Ancient Lands - E6 setting and variant rules

[Yora]

I've been doing quite some work on several E6 variants for my homebrew setting, and I think it's kind of reaching the point where it justifies it's own homebrew thread.
Some may have seen the "E6 with Generic Classes" and "E6 Leadership variant" threads. Instead of starting a new thread for every issue I want to get peoples oppinions on, I will now put all of it in here.

All the homebrew rules I make are meant to be used in a specific setting and not so much as a "fits everything" approach. So to see what works and what not, people might want to know the background and the circumstances in which these rules will be applied.

So in this post, I will give a basic overview of the core concepts and design goals of the setting. Following that will be a presentation and hopefully discussion of the variant rules used for the setting, and then we'll come to the specific presentation of the world, as I expand on it. I've ben working on this for years and it has all taken a very clear picture by now, but nothing is 100% fixed by this point.

I: The Concept
II: Classes and Variant Rules
III: Races I
IV: Races II
V: Realms of Existence
VI: Spirits, Daemons, and Deities
VII: Game Terms and Concept
VIII: Society, Trade, and Technology

I: The Concept

I first started with the idea of making a setting that includes all the cool things I've seen in other settings. While I now think that this will only have you ending up with a random kitchen sink setting and you have to be more selective, this is still about creating a setting that includes many of the aspects I like in other worlds, and avoiding those that I dislike.
So to give you an idea what I want to hopefully create at the end, here's a short summary of my main inspirations.

Forgotten Realms, The North: Like many people (especially in Germany, it seems) I'm a huge fan of the North. I wouldn't say I'm an FR fan, but the North will only be my first true love of fantasy settings. A slightly scandinavian themed region of huge wilderness, few people, and full of dragons and giants. Making my own improved variant of the North, particularly the High Forest, was the starting point for this whole thing, many years ago now.
The Elder Days: Not the particular time frame in the works of Tolkin, but the idea is about the same. Almost all settings seem to have a past age in which the elves and dwarves were the big players, humans lived in tribal societies like the orcs, forests still covered everything, and dragons and giants were everywhere! But now that time is gone, humans are everywhere and all the other big players of the past are now not much more than decoration at the sides. But wouldn't it be great to have a campaign set during that age? Yes, it would, and that's what I'm going to do here.
Eberron/Planescape: I know, Eberron and Planescapes are at the very top of every list when it comes to unique and very good settings. Trying to get something as great as these two is a highly futile attempt. Still, these two settings clearly stand out from all the others and though I never actually played them or even have much desire to run a campaign with them, I think they are very good examples of what makes settings stand out from the rest. With Eberron, it's clearly the villains. I don't care at all for the five nations, but the Daelkyyr, the Blood of Vol, the Quori, and the Lords of Dust really sell the whole thing to me. Indiana Jones style expeditions to Xen'drik are not my cup of tea, but again I think the distant past of the continent makes for a huge source of inspirations. With Planescape, Sigil is just the perfect embodyment of what I don't want in my setting. But particularly the chaotic outer planes have cought my attention and the Eladrin of Arborea and the Tanar'ri of the Abyss will be my starting point for the entire cosmolgy.
A different approach to gods and spirits: At university I've been taking a lot of classes on buddhism and hinduism, and it really helps you to understand that mythology does not have to based on the concepts of the greek gods. Almost every setting I can think of has these gods that in the terms of D&D are really just extremely powerful outsiders. While there's nothing inherently wrong with such an approach, I really want to see more settings using an animistic concept in which the spirits of nature play a huge part in everything. So this is what I'll do here.
E6: I learned about E6 only much later, but I think it is just perfect for the kind of adventures I have in mind taking place in this new setting. If you (still) don't know about E6, you can look here. Maximum character level for everyone is 6th, so PCs always remain humble people, who are just really good with weapons instead of becomming invincible juggernauts who eat demons for breakfast. Both players and NPCs have to use cunning to be victorious, since you can't rely on your hit points and protective spells to keep you alive in a fight for more than one or two rounds.
Small part Scandinavia, small part Asia, big part something else: I'm not a fan of fantasy counterpart cultures, but you have to start with something. My approach is blending elements of northern european and east asian cultures, without trying to immitate either.
Warcraft, War of the Ancients: This one might stick a bit out here. Yes, the Warcraft setting is full with aspects that I really want to keep out of my work. As it is, it's pretty much the anti-example of what I want to end up with. However, I really like the little bits of story found in Warcraft 3 about the time when the Night Elves first fought the Demons. That would still have been a very high power, very high magic setting, but I still like the images it invokes. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly I like about that setting, but it's always in the back of my mind, when I am working on this setting.
Dragon Age: I came very late to this particular party, but now that I have given the game a chance, I love it. It's not very original overall and the plot is cliched and predictable, but what really sold me are the many ambigous details about the world. In almost all settings, there's a common consensus about the origin of the world, the nature of the gods, angels, and demons, and the fate of the dead. In Dragon Age, different people have very different oppinions about these things, and I completely changes your evaluation of many traditions, events, and relationships, depending on which point of view you take. This is something I definately want to include in my setting. That the game portrays even high level characters as using magic and magic items that would match up quite well with an E6 campaign is a nice additional trait.

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I hope this all helps to get a general idea of what this setting will be about. Starting with the next post, I'll get into the variant rules to the D&D 3.5e system that will make it into this setting. But if you have any questions or ideas regarding the initial concept, feel free to bring it up.

[Yora]

II: E6, Generic Classes, and other variant rules

Now we are getting to the point where things get interesting. It's also the part where actual errors can pop up and you can mistake, so it's the part I apprechiate input the most.

The E6 Variant
I think most people are familiar with this simple but very far reaching variant of the standard 3.5e rules.

Characters level up only to 6th level. After that they gain 1 bonus feat for every additional 5,000 XP.

Very elegant way to drastically change the whole game and rediculously easy to learn and implement. It does however leave some questions open when it comes to races with Level Adjustment and racial Hit Dice. (While the creator of E6 proposed a solution for LA, I don't like it very much myself.)
As a reference for future post, I'll treat "6th level" as 6 HD. So a lizardfolk character (2 racial HD) would gain 4 class levels before getting "epic" bonus feats, and a minotaur (6 racial HD) would get no class levels and go straight to epic bonus feats. This would bar characters with racial HD from getting all the class features from the characters classes, but as I will also use the Generic Classes variant (see below) this is only a problem for spellcasters, which will be adressed when it comes to this class. Warriors and Experts don't have class features, so no loss there.

Customized Generic Classes
I am a fan of classless RPGs, but there are lots of reasons I've picked E6 D&D over them. The Generic Classes variant from Unearthed Arcana attempts to remove traditional classes from the game, but there are lots of issues with that variant as presented that people have pointed out. But I think the idea is salvagable, especially in an E6 capaign. On the basis of the three generic classes I created these customized generic classes for use in my campaign.

Warrior

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Warriors are quite straightforward. They get proficiency with mosts weapons and armor, more hit point, the highest Base Attack Bonus, and a good Fortitude save. They also get one more bonus feat than rogues.

Hit Die: d10.
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), Swim (Str).
Skill Points: 2 + Int modifier (or four times this number at 1st level).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: All simple and martial weapons; light and medium armor; shields (but not tower shields).
Bonus Feats: A warrior gets one bonus feat at 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th level. This can be any feat the character meets the prerequisites for.

Rogue

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Like warriors, rogues are pretty simple. Their greatest advantage is their high number of skill points and the ability to learn any skills and they also get a high Reflex save. They get fewer hit points and one bonus feat less and their BAB is also not as high.

Hit Die: d6.
Class Skills: Choose any twelve skills as class skills, plus Craft and Profession.
Skill Points: 6 + Int modifier (or four times this number at 1st level).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: All simple weapons, one martial weapon; light armor.
Bonus Feats: A rogue gets one bonus feat at 1st, 2nd, and 4th level. This can be any feat the character meets the prerequisites for.

Mage

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Edit, 25.03: Since I want to go for a class with a short spell list of highly versatile spells and drop all other spellcasting for PCs, I decided to go for a psion-based Mage class instead for the sorcerer-based one I used earlier. Psions are considered to be well balanced and gain access to new power levels earlier, which makes multi-classing much more interesting.
The big question here is the primary spellcasting ability and as a class that is very squishy and has few opportunities to gain good magical protection later on, the possibility to pump everything into a single ability score to maximize the effectiveness of spells is so high, that I want to go with two spellcasting ability scores. The number of spells a character can cast per day, and the minimum ability score to cast spells of higher levels is determined by Wisdom. The DC to resist the spell is determined by Intelligence.

Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points: 2 + Int modifier (or four times this number at 1st level).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: One simple weapon; no armor.
Bonus Feats: A mage gets one bonus feat at 1st and 5th level. This can be any feat the character meets the prerequisites for.


Spell Points/Day: A mage’s ability to cast spells is limited by the spell points he has available as given in the table. In addition, he receives bonus spell points per day if he has a high Wisdom score (exactly the same way psions gain bonus PP for high Intelligence).
Spells Known: A mage begins play knowing three mage spells of your choice. Each time he achieves a new level, he unlocks the knowledge of new spells.
Choose the spells known from the mage spell list, or from any lists of spells of secret disciplines known to your character. You cannot choose spells from secret discipline lists your character has not gained access to. A mage can cast any spell that has a spell point cost equal to or lower than his caster level.
The number of times a mage can cast spells in a day is limited only by his daily spell points.
A mage simply knows his spells; they are ingrained in his mind. He does not need to prepare them, though he must get a good night’s sleep each day to regain all his spent spell points.
The Difficulty Class for saving throws against mage spells is 10 + the spell’s level + the mage’s Intelligence modifier.
Maximum Spell Level Known: A mage begins play with the ability to learn 1st-level spells. As he attains higher levels, a mage may gain the ability to master more complex spells.
To learn or cast a spell, a mage must have a Wisdom score of at least 10 + the spell’s level.
Bonus Feats: A mage gains a bonus feat at 1st level and 5th level. At each such opportunity, he can choose a metamagic feat or an item creation feat. The mage must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums.
Metamagic Feats: Mages use the rules for metapsionic feats for their metamagic feats, including the magic focus (psionic focus) mechanic. They can also learn the feats that allow them to regain their focus more easily.

Mage Spell List

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1st Level Spells
Catfall*: Instantly save yourself from a fall.
Charm: Makes one person your friend.
Conceal Thoughts: You conceal your motives.
Crystal Shard: Ranged touch attack for 1d6 points of piercing damage.
Daze: Humanoid creature of 4 HD or less loses next action.
Demoralize: Enemies become shaken.
Detect Magic: You detect the presence of magic.
Fire Ray (Energy Ray (fire)): Deal 1d6 fire damage.
Grease: Makes 10-ft. square or one object slippery.
Grip of Iron: Your iron grip gives +4 bonus on grapple checks.
Hammer: Melee touch attack deals 1d8/round.
Matter Agitation: You heat a creature or object.
Missive: Send a one-way telepathic message to subject.
Read Thoughts: Detect surface thoughts of creatures in range.
Suggestion: Compels subject to follow stated course of action.
Summon Spirit (Astral Construct): Summons a spirit to fight for you.
Thicken Skin*: Gain +1 enhancement bonus to your AC for 10 min./level.

