarlin.
Name: Phoisir
Physical Desciption: Humans grow to be between 5 feet and 6 feet in height on average (exceptional members of the race may extend a foot or more in either direction).  They weigh between 120 and 220 pounds, with men being on average the larger sex.  The coloration of humans can vary widely, though in olden times it tended to be fairly uniform by region. (As emigration becomes more common, greater mixing and local variety can be observed, particularly in cities.) In the Salabrian Sea region, where most Tasothilos games will likely be set, hair colors tend towards the dark â,¬' black and deep browns are the most common.  The skin tones of these people are of a medium complexion and they tan easily.  Their eyes are generally brown, though occasional greens and blues are seen.  In the far north among the Vievnans and Ferrundar, the hair and skin tones are on the whole lighter â,¬' blonds, light browns, and reds are common for hair, and the skin is a pale, almost white color.  These Northerners frequently have red eyes.  Peoples from further parts of the world have even more diverse tones â,¬' the Sakrtskayans have very dark coloration, while the Taecs and the desert-folk exhibit great local variation in tones.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 15/75/100/25
Demeanor:  Humans are characterized above all by their ambition.  Like most races, human societies tend to have strict caste systems, but more than most races, humans constantly chafe against their assigned stations in life, ever seeking to become more than that which they were born to be.  This can be an extremely ennobling sentiment, but oftentimes it also degenerates into base greed.
Lands:Humans dominate a greater part of the geography of Algarlin than any other race.  However, they are a race with a natural tendency towards disunity â,¬' great empires of Men are the exception, not the rule.  The Salabrian Sea region abounds in kingdoms of the humans, and they are equally dominant in the wilder lands of the West among the Sakrtskayans.  In the great desert of Aganamil, however, humans are just one of several nomadic peoples, and not even the most important or powerful.  Across the ocean, the Taec humans control a vast empire and compete with several non-human empires of roughly equal strength.  Many of the humans in non-human lands tend to be working purely towards their own interests â,¬' as adventurers, raiders and bandits, or scholars.  A few humans are found among the dwarves in a more formal capacity, however, where they can frequently find employ as musicians, story-tellers, and royal historians.
History:  Salabrian historians, following on Ekeusian traditions, believe that men were created last of all the races by the gods.  They further believe that several of the thirteen â,¬Ëgoodâ,¬,,¢ deities mingled with the primordial men, producing each their own â,¬Ëraceâ,¬,,¢ of humanity.  (These races are delineated by â,¬'ur suffixes â,¬' Onalur, Eldur, Suphur, etc).  Within the Salabrian region, Human history has proceeded rather cyclically over the course of the past 5,000 years, with a series of empires and kingdoms rising and falling in turn.  The greatest of these, however, was the Ekeusian empire, which rose to dominate more than half of Salabria and some lands beyond around the first century MP.  Though it fell almost fifteen hundred years ago, Ekeusion still looms large in the human historical memory.
Magic:  Humans are not particularly adept at magic by nature.  However, the keenness of their minds and their philosophical instincts has allowed them to develop a relatively strong tradition of logomancy â,¬' most dwarven and many gnomish Spellcasters use logomantic traditions derived from the human tradition.  Also uniquely human is the tradition of Arithromancy â,¬' an (almost) scientific view towards magic with particularly potent divinatory powers.  While these traditions are quite strong, they are also quite exclusive â,¬' the percentage of humans able to use magic is lower than that of any other of the great races, save only the dwarves.
Languages:  University men of Salabria fairly universally agree that all humans speak languages that are, in their origins, corrupted from High Ekeusian, which is sometimes called the Tongue of Man.  Despite the fact that the varying languages of men sound extremely different, this position makes good sense â,¬' many of the most fundamental words in these languages can be shown to be roughly equivalent, and in structure they are somewhat similar.  The Taec case is unique, for it seems not to relate to other human languages as closely as Salabrian tongues do. As with many elements of Taec culture, the scholars have not yet arrived at satisfactory explanations.  In general, though widely divergent, the tongues of men are characterized by rich phonologies, and accentuation based on vowel length and on stress.
Major Religions:  Within the Salabrian Sea area, worship for the Ekeusian pantheon of deities is nearly absolute (though some persons still reject Second World Doctrine.)  The Sakrtskayans and desert folk of the west have strange pantheons, mostly revolving around the veneration of different animistic spirits of the air, plants, water and earth.  The Taecs of the eastern continent have their own panethon of gods under a terrible sun-queen, Aztli.
Adventurers:  Humans are the commonest adventurers of all â,¬' their overwhelming ambition causes them constantly to try to better their station, and the promise of quick wealth and glorious deeds is an irresistable draw to many, even if the threats are many and the mortality rates are high.  Whether it be a peasant seeking to become a lord, a lord seeking to become a king, or a petty scholar seeking to become a masterful wizard, humans are among the most driven of those who seek the adventuring lifestyle.
[spoiler=Statistics]

Humans have no racial ability bonuses *Medium Size *Speed 30 feet *Humans receive one extra feat at character creation. *At first level, humans get 4 extra points to spend on skills.  At every subsequent level-up, they receive 1 extra skill point.

[/spoiler]

A mountainous race of masterful craftsmen and engineers awaiting their Messiah.
Name: Druphir, Mahhad
Physical Desciption: Dwarves are somewhat short creatures, averaging in height around 4 feet, 3 inches (varying perhaps a half-foot in either direction).  They are however very solidly built, and weigh around 140 to 200 pounds.  Men and women are fairly close in terms of build, with the â,¬Ëaverageâ,¬,,¢ man being about an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the â,¬Ëaverageâ,¬,,¢ woman.  Dwarves typically have eyes somewhat close together, and their noses are large and triangular.  Their faces are large, and have clearly-defined wrinkles in them even in youth, especially in the forehead.  Dwarves are very hairy creatures â,¬' both men and women have coarse hair on their arms and legs, and members of both sexes can grow beards.  (All but the most traditional or independently-minded Dwarvish women living in human society tend to shave their faces, since other races seem to find women with beards unsightly).  Almost all male dwarves wear very long beards.  Dwarvish skintone tends to be ruddy and of a medium shade, and their eyes are typically varying shades of brown, though occasional greens and reds are also seen, and the rare blue-eyed child is thought to be quite beautiful.  The most common of hair colors is a medium brown, though plenty of black-haired and red-haired dwarves also exist.  Fairhaired dwarves are sterotyped as being womanly and over-gentle.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 50/350/450/80
Demeanor: Dwarves are defined by their industriousness.  From an outsiderâ,¬,,¢s perspective, dwarves seem to be constantly busy with work.  While a dwarf will take some time for himself on occasion, this is seldom â,¬Ëleisureâ,¬,,¢ as other races would define it â,¬' rather, it is time that the dwarf takes to work on personal projects rather than plying his trade for others.  A fairly common dwarvish custom reserves actual leisure time for three groups â,¬' the very old, the very sick, and (for brief periods) war veterans. A noted and singular exception to this is the custom of the drinking party- but this complicated quasi-ritual has as itâ,¬,,¢s center a form of competition, and thus is not fully leisurely, despite itâ,¬,,¢s raucous atmosphere.  Dwarves are also known to value rhetoric and poetry, and to be excellent at both.  (The former art, in fact, is especially developed among the dwarves.)
Lands: Dwarven settlements across Algarlin share one trait in common â,¬' they are almost exclusively mountainous.  In the lower mountains of Salabria, dwarves prefer to built settlements near the peaks.  On higher, snow-capped mountains, however, the dwarves build lower down.  These cities are cut into the mountainâ,¬,,¢s side, with multiple terraces and good roads running between the various levels.  Unlike most other races, who are organized into kingdoms and nations, and unlike the halflings, who are organized according to clans, dwarves are organized largely in city states.  While from time to time one of these mountainous cities will reach out and secure political power over one of his neighbors, these situations are almost always temporary and usually decried as being â,¬Ëorcishâ,¬,,¢, â,¬Ëelvishâ,¬,,¢ or â,¬Ëmannishâ,¬,,¢, depending on who the nearest foreign race happens to be.
     Though culture varies widely throughout these different dwarven settlements, several constants remain.  One, the dwarves universally have a system of seven clans â,¬' not quite castes, members of a clan generally view each other as members of the same extended family.  Whenever there is internal dissent within a city, it tends to fall along clan lines.
     After the gnomes and elves, dwarves are the culture most integrated into human society.  While the vast majority of dwarves still live in their own remote mountainous homelands, a strong (>5%) Dwarvish presence can be felt in many major cities of Andozia and Philstaros.  Dwarves were first brought into human lands as paid government servants â,¬' seeing the tremendous feats of engineering found in dwarf cities, human rulers recruited them as mine overseers, defensive and siege engineers and as the builders of walls, palaces, and bridges.  Some dwarves are still retained in this official capacity by some nations.  Many other dwarves, however, now enjoy a civilianâ,¬,,¢s life, where they have become known as able craftsmen.  Dwarves in cities typically have their own craft guilds rather than joining with human groups, though in some cities the two races have fully integrated.
History: The standard dwarvish history teaches that the true home (or Muhdamud) of the dwarves lies deep beneath the surface of Algarlin, at the very center of the world.  It was there, they say, that the dwarves were first born, among natural caverns glistening with treasure, alongside underground rivers abundant in strange fish and other Edenic delights.  There, dwarves of all clans lived together as brothers.  But at some point, one of their own (his name has been permanently effaced so that no one might learn his clan and blame his descendants), desiring to rule over his fellows, invited the dwarvish demonic figure, Rawun, into Muhdamud.  The devious Rawun, once let in, overran it with his horde of wicked earth spirits, and cast the dwarves out en masse.  Through long centuries, the dwarven exiles worked their way to the upper world (that is, the surface), emerging somewhere high in the Bakhilun mountains.  From this initial point, dwarven settlements spread far and wide across Algarlin.  Ever suspect of the imperial desires that corrupted the Traitor in Muhdamud, dwarven settlements have always been very wary of expansionism, seeking to leave each other largely alone.  Even so, there have been a few great â,¬Ëempiresâ,¬,,¢ among the dwarves â,¬' the most noted is the Shumma â,¬Ëempireâ,¬,,¢, which flourished about 200 years before Ekeusion did.  This empire did not rule other settlements by conquest, but by industry, having spread its crafts, language, and poetry throughout much of the Salabrian region and very nearly forming a dwarven monoculture, however briefly.  Even today, the Shumma language is used as a kind of formal Dwarvish, akin in some ways to Late Ekeusian among the humans.
Magic:  Dwarves, being very focused on material craft and industry, never really developed the kind of philosophical tradition necessary to give rise to a strong magical streak.  Nor did their theology (which see below) provide much mysticism for them, either.  As a result, while occasional songs and poems speak of powerful sorcerous dwarves, as a whole dwarvish society is without a magical tradition of itâ,¬,,¢s own.  The few dwarvish magicians who do exist are instead educated in other traditions, most frequently the human one.  They have taken very well to the enchanting of objects, however, combining foreign magic with good, native dwarvish craft.
Languages:  As might be expected for so disparate a people, the dwarves of Tasothilos do not have a single unified language.  Rather, on the western continent, dwarven language is grouped largely into 3 families: Northwest, Central and South Dwarven.  Each family is further divided into several branches â,¬' there are about ~15 Dwarvish languages of note on the continent.  Fortunately, there are only three or four common to the Salabrian region, and only one of these is the language of dwarvish scholars, travellers and rulers â,¬' Old Shumma, the language of a cultural empire of the dwarves that existed almost 2000 years ago, is still learned and spoken by many dwarves.  Dwarvish languages in general have a tendency to be very rich and complicated in their articulation of consonants, but somewhat poor in vowels â,¬' most, in fact, tend to have only three or four (with varied longs and shorts.)
Major Religions: The distinguishing feature of dwarven religion is that it is messianic.  All of dwarven spiritual thought is in preparation for the arrival of the Awaâ,¬,,¢ullah, (approximately â,¬Ëthe Returnerâ,¬,,¢), a dwarven champion of great military prowess and equal piety who will unite the dwarvish peoples, cast open the long-forgotten gate in the Bakhilun range and lead the dwarves back to Muhdamud.  As with all messianic religions, there are a fair number of self-proclaimed Awaâ,¬,,¢ullahun â,¬' in fact, at least one every decade or so.  Most sensible dwarves ignore these pretenders.  Every couple of dwarvish generations, however, a real contender presents himself â,¬' one who actually gathers a loyal band of supporters and appears to fulfill some of the prophecies concerning the Awaâ,¬,,¢ullah.  Not one of them has yet completed the most important part of the prophetic teachings however â,¬' finding the Bakhilunian Gate.
As far as deities are concerned, the dwarves worship a pantheon of gods, the offspring of father Makkut and mother Qelevah.  These gods are said to wait in Muhdamud, but they also intervene in mortal affairs as well.  The most important members of the pantheon besides the parents are the Barakun, the gods of craft â,¬' 9 industrious sons and 9 busy daughters of Makkut.  It is worth noting that in human lands, the dwarves accept that the god Maxinir may well be simply another name for their god Makkut.  They further acknowledge that the Ekeusian deities exist â,¬' they simply claim that Maxinir/Makkut and his family, not Onaleus and the others, are the dwarf-gods.
Interestingly enough, the â,¬Ëwild dwarvesâ,¬,,¢ of the eastern continent appear to have a religion with several messianic trappings of itâ,¬,,¢s own.
Adventurers:  Dwarvish adventurers are somewhat on the rare side.  After all, though adventurers can do plenty of good in the world, they are not as a rule â,¬Ëproductiveâ,¬,,¢ in the dwarvish sense of the word.  Dwarves do not disdain adventurers as a rule â,¬' they have their uses â,¬' but they do tend to raise an eyebrow when one of their own takes up the lifestyle.  A good number of dwarven adventurers are driven to it by extreme poverty, though some are dwarves who have been exiled from their mountain home because of some crime or political mis-step.
[spoiler=Statistics]

