by Ty Hulse
A land where
fate is spun can never be fully settled, for the faeries and demons are strong
within its moors, forests and homes. Huge swaths of this land are still ruled
by tribes and kingdoms of giants, with which the people and gods must treat and
go to war. Ogma De breaths with magic, the fey here are a part of daily life,
for each house has one hiding within, who sneaks out at night to help with the
cleaning, freeing the people to do other work.
Life Among the
Fairies
A giggle causes Ellis to pause just before placing her fresh
baked apple pies to cool on the windowsill. She knows better than to strain her
eyes to see the pixies that are certain to be out in the moonlight. They are
likely invisible, but more importantly, they don’t like to be seen. Instead,
she speaks gently into the darkness, telling them that the pies are still too
hot to eat, but makes certain to offer the pixies a slice when they cool.
Pixies are much like her toddler nephews; they need to know that there is a
reward for good behavior, or they are certain to get into trouble.
Before the first house was even built, the ever-curious
pixies of the village of Wickerdown had discovered the wonders of fresh baked
bread, rich butter, and—best of all—the apples that humans brought with them.
Shy as they were, this was an opportunity that they couldn’t pass up. They have
been a part of the villager’s lives for hundreds of years. As a result, Ellis
learned from a young age that if she offered the pixies bread and the last
slice of pie, they wouldn’t cause her too much trouble. Just as important, they
would aid and protect her. When she went out to harvest apples in the orchard
or wild mushrooms and berries, her basket would fill with pixie plucked food as
long as she was always generous with them.
A few whispered chants and butter would churn easier as the
pixies used their magic to aid in the natural process. If she told the pixies
she was going out on an important date, the wind wouldn’t muss her hair and the
mud might not splatter on her dress when a wagon went by, for the pixies would
protect her. Perhaps, most important, however, the pixies can use their magic
to keep apple blossoms warm if there is a spring frost, to help the apples grow
larger and to keep the fungus and worms from the trees. Thus, the crops are
larger thanks to the presence of the pixies.
So, although she’d never seen a pixie, they were still very
much a part of her and everyone in the village’s life. The pixies are invited
to the village’s wildest celebrations—feasts in the nearby castle or the
village square. Here, they are entertained with stories from the table they are
given in a private box, set on a pedestal above the crowd so they can watch
people while still hidden. Children, being children, will often show off in
front of these stages, showing how they can stand on one foot, or acting
especially silly, or telling jokes they’ve heard.
Occasionally, Ellis and her friends will play a game, going
out among the rocks where the pixies live and writing letters on the ground.
They will then ask an invisible pixie to push a rock around to answer their
questions. The pixies, skilled at spying as they are, and skilled at divination,
know much of what is happening in the world. Of course, there are limits to
what private secrets they will reveal, and they don’t necessarily know
everything. Not to mention the fact that they can find amusement in pranks, so
one must always be careful with the ‘knowledge’ they provide.
Once in a while, the pixies will seek a person out—usually a
child—to share an adventure with them. Such an adventure might be as simple as
playing a prank like swapping someone’s cheese for soap or as dangerous as
stealing some treasure from an ogre. Most often these adventures involve
playing pranks on other pixie clans. Obviously, if they are caught doing this,
they will be punished—although usually the punishment is unpleasant but mild.
The pixies of Wickerdown aren’t the only community of their
kind in the area, however. The wild moorlands where people bring their cows
have them, and only the cattle herders are able to work with these. So, when
Ellis goes onto the moors or into the woods, she must be careful, lest the wild
pixies play some prank on her or try to carry her off. Further, the pixies from
neighboring villages will often enter Wickerdown to play pranks and cause
mischief, tickling people’s feet in their sleep, for example, just as the
Wickerdown pixies will cause mischief in those same neighboring villages.
Dangers of Ogma De
“Never enter a home before releasing a dog into it, for a
devil or Hexen will always try to take root in a building the moment it is
emptied.” -Advice for Surviving Ogma De
The village of Wickerdown, like all of Ogma De exists in a
nervous world of malignant spirits, dangerously cruel fairies, and giants that
seem to revel in causing pain. When Ellis was ten, a greedy giant smashed
through the roof of her house and began grabbing herbs from the pantry, as well
as the pair of sheep her family kept inside to distract such a monster from
grabbing the people. Each human constantly carries a concealed knife so that
the giants will grab the sheep first, to avoid the sting of iron, giving the
people time to hide, run, or organize some defense. Or simply so that the
giant, satisfied with the sheep for their meal, will leave the humans alone.
In addition to the hexen wyld and giants, everyone will have
encounters with orc bandits from whom they will have to flee, fight, or bargain
with. Even Ellis has done so, offering to make some marauding orcs butter and
to cook them a meal of the cow she was tending, in return for her life. The
ability to bargain with or otherwise influence their enemies is the secret to the
survival of the people of Ogma De.
Fairies too, while frequently allies with people can be
dangerous. In the early summer, parents will often hide those children who
might be taken by the fairies to be trained as soldiers for their armies. Nor
is it unusual for a group of fairies to shoot a person with invisible arrows,
to place curses, or simply kill and even drain the blood of a victim. Some of
these fairies are local to a region, but many are from neighboring lands, and
so choose to raid what the perceive as enemies.
The worst dangers are usually kept at bay by the local gods
through the use of motes of magic, gathered from the wild places. This is one
reason why horrors hover just beyond the bounds of civilization and the common
areas for forging. When the dangers start to grow greater than the tutelary
deities can handle or the motes of magic begin to ware down adventurers are
hired to fight the worst of it or find new magic to keep the village safe.
