Andor-Munda

The World: Andor-Munda
-Setting: Renaissance/Medieval Fantasy mix (swords and guns, steam tanks, golems/giant robots)

Continents
Ithios(East)
Eulin(West)

Races
Humans
Elves
	High Elves
	Dark Elves
	Wood Elves
Dwarfs
	Mountain Dwarfs
	Hill Dwarfs
	Lava Dwarfs
Orcs
Ogres
Goblins
	Hobgoblins
	Gnoblins
Corvids (crow-men)
Saurus (lizard/dinosaur-men)

Major powers
The Empire of Geraim (Human and Hill Dwarf)
Khrad-Kazak-Arad (Mountain Dwarf)
Ghendall (Elf)
various Orc clans
various Ogre clans
Vigni (Dark Elf)
The Holy Order of Heramant (Human)
Darviski (Goblin)
Khondir (Corvid)
Ieo-Gon (Saurus)

Magic
Three different schools of magic
Sorcery, Mancy, and Miracles
	Sorcery is arcane magic, primarily used for utility
	Mancy is elemental magic, primarily used for offense
	Miracles are divine magic, used for healing
Magic can be learned, anyone can be a wizard/sorcerer/mancer/cleric
The source of magic is the primordial force known as Chaos
Some races can't perform magic, like the Dwarves
As a consequence, Dwarfs are highly resistant to magic of all kinds

Chaos
Chaos is the primordial morass from which all magic comes from
Exists in a plain of existence that has many names
	Aethir
	Realm of Chaos
	Great Spiritual Sea
	Hell
	Heaven
	Realm of the Gods
	Realm of Dreams
Comparable to a sea, constantly shifting and flowing and changing
A place where thought is given form
Gods gain power from the people who worship them
There are a lot of gods from every pantheon

Human Pantheon
	Alward- the King of the Gods, God of Fire and Passion
	Kleis- God of Thunder and Honor
	Enthos- Goddess of the Moon and Art, Wife of Alward
	Valinden- God of War and Valor
	Gwegon- Goddess of Healing and Fertility
	Julico- Herald of Death and God of Plants

Elfish Pantheon
	Reotheir- Goddess of Light and Justice
	Yarior- the Trickster God
	Mithard- Goddess of the Air
	Elwor- Goddess of Water and Healing
	Jossior- God of Earth and Fertility
	Vagon- Goddess of Fire and Romance
	Arion- God of Dark and Magic

Dwarfish Pantheon
	Morgon- God of Smithing and Fire, “Flame Father”
	Gavire- Goddess of Stone and Fertility, “Stone Mother”
	Ingol- God of Gold and Fortune, “Father of Gold”
	Jhard- Goddess of Iron and War, “Bride of Wrath”
	Skard- God of Innovation and Knowledge, “Wise Grandfather”

Orc Pantheon
	Gog- God of Strength and Battle
	Magog- God of Death and Conquest

Ogre Pantheon
	Ugrot- the God of Primal Rage

Corvid Pantheon
	Anu- The Divine Creator
	Zhra- The Infernal Destroyer

Saurus Pantheon
	Rexarend- God of Conquest and Strength
	Axolyln- God of the Seas and Magic
	Raptrelon- God of the Forests
	Yngentheon- Goddess of Life and Love

History
The world of Andor-Munda was created through uncertain circumstances, some believe the world was created by the deities of their pantheon, others believe a kind of “overgod” created the world and the deities of the mortal races, while still others believe it was all just cosmic happenstance and sheer luck.

No matter the origin of the world, it formed and bore the fruit of life.
The first sentient creatures that emerged from the evolutionary fuck-fest are the Saurus. They ruled, uncontested, for nearly three eons before the other races started popping out of the muck.

The Saurus had constructed a great civilization during their time of dominance, building impressive cities of gleaming gold and shining white stone. They laid the foundation for all civilizations to come. They were also the first to tap in to the power of Chaos and were the first wizards.

