The Setting

A Bit of History.

As far as you are concerned, the world is a landmass of two large continents and a huge ocean surrounding it, on the other side of which there are less populous and probably less interesting continents. The story of this area is mostly defined by two groups, the giants and the sahuagin. At first the two developed in some hysterically badly conceived fantasy evolution, which is not at all relevant. They lived quite harmoniously, as they had trade goods but nothing worth waging war over. However, the giants were territorial, generally annoyed by each other and huge assholes. The word huge is important here, as the first generation of giants was a towering race, reaching up to 30 meters and 200 tons in size. They were constantly at each others throats and gaining populated territories usually meant that the residents of the occupied areas were sold to slavery to the sahuagin. The sahuagin took the slaves in and turned them smaller and aquatic. This went on for quite the while. Around this time the giants began realizing, that the world was too empty and too undeveloped, thus beginning a series of magical genetic experiments, crafting dwarves, humans, orcs and many miscallaneous creatures, which took on cultures of their own. The giants in their maternal role found peace and became restrained, watchful, polite and reclusive. Thusly fixing their past errors, they bred one more group, the aquatic elves and the water orcs, to head down to the great seas and negotiate the release of the captive giants.

Meanwhile, the enslaved water giants had developed non-magical ways of communication and other handy powers to which their masters were not privy. They had already begun to form a unified front to free themselves, though they were not treated especially badly. When the sea elves and orcs arrived, they appointed a leader, Livia, who led them to a bloody and hasty revolution, freeing themselves but bringing the wrath of the sahuagin behind them on land. The former slaves were met with open arms, though a relatively modest war was ignited between them and the sahuagin. The war died out soon, however leaving the sea and the land in very cold terms.

The second generation, the aquatic giants, and the first had offspring, who were especially fond of the new races. While the former gens retreated from their society, the third generation of giants became sort of liaisons between the large and the small peoples, and hence tasked with containing the lesser races, who were keen on violence and prone to mistakes.

Currently the world is at a peaceful time, somewhat akin to the Reneissance times of our own. Trains run, the economy is stable, most countries are run democratically, the giants sit in their brain-hurtingly large forts and the sahuagin are their strange selves. More details will follow.

People. A little foreword: As per how all this got started, the races are, by appearance, modified to look like the music type I decided to associate them with. The style portion of the description is a guideline to the major population, but to more distinct people, such as the PCs and major NPCs, it's more relevant.

Giants

The First Generation
The First Gen Giants, also known as the Godfathers, are reclusive and wise, often old beyond the entire existence of the common races. They gave life to the sentient races of the world, educated them of fire and written word, tools, metals, magic and morals, so they would not need to crawl through the bloody path of finding out for themselves. The Godfathers possess a primordial sense of justice and an inexplicable cunning that is not exactly exceptional intelligence, but perhaps a divine guidance that helps them come up with effective and wise solutions to most problems. They are the largest creatures on land, measuring up to 30 meters in height and 200 tons in weight, giving them a human appearance (or rather, vice versa.) Their hair, complexion and eye color come in practically any color and they are as variedly hairy, stocky, lean etc. as a human. Their natural life span is unknown.

The First Generation built fortresses to accomodate them during the two times of war, first amongst themselves and then against the sahuagin. The fortresses stretch mostly along the northern coasts, which is the most important barrier between the ocean empire and their rule. These colossal structures still often work as focal points of society, having the largest cities built around them by the common races. Once the Godfathers resumed peace with each other, they created railroad tracks between the forts, though only in places large enough for themselves.

The First Generation seldom interacts with the common races directly, mostly spending time within their unthinkably large structures and communicating with each other and the other giants. They are commonly thought to be the ceremonial leaders of their respective areas, though they themselves generally refuse the honor. The First Generation population is approximately 300 and they breed slowly, if at all.

The Second Generation
Water is the element of the Second Generation, also known as Aquatic, Water of Free Giants. They enjoy swimming, but dread deep waters, where their captors still might lay in wait for them. They settled in well with living off water, often considered tempered, smart and having no tolerance for being ruled. They consider themselves the First Generation's equal, not their children. With free spirits, they can be found travelling, usually by waterways and in groups, as they share a family-like bond with each other. The Free Giants, being amphibious, swim as fast as they run and have a general coloring of deep, muddy waters. They are typically less hairy than their non-aquatic relatives and have distinctly large, sensitive eyes and ears. The Second Generation is far smaller than the original, growing up to 14 meters in height and 33 tonnes.

