The World is a Supermarket AND ICHALL

One time my father and I had a fairly extensive conversation about how supermarket's in this madcap world of ours compare to civilizations and political structures of the ancient world. Because that's just something we do sometimes.
...
It runs in the family.

Anyway, of late I've kinda revamped my setting. It's basically the same except for all the ways it isn't. The only thing this really means is that the terrible map I drew is now basically defunct.

I'm taking the Supermarket/Civilizations thing and running with it and I came up with this. I will not be listing the Supermarkets themselves because it's barely relevant anyway. But these are the major world powers.

The Ichallesian Empire. They're expansionist and pseudo-Roman but not quite. They're kinda like the British Empire in that whilst they don't hold a whole lot of territory themselves they are a massive military and trading nation and a lot of nations serve them as client states, dependent on the Ichalles for protection. Much of Ichall is very decadent in a Sword and Sorcery kind of way. Gleaming towers rise up like teeth from the wine-dark sea, as the city dreams fitfully 'neath an amber moon and other such clichés.

This is the important thing to remember when I say "this made up civilization is like this actual civilization" it's not exact. The vibe I'm going for is sorta looser and anachronistic, like the pseudo-Roman bit is less like how actual Rome was and more like how a pulp fiction writer in the 30s thought Rome was, the more Arthurian/Charlemagne bits are less about what those times where actually like and more about how a 19th Romanticism thought that time was like. So the Vikings actually have horned helmets. Except they don't, because my Viking equivalents are Hobgoblins and my Hobgoblins just have actual horns.

I digress. The Empire is built around the Seven Cities of the Endless Bay Islands (Ichall - the old capitol, Icharion, Metyr, Ascia, Tarantion - the new capitol, Pelepion - formerly part of Pellix and the Lost City of Manath. Also Vothens, an independent citystate in the North founded by Ichallesian adventurers is close enough in culture it is sometimes counted as the Eighth City)  and from there they've annexed Pellix, are establishing colonies across the North (like in Pryn) where they talk about "civilizing the savage", and Agalus and Espen are dependent on their military for protection. They're less an actual military empire (though some would like to change that) and more a large trade alliance wherein the terms of contract are agreed at spear point. In terms of character the Ichalles are like the British and Roman Empires. They like to present themselves as being conservative, stoic down to earth businessmen, when actually in the background there's a lot of crime, corruption, decadence, opium smoking, industrialised whoring, rampant alcoholism in the working classes (think the Gin Craze) and general vacuous frivolity, with added sword and sorcery blood cults and orgiastic rituals to dark and blasphemous gods.

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE ICHALLESIAN EMPIRE

• The ruling class is mostly made up of sorcerers and magic users, and the Collegium is a semi-criminal faction/"gentleman's club" made up of the magic using nobility to ensure they stay in power and keep magic regulated throughout the empire. 
• Ichallesian politics is fraught and incredibly dangerous, with assassination and flash in the pan civil wars common. It takes either an iron willed tyrant, a political savant or a madman of the worst sought to hold the Emperor's throne for even a year. Needless to say these power hungry individuals have often sought help from a variety of supernatural forces, making Faustian pacts to aid them in their bloody if brief ascents. The marks of these unholy bargains linger across the cities to these days in the form of assorted compacts and superstitions that bind the citizens to this day. Such as:
• In Ichall the Rite of the Lizard and the Snake is observed. If a household sits down to eat a meal in the presence of a lizard, everyone dining must forgo meat for a year and a day. If they fail to abstain from animal flesh for the allocated time, a basilisk will emerge from the household's cistern, inevitably turning the household into stone. Ichall is overrun with the things now, and it is also called the City of Statues because petrified citizens are common sites on street corners and in back alleys. Specially bread blind mongooses are used to keep the basilisk numbers down.
• In Ascia it is said the wind demons will bring misfortune on those who do not carry their symbol, and as such all citizens wear bird-feathers, typically braided into their hair, to ward off bad luck. 
• In Metyr cats are forbidden and killed on sight. As is anyone who is thought to have brought a cat into the city. No one knows why the Metyrians fear cats so. They do not speak of it. 
• In Icharion the ground breaking of any given construction project must be done in the shadow of a virgin girl, lest the building collapse. 
• Across all cities it is said that to enter a house with the left foot first is to bring doom upon it.  
• Despite the lethal political climate of the Empire the current Emperor Rathari Malicild has managed to keep power for 45 years now, having killed every man sent to murder him, often with his own hands. He rules as a tyrant and heads up a very conservative faction who believes the Empire needs to stamp out internal decadence, immorality and general personal freedom so they, as a nation, can get down to the business of militarising properly and making everything that isn't Ichallesian Ichallesian. 
• Within the Empire the church of Athros has managed to gain significant power by backing the conservative factions. For nearly a hundred years now this influence has allowed the Athrosian clergy to elevate themselves above other cults and make claims like "Athros is the greatest god", "it is wrong to hold other gods before Athros" and even "Athros is the only True God". Whether or not any of this is true is immaterial, as these ideas are now accepted by a majority of the Empire's citizens, including the Emperor himself. 
• This has lead to the Emperor levying increasing restrictions against the cults and churches of other deities, both at home and in the provinces, particularly those seem as centres of immorality and ill repute. Recently this has climaxed with the full scale outlawing of the worship of VoraMyr, effectively declaring the popular androgynous Double God false. A lot of people where unhappy, both on religious grounds and as the outright outlawing of an entire faith as a violation of personal freedom. 
• This is the reason the capitol has moved from Ichall to Tarantion in the last decade. Ichall has become a warzone of revolutionary activity, eating itself in a wave of criminality and violence. 
• The Endless Bay Islands are bad country for horses. The countryside is either thick semi-tropical forest (most grain is imported and the farmers have a nomadic, slash and burn system) and rocky scrubland. Whilst there are horses bread in Ichall (one mad Emperor was a horse-fancier, in a disturbingly accurate sense. He imported a herd of piebald horses from Ichall for his... ahem... "personal" use, and their descendants roam semi-wild in the vast Serpentine Park at the cities centre) there is no real equestrian culture, and the military typically relies on auxilaries and mercenary troops for cavalry. What they do have, however, are these: 

