Gazetteer

This short guide provides an overview to the races of Taelgar, magic and religion, and basic geography, places, and history. It is written loosely from the perspective of an educated commoner in the 1740s, by the common reckoning of human scholars, or the 5880s, as the dwarves count the years of the world.

Tip

The world of Taelgar is free of misogyny, racism, homophobia and gender panics. Characters should be men, women, or something else without fear it will limit their opportunities or that villagers will have historically accurate attitudes. It’s a magical place created by the made up gods. Realistic sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism is pointless and unfun.

Taelgar is a world of good and evil, where valiant heroes strive against the forces of darkness, created by evil gods seeking to undo all existence. While there is room in Taelgar for all kinds of stories and many shades of gray, many tales in Taelgar feature unredeemable evil, unambiguous villains, and noble heroes. Taelgar draws inspiration from many sources, especially classic D&D settings, high fantasy, and world history. Magic is rare and powerful, but once was much more common; while Humans dominate much of the world, they live alongside dwarves, halflings, and other sentient species.

Info

This document and the links here contain a huge amount of information, representing years of playing and worldbuilding. While you are welcome to browse whatever you like, nothing in this document or in the links that it contains is required reading to play in Taelgar. The lore of Taelgar grows by the role-playing decisions of its players as much as the world building of its DMs.

Geography and Culture

The known world of Taelgar stretches 2,500 miles from the great city of Chardon in the West, to the shores of Green Sea in the east.

• In the west, the vast Chardonian Empire extends north, east, and south from the imperial capital of Chardon, growing rich and powerful on its magical scholarship and the might of its armies.
• On the outskirts of the Chardonian Empire dwell various scattered northerners, the descendants of the earliest Humans to settle Taelgar.
  • In the forests and foothills on the eastern borders of Chardon, the Deno’qai live in hidden villages, raising pigs and practicing Tanshi Worship, a religion focused on the small gods of the land.
  • On the coast of the Mawakel Peninsula, the seafaring Mawar people have lived symbiotically with the ocean for generations uncounted.
  • Further north, and on the various scattered coastal islands, other people may dwell, but little news reaches even educated commoners to the south and east of these lands.
• The vast forests between the Chardonian Empire and the Sentinel Range once were the home of the elven kingdom of Ainumarya, but since the Great War the once vibrant cities of the elves have largely fallen silent.
• South of Chardon, the Nevos Sea is home to the pirates of Illoria, recently conquered by the Chardonian legions, and now a protectorate of the Chardonian Empire.
• Southeast of Chardon and south of the Sentinel Range, the Dunmari people of Dunmar are split, culturally and politically, between the sedentary farmers on the monsoon-drenched western coast, and the nomadic herders of the arid plains and deserts of central and Eastern Dunmar.
• The dwarven kingdom of Nardith in the Yuvanti Mountains stretches between the Garamjala Desert and the coastal savannahs of Western Dunmar.
• North and east of Dunmar is the Plaguelands, a vast wasteland created by the aftermath of the Great War, where few sentient beings willingly dwell.
• The Sentinel Range stretches more than 2,000 miles from the far north to the plains of Dunmar. The largest and most populous Dwarven Kingdoms of Taelgar lie among and beneath these peaks.
• Along the Western Gulf, east of the Sentinel Range and north of the Plaguelands is the Kingdom of Sembara, a hereditary monarchy on fertile agricultural land, known for its grain and prowess at arms.
• North of Sembara, the city of Tollen on the river Volta sends navies across the Western Gulf, and the powerful trade guilds of Tollen grow rich off the trade routes that crisscross the Green Sea.
• Further north, the cold, rocky, and forested land of Vostok and the islands of Skaerhem are home to the descendants of a proud mariner culture that once dominated the Green Sea.
• Cymea, across the Western Gulf from Sembara, is home to an unruly collection of squabbling city-states, once, but no longer, the dominate maritime power on the Green Sea.

To the east, south, and north, and perhaps even across the Endless Ocean to the west, stranger lands exist in rumor and imagination, but few common folk of northwestern Taelgar have ever met anyone from these distant lands.

History

Long ago, in the ancient days of creation, the gods created sentient beings, first the Elder Folk, and later the Humans, who grew and spread from their ancestral home on the now-lost continent of Hkar. In the aftermath of the cataclysm that destroyed Hkar, human refugees established the city of Drankor, south of what is now Dunmar. From this humble beginning, a great empire grew, based on magic, known as the Drankorian Empire. As the empire grew, it spread its language, religion, and culture across large swaths of Taelgar.