+2 Con, -2 Dex: Dwarves of Tasothilos are not so gruff as their D&D equivalents.  While quite sturdy, however, they are somewhat slow. *Medium Size *Speed 20 feet *Darkvision (note that unlike D&D Darkvision which has range limitations, Tasothilos Darkvision has the same range as normal sight.  This makes it a slightly more substantial racial bonus.) *Stability (per Playerâ,¬,,¢s Handbook dwarves) *+2 to all saves versus poisons and intoxicating liquors.  *Dwarves recover vitality points at twice the rate of other races.  They recover wound points at the normal rate. * Dwarves are innately talented as craftsmen, and their innate talent is honed by a culture that encourages practice. At character creation, the player may choose one Craft skill.  That skill is ever after a class skill, and the character receives a +2 racial bonus to all checks made with it.  

[/spoiler]

A naturalistic race at the same time both noble and servile, both dignified and broken.
Name: Ailaphir, Aisa
Physical Desciption:  Elves stand just a bit shorter than men, with average heights between 4â,¬,,¢9â,¬Â and 5â,¬,,¢9â,¬Â. They tend to have slighter frames than human, (tending to weigh around 100 to 140 pounds) but are just as strong, if a little more fragile. There is absolutely no discernable difference in â,¬Ëaverageâ,¬,,¢ height and weight between male and female elves.  Their faces tend to be narrow and somewhat angular, with small but pointy noses and angled chins..  Their ears are somewhat pointed, being about an inch and a half longer than the average human ear.   Their hairlines tend to recede a little bit further back than the human average, giving the appearance of somewhat large foreheads.  Elves are biologically incapable of growing body hair or facial hair save on their heads.  Their coloration in youth tends to be exceptionally bright and deep: their hair is either the deepest black, the richest brown, or the brightest gold, and their eyes are deep blues, reds and greens.  Their skin is always pale, however.
Elves age in a curious fashion, however.  Rather than growing more shrivelled as other races tend to, the shape and features of an elf never change at all after he reaches adulthood.  Instead, what happens gradually over the course of their long lives is that the color fades from their bodies, hair, eyes, &tc.  Around the age of 200-250, the vivacious colors noted in younger elves have faded to more â,¬Ëaverage humanâ,¬,,¢ levels.  Around the age of 350-400, an elfâ,¬,,¢s color has faded more â,¬' an outsider might call his appearance â,¬Ëdrabâ,¬,,¢, but the elves consider this dimming of color to be quite noble.  If an elf lives to be truly ancient, he might become absolutely grey in hue.  These Grey Ones are held in high esteem by all elves.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 70/450/600/200 â,¬' Note that the average lifespan of a servile elf is much lower.
Demeanor: All peoples of Tasothilos place some importance upon tradition and history, but none to quite the extent that the elves do.  Elves are obsessed with their ancestors, and even those among the lowest free classes are likely to have a long genealogical tree of his forefathers. This map will be counted among his most valued possessions, and he will spend many hours of his long life studying it and learning the stories behind each of the names found on it.   The typical way that an elf introduces himself for the first time is to give his own name followed by the names of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.  It is considered to be a great insult to call an elf a â,¬Ëbastardâ,¬,,¢, as the term implies that he is cut off from the glorious deeds of his family by his illegitimacy.  Even among the slaves, a mother goes to great lengths to ensure that a young elf knows who his father is, even if the measures be extreme.  Those few servile elves who do not know their fathers are considered by elfkind to be the most unlucky of all.
Lands: For many years, the Elves had two states in the Salabrian Sea region, Ostarok and Aisatanimo. Both of these were in southeastern Salabria â,¬' Ostarok was a pleasant, fertile seaside plain, and Aisatanimo a hilly plateau largely guarded by a great range of mountains.  Both were heavily forested, and both were originally the furthest provinces of the elven Arjepakai Empire.  When that empire collapsed, the two nations became independent, though they remained closely tied to each other.  Aisatanimo remains free to this day.  Though economically quite strong, they are extremely xenophobic and close their borders to almost all outsiders, giving them relatively little influence in international politics.  The other state of Ostarok, however, fell hundreds of years ago to orcish invasions from the south.  Now called Angusalak, it remains more than 50% elven in population, but the orcish ruling class considers it to be the northernmost state of their empire, and they hold the elves in slavery.
     Most elves encountered outside of Aisatanimo are likely to be slaves, though the efforts of wealthy â,¬Ëabolitionistsâ,¬,,¢ have also created a small population of freed elves.  On occasion, however, young adult elves leave from Aisatanimo to travel abroad for a time before returning to their sensible duties at home.  Indeed, young elves are encouraged to make these trips, for after seeing the general poverty of human lands most return feeling much more grateful and loyal to their own country.  These elvish travelers always wear many insignia to mark them as Aisatanimar, lest someone think they are escaped slaves.  Though frowned upon by their elders, many wandering elves even go so far as to take human brides, produce children by them (see above on â,¬Ëhalf-breed racesâ,¬,,¢) and then return to their homeland once their human wives die of old age.  (To the elves, these are mere youthful dallianecs, even though they might be married 50 years.)
Elvish Slavery: For hundreds of years, orcs freely sold their elvish slaves throughout the Sea.  Even though slavery is now officially illegal in many of the more civilized countries of Salabria, few governments are actively hunting down the owners and dealers of slaves (indeed, several monarchs in these â,¬Ëfreeâ,¬,,¢ nations maintain a personal retinue of elves even as they proclaim their bans on the slave-dealers.)  Orcs continue to sell their â,¬Ëwaresâ,¬,,¢ in almost the same volume as they always have, albeit somewhat more discreetly.  Thus, when most Salabrians think of the elves, they conjure to mind not stately councils and alchemical wonders of Aisatanimo, but spiritually broken, subdued and tormented chattel.
Slaves are valued for a number of purposes.  The majority of these luckless elves are kept in Angusalak, where they are put to work on the beekeeping â,¬Ëplantationsâ,¬,,¢ there, producing honey and mead.  Slaves whoâ,¬,,¢ve been sold outside of the captured orcish land have various functions.  Because of a tradition that holds that elves are exceptionally good at communing with the plant world, the majority of these slaves work the land on large farms.  (There is no mega-crop that dominates agriculture to the extent that cotton did in the American south â,¬' these farms tend to be more diverse in their output.)   Another common use for the elves is as musicians and entertainers.  Native elvish music sounds quite strange to human ears, so these bardic slaves are instead compelled to learn and reproduce the tunes of the culture of the slaveholders.  Perhaps the most dignified (though still servile) role that an elf can hope for is that of personal retainer â,¬' humans long ago figured out that a single well-treated elf would live through many lifetimes of men, and so several noble houses put aside one slave to be the personal tutor and attendant of the head of household and his sons through several generations.  These retainers are kept quite close to their masters at all times, and often give them advice based on what their fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers had done.   Though a certain amount of trust comes with this position, the line between slave and owner is seldom blurred.
Elves are subjected to several torturous marks and brandings.  Not long after birth, slaves of either sex are branded by their â,¬Ëmakerâ,¬,,¢ (ie, the owner of their father) with a particular mark in the Orcish alphabet indicating their â,¬Ëoriginâ,¬,,¢.  Then, the males are castrated.  (This is done so that the elf-breeders can maintain a very tight control on the population â,¬' a few escape castration for use as breeding stock.)  After their sale, most elves receive a second branding indicating their proper owner.  Elves who attempt an escape and fail receive further marks as punishment â,¬' on the first offense, the tip of one pointed ear is forfeit.  On the second offense, the other ear is carved up.  On the third offense, one eye is put out.  On the fourth offense, the penalty is usually death â,¬' â,¬Å"What use would a blind slave be?â,¬Â, the reasoning usually goes.
History:  After their creation by Viljo and Aisa, the elves believe that they dwelled a long time in a great forest north of the desert Aganamil (this forest, they claim, has been claimed by the sands since they departed it.)  For several generations of elfdom they lived in this place governed by a small council of nobles, knowing no strife or care.  Then, however, there arose a great quarrel between three nobles â,¬' Arjeno the Eldest, Tamir his brother, and their sister Osia the Fair.  (Most recount that the cause for this quarrel was that Tamir and Arjeno each wished to pledge their sister to a different man in marriage, while Osia herself wished no marriage at all.)  As each was a powerful noble with many partisans, this feud soon erupted into a war which raged for 300 years and consumed more than half of the elvish population.  At last, however, the three originators of the conflict met in council to create a peace.  Since so much blood had been shed and so much vengeance was left unfilled, it was decided that the three parties of elves would separate, never to come together again.  Osia, whose party had fared worst in the conflict, took her people east to the sea, whence they departed in ships and were never seen again.  Savage Tamir, who had started the fighting, lead his people south across the desert into the mountains, where his people fell to faction and greater strife.  Arjeno had fallen during the fighting, but his son Malino represented his people at the peace council and led them afterwards to the west, where they settled in the great forest, Arjepakai.  From this settlement, the elves grew with passing generations into great empire, controlling much of the desert and even extending their reach south into the mountains of Tamirâ,¬,,¢s people and northern Sakrtskaya.  They also established two small colonies in Salabria â,¬' Aisatanimo and Ostarok.  This empire collapsed more than 2000 years ago, however.  The exact reason for the collapse is unknown, but magic is thought to be involved â,¬' the empireâ,¬,,¢s heart, the old Arjepakai forest, is now perpetually cloaked in the deepest winter and buried in many feet of snow.  When the center collapsed, most of the provinces were overthrown by natives, and only the two kingdoms of Aisatanimo and Ostarok survived.
Magic:  Elves have a fairly strong ritual tradition, and also their own tradition of Spellcasting, both of which evolved out of a more refined form of their religious rituals.  (The nonmagical religious rites, due to their extreme sanctity, are still practiced unchanged alongside the occasional magical ritual).  In Aisatanimo, the use of this logomancy is carefuly restricted to the Warlock caste.  The elves also have another form of magic, however â,¬' a â,¬Ëscienceâ,¬,,¢ of magical herbalism sometimes (somewhat incorrectly) termed Alchemy.  Ã¢,¬ËSacred Botanyâ,¬,,¢ would perhaps be a more accurate representation of the practice.  Elves use this â,¬Ëalchemyâ,¬,,¢ primarily among their own lands, in order to produce great yields of crops and live in relative ease.  Alchemy can be turned to other purposes, however â,¬' it is particularly strong in its influence on living tissues.
Languages: Because of their long lifespans, the elvish language has not changed nearly so much as other tongues.  While not quite mutually intelligible, having slightly different pronunciations and very distinct vocabularies, Arjepak (Old Elvish), Tanim (High Elvish) and Ostar (Slave Elvish) sound very similar to outsiders and are quite closely related structurally.  The main reason why these languages are considered to be distinct as opposed to different dialects is the elvish tendency to invent words.  Even though 1000 years represents only a handful of elven generations, and pronunciation does not shift that much in such a short time, in five elven generations thousands of new words are likely to enter the vocabulary of each dialect.  
Elvish pronunciation is exceedingly precise, with the refined elven ear and vocal apparatus able to produce and detect finer gradations of articulation than humans can.  There are, for instance, 4 different letters in Tanim that are pronounced similar to â,¬Å"tâ,¬Â, with only slight variations difficult for humans to pick up.  While other races can learn Elvish, their speech is always heavily accented and in a couple cases the meaning of what they say is blurred by their clumsy tongues.   The common Elvish term for a human, tailotailo â,¬Å"Death Friendâ,¬Â, is a pun both on the relatively short lives of other races and on the fact that the two Tanim words tailo â,¬Ëdeathâ,¬,,¢ and tailo â,¬Ëfriendâ,¬,,¢ are pronounced the same by humans despite using two different â,¬Ëtâ,¬,,¢s to Elvish ears.  (Gnomes, having excellent ears and tongues, can reproduce elvish perfectly, much to the annoyance of elves.)
Major Religions:  Elves, like humans, have a large and fairly complex pantheon of deities, though ancestor-worship also takes an important part in the religion.  The leader of the elven gods is Viljo (Salabrian theologians identify him as a son of Rholerex) â,¬' unlike dwarvish and Old Ekeusian religion, however, the pantheon is explicitly said not to be primarily a family structure.  Rather, a number of deities are said to have existed from the beginning of time.  Viljo rules not by paternity or by being oldest but by exceptional might.   His queen is Aisa, and their union is thought to be the origin of all elves.  The most noteworthy of the other gods is Helli, the goddess of the woods and trees.  She has almost as much prestige as her noble father.  The elven devil is called Vainok, and he is the prince of a host of wicked spirits (including the souls of deceased non-elves, a rather controversial hymn asserts).   Almost all elven souls after death unite with the host of Viljo and receive worship from their descendants.  Only a very few elven villains are wicked enough to be sent down to Vainok, where they become the great lieutenants of his host.
The most curious thing to outsiders about the Elvish religion is not its theology or mythology, which are fairly â,¬Ëstandardâ,¬,,¢ by the Salabrian metric.  Rather, it is the barbarism of itâ,¬,,¢s ritual.  Elves are a dignified people, conducting all secular affairs with noble grace.  When they practice their religion, however, it seems almost as if all traces of civilization leave their bodies.  They shout prayers, dance naked around fires naked shaking primitive instruments, and most peculiar of all, they engage in massive animal sacrifice (only the orcs among the other â,¬Ëcivilizedâ,¬,,¢ peoples still have any form of animal sacrifice, and they practice it only on the death of a great matriarch).  The bloody savagery of elven religion can be explained only when one considers the incredible reverence that Elves have for ancestral custom.  At a very early point, the religion of the elves â,¬Ëcrystallized,â,¬,,¢ and any deviation from this practice was thought to be sacrilege.  So complete was this crystalization that elvish ritual is still practiced the same way today as it was thousands of years ago.
Adventurers: Elven adventurers are either of free or servile descent.   Aisatanimo places no limitations on elves leaving their borders as they do on foreigners entering, and many young elves (between the ages of about 80 and 150) go abroad for a time to wander human lands before settling down in their caste duties.  Most of these are merely travellers, although a few become legitimate adventurers.  Amongst the slave-born adventuring elves, roughly a third are escaped slaves, while the majority have been legitimately liberated â,¬' sometimes  a slave who has served the master very well (perhaps going so far as to save his life) is rewarded with freedom, and sometimes a slave is purchased by a wealthy anti-slavery â,¬Ëactivistâ,¬,,¢ explicitly so that he may be liberated.  Whatever the particular history of an ex-slave, they almost all have undergone the brandings listed above â,¬' if youâ,¬,,¢d prefer an â,¬Ëundamagedâ,¬,,¢ elf, you must provide a very good explanation.
[spoiler=Statistics]

