The Kingdoms
Humanity, a union of righteous and devoted warriors. The descendants of Helios and his angels. Paladins who control the light mending the wounds of their people. Knights clad in radiant armor, charge forward in the king's name. Wizards wield arcane magic teleporting allies and banishing enemies. Peasants the backbone of human society doing things against their will for the king.
Helios, King of the Angels
The radiant god of light, is Revered as a master tactician in the celestial battle against the demons. Helios watches over the ethereal realm, guiding his angelic warriors and inspiring humanity.
Griffons
Griffons, somewhat intelligent
yet possessing a penchant for
aggression and a lack the ability to
speak. Make nests in high rocky places
and open caverns. When tamed from a young age, they become fiercely loyal mounts. Highly sought after, griffon eggs are often exchanged as royal gifts during matrimonial unions between
kingdoms.
Angels
Angels are divine, demigod-like beings eternally at war with the demons in
the ethereal realm. They are the forebears of humanity, who carry fragments of their celestial power within. While angels are distant and unknowable to most mortals,
the righteous can gain Helios' favor. Through his divine light, chosen
Paladins can transcend their mortal
bonds, ascending to angelhood to join
their celestial kin in the endless war.
Dwarves
Forged from the dirt by Helios and his angels, the dwarves were a divine creation. Shamed by their small stature, Helios banished them from the open plains of Archaios, confining them to the deep caves and jagged mountains. There, the dwarves grew an obsession with stone, minerals. When they emerged to meet the human descendants of Helios they forged an alliance, giving rise to The Kingdoms, united by faith. They found purpose in trade, developing a keen love for gold, which they used to obtain tools, fine goods, and most importantly, ale. Their unmatched craftsmanship laid the foundation for the Kingdoms’ technological might, from steam tanks to blackpowder arms, all forged in compact, rugged designs fit for dwarven hands. Though they walk beside humanity, the dwarves have never forgotten the caves that shaped them—or the sky that once rejected them.
Lands of Archaios
Frostreach
At the Arctic Pole of Archaios lies Frostreach, a desolate and bitterly cold wasteland. Endless ice and snow stretch as far as the eye can see. Only the hardiest beings, or the dead, survive its icy winds and the dangers beneath the frozen surface.
Dunevast
Dunevast sprawls across scorching desert and arid badlands, long home to the orcs, where survival is a struggle against scarce resources.
The Wcorms
Its colossal worms are strangers to Archaios: no one knows where they came from, and no god created them. Hundreds of metres long and said to be nearly as powerful as a god, they have changed the land simply by dwelling beneath it.
The Mineral
The Worms passage has twisted Dunevast's minerals into a rare orange-red stone that can mend wounds and restore strength to those who use it. Word of the stone drew people from beyond Dunevast. In seeking it, elves inadvertently brought water to the surface and created the first oases; humans built cities; and the undead carved tombs beneath the sands. Some cities now lie in ruins beneath the sand. The orcs welcomed the newcomers, pleased to have settlements to raid and destroy besides their own and one another's.
Verduran
A continent of stark contrasts, Verduran encompasses ancient forests, sprawling tundra, and vast plains, where nature's beauty can turn ferocious. Towering trees house hidden secrets, while hardy creatures roam the grasslands.
World Trees
Are exceedingly rare. Their roots form tunnels beneath all of Archaios. Some say they bridge the living world and the ethereal plane; others believe they are living parts of Gaia herself.
Wyverns and Dragons
Wyverns are akin to dragons but lack speech and the same keen intelligence. Aggressive creatures of forests and caverns, they can become companions to orcs. Dragons are larger and more intelligent, and wield the formidable power to breathe fire.
Frostreach
At the Arctic Pole of Archaios lies Frostreach, a desolate and bitterly
cold wasteland. Endless expanses of
ice and snow stretch as far as the eye
can see. Only the hardiest beings or the dead survive in this frigid realm, where icy winds howl and dangers lurk beneath the frozen surface.
Ancient ruins and buried cities hint
at those who came to mine the
orange-red stone. Dunevast's first oases
were later made by elves.
Verduran
A continent of stark contrasts, encompassing ancient forests, sprawling tundra, and vast plains. Towering trees house hidden secrets, while hardy creatures roam the grasslands. The heart of Verduran is a battleground of nature's beauty and its ferocity.
Wyverns and Dragons
Wyverns, akin to dragons but lacking intelligence and the ability to speak, are aggressive creatures well-suited as companions for orcs. Found in dragon-favored environments such as tangled forests and large caverns, wyverns growl like animals and exhibit a primal nature. In contrast, dragons, larger and more intelligent, wield the formidable ability to breathe fire.
