Supplemental Primer for the Dawnlands: PHB2 & Other Sources

Races to Be:

Devas - Devas are the soul-shards of the ancient primordial gods slain by the Dawnmen. Each one contains only a fragment of the power of the creature they were once part of, but they are dangerous nonetheless as they strive to consume other spirit-beings to restore their lost unity. They are often sought out by daemons, and there is an odd kinship between the two. Devas are a good race to play if you want to be a seeker of ancient mysteries, the priest of a long-dead religion, or a scholar who studies the spirit world.

Genasi - Genasi are a true-breeding soul-forged race. They were one of the earliest creations of the crucible-creches, combining human souls with the most simple elements known to the Dawnmen. They long ago escaped enslavement and now serve the hyperborean goblin kings as vassals in the terrible wars they wage beyond the northern mountains. A few genasi have come south since, but they are considered one of the monstrous races and treated as such. Genasi are a good race to play if you want to be a liberator of the downtrodden, a world-weary traveler or a hermit forced out into the wider world.

Gnomes - Gnomes consume life energy instead of food. Unlike devas, they require the death of living creatures, but they are scavengers and prefer to opportunistically feed on the dying instead of slaying for sustenance. "Murder Gnomes" as they are called, are mainly found in the Orthocracy of Kaddish and Dwer Tor. In the latter, they are respected morticians and hospitallers of the helot class. In the former, they are vermin and are at best tolerated by the Kaddish. Gnomes are a good race to play if you want to be a spy, an assassin, a healer or a wizard obsessed with death.

Goliaths - Goliaths are considered to be humans, albeit the largest and most impressive specimens of such. They are found to the far east, where the mountains flatten and become plateaus facing onto the Desert. They are part of the mountain tribes, but many have been enslaved and can be found in the Orthocracy, in the many quarries of Dwer Tor, and amongst the hobgoblin bastions. Goliaths are a good race to play if you want to be a mercenary, a foreigner who knows little about the Dawnlands, an escaped slave, or peace-loving warrior forced to defend his home against invaders.

Half-orcs - Half-orcs are a true-breeding race. Orcs are not a monstrous race because they were never in the service of the Hill Elves, but they are ugly, violent nomads. They are rarely found on the plains though, since most orcs live in the Stormbreaker mountain chain. Half-orcs are popular mercenaries in Dwer Tor because they lack the tangled loyalties of a true Dwer, are not as hot-headed and unpredictable as a Kaddish, and because the Dwer can avoid equipping the helots with weapons by hiring half-orcs. Half-orcs are a good race to play if you want to be a trusted bodyguard, a tracker of criminals and fugitives, or a warrior dedicated to honing his skill.

Shifters - Shifters are half-gnoll, half-elf. They are the legacy of the long communion those races had during the reign of Eternal Night. They are set apart in gnollish society (few are found amongst the Hill Elves any more) as holy, and a disproportionate number become prophets, seers, and priests of the demon-gods of the gnolls. Many others become the war leaders of gnollish jihads. Some shifters do seek to escape the sacred life, but they usually end up bandits. Shifters are a good race to play if you want to be a holy warrior, the prophet of a daimon, or a seer who speaks to the primordial spirits of the land.

Classes to be:

Avengers - Avengers are the most skilled and lucky of the mamluks and assassins that most temples maintain. Their daimons are obsessed with eradication, and many avengers go insane.

Barbarians - The mountain tribes, the Kadiz, the Forest Dreamers and many of the monstrous races have barbarians amongst their number. They are often battle leaders and champions for the groups they live amongst, and many are called upon to serve as ritual warriors in contests over tribal boundaries.

Bards - The use of magic in performance is well-accepted in the Dawnlands, if somewhat uncommon outside of the Orthocracy and the court of the Dwer king. The Kaddish tradition dates from the time of the revolution, when revolutionary propagandists whipped up riots and mass demonstrations against the nobility.

Druids - Druids are mainly found amongst the Forest Dreamers and the Mountain Tribes. In the Forest Dream, they propitiate the insect-gods, tending the forest so that the dream-spirits will feed off of it instead of the clans of the confederation. Druids in the Forest Dream wild-shape into insectoid and other arthropod forms. The Mountain Tribe druids feed the great mouths of stone with goblin sacrifices, and shapeshift into the stalking beasts of the mountains and woods in order to better harvest prey for their cave-gods.