+2 Cha, -2 Con: The Elves of Tasothilos are known for having slight frames but rather commanding presences. *Medium Size *Speed 35 feet â,¬' Elves move a little more swiftly than members of other medium races. *Low-Light Vision *+2 to all saves versus mind-affecting magic of any kind. *Elves have very keen senses and receive a +2 to Search, Spot and Listen checks.  (Theyâ,¬,,¢re no better at seeking secret doors than anybody else, though.) *Elves receive a +2 to Climb checks. *Elves step very lightly â,¬' anyone attempting to track an elf suffers a â,¬'2 penalty to the attempt.  When travelling in a forest environment, this penalty is instead -4.

[/spoiler]

A vivacious, semi-aquatic, diminutive folk well integrated with human society, and yet intimately connected with the natural world.
Name: Gnoumos, Akmu
Physical Desciption:  The taller of the two branches of â,¬Ëlittle peopleâ,¬,,¢, gnomes stand on average around 3â,¬,,¢4â,¬Â, and may vary as much as 5â,¬Â in either direction.  They have a tendency to be a little plump, with the average weight being around 45-60 pounds.  Gnomes have rounded faces â,¬' they are most distinct for their somewhat small but nearly perfectly round, bulbous noses and their slightly-larger-than-proportional eyes.  They have ears which are slightly larger than human average, and mouths that are slightly smaller than average.   Gnomes have a wide variety of possible hair colors, occasionally dipping into the exotic â,¬' one may see browns, blacks and blonds, but also deep reds and occasional purples.  Eyes are more mundane â,¬' they tend to be very light colors, like grey and bright blue.  Gnomish skin is a medium â,¬Ëcaucasianâ,¬,,¢ hue.
     Gnomes have a peculiar custom where hair is concerned.  Keeping the rest of their hair cut fairly short as is the popular style, young men and women both grow out a single long, thin braid of hair, starting around the time that they turn 15.  When they marry, they cut off this braid and tie it around their new spouseâ,¬,,¢s wrist, and ever after keep their hair fairly short.  These hair-bracelets serve in lieu of wedding rings, though after the tying ceremony, because they are so precious and fragile, they tend not to be worn on a daily basis.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 30/200/275/50
Demeanor: Gnomes are frequently characterized as being a frivolous and flightly people, but this is not strictly the case.  It is far more accurate to say that the gnomish temperment is one of extremes.  A gnome is never happy â,¬' he is overjoyed.  When a human would be sad, a gnome is miserable.  Similarly, gnomes do not have friends and rivals but boon companions and hateful nemeses.  It is important to note that the distinction is not merely rhetorical.  That is, a gnome does not merely SAY that he is â,¬Ëoverjoyedâ,¬,,¢ at having found a silver piece on the sidewalk â,¬' he feels a very deep sensation of happiness, far beyond the manner in which a human would react at so small a turn of luck.  Gnomes weep heavily and laugh heartily, and when necessarily they fight savagely in their own defense.  It is simply out of their tendency to be overly thankful for small blessings that they get stereotyped as â,¬Ëflightyâ,¬,,¢ and â,¬Ëhappy-go-luckyâ,¬,,¢.  When one considers the extreme closeness that they feel with their friends and the lengths they will go to to protect them, it is clear that gnomes are anything but â,¬Ëfrivolousâ,¬,,¢.
Lands:  Gnomes are the smallest of races in terms of world population and land possessions.  Like orcs alone of the other major races, gnomes are exclusively â,¬Ëwesternâ,¬,,¢ and have no analog yet discovered among the newly-found eastern lands of the Taecs.  While the orcs, however, control a vast empire stretching across the southern lands, gnomes hold only a single island â,¬' Akmet, located near where the Salabrian Sea spills out into the ocean beyond.  The island is considered to be very beautiful â,¬' near its center stands triad of very tall mountains, while the rest of the island consists of running hills, wild forests and grasslands.  The island is dotted with numerous lakes, ponds, rivers and streams, and it is along these that the gnomes have built their famous semi-aquatic cities, both as a defense against outsiders and for the sheer aesthetic pleasure of it.
     Gnomes are also the most closely-integrated with humanity of all the races, even eclipsing elves.  Having made friends with the Ekeusians at an early point in their history, and played at diplomacy with that aggressive empire exceedingly cautiously, the gnomes had a relatively good experience living within imperial jurisdiction, and indeed the current island-wide government of Akmet is partially a remnant of imperial administration.  The diminutive folk quickly became enchanted by the lands beyond their isle, and many emigrated to various parts of the imperial domain.  Some established their own communities - nowadays, one can occasionally even find Akmet-style gnomish cities built into shallow ponds or lakes in some parts of the north.  Most gnomes, however, integrated with the human communities instead, finding the large folk and their cities inherently fascinating.  A second â,¬Ëwaveâ,¬,,¢ of gnomish emigration followed during the height of the Andozian conquests around ~900, and a third â,¬Ëwaveâ,¬,,¢ has begun in recent years.
    In the cities of Philstaros, Andozia and Sanceline especially, gnomes can be found doing just about any task that humans do (though obviously they are not quite as good at physical labor as the bigger folk are).  They are excellent craftsmen and even better entertainers, having voices that are well known for their dexterity and power.  They are especially good, too, at animal handling - most inns in the major cities use young gnomes as their â,¬Ëstableboysâ,¬,,¢.   Though they work together with humans, however, and interact comfortably with humans in social settings as well, most gnomes prefer to actually live outside of the â,¬Ëcity limitsâ,¬,,¢ in small, primarily gnomish villages.
Gnomish Inventions:  Gnomes in many other settings have a reputation for being tinkerers and exceptional inventors, introducing all sorts of outlandish quasi-modern devices into an otherwise medieval setting.  Gnomes of Algarlin do not behave in this way.  The vast majority of gnomes do not have anything to do with invention or strange mechanical products, being a much more â,¬Ëearthyâ,¬,,¢ people.  However, a small circle of gnomish inventors, associated with the Akmetian city of Inu-Ataj, have introduced a number of exciting technologies in just the past 25 years, giving the gnomes a short-term reputation as great inventors.  (Again, this is a popular perception based on the actions of less than a dozen gnomes in one city.)  A brief list of their three most important inventions should suffice:

