WARNING! LONG POST INCOMING!
A few years ago, some of my friends and I ran through a year long D&D campaign together in weekly sessions. I realize that you must be shocked that I participated in the interminably geeky pastime of playing Dungeons and Dragons, but try to hold it back, I have a point here.
I was the DM (or Dungeon Master, the guy in charge of all the non player things) of the group, and the entire campaign was one I designed from the ground up! I designed an entire world, with its own history and political background. I designed a major, overarching quest for my players to embark on. I spent HOURS each week laying out maps and writing descriptions and dialogue for the people and places my players were likely to encounter.
It was gruelling, it was tedious, and sometimes it was even a pain in my ass, but I did it, in fact; I would do it again. I can tell you that having four people dedicate an entire evening of their lives, EVERY SINGLE WEEK, to exploring a world I had so lovingly crafted was more of an honor than I had ever felt before as a writer. My friends still talk about the awesome stuff that happened during that campaign.
My friends have moved on, now. Schedules have changed, people have moved, D&D has become a good memory for most of us. In short: life got in the way of gaming. I'm okay with that. It's natural and to be expected. I am grateful for the good times we shared and I am VERY grateful that everyone chose to spend so much of our time playing in MY WORLD.
But, I still have all my old notes from that campaign.
And I don't think that world is done with me. There are more stories for this bard to tell. So I will tell them here. Every now and then during this year long creative challenge, I am going to write a story set in that world. I have some good ideas that I am working on now, in fact. But I don't think you would be able to really appreciate them until I lay the groundwork.
So I am going to post below the setting and history document I wrote before that fateful adventure even started. I've done some minor editing: mostly to correct typos and misspellings, but also to include some information that I didn't know was going to be a part of the world until we ran across them during the adventure. I hope you like it!
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Deus Ex Arcanum
A fanmade adventure setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ™ role playing system.
- World Name: Arcana (Pronounced Are-Cahn-Ah)
- Population: 500,000,000 (approx.)
- Prominent Species: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-Orc (called 'Trolls' on this world), Dragon (all other intelligent species in statistical minorites)
- Time Period: Swords and Sorcery / Fantasy Wild West Era
- Technology: Early Wild West Era technology taken to fantastical extremes.
- Politics: See history.
- Deity/s: Any deemed appropriate for setting
- History -
To say that the world of Arcana lived in peace and harmony before The Dragon Wars would be laughably inaccurate. There was always a war going on, between neighboring city-states or indigenous peoples. Someone was always fighting someone else, somewhere. The Elves, occupying the western temperate continent, were content to let magic fill any complex roles in their society. Humans, living in the harsh eastern desert continent, were more inclined towards artifice and technology. This is not to say there were no Human mages or Elven artificers, but they would be a minority among their own kind. The other species made their livings as best they could. The Dwarves built mining installations throughout (and underneath) both continents, and prospered as blacksmiths and weapon makers. Trolls preferred their solitude among the tropical southern island chains, and the Dragons (at least as intelligent as humans) kept to their wyrs.
Then Val'Narj appeared. An Elven priest and cleric, Val'Narj became obsessed with the idea that any technology more advanced than sword and shield were a defilement of his beloved nature. He was a gifted speaker and quickly rose to prominence among the Elves, allowing him to spread his rhetoric far and wide. He amassed an army of followers and traveled to the eastern continent via the southern island chains, preaching his gospel of 'Magic over Machine' to the trolls as he went, and a fair few of the trolls joined him. His message was not greeted as kindly in the eastern city-states as it had been among the Elves or even the trolls. Humans were stubborn and unwilling to turn their backs on their way of life.
