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Lore

World Lore

  • Lore Known by all Players
      • Player Characters
          • Player Connections
              • Hey You & Sylvie: Shady deal led to trouble; Sylvie sold Hey You poison ingredients unknowingly flagged as contraband.
              • Sylvie & Draz: Draz confided in her about his friend’s death via a mysterious monster. She now fears that creature’s call.
              • Hey You & Draz: Friendly sneaking competition—who can ambush the ambusher.
              • Jamal & Hey You: Jamal once tracked a sword with a stolen maker’s mark back to Hey You’s illicit workshop.
              • Jamal & Sylvie: Met when he was a boy; she did business with his father before he died.
              • Sylvie & Jamal: Share a love of knitting; helps calm Jamal’s rage.
              • Draz & Syndicate: Interacted with runners through the forest glade. May be his only connection to the outside world.
          • Sylvie Cerridwen
              • Has a crow familiar named Flint.
              • Has a whispering oracle deck.
              • Knits charm-infused items.
              • There was a period where she had lost her magic, and
      • Geography & Settlements
          • Sacred pyres keep settlements safe from darkness; they're failing
          • Blessed branches required to rekindle/maintain pyres
          • Drosven's Gate - party's starting point, pyre went dark
          • Ulmira's Step - giant-founded mountain town, pyre still burning, built into fossilized titan
          • Thistleglass - mentioned western settlement
          • Salthewn - coastal port (Heyou's origin)
          • Settlements are scattered and operate semi-independently
          • Ulmira’s Step

REGION: ULMIRA'S STEP

              • A remote Ridgeborne settlement perched high in the mountains of the Halcyon Domain.
              • Said to be the *first step* of a forgotten pilgrimage once walked in honor of the departed god Ulmira.
              • The lower portions of massive carved stone steps are still visible; upper steps are lost beneath avalanche rubble.
              • A Sacred Pyre burns high in an exposed basalt cistern at the town's center, maintained as a beacon of safety and community.

THE KURAEL

              • The people of Ulmira’s Step call themselves Kurael, meaning “those who endure upon the mountains.”
              • Their primary dialect is Lammat, shaped by the wind and stone of their mountain homes.
              • An older ritual language, Kurethik, is still preserved and used in ceremonies. It predates the Apostasy.
              • Lammat lacks the consonants "p" and "b" entirely.

ANCESTRY TERMS

              • Shargan: The Kurael name for themselves and other mountain-born Giants. Adults typically range from 5 to 10 feet tall, most often 7–9 feet.
              • Lenvar: Humans; means "tide-chasers," referencing their fleeting, migratory nature.
              • Drakenn: Dwarves; means "fire-sleepers," referencing their subterranean life and connection to heat and stone.

THE ASKAVIR

              • A massive raptor-like being, seen in silhouette against the clouds or moon
              • Appears rarely—at most once per month.
              • Its name, Askavir, comes from the Lammat dialect.
              • Rumored to have been the familiar of the Veiled God Tlellic
              • Its presence inspires awe and fear but it rarely attacks the Step directly.