Called "alce" or "keythongs", because they sound more fantasy then phorusrhacos, they are used as chariot animals, and breed with as much care as racehorses. Speaking of horses, they're terrified of them keythongs, because they eat them. Though chariots are now obsolete the world over, the tactical use of war-alce have proved effective at disrupting enemy cavalry. Fortunately for the Northern nations who depend on the horse, they are flimsy birds who don't do well in cold climates and even less well at sea. The Ichallesian army uses the feathers from these creatures in their helmet plumes to determine rank.

• The Ichalles have a patronymic naming system, wherein the surname is the father's first name with the added suffix -cild. To make things simpler many families only use a few names, cycling through the generations. 
• The Ichalles also consider trousers to be barbaric and effete. Typical dress for an Ichalles is a white tunic of varying length and cut, decorated with geometric black shapes.
• The Ichalles also have a great fondness for black and white as a motif and it features heavily in their artwork, fashion and society. The national standard is a giant black and white basilisk curling around a burning tower, and the Imperial standard is a black tiger with white stripes, now extinct. The skin of one serves as the Emperor's official cloak. 
• It is thought that the Seven Cities were once Hobgoblin in origin, which would explain the Hobgoblin nations particularly fierce hatred for the Ichalles. It burns even fiercer then the hatred they have for everyone else. This would explain a lot, as many parallels can be drawn between the ways Ichallesian and Hobgoblin politics, military and society are ordered. However, neither the Ichallesians nor the Hobgoblins admit to having founded the Seven Cities, suggesting that perhaps something older is at work. 

I might stop here. This is getting pretty long and I've already accidentally deleted it all twice, so I'll get it up and carry on with the other nations later. Cool? Cool. 

Dwarves

I'm gonna ramble about dwarves for a while okay? Okay.

Things we know about dwarves from literally everyfuckingthing ever. Dwarves never change. TV Tropes said so.

Google image dwarf.

First hit.

You could pretty much stop right there. Beard. Axe. Short guy. Pipe and/or booze. Kinda Viking.

Go a little further you get: lives underground. Miner. Into gold and crafting shit, which goes back to Norse myth. Honour bound, family, duty. Proud. Grudge bearing. Hardy yet gruff. We've done this. Move on.

But I LIKE dwarves. As a short hairy man myself I find a degree of kinship with the trite little bastards.

So this is my take on them. There's a little bit of the Dragon Age in the brain stew creating these dwarves and a little of the Warhammer Dwarfs as well as some crap from Invader Zim, Steampunk miscellanea, perhaps a dash of the trolls from Homestuck. All this filtered through the lens of the man who taught me what the fuck a dwarf was - Mr Terry Pratchett. Discworld rules.

Fuck yeah dwarf bread...

Oh. And actual Norse Mythology.

MY DWARVES. Let's get cooking.

