Aranor Prehistory

In The Time Before the lands were ruled by the First, the first intelligent peoples given life by the gods. The First were a divine race, being near-gods themselves. They were mighty in all things that were of the Creation. They were all warriors, wizards, bards, weaponsmiths, and artists. They were fearless and absolutely sure of their power. So sure, in fact, that in time they waged war against the gods themselves.

Of course, they were doomed. They did make an accounting of themselves before their revolution was thrown down, though. Ultimately they were defeated. Their punishment was to have their essence split. They were divided into humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs. Some of the First escaped the sentence, and bade their time, hidden from the gods.

Once the Lessers, as the First refer to the "split" races, had developed sufficiently the First came out of hiding. They very carefully assimilated themselves into Lesser society, albeit as overlords and rulers. They had carefully laid out boundaries for themselves, to prevent them gathering or coming into conflict, in order to not draw the gods' attention. They became known as the Mage-Lords.

The Mage-Lords bred, bred with, and otherwise manipulated the Lessers to create new races and/or modify the original Lessers to better fit their needs. They were ruthless and cruel, vengeance burning hot and bright in their hearts. Some descended into a madness the depth of which only godlings such as they could fathom. These became known as demons and devils.

The empires of the Mage-Lords were vast and powerful. The Mage-Lords possessed a command of magic and artifice the world has never known since. The states and provinces of their empires were interconnected by dimensional gateways and teleportation devices. Paired scrying mirrors were used for communication. Many of the greatest cities were connected by paved highways. Trade was facilitated by these paved roads, as well as by caravansary at regular intervals.

For generations the Mage-Lords were content to rule within their enclaves. Eventually, though, they turned ravenous eyes on their brethren. Their wars forever changed the world. They shared minor secrets of their magic and artifice, instructing certain talented Lessers. Some were deployed as battle mages. Some were imprisoned in magical smithies, slaves set to making magical artifacts of war.

For thousands of years these wars were waged. Eventually all of the Mage-Lords became embroiled in these conflicts. The gods were content to allow these wars to play out. They realized who the Mage-Lords were and watched as they killed each other off. Eventually, there was only one, called Zagrath. Swollen with pride, he believed that having killed all of the other Mage-Lords and assimilated their power, he was ready to vie against the gods.

He marshalled his forces and summoned great and terrible magic. He opened a gateway to the gods' realms and sallied forth. The struggle was titanic. Zagrath bested many of them before he fell. Eventually the gods, at first divided, came together and overcame the upstart. They visited every manner of suffering on him they could conceive. Finally, when they tired of their sport, they threw him down. Literally. Already broken and mad, he plummeted from unimaginable heights to crash into the world. What was left of his mind was lost in that unending fall, and what remained of his body was utterly ruined in his landing.

He landed on a peninsula extending from the southeastern shores of Calanthas, known as Fahldrag. He crashed into a mountain whose original name is lost to time. Now it is called Sloth Negaimus. It is widely believed that Zagrath lies there still, where he fell, a mad godling in a ruined body, plotting revenge and conquest.

There are whispered legends of lost prophesies that as Zagrath warred against his brethren, he kept them alive. He didn't merely assimilate their power. He kept them alive after a fashion, tapping into their living power. Some say that without Zagrath to hold them in thrall they will regenerate their former power and return to torment the world. Most of these legendary prophesies are scoffed at by sages and intellectuals as fabrications of charlatans and hustlers.

There is also the prophesy of Niamician. It is well-recorded and attributed, even if it isn't widely respected. No one knows exactly what Niamician saw in his prophetic vision, but it drove him irretrievably mad. His only writing of the prophecy was this:

"When Zagrath rises, dark and bloody,

clutch tightly your fear with one hand,

and weep your despair into the other."

My Homebrew Setting

I have posted before about various setting ideas. I have also posted about my world, Aranor. I first started mapping and writing about Aranor in 1990. I have written quite a bit in the last 23 years, unfortunately much of it is mutually exclusive. My gaming ADD takes a heavy toll on any setting development I am involved in. I am sad to say that I typically try to fit Aranor to the rules, rather than the other way 'round.

My vision (if it could be called such) has always been more tilted to swords and sorcery, but with some higher fantasy elements. Not many, but some. Whenever my attention shifts, it is inevitable that I will drag Aranor into it sooner or later. So it has happened with Dungeon Crawl Classics. I am hoping that I can settle on DCC and really get some deeper, sustained development going. The particular conceits of DCC seem to really fall into line with what I want in Aranor, so this should work well. As long as my attention doesn't drift.

With all that out of the way, I want to offer a new version of a particular region of the map. Below is a larger, hand-drawn, map of Northern Calanthas, one of the main areas. The black box indicates the area detailed in the map that follows.

Below is the detail of the area. The principle adventuring setting is the town and keep of Ravenhold, located in the 4-hex mountainous area to the SE of the lake. I haven't placed settlement symbols or names on the map yet.

As you can see, I rendered the map in the style of the old Judge's Guild maps. I thought it made a nice fit for a DCC setting. Besides which, I just like that style. It is very evocative and nostalgic. I did it using GIMP and some patterns that I downloaded from here.

Northern Calanthas with Rivers and Cities

Northern Calanthas with Rivers and Cities

Here is an updated map, including rivers and cities. Now, only roads and labels left to do.