Society and People of Ogma De
The people of Ogma de venerate and fear the fairies more
than the otherworldly or even the primal deities. They view the world as being
made up of a series of spirits, which live in everything, and which each have
their own purpose and goals. Thus, fate isn’t spun by grand and powerful
beings, for they can’t control the overwhelming number of spirits in every
plant, animal, object, and emotion. Rather fate is something that is negotiated
between individual spirits and beings. That is, between a person and the bow
they hold, the deer, they hunt, the pixie that lives in the rock by their home,
the hob that lives in their fireplace, and a myriad of other beings.
For the Ogma de, life is about being amiable and
accommodating to the fairies and spirits, while also being willing to stand up
for oneself. It is the former point that allows the people of Ogma de to
negotiate with the orcs, as often as they fight them. Outsider’s typically only
see the battles, however, and so think that the Ogma de revel in battle, even
with the supernatural world. The people of Ogma de, of course, learn to
distinguish between the soft and hard negotiating positions. They always start
with sweet words, pies, and similar tactics. They are, however, willing to cut
down the tree of a fairy whose goals work against theirs, or to pull a dragon
from its roost and chain it.
It might be said that like the fairies, the people of Ogma
de are defined by switching between extreme emotions. They almost always try to
start gentle, even in dire situations, but can shift quickly to vindictive and
furious. It makes sense that the Ogma
would react calmly to nearly everything, for this is the best way to calm the
fairies who are such an important part of their lives. They not only feel the
fairies’ presence, but frequently hear and even see them, dancing on the hills
and moors around their homes. Each household has learned a few secrets from the
fairies, passed on from parent to child. One house might have a secret that
allows them to churn sweeter butter, another to make candles that burn a little
brighter, or to spin more beautiful thread. These secrets help bring a family
closer to their patron fairies, and helps them find more success, but it also
binds them to the fairies’ whims and to a specific task.
Despite the
closeness of the fey, few people truly understand them, any more than they understand
the true complexity of nature or the inner workings of their own bodies. The
fairies are simply there, and everyone has theories about them, everyone loves
to gossip behind closed doors or share fairy tales that grow with the telling
as any good fish story should. Yet only the Elderich, the Witches, the Priests,
and perhaps a few others truly understand the politics of fairyland.
Foodways
Lush berry and herb filled moorlands, timberlands rich in
acorns for feeding pigs, a wealth of tidewater resources such as seaweed and
shellfish. Gathering food in the Ogma De system is a source of spirituality, a way
to connect the fairies of the world around them, as such the people of Ogma De
seek to taste their wild and free spaces of their homeland in every meal
Because of this the people of Ogma De have a history of mixing the wild
foods of the moorlands, where they commune with the fairies with the foods they
farm in their fields and orchards. This can mean
eating woody and earthy herbs like wild thyme and burdock root, but it can also
mean eating sweet blueberries, lingonberries, and blackberries.
The propensity
for mixing wild plants into their food means that outsiders often comment that
the people of Ogma De eat as if they were in a famine, cutting weeds to fry
with wild herbs, mixing seeds, berries, and wild plants into their breads and
pies. That said, its important to keep in mind that much as the people of Ogma
De might like wild foods, fairies obtain substance from foods grown and
prepared by humanity, further there isn’t enough food in the moorlands to feed
the many village of people by themselves. Because of this the people of Ogma
De, as with most humans need to industrialize their food, with large fields of
grain (barley, wheat or oats) and vast orchards of fruit (primarily apples but
also blueberries and pears). Their desire to commune with the natural world by
harvesting wild plants is simply a supplement to this.
The desire
people have to set off into the natural world, mixed with the fact that people
often carry their food to a neighbor’s house so that families don’t have to eat
alone, means that much of Ogma De’s cuisine is highly mobile. Stuffed breads,
small pies that can be carried in a pouch stews so thick that they can easily
be carried in jars, and anything that can be easily wrapped in a fabric pouch
being common. These foods are also useful because it is easy to leave them out
for the fairies. It isn’t an uncommon sight to see someone placing a little pie
under a blueberry bush or in a field of clover and chickweed.
The philosophy
of foods meant to remind one of the wilderness clashed with the ideas of the
Sword Duchies which, once long ago, conquered much of Ogma De for a time. The
people of the Sword Duchies tend to frown on breads stuffed with wild plants,
thinking of that as a prevue of the poor and desperate. Instead, they add
spices from distant lands, or which are difficult to get, to their foods as
often as possible. From this the Ogma De developed a taste for cakes, cookies,
and of spiced pies, as well as complex sauces for their meat dishes. They
further came to love the heartier, frequently heavy foods of the Sword Duchies,
and have developed many pies sausages, and meat and bread stews of their own
design.
After the
Scattering the people of Ogma De began to admire the people of the Silver
Peaks, which they were dropped into this new world beside. They have since
begun adopting many of the flavors of pickled and spiced foods from these
lands, thus one might have a pork pie, with salt and miso preserved wild herbs,
in addition to the more traditional pork and herbs with blueberry mustard.
Some typical food the PCs might encounter:
Creamy, herb and apple pie
A mix of wild herbs, creamy cheeses, apples, wild berries,
and honey or sugar. These are often baked in tiny dumplings so that they can be
put in a pouch with people when they go out onto the moors or into the fields
and orchards to work.
Blueberry, mustard, bacon sauce.
A sauce made of spicy mustard, blueberries, and a bit of
bacon which can be drizzled over meat dishes, or used as a dip for dry breads.