Val'Narj, filled with religious fervor made many a passionate speech in many a market square, but he could never convince more than a few Humans to join his cause. In the Elven lands he had been treated as royalty, dining with nobles and high priests, but here among the Humans he was nothing more than a minor distraction. Outraged at what he saw as a deliberate insult he soon began denouncing Humans from his pulpit, calling them enemies of the true way. In his own twisted head Humans became the DE-facto cause of all the rot in the world, and their technology the wellspring of all things evil. He quickly had his followers convinced of the same. Val'Narj and his followers soon returned to the Elven continent, preaching that the Human dependance on technology was the reason the Western continent was a desert wasteland. “Their lands are barren and dead, as are their souls!”
History is not clear on the details of what happened next. Some time later (a few months to a year at most) a horde of heavily armed Elvish soldiers attacked one of the Human coastal settlements on the Eastern (Elven) continent, murdering any Humans they found and burning the entire village to the ground. Led by the now Power-Mad Val'Narj, the army advanced along the coast, razing entire villages that refused to join his new 'Elvish Imperium'. The war was short but brutal, with casualties and refugees numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Soon the entire Eastern continent was at war with itself, a war that ended with the foundation of the 'Worldwide Elvish Imperium'.
The Elvish Imperium was a brutal regime, bent on conquering the entire world and spreading the mantra of 'Magic over Machine' to every living soul. Any being who could not be freed of their 'taint from the infernal technology' was purged from the face of the world. Soon most of the Dwarvish mines in the Eastern continent were closed (at least to the surface) and the Imperium set its sights on the Troll islands. Emissaries of the True Way were sent south, but were unable to persuade the trolls to join an empire where they would become second class citizens. At this time, the Dragons were still untouched by the growing war. They preferred not to involve themselves and nobody was dumb enough to bring an army to the doorstep of a Dragon Wyr.
The war for the Trollish lands was just as short and brutal as the consolidation of the Eastern mainland had been. The Trolls, though great warriors and stronger than any ten Elves put together were quickly overrun by superior numbers and tactics. Within a matter of months the Trolls were brought to heel and their lands were claimed in the name of the Imperium. The trolls became nothing more than forced labor for their new Elvish overlords. All in all it had taken less than two years for the Imperium to conquer the entire Eastern continent as well as the tropical islands in the south that form the major trade route with the West.
During this time the Human city-states on the Western continent came together to form a cohesive response to what was now a clear and present danger posed by the Imperium. The Confederation of Free Peoples was born, and (unlike the Elves and their xenophobia) the Confederation welcomed anyone who was willing to pull their own weight. When the Elves tried to force their way northward into the Western mainland during the next spring, they were repulsed by the allied armies of the Confederation. The humans use of wartime technology (including the then newly invented gunpowder) proved to be an unexpectedly potent counter to the elves fierce magic, and the armies came together in a bloody back-and-forth wherein neither side could gain the advantage. After six days of constant battle, the elves were forced to retreat to the southern islands.
By early fall of that year, several of the Westernmost troll islands were liberated by a Trollish underground resistance (secretly aided by the Dwarves with their quality weapon smiths and the Confederation and its technology) and declared themselves to be an independent nation state allied with the Confederation. Troll refugees and escapees flocked to these islands in droves and they would become a major player in the fighting force that would keep the Elvish armies at bay.
This Stalemate lasted throughout the next winter and into spring, with now Emperor Val'Narj seemingly content to consolidate his holdings. Both the Imperium and the Confederation sent messengers to the Dwarves and the Dragons, trying to bring them into one side or another of the growing war. The Dwarves proved difficult, considering they were not unified under one flag but a loosely allied network of family owned mines, some of which sided with the Elves and others with the Humans, but most of the individual mine owners chose to remain neutral. This was a net positive for the confederation because the neutral Dwarves would still sell and trade weapons to the confederation Army, but the elves rejected anything that came from outside. After some time this balanced out, with the Imperium having a major advantage in natural resources while the Confederation was able to trade for what they needed with the Dwarves.