The printing press with moveable type was recently developed by the gnome Neshek Atep.  At present, less than fifty of these fantastic machines have been created â,¬' after all, the device is only about 20 years old, and for the first ten years of its life its creation was a secret carefully guarded by that scoundrel Kalos Mer.  At present, it is mostly used for the reproduction of the works of that philandering wanderer and for religious documents.  In the next hundred years, however, the use of the printing press promises to revolutionize literacy and education.
*Neshek Atep is also responsible for the invention of the most widely used of gnomish inventions, an translucent reddish liquid called Gnome Oil.  While it looks somewhat like watered-down wine, in fact this alchemical compound is a very powerful water-proofing agent.  If applied an object in a heavy coatand then allowed to dry for a ful day, the gnome-oil forever after repels water from the item in question â,¬' if submerged and then removed from water, the item will instantly be bone-dry.  Neshekâ,¬,,¢s workshop produces vast amounts of the liquid, so itâ,¬,,¢s ingredients must be fairly cheap â,¬' however, the precise formula is a carefully guarded secret.  (As a side effect, the oil turns whatever item it is applied to a slight reddish color.)
*A group of gnomes in Inu-Ataj have been experimenting with a powder that if lit, explodes with great force.  So far, the substance is very hard to control.  However, it is reasonable to expect that their experiments might produce something more useful in due course.[/list]
History:  Gnomes alone among the Salabrian peoples freely and cheerfully admit their complete uncertainty regarding the origins of their races.  The great chronicle of the gnomish people, the Book of Akmet, begins by saying â,¬Å"So far as we know, the gnomes have lived here forever.â,¬Â  It then goes on to chronicle those parts of gnomish history which are certain, beginning around 500 MP.  In those days, gnomes lived in completely isolated watery villages, never really venturing beyond their borders.  In the next five hundred years, gnomish cities bickered and warred incessantly, though these wars were usually rather brief since (due to the famous gnomish temper) they had begun with very little grounds to fight in the first place.  There were several aborted attempts to create some semblance of a â,¬Ënationalâ,¬,,¢ government, but nothing really succeeded until 25-19 MP, during which time the island was added to the Ekeusian territories.  The Ekeusians had known about the island for hundreds of years, but stayed away out of fear of rumored terrifying inhabitants.  When they finally came and found that instead of man-eating giants, the island belonged to gnomes, they immediately developed a fondness for the little creatures, and this fondness was returned by the gnomes.  Over the course of six years, every village was united under a single human administration, in almost every case by diplomatic agreements rather than by force.  Though they chafed a little against the taxes when they got too high and imperial annals occasionally speak of Akmet rebellions, for the most part gnomes were remarkably pleased with the good organization which the humans had given to them.  In 295 YP, following over 300 years of human rule, the gnomish island was given freedom from the Imperial government when a gnomish fleet proved instrumental in repelling a massive invasion of orcs.  Since that time, the gnomes have lived in relative peace with humanity.
Magic:  Gnomes are brilliant logomancers, having very little in the way of developed Ritual but a very potent tradition of Spellcasting.  They are also the race best able to adapt â,¬Ëforeignâ,¬,,¢ magical traditions, combining their own native Gnomish spells with human, elvish and orcish spells with remarkable ease.  They are also incredibly talented at musomancy, having naturally forceful voices.
Languages: As a relative monoculture and one with an exceptional lifespan at that, gnomes alone among the races have a single, â,¬Ëracialâ,¬,,¢ language, one that is carefully cultivated even among those gnomish families living in human lands.  Different regions of gnomes may have distinctive dialects â,¬' gnomes in human lands pronounce things a little differently than Akmet gnomes and also borrow human words into their lexicon â,¬' but so far, at least, the language remains mutually intelligible.  Gnomish language is characterized by being tonal.  Gnomish words have three different â,¬Ëpitchesâ,¬,,¢, one of which is always present in the accented syllable of a word.  This gives gnomish language a unique kind of â,¬Ëmusicâ,¬,,¢ to it, but it also makes the language notoriously difficult for non-native speakers to learn.
Major Religions: Gnomish religion is a strange case â,¬' the gnomes were largely atheistic prior to contact with the Ekeusians, worshipping if anything a simple concept of â,¬Ëcreationâ,¬,,¢.  After encountering the Ekeusians, however, they found themselves enchanted by the stories of the god Bimpnos, and they have adapted him as their own god.  They freely acknowledge the existence and power of other deities, however they claim Bimpnos as their own patron in all things.  Gnomish worship is fairly simple, consisting of prayers spoken aloud twice or three times each day, and silent prayers when in times of great need.  Gnomes have not developed any concept of sacrifice or tithe, unlike human worshippers.
Adventurers:  Gnomes take to adventuring more readily than any other race except for humans.  Their delight is in traveling the world and seeing the various sights that the natural world has to offer â,¬'this kind of wanderlust naturally gets them into a great deal of trouble, and from such troubles are adventurers born.  They are also natural when it comes to the party dynamic â,¬' though seldom the â,¬Ëleaderâ,¬,,¢ or â,¬Ëface-manâ,¬,,¢ for a group of adventurers, they frequently become the â,¬Ëheart and soulâ,¬,,¢ of the group.
[spoiler=Statistics]

+2 Con, -2 Str *Small Size *Speed 20 feet *Low-light vision *Hold Breath â,¬' Gnomes have exceptional control over their own respiratory systems and a tremendous lung capacity.  For that reason, they are able to hold their breaths for 10 times the amount of time that normal people can. (IE, 2x their Constitution scores in minutes.)  This also provides them with a +2 racial save bonus versus gaseous attacks of any kind. *Gnomes have +2 to all Swim checks, and Swim is always a class skill for them.  *Due to their finely-tuned ears, gnomes have +2 to all Listen checks.  *Tongues of Nature = Unique among the â,¬Ëspeakingâ,¬,,¢ races, Gnomes are able to spend skill points to acquire the languages of animals just as they can the languages of other races.  (This power will be covered in detail later.)

[/spoiler]

Mysterious men who wander the great desert of the east, always keeping one eye fixed on the stars.
Name: Pheundos, Banaz
Physical Desciption:Halflings are the shortest of all the major races, standing on average around 3â,¬,,¢ tall (varying not more than ~3 inches in either direction).  Though of roughly the same proportions (in miniature size) as humans, they tend towards fairly slight of build, weighing merely 30 pounds or so.  On average, men are about two inches taller and five pounds heavier than women are, though tall (3â,¬,,¢2â,¬Â or more) women are considered to be exceptionally lovely in halfling eyes.  Halflings have faces very similar in shape to humans â,¬' though their ears come to very slight points, they are not on the whole larger (proportionally) than human ears are.  One point of departure from human proportion is the halfling neck, which is famously just a little bit longer than it â,¬Ëshouldâ,¬,,¢ be to human aesthetics.  Similarly, their fingers and toes are just a little bit longer than one would expect.  Halfling men can grow beards, but they tend to be patchy and few but the unkempt choose to do so.
Halfling skin tones tend to be quite pale by human standards, and they also have a very faint tinge of blue to them.  Their hair tends to be thick and somewhat curly, and may be black, dark brown, or a reddish color.  Their eyes tend to be rather light â,¬' faint greens and blues are common, but pinkish hues are found with some frequency also.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 20/100/150/35
Demeanor: Halflings live in the moment, and are characterized by their spontaneity.  This is not to say that a halfling will not make plans for the future or take the events of the past into consideration when he acts â,¬' it is rather that the feel of the moment has a much greater influence on a halflingâ,¬,,¢s actions than it would on, for instance, a humanâ,¬,,¢s.  Nor is the word â,¬Ëspontaneousâ,¬,,¢ meant to imply that a halflingâ,¬,,¢s reactions are completely random and incongruous.  These are demihumans, not slaad.  However, halflings value creativity and have a knack for the unexpected in a way that other races do not.  For related reasons, halflings do not share in the same obsession with history and genealogy that the other sentient races do.  In most cases they are not truly ignorant of such matters â,¬' they simply do not put much stock in them.  For reasons discussed below, most halflings do not know the identity of their biological parents
Lands: Halflings do not have nations or cities, as other races do.  Such sedentary communities are unsuited to their roving nature and the intolerably hot clime of their home.  The halflings wander about the desert in great communal bands called â,¬Ëtribesâ,¬,,¢.  On average, a â,¬Ëtribeâ,¬,,¢ consists of about 40 to about 100 halflings, though a few â,¬ËGreat Tribesâ,¬,,¢ of upwards of 500 halflings are known to exist.  The activity of most of these tribes centers around the raising of various forms of cattle and goats (several types of diminutive cow, accustomed to desert life, are native to Aganamil).  The tribes follow a seasonal rotation within their lands: during most of the year, they wander through the desert, looking for cactus and other forms of desert vegetation with which to feed their flocks.  When the hot summer looms near, however, they seek out one of several known oases, by which they may set up temporary camps for a few months.  (between 5 and 15 tribes may set up summer camp at a single oasis, and these summer gatherings are known for trade and vigorous night-time celebrations.  Most tribes, in fact, wander almost exactly the same path year after year â,¬' only occasionally do the tribes deviate from their ancestral course.
Halfling tribes follow curious social conventions: children are raised communally by the tribe, and every effort is made to specifically prevent a halfling from knowing who his biological parents.  (Instead, all of a tribeâ,¬,,¢s children view the chieftain and his wife as their father and mother.)  Because the chieftain is the â,¬Ëfatherâ,¬,,¢ of all of the men in his tribe, they are all equal and he may select any of them to be his replacement â,¬' this sense of egalitarianism prevents any real sense of â,¬Ëclassâ,¬,,¢ from developing among the halflings, and they have a hard time understanding the concept of â,¬Ësocial classâ,¬,,¢ in other peoples, as well.
The vast majority of halflings live in these desert societies as mentioned.  However, in the past two hundred years or so, owing to increased contact with humans, a few small tribes here and there have been lured into the cooler climes of the East.  These halflings are looked down upon by their desert kin, and they are known as the Domesticated Ones.  Though they have left the desert, they are unable to curb their native wanderlust, and only rarely settle.  Instead, the tribes still move from place to place, and function largely as peddlers, bringing goods from village to village and trading along the way.  They earn food by doing odd jobs whereever they go, by trading for it, and (frequently enough to have questionable reputations) by stealing it.  The Domesticated Ones have a somewhat ambivalent reputation in human lands â,¬' men distrust them because of their (exagerrated) reputation for dishonesty and casual theft, but they also have a fascination with their curious traditions, exotic cuisine, and foreign trade goods.  (It is these people who come to mind for most humans when â,¬Ëhalflingsâ,¬,,¢ are discussed, even though they actually represent a small minority of the halfling population.)
History:The halfling penchant for the â,¬Ënowâ,¬,,¢ tends to lead them to disdain accounts of their own history.  While halflings have a good oral tradition that traces the deeds of their tribe back several generations, they make a distinction between â,¬Ënearâ,¬,,¢ (that is, important) history and â,¬Ëfarâ,¬,,¢ (that is, irrelevant) history, and maintain no record of the latter.  Thus, only a few general trends can be said of the halflings for certain.  
According to their own vague memories and to elvish records as well, halflings were already living in the Aganamil Desert when elves from the forest of Arjepakai expanded their empire eastward.  Though they had little desire to be masters over waves of dunes and miles of sand, they very much valued the few stable routes leading through the desert to the north, east, and south.  They thus conquered narrow tendrils leading through the desert, and enslaved the halfling populations.  The halflings were made to build and maintain roads, raise livestock for their masters, and also to work in salt mines, very commonly found along the western edge of Aganamil.
When Arjepakai fell, the halflings were freed from their elvish masters, and banded together to take up their own ways of life.  They let the old roads and towers of the elves in the desert fall to waste, and resumed a life of wandering, herding their cattle to feast on various cacti and finding the rare oases at which to drink.  Since being emancipated from the elves, halflings have only had occasional contact with other races.  Ekeusians, Andozians and others of more recent generations have used them as guides to Sakrtskaya, as the desert route to that exotic country is still the safest one.  Dwarves of the lower Bakhilun range occasionally trade with them, offering tools, weapons and metalwork in exchange for salt, spice, and desert jewels.  Orcs occasionally kidnap groups of halflings and press them into slavery.  But for the most part, the halfling tribes remain caught up in their own affairs, having little influence or impact on the politics and wars of the â,¬Ëeastern peopleâ,¬,,¢.
Magic:Despite a lack of writing, over the generations the astrologer class has managed to develop and preserve a ritual tradition purely by word of mouth.  The lack of writing or scholarly traditions, however, has prevented from them developing a logomantic spellcasting system.  They make up for this by having an innate gift for Willing â,¬' even untrained, a halfling can sometimes influence reality with his mental wishes, and a trained halflingâ,¬,,¢s use of the Will can be quite potent.  Some halflings also have a smaller, more innate arcane gift â,¬' they have developed the ability to create globes of light magically, merely by concentrating.  Roughly as bright as a torch, these globes have no offensive capabilities but beautiful to behold, and halfling chiefs value these â,¬Ëstarmenâ,¬,,¢ quite highly.
Languages:There are as many languages among the halflings as there are clans.  Fortunately, the variances between nearby tribes tend to be slight variations in pronunciation, easy enough for a foreigner to pick up.  In game terms, the halfling language can thus be divided into three â,¬Ësublanguagesâ,¬,,¢ â,¬' Near Halfling, Central Halfling, and Far Halfling  (These are OOC terms and never used by halflings to describe their own tongue).  Near Halfling is the language both of those tribes who live near the Gap of Amin, and of the Domesticated Ones.  Central Halfling is the language of the tribes who inhabit the middle regions of Aganamil â,¬' the tribes who serve as guides for merchants and others travelling to Sakrtskaya frequently speak some variation of Central Halfling.  Far Halfling is spoken by the most foreign of halfling peoples, who live in the far western and northern reaches of Aganamil.  
All of these languages share some characteristics â,¬' rather than being inflected like most other racesâ,¬,,¢ speech, they are largely isolating languages (that is, individual words rather than changes in words indicate things like tense and grammatical function). Word order is strict in halfling languages, (as it is in English), whereas most Salabrian languages are fairly loose in their word-order.  Halfling tongues also tend to be extremely rhythmic: while many languages distinguish between long and short vowels, central and near halfling instead have *three* different vowel lengths (short, medium and long) and Far Halfling has four.  This feature is one of the most frustrating for non-native speakers to learn.
Halfling languages have no native written form.  Attempts have been made by scholars to use both the Ekeusian and the Andozian alphabets to record halfling speech, but neither one is adequate without a number of diacritical marks and other auxiliary signs.
Major Religions: Halflings practice a curious religion that combines faint elements of animism with a strong astrological component.  Halfling faith is devoid of anthropomorphized deities, and indeed â,¬Ëgodsâ,¬,,¢ in general make only weak appearances in their traditions.  Drawing parallels between halfling bands who wander across the desert in seasons and stars that likewise traverse the sky, halflings believe that they can see the Will of the World in the night sky.  Every tribe has at least one astrologer, capable of glancing into the heavens and recommending courses of action based on the movements of stars and the appearances of comets and other phenomena.  Because this is mere interpretation, this â,¬Ëpriestly classâ,¬,,¢ does not rule halfling society per se â,¬' but they have a position of strong influence with the chiefs.  
It should be noted that this religion has no sacred books, and no moral codes of any kind.  (While codes of acceptable behavior and honor do exist in halfling culture, appeal is made not to edicts of the gods but to â,¬Ëthe good of the clanâ,¬,,¢. ) Halflings do not make sacrifices to the stars, but they do recognize the existence of terrestrial spirits in rivers, the winds, and the rocks (even particularly noteworthy dunes are said to have their patron spirit), and these beings are occasionally offered sacrifice, whether through incense or through cattle.
Adventurers:  Because they are natural wanderers, halflings actually take to adventuring rather well.  Many halfling adventurers are drawn from the ranks of the Domesticated Ones â,¬' these are the halflings, after all, best able to associate with members of other races.  However, on occasion a halfling from the Near Tribes might leave, whether because of a disagreement with tribe leadership or because of the need to right some personal wrong.
[spoiler=Statistics]