I imagine the typical dwarf to be coming in at around 4 foot 5, with only a few certain exceptions the tallest dwarves coming to like, 5'2", but people will be like "by 'eck yer a biggun!" Talking in a Northern accent is a semi-official rule for playing a dwarf in one of my games. Other then that yeah they tend to be pretty wide set. I think a lot of my dwarves are more likely to be scrawnier looking though. Less bulging muscles and massive beer-bellies, more thin, sinews bodies with a deceptive resilience.

Young dwarves typically have course, dark grey skin which becomes smoother and paler as they age. Very old dwarves are described as being deathly pale and being almost corpselike in appearance.

All dwarves are born with either jet black or snow white hair, although some particularly in the North use a complex process steeped in old Dwarf-Talk (a form of spoken word sorcery blending magic and metalwork) to weave wires of bright metals like copper and gold into their hair and beards, which in time overtake the natural hair and grow as normal hair would.

There are female dwarves. They do not have beards.

Dwarves have pointy ears but not like an elf's pointy ears. Dwarven ears are kinda squarish and tend to stick out a little.

All dwarves speak two languages, some a third. The first language is a kind of trade tongue, if a human thinks they speak dwarvish this is what they are actually speaking. It's like a simplified version of the True Tongue, real dwarvish. Basically it's dwarf-words bastardized until they fit human social concepts. The True Tongue is the actual dwarf language. No one but dwarves speak it. It's a big deal. It's also pretty alien to us. It doesn't have concepts of things like "gender" for example (hur hur hur no female dwarves). Then there's Dwarf-Talk. Dwarf-Talk is the special kind of magic language they use in their crafting, a spoken form of Runecraft. I'm probably going to have to stat this up properly. It's like an artificer/engineer type magic with stuff from the Wizard of Earthsea, dwarf says something in Dwarf-Talk, it's probably going to become a Thing That Happens. Often it is used by grunt workers singing spells into the gear they fashion (Hi Ho...) but also like, for minor curses and wishes which are pretty hit and miss. You might manage to kill a rat with a curse in Dwarf-Talk, but it might take a few months and probably not the rat you wanted to kill. Dwarf-Talk forms the backbone of the social stratification of the dwarven people. The highest caste, the Nobles, all have total mastery over Dwarf-Talk and it's power, and about 10% of the lower-caste dwarves are born with an instinctive understanding of it but not really enough to do any real power, the few that are tend to be persecuted by the Nobles looking to maintain their position.

I think dwarves are pretty much euosocial assuming that word means what I think it means. What I think it means is "like ants, bees and naked mole rats and shit". But that's how their society is organised. There's a social stratification based along a caste system BUT NOT LIKE IN DRAGON AGE because my caste system is more to do with genetics then anything else. It's not a product of sociology but one of dwarven nature. There are physical differences between the castes.

Let's see what Jezirat has to say on the matter:

...

Me referring to Jezirat for things is kinda horribly obnoxious... it's just me writing things down but in a vaguely medievally way SHUT UP BILLY WE'VE DONE IT NOW.

"The dwarven peoples are not born as men are, for men though they made be thought of low or high or otherwise born apart from other men save in exceptional circumstances these places are determined and set only by the law of other men. Instead the dwarf is like the bee or ant, each is born into a position and place according to the will of the King or Queen, who rules the Hold, as best will serve them and the populace.

The lowliest kind, or such as they are considered, is what men call the Kobold or Gnome. They are small in stature, smaller even then other dwarves and often standing no taller than a young child. Likewise they are more diminutive then other dwarves, in general being of narrower frame and limb. Of all dwarves the men are

One end of the scale

most likely to go unbearded which earns them the disdain of their larger kinsmen. Their fingers are long and nimble and skilled at such intricate crafts as trapping, tailory and other such things. Some amongst them possess strange features, such as a tail like that of the rat, or hard growths like pebbles growing on the flesh. Some have short stub-horns such as that of the kid-goat. Their role in the hold is that of the hunters and the gatherers, in general they are responsible for the supply of food. Within the tunnels of the Hold they often hunt bats and similar vermin but more often they live apart from the main Dwarf-home, but instead live in venturing bands hunting larger game and gathering fruits and plants. Often they raid the settlements of men, stealing livestock and crops using much cunning and guile, which earns them the enmity of the surface dwelling peoples. It is said that if they are away from the Hold for too long in time they will go feral as a dog might, and may form savage barbarian raiding bands. The Gnome is the shortest lived of the dwarven castes, perhaps living out no longer then a human might, no longer then a three-score of years. 

Okay... less fey and more Steampunk via Incans and you have some Gnomes/Kobolds... Distressingly good-looking gnomes. If I was like two-feet shorter...