Invokers - Invokers are most common amongst the monstrous races, especially the gnolls. Many invokers are hermits or seers, and the rest are prophets attached to one great crusade or another. Finder-of-Eyes, the gnollish desert prophet, is the most well-known and feared invoker in the Dawnlands, and something of that association sticks to all others who claim similar powers.

Shaman - Shamans are mainly found amongst the monstrous races, the Mountain Tribes, and the Forest Dreamers. Forest Dreamer shamans specialise in summoning the lesser-dream spirits, leaving the great insect gods for the druids. They take mind-warping drugs and engage in extreme mortification of the flesh to twist their mind into shapes pleasing to the spirits of the Forest Dream. The monstrous races and the Mountain Tribes have similar shamanic traditions, both focused around summoning ancestor spirits. Ancient pacts amongst in the days of the Hill Elf civilisation mean that even the mostly lowly elvish hoodoo man can call upon a great gnollish or goblin hero to defend his people in times of need.

Sorceror - Sorcerors are heretical innovators. Sorcery comes from the Orthocracy, where it is a development of the Psychomimetic school to its logical conclusion - pure, intuitive expression of magic without the need for the trappings of a wizard. The distinction is subtle and confused, and perhaps makes sense only to the high thaumaturges of the Forgetower district, but the practitioners of the Knowing look poorly upon sorcerors (jealously, say the sorcerors), and vice versa.

Warden - Wardens are the holy warriors of the Forest Dreamers. They defend their villages from the nightmare predators of the Forest Dream, the man-sized spiders with blades for legs and the creeping copses of blood-drinking trees. A Warden's skin is tattooed with hallucinogenic compounds with mystical power that allow him to "carry the Dream" with him wherever he goes. This zone of Dream-reality is the source of his powers, and is responsible for his malleable appearance and powers.

How Did I Get My Powers?

Arcane Edition

The Knowing / The Knowledge

All arcane power derives from knowledge about how the world works. This mishmash of proto-scientific understanding, metaphysical and cosmological speculation and applied theology allows those who possess it to accomplish wondrous feats. They are known collectively as "gnostics".

What primarily separates out one type of gnostic from another is how they get their knowledge, and what they get it from. There are three main branches, the Sarxian or monstrous branch, the Psychomimetic or Kaddish branch, and the Logokratonic or Dwer branch. Each branch contains all types of arcane practitioners.

Warlocks get it from other entities, who school them in ancient and secret lore. Often, this is accompanied by soul-wracking changes to allow them to perform the necessary techniques to use the knowledge (pranayama, visualisation, specific cadences of intonation, etc.) without requiring the extensive training other gnostics do. Sarxian warlocks learn to tap into the power of certain potent materials, especially blood, and favour the infernal pact and the dark pact. Psychomimetic warlocks possess warped minds capable of visualising impossibilities and possessing the will to force the world to conform. They favour the fey and the star pact. Logokratonic warlocks are rarer than the other two, and they tend to favour either the fey pact or the vestige pact. They learn to combine the ancient speech of the Dawnmen with the primordial tongues of the children of Eternal Night, and can command the world to obey them with words it cannot refuse.

Bards are those gnostics who focus on knowledge of their fellow men, their history, their character, and their arts. They are most common in Kaddish and Dwer Tor, but a few travel the rest of the Dawnlands and may take apprentices. Psychomimetic bards are the most common kind, and certain schools in Kaddish exist that empower and discipline the imagination until it can impose itself on others. Psychomimetic bards tend towards horns, woodwinds and other very loud instruments that break one's attention. The Logokratonic tradition focuses on the use of certain chants, songs, prayers and invocations to command one's fellow man. They favour stringed instruments as they leave the mouth free to sing along. The Sarxian tradition, the rarest, relies on certain correspondences and harmonies that one naturally and unconsciously falls into obeying. They favour complicated percussion instruments and harp-like stringed instruments.

Sorcerors are the most controversial of the gnostics. In Dwer Tor, they are considered to be tulkus, reincarnations of former powerful gnostics whose knowledge ingrained itself in their soul, giving their reincarnations the ability to innately harness their powers without training. This view, or a variation of it, is held in much of the rest of the Dawnlands. In the Orthocracy however, sorcerors' origins are held to be from one of two things. Either they are a by-product of the creation-creches (the only gainful employment anyone will offer a known sorceror is as as a soul-forger), or they are the embodiment of the last fading power of the Dawnmen in the people of Kaddish. Either way, they are feared if not necessarily respected, and many are recruited by the cults and temples to serve as their factors. Sorcerors rarely follow any of the the three branches of the Knowing exclusively, and tend to be more individualistic than other gnostics. This does not endear them to the others.