2nd Level Spells
Animal Affinity*: Gain +4 enhancement to one ability.
Body Equilibrium: You can walk on nonsolid surfaces.
Chameleon: Gain +10 enhancement bonus on Hide checks.
Clairvoyant Sense: See and hear a distant location.
Cloud Mind: You erase knowledge of your presence from target’s mind.
Concealing Amorpha: Quasi-real membrane grants you concealment.
Concussion Blast: Deal 1d6 force damage to target.
Darkvision: See 60 ft. in total darkness.
Detect Hostile Intent: You can detect hostile creatures within 30 ft. of you.
Elfsight: Gain low-light vision, +2 bonus on Search and Spot checks, and notice secret doors.
Energy Adaptation, Specified*: Gain resistance 10 against one energy type.
Fire Push (Energy Push (fire)): Deal 2d6 fire damage and knock subject back.
Identify: Learn the properties of a psionic item.
Knock: Opens locked or magically sealed door.
Levitate: Subject moves up and down at your direction.
Magic Lock: Secure a door, chest, or portal.
Swarm of Crystals: Crystal shards are sprayed forth doing 3d4 slashing damage.

3rd Level Spells
Concealing Amorpha, Greater: Quasi-real membrane grants you total concealment.
Dimension Slide: Teleports you very short distance.
Dispel Magic: Cancels psionic powers and effects.
Fire Cone (Energy Cone (fire)): Deal 5d6 fire damage in 60-ft. cone.
Fire Wall (Energy Wall (fire): Create wall of fire.
Fly: You fly at a speed of 60 ft.
Telekinetic Thrust: Hurl objects with the force of your mind.
Touchsight: Your telekinetic field tells you where everything is.

Additional Feats
Both the E6 variant as the Generic Classes work a lot better with the introduction of a few additional feats. Here are the feats that will be included, that are not in the PHB.

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Evasion[General]
Prerequisites: Base Reflex save +3
Benefit: You gain the Evasion ability (as the PHB Rogue class)

Favored Enemy[General]
Benefit: You gain a favored enemy with a +2 bonus to the appropriate rolls (as the PHB Ranger class).
Special: Can be taken multiple times to either increase the bonus against an existant favored enemy to +4 (but not higher) or to gain a new favored enemy at a +2 bonus.

Sneak Attack[General]
Prerequisites: Hide 4 ranks, Move Silently 4 ranks.
Benefit: Sneak Attack +2d6.

Trap Sense[General]
Prerequisites: Search 4 ranks.
Benefit: You gain the trap sense ability (as the PHB rogue class).

Uncanny Dodge[General]
Benefit: You retain your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if you are caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, you still lose your Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.

Wild Empathy[General]
Prerequisites: Handle Animal 4 ranks.
Benefit: You gain the wild empathy ability (as the PHB ranger class).

Expanded Knowledge[General]
Prerequisites: Character level 6th, Caster Level 1st or higher.
Benefit: You gain one additional spell known at any level you can cast from your spell lists.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times.

Expanded Casting[General]
Prerequisites: Character level 6th, Caster Level 1st or higher.
Benefit: You gain one additional spell slot at the highest level you can cast.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times.

Open Minded[General]
Benefit: You gain 5 additional Skill points to spend on any of your skills.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times.

The Mage class is the only real potential course for trouble I see here. I guess with nothing to compare with, it will probably work just fine, but if any of you see any major potentials for improvement, I's really like to hear about it.

[Yora]

Races I

The Ancient Lands are home to six major humanoid races. Humans, elves (and half-elves), gnomes, lizardfolk, kaas, and kidari. Humans, elves, half-elves, and lizardfolk are of the regular variant, while gnomes have been heavily modified to fit into the setting and kaas and kidari are original creations.

Elves

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Along with the lizardfolk, the elves are one of the two big major players in the Ancient Land. Their magical and military power cought up with the retilians centuries ago and might have even surpassed them, as the lizardfolk kingdoms have been in a steady decline for a long time, but elven realms are still standing very strong even in the face of new races leaving their marks on the lands.
Elves stand between 5'6" and short of 6' high with very few variation between male and females and in rare cases live up to 300 years. Most have green eyes and dark brown hair, but shades of blond and red are also not uncommon in more southern lands. The southern jungles and extensive caves below them are populated by dark elves who prefer dusk and dawn to go outside and have dark grey skin and hair ranging from pale blond to silvery white. Elves usually age only slightly slower than humans until they are fully grown around age 30 and then stop almost entirely to visibly age until they again start to show their advanced age well into their 200's. Since elves only rarely grow up along with their siblings and there are usually relatively few children in an elven community at any point, most elves form stronger relationships with lifelong friends than with their own family. While there are certain social obligations towards family members, blood relationship generally plays a far less important role for allegiances than it does in the society of most other races.
Given that elves are found in almost all parts of the Ancient Lands, they are the most numerous race, but this usually is not the case within individual regions where they are often outnumbered by humans, lizardfolk, or kidari. Until recently, most of the major centres of population in this part of the world were predominantly elven. This has slowly started to change with the grows of a handful of human cities, but they still maintain their longstanding position as the most advanced societies of the lands. This dominant position has been maintained mostly through the advantages in engineering and magic, but also to a great deal through the extensive trade networks that provide them with excelent steel from gnomish mines and other valuable resources only available from faraway places. In fact it have been these trade relationships through which humans, kaas, and kidari came into contact with the advanced techniques of forging and agriculture that proved to be the starting points of their civilizations. In the last centuries, the other races have cought up quite well with the elves and lizardfolk but this has not yet changed the fact that most major centres of population and learning are still in elven lands.

Both the northern wood elves and southern dark elves use the standard elf stats.

Lizardfolk

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The lizardfolk are another of the older races of the Ancient Lands and originally were a far greater power with considerably more advanced technology and society than the elves. A fact, of which they do not like to be reminded, as it brings more attention to the fact that most of their kingdoms have been heavily declined since these past times. Several thousands of years ago, the lizardfolk were the first modern race of humanoids that rose from a primitive stone age society when many of their tribes were enslaved as servants to the naga that dwelled in large numbers in the jungles to the south and during that time also in areas much further to the north. In the service of the naga the lizardfolk were tought many highly useful skills, and when the naga kingdoms fell into decline and the lizardfolk were left to their own devices, they still managed to maintain the abandoned cities before falling back into barbarism. Yet the knowledge that was once possessed by their ancestors and kept preserved in many of the ancient ruins gave later generations a huge advantage over the other races and they later became the first true humanoid civilization in the Ancient Lands. But eventually the elves cought up and surpassed them and it seems that most of the remaining lizard kingdoms are merely shadows of their once former greatness. Even more worrysome to most lizard people than the dark elves are the small numbers of naga, that continue to live in the southern jungles to this day and preventing to fall back into their servitute is given priority over anything else by the lizard kings.
Lizardfolk are massive and powerful compared to most other humanoid races and standup to 7 feet tall, even in their usual slumped posture. They are exceptional swimmers and well adapted to the climate of the jungles. While they have a great dislike of cold, some of them occassionally venture into the northern lands, were they easily find work as highly praised mercenaries.

Lizardfolk have the same stats as in the Monster Manual.

Humans

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Humans are the latest addition to the civilized races of the Ancient Lands, that is, unless you want to count the kidari as civilized. The original homelands of the humans lie in the easternmost parts of the Ancient Lands and the great open plains that lie beyond. They were basically unknown in the Ancient Lands until they made contact with elven traders searching for new trade routes and sources of rare and valuable goods. These traders were the first to make the primitive human nomads familiar with forged metal and the basics of agriculture which were gradually adopted and helped pushing the small human societies forward. Humans first became a common sight in the Ancient Lands several centuries ago, when elven lords started to hire human mercenaries as additional troops to fight in their common civil wars. Eventually larger groups of humans traveled eastward for long distances to settle in the large river valley that seperated the temperaete forests in the northern lands from the tropical jungles in the south.
These humans vary in height between 5' and 6' and are slightly broader built than elves, though not considerably stronger. Most humans have black hair and dark eyes, but lighter colors occasionally appear where they mix with local elven populations.
A second group of humans lives very far to the north and is usually considered to not be related to the settled down nomads in the south. They are taller and easily identified by their much lighter hair. These humans have settled the icy and rocky coast of the northern sea and live primarily from fishing and hunting with only very limited options of farming available.

Humans use the same stats as in the PHB.

Half-Elves

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Half-Elves are a rather uncommon sight in most parts of the Ancient Lands, even in areas where humans have founded new homelands close to areas of elven settlement. The noticeable exception is a long stretch of coastal land north of the mouth of the great river that is the centre of human population in the region. Here human mercenaries and their families have been exceptionally well intigrated into elven society to a point that many communities can be regarded as truly half-elven villages and towns. These half-elves usually stand out for their deeply tanned skin and very light hair colors, a combination that is virtually unknown in humans.

Half-Elves use the same stats as in the PHB, but also gain +1 Skill Point per level (as humans).

[Yora]

Races II

The gnomes have gotten a serious makeover for the Ancient Lands. They combine elements of dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, but have a distinct cultural identity from all of them. I chose to stick with the name gnome, but they are partly an original creation, based on these three standard races.
Kaas and kidari are completely new. They take somewhat similar roles to orks and shifters, and to both halflings and goblins, but I think also have their own unique traits.

Gnomes

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One of the older races, but one that has remained mostly hidden from the rest of the world for a very long time, the gnomes rarely make an appearance in records of the long history of the Ancient Lands. However, the impact they had on almost all great events in the last centuries is considerable, even if they are not known for their great armies and mighty heroes. The gnomes are a race of short humanoids native to the rugged hills found far inland from the coast, in the very west of the Ancient Lands, but have also settled the lower reaches and valleys of the greater mountain ranges of the northern lands. Though they are not true underground dwellers and spend a great deal of time out in the open, gnomes usually make their homes in extensive burrows dug into the sides of hills or a few meters under the forest floor. So it comes to no suprise that the gnomes were probably the first people who started to mine for ores in large scale and developed most of the know techniques to create bronzes and steels or to purify mithril and other metals. In fact it was steel and mithril from gnomish mines that led to the creation of the major trade routes that now connect the mostly isolated regions of the Ancient Lands and lead to the rise of the first true cities in a formerly tribal society of mostly independed villages. Gnome villages usually consists of a few hundred people who maintain fields and small herds of livestock on the surface, but have most of their homes and workshops underground. Some villages are almost entirely devoted to mining, with several such minning communities banded together to maintain shared forges and sell their goods to foreign traders. Large scale mining opperations are the exception and found only in a very few places where iron deposits are exceptionally rich. Most gnome villages seem like not much more than a few barns and a couple of doors and chimneys leading inside the hills, but underground there are usually a number of large main passages from which the individual homes divert. Aside from mining gnomes are also known for being herbalists and alchemists, but these occupations don't have such a high impact on trade.
Gnomes are quite short compared to other races, standing between 3'10" to 4'2". They are a bit stocky in built but neither overly muscled or fat and weight about half as much as a human on average. While their short size puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to raw strength, they are known to be exceptionally tough and can take a great deal more hardships then many people twice their size. They also seem to have an innate resistance to magic, but it does not seem to impede their mages in any way. Gnomes have round faces and hair colors range from dark brown to red, with males growing short beards. Some can live for 200 years and more, but it is not very common that one goes for such a long time without falling victim to illnes, accidents, wild beasts, or roaming bandits.