The next casteband of dwarf is the most numerous, the Miner or Worker caste. They are the commoners of the Hold and responsible for the building and expansion of the Hold and the acquisition of the precious metals the dwarves crave, yet most also labour as craftsmen and artisans, gaining much prestige and standing as metalworkers and armourers. They live longer then the Gnomes, perhaps expecting a hundred and then fifty years of life, though some may bear out to see the passage of two centuries. 

 Above them is the Warrior casteband.  They stand a full head higher than any of the Miner Caste, some

standing nearly as tall as a man. They are often possessed of greater strength then other dwarves and many train with arms from a young age. It is their duty to defend the Hold from enemies, though not all are warriors truly. Others make up the court of the King or Queen of the Hold, serving at their side as the lesser gentry serves the Kings of men, administrating the Hold and acting on their behalf. Even as they are larger then other dwarves they are also granted greater longevity, with many surpassing five hundred years of age before death.  

The Greatest and least populous caste is the caste of Kings and Queens elsewise called the Nobles. The Noble Dwarves are the tallest of the Dwarves, standing always as tall as a man or elf. In many ways they are more similar to the race of elves then to their underling dwarves, as they are often tall and slender-limbed and possessed of lives that may span into the millennia and also know the ancient languages that is the source of the strange Dwarven magics. A Dwarf-King may be able to shift his shape or command the raw elements of stone and fire, but his chief power is his ability to give a new "born" dwarf it's name. 

Though the Noble Dwarves reproduce in a manner like that of men and other animals Dwarves of other castes, when they generate, produce not a babe but a stone, no larger than a fist, like that which is called the geode for it is hollow. Such stones are presented before the Dwarf-King or other such Noble of his house who may act on his behalf, whereupon he speaks such words of power over it that the stone cracks as might an egg and from within issues the dwarf-child. Yet the words the Dwarf-King speaks are of great import, for they determine of which caste the child shall be. Most often should all things in the Hold be in balance the King will bring forth a child of the same caste as those who first birthed it, but in times of war may call forth instead many soldiers to serve the Hold, or many of the lowly Kobolds in times of famine." /endselfindulgentwank

Thus thanks to the Dwarf-Kings seemingly essential role as the literal giver of life members of that caste enjoy reverence as god-kings and Pharaohs, and many dwarves are happy with that. They work for their King and follow his will exactly, in return he gives them life.

Course it doesn't always play out like that. With the decline in the old dwarven Empire many lower-caste Speakers of Dwarf-Talk have been able to escape persecution and around them form more egalitarian settlements such as the Republican mining town of Ardun and Mad Moira's Moving Mountain (more on that later) with the handful of dwarves who know the words to bring life serving a role in the community part way between priest and midwife.

In terms of aesthetics I think there's a lot of Steampunk in the dwarves but not like in the typical Victorian way. I imagine more of a cog and clockwork Incan vibe, and they dress in robes and tunics borrowed from Klimt paintings, bold geometric patterns wrought in golden cloth. Perhaps they're somewhere between the classical vikingy dwarf and the crazy Ancient Astronaut's stuff.

Hey, now there's a bunch of different types of dwarf you can be... time for AN ELABORATE FUCKING actually this one is pretty straight forward.

3d6 - Castes

NOTE: No dwarf can become a mage, all dwarves can see in the Dark.

3 - Kobold
You are the size of a halfling and have all the associated size-based rules (no big weapons etc.)
+1 to DEX +1 to CON -1 to STR
+2 to save against Magic
+4 to save against Poison
+1 to Stealth checks
+1 to attempts to Spot and Disarm Traps
20% chance to know Dwarf-Talk (not yet made up)

4-14 - Miner
The standard Dwarf
+1 to CON -1 to CHA
+1 to hit with axes and picks
+1 to damage against goblins and orcs
+1 to Perception checks underground
-2 to hit & -1 to skill checks if in DIRECT sunlight
15% chance to know Dwarf-Talk

15-17 - Soldier
+1 to STR +2 to CON -1 to CHA
+2 to save against Magic and Poison
+1 to hit with axes, hammers and shortswords
+1 to damage against goblins and orcs
+1 to Perception checks underground
10% chance to know Dwarf-Talk

18 - King
IF SOME TIME FROM DATE OF PUBLISHING YOU ARE STILL READING THIS YOU ARE TO TRACK BILLY DOWN AND SLAP HIM IN THE FACE AS PUNISHMENT FOR NOT GETTING OFF HIS ARSE AND STATTING UP THE DWARF-KING WHICH WILL PROBABLY BE A RACE AS CLASS DEAL THAT WOULD ALSO COVER THE USAGE OF THE DWARF-TALK MAGIC. INSTEAD BE SATED WITH THIS RAD PICTURE AND A LITTLE BIT OF CRYPTIC HORSESHIT

"And the High-Kings, the Father's of our Race who slew the giant of many arms that is called Au'Garmir and so clinging to his corpse as maggots, traversed in his corpse from the Peak of Stars and the Underearth That Is Above to the place that is Aldthumbla and there was the People fashioned." 