+2 Dex, -2 Str *Small Size *Speed 20 feet *+1 bonus to all saving throws: Halflings are particularly lucky.  *Halflings are naturally adept at Willing magic, and receive +2 to all Willing checks. *Incredibly adaptable, Halflings gain a +2 bonus to all Survival checks. *Accustomed to Heat: halflings have over the centuries developed a remarkable ability to resist the ravages of even the worst parts of their desert environment.  As such, even other heat souces do not cause them as much harm as they would others.  Halflings have Fire Resistance 10.

[/spoiler]

Strict, proud matrons running a true intercontinental empire with ruthless efficiency that occasionally degenerates into wanton cruelty.
Name: Orex, Uqiik
Physical Desciption:Orcs are large and powerful in their appearance, standing on average between 6â,¬,,¢3â,¬Â and 7â,¬,,¢6â,¬Â tall.  Females are noticeably larger than males, standing perhaps four or five inches taller on average.  Both sexes weigh in between 210 and 320 pounds.  Orcs are almost never fat â,¬' this weight comes from their tremendous amounts of muscle.  Even beneath their thick layers of insulating skin, muscles ripple across the frame of orcs of both sexes, although the peculiar thing about orc biology is that females are the larger and more powerful sex.  The orcish face is not graceful and lovely like that of elves or men, but it has a certain dignity.  Orcs are noted for a very pronounced, bony ridge along their brow, causing their eyes to look somewhat sunken.  Their jawlines are equally bony and distinctive, jutting downward and slightly outward, and they have very firm cheeks and other features.  Orcs are noted for having very short, thick necks â,¬'their heads appear to rest nearly directly on their chests.  Men and women tend to wear their hear long, though men shave the tops of their heads bald and only let hair grow from the sides and the back of their heads.    Orcs tend to have skin that is a greyish brown hue, though some northern orcs have a more purely brown color.  Their eyes are fairly universally brown and black, and their hair, which is generally quite coarse and curly, is either black, brown, or a deep grey color.  Neither sex is capable of growing hair on their faces, but orcs of both genders are noted for having very hairy arms, legs and feet.  The thickness of chest and back hair is somewhat more variable, particularly among orcs who have been living in the north for several generations.
Mat./Avg. LS/Max. LS/Gen.: 15/60/80/30
Demeanor: If there is a trait common to all orcs, it is loyalty.  Orcs are frequently almost as cruel as their reputations say that they are, but they hold their promises inviolable.  In fact, if an orc is found to have broken her good word to another orc, she is subjected to a severe punishment: her name and her inheritance is denied her, she is cast out as an exile, and both of her hands are maimed.  Breaking an oath with a non-orc does not carry any formal penalty, but it is still seen as a shameful act.
Orcish disdain for members of other races is famous but somewhat overstated.  They get along fairly well with humans â,¬' the common name for humans in Orcish is Uqiikika â,¬' â,¬Ëlittle orcsâ,¬,,¢, a complementary phrase.  They have difficulty fathoming the curious set-up of human sexual politics (see below), but they admire their drive and militance.  It is the other races that orcs despise: elves, dwarves, and (especially) the little people.  Though the ommon rumor that orcs eat gnomes is (almost) certainly false, they feel great and vocal contempt for these â,¬Ëweakâ,¬,,¢ races.
The use of the feminine pronoun above merits comment â,¬' unlike all the other races of the western world, the orcish society is matriarchal and matrilineal (it is not, however, so intensely misandrist as Faerunian Drow). Women own land, control the households, conduct public business, and wage war.  Men tend to remain at home, working the land and tending the home (if they are poor) or overseeing the household slaves.  (As with humans, gender divisions are wider in the higher classes and break down among peasants).  Unlike human women, orc men do have a place in war, however â,¬' it is generally the case that an orcish army will have two â,¬Ëwavesâ,¬,,¢ â,¬' the lightly-armed men will skirmish first to wear down the enemy resistance, and then the hard-hitting battalions of females will close for serious melee while the men retreat.
Lands: The orcs are not natives of the Salabrian region.  Their empires and kingdoms lie far away, beyond even the distant country of Sakrtskaya, in the extreme south of the continent.   It is a cold land â,¬' the northernmost reaches, seat of imperial power, are in the southern reaches of the temperate zone, and the greater extent of orcish territory is in the harsh tundra.  Though the orcs of the Imperial center tend to live fairly urban lives, most orcs tend to live in small, isolated communities of hunters, fishers and gatherers, and it is from these hardy folk that the orcs gather most of their armies.  Formally, all orcish lands are united under the banner of the Baghuuk Empire.  In practice, some of the southern reaches are all but autonomous, with the central government not even bothering to collect taxes from these poor villages.
Very early in their history, the intrepid orcs sailed across the northeast sea and found the great island of Niibaq.  Ã¢,¬ËCleansingâ,¬,,¢ it of its native population of kobolds, the orcs added the isle to their possession, where it has remained ever since.  This island has been the launching point for the many orcish raids and invasions into the Salabrian Sea in the past two thousand years.
Within the Sea itself, the orcs hold Angusalak, which was formerly the elven kingdom of Ostarok.  They rule this land with grim efficiency as the northernmost colony of Baghuuk, and it is the center of the slave trade in Salabria.  In addition to Angusalak, however, there are a considerable number of small villages of orcs spread throughout the Sea â,¬' the remnants of old invading armies driven back by the humans, dwarves, and elves.  These villages are very individualistic, and none of them maintains any contact with the Empire any more.  They tend to shun outsiders, knowing well that most humans have a fear of orcs.  (This villages are most common in Philstaros, but exist in remnants in Sanceline and Andozia as well.
History:  Orc history is rich and complex, and will be covered in detail later.  In summary, however, it is sufficient to divide the history into four great imperial periods, with long gaps of civil war and fragmentation between the first and second and between the second and third empires.  
According to their own accounts, the first orc women, under the great orcish matron Ughar, arrived in Uliiq (their own name for their southern lands as a whole) born on the back of a great shark many thousands of years ago.  In Uliiq, they found orc-men, who at that time were wild and uncivilized creatures.  Ughar and her daughters set about teaching the men how to build homes and plant crops, and then they intermarried and settled with these orcs.  It is out of gratefulness for their cultural superiority, then, that the women have ever after ruled in orc lands.   Within a generation of Ughar, orcs had spread to every corner of Uliiq.  They were torn by faction, however, and not governed as one people as Ughar had always intended.  It was not until Taapuk, the eldest daughter of Ugharâ,¬,,¢s eldest daughter, raised armies and made her brethren submit that the near-legendary First Empire of the Orcs was formed.  This First Empire is so ancient (dating back to the third millennium MP) as to consist now largely of myth â,¬' the orcs remember it as the pinnacle of good orcish virtues.  
After more than fifteen hundred years of rule, the First Empire was destroyed in the mid-second millenium by a flight of dragons across the southern lands â,¬' the frightful Gancaldron the Mad is thought to have been one of these.  Orcs fell into chaos and faction again, and for a thousand years no matron held Ugharâ,¬,,¢s Seat in Baghuuk.  Then, the Second Orc Empire arose, more from diplomatic negotiations between states than through military conquest.  Though not so legendarily virtuous as the First Empire, the Second is known for itâ,¬,,¢s great military glories.  Under the Second Empire, orcs conquered every square inch of Uliiq,  added the isle of Niibaq and added much of southern Sakrtskaya to their possession.  They even established a number of colonies in Salabria.  This empire fell in turn, this time to internal strife rather than outside attack.  The Third Empire which arose a few centuries later is remembered by modern orcs as being wicked in conduct and irreverent towards the gods.  This empire held sway until about five hundred years ago, when a religious revolution toppled the system and created the new, conservative Fouth Empire, which has ruled down to the present day.
Magic:  Orcs have a tradition of ritual and logomancy that is a little stunted compared to the very powerful human traditions.  In the past  century, increased trade with human cultures has enriched their magicians with foreign spells, but they still lack some of the inventiveness which human practioners possess.  The one type of orc magic which is very sophisticated is in the area of abjurations and wards â,¬' since orc spellcasters of old tended to be warriors as well, they dedicated a great deal of their energies to the creation of spells which protect the caster from harm.
Languages:  The languages of the orcs are deep and gravelly, favoring guttural consonants and back vowels.  While it feels slightly intimidating and perhaps a little grating to the ears of more â,¬Ërefinedâ,¬,,¢ peoples, when spoken by an orc it has an undeniable sense of nobility to it.  The orcish language is not completely unified â,¬' Imperial Orcish is the language learned by all of the elite matrons (and about half of the male elites), and is the official langauge of governance and prayer.  However, over the vast territories of the empire a number of regional dialects have developed, and some of these dialects at the fringes of the Empire (as, for instance, in Angusalak) are distinct enough to be considered entirely separate languages.
Orc languages operate on a general principle of small, mono- or di-syllabic roots modified by a number of short affixes to produce sense.  This allows a single orcish â,¬Ëwordâ,¬,,¢ to convey a very precise meaning, one that can only be fully replicated by an awkward circumlocution in English (or, for that matter, Ekeusian).
Two curiousities bear mention here:  the first was only recently discovered, as the relationship between humans and orcs transformed from one of overt hostility to one of business.  The system that the orcs use for writing down their language is extremely close in shape and use to the script used by the ancestors of the Andozians in first millennium MP.  Though there are a few different symbols in the Orcish version not present in the Andozian (and vice-versa), and the script as a whole tends to be angular in the Orcish and curvy in the Andozian, the relationship is undeniable, and too great to be mere chance.  The explanation, however, has not yet been found.
Secondly, although the Orcish language sounds quite noble when they speak it amongst themselves, humans, lacking as they do the full weight and resonance of the orcâ,¬,,¢s voice, sound rather childish when they speak Orcish languages.  For this reason, a popular fad among the nobles of South Salabria in the last century or so has been the bestowing of Orcish nicknames on their children, slaves, servants, and pets.  These names are often deliberately mispronounced to make them more â,¬Ëendearingâ,¬,,¢.  The elvish slaves, in particular, loath this practice, although they are without the means to stop it.
Major Religions: Orcs have a fairly simple familial pantheon of animalistic deities, consisting (in crude terminology) of the Great Whale Mother Sea (Gul), the Bear Earth Father (Qitakas), and their two children, the Eagle Sky Daughter (Lua) and the Infernal Walrus Son, Kuldaaq.    These principle deities are supplemented with a number of lesser spirits representing idealized versions of various animals.  Theirs is a very pious culture, and these gods, however primitive their origins, have developed a complicated theology over time.  The orcish religions rely heavily on (non-magical) rituals â,¬' every pious orc must do certain things when she wakes up in the morning, before she eats, before she washes, and so on.  Ritual cleanliness is incredibly important to the orc, as well â,¬' certain foods, actions, and words are strictly forbidden or require atonement and purification after use.
A rite that should be mentioned because of itâ,¬,,¢s political significance is the Ankas, or honey-rite.  Once per nine days (the orcs have a week of nine days), in ritual remembrance of the offering of thanks that Lua first gave to her parents, the pious orc prays over, and then consumes, honey.  Wealthy orcs use pure honey, while poorer ones tend to use diluted mead instead.   Their need for a stable souce of honey and Angusalakâ,¬,,¢s immense wealth in this resouce were one of the primary motivations behind the invasion of that land and enslavement of its people.  Orcs denied this rite are likely to become highly demoralized â,¬' at least one attempted invasion of Salabria in the distant past ended because an army that ran out of honey mutinied.
Adventurers: Orcish adventurers in the Salabrian region are rare.  For the most part, the very orderly orcish colonial society of Angusalak does not smile upon those who shirk their duties to their matriarchs and instead embark on some romanticâ,¬,,¢s crusade.  One form of adventury, however, is condoned and encouraged: bands of orcish mercenaries, formally recognized by Angusalak and paying considerable tithes to that government, frequently find employ in the armies of humans, who recognize the boon which orcsâ,¬,,¢ great strength and intimidating stature bring to their endeavors.  Occasionally, individual members of one of these mercenary bands â,¬Ëgoes rogueâ,¬,,¢ and joins a smaller, more informal adventuring party.
[spoiler=Statistics]

