<span style="font-weight: bold">The World of Gespinium</span><br/><br/>This is not a world of justice, balance, or harmony. Gespinium exists under the sway of capricious deities, beings of vast power but little wisdom, whose whims and feuds unleash cataclysms regularly. One way in which Gespinium differs from a standard 4E setting is that the physical world and the 'other' worlds, like the Feywild, the Elemental Chaos, and the Astral sea, are physically adjacent. The Feywild is a mysterious and wonderous place, but it also has a clearly-demarcated location and can be reached by physically traveling there. If you dig (too greedily and) too deep, you will reach the Elemental Chaos eventually. The highest mountaintops are located within the Astral Sea, and so on. Likewise, the Gods and Goddesses are physical beings much like the deities of Greco-Roman myth, and they are very capable of<span style="font-style: italic">personally</span>showing up and doing something horrific to you, if you're unlucky enough to draw their ire. Of course, they are not truly omnipotent (though very powerful) and not at all omniscient. They still need priests and servants to handle the details of enacting their will, and, more importantly, footsoldiers to wage their wars.<br/><br/>As a general rule, throughout Gespinium and particularly in the area where this game takes place, might makes right. Most of the major deities are cruel or at least selfish by any sane definition, but who dares to tell them so? This principle colors all of the world's societies. Injustice and oppression are accepted as simple facts of life. Many socieites are very vocal about their moral codes, and many virtues, such as honor, courage, and creativity are held in high regard. Those in positions of power are not always abusive, and may be kind if they wish to. Gespinium simply has no notion that those who occupy a low place in the great chain of hierarchy... the food chain... have any right to<span style="font-style: italic">demand</span>fair treatment.<br/><br/>The current state of affairs in Gespinium has been shaped most profoundly by a long-running war that has broken the major gods into two hostile camps, each of whom claims domain over one of the two major continents. Currently, this war has essentially ceased due to the breakup of one of the two factions.<br/><br/>Originally, this conflict began between two deities, and spread as they each drew allies into the fight. On the one side was<span style="font-weight: bold">Centrius</span>, lord of the elemental chaos, the god of the land, the wind, the mountains, and the oceans, embodying the eternal and all-powerful nature of the world itself. His creations include tieflings, orcs, goblinoids, dragons and dragonborn, demons, and a wide variety of monsters (more on that later).<br/><br/>On the other side was<span style="font-weight: bold">Pellonia</span>, queen of the Feywild, goddess of beauty, reason, art, and civilization. It was Pellonia's creation of the Feywild and the Eladrin who dwell there that started the war, some seven centuries ago.<br/><br/>Centrius is contemptuous of mortal beings and sees it as an insult to the natural world if they do not live brief, harsh lives. Pellonia created first the elves and gnomes, then the eladrin, and finally the Feywild. The eladrin are effectively immortal, which Centrius considers unspeakable hubris, and that was bad enough, but the greatest insult was the<span style="font-weight: bold">Gift of Beauty</span>, which gave all of Pellonia's favored an immaculate beauty that could never be tarnished, making them immune to disease, impossible to permanently scar, and most importantly, freed them from the need to eat or sleep. This was seen by Centrius as the ultimate insult, elevating a race of living beings entirely above nature.<br/><br/>Centrius's most loyal follower is his wife, Lunia, the goddess of the moon, animals, plants, fertility, and desire. Before the conflict, she created most natural animals and 'furries', in addition to humans. She's a little more forgiving than he is, but still despises Pellonia. He was also aided by Ulundius, the god of fear, death and undeath, greed, wealth, and ambition.<br/><br/>Pellonia's main allies are Silamathis, the god of trade, craftsmanship, honor, and warfare, creator of the dwarves, and Erthesia, goddess of sleep, secrets, dreams, alchemy, and arcane magic.<br/><br/>For some time, Centrius and his allies simply had their followers wage war upon the elves, eladrin, dwarves and other fey creatures, but this proved ineffective. The simple iron-age era armies of humans and furries, supported by elementals and animals, proved ineffective against the ingenuity of the 'civilized' western continent's races.<br/><br/>Frustrated, Centrius demanded all-out war. He and Lunia placed<span style="font-weight: bold">The feral curse</span>on their creations, and the simple humans, furries and animals were warped into a variety of vicious, bloodthirsty killing machines with an insatiable urge to devour all that was beautiful. Regardless of whether they had been herbivore or omnivore before, all the affected creatures now hungered for nothing but the raw, bloody flesh of the fair elves and eladrin. The curse gave them the power to eat and eat without end, devouring more than should be possible and processing it all with ease. The carnage these feral beings brought to the western continent is legendary. Several nations of elves and dwarves surrendered and joined with Centrius's armies.<br/><br/>One nation of elves accepted the Feral Curse upon themselves, becoming the modern (voracious) race of dark elves. Some elves were taken as mates by humans, leading to the half-elven bloodlines. But many of the elves and dwarves resisted becoming predatory and instead chose to permanently hide their faces and bodies under heavy robes, and ingest poisonous and foul-smelling herbs that they would build up a tolerance to over time. This both removed the Feral-affected's desire to eat them, and served to punish them with death if they chose to do so anyway. These shrouded slaves became known as Inedibles, and served the warrior-races like orcs, humans, furries and demons as artisans and laborers.<br/><br/>In desperation, Pellonia and her priesthood sought to harness the goddess of beauty's greatest gift as a weapon.