Moorland Bread
Ground walnuts and hazelnuts, herbs, burdock root, and dried
berries, mixed with flour and baked into small, round loaves of bread.
Sometimes bacon and cheese are stuffed into the center of these loaves as well.
Beef stew, heavily spiced with cinnamon, cloves, mace, and dried
blueberries.
Apple and pork pie
Spicy apple mustard for dipping chicken, duck, and other fowl.
Relationship with the Seelie Goblyns
The Seelie Court of fairies found themselves in greater need
for mortal assistance here than most other lands, and so the zoomorphic little
animal people’s especially the raccoon and fox like kitlyn have become a common
sight in the villages and along the moors. Indeed, there are a few humans and
seelyn villages have started mixing, with the seelyn living below the human
houses. Humans have quickly found this arrangement especially beneficial, as
the Seelyn tunnels are a safe place for them to flee in case of giant attacks
and so their basements often contain doors into these tunnels. The seelyn for their
part have come to rely on the humans bold and often brash willingness to engage
with the wider world directly. Human merchants, diplomates, and knights
frequently act on behalf of their shyer, more home bound fellows.
Religion
The people of Ogma De venerate a group of local fairies as a
pantheon of divine beings first and foremost. Next they venerate the fairies
and spirits outside of this pantehon as a constant part of life. Only then do
they venerate the larger pantheons of Ogma De, of which there are three.
Worship in Ogma de is typically a very public and noisy affair, with people
holding public performances, where they tell tales and quote the divine beings.
They then go to sacred groves, rocks, or springs where they sing and make
offerings to those who visit or are enshrined within these.
Exactly how they worship depends largely on the personality
of what they are venerating. For example, Dryads are quiet spirits, and so only
a few people go to worship them at a time, and do so in a quite and respectful
manner. On the other hand, the whole village will go and splash in the water to
swim with the River Hag which they venerate, or will dance in the forest that
their gods frequently visit.
The Village of Wickerdown’s local Pantheon of Gods
Wickerdown’s local pantheon of gods is ruled over by Kowan
Pix, a pixie which takes the form of an owl. When the people first arrived in
this land a hexen wyld ruled the land, and kept stealing the life from people’s
crops in hopes of driving them to cannibalism, some people gave in and are
still living in the wild places under the direction of the hexen wyld. Most,
however, chose to starve until the pixies took pity on them. Kowan Pix took the
form of a deer to lure the hexen wyld from its home, allowing the other pixies
to steal back the life that had been taken from the crops.
With so much energy released into their orchards and fields
at once the people prospered, and with the help of a mote of magic Kowan Pix
was able to keep the hexen wyld from doing as much damage as they had before.
For their part in the plan Kowan Pix was named leader of the
local pixies.
Kowan Pix is a pragmatist who is more likely to see morality
in terms of what helps a people to survive. That is, what is right is being
able to take care of one’s family, community, and those who have had a bad bout
with fate.
Kowan Pix’s children
Kowan Pix had a number of children as a result of their
encounter with the hexen wyld. These make up the next four most important local
deities.
Karow Ewik (Apple Deer)
Appearing as a deer with multiple mask like faces, including
one on their back, their haunch, and the place a face normally goes, Ewik is
the goddess responsible for helping the apples grow and the deer to flourish.
In addition she is also a psychopomp, guiding spirits of the dead to their
place in the afterlife.
Karow Ewik steals Motes of energy from hexen wyld, and gives
them to the Ogma to grow apple trees, and in so doing instilled it with some of
his essence, as well as the essence of the hexen wyld. From this energy the
spirit of the apple orchards was born. While each orchard still has its own
genii and deus, Karow Ewik is the queen of all the spirits of the orchards.
Pell Lowsow (Witch herbs)
Often heard muttering to herself, in the ditches beside the
road and the brambles at the edge of the village and fields, but almost never
seen. Pell Lowsow is the goddess of border lands. She helps keep watch for the
hexen wyld, devils, malign spirits and other dangerous beings which might
attack Wickerdown. She also insures the growth of wild herbs such as thyme and
mint in the common areas.
Because of the difficulty of her job she teaches other
people, who don’t normally fit into society how to be witches so they can watch
for these evil spirits as well, so that they can feel a sense of purpose while
living apart from the village.
Heambol
Goddess of Swallows, humor, dating, and home.
Heambol is Kowan Pix’s daughter from a time he spent living
as a swallow in order to steal from a vampire. Originally she was simply a
goddess of the swallows, but because they often nested in the eves of people’s
homes she became a guardian of human homes as well. Here, under the eves, while
it was raining or after night had fallen, people would often stand to tell
jokes and meet with their dates, further expanding Heambol’s area of interest.
Wickerdown
Seellin
Regions Within
Ogme De
Start here East
Daggermoors
The people of
Daggermoor venerate the many types of pixies more than any other fairy, which
means they value serenity and creativity, alongside valor and humor. They enjoy
trying new things, within reason, which is why they have so many different
types of fruits and herbs planted from distant lands. They are a mix of raiders
from the Land of Daggers who conquered their small region of Ogma De many years
ago, and one of the more aggressive and stoic people of Ogma De. Yet somehow the
culture born from the two groups learned to enjoy calm moments, and the beauty
of a manicured world.
The people of
Daggermoor give the most respect to those who succeed through creativity,
rather than through brute strength. They are, after all, heavily influenced by
the pixies, to which end they also enjoy jokes, and mostly benign pranks.
