Geography, Politics, Religion<br/>------------------------------------<br/><br/>The Church is that of the Lord and Lady.  The Lord is symbolized by the sun, the Lady by the moon.  The Lord represents strength, justice, and right action.  The Lady represents knowledge, healing, and civilization.  Together they are the guiding divinities of the Kingdom, a land that though benevolent monarchy has brought law and good works to the wilds that once covered the west.  There are a variety of saints (ascendant mortals) and demigods of lesser renown, each of which embodies subsets of the whole of good divinity in a heirarchy very comparable to the nobles arranged under the King and Queen.  Slavery is forbidden and abhorent within the Kingdom of the West.  The classes of citizens are very structured, but theoretically even a peasant-born child could rise to nobility or powerful priestly position by their own merits.  Whether the average peasant truely believes this to be true may be another matter.  The Kingdom is generally temperate and wooded, with the woods slowly and consistently pushed back to make way for civilization.<br/><br/>In mechanical terms, the Kingdom is predominantly controlled by Lawful Good.  There are lesser godlings that represent acceptable other ranges of good faith (Neutral Good and Chaotic Good) that could be followed by heroes.<br/><br/>The Empire lies across a narrow ocean to the east.  It is an older, larger civilization seen by the West to be in decline and depravity.  The Emperor is nominally the ruler of the entire eastern continent, though in reality there is a hugely complex system of powerful people who have nigh-absolute power of their own domains as long as they pay lip-service, taxes, and bribes to the people theoretically above them in the heirarchy.  From what Westerners know, the east is corrupt in government, law, and faith.  There are a wild variety of gods, godlings, and self-proclaimed living gods that demand worship of the inhabitants.  Men, women and children may be born into slavery or have that forced upon them, often due to the internal strife between domains.  Tales of Easterners offering sentient beings offered up as sacrifice to gods and demons are common amongst people of the West.  The lands of the East nearest to the Kingdom of the West are known to be dry plains sometimes punctuated by rocky blasted desert or rich, fertile hidden vales.<br/><br/>In mechanical terms, the Empire is predominantly Chaotic Evil.  There may be pockets of any other alignment within the Empire, even Lawful Good, but from the character's point of view (barring appropriate Knowledge skills) the lands of the east are dark, corrupt, and evil.<br/><br/>There is also an older faith of the Earth, but its practitioners are rare and generally remain quiet or hidden.  It is borderline heretical within the Kingdom, as it revers the spirits of the land over that of the Lord and Lady.  Only those with appropriate knowledge skills really know much about it.<br/><br/>The northern reaches of the western continent grow wild and barbarous.  There are lands there that the Kingdom has not yet civilized, with crude monsters and demihumans that resist the proper advancement of the holy-blessed humans.  The north grows colder and colder, less fertile and hospitible, until the land itself is nothing but continuous ice and snow.<br/><br/>To the south the western continent breaks into a large number of islands upon an ever-warming sea.  It is said that if you sail far enough south, the very ocean itself boils beneath the keel of your ship with the heat.<br/><br/>Races<br/>--------<br/>I'm seeing the Kingdom as being very human-dominanted.  They fey (including elves) have been pushed back into the wild woods, along with their strange earth and spirit based religions.  On the fringes of the Kingdom there are elven/fey communities that have made peace with the human lands.<br/><br/>There are non-humans in the Kingdom, and in or allied to the Church.  There are two varieties: sanctioned non-humans, and hidden non-humans.  Then there is a third category - celestial.<br/><br/>Sanctioned non-humans are people who are not of pure human blood, don't try to conceal this fact, and have been accepted into the Church for their deeds and piety.  They may not be fully trusted by many, though the official word of the Church theoretically compels Order members to treat them fairly.  It is rare for a sanctioned non-human to hold particularly high rank.<br/><br/>Hidden or concealed non-humans.  Despite what might be desired or believed by many in the court, there are a decent number of half-breeds in the Kingdom that are not immediately visible as non-pure humans.  Those with half-fey heritage, for instance, often can pass as human.  The risk of being discovered in real, and punishment for attempting to take privledges only allowed to humans (such as holding rank in the Order, a position in the royal bureaucracy) can be quite severe.  There are camps within the Church and the Kingdom which argue for either increased pure human dominance, or increased tolerance, so this is an active issue in the lands.<br/><br/>Celestial - There are children of the holy-born amongst the lands, the aasimar.  They are almost inevitably born to a noble human family or an exemplary member of the Church, at least as far as the nobles say.  They are rare.<br/><br/>The Characters<br/>--------------------<br/>"Arise heroes of the golden West, faithful servants of the Lord and Lady, King and Queen.  Courtly and wise, strong and quick, you are called to service."<br/><br/>Your character should either be a member of the Church or have reason to be a close ally.  All of the Good alignments are acceptable.  You're coming from a land that prizes chivalry and courteous behavior, but even in Camelot there was alot of roughness still there.<br/><br/>Perhaps the most important part of the character concept for this stage will be their moral code.  What is acceptable to them, in their interpretation of the Church's teachings?  Think of a Camelot-like base, but like some of the more earthy ones.  While the courtly expectation might be for spouses to be virgins at their wedding and faithful after that, the unspoken reality is that both lusty exploration and infidelity happen quite often.  The members of the Church are to hold themselves to that higher standard.  Priests and paladins are not required to be chaste and celibate, for instance, but those that held themselves to that standard would be better regarded and considered more close to the Holy.  To throw out a teaser, one legend of the Chalice of Compassion says that only a fully pure member of the church can call upon its greatest miraculous powers.<br/><br/>Outside of sex, chivalrous rules such as accepting the surrender of an enemy and not attacking noncombatants are the norm.  Grey areas in the persecution of war against the enemy of the Kingdom and church exist here just as they have in our own world.<br/><br/>Our heroes will need to have some of the same spread that a normal adventuring group will have - warriors, healers, and more stealthy types.  Good is not stupid.  The church does have spies, and it is not a sin to disguise yourself and be clever to help defeat an evil enemy.  Of course, that's the cutting edge where corruption probably starts too...