During their captive time, they summoned the powers of the mind, psionics, which they employed in their legendarily successful insurrection. Psionics above water, among the common races, are more or less entirely inherited from the Free Giants.

The leader of the insurrection, Livia, is the most powerful known non-monstrous psionicist. After rescuing her people, she completely turned her back on society, leaving for the North Pole without a good-bye. Livia, now known as Imorgin, ascended to godhood, to whom many Free Giants still pray. Through this connection, most Free Giants and their offspring are welcomed to the North Pole's underice lands and many want to perform a pilgrimage to the Sapphire Citadel, in which the deity resides.

The Third Generation
The Third Generation, also known as the Cousins, are the smallest of giants, a blessed offspring of the former two. A Cousin is not easily conceived, because of the difference in size and genetics of their parents and accidental specimen do not exist. They are wanted, planned and privileged, often magically engineered to an extent. They hold some of the greatest wealth and luxury in the lands, but are typically benevolent, leanient and sociable. Because of their leisure time, they often run charitable foundations, schools, hospitals and such. Many of the greatest magical universities are Cousin-headed. The Third Generation is very often dark-skinned, black-, gray- or white-haired and disturbingly beautiful. They grow up to 7 meters in height, weighing about 2000 kilograms.

As the most sociable of giants, they are the common ground between the new and the old race groups. They run many of the largest population centres and uphold peace. They have a common alliance, known as the Directorate, which maintains world-wide agreements and keenly suppresses signs of aggression, work as mediators and teach the wisdom of their elders to the young races. The Directorate is the most powerful organization in the world, after the Sahuagin Empire, and is itself responsible for much of the current level of civilization.

The Cousins are numerous and can be found in most populated areas. They are naturally psionic, which helps them maintain a network of instant messaging.

Half-Giants
Half-Giants, like the Third Generation, is a planned breed between two very different species of humanoid. They are almost always between a common race (mostly human) member and a Cousin, but some exceptions exist, where a Free Giant has decided to share offspring with a member of a new race. Half-Giants have personality traits so varied, that one cannot write a general personality. They are 2,5 to 3,5 meters tall. Because of the exceptional set-up of their making, they are often carefully planned and partly engineered, so physically they are almost never below average.

The Half-Giants are often in places of power, have a higher level due to adventures, are extremely wealthy or are extremely famous - or a combination of these qualities. Because of their remarkable and in many places, revered nature, many take on causes and battles, and there are a great many legendary heroes who have been half-giants.

Half-Giant Racial Traits:

Spoiler:

Faction: The Fourth Generation (the Fours, The Last Nation.)
The Fourth Generation is a network of half-giants, who are assured that their race is the greatest creation on any world, a group of unyielding racial supremacists who believe, due to a prophecy, that the other races will wane and disappear, leaving only them to rule over earth and water. Because of their steadfast faith in themselves, they consider themselves above the laws of the lesser races, running world-wide criminal syndicates and amassing power and strength to be able to step up once the prophecy begins to unfold. Followed by non-half-giant acolytes, they manipulate large sums of money, drugs, weapons and technology in preparation. "Fourthism" is illegal in most areas and the olde races find them misguided, the new ones frightening.

The Last Nation uses the Giant language symbol for four, often stylized.

**

The music of the Giants is Jazz and Blues, but their appearance is much less defined by that. They know how to be festive, but usually wear toned-down and oldish items. Hats are important, and their instruments visible. What is important to the giant/jazz-paradigm is the races' emphasis on musical revolution, the instinct, creativity and focus on the individual. Also they are pretty much run past by time.

The Common Races


Humans
Humans are the most populous humanoid group. They are the builders and the undercurrents of almost all the largest non-dwarven cities above ground. Humans are dark-skinned, black- or dark brown-haired peoples, who have a distinct tendency to worship money and power, personal growth and simpler pleasures of life. However, they are quite varied and from their ranks, with their powerful drive and ambition, a shitload of the power in terms of economy, magic, psionics and infrastructure falls in their hands. Currently the human society is struggling to maintain itself, but is fragmented even within countries.