Being somewhat
pixieish in their nature, they tend to live clustered together, in small, honey-colored stone cottages squeezed together between
orchard trees, separated only by thin herb gardens and connected by a gravel
covered road so thin that only a single cart can trundle down it. Almost no
large pieces of wood are ever used by them, for fear of offending the fairies,
instead the thin branches, especially from willow are used to make the wicker
furniture, baskets, roofs, and even doors and pillars of their homes.
Thanks to their close relationship with the Pixies, the
people of Daggermoor are able to produce far more in their small orchards than
would normally be possible, just as their few cattle are able to provide them
with lots of butters and cheeses. This gives the people of Daggermoor
additional time to think of riddles and pranks, that would amuse the pixies and
each other. They also have plenty of time to sit and relax, while learning
something new.
History
The first king
of Daggermoor, Cerker was a ranger who used his knowledge of the monsters
within the forest to lead the resistance against the invading Empire.
The first king of Daggermoor, Cerker was a ranger who used
his knowledge of the monsters within the forest to lead the resistance against
the invading Empire. The dynasty he founded was advised by the druidic and
bardic councils, and after generations the king became more a figure head than
ruler. When the next conflict came, his son, Emmert, took the throne. When the
Empire invaded again, Emmert led the revolt with courage and skill. He died in
battle before the empire forces could completely overrun Daggermoor.
On the border of
the Empire, Daggermoor has spent much of its history
fending off and preparing for invasions. As a result they turned their magic
towards summoning and creating monsters who could defend them and strike fear
into the empires soldiers. The most famous
and popular of these creatures are the nightmares
that prowl the borderlands, seeking to spread fear and
sow the seeds of horror tale. Some say that
the nightmares themselves are merely monsters created by some wizard or dark
creature, but most believe that they are the children of darkness sent from the
abyss to wreak havoc upon the world.
Geography and Locations
Daggermoor is a land of extensive heather filled moors and
brambles, with only a few batches of trees and small, gently sloping hills,
making it ideal for raising cattle and picking wild berries.
Greenteeth River
Named for the large number of hags which make it their home,
this is the largest river in Ogma De, running from the Nocturn woods down to
Dawnstead, making Greenteeth River an important and busy trade route, with over
half the population of Daggermoor living along its shores. Because of the hags
within, typically only large boats dare ply its waters, and only a few people,
said to be descended from the hags within, can fish in it. Even then they must
make careful offerings of black cattle to do so. Further, many are rumored to
work side jobs as thieves and pirates along this river, sneaking about trading
barges and stealing what they can without raising the alarm.
Baranmoor
A cold, perpetually foggy and rainy moorland, said to be
home to a castle of the Winter Court of fairies, it is a place of constant
spring, of blooming flowers and fat – never quite ripe yet – berries. The
people who live around it have developed a number of sour berry pies, using
beet sugars from the Northern Sword Duchies to sweeten them.
In addition to the more kindly fairies, however, these moors
are also home to wraiths and headless undead, as well as elves who have turned
to foul magics in an attempt to return to fairyland, and have since come to
enjoy placing curses on people. Those who step onto the moors often start by
stripping and turning their clothes inside out and saying a prayer to the gods
of the moors. They will repeat this action
every hour, as a means of staving off the curses and keeping the undead
at bay. Although, this doesn’t always work and sometimes adventurers must be
hired to rescue those who have been spirited away on this moor.
Red Tor
A fairy castle which looks to human eyes like towering
reddish grey rocks. It is forbidden to approach the Red Tor, but adventurers
have been spirited away there for parties with the fairies, where they are
asked to recount tales of their adventures in far away lands. Such adventurers
might also be hired by the fairies within to help them fight Unseelie rivals,
orcs, giants, or devils.
Wickerdown
A typical village of honey colored homes, and a population
of just a few hundred. Wickerdown has recently ended up on the wrong side of a
dispute with a clan of giants, although no one is certain what they did to make
the giants so angry, and it is probable that the giants have gotten them
confused for some other village or are simply inventing a pretext to loot them
of their cattle.
Equalar Wood
Home to kingdoms of horse loving pixies, who have stolen a
number of the animals over the years and now raise them in the forest meadows.
A few of the horses of Equalar Wood have taken on strange properties, and are
invisible in the shadows of trees, and are able to speak the fey language. The
forest is also home to a scheming family of green dragons and spriggon bandits
that serve them, as well as the chimera’s which crave the flesh of horses, both
of which the pixies seek some way to drive off.
Neighbors Peace
The land of
Neighbors Peace is intermingled with the Nocturn Wood, so the hours of daylight
are sporadic and short, such that one never knows for certain when sunrise or
sunset will come, and even when the sun is out a few stars are still visible in
the dim sky. The fairies here are also more feral than those in most of the
other lands of Ogma De, with many of these fairies having developed a taste for
blood. Even so the people of this land have formed a generally beneficial peace
with these fairies, in much the same way a lost child might with a pack of
wolves that inexplicably adopts them. To reinforce this positive relationship
the people call themselves and the fairies neighbors and peaceful, thus
Neighbors Peace.
The ‘Peaceful’
are generally outgoing, and enjoy the company of others in their large round
homes where three to six families can live. It isn’t uncommon for families to
own part of two or three homes so that they can shift from one home to another,
both to form strong bonds with every family in the village, but also because
the ‘Peaceful’ tend to avoid conflict as their primary means of resolution.
That is, they will move into another home, rather than engage in an argument
with someone.
