Beginner’s Guide to Faunerro
A Quick Guide to the Faunerro Setting
Welcome to Faunerro
Welcome to the Faunerro setting! Hopefully the easiest of the Florenic settings to get into. The main critiques with Florenelle is that it is one of the harder settings to wrap one’s head around. Faunerro is a setting that attempts to simplify from those problems. To simply answer, the core focus is on the lone Kingdom of Ardentry and its struggle to stay stable as the Cult of Maledict and its followers lurk just off the border in the Western Wastes.
Major Themes
Dichotomy of Haven and Inferna
Divine powers within Haven and Inferna try to influence and sway mortals to both sides, creating what is called “The Dichotomy,” which to an outsider, looks like a fight between good and evil. However, those who reject participating with the fight between Haven and Inferna are referred as Temporal. Temporal religions tend to focus less on the Dichotomy’s struggle of what is right and wrong and instead uphold some form of cosmic norm like death or be responsible for the wellbeing of something, like forests as Kadilith does.
Leading this fighting for Haven are celestials called caels with their institute called the Reverie. Infernal demons called vicians lead their mortals through the Cult of Maledict.
Moral Grayness
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, all because in caels we trust.
One can be certain that, with the planar powers of Haven and Inferna, they can know what to expect. Caels up above will seek to encourage your betterment. Vicians will want to aspire to power and dominate others. Your fellow mundane mortals? Now that’s just up in the air. One can never be certain anymore if a mortal has wholly good or bad intentions. Your fellow priest in the Reverie wouldn’t dare hoard the tithing for themselves, would they? Right…?
Races of Faunerro
The easiest way to handle races within the setting is to classify them between the blessed and the corrupted. Blessed races are the high elves, avians, goliaths, stouts, and humans. Corrupted races are the undead, dark elves, roden, wyrmbloods, and orcs.
Blessed Races
In the Kingdom of Ardentry’s founding, there are six provinces, Cassius being the one for all and the other five being specific homes for the rest.
Avians
Amidst the pine forests of Kalaura, the avians are graceful folk. Humanoid birds, such as aarakocras and kenkus, are blessed by Kavalni for their cheerful and easy-going spirits. They make delightful entertainers with their aerial acrobatics or renowned singing voices. Hoping to aspire to be as great as their virtuous cael, avians often sing while working, become diplomats in calming people’s nerves, and know just what to do to make people smile.
Avians use any of the bird-folk stat blocks as seen with aarakocra, owlin, kenku, etc.
Goliaths
Stoic, strong-willed, and determined, goliaths are the blessed of Talmek. Their snowy northern home in Hulstead readies them to endure many hardships. For Talmek teaches the goliaths how to become strong warriors yet ironically has them learn to hate war. It is better to know when to fight and keep innocents alive than to rampage over countless just for a provocation. As a result, goliaths are known to be tough yet fair when being dealt with as honor and dignity are to be upheld.
High Elves
To study in beautiful architecture within even more marvelous forests of Haliah is the passion of many aetheriin, or high elves in common. The oldest recall the Divine Age’s splendor and the Incursion’s darkest moments. The aetheriin are blessed by Renaki, a cael that pursues wisdom, cunning, and ingenuity. The aetheriin are known to be cautious and often take action when sound reason is given.
Humans
The shore of the mainland and the islands clustered in Dulnmoor are where humans reside most of all. They are blessed by Ornsen, a virtuous cael that inspires hope even in the darkest moments. Humans are crafty and inventive as a result of it or become sullen from the constant lingering presence of Sidresk’s malice in the south.
Stouts
Apple pies, vast fields of grain, homes in hills or mountains, the stouts call it home. Smaller human-looking races, such as dwarves, halflings, and even gnomes, are classified as stouts. Dwarves reside within the mountains, halflings within the valleys below, and gnomes are among the forests and may be more temporal than among the Revered. They are blessed by Silris, a cael that upholds the power of strong communities through wheat and forge. Many stouts tend to know the other in their local towns and villages.
Corrupted Races
During the infamous Incursion, the corrupted races were made from the blessed mortals that turned away from the Reverie and to be among the Cult of Maledict. To this day, many reside in the Western Wastes among their Infernal masters.
Dark Elves
One must watch what they say very carefully when they are among an inferiin, or dark elf. They are the blessed of Verita the Betrayed and an act of betrayal is the greatest grievance one can inflict to her and her corrupted. The inferiin reside in households playing games of intrigue. Though, all households are aligned with Verita so to say that they are competing isn’t a wrong statement but that wording implies they are against the other, which they definitely are not. “To balance in strength,” is a better term obviously. No one is murdered in their games of intrigue, as that would be an act of betrayal. Accidents happen and who’s to say someone was to blame?