Though, they primarily laid the foundation for the Elvish civilization that would directly succeed them.
The second race to reach the same amount of sentience were the Elves. During these ancient times, the elves were all like the Wood Elves, wild and often times barbaric. They would raid Saurus cities and settlements as barbarian tribes are known to do.

At first, the Saurus thought the Elves as nothing more than minor annoyances, little more than hairless apes fighting with rocks and sticks against forged iron and magic.

That was, until, the Saurus found out that Elves can use Chaos magic too through their shamans, giving them a fighting chance against the lizard-men.

Eventually, what started as a small series of conflicts escalated in to full on war between the Elves and the Saurus.
The war would go on for five years before the first Star King, Alciel Lightbringer, brought down a great firestorm upon the Saurus's capital city of Jurra-hai.

This cataclysm destroyed most of the Saurus population and drove the surviving stragglers from the eastern continent of Ithios to the islands in the western sea and, ultimately to the western continent of Eulin.

The Elves, after claiming victory, annexed the remaining Saurus cities, claiming them as their own.
Over time, the Elves within the city would establish their own civilization, forming their own way of governance, their own culture, and their own pantheon.

There were Elves who stayed in the forests and jungles of their origin. They would become the Wood Elves and become the first druids. The Elves who established cities became the High Elves.

As the war between Elves and Saurus raged, the first Dwarfs emerged in the Colorless Peaks in the north. At the time of the Elves establishing their own society, the Dwarfs were little more than cavemen, hunting wild deer and gathering berries, living in nomadic tribes that stuck to the mountains.

During a particularly hard winter, the mountain tribes of the Dwarfs fled in to the caverns and caves for shelter.
Within the mountains, the Dwarfs found that the rocks were “glued together with gold and iron”, treasure troves of raw metal was to be found all across the mountains in the north.

Civilization developed beneath the mountain, their great kingdoms and gleaming halls of gold and mithril, a metal found only in the Cloudless Peaks that would come to hold religious importance to the Mountain Dwarfs.
This would become the birthplace of the heart of the Dwarfish kingdoms, Khrad-Kazak-Arad, the seat of the High King and the Stormhammer clan.

The first High King was Hrod Stormhammer, a beloved leader who led the Dwarfs out of their Age of Stone and in to the Age of Iron.
During the Dwarfish Age of Iron, they encountered the green-skinned races of Orc and Goblin within the depths of the mountains.
The Orcs and Goblins instantly attacked the Dwarfish miners, inciting a war between the races.

Their fight raged on for nearly fifty years, before their conflict awoke the dormant dragons hidden beneath the Cloudless Peaks.
The Dwarves, Orcs, and Goblins had to forge an uneasy alliance to fight the dragons.

Hrod Stormhammer, Kaldor Skullcrusher of the Orcs, and Ghran Stonecutter of the Goblins, created the Mountain Alliance in the heat of battle and led their hastily allied armies against the fire-breathing menace.
The war and their alliance would last for nearly two hundred years, with the Greenskin-Dwarf alliance scraping out a close victory after Hrod's successor, Roderick Stormhammer, used his father's mithril war hammer to kill the Great Crimson Terror, Brinsop.

The scales knocked loose from Roderick's mighty blow would go on to be placed within the crown of the High King.
After this show of might, Roderick would forever be remembered as Roderick the Dragon's Bane.

The war between Dwarfs, Greenskins, and Dragons had changed the Cloudless Peaks forever. The fire the dragons spat scorched the mountains, many Dwarfish halls had been lost, countless Orc and Goblin clans were simply wiped out.
The ground lost by the Orcs and Goblins caused them to leave the Cloudless Peaks, heading farther north in to the frigid, snowy desert of the Far North Wastes.

There, the Orcs and Goblins would split. The Orcs would continue their tribal and barbaric way of life while the Goblins would begin forming small settlements made from igloos and burrows in the snow.
This split would eventually create the Gnoblins, or Snow Goblins. Pale and good at digging with an affinity towards magic, particularly cryomancy.