Because of the
danger from fairies and the uncertain hours of daylight their gardens and
orchards are so small that they must import most of their food. Most of the
‘Peaceful’ earn a living by sitting in circles and lending energy to processing
motes of magic that help make food grow sweeter. These motes of magic are then
sold to places that grow fruit and sugar beets. They also make candles (some of
which have enchantments allowing their light to act as a work of art for
festivals). Another common items floor mats from rushes, mostly for trade with
neighboring peoples as these don’t have enough market value to trade
extensively.
The Peaceful
people’s work means that they spend a lot of time inside playing card games, in
which one person acts as a designated dealer, while the others can keep their
hands free to continue their work. Such games include games similar to
solitaire, except with a point system for those who see the next move first.
The people tend to avoid doing anything that would be interesting to watch, in
order to keep from attracting potentially hungry fairies. Additionally, each
house keeps a few small cows, from which they can extract blood to offer the
fairies when they feel one’s presence or one makes itself known by rapping on
the furniture.
Almost half the
people of Neighbors Peace are Gnomes, with a number of others being part gnome
and part human, so they tend to be highly creative, figuring out new ways to
make baskets, process their motes, prevent and deal with tooth decay, art from
the light of their rushes, and most of all, to play card and board games.
Encounters and
Adventurers
Although they
are outgoing and friendly, the Peaceful are also reserved, calm, and
softspoken, a common joke being that they could put any monster to sleep simply
by talking soothingly. Negotiations and discussions with the Peaceful will tend
to take longer than many have patients for, as they tend to spend a lot of time
thinking through their words and steering conversations away from business and
similar topics, and towards games and leisure. This is partially because they
have a tendency to think of business and such matters in the form of games, but
also because they are careful about making direct promises with strangers, as
they dislike lying, even by mistake.
Outside
adventurers to the Neighbors’ Peace will usually be treated to a meal of a
variety of sweets and hard cheeses while the leaders of a village explain to
them which fairies and other creatures they should avoid hurting and
antagonizing. After all, a vampire might be helpful to a village – most of the
time, or a giant might have formed a treaty with them and they need to make
certain that these treaties are honored as best they can. Beyond this
adventurers are often hired, either to enforce treaties against faithless
monsters, or to try to force them to enter treaties. Killing a large group of
monsters is usually a last resort, as the Peaceful people have to maintain the
image that they want to get along with their magical neighbors.
Food
The fact that
most of the trade between Neighbors’ Peace and the outside world happens with
nations that grow foods like sugar beets, means that the Peaceful buy a lot of
sugar, and so their foods tend to be very sweet. Hard candies made from spices
or ice creams made from fruits are popular, as are cookies and cakes. Most of
these foods are incredibly sweet, and brightly colored as their obsession with
the artistry of light tends to translate into making pastel foods.
Not all their
food is sweet, however, as they also enjoy hard, sharp cheeses, or cured and
aged meats with boar being the most commonly consumed meat, as hunting is an
important pass time for their warrior and wizard classes.
War
Their small
numbers and propensity towards games and illusions, and their treaties with a
variety of dangerous magical creatures means that it is difficult to predict
exactly how the Peaceful people will fight a war when they are forced to do so.
They might use vampires to kidnap their enemies and giants to dig ditch traps,
or Ettercap and giant spiders to weave webs along the ground which can be
hidden with leaves. What is predictable, is that they will most often try to
capture as many of their foes as they can, in hopes that they can exchange
those captured for a treaty. On the rare occasion that they are dealing with a
monster who doesn’t care about their troops they will often bargain with the
troops for their surrender directly, or act much more ruthlessly if they need
to.
They have a
larger than normal number of illusionists and warlocks, allowing them to use
powerful tricks.
Religion
The primary
deities, fairies, and spirits of the Peaceful people are those connected to the
swamps, as it is from the swamps that they gather the reeds they use to make
the candles, which makes up for the lack of a powerful sun deity in the region.
Important
Locations
Sleepers Patch
A small grove of
trees which sits in the middle of the Neighbors Peace, but where it is always
night. There are rumors of a ruin of great treasures in the center of it, but
those who step in invariably pass out, and stay that way for years at a time,
before waking up as if they had only slept for a few moments, unaged despite
the passage of time, they wonder out of the woods to discover the world has
changed without them. There are Peaceful who have gone into these woods on
purpose, in hopes of escaping a bad situation, but they typically wake up only
a few days later, after things have gotten worse for them.
Meadow of the
Stars
This is a meadow
where you can see the stars, even in broad daylight. Because it is one of the
rare places of dry ground, it has become a popular place for picnics and the
like, and indeed, there does seem to be some force which keeps monsters out of
the meadow. Many think it is perhaps a deity to the stars, but no amount of
veneration or coxing has gotten it to reveal themselves.
Crabs Fen
A fen that fills
to overflowing with freshwater crabs every fall, although not enough to replace
candle making and magical mote processing as the primary profession, these
crabs have helped this to become one of the most populated regions of Neighbors
Peace.
Gurrdbury
Living on the
edge of the giant’s kingdoms’ some of the villages of Gurrdbury have been
conquered and are now ruled over by the giants themselves. The people fight
frequent battles against and alongside these larger beings, forging strong
bonds among themselves and their neighboring villages. There are many tales of
heroic and cunning people becoming kings after overthrowing a giant, or wealthy
after robbing one.
The people of
Gurrdbury are sentimental, while being grounded and no nonsense about their
work. Perhaps most important to them, however, is the belief that everyone
should have the right to learn to fight from traveling archers or spell
masters, for they believe that knowing how to fight for one’s family is the
only way to maintain freedom. Because of this even when they are conquered by
giants, the giants must continue to give them some rights or risk being overrun
in a revolution.