THE TITAN SKELETON

              • At the mountain's base, just outside of Ulmira's Step, near the road to Drosven’s Gate, lies the remains of a massive titan clad in ancient metal armor.
              • The skeleton is semi-buried, with teeth the size of a grown human and bones large enough to walk through.
              • It has been dead since at least the Apostasy; rumors abound.
      • History & Setting
          • ~100 years ago, the gods left.
          • Around the same time, settlements began to craft sacred pyres, lit by blessed branches.
          • Ever since, umbral shadow has threatened all areas not graced by sacred pyres, and horrifying monsters have lurked in the dark.
          • Death has a risk of blighting the soul, sometimes causing the recently deceased to pose a threat to their former community.
          • Region was formerly known as the Halcyon Domain. No one now refers to it as such.
          • There is/was a vast region called Amber Reach, on the western side of the mountains.
          • Recently: something caused the pyre in Drosven’s Gate to spontaneously go out. The cause is unknown, as is whether there is precedent.
          • Age of Titans
              • Predates known history, but there are features that demonstrate that titans must once have been present in the Halcyon Domain.
      • Factions & Communities
          • The Enduring: A term used by the extant communities
          • The Syndicate: criminal organization with Heyou's background, active in multiple cities
          • Pyre-keepers: maintain sacred fires (Sarru)
          • Delvers: relic hunters exploring dangerous ruins
          • Celsian teachers: wandering educators
          • Goblins have their own settlements, do not interact peaceably, generally, with other sentient communities.
      • Other Persons
          • Ygva: witch with a plan, collected 3 blessed branches + Sylvie's heart
          • Kelun: an animate stone vessel, capable of magic
          • Mellon: dead ranger still present as ghost with cat companion Yuki
          • Borek: Syndicate dwarf who knows about Heyou's missing limbs; requested Askavir eggs
      • Magic & Religion
          • Otheidas and the Veiled Gods
              • Ulmira — Pacts, the Alliance between the Earth and the Heavens
              • Tlellic — The Long Night, Predation
              • Kreth — False Visions, Deceit, The Moon
              • Brathis — Feral Survival, Loss of Personhood
              • Mollthain — The Rampart, Sturdy Against All Odds
              • Caranthalis — The Tree of Light, Source of Blessed Branches
              • Ossa — The Wanderer Atop the Peaks
              • Otheidas — The Arrested Cycle of Life and Undeath, Revenants
          • Stone constructs once served as mouthpieces of the gods.
          • Ygva the witch has described the gods as monsters, and seeks to bind them.
          • Aetherweave (wizards) source their magic from the vestiges of the Veiled Gods; Umbral magic is used by witches. Some communities distrust one or the other.
          • Blessed Branches
              • At least one tree source. The cause of their magic is unknown, but their power in keeping the Umbra at bay is indisputed. Required for starting sacred pyres.
  • Lore Known to Sylvie Cerridwen
      • Was originally a Stoneweaver sorcerer from the Stoneheart Peaks.
          • Stoneweaver order was hereditary, focused on earth energies, harmony, attunement, containment.
          • Five weavers were active, responsible for the Confluence Ritual.
              • Kaelen hoped to seek control over the Earth-Heart; Rhys supported him.
              • Sylvie had begun to recognize a power within herself connected to Sister Moon.
              • A cataclysmic magical confrontation between them caused the Sundering of the Stoneheart; destroying the mountain settlement, and blasting the peak of the mountain itself (and, presumably, the Earth-Heart) into the sky to join the moon.
              • Kaelen and Rhys are presumed dead or on the moon, having been blasted into the sky.
              • The other two are presumed dead, lost to the catacylsm.
              • Sylvie’s magic ceased to operate. But she seemed to be able to travel safely while in moonlight.
              • She began to slowly relearn magic, traveling between settlements. Some of the lore related to practices of the old Veiled Gods (Splendor domain), and oddly the practices seemed to work, even in the absence of divine connection.
      • Community was built around an ancient magical nexus.
      • “Sister Moon”: She does not understand what this connection has to do with her, but has her theories.

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  • Lore Known to Draz

The creature from the air that ate your friend? It was horrifying. It is said to have been the pet, or steed, of God-King Othedias, a giant roc, a hundred feet tall. Maybe that was true, once; this creature seemed half-molten, cursed to continue to live.

You know better than to keep open sky above you.

You also have a deep knowledge of some of the monstrous ecology of the region, allowing you to steer your way around the worst horrors in the dark.

  • Lore Known to Heyou
      • Dimmers

Dimmers is a catch-all term for multiple, semi-overlapping groups that are basically stealing the copper wire from the ruins of the Halcyon Domain. Some are taking scarce blessed branches to light their waves into temple and palace ruins for delving; others are more interested in getting a leg up on other survivors.

You've only had direct interactions with two subsets: the group that is interested in reactivating the old stone constructs, and the group that is focused on recycling found and stolen materials.

  • Lore Known to Jamal

Well, I think the notable thing is Jamal's community, they were digging down until they basically pierced through a shell of a boundary, and they saw that there's some massive monster deep in the earth sleeping. And so they now only mine horizontally. They don't go any deeper.

      • Grithmaar Deep does not need a sacred pyre; the umbra somehow doesn’t reach it.