Gnomes represent quite a challenge for this setting as it kobolds, goblins, giants, most exotic weapons, and the speak with animals spell are either very rare or don't exist at all. So a rewrite of this race is neccessary, combining features of gnomes and dwarves.

Gnome Racial Traits

• +2 Constitution, -2 Strength
• Small size (+1 to AC, +1 to attack, +4 to Hide, -4 to Grapple)
• Base land speed 20 ft.
• Low-light vision
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.
• +2 racial bonus to Craft (alchemy) and Listen checks.

Kaas

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The Kaas are a race of tall and strong humanoids native to the northern mountains of the ancient lands. They are similar to humans in proportions but often stand up to 7 feet high and taller. Their bodies are exceptionally strong but most of them appear rather lean instead of bulky. The face of a kaas has some resemblance to wild animals, reminding some people of cougars or other large cats. Their bodies are entirely covered in short but coarse fur ranging from sand to light and medium brown colors, and most have thick manes in darker shades. While they do have small fangs, they are almost never used as weapons and when cought in a fight unarmed they rather rely on their hard fists and powerful arms, and as powerful climbers their kicks can easily shatter knees and ankles.
Kaas are creatures of the mountains through and through. Their long and powerful limbs makes them excelent and suprisingly agile climbers and they often make their homes in places difficult to reach for other creatures. Most people are actually suprised to learn that kaas can live up to 120 years, even though their society consideres elders who can no longer navigate the steep staircases and ladders of kaas dwellings to have reached the natural limit of their lifespans and all nursing they are given is to easy their passing. While others often consider them to be rather primitive or even savage, their culture goes back very far in time and their mountain forts and temples are filled with carvings and paitings of events that date back much further than the records of other people. While their architecture may seem crude when compared to the palaces of lizardfolk and elves, or even the ancient ruins that are found in the wilds, their forts are almost impenetrable and have been home to countless generations.
Kaas are not particularly stupid, but they are creatures of instinct and intuition and tend to make descisions very quickly and deal with all the consequences later. Opportunities are not to be missed in their harsh native environment and those who act quickly often fare much better in the long term than those who consider all the risks and alternative routes. There are not many kaas spellcasters and most of them are shamans who use their powers as healers and to commune with the spirits of the mountains. While somewhat isolationist at times, individual kaas often set out for the wider world where they can often find work as guards or mercenaries, and are welcomed back into their tribes for their tales of distant places and their heroic deeds.

Kaas Racial Traits

• +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 ft.
• Low-light vision
• +2 racial bonus to Climb and Jump checks.
• +2 morale bonus to saves against Fear
• Improved Unarmed Strike: As their bodies are well adapted to a life on jagged mountain sides, they have exceptionally strong arms and legs and can easily shatter bones with their fists. They gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.

Kidari

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The kidari are a race of short humanoids that are mostly found in the higher elevations of the southern jungles and are rightfully considered by members of the other races as primitive and savage. Kidari live in small clans in the jungles and often make their homes in the trees, using mostly wood and to a lesser extend stone and bone in most of their tools and weapons. Bronze objects are rare and usually made from other items found in ruins or traded or stolen from lizardfolk or dark elves, and iron and steel are basically unknown to them. Kidari stand somewhat taller than gnomes, but noticeably shorter than elves and only in very rare cases grew up to 5 feet. The have some resemblance to humanoid ferrets, foxes, or dogs, with long pointed ears and covered in brown fur. They are actually quite smart, but exceptionally daring and reckless, giving them a reputation of being slightly crazy. At home in the branches of large trees, they are amazing climbers and able to run on very narrow surfaces without any problem.
Kidari live only up to 50 years in rare cases and mature faster than most other races. They are found in very large numbers in their native homelands often outnumbering dark elves and lizardfolk, but usually lack the military strength and magical powers to pose a serious threat to them. Some smaller clans can be found in some areas north of their usual home. These clans often have better connections to other races and most kidari that travel the world come from these villages.

Kidari Racial Traits

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 ft.
• Low-light vision
• +4 racial bonus to Balance, Climb, and Jump checks.
• +2 racial bonus to Hide and Move Silently checks.

[Mayhem]

Looks good mate, It's nice to see a world developed around a low magic powered setting.
The gnomes are great, the three small races have always stepped on each other's toes, especially the halflings and gnomes. Your new races are balanced but I think they need something a little more to distinguish them but that might just be me.

I really like your lizard folk, very flavourful. I've even made a lizardfolk racial class on the offchance someone wants to play one.

Racial traits
+2con, -2int
hold breath: Lizardfolk can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to 4x constitution before they risk drowning
+2 jump, swim, and balance checks
+1 nat armour
Class         fort/ref/will           Skills                     Special            			
1hd              0/2/0            (2+int mod)x4        bite 1d4, feat, +2 natural armour

2hd              0/3/0             2+int mod           2 claws 1d3, +3 nat armour, racial skills +4

2hd                -                    -              +5 nat armour, +2 str, 2 claws 1d4

I'm looking forward to seeing your new take on religion.

Cheers,
Mayhem

[Lyndworm]

I really like where this is going. You've done a great job.

I would like to point out that Gnomes, as you have them, are Medium size, not Small (especially considering their stockiness). Four feet is the cut-off for Medium, so I suggest dropping them about a foot in height or giving them Slight Build instead of Small size.

Whatever you choose, however, the fluff is still magnificent.

[Mayhem]

Huh, they really are medium rather than small. Maybe make them 3-4 foot instead? Mind you they're possibly the smallest race in your world, so it probably doesn't really matter anyway.

Also I'd like to see sample names for your races, especially for Kaas and Kidari. Names make them feel a little more alive you know? Racial relations and maybe goals/ambitions/outlook on life would be nice too to help with character building.

[Yora]

I know about the small-size thing, but I think the normal heights for small characters are going a bit too far. I rather compare sizes by body mass than by height. At under 3 feet, halflings are more the size of monkeys than short people. But I guess an average heigt of 4 foot when average human size is 5'8" is still acceptable. That makes them about 70% of human height and given they are heavier built, you still end up with about half the mass of an average human.
Tall gnomes would technically be medium size, but then short dwarves would be small, so let's ignore that.

I wouldn't exactly call the setting Low Magic. While mortal spellcasters have very strong limits in what their magic can do, there are still one or two 2nd or 3rd level spellcastrs in most villages and the world is full with magical creatures and magical natural phenomena. "Low magic" is actually quite right, but it isn't "few magic", there's still quite a lot of it.

[Yora]

Planes and Deities

Despite the title of this post, there are no deities of the traditional D&D type in this setting. However, there are numerous beings that fill the role that deities do in other settings, so I'll present them under that title.
The 3rd Ed. Manual of the Planes was one of my, if not the, first supplement books I got for D&D, and it's still one of my favorites. Probably because it's extremely fluffy and even the crunch in it also elaborates on the fluff. At an earlier point I wanted to use the Great Wheel, then tried to modify and crop it down a bit, until I finally ended up with only 5 planes left. If you're not planning to do a lot of plane walking and having a planar home for each of your 200 deities, you can really do with a lot less planes and concentrating on a small number of well developed aspects is a major part of the design concept for this setting. But still, I used the MotP extensively, and I think it shows.
(I think I split this into two posts. When this one is posted, the second part is still currently being written and will show up shortly.)

The Realms of Existence
The basic layout of the planes is quite simple. You have the Realm of Mortals, which is the usual prime material plane, and the Spiritworld which is kind of a highly magical reflection of the material plane. Third is the Realm of Shadows, which resembles as dark and lifeless reflection of the material plane. Surrounding this core of three planes is the Void Beyond the Realms, which fills the role of the Astral Plane, but also stands in for the Outer Planes and the Far Realm.
A special case is the Underworld, a fifth realm that in terms of the MotP and the DMG would probably be a second layer of the material plane, but more on that in the planes own entry.

The Realm of Mortals
The Realm of Mortals is the material plane of the Ancient Lands setting and mostly follows all the usual conventions. While it seems to most people as the "normal" world, it is however only one half of the world of which the Spiritworld is the other half.
The mortal realm is the the physical half of the world and almost entirely made out of matter. Humanoids and animals are the exception, as they also have a soul or a spirit, which the rest of the mortal realm lacks. All magic actually originates from the Spiritworld (or the Void, but more on that later) and creatures from the mortal realm usually have no natural magical ailities. Mages are the exception here, but even they don't have magical powers as a natural ability of their humanoid nature.
The mortal realm works the same way as our own in almost every other respect. The Ancient Lands are located on a planet slightly smaller than Earth but with a slightly higher percentage of water covering the surface. Travel by sea is an important aspect of life for people in most regions and the arts of shipbuilding and navigation are far more advanced than one would usually expect in a late bronze-age/early iron-age setting. Strong winds blow almost on every point of the world for most of the year, so it's no supprise that the spirits of the wind have a high status in many cultures.

The Spiritworld
The other half of the world is the Spiritworld. Where the mortal realm is the realm of matter and physical objects, the Spiritworld is the realm of life force, spirit energy, and magic. While on first sight the Spiritworld seems not that different from the mortal realm, the environment is mostly spiritual energy given a solid shape. For everything that exists as part of the natural world in the realm of mortals, a spirit counterpart exists in the Spiritworld. They two parts of each pair may not always be in exactly the same shape and trees and mountains may be in a slightly different position in relation to each other in the Spiritworld, but there are always two of each. The exception are humanoids and animals, which have their spirit or soul already residing inside their physical bodies in the mortal realm. Similarly, monstrous humanoids and magical beasts come into existance with a physical body in the Spiritworld and don't have a counterpart in the mortal realm. However, being creatures of the spiritworld, they usually have many magical abilities, just like other spirits do. For most trees or rocks, their counterpart in the Spiritworld will also seem like nothing like a tree or rock. But certain special places and objects have extremely powerful spirits which are known as demigods. Spirits will be described in more detail later on.
The Spiritworld resmelbes the mortal realm in most aspects, but being a world of spiritual energies and natural life force, everything is taller, stronger, and more powerful. Mountains are higher, storms blow stronger and are usually accompanied by heavy lightning, the cold of winter can freeze people solid and in summer the sun can burn unprotected skin within minutes. While it looks amazing at first, the spiritworld is actually very hostile to mortals and only seasoned adventurer survive there for more than a day. Generally speaking, the Spiritworld is even more of an untouched wilderness than the mortal realm already is. The castles of monstrous humanoids and their demigod lords lie just in the middle of the forests or atop the mountains, with no actual towns and cities, or any roads connecting them. Some villages exist, but they are generally small and don't offer much for visitors from the mortal realm. Most of the people are monstrous humanoids like oni, minotaurs, naga, shee (eladrin/half-celestial elves), and aranea.