The music of the human is hip-hop. The successful human adorns himself with gold and jewellery, expensive furs or sport apparell, has an urban tribalism in his demeanor, fights off his fear of others with boast, brag and violence and in most human-ruled areas is powerfully sexist. Religion is important to humans and the deities they worship are easily identified by their ornaments. It is also typical of humans to wear the symbol of a benevolent god, but coarsely act against their dogma.

Faction: The Bleeding Bitches, or The Killa Clowns and many others.
The highly schismed group of death worshippers known by their extreme hatred for society and self, is often characterized by make-up, brutality and intended offensiveness. Their inane sense of humor consists of joking of rape, murder and misery and many wear black-and-white clown make-up with their otherwise mainstream appearance. The Killa Clowns live in populous areas, occasionally work together to bring about harm and grief and are known to never back down from a chance of inflicting or experiencing death or pain. They are bullies, adrenaline (and/or other substance) addicts and in stricter parts of the world, to be detained on sight.

Orcs
Orcs are large and powerful of build, but an unfortunate espionage into the craft of creating new sentient life. One of the very first common races, they turned out to be animalistic, spiteful and misguided, early on employed as work force by the more civilized races. Their skin tones are within the range of earthly, natural hues, from moss green to onyx black. While the eldest have many disformations, the younger ones are more uniform in appearance. They form the lowest caste in many urban environments, but their burning hatred for their demeaning position in the world some times leads them to great successes.

The music of the orcs is punk. With almost as many variations as there are specimen, the common stereotype of an orc is socially atypical hair and apparell, a faux intellectual basis for their beliefs and an unabashed love for sex, drugs and violence. Laboring in physical jobs, such as docks, railroads and mines, they wear iron-laced boots and heavy jackets and some of the more parasite-prone work places such as the harbours see mostly clean-shaven orcs. They gather in groups that wreak mild havoc in bars and city centrals, get into fights with not only each other, but other races as well and spend much of their free time in activities undermining the "elitist" social order - and in jail. They tattoo each other heavily. Only their lack of wit and common ground makes their dream of revolution an infertile one, but there are examples of orc-ruled cities, where their desire for equality has managed to run amuck.

Faction: Half-Orcs
Half-Orcs are a breed between humans and orcs, typically combining the worst of the two elements. However, they are sociable, capable of more compromise and in general, easier to deal with than either of their genetic parents. The half-orcs are not a race, nor a faction per se, but they can be spotted in many mid-management jobs, enjoying a life much more peaceful and at the same time, contentless than an orc or a human could. Their music is "skate punk."

Faction: Water Orcs
The Water Orcs anjoy a privileged place within their race. They are aquatic, with amphibious qualities and were especially crafted to dive into the sahuagin empire to help the Free Giants to break free of their enslavement. As such, they are rebellious, uniform and determined. The Water Orcs have stuck close to the First Generation of giants, working their massive fishing boats, upkeeping their fortresses and running errands to them. In fact, the water orcs are by far the closest common race to the Godfathers and enjoy their blessing. The water orcs by breed cannot stand slavery, the lack of free will or, especially, the sahuagin.

Racial Traits

Spoiler:

Elves
Elves are lithe, aloof and young in spirit. The elf society is typically prone to quick changes, isolated and notably behind in development to the other races' establishment. The elves began as tribal, self-sufficient groups, but were assimilated to the cities of humans and dwarves. The wish to detach themselves from those banal worlds, a national identity sprouted out around the world. Their stay with the other peoples was short, after which they banded together and left for their own areas in arid tundras, plains, forests and mountainsides. The elves are observant and interested in almost anything, but vain and distracted. They value music and each other, and their tribes are loosely networked.

The elves are short, thin and unimposing. They have fair skin, hair color from white to dark brown. They are pleasant to be around, adept nature-dwellers and usually associated with sorcerous magic. They prefer to avoid combat, and rather employ illusions and charms than risk injury. Their societies are small, but hospitable. They supply themselves and simply move away when human or dwarven regions begin to enclose on their territory.