Swordmages are gnostics who combine their metaphysical speculation with the arts of the warrior. They are most common in Dwer Tor, as part of the Logokratonic tradition. They are mainly optimates, and are understood as part of the warrior class in that city. Logokratonic swordmages learn specific attack patterns that trace words and signs of power in the air. Psychomimetic swordmages visualise the various possibilities of attack, and cut the very air to allow those possibilities into the world. Sarxian swordmages learn to harmonise themselves with the world, so that the slightest motion of their will can move it under them.

Wizards are the second least common kind of gnostic, after sorcerors. However, they are the peaks of a mountain range, and a large number of "craft gnostics" exist under them. These "craft gnostics" are only partially schooled in the arcane techniques, and many of them possess limited power in only one domain. For example, a greensmith may be able to replicate one of the mighty greenswords of the Dawnmen, but otherwise unable to do anything outside of the mundane. Wizards are extraordinary individuals who have become what they are through extensive training and dedication. They form the core of the Knowing as a unified practice and they develop and codify much of the training and rituals that the other gnostics use. They differ from Bards in studying the elements and nature rather than mankind and his arts, though both groups' purviews overlap and interpenetrate in practice. Psychomimetic wizards practice visualisation and forcing the natural world to conform to their will. Logokratonic wizards memorise and learn the specific invocations necessary to command the forces of nature. Sarxian wizards learn to ritually harmonise themselves with the world through the use of certain substances and correspondences in order to gather and discharge the energy and power that they find in the world around them.

Women in the Dawnlands

While the general state of women in the Dawnlands is not that of a 21st century developed country, women still have many ways to express their agency and many become adventurers or other important persons in their society. Due to the barriers placed in their way, the women who do succeed tend to be exceptionally talented.

Kadiz Nomads

Though the Kadiz nomads are a strongly patriarchal culture formally, the actual customs of their society lead to particularly strong-willed and independent women. Most women are married, unlike most men, and these marriages are arranged by her mother and her father's fellow wives. A woman who does not wish to marry usually appeals to her mother and her kin-mothers not to arrange a marriage for her. This request is more commonly granted in poor families, where they may do so to avoid paying the dowry.

Women who do not marry most commonly become adventurers, midwives, wise women, priestesses or prostitutes. A woman who has a daimon is considered unfit for marriage, just as a man is. Also, women who have slept with demons, spirits, gods and other such creatures need not marry, though they may if they can find a husband willing to. There is a certain trade in wise women summoning minor spirits to help young women avoid the burdens of marriage that is considered highly disreputable.

Nomadic marriage customs are a mess. The most ordinary arrangement is for exogamous polygamy, but leviratic (marrying your brother's widows) and sororatic (marrying your wife's sisters) marriages are both common. The children of a woman who is part of another sept, even if she is your sister, are not considered related to you, and may be married once they are of age. Many women are captured in raids, and while it may be unpleasant, it is something that many are forced to reconcile themselves to. It is considered rape for a man to sleep with a woman captured on a raid until he's married to her (which requires the approval of his other wives, but not the war bride's).

A man and woman may not divorce without him giving back her dowry plus a penalty assessed by her family. These penalties can be quite excessive if her family wishes to punish the husband, and lead to many feuds.

The exception is if she is a war bride, in which case she may not divorce her husband for seven years after marrying him. If she does after that, he must pay her goods equivalent to those he captured on the raid, including herself, as well as for children she has born him. Each tribe has a standard rate for this of so many sheep, cows, pigs, furs, etc. She does not need to leave the clan and may remarry to another sept in it (though not another member of the same sept) if she wishes.

The nomads themselves are aware these customs are somewhat unstable, and one of the more popular and bawdy song-cycles they sing involves the origin of the many wives of One-Handed Rider and the tribulations he underwent as a result of them. Most of these customs serve the function of keeping the birth rate high despite a correspondingly high fatality rate for young men in raids, inter-clan warfare and honour killings.

Hill Elves

The Hill Elves and the nomads have similar marriage customs, except that the Hill Elves practice primogeniture. Normally only one of a Hill Elf's wives is his "wife" and the others are "concubines". Only the sons of the first wife inherit more than a pittance from their father. As well, the Hill Elves in particular try to capture human women on their raids because they can have children more often than elvish women.

More to come!

I'm going to change one element of the setting.