Special Features of the Spiritworld
Time in the Spiritworld: within the Spiritworld, time seems to flow slower (or faster, depending how you look at it) than in the mortal realm. While one day in the mortal realm equals one day in the Spiritworld, in the Spiritworld it seems to last about twice as long. A day seems to have about 48 hours, but even humanoids don't seem to need more food or rest per day, than they would during a day in the mortal realm. But when they return to their own world, the sun has set and risen no more often than it did in the spiritworld. The effect becomes even stronger when one stays in the spiritworld for longer periods of time. Aging and errosion seems to happen at only one tenth of the normal rate for the mortal realm. People can have left the mortal realm for decades, but when they return they still have aged by only a few years and abandoned ruins in the spiritworld remain in a very good shape for far much longer than they would in the mortal realm.
Magic in the Spiritworld: The spiritworld is the origin of all magical energies and all spells cast there are much more powerful than in the mortal realm. All spells and spell-like abilities cast in the Spiritworld are affected as by the Empower Spell feat without any changes to the required spell slot or casting time.

The Realm of Shadows
The Realm of Shadows is basically a Plane of Shadows, but also with the Ethereal Plane thrown in.
It is a dark place almost entirely made out of shadows and inhabited by only a very few shadow spirits. Few people go there and most do so to make use of it's unusual nature that travel in the Realm of Shadow brings you much faster to your destination than in the mortal realm. However entering the realm of shadow is not easy and travel there is combined with many dangers. But still, there's some trafic in the Realm of Shadow and reportedly even some settlements used as well hidden havens by those who frequently find themselves in this bleak place.

The Underworld
The Underworld resembles the realm of mortals in almost all aspect, except that it lies entirely underground and has no known surface. The underworld is reached by portals found in the deepest caves and oceanig caverns of the world that are usually entirely invisible which makes it almost impossible to tell when one has crossed the border between the two realms. It is an endless system of caves and tunnels, some dry, others flooded, and visited by travelers from the mortal realm even more rarely than the Realm of Shadows. It's the home of aberrations and other stange but powerful creatures like aboleths, krakens, and doppelgangers. These creatures rarely find their way into the mortal realm, but if they do so, it's usually a great deal of trouble for everyone who crosses their way.

The Void Beyond the Realms
In addition to the other Realms of Existnce, there is also a place that lies beyond them, known to most simply as the Void. The void lies even beyond the stars and such concepts as time or distance don't seem to have much of a meaning there. Despite its name, the void is not entirely empty and it has it's own spirits, known as daemons, who often create domains that take the form of small islands of relatively normal environments, though many of them are still thousands of miles across. Some suspect that there are in fact many universes, all of them connected by the Void. This would also explain why the daemons rarely show any interest in the worlds of the Ancient Lands at all. It's just one planet in a single universe among a posibly infinite number, so there's nothing special about it in the eyes of daemons.
Long ago, some mages have discovered that the Spiritworld is not the only source of magical energies, but that the Void also does have a magical essence of its own that also can be tapped into be mortal spellcasters. These mages are known as sorcerers, who are widely mistrusted as their use of the energies of the Void often has unexpected and devastating side effects. Sorcerers are at a particular high risk of getting the attention of a daemon and almost all cases in which daemons entered the world of mortals have been the result of overconfident sorcerers.
The void itself appears to most people who have claimed to see it as an enless space of many colored starts and clouds of silvery mist at impossibly far distances from their point of view. Mortals appear to remain in theie physical forms, but this is mostly an illusion created by minds that can not comprehend a reality in which shape and location doesn't have any meaning. The domains of the daemon lords can take almost any shape imaginable, some creating some sense of familiarity, but most more bizare than the one before it. Still, they mostly seem to follow most laws of nature as in the Realm of Mortals, so they are slightly less disorientating than the open Void.

[Yora]

Planes and Deities II

The term spirits is used in a variety of different meanings. In its general sense, it basically means all creatures that don't have an actual physical form and are born from the energies of their home planes. This includes nature spirits found in the Spiritworld, but also shadow spirits and daemons. In a more specific sense, spirit refers to creatures native to the Spiritworld. this also includes nature spirits, but also monstrous humanoids and magical beasts. In most cases, the word spirits is used in this later sense, with the spirits of the Void almost always being refered to as daemons.

Spirits

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Nature Spirits
The Spiritworld is a world of spiritual essence, life force, natural energies, magical power, or whatever word you want to use to describe it. Everything that exist in the mortal realm, also has its spiritual counterpart in the Spiritworld, with the aforementioned exceptions of humanoids and animals. Most of these spirits are very minor, basically lacking all kind of awareness or sentience. These are the spirits of grasses, flowers, small stones and other minor objects found all over the world, but also objects made them them like a sword, or even just a spoon. But the bigger an object is and the greater its amount of life force, the more powerful and more aware its spirit becomes. These spirts include the spirits of great trees, lakes, hills, or even entire small valleys. It's these spirits that most people honor and worship as they have the power to protect a village from dangers, but also can destroy an entire community when they are angered. But even these local spirits are often very alien in mind to most people and it's extremely difficult to tell what might anger a spirit and what can be done to please them again. To always stay on the good side of the local spirits, almost every tiny village has at least one shaman who can commune with the spirits and serve as an envoy on behalf of the people. Many of these shamans often form a close and personal bond with the spirits of their home and their apprentices are often trained for many years before they are considred able to take on this huge responsibility. Most spirits think very differently from humanoids and their demands and requests often don't make much sense to most people. This is another reason why most people rarely stray far from their homes, as there's no telling on what spirits domain one might tresspass and it's all too easy to spell doom for oneself and the entire village.
Some spirits take a particularly strong interest in mortals or even the animals that live in their domain and often take a physical form known as nymphs. Many nymphs are the spirits of an old tree, a lake, or a river. Spirits of rocks and mountains are usually of a much more passive disposition and rarely see any need to take physical form. Interacting with nymphs is far more easier to humanoids as they talk using words and gestures. But they are still very alien in mind extremely powerful, and even the most benevolent nymph can be very dangerous if angered by mistake, so most people try to avoid them as much as possible without offending them.

Nature Spirits are outsiders or elementals with the (spirit) subtype.

Lesser Spirits
Not all creatures native to the spiritworld are nature spirits, but also monstrous humanoids and magical beasts. Just like humanoids and animals, they combine a physical body and a spirit in a single form, but also have many magical abilites. The most prominent of these are the shee, the naga, and oni. As natives of the Spiritworld they are still refered to as spirits, or more specifically Lesser Spirits.
The shee are a race of tall humanoids that have some physical resemblance to elves, but are much taller and often have outlandish hair and eye colors and many magical abilities. They are probably the most similar to humanoids among the lesser spirits, but still think in very different ways and not all of them are of a kind nature. The shee have many grand castles and fortresses in the forets and mountains of the Spiritworld and a long time ago even in the world of mortals as well. Some think that they tought the elves magic, but nobody has ever truly been able to verify that. The naga have more resemblance to snakes than to humanoids, but still have two humanoid arms and vaguely humanoid faces. They are the greatest competitor to the shee and mostly found in warmer climates to the south. Much more so than the shee, the naga once had extensive kingdoms and large cities in the southern parts of the Ancient Lands, where they enslaves the primitive lizardfolk tribes and laid the first foundation for humanoid civilizations. Since then most of their kingdoms in the mortal realm have fallen into ruin, but in the Spiritworld they are still found in much greater numbers and maintain to be a strong opponent of the neighboring shee domains. The oni have never build any great kingdoms or cities, but they are one of the races most frequently found in the mortal realm. They often make their homes in areas where shifting between the two realms is particularly easy and as a result are often regarded as the keeper of gates to the spiritworld or as a personification of the Spiritworlds danger in many places. Oni are tall huamnoids that range from gaunt to heavily muscled, but always appear both savage and cunning and possess remarkable strength. Some are bandits than prey on anyone traveling remote roads, while others are much more friendly and sometimes even become friends and allies with the people of villages close to their homes. But even under the best circumstances they are wild easy to anger and seen as representatives of the Spiritworld, a place that mortals should stay as far away from as possible.

Lesser Spirits are monstrous humanoids or magical beasts with the (spirit) subtype.

True Deities and Demigods

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True Deities
While the people of the Ancient Lands are mostly animistic, there does exist a small number of spirits often regarded as gods. Which gods are known to a culture varries between places, but it always comes down to about six deities that always share the same basic traits. These true deities are the most powerful of the nature spirits and represents aspects of the world far larger than any others. As a result they barely take any notice of mortal beings at all and they don't provide any guidance or assiatance.
The six gods known to the people of the Ancient Lands are the Sun, the Moon, the Ocean, the Earth, the many spirits of the Sky, and a mysterious being often simply called the Dark or something in this respect. People who worship these gods usually do so as a representation of certain aspects of life and philosophies, and as an example for what their believes stand for. In many cases, these religions have a more direct connection to lesser spirits that are regarded as part of the greater deity. For example worshippers of the earth often focus their veneration on a single mountain or ancient tree, aknowledging the fact that a mountain or tree has it's own spirit, but are also part of the spirit of an entire mountain range or forest, and by that of the whole earth itself. The individual spirits often do respond to the pleas of the worshippers and are regarded as emmesaries, though not as the deity itself. These religions are not uncommon, but most people focus their veneration on the local spirits of their home, prefering a more direct relationship with a being that cares for their individual persons.

Demigods

Demigods can most easily be described as extremely powerful nymphs. They are among the most powerful spirits of the land but also take physical form to directly interact with the creatures living in their domains instead of remaining a silent observer. They spend most of the time in the spiritworld, but can shift into the mortal realm at any time they desire. While their physical form can be destroyed, they are still spirits and for as long as their true form in both the realms of spirits and mortals remain, they are immortal. Demigods that allow mortals to make their homes within their domains are almost always worshiped as the primary deity of the communities. They are extremely powerful protectors, but gaining their trust is very difficult ad it very rarely happens that people petition them to become subjects in their domains.

Demigods are outsiders with the (spirit) subtype.

And while going to bed last night, I realized I completely missed the daemons.
So here you go.

Daemons

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True Daemons
Daemons are the spirits of the Void. As beings of the void, they don't have any natural physical forms, but usually assume one when dealing with one of the rare mortals that find their way into the Void. Their shapes can take almost any form from horrible and frightening to serene and angelic. Just like the spirits of the Spiritworld, daemons are not all evil and hostile to mortals, but their minds are even more twisted and alien and one can never really expect what will happen when dealing with a daemon.
Unlike the other Realms of Existance, the Void is not part of the natural universe and as result daemons can not exist permanently in any of the other realms. Taking a physical form in the mortal realm puts an extreme strain on a true demon that will eventually destroy it and currupt the entire area where it appeared. To prevent that fate, daemons who are interested in the affairs of mortals usually do so by other means. Making contacts with sorcerers and offering them to become warlocks who draw their power directly from a demonic master instead of the open Void is the most common occurance. In other cases, powerful deamons often send some of their lesser minions to possess careless sorcerers. Such possessed sorcerers still have a strong currupting effect on their surroundings, but a deamon can usually stay in such a form for months or even years before it has to return to the Void safely.

True Daemons are outsiders with the (daemon) subtype.

Lesser Daemons

Most daemons encountered in the mortal realm are actually not true deamons, but lesser daemons. Beings created by breeding mortal creatures with daemons in the Void. Since they are part daemon and part mortal creature, they can exist in the mortal realm indefinitely. They come in many forms ranging from demonic beasts to almost angelic looking humanoids and have a vide range of different abilities and power. Lesser daemons rarely act alone and are usually under the command of warlocks or possessed sorcerers, but every so often some survive the demise of their master or escape and in some small and isolated areas, these feral daemons appear quite frequently.

