allthegods

[allthegods]

you know how most of the things humans use as spices are poisonous or repellent to most other mammals? and you know how anything vaguely d&d inspired has dwarves being way more poison resistant than even humans?

dwarf cuisine shouldn’t be bland, it should be unimaginably spicy and potentially harmful or fatal to humans. like green potato and rhubarb leaf salad with a festive garnish of yew berries and deadly nightshade berries, that kind of thing.

[allthegods]

Dragon teeth are frequently lined with naturally occurring crystals.

[allthegods]

fuck it I'm just gonna make loads of adventurers

[allthegods]

There has been some form of civilization on Madritor for hundreds of thousands of years. Nature has destroyed and eroded the oldest of draconic ruins, and anything you find will inevitably be very overgrown, but if you look for it, you will find history everywhere you look.

[allthegods]

any fantasy world where you can’t use magic for HRT and transitioning is dumb

[allthegods]

any fantasy world where you can’t use magic for HRT and transitioning is dumb

[allthegods]

any fantasy world where you can’t use magic for HRT and transitioning is dumb

[allthegods]

Drow blood is filled with a glitter-like compound that makes their cheeks sparkle when they blush.

[allthegods]

The isolated grey elves atop tall mountains may claim to be the keepers of the deepest secrets of the realm - and as individuals, they're right - but the tabaxi Grand Central Library and its International Guild of Barding has the greatest collection of knowledge in all the material plane.

Even if they don't have the book you're looking for, you can be sure that if you ask, they'll find it somewhere in the world...

[allthegods]

Dragonborn have their own god separate to dragons (tho they commonly worship dragon gods too). Dragonborn broadly worship Idrilla, god of democracy, truth, gold and protest. Idrilla is not as powerful as Bahamut or Tiamat, but has more influence over Madritor as they live amongst it - notably in the mountainous forests east of Talimedire. It is common for the most devout of dragonborn to take pilgrimage to Idrilla's temple. Idrilla is the god usually worshipped when a race such as humans or elves gradually evolves into dragonborn.

[allthegods]

Caliban's desert in the southeast is filled with buried ruins of an ancient and advanced civilisation; a la BotW's 10,000 year old Sheikah. Evidence suggests there was a sprawling capital city housing the brightest magical and scientific innovations, but it's location remains unknown.

[allthegods]

Floating islands.

That is all.

[allthegods]

Elves.

The first of my humanoid races, it is wise for me to point out nearly all humanoids have common ancestors in Madritor (i have actually written it out but it's long) with goliaths and dragonborn being the most notable exceptions. This is the rough story of the division of the proto-elves into the subraces that exist across Madritor. This is after the split between orcs and elves.

The catalyst for these divisions occured roughly 70,000 years ago. The elves were mighty and plentiful, but with widespread corruption, doomed to fall. This fall came about when the highest echelons of society started sanctioning a source of immortality to only the upper class of elves. In their arrogance, the high elves assumed any rebellion to fail, as the high elves worshipped - quite passively - the celestial gods above them, and relied on their support. Without active and populous praise, the celestial gods had grown weak, and the rebellions toppled high elf society in nearly all corners of Madritor. In the battles, the source of immortality was thought to be destroyed. The group of elves who rose to power would later be known as drow. These early drow suggested we worship gods not of the heavens above, but of the darkness below. They held a monstrous power through their own gods for many years, until the people of the lower classes organised their beliefs - not in gods of light or darkness, but of nature. These elves did not follow higher entities, but their own hearts and their connections to the earth. This faith empowered them with magic enough to overcome the drow. The ensuing battle was violent and lasted decades long. The violence started to cease when high elves cursed the drow to be burned by the light, as the gods of darkness they worshipped. The drow escaped into the underdark below Madritor and the high elves returned to their remaining settlements but the elves who had fought most during the war, followers of the land, were left with nothing but the ruins of their ancestors world.

Attempts were made to rejuvenate the ruins, and those that stayed would be come to be known as wood elves. Among the followers of the land, many groups left those regions in the forest to find new homes. These include snow elves of the north, sea elves of the west, sand elves of the southeast and, eventually, elves that we know now as sky elves.