Eladrin are black. Not jet-black like the men from Rhuap, but "black" like Africans (like Nilo-Saharans from eastern Africa, specifically, so with reddish and copper undertones). I figure they look like Maasai warriors, but with a broader variety of hair and eye colours, varying from chestnut brown to dark black for hair, and brown to grey for their eyes. A "pale" eladrin probably shows more pink-red than typical.

It makes sense. They're from the warmer, wetter world to the south. Also, dwarves and halflings have the variation in features and skin tone of India, so it gives me a nice mix. It also reinforces the divide between elves and eladrin: Elves are brown-skinned with yellow undertones like a Indian or an Amerindian or they have pale-green skin with brown undertones. Finally, it also reinforces that the eladrin come from a strange, mysterious place far off.

I'm jacking up the population of the Dawnlands a bit too.

Demographics of the major races:

Hobgoblin

500,000
Found mostly in the northern plains on the far side of the northern range from the Orthocracy of Kaddish, in the northern range itself, and in the hyperborean north. Primarily sedentary agricultural slave owners organised into autonomous bands. Considered a "monstrous race" due to participation in Hill Elvish city-state confederation. Warforged are a subspecies.

Gnolls

1m
Found mostly in the southern plains and eastern desert, but with representation across the plains. Primarily militarised nomadic raiders. Considered a "monstrous race" due to former incorporation into the Hill Elvish city-state confederation. Subspecies of mankind due to interfertility with elves and humans (creating fertile shifters).

Elves

500,000
Range is coterminus with Kaddish and Kadiz humans. Small urban population (~50K) in the Orthocracy and deeper representation on the plains, both in the Kadiz nomads and as the Hill Elves. Hill Elves are considered a "monstrous race" but other elves are not. Hill Elves are hunter/gatherers, with limited agricultural output. Drow are a subcategory found only amongst Kaddish elves.

Humans

2m
350,000 in the city of Kaddish, with a further ~750,000 spread out in economic colonies supplying the mother city, mainly within the former territory of the kingdom of High Kaddish. ~500,000 nomads distributed across the plains relatively evenly. ~200,000 in mountain men tribes in the northern mountain range. ~200,000 in Dwer Tor and (mainly) its colonies and latifundia. The Kaddish and Dwer humans are members of urbanised agricultural societies. The nomads are a militarised nomadic culture focused on ranching, hunting / gathering and raiding. Humans are considered the same species as orcs, gnolls, and elves (amongst others), all of which they are capable of producing interfertile offspring with. Tieflings are a subcategory of the Human subspecies.

Dwarves

200,000
Mainly found in Dwer Tor and its economic colonies. Urbanised slave owner agricutural society. Dwarves are organised in an elaborate caste system and belong to one of the most advanced societies in the Dawnlands. One of only two species which may be born into the higher castes of Dwer society.

Eladrin

100,000
Mainly found in Dwer Tor and its economic colonies, but a larger population can presumably be found to the south in the near-mythical Kingdom of the Fallen Stars. Have acculturated to Dwarvish society and form one of the only two races that may be born into the higher castes. They are the originators of the Logokratonic magical tradition.

Halflings

1.5m
Found throughout the Dawnlands, but the largest population is amongst the Forest Dreamers (~600,000). Dwer Tor and its colonies have approximately ~450,000 in the helot and slave castes (~200,000 helots, 250,000 slaves). The Orthocracy and its colonies have about ~450,000. In halfling run societies (the Forest Dreamers), they live in autonomous tribes that belong to a confederated republic. Approximately Everywhere else, they tend to be lower class or enslaved.

Edit: Actually, that's it. Every other species has less than 100,000 members, and in some cases (Tieflings, Dragonborn, Devas) less than 10,000.

Lately, I've been reading F.W. Mote's History of Imperial China: 900-1800 which has tremendous material on the Inner Asian states and peoples who surrounded the Song dynasty that's been very influential. For example, though Spike I earlier had a debate about whether a sedentary population could so rapidly adapt to pastoralist nomadic lifestyles, there are at least two examples of this happening over an incredibly rapid timeframe in that period, the Tanguts and the Jurchen, both of whom developed militarised nomadic cultures very rapidly (~150 years for the Jurchens to go from not using iron to conquering the northern China plain, less for the Tanguts but they started more developed and in closer proximity to Chinese civilisation) after being primarily sedentary hunter-gatherers (with some pig farming in the case of the Jurchen and some horse and cow raising by the Tanguts).

The result of this is that I'm reducing the time frame for the revolution back down to 175 years ago, instead of the several centuries I'd settled on. Also, I recommend that book to anyone interested in nomadic cultures.