Lesser Daemons are monstrous humanoids or magical beasts with the (daemon) subtype.

[Yora]

Game Terms and underlying Concepts

To round up and probably come to an end of the really crunchy part, this post will deal with certain terms and mechanics of the D&D game and how they are implemented in the setting and what concept is used for them.

Alignment
Put in short: This setting doesn't have it. Because of this, the following spells do not exist in the setting:

Align weapon, bless water, consecrate, curse water, desecrate, detect chaos/evil/good/law, magic circle against chaos/evil/good/law, misdirection, protection from chaos/evil/good/law, undetectable alignment

Creature Types
Genrally speaking, the creaure types are not very well defined and open to a lot of room for interpretation. Since a creatures type decides what spells will affect it and what not, this is not only a cosmetic thing.

• Humanoids, Animals, and Vermin: These creatures are pretty much self-explaining. "People" have the humanoid type, "Animals" the animal type, and "Giant Insects" the vermin type. That's really it. In the setting of the Ancient Lands, these creature types are native to the Realm of Mortals.
• Monstrous Humanoids and Magical Beasts: Creatures of these type are part mortal and part spirit. This includes lesser spirits and lesser deamons who have the (spirit) and (daemon) subtype respectively. Giants and some fantastic animals are also Monstrous Humanoids and Magical Beasts, but are also native to the Realm of Mortals and have no special subtype. Half-celestials, half-elementals, half-dragons, and half-fiends also have one of these types instead of the type of their supernatural ancestors. They may however have the (spirit) and (deamon) subtypes when appropriate.
• Fey: Fey suffer from having really bad stats and the only fey from the SRD I intend to use is the Nymph, which I also intend to modify considerably. The SRD also says that all creatures from other planes which are not elementals are outsiders, which in this setting all spirits do. So there's no fey type and all spirits are instead outsiders, magical beasts, or monstrous humanoids with the (spirit) subtype.
• Outsiders and Elementals: Outsiders are native either to the Spiritworld or the Void and always have either the (spirit) or the (daemon) subtype. This replaces all other subtypes the outsider may have, except for elemental subtypes. Creatures of the Elemental type all gain the (spirit) subtype. Outsiders with Damage Reduction that can be overcome by special materials always have that material as cold iron for spirits and silver for daemons.

As the alignment subtypes are gone, the following spells are added to the game. They affect all creatures with the (spirit) and (daemon) subtypes.

Detect spirits/daemons, magic circle against spirits/daemons, protection from spirits/daemons

Positive and Negative Energy
Positive and Negative Energy are probably one of the most weird concepts after Alignment when examined more closely.
For the Ancient Lands setting, all life force is positive energy. There's no positive energy plane, it's just found everywhere and in everything. To heal a wounded creature more life-force is channeled into it to accelerate the natural healing.
Negative energy is life-force that has been corrupted in some way, usually by the negative influence of daemons that enter the Realm of Mortals. Negative energy effects don't remove or negate any energy from a creature but currupt its life-force which causes the body to weaken and die. (How this makes undead stronger I still have no idea, but at least they no longer lose energy benefical to them and gain energy that harms them.)
As necromancy is the magic of life-force in generall, all conjuration (healing) spells become necromancy spells.

Taint
I have not yet decided how Taint will be implemented exactly, but it certainly will have an important role.
Like negative energy above, Taint is a curruption of the natural order of things. The usual source of taint is daemonic power from the Void. All sorcerers, mages who draw on the energies of the Void, are exposed to taint. Most are affected to such a low degree that they don't show any outward signs or suffer noticeable ill effects, and neither does their mere presence taint the people around them. However, the studies and labs of sorcerers are usually lightly tainted. The same is true for many lesser daemons whose daemonic nature has become weak and dilluted over the generations. But even though sorcery can be relatively safe, it's not uncommon that sorcerers become overwhelmed by the taint. Warlocks, sorcerer who have a direct bond to a deamon through a magical pact, are exposed much more to the energies of the Void and therefore always much stronger tainted than other sorcerers. But the strongest source of Taint are true daemons and portals to the Void, through which Void Energy can flow directly into the world. Not all daemons are evil or hostile to mortals and some are actually rather kind and support those who attempt to keep evil daemons out of the natural world. But as creatures of the Void, even they have a strong currupting effect on the world, so they almost never leave the Void and channel their powers to mortals only under dire circumstances. Their followers still suffer from becomming tainted, but sometime that is a price worth paying.

Magic
Very often magic is just there without any deeper thoughts on how it works. This is not a highly developed system of how magic is supposed to work, but should give an idea of what types of magic exist and what they do. Since there is only a mage class, there's no distinction between arcane and divine magic.

• Shamanism and Witchcraft: Though they are two different names, they basically describe the same type of magic. Shamans (or priests) and witches both can draw on the natural energies of the Spiritworld and use them to manifest spells. Shamans are devoted servants of certain powerful spirits, while witches act completely on their own responsibility, but the magic they perform is basically the same.
• Blood Magic: The magic used by shamans and witches is very similar to the natural magical abilities of spirits. Blood Magic however is believed to be an ancient form of magic exclusive to mortal creatures that draws on the life-force within all living beings (which includes lesser spirits, but not nature spirits). It's not strictly about blood, but in no other part of the body is the presence of the life-force as strong. It is believed that blood magic had been used by mortal mages before the spirits tought them the secrets of spirit magic, and it has mostly fallen out of use since then. However, throughout all the centuries, there have always been some small groups of mages who have kept the old magic alive. Blood magic is a magic originating from the body and compared to the more educated and serene form of spirit magic it is dirty, painful, and violent. There's nothing inherently bad or corrupting about blood magic, but most people regard the blood and the pain as unneccessary and disgusting, so blood mages are shunned in most places and practice their powers in secret. In many places it is outright forbidden under pain of severe punishments which does not help to make blood mages particularly cooperative with local authorities.
• Sorcery: Sorcery is the magical art of drawing magical energies not from the Spiritworld but from the Void Beyond the Realms. As the Void and it's energies are not part of the natural universe, they have a currupting influence that always poses a serious threat to both sorcerers and the people around them. In mostplaces, sorcerers are not welcome and there are a number of small organizations that specialize on fighting insane sorcerers and reversing the curruption they brought upon the lands. But there are certain cities and towns where sorcerers have become highly respected and often serve as the leading caste of the community. They are generally not regarded well by neighboring lords, but many of them seem to have been quite successful in dealing with those of their own who have succumbed to the curruption.
• A special type of sorcerers are warlocks. These sorcerers have not only started to use the energies of the Void, but also made direct contact with some of its denizens and entered in contracts that are suposedly benefical to all parties involved. A warlock pact brings with it an imense increase of magical power for a sorcerer, but his soul becomes forever tied to his daemonic master and he is obliged to perform a wide variety of tasks that further his masters goals. Why these deamons are even interested in the mortal world most people can only speculate but many warlocks become feared warlords and dark priests and establish new power bases for the daemons.
  There exist also a much smaller group of people sometimes refered to as anti-warlocks. These men and women are mages and warriors who have become daemon hunters and made pacts with benevolent daemons to provide them with the neccessary power to fight the warlocks and their minions. But like all other sorcerers, they are not immune to the currupting influence of the daemons, no matter how kind and noble the intentions of their masters are. Eventually the taint will destroy them, but most consider it a worthy price to pay to be able to keep warlocks and sorcerers from gaining a true hold of power in the Ancient Lands.

Death
As an E6 setting, spells that restore dead creatures to live are not available to mortals. However death is not always the final end and there are a number of circumstances that can keep even a dead person around for quite some more time.
In the Ancient Land, all life and magic is based on the life-energy of the spiritworld. All beings are essentially life-energy that has been gathered into a more or less fixed shape. Physical creatures have their spirit or soul bound to a body, while nature spirits usually remain in an incorporeal state. When any creature dies, its soul or spirit loses its form and dissipates like smoke in the wind, bringing with it an end of all thought and emotion. When the soul has left a body, it's nothing more than lifeless bones and meat. However, the time it takes for a soul to completely dissipate can vary greatly. Most funeral rites have the function to ease this process for a departed soul. If no such rite is performed, a soul can linger on for much longer and sometimes even become a specter, ghost, or wraith. When a person dies under the influence of taint, there's always a chance that the soul will not depart the body and instead becomes a twisted spirit that regains control of it's decaying corpse to rise again as a ghoul or wight.
Once a spirit has dissapated it is extremely complicated to reform the spirit into its original state. However some powerful demigods and artifacts do possess such a power. Restoring a soul that had a funeral rite performed is almost impossible but even if there's still some kind of faint shade remaining, the newly reconstructed soul is never exactly as it has been before and there are many legends of people who have gone on long quests to revive someone lost to them, only to find the person that is returned to them much different than they remembered.

As you can see, there are a number of concept that have been quite well fluffed out, but are still lacking any crunch to implement them into the game rules. Any ideas are highly welcomed, and as always, I'd like to hear any other comments you might have as well.

[Yora]

Encouraged by highly positive comments I've got in the last days in other threads and PMs, I finally get this thread running again. Please comment, even if you don't have much more to add than the fact you liked it. It's highly motivating.

So far, everything has been rather crunchy and reading a bunch of house rules isn't the pinacle of exitement. But I think it's important to have such things established so people can follow your reasonings why certain things in the world are done as they are.

So today, I'm going to describe the basic system of society in the Ancient Lands. It's not so much about specific cultures, but rather meant to give insight in how nations and people are structured and how they interact with each other. This also overlaps with the tech level of the setting.

But first:

The Map!

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This is a very rough first draft. I struggled with the world map stage for years and now I build Inside-Out with the final map the very last thing I'll do. But this should give you a rough estimate of what I have in mind. The size of the water is about that of the East Chinese Sea, south of Korea and Japan.

Society, Trade, and Technology

The Early Ages
The easiest and most simplefied way to put it, is to call the Ancient Lands an early Iron Age setting with a medium amount of magic. Early civilization began thousands of years ago when wild elves and lizardfolk were made slaves to serve the naga and shee in their cities and castles in the Mortal World. Even though they were mostly put to simple manual labor, they still managed to retain some of the basic skills of agriculture when their masters abandoned them many generations later. So even without the magic, alchemy, and engineering of the fey races they were still able to create small farming communities that were much more successful in providing food for their people than their still wild cousins, who eventually either joined them or were forcefully incorporated.
This form of society was prevalent throughout all the Ancient Lands for most of the history of the humanoid people, with kaas and gnomes living in very similar conditions in the mountains and hills. Most of the terrain is very ill suited for sustained farming and civilization was mostly centered along river valleys with their easy to work soil and large areas well suited to graze herd animals. Even though the lands along the eastern sea remain thinly populated to this day, primitive methods in farming made the struggle for control over the most fertile areas highly competetive. In this social environment, the early elven clans came into being. Assumed to have started as lose alliances between nighboring villages, they became much more formalized in time and developed a distinct aristocratic class consisting of the richest and therefore most influential farming families. Population growth and advances in science were very slow, and bronze the primary metal used for tools and weapons. A noticable exception are the gnomes who learned to forge steel very early on, but did not share their secrets with the other races for thousands of years.

