Galn

“The veil is not a perfect shield. Its protections are thick and thin, deep and shallow. You walk amongst them even now, in these scarred lands. Our kind are not worthy of its light, they believe. What they want we cannot let them have. Our greatest blessing is also our curse.” -Ai’Hari shaman to Niklaus Dane, renowned explorer, circa 240 A.V.   Galn is a world of magic, invention, gods, and more. It is an ancient world, histories hearkening to times thousands of years into the past. Despite its years, the world remains a wilderness home to forgotten ruins, primordial forests, and civilizations lost to the ravenous will of nature and calamitous might of gods. The current age is not without its own great kingdoms, points of light among the harsh darkness of the unknown, pushing against the passage of time to carve their own place in history. Throughout that history Galn has been shaped by the conflicts of creation’s first children, the gods and titans. Order and chaos. The land and seas reflect the many struggles of these forces, their frightful power both destroying the beginnings of life and creating them. This cycle resulted in the Calamity. At the heart of the world, an explosion of magic burst forth and created the Aetherial Veil, a barrier that protects Galn from all forces primordial, infusing the land with immense magical energy. However, in the wake of its formation, destruction was cast far and wide forever scarring the world.   “The sky became laden with ash as fiery shards of the mountain rained upon the world. From the very heart, a column of magical energy soared up and outward, piercing the darkness covering the world, sheltering all of Galn with its might.” -Ai’Hari shaman to Niklaus Dane, recounting the Calamity, circa 246 A.V.   From within the Empyrean Alps, the source of power for the Benethilian Empire, a detonation released that would engulf the world - the Calamity. Benethil was annihilated in the chaos, leaving behind an enormous crater filled with the jagged shards of the alps, void of life and magic. The territories once held by the Benethilians soon fell into what became known as the Ashen Wars for the next 200 years before the founding of the Nine Kingdoms. The story begins in the year 374 A.V. (after veil) on the continent of Orea, the Heart of Galn. Within the divided lands of the Nine Kingdoms many are still recovering from the destruction wrought by the Calamity and war. Raids from northmen, the emergence of rampant monstrosities from the Shattered Heart, and the churning war machine of the southern clans are drawing thin the resources of the kingdoms. Strange cults have surfaced preying on small towns in their reverence of forgotten gods as a healer-maddening plague named the Deathmark has begun to carve its way through the western kingdoms. Rumors of reformation and growing aggression in the eastern kingdoms have tensions running high. Conflict is stirring in the melting pot of Orea, a simmer awaiting the flame that will herald the boil.   "The heart will beat once more. The renewal of the forgotten, the unfathomable. Their return will be our end, and we cannot hope to stand before them as we are." -Ai'Hari shaman to Niklaus Dane, upon his deathbed, circa 247 A.V.   Galn as a setting is a complex mixture of themes ranging from medieval fantasy to late renaissance fantasy. It blends high, low, and epic fantasies chartering benevolent and malevolent gods, steampunk and clockwork ingenuity, fantastical cities of nearly alien-like magical creations, arthurian-esque societies, and a full spectrum of inhabitants and creatures to terrorize the land. Galn is a world of wonder and grit, heroes and villains, good and evil. A world on the brink of discovering what lurks behind the veil.