[allthegods]

Does any of this matter? I am writing whatever comes to mind with little care for how it all links together - that's a problem for future!River not current!River. Even if I tried to keep consistency, I'm going to end up retconning everything anyway, and the tighter knit this world, the harder it will be to retcon smaller details without changing the whole fabric. Writing is like making a quilt, you get the squares first then you sew them together. I think. I've never made a quilt but people always nod in agreement at this analogy. Does any of this matter? Yes, it's fun! Nothing can matter more than fun!

[allthegods]

The Landscape!

Madritor is split into 2 regions by the open ocean to the west and the Mediterranean inspired sea to the northeast (diagonal corridor).

The northern region is home to lush, ancient forests home to old gods, as well as bitter cold coniferous forests and wide snowfields to the north. To the northwest is a country of viking-inspired cultures, including goliaths. To the northeast is a pair of snowcapped mountains, an explicably warm forest further east from them. The west coastline is littered with a large archipelago. The southern forests are younger and home to some humans. The eastern forests are much older and home to a homebrew race: hinnols, exonymically known as bloodshifters. In the centre is a country-sized circle of mountains impossible to penetrate. The mysteries that lie there are eldritch and and timeless, and deeply unknown. The only known access to this hidden country is through the densest forest in Madritor, hard enough to get through on basis of it's foggy mazeness alone, it is also home to inhospitable wood elves, tricksy green dragons, and,,, something else.

The sourthern region is a warm - often arid - land, home to 2 major human empires, open fields and mountains.

In the far southwest of the region is a magical forest home to the majority of sun elves of this land. North of that is the sea and then the bulk of the northern region. East of the forest and sea is settlement to Rallovale - one of the human countries, and the second largest in Madritor. Rallovale borders the forest and open ocean to the west, a land corridor to the northern continent in the northwest, the not-mediterranean sea north of that, then a wide mountain rage to the north, with the empire of Tharador beyond. The mountains curve south cutting Rallovale off to the west with Caliban's desert to the east. In the northeastern valley of Rallovale is a forest in the shadow of a volcanic region at the corner of Caliban, Rallovale and Tharador. The western mountains are home to a dwarven kingdom, the tallest peak in Madritor with a heart of molten lava.

Caliban is a vast desert that expands far to the south and east. It's main inhabitants are the dead. Ruins are found easier than anyone could want, as the previous occupants may not welcome you warmly. There is a colony of blue dragonborn and sand-elves to the east, a lonely mountain in the west shrouded in thunderstorms, and in the north, a network of canyons leading to Tharador.

Tharador is a coalition Empire, with the primary succession in a dragonborn family, although they are figureheads for a mostly human council. Forested mountains lie between the central steppe and medi-sea to the northwest. In the east, the terrain grows hilly, home to hill giants and the entrance to Caliban's Desert. North of that sits a retched swamp and everdying forests. The capital is at the northern edge of the mountains to the west.

In the open ocean, there are islands a plenty, home to bronze dragonborn, sea elves, tritons, humans and some seafaring goliaths who take after their storm giant ancestors. Similarly the medi-sea is populated by networks of trading vessels.

[allthegods]

Giants.

Not quite as old as dragons, giants - or jøtnar - were made by gods to be workers to create their new paradise. Unfortunately for all involved, the dragons had effectively conquered the world and were seen as an infection by most of the gods. After centuries of fighting the dragons, the gods poisoned their faiths and twisted them into the 10 colour variations we know today. Over time, the empire collapsed.

As the giants watched this develop, they grew sick of being the glorified slaves of the gods, and rebelled against them. The giants took the opportunity to overcome the remnants of the draconic empire, effectively annexing the whole dang place.

[allthegods]

I want a sense of familiarity in my world, so we'll be in a climate similar to Europe, with a similar size. (i.e. mountainous cold regions in the north, vast ocean in the west, arid mountains to the east, warm savannas to the south. A Mediterranean-inspired ocean can sit in the middle of the map.