GODS


Lystalla-
Domains:
Blue-
Phage-Luceat
Domains:Dreams,
Red-
Green-
Black/White-
Bokrug-
Domains:Ocean, Storm, Blackwater, Moon, Water
Sunday-
Domains: Magic, Rune, Fate, Knowledge, Oracle, Illusion
Black/Red-
White/Green-
Domains: Community, Family, Repose
White/Blue-
White/Red-
Red/Green-
Red/Blue-
Holp
Domains: Creation, Competition, Animals, Transformation


Binah

Binah represents the tradgesty of the Disaster in it's fullest. On the day Binah was destroyed in every meaningful sense of the word, it's cities layed waste and it's people scattered. Now refugees, they find what life they can, mostly on the generosity (or lack thereof) of neighboring countries who fared better.

History

Binah represents the great wilds between Chador and Stravion. Originally it was founded by the Hobbit inhabits and Stravion settlers from the north. It was a small country, population-wise, with it's people scattered between the tall pine forests and foothills and the wide, windswept plains to the east. Many of it's settlements lay in the scattered ruins of civilizations long past, with it's very capitol built atop another city, long forgotten. It was a country of cold wind and tall trees, deep valleys and long-forgotten secrets.  It's people shared a nigh-unbreakable bond, with families placed with the utmost important and every citizen considered extended family. It was, for the most part, on good relation with Stravion to the north, and had a strained but peaceful relationship with the lizardfolk and especially the trolls of Istralmarch, who largely kept out of eachother's way. It's small and largely isolated population, and little to no military tradition left it completely unprepared for the Disaster.
By a twist of cruel fate, a rift unlike any of the other portals opened at the Binahan capitol. Reports are scattered from the few survivors, but the current theory from leading Magi is that it was not a portal, as such, but a dozen or a hundred 'cracks' or strands opening up into the many planes of the multiverse, so intertwined that they were not true portals, but allowing the planes to 'bleed' out into the Material. Waves of deadly positive and negative energy washed out from the Rift, elementals appeared randomly and went on rampages, people were sucked randomly to other planes, never to be seen again. A thick, unnatural mist issued from the destroyed city, and to this day covers most of the Binah forest. The plains did not fare much better, with demon attacks from the south and elementals and stranger creatures emerging from the mist, many fled the borders of the country, seeking refuge against better-off neighbors. They, for the most part, did not find it.
Some Binah refugees were accepted into the cities, in limited numbers. Stravion, comparatively, was most generous in this regard. The rest were turned away, or, at beast, granted isolated patches of land on which to rebuild. These quickly became makeshift refugee camps, which evolved into overcrowded and poor villages, out of sight and mind from their host countries.
Binah Today:
The remaining population of Binah is scattered. Most live in the refugee villages, where food and hope are scarce. Some have attempted to move back to the comparatively safe plains, but they are no longer as hospitible as before. They've also come in conflict with Chador, which is attempting to spread into the 'unclaimed' land.
About five years ago the great warehouses of Stravion were attacked, and raided. Many supplies were stolen, and several of the buildings were set alight. These supplies, one way or another, soon found themselves amongst the refugee camps. This attack, and those that followed, were eventually attributed to the 'Raven King,' the mysterious leader of a group of Binah nationalists, tired of their lot in life and the uncaring nature of the neighboring countries that so easily dissmissed them. There have been attacks on trade routes going in and out of Stravion, Chadoran military units destroyed in the dead of night, and various more raids on Stravion government buildings, warehouses, and private homes of the rich.  Most of the spoils of these raids find their way to the refugee-camps, earning them the resentment of the common Stravion and Chadoran. Government attempts to root out these terrorists have largely failed, for they are apparently formed of scattered cells, and the tight community of Binahans have refused all cooperation.
Notable locations:

The Rift still exists, although none have made it close enough to view it in person since it first appeared. As one ventures closer to the deepest part of the forest and closer to the rift, strange things begin to happen. There have been reports of trees in strange colors, or growing upside down. Elementals appear and disappear almost randomly, stalking between the trees and sometimes attacking passerby. The dead do not rest in their graves, rising again and attacking whatever life they can find. Inanimate objects animate. Temperature rises and falls. The planar borders thin as you move nearer, making planar travel (intentional or non) very easy here.