The Dragons, on the other hand, were much more eager to listen. Though the Dragon Wyrs were no more unified than the Dwarvish mines, they decided to hold a council of the elders to decide what to do. It was at this meeting (now called the Dragon Highlord Council) that the schism took place. Many dragons (as magical beings) were inclined to fight for the Elves and many more (who foresaw the potential for ruin) for the Humans. The High Council was split almost evenly between the Confederates and the Imperials. It wasn't long before age-old grudges between Wyrs popped up. Soon the Dragons were at each others throats and the Great Schism began.
With Dragon Wyrs now taking sides, what had once been a stalemate became a bloody back and forth as entire wings of fighting Dragons fell on settlements and armies of both the Imperium and the Confederation. It soon became apparent, however, that the dragons were more interested in fighting each other than raiding settlements and their involvement in the war became a game of 'deny the other side their Dragons'. By the end of that year, both sides in the war knew they could not count on the Dragon Wyrs (ostensibly allied with them) to take orders.
It took the better part of nine more years for the fighting to slow down, but by then most of the Trollish islands had been the scene of at least one major offensive from both sides, not to mention that all of the Dragon Wyrs in the south had been routed. No formal agreement was signed but both sides seemed to pull back and consolidate their holdings. Aside from the Dragon raids, which no one was even pretending had anything to do with the overall war effort, most of the actual fighting had been done on the islands. So the trolls took the brunt of the casualties, leaving them an endangered species.
By now the Imperium had solidified its power in the east and in the eastern half of the Troll Islands, and the Emperor was seldom seen in public. Many speculated that he had finally gone mad. Meanwhile, the confederation had become a bloated bureaucracy, held together with mountains of red tape. The senate had been taken over by political opportunists who used the wartime economies to line their pockets until they became the wealthiest and most influential people in the west.
After the last decade of outright warfare, the Dragons held another Highlord council meeting. As a result of all the fighting, the once mighty Wyrs in the south had been obliterated, along with most of the Dragon population across the world. It was decided that if things kept going as they were, the Dragons would soon become extinct. Having bled out the most aggressive Wyrs, the remaining Dragons were able to come to a consensus, and all of them, both sides, fled north into the frozen wastes, there to live in solitude until the world was peaceful again. Overnight, the Dragon Forces of both the Confederation and the Imperium abandoned their posts and flew northwards, never to be seen again.
The commanders of both armies (by now disconnected with the policymakers back home) used this as an excuse to call a general ceasefire to rest their weary and depleted troops. Both sides retreated from an unofficial neutral zone near the center of the Troll Islands (where the concentration of Islands was thinnest) and dug in, rebuilding or restocking the now permanent forts and keeps that kept watch along the border zones. Once again, the status quo had been restored. Neither side of the conflict had won, but both had lost plenty.
All of this was nearly two-hundred years ago, the Dragon Wars (as the conflict has become known) are a distant memory or a history lesson for most of the populace. The Confederation and the Imperium have continued to exist in a state of cold war for all of this time, but for most people the war is something over there, down south, not interfering with their daily lives. Coastal settlements in the northern regions have once again begun to spring up, and, by dint of their proximity to the other continent, it is not uncommon to see Elves among the Human cities and vice-verse. These neutral cities are home to hardy ice water fishermen, as well as outcasts and refugees from both sides. These Cities, while nominally allied with one side or the other, prefer not to take part in the political power games of their inland brothers. So (while they still provide supplies to their respective governments) they are considered a no-conflict zone by both sides in the ongoing war.
This Stalemate lasted throughout the next winter and into spring, with now Emperor Val'Narj seemingly content to consolidate his holdings. Both the Imperium and the Confederation sent messengers to the Dwarves and the Dragons, trying to bring them into one side or another of the growing war. The Dwarves proved difficult, considering they were not unified under one flag but a loosely allied network of family owned mines, some of which sided with the Elves and others with the Humans, but most of the individual mine owners chose to remain neutral. This was a net positive for the confederation because the neutral Dwarves would still sell and trade weapons to the confederation Army, but the elves rejected anything that came from outside. After some time this balanced out, with the Imperium having a major advantage in natural resources while the Confederation was able to trade for what they needed with the Dwarves.