Skills

This one is mostly for me. 

We're gonna use 2d6 from now on, like, I think Apocalypse World and Monster Heart and stuff.

Everyone modifies their rolls by ability score modifiers. Rogues get the edge because they get skill points as they level up, to spend on skills, and thereby become more skilled at the given skill. So it's kinda a hack of Apocalypse World and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

So, you roll your 2d6. You crunch dem numbers.

If the result is less than 6 you have FAILED sirrah FAILED.

If the result is 7-9 you have succeeded but with some hitch, condition or consequence. Like, say you were having a check for some traps, you get an 8, I get to have a roll to see if you inadvertently set the trap off. Or, like just a general spot-check, you get a 9, so I'll say "you hear voices" or "you see a dark shape in the sky", had you gotten one higher I would say "you hear three voices conversing in what sounds like orcish" or "you see a dark shape in the sky. By its expansive wingspan and distinctive tail it looks like a FRICKEN' DRAGON". So yeah.

Oh! IF YOU TRY AND PICKPOCKET A GUY AND GET A 7 IT'S D20 MINUTES UNTIL THE MARK REALISES HE'S BEEN ROBBED.

But if the result is 10+ it's an unconditional success. Brava!

So let's have some exampley fun.

A fighter is trying to get the drop on a hobgoblin sentry, sneaking up behind him. He has a dexterity of 13 (so +1 to his checks). Cool. But he's still wearing his coat of mail, which is a -3 to a stealth check. He gets a 6, which, thanks to the penalties from his armour become a 4, so he's failed, clattering and clanking all over the place. The hobgoblin sees him. Awkwaaaard.

Had he stripped out of his metal armour beforehand the roll would have been a 7, he is successfully sneaking BUT it's a conditional success, so the hobgoblin gets to make a perception check back, he gets a 5, so he pricks his ears up for a second but then does the ole video game "Probably just a rat" and goes back to dreaming gentle dreams of callipygian hobgoblin women, the penultimate thing to go through his head. The last thing is probably gonna be the fighters axe.

But had our goblinoid friend rolled higher, and gotten a success, he would have grown wise to the fighters presence. The highest roll wins. In the event of a tie dice off. Cool? Cool.

But what if in the same situation everyone's favourite ailurophile alpha-bitch elf Kësa* was doing the sneaky sneak. Well for a start she'd probably just shoot the fucker BUT SHUT UP BILLY. She has a single point in Stealth plus her +2 from her high dexterity for a bonus of +3. Her armour is non-metallic so no worries there. She rolls a 7, totals up for a 10 and the guard doesn't know what's hit him.

So we're gonna try this out. 

*Seriously, take Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls, Arwen and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTwcCVajAc this chick, and blend them  together and you've pretty much got her down.  

Al-Mi'raj

And I'm back.

LINGER NOT ON THE STAT BLOCK

 

Al-Mi’raj

When the scholar and mad priest Jezirat of Kemet first travelled the lands beyond the temple-cities of his homeland he documented many strange and fabulous things in parts of the world so close to the ken of eastern civilization yet so backward and isolated no-one saw fit to keep a record. Exactly what possessed Jezirat to venture into these backwater regions of the world none can say. He was mad.

But nevertheless of all the unusual creatures thought lost to folklore perhaps the most eerie Jezirat came across was what he called Al-Mi’raj. He wrote of it:

“Also in this place [The Isles of Nennyn] their lives an animal that is in form a very large hare or rabbit. However it has yellow fur and its head is stripped of all skin and flesh leaving it bone bare. Its eye sockets possess a deathly and unreal light that’s gaze, I’m told withers crops. Most strange of all however is the creature’s horn. From the centre of its forehead grows a single black and curved horn like that of a goat. The animal moves with great speed and although it takes the shape of a rabbit it takes great joy in flesh and will hunt game larger then itself, using its worrisome horn as a weapon. Upon occasion, as I’m told, one of the creatures will take the life of one of the pygmy Nennish Islanders and eat their flesh. 

Not only for this reason do the Nennish fear and hate the creature, but also because it is said to be a bringer of disease and plague. Whether this is true or not the Nennish treat it as such are quick to summon witches to dispatch the beast as few mortal trappers are willing to make the attempt, believing the beast to be cursed. Having witnessed one first hand attack, dismember and feed upon a kid-goat, I fear they may be right. 

