Pantheon: Aeinia is a world very much shaped by the history of its gods. The world was created by a pantheon of primal earth deities known simply as the Forces, now as the Forgotten Gods. In the time of their dominion, clerics and priests were unknown, their ways taught exclusively by shamans and druids. Every 500 years or so, the Forces released a cataclysmic destruction of some sort to cleanse the world of the weak and renew the cycle of life, with the faithful of all races hoping to be reborn into a new incarnation. The Forces are largely believed to have abandoned their world and creations to explore the cosmos. By divine decree of the Outer Gods, who now hold dominion over the world, their former temples and sacred relics were destroyed or hidden. When the Outer Gods came to Aeinia, they trapped the Forces outside reality in the Nether, which is thought to be the absence of creation. Although they are utterly unable to even perceive the living planes, a remnant of the Forces’ power still exists within the world, and even the memory of a god can be a powerful thing.

 

The Shattering Era: When the Forgotten Gods (the Forces) abandoned the world, the laws of nature themselves began to unravel, and the world itself began to slowly drift from its orbit, which wreaked untold havoc upon the world. People died in masse from famine, natural disasters, and all manner of physical dysfunctions. Some places could grow no crops while the plants in other places grew so wild that nature reclaimed civilized places. Temperatures rose so high in some places that lands were turned into deserts and fell so dramatically in others that they became frozen wastelands. As barriers between planes and time degraded entire cities fell into different planes of existence or were lost in the past or future. The living races were on the brink of extinction when the Supreme Council of the human Tarsyrian Empire performed a desperate magical act. In an attempt to seek help from the gods of other worlds, they performed a ritual that destroyed the Tarsyrian Empire and warped reality across the Eastern Pinnacle to apocalyptic effect. Civilization was saved from the brink of annihilation by the advent of the Outer Gods, who restored the world to balance.

 

East and West: Anciently, the two largest continents were known as the Eastern Pinnacle and the Western Pinnacle. The fey of Aeinia were given dominion over the eastern and the dragons were given dominion over the western, while the humanoid races were meant to wander over both. This relationship eventually degraded as the races abandoned their divinely appointed roles and began to chart their own destinies. The races of Aeinia are now scattered abroad through the whole of the world.

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The western pinnacle is largely ruled by the Jeshir Empire, whose tyrannical government led a successful genocidal war to wipe out all fey across the Western Pinnacle and whose dragon-blooded sorcerer-led armies wiped out the free practice of magic. Wizardry was outlawed to all except the nobility, and those who are born with magic in their blood (sorcerers, psions, and some witches) are forced to register and all but forbidden to practice their arts. Those who are born with magic are most often kidnapped by the enforcers and forced to serve the Imperial Army. Despite this despotic rule, the emperors and enforcers have instituted schools across the whole of the land and charitable institutions that ensure basic civil comforts are as accessible as possible.

The eastern pinnacle is ruled over by a liberal collection of independent city-states known collectively as the Eastlands Alliance. Over 400 hundred years ago, the Jeshir Empire attempted to conquer the lands of the Eastern Pinnacle following the end of the Shattering Era. The wizard-led armies of Manoir Eiden and the other eastern city-states of the Eastlands drove out the imperial invaders and solidified their independence from the empire and each other. The elves repelled the Jeshinese on the western coast of the Eastlands and drove them from the forests with their human neighbors, gladly joining the Eastlands Alliance, a relation which is strong to this very day. Eastlanders value nothing so much as their freedom and protection from the brutality of powers like the Jeshir Empire. Laws exist in each kingdom preventing the same atrocities from ever becoming part of life on the Eastern Pinnacle.

 

The Spirit Clans and the Archfey: The living races of Aeinia owe their survival to two pseudo pantheons who worked to prevent the world from complete destruction. In the western pinnacle, the spirit ancestors of the Jeshinese found they could exert power over things through a unification of will, and having no afterlife to move on to any longer, they began to watch over their descendants and the continent. The people began to worship their ancestors, who gained further power and influence from that worship, a practice which continues to this day.

 

The Eastlands was barely held together by the Sylvan Six, a sextet of powerful Archfey from the Plane of Faeries, also known as the Feywild. Exerting great influence over nature, the fey lords were able to slowly begin to stabilize the Eastern Pinnacle, and over time would have been able to heal the land completely by drawing it into the Feywild itself. This drifting into the Plane of Faerie was prevented by the magic of the First Sister, who banished the Archfey back to the Feywild and wiped out all traces of their influence for a time. Warlocks still make pacts with the Archfey, however, and the Sylvan Six have lost no interest in the world they helped to save.

 

The Plague: About 10 years ago, a horrible plague descended upon the Eastlands that proved incurable to priestly magicks. The clergy of the gods of good, evil, and neutrality blamed one another’s deities for the creation of the illness and made war upon one another to such a degree that it created great civil unrest in many places. As such, the people have largely become disillusioned with the great churches that they once lauded for ending the Shattering Era and driving out the Jeshir Empire. It was later discovered that the plague was caused by the Demon Lords of the Abyss or the Arch Devils of the Nine Hells, which culminated in the destruction of the city of Vel’Alloria from cultists leading a fiendish army. The city was the headquarters for the United Coalition of Faiths, a loose interfaith alliance that worked to protect the Eastlands from threats beyond the planes, an organization whose loss caused the people to doubt the power of the gods further still.

 

The Flux: Only a couple of years ago, magic across the whole of the world broke for reasons unknown. Traditional ways of understanding and practicing magic ceased forever, and wizards, witches, psions, druids, clerics, bards, and many others were forced to relearn their arts. Magical devices ceased to function as they had previously and many portals were destroyed or ceased to function. Adding to the mystery, the time stream became unstable and some people disappeared, lost on the winds of time. In the newly formed Tarsyrian Empire, the city of High Towers, long thought lost to the destruction of the Shattering Era was pulled from the past and restored. Though no great catastrophes have been reported so far, wild nature has reasserted itself in many places, and many smaller magical accidents changed some lives forever. The extent of the Flux’s impact has yet to be fully understood.

 

The Elder Gods: Perhaps because of the Flux, or perhaps because of the passage of time, three gods who once helped to create Aeinia have been restored to the heavens. Known collectively as the Elder Gods, these three entities were betrayed by the Forgotten Gods shortly after the creation of the world and imprisoned or trapped. Having recently returned to the world, their priests have begun to spread word of their return. Aloof but seemingly benign, the three are believed to be more powerful than the Outer Gods and have declared no allegiance to them. Content to remain individual entities, and with the power to do so, the Elder Gods are not even known to be united to one another. The significance of their return to the world or what it means have yet to be revealed.