The music of the elves is alternative and/or postmodern rock. The variation of the music is large, but the supporters are unimpressive and frightened. They dress up in their own way, remniscient of days older than an individual elf, with an underlined naturalism. They coarse, knot or dreadlock their hair, use large piercings, old clothes and enjoy natural products and mostly vegetables in their diet. They focus on extrospection, making observations of the outside world, which lends credit to their highlighted pointy ears and large eyes, which are known to be keen of hearing and sight, respectively.

Faction: The Shifting!
The Shifting! are a strange, magical anomaly of the elves. There are no two alike Shifting! elves, in fact, their only guaranteed similarity is arcane familiarity. Some of them keep with the other elves, but some need to roam freely. They are desired experimental material for more ambitious wizards, sometimes thought to be divine omens, sometimes they take on a cause and pursue it feverishly. Some of them are not only different from each other, but they change during their lifetime themselves.

[I will add the racial traits later - the idea being, that they get to pick weird combinations of organs and misc powers.]

Dwarves
Dwarves are a varied bunch. They are the second most populous race, after humans, but do not share a very unified culture. They divided into clans early on in their lifespan, because their adamant nature rather split their nations than settle their often minor differences. They have flourished in all ages and every portion of the surface world, leading technology and economy forwards, while maintaining rather archaic morals - and thus make a natural pair for the human society.

Dwarves are typically 110-150 centimeters tall, hairy and distinctly part of a clan. The music of the dwarves is metal, and without further adue, they are grouped as follows:

Shield Dwarves ("Heroic" metal genres:) The shield dwarves are a collaboration of smaller clans, that share the enthusiasm for battle, freedom and adventure. They are known for their exploits and bravery, efficiency in their pursuits and their special clothing, which often includes leather pants without shirts, clearly visible melee weapons and their non-sensical ramblings about the glory of battle, dragons and hatred for arcane spellcasters.
Traits:

Spoiler:

Deep Dwarves (Black Metal:) The Deep Dwarves are almost uniformly of the clan Morgramm. They are superstitious, faithful to their clergy, aggressive, brooding and quiet - their speech is grumbly and spiteful, and very hard to comprehend to non-native dwarvish speakers. They remain indoors in their deep mountain homes and mostly interact with each other. They wear mostly black, sometimes adorned with metal spikes and studs and use black-and-white face paint that signifies their abilities, caste and region.
Traits:

Spoiler:

Machine Dwarves (Progressive Metal/Classic metal:) The Machine Dwarves are divided into clans, organised by task. They mine the mountains, cut the forests, create wealth, progress, stability. The dwarves have the apperance and demeanor typical for fantasy genres. Their cities are the largest in the world, hubs of commerce and material trade. They are in especially good relations with humans, who are excellent buyers.

The Baarsikh (Trash/Death metal:) The Baarsikh are a degenerate group of dwarves, also known as "lesser dwarves." They have a genetic tendency to uncontrolled rage and need to be kept seperate from each other in the other clans' societies, where they provide raw work force. They appear much like Machine Dwarves, but are lither, unruly, unkept and have a glare of mania and violence in their eyes. Many Baarsikh are trained to be rampaging solo combatants, which are released in skirmishes. Though notably different from the Machine Dwarves and considered dangerous, the other dwarves feel sympathy for their struggle to maintain themselves and hence still exist.
Traits:

Spoiler:

Divinity and Morals
The world truely has only one god. She (commonly referred to as a female, though she factually doesn't have a gender or a sex) is the Air Dragon, who has the ability to fulfill prayers, the desire to shape the world and the authority to keep her lesser kin in order. But she's not anything similar to the Christian God, except in that she has the aforementioned ability, but no desire to utilize it. And with her out of the equation, we are at a point at which the deities are in fact only super-powered assholes, some with more, some with less of an agenda. In practise, the world is godless.

But divine power works. This is called the Metronome, an effect of the huge individual influence on Melody and Discord that the deities have, the network of cosmic energy between those who have more power and those who have less. So what religious people call upon them is not actually a thing that comes from their deity of choice, but successful summoning of the energy matrix those deities are a part of, only academically more than the praying individual is. The gods cannot deny divine power, because they are only a part of it, typically a very small part, too. So most organized religion is cultism or a way of unified moral systems. And a lot of those organizations know this.