+2 Strength, -2 Wis:  Orcs are massively powerful in their physique, but their will is usually not that strong. *Medium Size *Speed 30 *Thick Skin â,¬' living as they do in a very cold climate, orcs have developed a thick layer of skin to insulate them.  This thick skin provides them 10 points of cold resistance..  It also gives them a 3 point damage reduction versus bludgeoning weapons. (This damage reduction does not stack with bonuses from armor or any other source.) *Orcs are notoriously bold, and gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws versus fear effects *Orc culture values the art of wrestling, and by virtue of both their size and this training orcs receive a +2 racial bonus on grapple checks.

[/spoiler]

Quote from: Kalos MerSo it turns out that there's a post limit on replies to threads.  For that reason, all 14,000 words of my work on Races cannot be accomodated in a single post.

:D Gosh, y'think? :P

Wow, 14,000 words. This is huge. It's gonna take me some time to work my way through this. Expect race-by-race commentary to come in during the coming week.

Quote from: A Note on Half-RacesThe ability of humans to mate with just about any sentient mammalian humanoid is a particular property of their race.  Matings that do not involve one human partner (a gnome and a halfling, for instance) are not capable of producing offspring.
[/ic]

this[/url] page.

I have a feeling we'll get to converse a lot this week.

;) Túrin

I agree with Turin on the cross-breeding thing.

Originally I allowed no interbreeding between species, but then I decided fae were supernatural, and thus could reproduce with mortals.  Different mortal species cannot reproduce together.

But it does depend on how much realism you want.  If you want the more classical feel, then it doesn't matter so much.

I understand where both of you are coming from, but my intent was to make this a 'special power' of humans, if you will.  Namely, the reason that they are the dominant race is because they are particularly fertile.  The main effect of this ability is that when mating amongst each other, they have more children, more often, than other races do (while most races, especially halflings and elves, are producing barely enough young to keep their populations constant, humans are increasing in population exponentially).  

A significant *side-effect* of this, then, is the human 'flexibility', if you will, in fertile pairings.

I know that out-of-date thing.  I am trying to re-do my Igbar maps on AUR before they disintegrate.
And I will reveal somehting to you, since you have something similar with your deities---Almost every setting I have ever run is still extant somewhere on my current Celtrician world, though transformed and normally after whatever destroyed it.  I like where you talk about the creative process you went through as well, and th4e actual foibles and flaw you ran through to get where you are now.

I like some of the cultural notes on  the religions, i.e. the numerology, and the distance from the gods.  Mine are distant after a pact that ended the Age of Legends, called the Accords of Presence, but the effect is the same, to remove them from the playing field.
I like the unusual characteristics of Antios.
I like the deities, but am interested in the format of the churches and the popluarity of worship.

I absolutley love the differentiation of magic use and sources.  I am a crank for needing to have the same type of versimilatude in my peculiar setting, and I love the background work to the magic system.

As to the level of power issue, my systems keep power levels low.  I think the longest running current PC has about 50k EXP (I use a skillbased system, so I cannot translate into levels directly).  SO I prefer to keep my players threatened by everyday events.



I will read more later,

Hm... I suppose I better start revamping this thread to make it more up-to-date...

Anyway, Vreeg, some responses to your comments:
re: churches:  I will be getting to this eventually.  The problem is that of all the churches, only Anarina has a truly unified, international priesthood. (And even she has splinter cults like the Fated who are shunned by the 'legitimate' faithful.)  As far as popularity of worship: my nations written up in the Wizards archive thread include things about the most popular religions on a national basis which should give you some idea.  Those nations are in serious need of updating, of course...

I'm glad you like the magic system, it's one of my favorite parts of New Tasothilos.  It's changed a little in the transportation from d20 to non-d20 (previously, spellcasting was the 'main' way of using magic - now, Willing and Spellcasting both predominate) but the flavor remains the same.

As far as power level:  Well, the system I am designing ensures that 'routine' combat can be dangerous even to those of high levels.  However, while I don't like GMing for a bunch of nascent demigods, I like to have my PCs able to be competent 'experts' in their chosen lines of work.  Obviously, 'level' metaphors are going to breakdown in my classless, levelless system, but the level of play I see being most suited for Tasothilos gaming is about levels 6-9: the PCs are better overall than most folks, but not by an overwhelming amount, and there are still plenty of bigger fish out there.

Here's a question for folks while I'm revamping this thread and grinding my way through the Wanderknights for the other thread - I'm trying to differentiate the physical appearances of the Tasothilos versions of the races a bit from their standard D&D looks.  Any thoughts?

About the churches...I mention it becaue so much work went int these deities, I just had to beliveve they were central.  We don't need universal, unified churches.  I'm curious what the religigious outlook is in a normal town, and a normal city.  And just as curious what part relgion plays in a person;s life, and what worship plays.

Glad to talk system with you as well.  I dumped classes and d20 and started creating my versions when my mess started, so it's pretty extensively playtested.  As it is near and dear to me, how are you going to keep things dangerous yet have progress? (mine's a classless, skillbased system)

I'm really glad your orcs are 'people'.  I have Orcash and Gartier (bugbears) as civilized races that are playable.  I made bugbears smarter than people, just VERY sarcastic and hard to get along with.

I use a lot of sub-race to give a lot of differentiation with my races.  Red Hobyts are actually Hobyts with a strong amount of Klaxik (dwarven) blood,  Hybern Klaxik have Hobyt and Gnome Blood.  the 6 different Omwo~ (elvish) people have very different eye, hair, and even physical makeup.
Dwarves will screw anyone in Celtricia.  The joke is among Omwo~ that one of the main Klaxik greetings can actually be translated as, "I'm wet and lonely".

Re: Orcs:  This is one of the things I'm proudest of where basic setting conceits are concerned.  I wanted orcs to remain a strong 'antagonist' presence in most Tasothilos campaigns, but I wanted them to have a good deal more culture and even some potential sympathy than their typical D&D incarnation as 'monsters'.  That and my recasting of dragons as utterly unique creatures (no color-coding here!) are probably my two favorite alterations to the standard D&D 'bestiary'.

Re: sub-races: I'm more looking for overt physical feature changes than variations in coloration.  Not sure exactly how to proceed.

Re: system: Mine too is classless, level-less, and skill-based.  My system has not been playtested - hell, it's not even completely designed yet.    The basic way it works is this:  characters earn two different kinds of 'improvement points' each session.
The first are experience points, which are spent immediately to improve skills.  (However, players can only improve skills that the player used in the last session, to cut down on the 'I learned to swim better by killing dragons' logical jump that sometimes pops up in D&D.  Skills are purchased on a pyramid scale, much the way they are in Ars Magica.

The second are called Character points.  These are stockpiled and can be spent to buy other kinds of advantages - improvement in primary and secondary ability scores, the Tasothilos equivalent of 'feats', and other goodies like Techniques (specialized ways of using skills - the most numerous types of Techniques are various fighting styles).  Characters are encouraged, however, to keep a few character points in reserve, because they can also spend them 'on the fly' to negate a bout of bad luck when it really counts, or to alter the course of the storyline, within certain parameters.

(Experience points are awarded based on how difficult the challenges the characters face are, and how successfully the characters overcome them. Character points are awarded for good roleplaying and dramatic storytelling.)

Instead of combatants whittling away at their opponents' pool of 'hitpoints' (a pool that gets ever larger as the levels go up) through constant sword blows, combat in Tasothilos consists a lot more of contesting for advantage, high ground, and the like, gradually tiring the opponent and  wearing down his defenses, then killing him with 2-3 (sometimes one, RARELY 4 or more) well placed blows that actually *hit*.  

Characters have two 'secondary attributes' that come into play here: Fatigue points that indicate how long they can keep up strenuous activity without getting tired (combat is the most common situation where they come into play, but not the only one), and 'scratch points', which determine how much actual physical damage a character can take before the combination of shock and pain starts to negatively impact their actions.  Unlike hit points, which can reach triple digits not TOO far into a professional D&D warrior's career, 'scratch points' are usually around 3-5, and even getting a score into the double digits is EXTREMELY rare.  (Fatigue Points are based on a combination of the character's Will and Constitution scores, while Scratch points are based on the character's Constitution score.  Both can be improved by spending Character Points.)  

Characters will survive in Tasothilos far more by their ability to defend themselves and avoid getting hurt than by their ability to actually take phsyical damage.   (This system makes things that are harder to 'defend against', like falling damage, poison, sneak attacks etc FAR more dangerous.)

There is a lot here, so I've not had a chance to read nearly all of what you have to offer, but what I've seen looks pretty interesting so far.

I like your model of "different approaches" to magic, where it's not so much a fundamental change in the power being employed, but rather how the caster chooses to invoke the power. I've experimented with this in my own settings, too.

I also liked how humans had unique abilities and their own unique perspective on the world. Too often (most likely because humans are the most familar), they are sort of the "normal" race, and every other race's characteristics and abilities are described as how they are different from humans, so it's neat that you didn't do that. I think it can be helpful to players trying to create characters of any race, really, to not only be able to read about how their race is unique in that race's description, but to able to look at humans as yet another race with its own unique abilities, rather than a "default."

I've just completed what is a nearly-final version of the map for Tasothilos 3.0.  This version does not include detailed landforms (mountains, rivers, deserts, etc) just the general shape of land/water.  I'm uploading it here in two versions, one world-wide and the other focused on Salabria.  See what you think.