Orcs
War is in their blood. Irator the Enforced awakened it. Up north just outside the Province of Hulstead, orc warbands constantly contest with goliaths in hopes of earning prestige with their overlord. To be weak is looked down upon but rising up against a foe is considered a great virtue. In the end, the goal is to dominate and enforce one’s will as a conqueror.
Roden
Dangerous in numbers, the roden are blessed by Alkaran the Exiled. These verminous hordes often harass stout farmers in Kalgarim by stealing food, supplies, and being pests overall. Roden are structured on who is the mightiest and smartest among them, making them pack master. A pack lord, a leader over other pack masters, should be feared most of all, as it likely entails that vicians are pulling strings from afar.
For more on roden details, see the following:
Wyrmbloods
Ruled by dragon masters, wyrmblood are any creature of dragon heritage such as dragonborns, kobolds, and half-dragons. They are blessed by Desideri the Coveted. Wyrmbloods are tasked going around to collect valuables or act as agents to take away what people value most. To steal from her fellow faithful, however, is an egregious act. So dragons often seek to pillaging around the Province of Kalaura (home to avians) to accrue wealth and compete in power that way.
Undead
Undead races are those twisted by Sidresk the Bleak. Dhampirs, reborns, wights, and more are often fallen mortals turned bitter. Vampires cannot rest without hunger forcing them to prey on mortals. Wights are often born from an inner malice before dying or accepting their new role as a creature of darkness. They expect little warmth for they provide little.
Languages
Common Languages
| Language | Typical Speakers |
|---|---|
| Auran | Avians |
| Common | Blessed Races |
| Elvish | Elves |
| Gargant | Goliaths |
| Stout | Dwarves, Halflings |
| Undercommon | Corrupted Races |
Exotic Languages
| Language | Typical Speakers |
|---|---|
| Abyssal | Undead |
| Celestial | Caels, Revered |
| Draconic | Wyrmblood |
| Infernal | Fiends, Maledict |
| Psychothic | Aversals |
| Primordial | Elementals |
| Vrennic | Precursors |
Core History of Faunerro
The following is meant to be a brief summary of the setting’s history. The Story of Faunerro article is designed to go more in-depth about it.
Divine Age
At year 0, the mortals and the caels founded the Reverie, a religion to help inspire hope and prosperity as they began building. With time, the famed six provinces were formed, Dulnmoor for humans blessed by Ornsen, Haliah for aetheriin blessed by Renaki, Hulstead for goliaths blessed by Talmek, Kalaura for avians blessed by Kavalni, Kalgarim for the stouts blessed by Silris, and Cassius as a province for all.
With the City of Hearth as its capital, the Kingdom of Ardentry was founded. The Divine Age had begun. It was a time of tranquil days where mortals got along and could even keep their doors unlocked during the night. No scuffles were had and any problems were just minor grievances. What could possibly go wrong?
Maledict’s Incursion
After 1,000 years of calm days were had, the vicians for the Cult of Maledict were planning the largest assault upon Ardentry. With little warning, the demons sprung up and attacked! Their assault pushed into all the five outer provinces of the kingdom. It was during the siege on Hearth that the caels finally dove down from Haven to assist directly after being so ill-prepared and ill-equipped before the combined mortal and cael armies would push back the Infernal horde to what is now known as the Western Wastes.
It took many years of fighting to repel the invaders but darker problems came out of the fighting. The infamous corrupted races formed as the vicians had awakened selfish desires among mortals. The roden, orcs, dragons, dark elves, and even undead. Because of this, there was no knowing if you could trust your fellow mortal…
Shattered Age
After roughly 20 years of fighting, many mortals understandably wanted to go back to the peace and quiet of days gone by. The Inquisition was founded and given permission to purge out what evils it could find. However, the tougher they punished heresy the more they brought innocents harm. It took a famous elven king and Incursion war hero to finally step in and wrangle the Inquisition. For it Evendur Dundragon who finally declared that we live now in a Shattered Age. It is better to accept life as it is now than burning innocents.
Now, the Shattered Age continues. Cynicism grows and issues with trust are had amongst fellow mortals. One cannot so easily believe if a kind old lady truly is selling the finest pies or is using her kindly facade to dupe you into buying saw dust. Regardless of what people believe, the Kingdom of Ardentry has never had such shakier times. Should she fall then caels save us all!
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