As the gods are simply people, their doctrine and belief systems are arbitrary machinations of men. When you break your code of conduct, you do not answer to a god for it, paying with your divine abilities, but instead send (in most cases) a signal flare to the church representatives, who will be the Judge Judy and excecutioner in deciding for your fate. Speaking of fate, there is no Grand Plan. There are too many moving factors and puzzle pieces to tell the future - hence, no fate-divining magics work. Nor can you contact the deities, because they do not want to talk to you. If you have something to say, you have to travel to their homes and say it. To their face.

In general, the setting does not have alignments and morals are generally genetic. Love, companionship, community, the foundations of society are pretty normative, as the common races were made by folks of evolutionary psychology backing their ethics up. And normative are also the renouncing of murder, rape and so on. But if someone calls your shit for raising their mum from the dead as a Warrior Mommy, the reaction is theirs, not the universe's.

Gods become gods by something that seems to be a reward for doing something significant. However, the logic behind this is not at all clear. The reason for that is:

Melody and Discord

A brief backround for the actual universally important things.

The two real elements of this particular universe are Melody and Discord, who are sometimes personified, though that is only misleading. The two basic building materials are greater than all or nothing, indeed, all and nothing are only aspects of the two. What other aspects they have are so well beyond the understanding of scientists and myself, that I won't go into that detail. But under Melody is the smaller set of things, called Everything. Under Discord, Nothing. Under Everything is Change, under Nothing, Form. Under Change is Time, under Form, Halt. You keep going down the ladder, you'll find that neither is in any way "true," in any logical sense anyway, they are this yin-yang-all-black-has-a-bit-of-white and no-good-can-be-without-evil abstractions. Hell, you run down the line long enough, you'll find "man" and "woman," which are not even the only damn sexes. So why even mention this? Because they encompass everything in this universe. Everything that is is tilted one way or the other, with a bit more of "energy" (actually, energy is a word hugely inferior to either) from one. That creates the only cosmic standard for Yes and No. Movement, say, atomic vibration, has a little more Melody than Discord, and with void it's tilted a little more the other way. There is no struggle between good and evil, there's a struggle between the two "thens," the beginning, when it was all Melody, and the end, where it's all Discord.

The Metronome is a guiding force in the world, in fact it is the source of all power, it's the energy created by the shift from Melody to Discord. This is what magic is all about and this is why magicians, clerics and wizards and so on, have an understanding and a misconception of good and evil. They draw the power from the movement and understand some of it, but wrongly interpret Melody as a benign, creative and Discord as an evil or even a destructive force. This is the thing that can ever bring about the concept of universal good and evil. People didn't make that shit up, I swear. They just misinterpreted it.

Those who choose to be cultists of either force, are called Farseers and do whatever the fuck they wish, but are not in favor of any church, but are not granted Domains outside of a very limited system, meaning, you can't be a cleric of Discord.


The Air Dragon
The Air Dragon is the living will, or rather, the lackthereof of the Metronome. She gives and she takes. She has no shape but she has a presence. Everything on the planet we call Earth is under her jurisdiction, but unlike many think, she doesn't have one. This brings about karma - when enough of Melodic or Discordic things are changed, she gains momentum for one. When a continent is teleported to the Sun, she gets a flash of Discord and destroys something. And when a rich crop brings about huge amounts of Others (which is a nice way of uttering the Melody-predominant concept of "Not just you,") she creates a new island.

As a deity, she primarily attends to those who have great influence, which would be the pantheon. Simply because they manipulate the Metronome in larger amounts than mortals. So she would be the village elder or the head shaman of the ascendant population - but still, she's one of the most actively prayed deities. You see, she does have a mind, you CAN indeed talk to her, but she's rarely of the same mind twice. She's as fickle as the Metronome, but she knows this. And she accepts it. And so do her followers.