Seven hundred years ago, the Drankorian Empire fell, brought down by a magical plague that even the great wizards of Drankor could not stop. From the ashes of empire arose new realms and cities: Chardon, a center of learning and the great city of the west; Sembara, a powerful monarchy in the east; the kingdom of Dunmar, inhabited by a people of the plains, who migrated from the far away into the empty spaces left by the collapse of Drankor; and many others. But as these realms and others grew, the ancient skeletal dragon-god Cha’mutte was lurking in the north, biding his time and building his army of Hobgoblins and worse.

Two hundred years ago, Cha’mutte tried to overthrow the gods. The Great War, although it led to Cha’mutte’s defeat, left the world changed. A vast crater now lies where mountain passes once carried trade caravans between Sembara and Chardon, and the fertile Istaros river valley is now a choking land of dust and ash, called the Plaguelands. For fifty years or more after the Great War ended, the remains of Cha’mutte’s armies roamed the land. The boundaries of civilization shrank, trade decline, and famine and sorrow spread.

Over the past few generations, though, a new normalcy has come to the land, as the Great War and its aftermath fades from memory. The Chardonian Empire now stretches a thousand miles, built on the backs of the magical secrets of the Great Library. Peace and trade have once again come to Sembara, and the merchants of Tollen and Cymea ply Green Sea once more. The Dunmari thrive behind the divine protections that guard their eastern border from the evils of the Plaguelands. While the frontiers remain dangerous, the world that has emerged from the darkness is one of hope.

Species

While Humans are by far the most numerous sentient species on Taelgar, many other sentient species of diverse culture, appearance, and origin share the world with them.

The oldest sentient species on known as the Elder Folk, created by the influence and action of the divine firstborn of each race, known as the embodied gods. These species have long lifespans and unique connections to their creator gods that set them apart from Humans and other sentient races. The Elder Folk include:

• The elves, the oldest of the Elder Folk, ancient, graceful, and full of magic. The elves have always defended the world from evil, most recently at great cost in lives during the Great War, a sorrow that still lingers for many elves. Elves do not age as other folk do, although many ancient elves grow tired of the mortal world and choose to depart. The elves’ sense of time is defined by the ka, the 160-year cycle of generations stretching back to the first elves to walk the earth.
• The stoneborn, the least numerous of the Elder Folk, living in isolated communes high in the mountains, renowned as masters of craft. While Stoneborn communities occasionally attract students seeking masters, Stoneborn themselves rarely leave their homes. It is said that Stoneborn are truly born of the mountains of their home, and slowly return to stone as they age.
• The lizardfolk, keepers of dreams and prophecy, masters of the realms of spirits, living in scattered groups, large and small, across the world, usually, but not always, near water, and sometimes near Humans. Lizardfolk guide the land to produce sustenance to support their carefully planned communities, spending their time mastering the world of dreams.
• The dwarves, brave and bold, skilled in stonework, craft, and battle, dwelling in vast underground kingdoms beneath the mountains of the world. Keepers of history and tradition, they are dedicated to their clan and their and thuhr, the combination of secret society, craft guild, and religious order that all dwarves join when they reach the age of maturity.
• The halflings, full of song, light of foot, fond of travel and trade, food and stories. The halflings have no homeland, wandering the world instead, always seeking the next path, the next story, and maintaining their communities through a mystical shared memory. Halflings are the most numerous of the Elder Folk, found in all corners of the world, wherever other sentient species have stories to tell and goods to trade.

The most numerous species on Taelgar are the Humans, created by the creator gods themselves and imbued with the Divine Spark, giving their belief the power to create and sustain the incorporeal divinities. Humans have spread through all corners of the world, and numerous diverse human cultures and civilizations exist in Taelgar.

While Humans and the Elder Folk are the most common sentient beings in the cities of Taelgar, many other species inhabit the world. A variety of Fey creatures the Feywild sometimes make a home in Taelgar, temporarily or permanently. The Centaurs, guardians of the natural order of the world, follow their mysterious migrations across the wildlands. Although Kenku infrequently venture from their homelands in the north, these flying bird people are sometimes seen in the cosmopolitan cities of Green Sea.

Rumors exist of orcs, freed from the curse of the evil God of War, making a home for themselves far from the meddling influence of humanity, and even some Goblins, fled from the authoritarian rule of their hobgoblin masters, may be found trying to survive in a world that scorns and pities them in equal measure. Kobolds, the children of Dragons, with a reputation as tricksters, usually make their homes underground. Most people know Hobgoblins as cold-hearted authoritarians with no regard for the gods or morality, but whether this is their fixed destiny is not known with certainty by the scholars of this age.