The people of
Gurrdbury are prone to revelry and exceedingly strong bonds of friendship which
are often formed in the crucible of battle. For them learning to fight isn’t
just a right but a responsibility, for individual rights and a fair society can
only be obtained if the leaders know that everyone can fight for their rights.
The people of Gurrdbury rarely ever farm, instead, choosing to herd animals, so
they can trade meat and cheeses for grain and other farmed foods.
Important
Locations
Bramble of
Spears
The sight of the
bloodiest battle between the people of Ogma De and the Empire of Swords (now
broken into the Sword Duchies. Although won by the Empire, this battle broke
their strength and forced them to withdraw from Ogma De for the last time. The
number of souls wondering the battlefield made it a major recruiting ground for
the fairy courts, seeking the spirits of heroic people to join their cause. It
is said that there are so many dead here, not all of them have yet been
claimed, and thankfully so, for after the events of the Scattering this was
once more the sight of a battle between the Eldritch Horrors and people of Ogma
De, and this time many of the heroes of old came to fight alongside the human
defenders.
Because of the
Bramble of Spears significance to the history of Ogma De, it has become home to
one of the only known locations of an Eldrech council. Further, numerous courts
of fairies claim it, and many battles have been fought between them over it,
their wars occasionally spilling out into the surrounding villages.
Ankheg’s Fields
Clusters of
trees growing among fields of wild rye make this the perfect home for the bane
of cattle herders, the ankheg. The giant insect like beasts have created
numerous nests in the hard clay and chalk hills around here. The danger they
pose would normally cause cattle herders to avoid this land, but the cattle
that eat here grow larger than normal, encouraging some people to take the
risk, and to hire adventurers to protect their cattle or reduce the number of
ankheg nests in the fall, when they take the cattle here to get fat before
winter.
War Wizards
Academy
Established as a
joint venture by the people of Dawnstead and Gurdbury to train and experiment
with training eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, and other forms of martial
casters, many of which are unique to this academy.
Reaver’s Rocks
A series of
rocky outcroppings from which people who have turned bandit, along with their
spriggand and fairy allies, are able to launch raids on Dawnstead and Gurdbury.
Reaver’s Rock is mostly lawless, not recognizing the authority of priests or
mage families. Instead they are led by warrior witches who have proclaimed
themselves servants of the free fairies.
Knockermoors
A land rich in
copper and silver, the Knockermoors are primarily populated by dwarves, with
human villages clustered near the mines. These human villages focus on farming
for food to trade with the dwarves in return for metal goods that they can then
sell to the rest of the world. The dwarves, like the humans above, tend to get
along well with the fairies that populate the caverns, who respect their work
ethic, skill at making beautiful things, and rock solid and pragmatic view of
tradition.
Their
relationship with the fairies, especially those of the Raven, have tended to
make these dwarves much more careful about the future. They spend a lot of time
performing divinization rituals to learn about the wider world and to
understand their next moves.
The Dwarves
connection with the fairies had made them a bit more whimsical than most of
their kin, such that they feel the desire to play random pranks on the people
of the surrounding villages. These pranks can include the typical, making
stairs creak at night or putting a leaky bowl of water in the rafters so that
people think their roof is leaking when it isn’t. The pranks can also include
positive things, like finishing someone’s work for them when they go to bed so
that they are confused in the morning. As the people of Knockermoor have grown
use to such activities, the dwarves have started using fairy paths to go
further afield, especially into the Sword Duchies.
The humans of
Knockermoor have taken up many of the traits of the dwarves they trade with,
being stoic, and pragmatic. The cold weather and poor soil limits what they can
grow, making buckwheat and peas their most common crops. In addition they raise
a number of pigs and goats, making sharp cheeses with the milk of the latter. This
simple faire reflects the generally reserved attitude they have towards life. For
them, beauty comes form what is solid,
Locations
Wyvern Hall
A break away
cavern of dwarves who have decided to return to their more primordial roots.
The dwarves of Wyvern Hall have taken up worshiping a Wyvern turned deity, and
become feral raiders who threaten the dwarves and humans of Knockermoor.
Nathro Mountain
An important
pilgrimage site for giants who travel here from all over Ogma De and even more
distant lands. It is these later giants who cause the most trouble, for after a
series of wars with them, the people of Knockermoor made a treaty to leave the
giants offerings to their gods alone, in return for their acting relatively
peaceful while here. The giants who aren’t a part of Ogma De aren’t a part of
this treaty, however, and so will sometimes go on religious frenzied raids
after visiting.
Nathro is the
name of the largest giant who ever lived in Ogma De, and this mountain is said
to be his funeral mound. His ghost has become a deity and is said to still walk
the mountains around it. In life Nathro had attempted to conquer and subjugate
all the mortal races, before needing to be slain by a god of the old world. His
followers all plan wars to conquer more territory for themselves and force others
to kneel before them.
The Callmark
Meadows
Home to what are
perhaps the most cheerful kingdom of fairies in Ogma De, people bring the
injured, sick, and even the dead from all over the world in hopes that the
fairies will heal or reincarnate them. It is difficult to know who the fairies
will bless, and most go away disappointed, yet strangely at peace with the fate
that brought them here.
Kansimoor
The people of
the Kansi Pantheon of deities. The Kansish people value safety and individual
wellbeing above all else, things they think are best achieved by supporting
powerful paladins and clerics who can keep them safe from the fiends and giants
that rove their lands. Unlike most of the other people in Ogma De they have
thus formed a highly stratified society, with a large divide in power between
rulers and peasants, in the belief that most people taking on a servitor role
to the strongest among them can encourage the strong to feel responsible for
those they are meant to protect.