It is further said that if cursed by the animal the only way to lift the curse is to devour a piece of the animals black heart, a dangerous act as if the folklore is true this part is very poisonous.

In truth I am beginning to suspect that these animals are not true creatures but the manifestation of some malign demon or god sent out to bring pestilence and chaos to the world. In many ways they are the ultimate inversion; a the body of a prey animal in a conspicuous tone, the body of a herbivore ingesting flesh and blood, a dead and rotten skull rising from a still living neck…” 

In his native tongue Al-Mi’raj means “The Ladder”. It is unknown exactly why Jezirat of Kemet chose to name the creature so but it is worth remembering he was not dubbed the Mad Priest for nothing. 

For reasons known only to them the native Nennish-halfling folk themselves refer to the sinister creature as the wopletinger.

Al-Mi’raj  (or Wopletinger)

Size:                       Small (3’ long)                                             

Move:                     18”

Armour Class:      14

Hit Dice:                1

Attacks:                 Horn

Damage:                 1d6

Saves:                     8             

                -6 penalties vs. magical attacks 

Al-Mi’raj can bestow quick and minor curses on their enemies with its baleful demon-eyes. Roll d6:

1.         1. -1d6 decrease to a random ability score

2.        2.    -4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, and checks (-2 for skills)

3.     3.   All food tastes like ash. All drink tastes like piss. Saving throw to stomach anything.

4.        4.     You become aware of the horrible true nature of al-mi’raj. Save or you are paralysed immediately with fear and suffer a -8 penalty to your saving throws so shaken up are you for the duration of the curse.

5.        5.    You stink. Sounds silly no? Well you stink so bad people need to make saving throws to be in the same room as you. You stink so bad flies think you’re dead and lay their eggs in you.

6.         6.    Al-Mi’raj has created an empathetic connection with you and when it dies it will try and take up possession of your body. Adventure in of itself.

These curses (except 6) last until the al-mi'raj is slain. 

Kalwen

Let's talk about Kalwen. Oh wait you aren't me and have no fucking idea about the layout of my world. Now look upon an abstract and very shitty map.

Fuck you I'm AWESOME at cartography
NOW KINDA DEFUNCT

So Kalwen borders the Tyborian Kingdoms and is the Not-Wales/Scotland/Ireland/Brittany to Tybor's Not-England/Normandy/Frankish Empire. It's also these things:

...kinds

...Both...

• Salamanders...
•  A touch of Slavic mythology
• Volcanoes
• Skyrim. 
• The Hojo Faction from Total War: Shogun 2. 
• Alchemy GREEK FIRE
• NOT the Fire Nation despite being a nation of people for whom fire is a big deal
• This awesome statue/goddess it represents

 A personal appeal: 

RED - these are your people and you are indirectly responsible for the insomnia that has lead me to be awake at 2:30 and typing this. I think you should do the only decent thing and read all this boring crap for backstory. Backstory and revenge. 

So as a people the Kalwennians are fair skinned, a little short and typically either red or black haired, with dark hair being more prevalent the further west/south-west you get. Some are born with a crazy head of tortoiseshell black and red hair kinda like Rufio from Hook but less 90s. These people are said to be fated for great things, typically becoming great sorcerers or warlords. 

They live in and around a range of mountains called the Nestrafells as you can tell from my fricken' awesome map. It's a fairly secluded place. Behind the Nestrafells are a lot of big open barrenness which eventually turns into Khalad and to the east it's forest owned by the Tyborian kings and probably a bunch of crazy cannibal elves because there's ALWAYS a bunch of crazy cannibal elves. ALWAYS. A lot of the mountains are volcanic, which means two things: the Kalwennians have a bunch of very fertile terrace farms and secondly, fire is a pretty big fucking deal for them. Cos. You know. They live on top of a bunch of it.

It's time for a brief history lesson that literally only I care about but fuck you if I wasn't a deranged nerd I wouldn't be playing this crazy nerd game and writing about it. Consult the World's Best Map. Once the ancestors of the Kalwennians inhabited all that northern part of Tybor above Ainland. Then the Ainish who would go on to become the Tyborians rocked up on their big fucking horses and started killing people. So the proto-Kalwennians ran to the mountains. LEGEND TIME.

But they were not safe in the mountains either, for it was the realm of the great fire-serpents (dragons get called a bunch of shit) who were even more dangerous then the Ainish. And lo there was much strife for the People, because they managed to piss off ancient fire-beasts as well as crazy horse-riding psychopaths. 

Okay I'm gonna try and get more story-teller now. 