And rumors of stranger beings persist: small Gnomes, the surface-dwelling distant cousins of dwarves; the Merfolk who rarely emerge from their underwater kingdoms to visit the terrestrial world; and other fantastical beings of myth and legend.

Religion and Divinity

Many diverse deities can be found across the lands of Taelgar. The high gods, Arha and Malik, who created the cosmos and embody the essence of divinity itself, take on many names among the sentient beings of Taelgar, though are rarely worshipped directly, and do not answer prayers or grant divine magic. The embodied gods, created by Arha and Malik, are worshipped as the Firstborn by their sentient creations. The incorporeal gods, given form by the ineffable Divine Spark of humanity, form the basis of the diverse religions of Humans on Taelgar.

Embodied Gods

The direct creations of the Divine, the embodied gods were given physical form by the High Gods, given permanence and consciousness, and the Divine power to create. Not dependent upon belief for their power, the embodied gods created people in their image.

The Firstborn, created by Arha and Malik, gave rise to the Elder Folk:
- Aldanor and Elmerca, the Living Tree and the Wild Star of the elves
- Entamba, the Elder Mountain of the stoneborn
- Hazkunde, Bero, Udazkena, and Negu, known as Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, the four Tharzen Anzinakoa of the lizardfolk
- the Ruler, Runemaster, Priest, Warrior, Traveler, Stoneworker, and Farmer, the seven Bahrazel of the dwarves
- Nwana, called the Stranger-Child, Obito, called the Merchant-Musician, and Jemghari, called the Traveler-Storyteller, the two-faced First Ones of the halflings.

Evil creeps into the world through the children of the Three Despairs, the corrupted divinities of that which seeks to unmake creation:
- Thark, the God of War Without End, who gave rise to the orcs, and through his compulsion drives them to violence for the sake of violence
- Ghesyn, the Goddess of the End, also known as the Hopeless One, the Eater of Souls, and the protector of undeath
- The Endless Chaos
- The Mad One, the embodied avatar of Jinnik, the patron divinity of lycanthropy

Incorporeal Gods

These gods are sustained by the belief of their human worshippers. While they can be very powerful, and have the strength to act in the world itself, their power in Taelgar waxes and wanes with the strength of their worshippers’ belief. The following religions are common in the northwestern corner of Taelgar:

• The Eight Divines, the dominant pantheon of the Drankorian Empire, since spread to many cultures and civilizations that grew out of that Empire. The traditions associated with the worship of the Eight Divines are known, broadly, as Mos Numera, from the Drankorian for the Way of the Divine, although in common usage these worship traditions are usually just called ‘the Way’. The Eight Divines are:
  • The Mother (goddess of birth, fertility, spring, healing, wisdom, associated with the moon)
  • The Father (god of light, order, justice, summer, associated with the sun)
  • The Night Queen (goddess of darkness, death, sleep, winter, associated with the night)
  • The Warlord (god of war, vengeance, smiths, autumn, associated with day)
  • The Sibyl (goddess of magic, knowledge, love, beauty)
  • The Wanderer (god of travel, trade, strangers, and outcasts)
  • The Wyrdling (genderless diety of chaos, luck, fate, storms, and weather)
  • The Wildling (genderless diety of nature and elements)
• The Kestavo, an ancient religion still practiced in some places in the Sembaran highlands, and in Vostok. It is a religion focused around small gods, the spirits of villages, streams, and hills, who are celebrated in their communities. These spirits, the kestavo, bring the prayers of their communities to Ako, the Divine.
• The Five Siblings of the Dunmari, the pantheon of the Dunmari people, brought with them from their distant ancestral homeland during their migration after the fall of Drankor. A family pantheon, with five major divinities:
  • Jeevali, the goddess of life, rebirth, home, and family;
  • Laka, the god of knowledge, agriculture, and the seasons
  • Aagir, the god of war, fire, and death; protector of soldiers
  • Sonkar, the goddess of beauty, truth, artisans, and justice;
  • Chidya, the goddess of nature, the land, animals, and weather; worshiped especially by herders and shepherds and those who live a nomadic life
• Tanshi Worship, focused on the small gods of the Deno’qai, who accept small sacrifices from their worshippers in exchange for carrying prayers
• Kaikkea, the ancient ocean mother, worshipped by the monotheistic mariner people of Skaerhem.