Aranor Hex Map

Northern Calanthas Hexmap

Here is an early draft of my campaign setting, rendered on an ACKS hex grid, for sandbox purposes. I used hexGIMP (available here). The download includes a brush folder and a script for generating the blank hex map. Even though the ACKS sheet already has a hex grid, I couldn't get the brushes to properly fit. The brushes scale proportionately, but the hexes aren't proportionate to them, so it was pretty fugly. I ended up saving the border from the ACKS sheet and pasting it onto the grid generated by hexGIMP. I had to scale it around the map, but that was easy. If anyone tries this and has any trouble, I'll be happy to offer whatever advice I can.

This level of map is mainly a reference for greater detail hexcrawl development. I'm still pretty happy with it so far, just on its own merits. I still have to add rivers, roads, settlements, and labels.

Magic Colleges in Aranor

What follows is an introduction to the three main, formalized magic training institutions in Aranor. One thing I failed to include is that there is a lot of political maneuvering, as the colleges attempt to align themselves with powerful patron states, and the various kingdoms court the favors of the colleges.

An Imperial College of Magic

The Imperial Colleges of Magic maintains the best, most prestigious centers of magical learning in all of Aranor. They are located across the world. Magic-Users from the colleges (they prefer to be called “Imperial Wizards”) are easily recognized by their robes. Base colors indicate a wizard's area of specialty, while other various adornments indicate rank. Note that the character's rank as an Imperial Wizard, and his level as a Magic-User are not necessarily related. Rank is more about clout and political influence. Not all Imperial Wizards are concerned with rank, so do not be tempted to rash action due to the simplicity of an opponent's garb.

Another institution of magical learning that is gaining popularity is the Guild of Arcane Lore. While not as large and institutionalized as the Imperial Colleges, it is spreading and being sought by more and more prospective students. Graduates prefer to be called Guild Wizards or Loremasters. The institution is decentralized, with students being taught in small groups in what the Guild calls chantries. These are small buildings, or perhaps a small compound, usually built on a magically significant location. Loremasters are also recognizable by their robes, but they have no indications of rank on theirs. At first disrespected by the Imperial College, the Guild has persevered and consistently provides a high degree of quality instruction, and has begun earning the grudging respect of the Imperial College.

An alternative to more traditional forms of magic is Alchemy. A guild devoted to standardizing and formalizing the practice has formed within the last fifteen years. Its goal is to establish firm guidelines for rank (apprentice, journeyman, and master) and to establish uniform rules governing the practice of the trade. They are also seeking to promote the craft and spread its practice far and wide. Alchemy has been practiced for centuries, but until the last generation or so it was limited to a folk-craft. Knowledge of it was handed down orally, with any writings on the subject (such as specific recipes) being closely guarded. It was that secrecy that was one of the major hurdles overcame in establishing the guild. Now the movement is well underway to standardize certain recipes, but still allowing Master Alchemists to develop and maintain recipes with “trade secret” status. The Imperial Wizards view the alchemists as poor cousins basically, being people unable to actually develop magical skills and having to rely on “smoke and mirrors to simulate true magic”. The alchemists, on the other hand, take a great deal of pride in being able to replicate magical affects that the Imperial Wizards spend half their lives studying to achieve.

The final method for learning magic is the oldest. The mentor/student relationship has existed for as long as magic has been practiced. Wandering masters may arrive in a town, make his presence known, take on some students for a time, then move on. Some masters live in remote towers and take on students that prove themselves worthy by the completion of some hazardous task. However the relationship is established, there is no guarantee as to the quality of instruction or how far the instruction will ultimately go. Wizards trained in this way are not afforded the same respect as their formally trained brethren. In fact, they are often referred to as Rag Wizards, since they don't have the formally recognized robes of the Imperial Wizards or the Loremasters.

In fact, in the highly competitive world of the magically gifted, there are many derogatory terms for one's competitors. The Imperial Wizards are the most elitist of any of the groups, and are disdainful of all the other groups to some degree or another. As noted they refer to individually taught mages as rag wizards. They refer to the Loremasters as “Lories”. Alchemists they call “lead-heads”, “bubble-heads”, or “mixers”. All the other groups refer to the Imperial Wizards as “Dandies”.

My Campaign World

Alright, here we go. This is a world I've worked on, off-and-on, since sometime around 1990 or '91. It has gone through certain changes, including maps and writings, over the years. Mostly due to trying to warp it to fit whatever system I've been enthralled by at the time. I can't even count how many times I've picked it up and put it down again. Now, I've picked it back up. I'm not going to warp it anymore. I believe the LBBs are flexible enough to fit right in without requiring the setting to reflect certain unalterable aspects of the rules.

Now that the preamble is out of the way, here is the basic map of Northern Calanthas, the principle campaign area. It has seen the most specific development. It is the northern half of an island-continent (most of the continents are island-continents), which is divided by the Sundering Sea. The "d" in Sundering is hard to see on the map because I forgot to write it.

Northern Calanthas

I've also added a brief introduction to the Northlands to my Pages section, so be sure to grab that to go with the map. I have a lot of stuff written for this. It is in various stages of development, and reflects my interest in a number of systems. My goal is to post it as I get it at least a little cleaned up (hopefully polished), and stripped of specific system references. Please feel free to offer any comments or thoughts.