Centuries would pass as peace settled upon Andor-Munda. Dwarfish expeditions south yielded new halls beneath new mountain ranges. These halls would have roads leading back to the Grand Hall back in the Cloudless Peaks.
They would also discover in their travels, the first humans. Living in tents within forests and in the plains, hunting with crude spears and bows and arrows at the time. The Dwarfs initially thought nothing of them, simple savages living simple lives.

They also encountered the Elves, opening trade routes between the cities of the Elves and the halls of the Dwarfs. They would exchange weapons, raw materials, food, alcohol of different varieties, armor, textiles, and other such goods.
Relations between the two were good during this time, seeing each other as skilled craftsmen and artists as well as fierce warriors.
They even celebrated holidays together in kinship and brotherhood. It is said that High King Grom Stormhammer and Star King Gawadir Moontouched were blood brothers, a high honor among the Dwarfs.

Elf and Dwarf couplings took shape, joining houses and creating a new race, the Aendor. They had the strength and constitution of their Dwarf fathers and the Elvish grace and speed. Bearded, pointy eared, and with a natural love of adventure.

However, this peace would not last forever. Generations upon generations of kinship and coexistence would be shattered by the Great Betrayer, Star King Malikath Darkstar, who broke his oath to the Dwarves when the Orcs returned south from their exile to the Far North Wastes.

While the Dwarves bled to protect their halls, Malikath commanded to destroy the tunnels leading to the Elf city of Ghendall. He sought to protect his own people, even at the expense of his ally's lives.
Though many objected, they did as they were told, bound by the strict caste structure of elf society.

This betrayal in the Dwarves time of need was not forgotten and a deep, burning hatred for elves. All they shared, the oaths between the races, all of that had been turned to ash with the actions of one arrogant Star King.

As The Second War in the Mountains raged, the Hall Kings attempted to meet with the Star King at Ghendall. When they came to the gates of the city, arrows were fired upon them, stopping their advance.

When they demanded to see the Elven King, they were detained and brought before Malikath. He condemned the Dwarves, considering them little more than drunken barbarians with a crude, savage culture. He told them to return to Khrad-Kazak-Arad to tell the High King that the Dwarves are no longer welcome within the realms of the High Elves.

Before sending them back, he had their beards shaved from their faces, the highest form of dishonor within Dwarf culture.
When the shamed Dwarven Kings returned, the High King at the time, Ansgar Heldenhammer, was outraged. How dare this arrogant, pompous Elf betray a sacred bond that has stood for nearly a thousand years. He rode out with his royal guard, the Stormborn, to Ghendall to confront the Star King himself.

Once at the gates of Ghendall, he demanded to see the king, just as his vassals before him had. However, on that day, Malikath met with the Dwarven High King himself at the gates.
Ansgar challenged Malikath to an honorable duel right then and there.

The Elf king, in all his arrogance, accepted. He believed that the grace and speed he held would surely be too much for such a simple, brutish creature.
The duel would last for two hours as the two brawled without rest. Malikath didn't realize that magic had no affect on the Dwarves, and as such his attempts at cheating were thwarted.

Their duel ended with Ansgar dealing a fatal blow to Malikath's head with his war hammer. The impact crushed half of Malikath's skull to pieces and left his face bloodied and disfigured.
The sigh left the gathered Elves stunned, to see their once great king fall to a creature he has said were lower than they.
The Dwarves cheered at the victory, all except for Ansgar Heldenhammer himself, who offered his hand to the fallen Star King. He was, after all, a paragon of Dwarvish values and once such value was sportsmanship and honor.

The shamed king, in his rage, drove his cutlass through the High King's chest, ranting and frothing about how the Dwarves had no honor and were fools.
Before anyone could react, Malikath cast a spell of magical darkness and made his getaway.

The Gods did not take lightly to Malikath's treachery and forever cursed him. Reotheir had it so that any and all of his aspirations from then on would forever be beyond his reach. Arion cut off his connection to the flow of Chaos and stained his skin dark as coal, forever marking him and all those who would come to follow him.

The Dwarves were outraged, demanding that the Elves bring Malikath to justice for violating the honor duel.