<br/><br/>Pellonia 'gave' The Gift of Beauty to Centrius's feral servants. She hoped that it would mean their end; as part of the rejection of nature's savagery that the Gift of Beauty included, the elves, eladrin, dwarves and gnomes all came to despise the smell and taste of blood. Thus, the various monsters and twisted humans and beasts the Feral Curse had created would quickly starve, due to their accelerated metabolism combined with a new inability to feed. It didn't quite work out that way.<br/><br/>The native creatures of the eastern continent were transformed indeed. Many of the most twisted abominations that Centrius had created were slain outright by the Gift of Beauty, as it was anathema to their nature. Others were dramatically transformed. Hideous, bile-spewing demons became comely tieflings, vicious dire-animals became fine-featured and majestic creatures, and the anthropomorphic animals did likewise.<br/><br/>One of the effects of The Gift of Beauty is a tendency towards a gentle, feminine, and generally 'cute' nature. It affects demographics: most races are about 60 percent female and forty percent male, and the males who are around tend to have a slender build and gentle features. In animals and humanoids alike, most sharp claws, teeth, and other natural weapons disappeared.<br/><br/>Despite all this, the 'weaponized' Gift of Beauty didn't work quite as well as she expected. All of the Feral-ized beings of the eastern continent didn't just die of starvation. For one thing, the Gift gave the once-sentient back their powers of reason, so they could cook meat to live, though butchering it was immensely unpleasant. Secondly, wheras all creatures had been carnivorous before, the Gift made them all omnivorous, and humans and animals alike can survive on plants alone, though it makes them weak and malnourished. But most importantly, humanoids, animals and monsters alike discovered that they could use the lingering effects of the Feral Curse to swallow prey whole, and their enhanced metabolism was more than up to the task of dealing with such large meals. Even though they could no longer stand the taste of blood, those who had been cursed still hungered to devour that which was beautiful... but now their neighbors and comrades also fit into that category.<br/><br/>And so, the Gift still worked out well enough for Pellonia, her allies and their mortal subjects, because now, the humanoids and creatures of the eastern continent were driven to prey<span style="font-style: italic">on each other</span>now. The Gift even affected the land itself, making it pleasant and verdant, weakening Centrius almost to the point of death and forcing him into a deep slumber. Ulundius has abandoned the continent and carved out an empire of his own on a third, smaller continent. By herself, Lunia is helpless to carry on the crusade, and no longer really desires to. The western continent considers the war to be over, and is enjoying the hard-won peace, putting the savage lands of the east out of their minds.<br/><br/>A hundred years later and civilization has re-emerged, largely thanks to the Inedibles, who have, ironically, become one of the dominant forces in a post-Gift world due to their skills and position as merchants and artisans. There is no dominant authority in the eastern continent; instead, it is ruled by city-states, petty warlords and barbarian hordes.<br/><br/>The only way to maintain any kind of civilization in a society of hungry predators is to be sure that nobody goes hungry. Animals and humanoids alike have a rapid metabolism, and require a lot of land to sustain them. There is a greater emphasis on raising animals than raising crops, and the most popular are those small enough to be easily... managable, but still large enough to make a good meal. Because when the supply of bread and cute little creatures to eat goes down (as it inevitably does, due to over-use of the land if nothing else), towns and cities tend to get a lot less populated overnight. As a result, iron-fisted authority and total lawlessness are the only real options in most places.<br/><br/>That's where the player characters step in.<br/><br/>-------------<br/><br/>At the beginning, the players start out with a fair amount of resources and a pretty open-ended objective. You're the leaders of a fairly typical small band of mercenaries, and your first goal is to conquer a small farming settlement called Delium nestled in a fertile valley in the name of the Queen of the nearby city-state of Saramati. It's a region of meadows, rich hill-top forests, and the multitude of bandits that such fertile lands attract.<br/><br/>The Queen knows of three major threats; first, the bandits who lurk to the east of Saramati, mostly comprised of dark elves and tieflings and led by a deadly drow assassin called Ansarra. Secondly, the barbarians who periodically attack from the southwestern forest, mostly furries but also including some humans and other humanoids, led by a fierce gnoll matriarch called 'Rella the Insatiable'. And finally, perhaps most dangerous of all, is the human sorcerer who currently rules Delium, called Karun the Red. He's young, cocky and ambitious, but he's already made quite a name for himself, and attracted a following of veteran warriors and lesser mages. His raw magical power is considerable, but he's even more dangerous as a strategist than as a wielder of fireballs.<br/><br/>The players' goal is to drive off, defeat, or devour these obstacles through any means necessary and deliver Delium to Saramata, as intact as possible (that goes for the farmers as well as their fields and herds). Simple enough conceptually, but tricky in execution.<br/><br/>Since the players are starting out together, we're going to assume that they are already companions by this point. You'll notice that I said that they were the 'leaders' of a band of mercenaries. Besides the player characters, there will be about twenty or so assorted mercenaries, of whichever races the players wish. The guys and girls are, to put it simply, red-shirts. They're not going to be the focus of the story, nor will the players be able to rely on them to get things done. They can provide backup to the players (in the form of friendly minion NPCs to even out battles, hold off enemy underlings in the background, and take care of scut work like guarding prisoners and securing campsites. However, these minions will never be able to accomplish anything important by themselves, and sending them alone into danger is just going to give your enemies a nice meal.<br/><br/>So, I think that about covers it. Any questions?