Since I'm dming a 4e game here on enworld with a homebrewed (developing) setting, I thought I might post some settinga material. It's just a few ideas about races and cities, and obviously fitting my setting, so it's nothing too useful for this project, but who knows, someone might get some ideas from there... then if it doesn't contribute i won't losse anything ^^
[sblock=on races and cities]
The campaign starts in the heart of large a continent named Barnost. Several centuries ago, it was devastated by a disaster which nobody but the most knowledgeable sages knows anything about. To this day, only small villages and a few large city-states far from each other offer shelter from the dangerous wilderness. Nesiah is one of the most ancient, but its population sums up to only a few thousand. The vast majority of people knows nothing of the world outside Barnost, or if something is there on the other side of the Ocean.
Aside from the more civilized cultures, many tribes of Lizardmen,Orcs, Goblinoids and such dwell in the vast wild spaces that separate civilized areas, and brutal raids at the expense of villages not large enough to have a significant militia are extremely common.
Some notes the player races and main settlements:
-Humans are the main founders of small villages in the uncivilized lands. They are generally very tolerant towards any who may offer them aid, whatever the race or the past. Overall they're the race that best adapted to this kind
of world, ready to forget about the past and conquer back the continent. Nesiah is their largest and most ancients city. It is perhaps the most populated city of Barnost, and is strictly divided in seventeen districts, each
governed by one of the founding guilds.
-Eladrins are very uncommon, for the links with the Feywild are mostly severed in Barnost. However, this also means that many who stepped through can't find the way home, so there is a small population, generally dwelling in large human cities or elf villages.Many Eladrin adventurers are wanderers in search of a way to go back to the Feywild.Some elders claim to remember the catastrophe that wiped out civilization centuries ago (and some may actually be old enough), but generally refuse to talk about it.
-Halflings, because of their cultural habit of dwelling by rivers, have developed an important function in Barnost:since most settlements are born near rivers out of necessity, the Halflings have become the main merchants and message-bearers on the whole continent. Their most important settlement is Sheiavén, a huge wooden city entirely supported by stilts on the river Mopathos, the widest of the continent.
-Warforgeds' origins are forgotten. Someone believes that they were born as weapons for the war during the time when the disaster that ruined Barnost struck. They're quite common despite apparently no new ones are born, and very appreciated as militians and bodyguards. Yhey suffer from bias from people that only see them as instruments of war because of their inexpressive features, however, they receive a great deal of respect in Partas.
-Tieflings live mostly in large cities, and a conclave of wise Tieflings known as the Council of Peace rules one of the greatest city-state of the continent, Thum-Binyas. Tieflings are not the majority of the population, but they claim that centuries ago Tiefling lords buil the city to offer shelter to the refugees. Someone says The Council of Peace is hiding some important secret in the core of the city, where a little "magic academy" for talented individuals has been founded few decades ago.
-Dragonborns mostly live either in more or less nomadic tribes, sometimes composed of hundreds of individuals, or in the heavily defended Partas, a city surrounded by tall walls and governed by a strict militaristic rule. Similarly to what the council of Peace did in Thum-Binyas, a number of Dragonborn general founded a huge fort to resist some kind of threat. In time, it evolved in a city-state that members of many race inhabit. Military service is mandatory in Partas, and all citizens join the consistent army, but the most famous feature of the city is the unbeaten heavy phalanx, which only includes Dragonborns of proven valor (with the notorious exception of the tenth battalion, composed of warforged veterans).
-Elves mostly live in villages situated in woods or, sometimes, neary inaccessible forests. A legendary Tree-City, Caer-Thag, is spoken of, where sages believe a large community of Eladrins live, and a passage of some kind to the Feywild would be located. The same sages state that powerful incantations erase the location's whereabouts from the memory of whoever may find it, based on reports of explorers that claim to have visited the place, but can neither remember the details about it, nor the path that led them there.
-Dwarves are generally found in every settlement, but the two greatest dwarven cities of the time, Rr'sae and Blenir, are probably the most reclusive and less welcoming of strangers of the great City-states. The former is ubicated on the mountains of Sas-Gsran, the latter is built in the enormous excavated caverns of Vytoreon. Both pride themselves with impassable defenses.
-Half-elves are not very common, but are found everywhere Elves and Humans are near enough. Many live in Kor-Wyne, a small City-State very far from the center of the continent and near the West shores of the Great Winding Ocean, and as such, very little visited and known of. Some travelers state that occasionally ships from the ocean are sighted from, but this is generally regarded as void chatters.
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