The Transition Period
Though progress came slowly, eventually agriculture and warfare became more advanced, allowing for larger and better equiped armies, which unsurprisingly led to a long era of intense warfare among the elven clans for control of farming land and hunting grounds, which also involved struggles with kaas in the north and lizardfolk in the south on many occasions. Some villages grew into large central towns which allowed for the creation of formalized heirarchies and turned the former chiefs into early kings. At the same time trade became more organized and people no longer hoped that what they needed could be found in a nighboring village that could manufacture it or got it from yet another village, and trade caravans were send over long distances to travel directly to the places where certain valuable goods were made and rare resources gathered. Yet with the constant warfare between the clans, this was a highly dangerous undertaking.
It was at this time that elves came into contact with and established first permanent relationships with the humans tribes that lived in the large plains further inland beyond the coastal regions. In the wide open plains a nomadic society had developed in which people had started very early to travel over long distances and trade goods with each other, which often had travelled for thousands of miles before reaching their final owners. Trading with these human clans was immensly advantegous to the elven lords who suddenly gained access to goods and knowledge that couldn't be found anywhere in the coastal lands and therefore meant a huge advantage over their enemies who lacked them. What proved to be one of the most serious changes for the history of the Ancient Lands since the enslavement of savage humanoids by the fey races, was the hiring of human mercenaries by elven lords to protect the trade caravans and fight against enemy clans. While very exotic sights in the elven towns at first, the amount of human mercenaries in elven armies grew steadily over the generations, eventually leading to entire clans leaving the plains and permanently settling down on areas close to their new employers. Warfare during this period was extremely tense, but it was also a time in which long distance trade routes were established throughout the Ancient Lands and a massive exchange of knowledge and ideas occured. Among the most important were great improvements in agriculture, and the rise of steel in tools and weapons.

The Age of Kingdoms
With the advances in agriculture, the fighting for land decreased sharply while at the same time the improved and more reliable production of food allowed for the first time for the rise of true humanoid cities. What had started in the transitional period became a permanent change for society in that from now on the struggle for power was no longer about the control of land and resources, but about the control of trade. With new technologies, land could be worked in formerly harsh environments and metals could be mined more easily, so that there were far more resources available than anyone could ever consume. Infinetly more important and profitable was the trade of finished goods, like tools, weapons, textiles, and books. Even though the population grew immensely, the areas inhabited by humanoid spread only slightly. Much larger numbers of people could now be sustained by much smaler areas of land. The humans, who had formerly be mercenaries, created their own new civiliazion in the coastal lands apart from elven society and the growing networks of trade also included the gnomes and to a lesser extend the kaas and lizardfolk.
While many of the elven cities grew from towns that had been thousands of years old, they became true cities only in the last couple of centuries, none being older than mere 700 years. There is also only a small handful of them and the major settlements of other races are more like fortified towns. All of the major powers are heavily dependent on each other, none being able to exist without trade with its neighbors and rivals. As a result, open warfare has decreased sharply, but the struggle to control the trade is more fierce than it has ever been.

[Mayhem]

Love it Yora .

Now I'm going to go off on a tangent, about the impact of technology on weapons, to hopefully help give your setting flavour along for those weapon buffs.
Have you thought much about weapons and armour? Was there much bronze age warfare, and was there any major weapon and armour styles?
While a 10th century viking sword and a 13th century english sword are approximately the same size and shape, but there are a few key differences that speak volumes about the weapon's history and function. It doesn't look like it, but they're almost completely different weapons. Places late to 'the age of kingdoms' will probably still be a bit backwards with more transitional style swords than the more progressive kingdoms.

[Yora]

Actually, yes I did spend some thought on this.

As one of the regulars in the Real World Weapons and Armor threads, I think I've learned quite a lot about historic equipment.

Half-Plate and Full-Plate are right out in such a setting (and without dwarves and paladins, who cares?), and both Splint and Banded armor are very rare and used almost exclusively by elite heavy cavalry. Leather, scale, and chain are the common ways to make armor. Tower shields and bucklers are also out.
Regarding weapons, I'm a huge fan of spears. Spears make almost no appearance in fiction (Eomer being the sole exception I know of) though throughout the history of mankind they were the primary weapon for thousands of years and not just because they are easy to make, but also because they are damn good weapons. So in this weapon, this will be a weapon for heroes.
While it's actually possible to build them with relatively simple technological means, crossbows, greatswords, bastard swords, falchions, flails, ranseurs, guisarmes, and lances are also out. They are all fairly recent additions to the battlefield while one handed swords, maces, axes, spears, and bow go back way longer.
There are also a couple of new weapons:
Falcata: Exotic one handed weapon, 1d8, 19-20, x3. A falcata looks somewhat like an oversized kukri or a cross between a sword and a cleaver. They were a quite common weapon in the mediteranean region in ancient times and reportedly quite devastating. Strangely, you almost never see them appear in fiction. [1], [2]
Falx: Martial two-handed weapon, 2d4, x4. A falx is basically a scyth with the blade fixed to the shaft like a glaive. Like the falcata, a falx has the edge on the inside of the blades curve. I think it's origin is from the ancient Balkans, and it's also said to be extremely effective at cutting. [1], [2]
Nagamaki: Martial two-handed weapon, 1d10, 19-20. The nagamaki is similar to the falx in size, but has the edge on the outside of the blades curve. It's basically a katana with a handle of about the same length as the blade. It's actually a much more recent development than the other two and from Japan (unsure if they existed in china), but I think they look cool and allows for a two-handed swords while still having a relatively short blade, which is far easier to forge without breaking than actual greatswords. [1], [2]

I am somewhat tempted to drop greataxes as well. The fantasy greataxe is completely fictual and actual two handed axes look more like hatchets with a very long handle. With no orcs, dwarves, or vikings, they wouldn't really be missed. And then the only two handed weapons are polearms, which I think makes sword and board more attractive, which historically is also an extremely effective weapon combination.

[Mayhem]

Actually, yes I did spend some thought on this.

Awesome! The following is quite long, sorry but I like weapons .

With your armour list stripped down, you might want to plunder a few ideas from my armour system. Although padded to banded statistics are good enough to represent most armours, and just winging it(or coming up with alternative descriptions for the statistics in advance) works.

Yeah the spear's an all time historical favourite, even regarded by the vikings almost as highly as the sword and I think that was only because the sword was as much an heirloom and status symbol as a weapon.

Lance- Makes sense, it's thought the normans stabbed with their lances rather than couch them. So functionally a lance is a spear/shortspear, although you could make a lance feat that allows a cavalry to use a normal spear onehanded on horseback and couch it to deal extra damage on a charge.

Flail- yeah cutting it makes sense. I recommend giving the trip ability to the axe actually.
Falchion-yep fair, same goes for greatsword. Historical falchions were more like machetes. I guess a cheap shortsword that only dealt slashing damage and was one-handed rather than light would be a good, cheap infantry weapon.

Halberd stats make great bill hook and lochaber axe stats, so that's good. Guisarm is just a hook on a long pole with an axe, essentially the same thing and peasants would definately have similar weapons modified from farm/orchard tools. Drop the damage on it, and almost any peasant group that's seen cavalry attacks will be able to invent one. This was used during the darkage and common all over the show, so would fit your setting. Many spears have had lugs on them for parting open shields and disarming people, they were popular in scandinavia(especially amonst elite units like vikings), so if you applied the ranseur disarm bonus to a variant regular spear it'd do fine. Spear lugs are very simple, and I've trained with a lugged spears and I've seen firsthand just how much this tiny addition changes things. Might as well have some small variants on spears, that's part of their charm.
These would do it:

Martial spears
{table]Two-handed melee| Dmg | Range Incr. | Weight |Special
Spear with lugs | 1d8 | 20 | 7lbs | +2 on disarm attemps
Bill | 1d10 | - | 10lbs | reach, can make trip attempts[/table]

Falx is good, military scythes [1] and their variants were quite popular, easy for peasants to make.

I'm a big fan of the Dane axe, but I don't think the use of similar weapons was well spread to my knowlege at least. The bardiche or berdysh [1] were a more popular and similar weapon. So in cultures with great emphasis they'd certainly be around, though being exotic weapons would make sense.

So this in the below spoiler is your list so far?

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{table]Simple | Martial | Exotic

Light

| -----
dagger | axe, throwing | kama
dagger, punching | hammer, light |
mace, light | handaxe |
sickle | kukri |
| pick, light |
|shortsword |
|sap |
|shield, light |

One-handed

| -----
club | Battleaxe | Falcata
mace, heavy | longsword | Whip
morningstar | Pick, heavy |
shortspear | scimitar |
|shield, heavy |
|warhammer |
Two-handed | -----
spear | Greatclub | Spiked chain
longspear | Halberd |
staff | Scythe |
|(possibly)great axe |
|Falx |
|Nagimaki |

Ranged | -----
sling | shortbow | shuriken
javelin | longbow | Bolas
dart | shortbow, composite | net
| longbow, composite |
[/table]

For shields, maybe you should up the AC boost by 1. Makes them a little more attractive. Also, maybe while using a shield you get +3 with defensive actions and total defense, rather than +2.

[Curious]

I really like this. It's nice to see a setting where the influence of Greek mythology isn't so blatant, and I enjoy following your thoughts on the design as you go. I definitely subscribe to this.

[Yora]

Like minds think alike.

Lance- Makes sense, it's thought the normans stabbed with their lances rather than couch them. So functionally a lance is a spear/shortspear, although you could make a lance feat that allows a cavalry to use a normal spear onehanded on horseback and couch it to deal extra damage on a charge.

Yes, I was going to do that.

Spear lugs make sense, I think they could be best implemented as custom additions to regular spears.
I also think that a glaive could double as a guisarme if you make the tip at the lower end a bit longer when using a blade like here and here.

But I actualla forgott some changes to the weapon list:

Spoiler

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{table]Simple | Martial | Exotic

Light

| -----
dagger | axe, throwing | dagger, punching
mace, light | hammer, light |
sickle | handaxe |
| kukri |
|shortsword |
|sap |
|shield, light |

One-handed

| -----
club | Battleaxe | Falcata
mace, heavy | longsword | Waraxe
morningstar | scimitar | Whip
shortspear | shield, heavy |
|trident |
|warhammer |
Two-handed | -----
spear | Greatclub |
longspear | Halberd |
staff | Scythe/Falx |
|(possibly)great axe |
|Nagamaki |
Ranged | -----
sling | shortbow | shuriken
| longbow | Bolas
| shortbow, composite | net
| longbow, composite | [/table]
While actually the romans had a variety of specialized short spears for different roles, for my needs one generic short spear is enough to cover all of them. Javelins even have the same stats as short-spears, only a slightly longer range.
Darts I never see used, and I don't see me using them either. Though they would be appropriate. Shuriken are okay, but I'm more a fan of nail type shuriken as opposed to the disk type shuriken. Since those are essentially darts, having just one of them does the job, and I chose the shuriken. But if someone wants to use darts, feel free to do so.
From all I know, punching daggers are exotic weapons even in their homeland, being very difficult to use. But taking a feat should come with some benefits, though I don't know yet what.
Slings need to be way better! Pushing damage up to 1d6 and critical to x3 should do the job.
Kama is a sickle, and without monks, they are redundant.
Picks are very rare weapons and make sense mostly against plate armor. No plate armor, no picks.
Spiked chains: Spiked! Chains! I rest my case...
Also, no armor or shield spikes. Those are just stupid.