Orcs
Orcs are a mushroom race. Their dead release spores into the earth, where mushrooms grow into boars, goblins, or orcs. All three are forms of the same orcish people; each generation seeds the next, making the race self-sustaining. Witches, gathering the magical energy of other orcs nearby to empower their magic. Having enslaved giants, and trolls, through sheer might and savagery. Unique to the greenskins is that they grow the longer they live, some as big as trolls. The bigger orcs tend to be the bosses if not overthrown by each other. Yet, few orcs survive long enough to grow to their full potential. The biggest orcs tend to get the first pick of equipment. Orcs rely on pig iron, a raw and unrefined metal, which they obtain through their Boars consume
their fallen enemies, armor and all, and later excrete the metal, which the Orcs then forge into their crude but brutally effective weapons. orc rock launchers crude and thrown together by whatever materials they can find are piloted by handicapped orcs who lost limbs in battle whipping goblins to pilot the crude warmachines. The largest Orc bosses prove their dominance by beating a wyvern into submission and claiming it as their mount. Once broken, the beast is gorged on goblins and swine alike, fattened into a hulking mass of muscle and bulk. By all reason it should be too heavy to fly its wings straining beneath obscene weight but reason has little hold over greenskin belief. Just as their collective will birthed their god, so too does their certainty defy nature itself. The wyvern flies because the orcs believe it can.Orcs daub bold checker patterns across their armor and war machines, not to hide—but to be seen. To them, camouflage is for cowards; the brighter and louder the mark, the faster the fight finds them.
Gorrun, Chaos Incarnate
The orcs' existence is steeped in primal magic—green energy born from their belief and shared will over centuries. Through this collective thought, the chaotic god Gorrun was manifested into existence. A monstrous flaming boar, Gorrun charges through the ethereal realm, laying waste to cities, crushing demons and angels alike,
and leaving destruction in his wake.
His unending rampage causes the
ethereal realm to exist in a constant
state of ruin. It is said that Gorrun's
shakes the material plane itself, a
phenomenon known as
earthquakes.
Giants
Giants, moronic and voracious, resemble
toddlers in intelligence and
communicate in a disgruntled version of Common, sometimes
referred to as orcish. Prone to violent rampages if deceived or mocked, giants pose a threat to both the guilty and innocent until distracted or calmed. Trolls, known
for infamous regeneration, set up dens in caves, creating filthy habitats for themselves.
The Undead
The dead do not rest peacefully in archaios vampires, humanoid bat-like creatures lead the undead, while legions of skeletons and zombies rise from graves under the command of Necromancers. Wraiths angry restless ghosts of lost souls brought back to fight for the dead. Abominations, bodies of dead trolls, giant, humans stitched together. Cultists push corpse-apults siege contraptions filled with the remains of fallen warriors used as artillery. Raised skeletal wyverns, These ancients darken the skies with their baleful presence. Death knights; paladins consumed by darkness fallen from grace with unholy regeneration and speed.
Their soul blades strengthen with
every soul they steal first taking
the bearers. The dead march
forward with green clouds of
disease enthralled by flies.
Necromancers desire to transcend
their physical form and become
liches. To reach this state, they
must craft an phylactery and
be raised from the dead to
house their souls, knowing that
their lich forms are nigh-invincible,
and only the shattering of their
phylactery can end
their relentless existence.
Cthulhu, The Dark God
Once the dreaded god of demons, Cthulhu now slumbers in Archaios' lightless ocean depths. In the War in the Heavens, Gaia and Helios joined forces to defeat him and banish him from the ethereal plane to the deep. Souls there can no longer reach or nourish him. But souls in the mortal world hold far greater value. Through dark whispers that coil through the minds of the ambitious, he tempts mortals with promises of dominion over death itself.
Necromancers and liches believe they rise to power by their own will, but Cthulhu
shapes them into generals for a future army. Demons expect betrayal, yet they hate him for stealing their souls from the ethereal plane and wrenching them from their rightful cycle. His hunger has made him an enemy even to his own kind. He is no longer demon or god, but something far worse.
Demon Slayers
The Demon Slayers are elves who have crossed into the ethereal plane to wage war upon demons in their own realm. They drink the blood of demons, tainting themselves with infernal essence. The ritual grants them terrible power though it robs them of their sight. Blind, yet seeing through the currents of magic, they slip through reality by stepping along the ethereal veil and turn sorcery back upon its wielder, channeling searing green fire that devours arcane energy. Able to burst into flames as demons do. Their glaives drip with venom distilled from sacred tree frogs, a toxin as patient and deadly as the hunters
who wield it.
The Elves
Secretive and seldom seen, the purple-skinned elves dwell deep within the forests. Their largest gatherings occur when they come together to defend a rare World Tree. Treants stand among them, while druids shapeshift, command roots, and heal wounded allies. Elite archers and spearmen ride deer into battle, and Hippogryphs guard the ancient woods at their side.
Treants
Treants prefer contemplative existence rooted in place, resembling normal trees. Trees destined to become Treants undergo a prolonged cycle of seasons, awakening under special circumstances. Opposing those who harm trees, especially those on the brink of awakening, Treants embody protectors of nature, standing against those careless with fire or destructive to the ancient flora.
Gaia, The Earth Mother
The primordial goddess of life and nature, is the creator of Archaios. She shaped the world with care, birthing the forests, mountains, and animals—sheep, bears, squirrels, bats, and more. Yet as humanity grew industrious, their relentless expansion threatened her sacred trees. In response, Gaia created the elves, her most cherished children, to act as stewards of nature. However, when demons meddled
with her creation, the corrupted remnants gave birth to the fungal orc race, whose spores grow into orcs, goblins, and boars. Gaia now wanders the ethereal realm, surrounded by her wisps, a goddess who opposes demons, fighting to preserve the balance of nature.