The Kansish
Paladins and Clerics view their role as being heroic, rather than as sacred
stewards, and so will typically hire sheriffs and aldermen to manage most of
the affairs of the country for them, while they go out to fight the monsters
that threaten their land. They do have a sense that their position is a gift
from the divine, however, and so will often overrule these managers with little
actual knowledge of the situation, trusting that their automatic inclination is
correct. As a result, Kansimoor is both one of the most secure lands of Ogma
de, despite the fact that there are so many demon portals, but it is also one
of the most poorly managed. For example, rather than the government building
things like bridges, the bridges here, when built are often constructed by an
enterprising peasant to charge tolls or a group of peasants as a form of
charity for their village. In either case, the lack of funds for such endeavors
means that these bridges are often rickety, and many streams have none at all,
requiring people to wade across the cold waters.
Locations
Brie Ekka Bridge
A slip of land
connecting Kansimoor to Brie Ekka, the land still ruled over by devils. The
Bridge is populated by a series of forts established by the Priests and Eldrech
to keep the devils and their servants from crossing into the rest of Ogma De.
Although this is an uneasy place, wars between the devils and Ogma De have been
rare enough that a few Kansi villages have sprung up here to act as trading and
farming hubs for the many warriors based here.
Thrush Bay
Although the bay
is teaming with fish, it is the presence of gold that draws people to this
land, not so much gold that rulership of this land has been heavily contested,
but enough to bring an influx of pirates from the North Sea seeking to retire
to gold hunting intermixing Kansi farming villages with eclectic boom towns.
The presence of these semi-retired pirates has of course lead to an increase in
banditry, especially when the pirates find that making a fortune searching for
the meager gold of Thrush Bay is uncertain at best.
Thistledown
The largest city
of Ogma De. Originally Thistledown was a place for mercenaries from Ogma De to
seek work protecting ships on leaving Dawnstead to enter the pirate filled
North Sea. It didn’t take long for people to realize that they could make a
fortune building pubs to cater to the mercenaries and the ships stopping to
pick them up. Soon after the merchants came, making Thistledown the main hub
for trade between Ogma De and the outside world.
Ogma De has
joined the Gilded Cities relatively recently, both so that it can use the
reputation of the league to expand its finance industry, and because the rest
of Kansi was beginning to look upon them as a potential target to raid and
carve up. It is hoped that the protection of the Gilded Cities will prevent an
attack from those seeking to gain the wealth of the growing city in a few
nights of looting.
Ravenmoor
The Raven
goddess has foretold the end of the world will happen when there are wars but
no kings and traditional moralities break down,
The Ravenairs
name their land for the symbol of their most important goddess, for she
sometimes sends people wisdom and prophecy on the wings of ravens. There
goddess is obsessed with modesty, hard work, and tradition. Thanks to the
prophecy that they shall all die when these things are lost, the people of
Ravenmoor tend to be stoic in the face of personal concerns, self-aggrandizing,
and calmly pious. They have a tendency towards mysticism, with people
frequently meditating with the aid of repetitive activities or gentle music.
For knowledge, especially secret and mystical knowledge is one of two things
they hold most dear.
A close second
in importance is a sense of belonging, that is of being part of a much larger
whole. Most of the people of Ravenbur farm in groups and work in cottage
industries, citing in circles in the evening. Thanks to their rich lands they
are the largest exporter of food in Ogma de and so are able to form large
armies, which help make this one of the safest lands.
Adventurers
The people of
Ravenmoor see it as their duty to aid and instruct would be adventurers, even
from foreign lands. Because of this they often give easy tasks that could be
handled by local armies to young adventurers, making this a good place to gain
experience.
The Raveniates
are quick to help these young adventurers with foresight they gain through
divination spells and meditation, as well as instructions on the nature of the
metaphysical and spiritual world. It isn’t uncommon for an adventurer to have
spiritualists sit down, uninvited, with them in the pub and begin offering
advice.
Locations
Gindon
The second
largest city of Ogma De. Gindon is home to large groups of craft people.
However, thanks to the tariffs placed on ships sailing on the Silver Peaks side
of Ogma De, most of their goods have to be brought across land to Dawnstead.
This extra cost has caused a number of the craftspeople in Gindon to go out of
business or simply leave. The city has been trying to join the Gilded League to
counter the power of the Silver Peaks, but the League is worried about taking
on a member that practically guarantees they would have to go to war with the
Silver Peaks.
Some of the
leaders of Gindon have started secret talks with the Grey Assembly, hoping that
they might offer some solution to the city’s problems.
Ethereal Slopes
Frequently
misty, the slopes are one of the largest growers of oats in the world. They
also play frequent host to young red dragons, looking to raid the Silver Peaks
or other neighboring lands. The people of the Slopes tend to ignore these
dragons, so long as the mischief they cause happens elsewhere, making this a
relatively safe place for such dragons starting out. The presence of red
dragons has also drawn young copper and brass dragons seeking to battle against
their rival.
Thunder Swam
A marsh filled
with trolls and lizard folk, as well as an eldritch horror that has been
licking its wounds from the battle after the Shattering. The Horror frequently
captures animals and creatures of the swamp and twists them into unique
aberrations that are sent to haunt the human realms. Most, of them, however,
end up simply hiding in the swamp from their creator, choosing to hunt pray
that enters the swamp, rather than leaving.
Government of
Ogma de
There are five
forces which rule over Ogma de, the first is the warrior class, known as the
Uchelwr. Second are the priests, third are necromancers known as the eldriche,
fourth are the witches who work with the fairies, and finally there are the
villagers themselves who establish some of their own laws.