For shields, maybe you should up the AC boost by 1. Makes them a little more attractive. Also, maybe while using a shield you get +3 with defensive actions and total defense, rather than +2.

The first I was also going to do. The second sounds like a very good idea.
I'm also a fan of having the shield bonus apply to touch AC, but not flat-footed AC. It's an active defense and blocking spells with your shield is just cool.
Also adding the shield bonus to Reflex saves for half damage against area effects like fireballs and lightning bolts, just like cover. Again, the knight blocking the dragons breath with a shield is an iconic image.

[Mayhem]

Lugs as template addons are a good idea.
Metal butts are another thing, spears with butts are evilly effective in the right hands probably because it's not an expected attack. I've seen someone keep a whole bunch of people at bay with a spear, and when a guy managed to jump past the tip the spearman brought the butt around to bash his head in with disturbing speed.

Adding shield bonus to touch attacks is pretty cool. Though in doing that, you might want to give a bonus to someone using one-handed and two-handed weapons as well. Ever played tag with someone holding a sword? I haven't, it doesn't sound like fun . Improved unarmed strike might negate the effect, or something(that feat just irks me..).
If dnd allows a dagger to get +3(for a total of +4) in defensive fighting, I don't see why a shield can't. Damn inconsistancies.

Something might need to be done to give poor old combat expertise some much-needed love.

Spiked chains, never played with them for obvious reasons. I like how shuriken is 'palm dagger,' so naturally that's how I justify their use. Military hammers tend to have spikes on them, but I guess sledgehammers were just too iconic of fantasy or something, if they make an appearance they might as well be both weapons unless it's a peasant/ogre with a maul.

Slings, I like it. Maybe make bows 19-20x2, to show how they're more reliable/predictable but lack potential, or even just x2 for non-composite ones. Shortbows should also be simple weapons, just because well with your changes they're now worse than slings.

Armour and shield spikes I agree 100%, now let us never speak of it again .

[Yora]

These are bo shuriken. Way scarrier than sharpened cions and I see them penetrating through more than just a hemp shirt. I think they could also use a bump to 1d4 while keeping the x2 crit.

Making non-composite short bows a simple ranged weapons makes sense, since it's very easy to make, very widespread, and there are no crossbows for untrained people to take, so most people will have bows at home.

Since we're already at the topic of weapons, I've some weapon related feats:

Twin Weapon Style (General)
Prerequisite: Base Attack Bonus +1, Dexterity 15, Weapon Focus, Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: Pick one type of one-handed melee weapon for which you have the Weapon Focus feat. When fighting with two weapons of this type at the same time, the penalties for fighting with two weapons are the same as if your off-hand weapon were a light weapon. You gain this benefit only when you use to identical weapons, it does not work if your primary weapon is a different type of weapon than your secondary weapon.

Polearm Defense (General)
Prerequisite: Base Attack Bonus +1
Benefit: When fighting with a polearm, you gain a +2 shield bonus to AC as you know how to block attacks with the shaft of your weapon. Unlike actual shields, this shield bonus does not apply to touch attacks and does not provide a bonus to Reflex saves against area effects.

I've also come up with a system for Alchemical Elixirs, which I've posted in the general homebrew section and which I will copy over here, once it's finished.

[endoperez]

Nagamaki: Martial two-handed weapon, 1d10, 19-20. The nagamaki is similar to the falx in size, but has the edge on the outside of the blades curve. It's basically a katana with a handle of about the same length as the blade. It's actually a much more recent development than the other two and from Japan (unsure if they existed in china), but I think they look cool and allows for a two-handed swords while still having a relatively short blade, which is far easier to forge without breaking than actual greatswords. [1], [2]

There is indeed a Chinese variation. It's known as Horse Knife, Chai Dao, Thieves’ Encampment Sword, and Pu Dao. Pu dao seems to bring the best results, although sometimes it's also used about a similar weapon with a longer handle that's closer to a halberd (usually kwan dao, think naginata).

http://www.wle.com/products/W062-T.html
http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/images/xxdadao1.jpg


The "horse knife" or "horse cutting knife/sword" or "horse cutter" could work for an in-setting name. The naming conventions of Chinese weapons are contradictive and confusing, as seen here, but that doesn't change the fact that something like a "horse cutter" would be easier to remember for most people than "nagamaki".


EDIT:

Twin Weapon Style (General)
Prerequisite: Base Attack Bonus +1, Dexterity 15, Weapon Focus, Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: Pick one type of one-handed melee weapon for which you have the Weapon Focus feat. When fighting with two weapons of this type at the same time, the penalties for fighting with two weapons are the same as if your off-hand weapon were a light weapon. You gain this benefit only when you use to identical weapons, it does not work if your primary weapon is a different type of weapon than your secondary weapon.

That won't come up very often, will it? Out of the historical examples, the only ones that seems to fit in with would probably be some chinese swords like sabers and hook swords, and the Case of Rapiers. For those pre-requisites, I think it'd be fair to be able to treat any one-handed off-hand weapon you have Weapon Focus on as if it were a light weapon, no matter what your other weapon is. This would allow stuff like sword and hand axe, or club and whip. Unless two-weapon fighting is better in E6, I don't think it'd be that good any way.


Edit 2:
Punching daggers might be easier to either conceal, or draw quickly from inside one's clothing. Daggers already have a +2 to the Sleight of Hand check to conceal them, and drawing a concealed weapon is usually a standard action. Perhaps an EWP: punching dagger would let you draw it from concealment as you would normally, and it's concealment bonus could be upped to +4.

[Lyndworm]

Twin Weapon Style (General)
Prerequisite: Base Attack Bonus +1, Dexterity 15, Weapon Focus, Two Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: Pick one type of one-handed melee weapon for which you have the Weapon Focus feat. When fighting with two weapons of this type at the same time, the penalties for fighting with two weapons are the same as if your off-hand weapon were a light weapon. You gain this benefit only when you use to identical weapons, it does not work if your primary weapon is a different type of weapon than your secondary weapon.

I love everything that you're doing here, Yora, but... this feat already exists (sort of). The feat Oversized Two-Weapon fighting is from Complete Warrior, and it has less harsh prerequisites and no restrictions on "matched" weapons.

[Yora]

With approximately 400 splatbooks, I think most things one can come up with already exist in some way or another in some book I've never heard of.

With the crunch mostly in placve, we now finally get to the juicy parts. Not getting anyway with my attempts to come up with a finalized world map in years, I've now thrown that overboard and instead start with some iconic places that showcase the larger setting.
I've chosen this location because it includes many of the themes I want to incorporate in the Ancient Land, even though it's kind of an Epic Level area and by no means the centerpiece, or even one of the major adventuring location of the setting. The Ancient Lands are not about this locations or even that kind of locations, but I think it should be a very good example for what's to come.

The Demon Pit of Yashaiku

Located in the eastern parts of the northern forests lies the Demon Pit of Yashaiku, one of the largest centers of demonic presence in the entire Ancient Lands. Unlike the common misconception, the Demon Pit is not a single hole in the ground from which demons emerge, but a series of dozens if not hundreds of cracks in the ground that lead to a large series of caverns that serve as portals to the Void. The Pit itself is actually a massive volcanic crater of colossal size, inside which the tunnels are located. The crater is a huge caldera about 30 miles wide and 40 miles long and was created when a large number of underground magma chambers collapsed and were filled with rock from above. Even dozens if not hundreds of thousand years later, the ground is still shifting, opening new cracks and sealing others, some filled with lava and toxic gasses, while others are relatively safe to explore. Many of the cracks reach extremely far down into the earth with temporary portals to the Void opening and closing in the lowest chambers. Such gates can appear in many deep underground places, but their number and size in the Demon Pit is much greater than in any other place in the Ancient Lands and possibly the whole world. the reason for this are unknown, as are the reasons why demons have started to emerge from the cracks only within the last three thousand years.

While the main crater seems to be a ring of slowly rising mountains from the outside, the inside walls are extremely steep and treacherous, making them very dangerous and difficult to climb and impossible to cross with carts or horses. The exception are three narrow gaps on the western side of the crater than run all the way through down the crater valley and enable passage in and out of the Pit. To keep the demons and their spawn from pouring out, massive fortifications have been created in ancient times, each including huge black iron gates that allow for charges against any demons that attempt to penetrate the walls. The forts have often been left abandoned for centuries at a time, when demonic presence in the crater had been all but completely vanished and thankfully there seem to be no arch demons in direct charge of all the demons in the pit that could keep an increase in activity hidden from the mortal races for long enough to restore the fortifications and establish new garrisons. At least yet.

The current garrisons have been in place for over 500 years during which vast hordes of demonspawn tried to break out of the crater, but always been driven back before they could take a permanent hold of a fort. The forts of Molar Tor and Yaran Tai are about 20 miles from each other and controlled by elven forces, while Keron Tor about 30 miles north of Molar Tor is manned by humans and gnomes from the Northlands. While reports of scouts are frequently shared between the forts, the garrisons operate completely independent from each other with each commander answering only to his own lord. Relations between the garrisons are often mixed and frequently turn bad, but mostly their rivalry is confined to tavern brawls with patrols making a stop in one of the other forts, but the current commanders all try their best to keep such incidents from causing such incidents to degrade relations further.

Located some distance apart from the population centers of the Ancient Lands, each fort is effectively a small town in its own right, not only being home to the troops stationed there but also all kinds of craftsmen and other people providing all the necessities needed to maintain such remote outposts. Most soldiers stationed in the forts stay only for either one or three years, which they get quite generously paid for, considering that most of the time, the demonspawn don't pose any actual threat to the garrisons and only some occasional stragglers wander up the passes more out of curiosity than any serious attempt to attack the forts. Some of the craftsmen and merchants have children, but those generally stay out of the areas most frequented by the soldiers. Each fort houses about 600 soldiers with 300 to 400 additional civilians. Surprisingly, the commanders keep their men on rather tight leashes and the forts are much more disciplined and orderly than one would expect from such remote frontier towns. Harassment of civilians and travelers is severely punished with officers stationed in the fort usually being selected for their ability to keep their men in line.

When entering the Pit itself, most visitors feel quite underwhelmed at the first time. The inside of the crater does not look remarkably different from the vast forests outside, except for the total absence of any large wildlife. Only birds, rodents, and insects make their home inside the crater and with the gates almost permanently closed, no larger animals have entered the valley in several hundred years. Those who did make their way inside before the forts had been remanned the last time have long since become extinct. As one travels deeper into the crater, the lush forests more and more give way to bogs and marshes and in many places underground lava and hot gasses scorch the ground from below, turning the land into barren wastelands sometimes miles across. As one comes closer to the center, cracks in the ground become more frequent. Many barely noticeable and just a few meters deep, and others being several meters across with no bottom in sight. Particularly treacherous are those cracks that are barely visible from the surface but hurl uncareful travelers down into bottomless holes. In some places lava rises up to the surface and there's a number of small lakes, but their water is usually stale and foul smelling.

But the real danger are the demons that give the Pit its name. Most of the monsters are actually demonspawn, descendants of once mortal creatures that have been warped and twisted by the demonic taint until it became part of their own nature. While true demons normally can't exist in the mortal world for long, the deepest caves under the Demon Pit seem to have shifted into the Void enough to make them hospitable for its creatures. Daring adventurers seldom emerge back to the daylight from trips into the pits, but those who did reported that the deeper one goes, the tunnels and caves more and more become hell itself. In many places the laws of magic seem to change erratically, sometimes with devastating results for any magic attempting to cast their spells in such locations. It also seems that spirits have mostly abandoned the valley and even the spirits of the rocks and the stunted trees are exceptionally quiet even for their kind.