The coastline is subject to slight revision, and I will be working on the particularities of landforms/etc overtime as well.
(//../../e107_files/public/1186498619_3_FT24785_tasothilos1_.jpg) (//../../e107_files/public/1186498619_3_FT24785_tasothilos1.jpg)

(//../../e107_files/public/1186498619_3_FT24785_tasothilos2_.jpg) (//../../e107_files/public/1186498619_3_FT24785_tasothilos2.jpg)

The maps look nice, but there are a couple of factors that are making them not as nice as they could be. First and foremost, I don't think JPG is the best format to use for maps like this. The JPG encoding process destroys the detail, and makes things like finely detailed text hard to read. You should probably use PNG or GIF. Secondly, the black writing is kind of hard to read on the blue ocean background.

One other (small) bit of criticism is that the black detail on the ocean looks good, because it makes it lighter and darker shades of blue, but on the land, it looks a bit strange-- maybe it'd be more natural to use various shades of brown?

Looking at them, I got kind of a feeling of North and South America (though South America is kind of bent in on itself) and one part of West Africa... but that could just be me looking too hard.

I assure you, any relations to North/South America or any other real geographic locations is purely coincidental.  

(Though actually, in Tasothilos 1.0 several islands' shapes were based on real continents / islands.)

As far as your critiques:

I welcome any advice on compressed image file formats, as I know next to nothing about these matters.  I've got the original version (with multiple layers for easier editing) saved in a massive-resolution Paint Shop Pro 8 file (unfortunately, since I no longer live in a dorm, I no longer have free access to Photoshop, though I may download GIMP at some point, I've heard good things.)

I'll definitely take your suggestions about legibility of the writing into consideration in future versions.  Also, you're completely right about the strange effect on the land - I'll separate out the water and only apply the effect there in future versions.

New version of the map, implementing a few of your suggestions.  Later today or tomorrow (depending entirely on how much longer I can stay awake) I will finally update the Organizations thread with not one, but two, major societies of Tasothilos - the College of Arcanists and the Order of Wanderknights.

Still not entirely satisfied with the land effect, but at least now changes in hue have something to do with terrain changes.  It should at least be more legible.


(//../../e107_files/public/1186529008_3_FT24785_tasothilos_.png) (//../../e107_files/public/1186529008_3_FT24785_tasothilos.png)

I. Am. So. Stoked.

I'll wait for the Organizations to put up an meanigful critique , so for now I'll just ask about the scale on the new maps. And I have to say, that while I'm somewhat excited about the new game rules, especially the 'contestation' system (I always like to see new, functioning mechanic sets), it is the 'fluff' of Tasothilos that draws me to it.

One final note for now: You said in the Orc write up that the north of Sakrtskaya is cold and the south more temperate. This seems to be contradicted by the new map itself.

In an earlier version of the Tasothilos 2.0 map, Sakrtskaya was located where the Arjepak forest is now - I can't find the place you're alluding to, but it's possible that this is the source of the error.  I'll go back and edit it later.

I haven't got a concrete scale for this version of the map.  The whole Salabrian area as I conceive it is about the size of Africa, if that gives you any sense of things.

Wow. That's freaking huge.

MMmm... I understand.  Celtricia is over twice the size of earth, encompassing 1,290,000,000 square kilometers, at closest guess.

Wanderknights-
What prevalance does armor have in your world?  A good suit of armor in the Celtrician game system is a huge equalizer, making a decent combatent in chain mail the equal of 2 men in studded leather (a rough equivelvant).  So I don't know how much the armor helps the beginning characters.  I am refering to the resources part of the post, tryng to grasp the context, as well as the incredibly well-done 'preception' paragraph.
[blockquote-Kalos the Unquenchable](Wanderknights sometimes refer to their Master as the Hierophant, when they are emphasizing his religious rather than his martial duties. For simplicity's sake, Master shall be used throughout the remainder of this article.)[/blockquote]What religious duties?  Is this based more on the philopophical underpinnings?
I love the intrinsic entrinings of the philosophical and the religious.  Too often we have a religion with no philosphy on these posts, here is an order that seems to have evolved out of the philosophical view of a religion...which is how it really happens...Kudos here...The vows are excellent as well.

How public is the knowledge of these vows?  All the orders of knighthood in our own history were nominally under the jursidiction of the Pope, and most other members were uner a secular king as well.  Indeed, the Templars themselvesgot hammered when it was clear that they were a law and rule unto themselves, due to thweir money and influence.  So when you tell me they are viewed with distrust to to these vows in some areas, I personally am surprsed that they have been allowed to stay public existance for so long at all.

Speaking of money and power, what means of support and income do the Wanderknights have?  What % have gone on to greater status and founded keps and taken office?  If they cannot take office due to their vows, and they aer not really allied or vouchsafed by any governments, then I doubt there are any real infrastructure...am I right, wrong, or merely drinking?  (not that those are mutually exclusive, mind you...).  On whose territory is the isle of Marotil?  

the squire/knight relationship is incredibly well done, and speaks well to the devotional level of the knighthood.  Most squires in Northern Celtricia get 'loaned' out, with the excuse that it is part of their training, but it is merely useful to the order, normally.  

LordVreeg - in the future, please feel free to discuss organizations in the Salabrian Orders thread.  Or here, doesn't really matter to me.

Armor is quite rare over all in Salabrian warfare - the vast majority of both sides in any conflict are still unarmored peasants with rudimentary weapons and lightly-armored mercenaries (mostly equipped in leather) with somewhat better weapons.  It is for the most part only knights that use chain armor and occasional plate (while breastplates have been used extensively for the past hundred years, but full suits of plate are still very new, only introduced in the last fifteen or so years.

The average full Brother of the Wanderknights is equipped with chain, making them very well protected compared to the average man.  (By comparison, a starting fighter character is probably consigned to leather armor, although they could spend a few character points to give them the starting wealth necessary to get chain).  The Master of the Order, when he enters battle, has a specially made breast plate with a representation of the Order's Wheel on the chest.

A well-trained fighter in chain is easily a match for a small group of unarmored grunts, but a warrior in leather with superior training will still be able to take him down.  Armor greatly complements skill, but cannot replace it.

Though you are correct (and quite flattering ;)) in your assessment of the philosophical aspects of Wanderknight theology, when I refer to the Master's religious duties, it is primarily ritual rather than philosophical duty - although Wanderknight religion has a heavy philosophical basis, it is also in part still a mystery cult, with a number of secret rites over which the master presides.

It is widely known (even among the peasantry, thanks to the stories) that Wanderknights are barred by their religion from settling down or from entering into contracts with secular society, but knowledge of the precise nature of their vows is less widespread.

I'll skip the question of how they manage to continue their existence for a moment and come back to it at the end.

The Wanderknights derive their income from their scattered feudal properties and from occasional gifts made by the grateful.  These feudal properties are for the most part independent, located in the mass of the independent North Salabrian baronies or in the dwindling independent borderlands between the great states, though there are a few within the domains of the various kings and emperors - these baronies are heavily taxed and not particularly productive for the Order's coffers, but they are retained in order to give the Knights a widespread network of safe havens.  A few of these properties have been seized in the past, but the Knights still retain a few of them in Andozia, Philstaros, and even distant Golevka.

'Active' Knights, by the nature of their vows, are forbidden from taking any offices, founding keeps, or most other intricate interactions with mundane society.  'Retired' members occasionally do engage in such activities - a few of the Elders who are not assigned to one of the Order's feudal properties return to a somewhat 'mundane' life - but most choose to stay within the Order's structure.  I don't quite understand you're meaning regarding the infrastructure, though.  Could you rephrase?

The isle of Marotil in earlier days was under the control of Ekeusion.  Even after the Empire fractured, the city retained nominal control of the isle.  After the sack of Ekeusion in 493, the island became independent.

The Knights have not faced a widespread effort to snuff out their existence for a number of reasons.  Firstly, they have a history of nearly 15 centuries behind them now, and they have always been an independent order.  As an organization, they as old or older than many of the governments of the Sea.  The weight of their history gives pause to governments who contemplate moving against them.  For the first five hundred of those years, they were extremely well-regarded as keepers of the peace and defenders.  For a long time after that, they had a good deal of public sympathy because of their heroic sacrifice at the breach in Ekeusion.  It's only really from 1100 on that there has been any significant mistrust or wariness with regards to the Order, and actual accusations really only began around 1300.  (The substantial support they have from the lowest classes also helps a bit.)

Secondly, although the Order goes through occasional phases of highly public, political action, the vast majority of their dealings are done on the local level, and they spend most of their time traveling in secrecy.  Individual Knights might get into legal trouble from time to time, but the Order as a whole tends to keep a low profile - most of the time.

Thirdly, compared the tremendous wealth controlled by the Templars, the Wanderknights are poor, or at least not wealthy.  Therefore, they have never before been considered a tempting target for eradication and looting.  It has thus far made far better for those governments which strongly oppose the Knights to patrol for and persecute those Knights who operate within their country's borders, rather than take it to the source.

[/size]
[ooc]
This is something that's been long overdue.  I've had a fairly complete idea of how the calendar works in Tasothilos for over a year now, but I've never gotten it organized enough to post.  Now, as a part of my recent flurry of activity, here it is for your enjoyment/commentary.[/ooc]

The Ekeusian calendar, designed in 402 YP by the magician Hyla of Zyle,  (and slightly revised in 242 AP by an anonymous priest of Emiome) is the most accurate of all the calendars in use today.  In the modern age, it is employed by most of the human nations of Salabria (only the Ferrundar and Vievnans have a different calendar, and the Vievnan one differs only in name, not in structure), and also by the gnomes, slave-elves, and some of the eastern cities of the dwarves.  The orcs are also familiar with it, though among themselves they use their own calendar system.


First'¦
Second, Minute, Hour and Day
One second of Tasothilos time and one second of earth time are exactly equivalent.  The same is true of the Tasothilos and Earth minute, hour and day.  The Salabrians, however, do not consider the day to begin at midnight, as the modern calendar does.  Instead, each day is considered to begin at dawn, and time runs from dawn to dawn.

The Week
An Ekeusian '˜week', unlike a seven-day Earth '˜week', is only 6 days long.   Unfortunately, unlike the day and the year '" which are fairly constant cross-culturally, the week is a variably defined by non-Salabrian peoples.  The Aisatanimar Elves, for instance, have a nine-day week, while slave-elves and the eastern dwarves both each have different versions of the seven-day week.  Some societies (such as the Taecs and the halflings) have no conception of the '˜week' at all.

The Month
Gregorian '˜months' are variable in length, being somewhere between 28 and 31 days long.  For the Ekeusians, the '˜month' is a fixed period: 25 days, or four weeks and one day.   Though now a static, arbitrary unit, this Ekeusian month is based on an appoximation of the cycle of the Tasothilos moon, which actually takes a little over 24 days to complete.  Some other cultures have different observed values for the '˜month' '" most are based on the lunar cycle and range from 21 to 27 days, though some (like the dwarves) long ago replaced the lunar month with a completely arbitrary division of time.

The Year
An Earth year is very close to 365 days, 6 hours long.  The year in Tasothilos is shorter by slightly over a day '" it is almost exactly 364 days, 3 hours long.  Hyla at the time of her invention was unaware of the '˜extra' three hours, and created a calendar for an exactly 364-day-long year.  This created discrepancies in timekeeping that went unnoticed for over three centuries before being corrected by the Reformer by the introduction of a '˜leap year' every eight years (see '˜The Leap Year' below for details on this reform '" with one small exception mentioned under '˜the Ekeusian Week' below, the rest of the calendar was Hyla's original creation.)