Fifty years ago, a cell phone would be speculative science fiction. Today, kids use them all the time, as casually as a lightbulb.

The thing you have to remember about social change is that every ten years, a new generation of kids comes along to whom this is what they've grown up with - And every twenty years, a new generation of adults.

Indeed. It's still pretty impressive that the Jurchens went from being a stone age pig herders to the technologically advanced rulers of 30-60 million Chinese and several million Khitan nomads in basically 5 generations.

My intent with the time frame is to be as frugal as possible with time while still managing to have it happen long enough ago that these sedentary urban warriors could transition to nomadism and long enough ago that no ordinary human is alive to remember it.

Its been some time since we debated this, but  I seem to recall that the time frame in question was hovering under 100 years or so... I SEEM to recall using the phrase 'living memory'... half what your 'scaled back' time frame is.

Unless I'm mis-remembering (and frankly I'm not reading 230 posts just to double check...) there may have been a mis-communication.

Quote from: Spike;311046Its been some time since we debated this, but  I seem to recall that the time frame in question was hovering under 100 years or so... I SEEM to recall using the phrase 'living memory'... half what your 'scaled back' time frame is.

Unless I'm mis-remembering (and frankly I'm not reading 230 posts just to double check...) there may have been a mis-communication.

It was originally 100 to 150 years before, with the idea that it was just beyond living memory. So 175 is a little bit extra padding to make sure of that, but still less than several centuries (3-4) which is what we were discussing as the most plausible option at one point. BTW, if I ever publish this, I'm totally giving you a special thanks for the contributions.

Hey, no worries.  I haven't read up on the Tanguts or the Jurchen you mentioned yet, but something in your post suggested a 'something changed' impetus to drive them towards imperialism, just wondering what's pushing that for your nomads.

Quote from: Spike;311069Hey, no worries.  I haven't read up on the Tanguts or the Jurchen you mentioned yet, but something in your post suggested a 'something changed' impetus to drive them towards imperialism, just wondering what's pushing that for your nomads.

In both cases, as well as with the Khitan and the Mongols, it was the internal dynamics of their nomadic societies. A charismatic chieftain had unified the tribes and could no longer meet his financial obligations to his subordinates through internecine raiding. So he turned them against external enemies.

I picture the Kadiz as being at the step prior to that - the charismatic chieftains are still trying to unify the tribes. Jarek the Snake is trying to do it for the Hill Elves, while people like Rufus the Black are trying to do it for the Kadiz. The gnolls are gradually being united by the shifter prophet Finder-of-Eyes. I've got a few NPC write-ups that are coming out of this reading, but I want to do a bit more study before I really shape them.

People have been asking for this for a while. I drew one up last year, but the guy I gave it to, rather than scan it immediately like I asked, held onto it for three months then moved to butt-fuck nowhere and lost the map in the process. So I drew another one and went to Staples and got it scanned. I have a huge version of the scan for anyone who wants to be able to see the actual stroke marks and some of the text more clearly.

The map, as always, reminds me of the one issue I've brought up time and again about your setting:  Its obviously part of something bigger (a world) but it doesn't FEEL like it.  If anything it almost feels like it should be a big ass island far from the rest of the world (Australia?).

I am constantly reminded, when watching the news or simply reading up on history just how interconnected lands really were, even when the 'Wayback Machine' is set for 'Really fucking Way Way Back'.

Other than repeated references to the Dawnmen there really does seem to be an utter absence of influence from outside your map on your cultures and history that just doesn't fit.

Quote from: Spike;314013The map, as always, reminds me of the one issue I've brought up time and again about your setting:  Its obviously part of something bigger (a world) but it doesn't FEEL like it.  If anything it almost feels like it should be a big ass island far from the rest of the world (Australia?).

I am constantly reminded, when watching the news or simply reading up on history just how interconnected lands really were, even when the 'Wayback Machine' is set for 'Really fucking Way Way Back'.

Other than repeated references to the Dawnmen there really does seem to be an utter absence of influence from outside your map on your cultures and history that just doesn't fit.

Partially it's because this is an isolated section of the world due to geography. But I've made mention of people in every direction - there are the Hyperborean Goblins to the north, there's Rhuap, the Pyramid Mountains and the Men From Across the Desert to the east, the Salt Men sailing into ports all across the western shore, and the Kingdom of Falling Stars to the south. Both the Salt Men and the Kingdom of the Falling Stars have had their influence on the Dawnlands explained in brief.

I haven't focused on these cultures heavily, but the next major expansion I make in the setting will be to the south.