Though the Demon Pit of Yashaiku is probably one of the most dangerous places in the world, it still draws a considerable number of sorcerers who wish to gain more arcane power from the demons and the gates to the void. Many magical resources can only be found in areas such as the pit and many dark rituals become considerably more effective when performed in such locations. The guards in the forts don't look to kindly at such endeavors and often try their best to keep any sorcerers or their lackeys out of the crater. But with the help of their magical abilities, enough of them still find a way inside, though it is assumed that much fewer make it back out again.

[Icedaemon]

I must say I like the basic ideas. An age of legends, when humanity is on the sidelines sounds lovely.

I like that lizardfolk are a basic staple-of-the-setting race. Worlds where only standard human-like things are playable strike me as boring.

Mixing the gnomes and dwarves is an interesting choice.

Perhaps due to seeing far more Warner Brothers than Anime when growing up, I am more put off by 'small details only' furry people than by 'animals walking upright' furry people, which means that I have automatic bias against the kaas, but that's personal taste.

The spiritual planar works are again nice and lovely. Regarding demons though, why magical creatures and such, when there are so many abominations out there? A daemon is alien, and that's the proper way for things to be.

I do like the inclusion of taint, a thing I have often considered using, but not insofar have.

Given how the mage class as-is would mostly fit shamans and witches, would there not be some logic in making classes for the other types of mage? A blood mage should require more HP, as spells which are powered by life force could probably also drain the caster. Sorcerers and warlocks are even more volatile, from what I can see.

Regarding the map, if there truly is enough space for there to be a jungle on one end and tundra on the other, this would imply either a small world, considerable magical influence or a rather large continent. Given how most of the land is forested and civilization is not omnipresent, would navigating such a vast place not be very slow?

I like the falcata and suggest bumping it to martial weapon, to replace long swords and scimitars entirely. The long sword is very much a fantasy staple, removing it instantly makes people look more intensely at the weapons list.

As civilization first rose in dense forests instead of sandy plains as it did on Earth, I suggest considering what form of equipment would start developing first. A machete is likely necessary - a role the falcata can fulfill well.

[Yora]

I rerally don't like anthromorphic animals of any kind. Lizardfolk are the one exception in this setting.

I don't think the scale is that far off. You have subtropical climate in southern china and subarctic climate in nothern china. Or take the american east coast that goes from florida up to Newfoundland. Those are not exactly tundra, but you have such oddities as London and Berlin actually lying farther north than any point of the United States or Japan and it can be really hot here in summer. (Well, at least what we consider "hot", but still"). From north to south, the map will probably have about 4.000 km.

I don't understand your comment about demons, though.
Also, I do want to introduce some changes to mages who use demonic magic, but I want to keep it down to three generic classes.

[Icedaemon]

I by no means meant that I like any sort of furry, but that I am of the minority who dislikes 'cat girl'-types and such more than 'animals walking upright'-types.

The part regarding China or North America is pretty much what I meant. Those are huge landmasses that one would need several days to cross by car. Add dense forests with no main roads and remove everything faster than a horse and you have a very big region on your hands. Heading from the jungles to the tundra alone would take months, given how PCs are likely to be sidetracked on occasion. Basically, it seems to me that if the second quest leads the players far north/south, they will probably arrive at max level.

What I meant about daemons is: Why not use abominations with the outsider (sub?)type as daemons? If they are alien creatures from the void, it would make a slight bit of sense to really use horrible and alien creatures.

[Yora]

Yes, that area is quite long and would take forever to cross on foot. This is intentional and the reason why port cities and the handful of long-distance trade roads are so important.

With the demons, the main reason is that I like glabrezus, erinyes, bebeliths, alu-fiends and imps a lot. I think I found a good role for them in the setting and I wouldn't want to miss them out.

[Yora]

Some more crunch, somehow that gets the most replies.

Planetouched
Since humans are by no means the dominant race of the Ancient Lands and some of the races are very different from them, I decided to go for a template that could be added to any humanoid race, or even monstrous humanoid.

The following applies to all templates:

• Size and Type: Size remains unchanged, but the character gains the (spirit) subtype. (Except for Tieflings, which ghet the (demon) subtype.)
• Naturally Magic: Planetouch gain 2 spell points, which qualifies them for magic/psionic feats.
• Level Adjustment: +1.

Since it's an E6 setting, I intend to deal with LA in such a way that a character still has to reach 6 HD and then gets one bonus feat for every additional 5,000 XP. Which for LA +1 means a lag of 6,000 XP and for LA +2 a lag of 13,000 XP. Eventually, that 1 missing feat will become meaningless. But considering that you still need 11.111 CR 6 encounters to get those 5.000 XP, I don't expect many campaigns to reach more than four or five bonus feats. While certainly worth at least 2 if not 3 feats, these templates only come pre-selected as a full package and for most of the campaign you lack 1 HD, which really is a big bummer. All this considered, I think an LA of +1 is quite appropriate with no need to raise it to +2.

Spiritfolk

• +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
• Low-light vision
• +2 racial bonus on Handle Animal and Sense Motive checks.
• Strongly Magical: Spiritfolk have a natural spell point pool of 3.

Given that the Spiritworld is closely modeled after Arborea and the Beastlands, and is inhabited by creatures that use the stats of half-celestial elves, it shouldn't come as much suprise that mortals descended from spirits have a close resemblance to aasimar.
Most spiritfolk are descended from shee or naga, but there are also some kaas with the blood of oni. The descendants of shee usually stand out for their tall and slender stature and often unusual hair and eye color, while naga descendants can be spotted by small fangs, long tongues, reptilian eyes, and straight black hair.

Tieflings

• +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence
• Darkvision 60 ft.
• +2 racial bonus to Bluff and Hide checks.
• Tainted: All tieflings have a Taint score of at least 1. They also gain the Taint Supression ability which negates the taint penalty to Constitution and reduces the penalty to Wisdom by half.

Tieflings are humanoid descendants of creatures from the void, similar to fiendish animals. Given the sheer amount of demon types and their highly chaotic nature, physical signs of demonic ancestry can vary greatly. A tiefling can show all kinds of demonic features, but they are usually very similar within a given bloodline. Blood and yellow eyes, black fangs, red or purple skin, small horns, and tails are all frequent signs of demonic ancestry, but many more exist.
Most tieflings are descended from half-fiends that were born in the Void and send to the mortal worlds as agents of their demonic masters. While demonic in origin, most tieflings are ill suited to life in the Void and are usually found mostly in the mortal world. Tiefling bloodlines are usually very strong and demonic features are passed down even through many generations of interbreeding with regular humanoids before they disappear. Tieflings who happen to be born with very few demonic features are frequently trained as spies from an early age as they can go unseen among other humanoids.

Air Genasi

• +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma
• Low-light vision
• +2 racial bonus on Balance and Tumble checks.
• Dodge: Air genasi gain Dodge as a bonus feat.

Air genasi are the descendants of humanoids an air spirits, most often sylphs, which are the most humanoid in shape and behavior. Air genasi usually have white or pale blue skin and hair ranging from white to a dark blue. Most are slender in build and highly agile and quite often exibit very sharp minds.

Earth Genasi

• +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma
• Low-light vision
• Earth genasi are treated as one size category larger when determing unarmed damage and size modifiers for grapple checks.
• Stability: Earth genasi are exceptionally stable and gain a +4 racial bonus to Strength rolls to resist being bull rushed or tripped.

Earth genasi are descendants of earth spirits, usually standing taller and broader than other members of their races with earth and sand colored skin and black eyes and hair. They are often quite and seen as somewhat grumpy, but noted for their impressive strength and endurance.

Fire Genasi

• +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma
• Low-light vision
• +2 racial bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy
• Fire Resistance 10

Fire genasi have fire spirits among their ancestors, most being descended from efrits. Their skin is often the color of brass or coal, with flaming red hair and glowing eyes. While similar in stature to other members of their races, they are known for their quick wits and very persuasive nature. While by no means all fire genasi are spoiled, they have a very strong tendency for style and bravado.

Water Genasi

• +2 Costitution, +2 Wisdom
• Low-light vision
• Water breathing (EX): Water genasi can breath water as well as air.
• Swim Speed 20 ft.: Water genasi can always take 10 on any swim checks and get a +8 racial bonus to Swim.

Water genasi are decended from water spirits like tritons and nymphs and are often found in their own communities near the shores in the coastal waters. Many have athletic bodies and they are mostly known for their calm and thoughtful appearance. Skin often comes in varying shades of blue and green with hair usually in dark colors. While by no means pacifistic, water genasi usually favor more elegant solutions instead of direct confrontations, but can be suprisingly fierce warriors once roused.

I think this still has lots of room for improvement and I am in fact a bit concerned about balance. An earth genasi kaas would be a pretty awesome 1st level warrior, I think.
As usual, please share your thoughts to help me improve on this.

[Mayhem]

Looks good Yora , sorry I didn't reply earlier.

The earth genasi- While charisma certainly fits the fluff, if you're worried about balance maybe you should apply a more relavent penalty, which would be to dexterity, instead. I think the water genasi makes for just as good a warrior though, the will boost is appreciated nearly as much as a earth's strength boost.

I've also been thinking about your weapons.
How about re-naming the dwarven waraxe and using that instead of the greataxe? It's not quite as good, but that allows for shields to be more viable without completely gimping two-handed fighters, and it gives players a 'bastard' weapon incase they want to play a big character without actually being big. Also, the longaxe from complete adventurer would be worth spending an exotic weapon feat on for the player that just had to have a greataxe, and you could extrapolate its rules to spears.
Also, during the transition period for swords they've uncovered swords that are much larger than others to the point where they seem to be some kind of experimental bastard swords. These were only really big versions of the standard sword so they are quite unweildy for the average person, and they'd always be unique, but they might be interesting treasures. Might be a nice character defining moment to get a unique weapon like that.

[Yora]

I actually had a Dex penalty for earth genasi at one point, but thought it gets a bit too much inti min-maxing. But given how good a Str and Con bonus is, it's probably a better idea.
Water genasi with both Con and Wis are clearly a nice combination, and with water breathing, swim speed, and natural sp, I think they are quite well rounded.
However Fire and especially Air genasi are a big letdown as they are now. Bonuses two only mental stats is a nice change and Fire resistance is cool, but just some skill bonuses seem a bit lame. And yes, the air genasi is completely lame. But I really lack ideas what to make of them to make them both stand out as elemental planetouched while still being justified as LA +1.

About waraxes I have to think a bit more. The concept of a realistic sized two handed axe that still can be weilded in one hand seems a bit fishy to me.
Bastard swords are represented as the nagamaki, I completely copied the stats and changed the appearance.
However, I think I've got some ideas of making regular bastard swords the signature weapon of a certain warrior tradition. Since PCs are special, they could pop up everywhere.

[Mayhem]

Heh, that's true. I'll get back to you in the morning, out of no where my head's spinning and I seem to have a fever . I'll try and come up with some ideas for fire and air genasai especially.