The Dragons, on the other hand, were much more eager to listen. Though the Dragon Wyrs were no more unified than the Dwarvish mines, they decided to hold a council of the elders to decide what to do. It was at this meeting (now called the Dragon Highlord Council) that the schism took place. Many dragons (as magical beings) were inclined to fight for the Elves and many more (who foresaw the potential for ruin) for the Humans. The High Council was split almost evenly between the Confederates and the Imperials. It wasn't long before age-old grudges between Wyrs popped up. Soon the Dragons were at each others throats and the Great Schism began.
With Dragon Wyrs now taking sides, what had once been a stalemate became a bloody back and forth as entire wings of fighting Dragons fell on settlements and armies of both the Imperium and the Confederation. It soon became apparent, however, that the dragons were more interested in fighting each other than raiding settlements and their involvement in the war became a game of 'deny the other side their Dragons'. By the end of that year, both sides in the war knew they could not count on the Dragon Wyrs (ostensibly allied with them) to take orders.
It took the better part of nine more years for the fighting to slow down, but by then most of the Trollish islands had been the scene of at least one major offensive from both sides, not to mention that all of the Dragon Wyrs in the south had been routed. No formal agreement was signed but both sides seemed to pull back and consolidate their holdings. Aside from the Dragon raids, which no one was even pretending had anything to do with the overall war effort, most of the actual fighting had been done on the islands. So the trolls took the brunt of the casualties, leaving them an endangered species.
By now the Imperium had solidified its power in the east and in the eastern half of the Troll Islands, and the Emperor was seldom seen in public. Many speculated that he had finally gone mad. Meanwhile, the confederation had become a bloated bureaucracy, held together with mountains of red tape. The senate had been taken over by political opportunists who used the wartime economies to line their pockets until they became the wealthiest and most influential people in the west.
After the last decade of outright warfare, the Dragons held another Highlord council meeting. As a result of all the fighting, the once mighty Wyrs in the south had been obliterated, along with most of the Dragon population across the world. It was decided that if things kept going as they were, the Dragons would soon become extinct. Having bled out the most aggressive Wyrs, the remaining Dragons were able to come to a consensus, and all of them, both sides, fled north into the frozen wastes, there to live in solitude until the world was peaceful again. Overnight, the Dragon Forces of both the Confederation and the Imperium abandoned their posts and flew northwards, never to be seen again.
The commanders of both armies (by now disconnected with the policymakers back home) used this as an excuse to call a general ceasefire to rest their weary and depleted troops. Both sides retreated from an unofficial neutral zone near the center of the Troll Islands (where the concentration of Islands was thinnest) and dug in, rebuilding or restocking the now permanent forts and keeps that kept watch along the border zones. Once again, the status quo had been restored. Neither side of the conflict had won, but both had lost plenty.
All of this was nearly two-hundred years ago, the Dragon Wars (as the conflict has become known) are a distant memory or a history lesson for most of the populace. The Confederation and the Imperium have continued to exist in a state of cold war for all of this time, but for most people the war is something over there, down south, not interfering with their daily lives. Coastal settlements in the northern regions have once again begun to spring up, and, by dint of their proximity to the other continent, it is not uncommon to see Elves among the Human cities and vice-verse. These neutral cities are home to hardy ice water fishermen, as well as outcasts and refugees from both sides. These Cities, while nominally allied with one side or the other, prefer not to take part in the political power games of their inland brothers. So (while they still provide supplies to their respective governments) they are considered a no-conflict zone by both sides in the ongoing war.
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I'm pretty proud of that setting, and of the world that grew around it during the year long campaign that my group played. I'm providing the history and basic setting here for anyone who wants to use it to construct a D&D adventure of their own. Just be sure to give me credit if you do!
Enjoy!
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