The Invention
Prior to the calendar of Hyla, the Ekeusians used a complicated system of time-telling, involving a solar year and lunar months that were in no way synchronized.  Accurate timekeeping was a very intricate procedure and the official calendar required frequent corrections to account for discrepancies built into the system.
In addition to being a famous magician and spellwriter (she is named one of the last two of the Canonical Spellcasters in the Ekeusian Logomantic Tradition), Hyla of Zyle was a close personal friend to the Emperor Asarteus (reigned 395-401), and was appointed by him to be the first ever Imperial Historian.  Finding the task of constructing a timeline to be nearly impossible using the old time keeping system, Hyla requested and was granted the Emperor's permission to create a new, more organized calendar.  Starting in 397 and working alongside a number of priests and her generation's leading intellectuals, Hyla eventually produced the calendar that, with very slight revision, is still used to this day.
Hyla's primary innovation was to sever the ties binding the '˜month' to the actual lunar cycle.  While the original calendar had resulted in between 15 and 16 months of alternately 24 or 25 days each being fit awkwardly into a 364-day long year, Hyla '˜standardized' the month at 25 days.  At the insistence of her priestly colleagues, she established the 14-month year, with a month named after each of the principal deities of the pantheon (with Onaleus's wife Lia replacing the dark and destructive Alamir).  
(It was also at the urging of the priests that the 14 '˜left over' days (25x14=350) were transformed into the Holy Jubilee, the sacred festival at the start of summer every year.  Hyla's original plan had been to create 14 months of 26 days (14x26=364).
Hyla also formalized the concept of the '˜week' and added it to her calendar.  It had for over a hundred years beforehand been the practice in the city of Ekeusion for craftsmen to labor for five days, and then on the sixth to go to market and sell their wares.  Hyla included this practice into her calendar as the '˜week', and she first gave names to the days.
In 402, after five years of labor, Hyla presented her efforts to Asarteus's successor, Daidymos.  (Asarteus himself had fallen in battle the year before the project was completed.)  The new emperor approved the work and proclaimed the calendar official throughout the Empire.

The Ekeusian Year
The 14 months and the Jubilee of the Ekeusian Year are arranged as follows:

Month Name	Length	Patron Deity	Notes
Eldoma	25 days	Eldon	*First month of the year *1 Eldoma: First Day of Winter
Antoma	25 days	Antios
Maxnoma	25 days	Maxinir
Lioma	25 days	Lia	*17 Lioma: First Day of Sprin
Myroma	25 days	Myria
Roloma	25 days	Rholerex
Xandoma	25 days	Xandos
Jubilee	14 days	All Gods	*8 Jubilee: First Day of Summer *See Below for additional information
Onaloma	25 days	Onaleus
Aloma	25 days	Ali
Emoma	25 days	Emiome
Olkhoma	25 days	Olkhir	*10 Olkhoma: First Day of Autumn
Suphoma	25 days	Suphi
Bimpoma	25 days	Bimpnos
Anroma	25 days	Anarina

(-oma is the Classical Ekeusian word for 'month' '" compare ioma, the word for 'moon', and also the name of the goddess Emiome.)

The Ekeusian Week
When Hyla institutionalized the week as a part of her calendar reforms, she bestowed names on each of the six days.  The first day of the week is named after her patron, Asarteus.  The next day is named after the city of Zyle, Hyla's birthplace.  The last four are named after the four emperors of the founding dynasty, in reverse chronological order.

The week looks like this:

	Name	Notes
1	Asarsten	(>Asarteus, imp. 395-401 YP)
2	Zylsten	(>Zyle, one of the great cities of the Ekeusian era)
3	Silsten	(>Silysos, imp. 99-105 YP) Silysos was a famously bad emperor, and the day that bears his name has long been considered '˜unlucky'.
4	Prosten	(>Prosios, imp. 41-99 YP)
5	Bolysten	(>Bolysteus, imp. 17-41 YP)
6	Andaxten	(>Andaxos, imp. 1-17 YP ) Andaxten was the name given to the old '˜market day', on which craftspeople ceased their labors and instead sold their finished goods, a tradition still frequently observed.

The weeks run on their own cycle throughout the year, out of sync with the larger cycle of months, in much the same way that weeks do in the Gregorian calendar.  For a point of reference, 15 Lioma 1497 '" the day on which the '˜default' Tasothilos campaign starts, is an Asarsten.
In Hyla's original design, the cycle of weeks went on hiatus for Jubilee, and picked up where it left off when Jubilee was over.  This is one of only two changes that the Reformer made to the calendar in 242 '" now the cycle of weeks continues unbroken through Jubilee.  (The other change, of course, is the addition of the Leap Year mechanic to stabilize the calendar.)

The Lunar Month
Still important for some old religious festivals is the timing of the Lunar month '" that is, the interval between Full moons.  The night of the full moon occurs every 24.25 days '" To simplify this, the full moon occurs on the 24th, 48th, 73rd, and 97th day of every 97-day cycle.
In 1497 AP, the following full moons occur:
16 Eldoma, 15 Antoma, 15 Maxnoma, 14 Lioma, 13 Myroma, 12 Roloma, 12 Xandoma, 11 Jubilee, 21 Onaloma, 20 Aloma, 20 Emoma, 19 Olkhoma, 18 Suphoma, 17 Bimpoma, 17 Anroma.
New Moons occur at the midpoint of each lunar cycle, and between these the New and Full moons, the moon waxes and wanes at a constant rate.

Jubilee  
Jubilee will be discussed more fully in a later post on holidays and festivals.  It is a 14-day long festival between 25 Xandoma and 1 Onaloma every year, celebrated (to varying extents) everywhere that the Ekeusian calendar is used and the Ekeusian deities are acknowledged.  (The most extensive festivals occur in the great cities Sanceline and Andozia, though even the most austere Philstarian peasant will take part in the celebration with joy in his heart.)
Each of the 14 days of Jubilee is devoted to one of the great gods, and again Lia takes the place of grim Alamir.  (The order of the days varies very slightly between North and South Salabria '" this will be explained later.)  Though some of the days are serious, reflective, and truly religious in their observance, (Olkhir's Day in particular is famous for it's solemnity), for the most part the Jubilee is an excuse for a number of variously themed, day-long parties, sumptuous feasts and great consumption of wine, particularly among the highest social classes.  In Andozia, Miloa and Sanceline, peasants do no work during the Jubilee, and even in stern Philstaros, the mood is light and work is done only in the mornings.
In both North and South Salabria, the most jubilant day of the festival is the 8th, which is both Onaleus's festal day and the first day of summer.

The Leap Year
When Hyla first designed the calendar, she assumed (as the Ekeusians had for centuries) that the length of the year was exactly 364 days.  In actual fact, however, the year is 364 days and 3 hours long.  This slight discrepancy caused Hyla's calendar to run 1 day fast for every eight years that passed.  (Because the older Ekeusian system was constantly being corrected to artificially synchronize the lunar monthly with the solar yearly calendar, this discrepancy had previously been unknowingly accounted for.)
For centuries, even after the fall of the Empire, Hyla's calendar continued to be used unaltered.  By the middle of the 3rd century AP, the calendar was more than 40 days out-of-sync with reality.  It was than that the Hylan Reformer, whose name is lost, first realized (by consulting various astronomical records) the true length of the Tasothilos year and the reason for the calendar's ever-increasing inaccuracy.
The Reformer, who was a member of the Emiomean faith, shared his realizations with the elders of his church, and at the 2nd Interfaith Council of 242, it was agreed by all the churches that the following three policies would be adopted:
1.  The calendar was completely suspended for the remainder of the year 242 '" to our sensibilities, a very dubious choice, but this was the only method for resynchronization that could be agreed on.  From the last day of the Council (14 Jubilee 242) to 1 Eldoma 243, no record of the date was kept '" instead a '˜countdown' of sorts was maintained.
2.  In order to prevent the calendar from falling out of synchronization again, the institution of the Leap Year was constructed.  Starting with 250, every 8th year was extended by an extra day to compensate for the slight inaccuracy of Hyla's calendar.  This '˜leap day' falls between the last day of Olkhoma and the first of Suphoma, and was officially called Interfaith Day.
3.  A minor alteration, the Reform removed the former '˜hiatus' which had been placed on the weekly cycle during the Jubilee.

The name '˜Interfaith Day' didn't stick, however.  Though the timing of the day is universal, the name and nature of the day varies from country to country.  Like Jubilee, this will be covered more fully later in a post on holidays, but here's a quick summary of how several of the nations celebrate it:

Nation	Name for the Leap Day	Mode of Celebration
Andozia	The Masques	Andozians love masquerades, and this is the one that started them all.  From peasants in rough-carved wooden masks dancing in the fields to nobles with silken masks celebrating in palaces, the Leap Day is celebrated by a tremendous masquerade ball all across the country, with a few peculiar traditions unique to the day.
Akmet	Iyujedet	The gnomes, due to their close relationship with humanity, adopted the Ekeusian calendar.  In Akmet (and often abroad), gnomes use the Leap day as an excuse to gather with their extended families and talk while sharing certain traditional foods.
Sanceline	Gifting Day	In Sanceline, it is customary on the Leap Day to make elaborate and (amongst the nobles) expensive gifts to friends and relatives, and to receive like in kind.
Philstaros	King's Day	For the Philstarians, the Leap Day is a time of special patriotism.
Ekeusion	N/A	Rumor has it that the Philstarian government and the Church of Onaleus are making plans for a tremendous celebration in the old Imperial City during the leap day of the year 1498, the first leap year that the city will celebrate in over a thousand years.
Plaspont	Eldon's Day	Eldon's Day is a celebration in remembrance of the departed dead in Plaspont.

SO'¦ That is the Ekeusian Calendar.  I'm gonna turn in early tonight, but for the curious, here are some of the things you can expect to see in the near future (ie, before September)
* At least three new organizations in the Salabrian Orders thread '" starting with the College of Arcanists.
* Two additional '˜sub-threads' '" one for interesting locations (cities, castles, other places of note), and the other for noted personalities.
* A few miscellaneous items I've been working on, including the first updated nation profile.
* A few notes on the the game system behind the Tasothilos setting

Good stuff, brother Kalos.  Good STUFF, INDEED.
I had to redo my simplified calander a few years ago, as well.  I think yours feels quite real, and the weaving of the historical development makes it more real.
I love your use of the extra days.  The Jubilee is interesting to me.  I'm trying to work the economic side of it.  I saw a 'merchant's guide to medeival Michalmas' once, so I am always seeing holidays from the side of those trying to make money.

What is the Ekeusian name for the 6-day week?  

Historical development's what I'm all about, baby. ;)

On another subject - believe you me, there is *plenty* of economics behind the Jubilee.  I don't mean to be excessively cynical (for once) - there really is a strong religious/spiritual side to the Jubilee, but there is also a ton of very secular celebration - and that secular side provides lots of business for merchants and traders.  That post on holidays is among the 'miscellaneous items I've been working on' that I mentioned above, so you'll definitely be hearing more about the Jubilee in the next couple weeks.

The formal Ekeusian name for the six day week is kangelon,  which is derived from kangos, 'market', giving the meaning something like 'Market Cycle'.  A more common informal name is hinelon, from hin, 'six'.

oh, great word...market cycle...I didn't even know that, and I'm looking for the economic side...all about the jubilee.

I like the calendar. The historic bit is well-written and interesting as always. My only criticism would be that the end result is a bit too close to the Gregorian calendar for my tastes.

On another note, I've read the Wanderknights post and I've got a few things to say about it. I hope to get to that tonight, as I'm not sure when I'll be behind a computer again after, but I've made sure I won't forget about it (which I don't seem to have done when you posted the races, so maybe I'll comment on those in the near future too).

Túrin

I should of course point out that the author who wrote about your namesake used the Gregorian calendar flat-out (the One Ring was destroyed on March 25, for instance.) ;)

But anyway, it is a fair point.  I hope that the calendars of some of the non-Ekeusian peoples will provide you with something a little bit more alien, but the decision to make the length of the year close to the Earth year, and the set-up of the main calendar not TOO unfamiliar, was a carefully made one.

I would be curious to read your take on the Wanderknights, but even moreso to hear your opinions on the races.  Please note, however, that the statistical elements of the races are left over from the d20 incarnation of Tasothilos and are no longer quite accurate (though they give you an idea).

Just in case you've missed it, I've begun to post details of the system underlying Tasothilos over in meta.  The link is here: http://thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?37136

Not much there now - just a Q&A, really.  But it'll grow gradually.