The People sought to appease the dragons with offerings. First with their captured enemies and war-slaves, then with their livestock, their cows and sheep, finally they bargained for peace with the blood of their children, and much woe was theirs. 

But among them was a maid named Nia who was the most beautiful woman in the world. For fear of the prying eyes of her many suitors she ventured high up into the mountains to hidden hotsprings to bathe. Yet she was watched by Naidr, Prince of the Dragons, who turned himself into a serpent no longer then a stick and would watch her from the rocks. In time he came to love bright Nia and so went before the elders of her race to ask for her hand.

In the first Naidr came before them as a goatherd, humble but honest and asked for her hand, yet the elders scorned him and turned him away. 

Then Naidr came before them as a young warrior, brave and noble, but without lands nor a place in the world. The elders scorned him again. 

Then Naidr came before them in all his finery and fury, as his true shape, the Great Prince of all the Mountain Dragons and asked for her hand, and the elders where fearful and offered them their fairest daughter without a second thought. 

So Nia was sent off to Naidr's fiery mountain lair, where surely, everyone thought, she would be devoured. But Naidr loved her truly, and wore the shape of a handsome young prince and gave Nia the life of a Princess. His cave all set about with ancient treasure was as fine a palace as any in the world and Nia was waited upon by Naidr's servants the firesprites. In time Nia came to bear Naidr's children, sons and daughters, and Naidr declared that there should be peace between the People and the Mountain-Dragons. Many Mountain Dragons chose husbands and wives from among the people then and had sons and daughters of their own, bold, fierce and proud. And so was the nation of Kalwen born, a nation of dragons and men.

But the men looked upon the dragons and forgot their fear and grew jealous of their power and their treasure hordes. So they hatched a plan. Nia's father called upon his grandchildren and told them each in turn to steal into their father's lair and steal the secret of his fire. In turn each refused to betray their father and in turn each was beaten and threatened until they would say no more until the youngest child, Tori who's tongue was forked, agreed, for she feared her grandfather's heavy hand and so betrayed her father. Tori stole away the secret of Naidr's fire and gave it to the men. 

In time a feud broke out between dragon and man once more, yet this time man had fire of his own, and the dragons were few in number. Many great dragons were slain, and when they died their bodies became as mountains and their blood the fire under the earth. Finally in grief and rage great Naidr was slain. 

And the people of Kalwen looked about and saw there were no dragons left, and Kalwen was but a nation of men who's hubris and greed had destroyed the power they had in their blood-kin. 

And Nia turned to them and said "Look at what you have done now! You have destroyed our hope and now we are all that is left to carry the Fire! We must defend it's secrets now for all time if there is to be any hope left for us!" and then she turned to her daughter Tori who had betrayed her father and doomed her race and said "Now girl who has destroyed us be remade. Let your beauty be unlooked upon and let the corpse of every serpent you have seen slain weigh always on your head." And so Tori's hair became as a nest of writhing snakes, and any who gazed upon her was turned to stone so her beauty would go unsung. 

Then Nia, who was the Mother of the People, Princess of Dragons, stepped into the Fire and was never seen again. 

BLAM. LEGENDS. Got an origin for the medusa in there and everything. In my D&D world I tend to play my legends and myths and being pretty much how they are in our world, fanciful stories based on a few nuggets of truth. But because this is D&D those nuggets tend to be pretty fucking big, what with dragons being an actual thing and all. 

But that's the origin story the Kalwennians believe in and it's a big deal in their culture. The Fire, as mentioned, is a lot of things. Firstly it's a spiritual metaphor for the lifeblood of the land, the energies that bind all life and the inherent dynamism and passion the Kalwennian people are said (by themselves) to possess. It's also what their magic basically revolves around, not just a straight up form of sorcererous fireball shit but also a more subtle form of alchemy involving the use of firesprites (salamanders). This allows them to create a variety of weapons like firebombs, occasionally flung by big ass magonels, as handheld fire siphons that basically blast greek fire everywhere. It's brutal. It also allows them to transmute base metals into gold, which seems like a pretty good deal for them because Kalwen has an awful lot of tin and coal but not much gold. Unfortunately the transmutation process requires some gold to start it off, which they trade with other nations for. Understandably they guard their secret cultural ability to double their wealth fiercely. 

Whilst a general understanding of the ways of the Fire, both the spiritual side and the magical is common to all Kalwennians the actual workings and processes are steeped in mystery the details of which are known only to the priesthood, who are almost professional secret keepers. In practise most Kalwennians make oaths, curses and offerings to Naidr and Nia, spiritual father and mother of their race.