Church: The churches of the Air Dragon are called Pedastals of Air, in which the clerics of her judge. They are more politicians than they are clergymen, for their God is unpredictable and the phrase "her power" slowly turning into an euphemism of "our power." So, the clergy associate themselves with worldly matters, are advisors and co-leaders of community, healers, in part warriors and quite often the head of the juridical system. The dogma of the Air Dragon works on avoiding negative karma, performing tasks they see as Discordian. Hence, though a rigid system, they aim at being benefactors. All of the larger cities have a Pedastal, but they have small variance in their practises and indeed struggles for the souls of people are fought quietly within the church.

Code of Conduct:
-Avoid destruction.
-If you destroy, create something in turn.
-Good things come to those who perform good deeds.
-Those who do evil are to be turned or contained.
-The weather is an omen.
-If the weather tries you, you must perform good deeds until it relents.

Domains: All akin to:
Good, moral values, air, weather, healing, retribution.

Imorgin
Given a birth name of Livia, Imorgin was born a giant back when the only folks above ground were the Giants. She was an exceptional creature of exceptional intellect and beauty, a foundation upon which the modern world could lay upon. Could HAVE laid upon. The wars between the infantile giants came and though she was powerful and followed by many, she could be overpowered by others more numerous and greedy. She was taken as a slave and sold to the sahuagin for rights to food that was everyone's to share to begin with. She was proud, the proudest of all of them and refused to work dirty jobs for an eon. Others, worshipping her unrelenting demeanor, flocked around her within the deep waters. Before they were bewitched to small, workable size and after she did not defend them. She sat a decade, without gills or fins, refusing the sahuagin's magic with her mind, and refusing to drown. And after a decade, she gave her former kin the Seed. In a flash, they could communicate without opening their mouths or motioning with their hands. And their powers grew still. She organized the now forgotten giants, told them how to grow, where to go, who to trust, what to lust.

This is the first example of a finely ruled socialist state, the giant slaves who would perform their tasks for themselves, organized and full of hope for the revolution's continuation. And one day the message from above came, orcs and elves with fins and gills, who told Livia that the above ground were now waiting for them. She launched a coup of unbrideled passion. The surface world was quite as surprised as was the deep water world, when the Giants slaughtered their way with their mind's power out of enslavement and back to their homes, where they'd been missed for common race generation upon another. But upon their ascension, their leader had vanished. The last report they had was of her walking on air towards the extreme north, alone and wearing nothing but her beauty.

She now lives in a fort known as the Sapphire Citadel - known by others, she never named it - which is shaped like the compass star in the middle point of the planet, the extreme north pole. She lives alone with nothing but an envoy of owls, an amount equal to her people and has removed all obstacles from sight to every direction, used her mind powers to mute all sounds and sits. She renounces others, thought, meaning, time, place in her solitary domain. She hopes to close down all of her existence's strands and become absolute one with Discord. But all in her intelligence, even she does not understand that Discord wants no-one. And if she is anything, she is not Discord's to own. So she sits, meditates and sometimes gazes upon the derelict snowy wastes of the pole and her owls fleet past her ice towers without a sound.

Whoa, that crock of shit got long.

Church: The church of Imorgin teaches abstinence, individualism, intellect and of course psionics. It is a church for the "ME!"-person, a church for those who wish to spend their lifetimes thinking about cosmic concepts that may not even exist. The religion has only a church here and there, but Imorgin's followers are numerous. Those who wish to be as strong as her, or as powerful. Those who feel their psionics are stepped on and discarded. And especially the Polefolk worship her. They are creatures from all northern parts of the planet, who felt her power and wished to kneel before it. When she erected the Citadel and didn't invite them, they built their cities around it. But the cities disturbed her view and she commanded them below the ice. And now, there they are, full of love and worship for Imorgen, living in their caves of ice and without a snowman's chance in hell to receive her blessing.

Code of Conduct:
Imorgen doesn't exactly boon her followers with rules, but if the church has some, it is mostly a lithany of self-centeredness; do what you will, but hurt no other in the process. Except if it's really important. Live, prosper, lead. She has very few divine magic-using priests, but plenty of psions, who on occasion demand that no other than a psion can even enter her holy place.

Domains: All akin to:
Water, psionics, self, emptiness or void, rebellion, struggle, victory over others and self