Uchelwr
The nobility of
Ogma De, the Uchelwr aren’t a unified force. Rather they are an aristocratic
warrior class which each own their own plots of land. They can set some of their own rules for living on and
using their land, and charge fees and rents to the people to live in or visit
the villages they own. They are obligated to do their best to protect those who
live on and visit their land, that is, anyone from whom they’ve collected a
fee. Their power is limited, however, for if they don’t seem to be strong
enough to protect people, or overtly cruel the priests can and will replace
them.
Priests, also
known as the Dryw
The real law
within any villages are the priests known as the Dryw. The Dryw meant to
oversee an individual village or city are chosen by circles of Dryw which exist
in each region. These priests act as judges and executives, determining the
laws for each village, with permission from the order they are a part of, which
doesn’t give permission to change the laws lightly.
In order to
become a priest a child must pass oral tests with one of the regional priests
that travel to each village once a year in search of new recruits. A child who
passes these tests will be apprenticed with the priests in their village until
they are old enough to go and learn from the order directly. After this, they
will be appointed to various tasks within the order, until they have enough
experience and skill to be appointed leader of a village or to join the
leadership of the order itself, although not all of them ever achieve either of
these two goals.
Elderich
The Elderich are
a council of necromancers who speak with the heroes of the past, and sometimes
call forth their ghosts to aid the people in times of need. Being able to speak
with the great heroes of the past gives the Elderich a lot of power, allowing
them to overturn and even banish a priest who is seen as being unfair.
Generally, they live outside of and above the politics of Ogma De. Dwelling
instead in isolated places, and will normally only speak to elected village
councils that come to visit them. Or on rare occasion they will travel to speak
to a village council, providing messages from the ghosts. When they do this,
they imbue the council with absolute authority over the affairs of their
village, for a short time.
Witches
The people whom
the fairies have chosen to deal with directly. Most witches begin their careers
when the fairies snatch them up and take them into fairyland. The cunning folk
have no specific authority, but the fairies will become angry if they feel
their chosen representatives are being disrespected. Thus, people will tend to
at least pay lip service to respecting the witch’s ideas.
Although the
witches are necessary, and even beloved, they are also greatly feared. There
are stories of people waiting for hours outside a cunning persons house for
help, too afraid to knock, but too desperate to leave.
The Village
Council
Because the
villages are relatively small, the councils which they choose to represent them
and to oversee the care of orphans and the elderly, aren’t chosen during specific
elections. Rather, whenever a majority of people wants to replace someone who
is on the council with someone else, they may do so. Of course, the council
typically has very little power and mostly acts to organize charity and
caregiving for those in the village who need it, as laws are overseen by the
priests. The council’s actual power only comes if the priests act out of line,
in which case they can go to the Elderich to discuss their concerns, or when
the Elderich grants them more power for a short period of time. For the
Eldrerich will only tell their secrets and give instructions to village
councils, so when they have a message from the heroes of the past this is given
only to the village councils.
History of
Ogma De
The fairies were
fading, being hunted by the devils that had taken control of the mortal realm
just outside the doors to fairyland in Northern Ogma De. Some of the fairies
surrendered to the devils, choosing to exist as servants to these dark powers
rather than being hunted. Others still sought help further afield and
discovered the primordial halflings and humans, still living as wild creatures.
They took these mortals in and taught them, so that they could act as allies
against the devils. Still other fairies left their homes entirely, entering the
mortal realm, they became the elves and the gnomes. These new peoples aided the
fairies in driving the devils back.
But the powers
that had allowed them to fight the devils made them dangerous to the fairies. And
mortals are nothing, if not faithless. They soon proved nearly as dangerous as
the devils had been. So it was that the fairies went into hiding, for at least
it was easier to hide from the mortals than it had been from the devils. And
because the devils and other evils were always searching for a new way to take
the mortal realm, the fairies could not fight the mortals, they still needed
them, so an uneasy and often broken peace was formed between mortal and fairy.
As the people of
Ogma de moved south, they encountered more fairies, who having heard the need
to fear them, hid in advance of their coming. Still, these fairies too found an
advantage to having the humans around, as they enjoyed their food and worried
less about the occasional raids from fiends, which the mortals were good at
fighting.
With the support
of the fairies the people of Ogma de thrived, forming into hundreds of small
collections of villages, ruled over by the warrior families whose ancestors had
led the battles against the devils. Occasionally these families and villages
would unify to fend off raids by fiends, or large empires and foreign raiders.
These moments of unity were always temporary, however, for the Eldrech and
Priests prefer that no family become powerful enough to make themselves into
Emperors.
The Scattering
The Scattering
dropped Dawnstead and the Silver Peaks between Ogma De and their traditional
enemies, the Empire that broke apart into the Sword Duchies. Once the years of
battle with the fiends and eldritch horrors that occurred immediately after the
Scattering had ended, the people of Ogma de found themselves without their
traditional enemy, free to focus on each other. The result was decades of war
between the villages. This chaotic time allowed the lands of the Silver Peaks
to take control of the sea between them, such that the Ogma de fishers on that
side of their land must pay a tax to kingdoms in the Silver Peaks, in order to
fish the waters right off their shore.
The wars between
the Ogma De ended just a few decades ago, when the giants found a rift into
their land, and came in mass, establishing their own small kingdoms and raiding
the human lands. Although an uneasy equilibrium was quickly formed between
humans and giants, skirmishes between the two are frequent enough that wars
between human villages have become relatively rare.
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