 By and large their society is arranged along the lines of clan and family. It's all connected by bloodties and society isn't all that stratified, just broadly somewhere there's a big man at the top of the pile, who is someones elder brother and someone elses grandfather who gets to be carried around on top the the shield. Kalwen isn't a unified nation, which is a blessing for the Tyborian Kingdoms on the borderlands because otherwise they'd get hammered. There's a lot of bad blood between the clans and a lot of infighting on every scale, from the very small scuffles to full scale warfare. 

Seriously you're posting pictures of fucking terrace farms what is your life?

Typically a clan will be spread across a cluster of walled towns and villages. The people build from stone and turf more often then they do wood. Just outside these walled settlements will be a bunch of terrace farms.

Some larger clans, usually the ones who serve as official benefactors and protectors to the mystery cults that produce all the gold and angry fiery death weapons, build up into larger fortress-cities and become more organised, the head of the clan taking the title of Prince and declaring sovereignty over everyone he can. However so turbulent is the political climate Prince's and well defined princedoms seldom last long. 

The Kalwennians are excellent stone masons and builders given appropriate resources, and their cities are quite beautiful when they aren't being besieged and sacked by one faction or another. I imagine something between Ancient Greece and Incan style buildings. They like hanging baskets with wild flowers in particular and most citizens are possessed of a degree of civic pride unseen in other parts of the world. They literally don't take any of that shit. There's an appropriate receptacle for that shit and we will not tolerate that shit's presence on our good streets thank you sir!

Outside of the realms of clans and princes you get the opportunistic warlords amassing warbands of young warriors, grim mercenary types and unprincipled rogues. These wolfish warlords tend to carve out their own princedoms when they aren't raiding across the border and generally pissing folk off with all their indiscriminate pillaging. 

Unsurpringly Kalwennians like reds and oranges in their clothes, because of the fire thing. They probably wear it to about the same extent the Massai people do. In fact think like a combination of Massai dress and that of the Romano-British/Generic Dark Ages guy. A lot of sheepskin probably as well. 

Sheep, by virtue of being pretty chill about being farmed whilst at the top of a mountain, are common in Kalwen. A man's wealth is probably measured in his flock before it is in gold. There is a strong tradition of sheep rustling that is the cause of many-a blood feud. That and kidnapping of other peoples wives and daughters.

The Kalwennians are a passionate people and are enthusiastic artists, with strong traditions of bardic poetry and song running through the country. Kalwennians are also said to be among the best jewellers in the world, if a little too into draconic iconography. 

How into their dragon iconography are the Kalwens? Let's take a look at a Kalwennian warrior. This guy would be pretty wealthy and powerful, how else would he afford all this neat dragon shit?

His armour is probably imported, but Kalwennians favour scalemail over chain, but your average fighter wears little more then boiled leather. On his head he will wear a helmet that will either be shaped like a dragon or have a statue of a dragon as a crest.

Some really enthusiastic guys wear skirts made of chain serpents.

His shield will be round and probably have a dragon on it, or the boss will be shaped like a dragons head. Or both. Do not be surprised if their gauntlets end in small stylised claws, both for punching... you know... dragons. However, many Kalwennian warriors forgo the shield preferring to fight with a longspear or a glaive in two hands.

The close quaters weapon of the Kalwennian fighter is a single edged curved cutting sword something like the Greek falcata (look it up I've posted enough lame pictures as it is). It's the kind of thing that you use to take limbs off with in a very un-PG-13 way. The hilt is probably dragon shaped. If they don't have a sword they might have a flail with and end shaped like the barbed tip of a dragons tail. They have thus far been unable to figure out a way to make any considerable dragonifications to the spears, but the odd glaive head has been shaped like a jet of flame coming out of a dragons mouth, but this is rarely done twice, as it result in a very heavy and unwieldy weapon and is one of the few times the Kalwennian warrior has tried to put a dragon on a thing only to realise it's dumb and then stopped doing it.

The Kalwennians like most nations in my world carry on the Japanese practise of wearing small banners strapped to the back. Sashimono, wikipedia now tells me. Back banners. Whilst anything particularly audacious is impractical for massed combat some Kalwennian warriors when fighting in duels and honour battles will wear a particularly large double back banner hung about with colourful pennants and streamers. The effect is to get mimic wings. 

Fortunately for every 20 Kalwennian fighters only one is rich and fancy enough to go full-dragon. Most will be lucky if they even have enough wealth and fanciosty to go half-dragon. This is good because whilst one dude dressed like a fucking man-dragon is pretty impressive a whole bunch of them would look dumb and overwrought. 

I think that's it for now. Kalwen. If I think of anything more I shall update once more.