Damurea
The former capitol of Binah, sprawling and built atop the ruins of an ancient city before it. It, too, now lies in ruins, completely abandoned except for elementals and the undead, with the bright white rift torn into the sky overhead, and the mist here thickest of all.
Perynos

Chador

		The mountianous country of Chador stretches across a great chain of mountains, west-to-east, with the western end of the chain curling northward around Istralmarch. The most defining characteristic of Chador is it's physical isolation - The mountains of Chador make for some of the tallest in the world, and the terrian is infamously inhospital, with very few  safe roads into even the outlining cities, all the rest must be reached by river-barge, flight, little-known goat trails or through the twisted passages of the Underdark. Another defining characteristic of the country is it's reversal of fortunes since the cataclysm. Although it was among the most-devestated areas by the sudden appearance of rips in the planes, it has since become one of the defining military and political powers in the region, and many of it's great cities are no more than a few decades old, evolved from semi-permanent camps or small villages. Where all other countries have declined, Chador has found a new sense of unity and expansion, and has begun to look beyond it's mountainous borders with it's newfound power and prosperity.
	History

	Chador, for the largest portion of it's history, was less a country and more a loose federation, with only a few small cities dotting the mountains, with the majority of the population scattered among villages and nomadic tribes. Contact was limited mostly to trade, and there was little unity between them. This all changed on the dark day.
	On an otherwise unassuming day, for reasons still largely unknown, the Prime Material plane was twisted and torn, and dozens of portals to dozens of different planes appearing all over the world. Some were relatively benign towards the surrounding area, but most caused devestation. Some of the worst happened in Chador, where the greatest of the portals tore the very earth asunder, connecting the mountain range to the deepest pits of the Abyss. Countless demons poured out, razing the sky with fire and destroying all that they could reach. Many of the Chador tribes were wiped out to a man within those first few days, dead and burned before they even had an idea of what was happening. The resulting war for survival would last another nine years, and the Chador that emerged would be totally unrecognizable from the Chador that was caught completely offguard that day.
		After the first few days of unconstrained violence, the demons began to wander still farther afield. Many of the most powerful and cunning of them left Chador altogether, for the deep cracks and dark places, to lurk and plot. Some, slated, or fearing retribution, returned to their home. The most powerful denizens of Hell, in truth, never left it, although their dark eyes pried out from the rip in reality. The rest soon began to fight amongst themselves, as demons are wont to do, and some of the most important demonic casualities in the war were inflicted upon the demons by the demons themselves. Furthermore, they had no cohesion, even among the loose 'factions' that were responsible for most of the infighting. They were less an army than a mob, less soldiers than thugs. The most powerful asset of the Chador forces, that they learned then and continue to hold utmost importance to now, was the organization and planning that went into their battles. Even still, almost a third of the population of the Chador mountains was lost in the war, which raged without end or reprieve, and precious little help, for eight long years. Finally the demons were driven to the edge of the rift that they emerged from, and fought with the kind of frenzy that can only be brough about by fear and desperation. Desperation that was was matched, blow by blow, by the Chador forces. For six hundred days the battle raged. The skies were alight with spells and the ground flowed freely with blood. Finally the demons were routed, and the portal sealed by a powerful cleric from among the Chadorans. What was left of the demonic forces dispersed, to be hunted down in the coming days and weeks and months as the new, unified nation of Chador made it's rise.

	Chador Today:

Chador has began to use it's newfound unity to make itself a prosperous country. It's began to open up trade routes with neighbors, and expanding into unclaimed territory. This has put it in conflict with the Istralmarch lizardfolk and and trolls most of all, but to the south the Orc Clans and Xin are both protesting Chador's expansion into what was formerly a buffer zone. Chador also seems to have plans for the mostly empty plains north of Istralmarch, which has earned them the scorn of the Binahan refugees.

	Notable sites:

Chador's new capital of Halstead is built above and into the canyon that formed the portal to the Abyss. It covers both sides of the canyon, with many grand bridges connecting the two halves. The Chadoran Council resides here, representing the former heads of the main tribes.

Chador's great Warmage school is built deep within the mountain range, with it's exact location known only to a few. Traveling there is hard, and must be done by the indivitual, with the idea being that those who can make it to the school alive earn a place among it's students.  The warmage school provides strong support to Chador's armies, and has been instrumental in it's expansion.
Great Dunmow is a mountain fortress which represents Chador's northermost defense. It borders the foothills that seperate Chador proper and the swamps of Istralmarch. The expansion of Chador has put Great Dunmow in great prominence, and it's been used as a staging area  for many of the forlays into the swamp.