Stildane Setting Guide

Stildane is the continent of monsters, chaos, and adventure. This is one of the area most naturally-suited for traditional adventuring; the frequent monsters, extremely diverse species, and more stereotypically "medieval" societies will make Stildane more familiar and comfortable for many players. Conflict is also easy to make here, as monsters and magics perpetually terrorize the land. 

Stildane 100

For a basic primer on what makes this continent tick: thousands of years ago, the Gods sent Ederstone down from the sky. Ederstone is a mineral that warps reality and permanently mutates anything that touches it or gets near it; too much Ederstone in one place, and all laws of the world break down entirely. The mutations created by Ederstone often mimic things in people's dreams, nightmares, and fantasies - some life becomes monstrous and aggressive, but most life simply becomes different. Small amounts of Ederstone radiation are common throughout Stildane, creating lots of new kinds of animals, people, rocks, and plants over time. This is the source of all that unusual magic and monsters. 
While Ederstone is not evil, its influence is chaotic and destructive, so most places with large populations and complex societies will have no (or very little) Ederstone. Places that have some small shards of Ederstone and a small amount of constant background radiation are known as Chaos Wastelands, due to the landscape being too chaotic for any kingdom or society to settle. Within these Chaos Wastelands, Chaos Nexii are places that have massive Ederstone deposits that completely fray reality.  The Chaos Nexii create truly impossible things, which wander into the Wastelands; the Wastelands serve as nesting grounds for mostly-impossible things to breed and adapt themselves to a more-real place; the most harmless animals and plants from the Wastelands are often allowed to enter into settled societies. This means that, while the weirdest things will always be in the Nexii, plenty of weird life coexists with the totally-normal farm life of "normal Stildane". There is no "normal bunnies on this side of the line, chaos bunnies on that side" situation; plenty of weird bunnies with five eyes or purple fur are allowed into the "normal areas" as long as they don't inconvenience anyone. 
People who are seriously mutated are called Starspawn. Those who are still recognizable as a certain species (like a human that is still a human but now has blue hair and little horns) are called Star-touched. 

Running Ederstone

This is the realm of chaos. That doesn't mean it is a 'totes random' land of infinite whimsy and constant shennanigans - the key to Stildane is to imagine a place where changing biology and magic has been normalized and accepted into a place where people live. The whimsy and hijinks can happen, but if there's a lollipop forest there needs to be a sense that the locals have thoroughly explored how to use this to better survive and prosper.  Magic also rarely takes such simple forms here as "good" and "evil"; all Ederstone is dangerous, but none of it is evil. These are Dreams and Desires being twisted and reimagined by an alien mind; when a mutation seems like torture to someone, that is because they are accidentally getting their own fears projecting onto themselves by Ederstone. The rock doesn't know what is a good or a bad emotion, and will do its best to reflect as many emotions and desires as are felt powerfully around it. 
And, to be entirely clear, Ederstone is sentient, but in an alien way that won't speak through words. This doesn't mean that the rock can be bargained with or threatened - you can't kill it in any way that matters and it cannot feel pain or desire for itself. This jires, typically in ways that are surreal and not entirely desirable. For example if you enter it's lair seekiust means that Ederstone can act out stories with its mutations, or try and grant people's innermost desng conflict, you will be given conflict; if you come looking for yourself (to, say, satisfy a sense of alienation or dissatisfaction), you may find a perfect copy of your body inhabited by a spirit that is a reflection of you. If you come seeking peace, you may find your spirit liberated from your body into a tranquil new form.
Ederstone as a physical presence in the campaign should be minimized. The rock is OP. No armor can stand against it (except for specialty Kobold-bone armor), as it mutates any metal it touches instantly. If you can see it, you are being irradiated. There are no saves against mutation, only coping mechanisms to deal with what has changed. If you touch it, the only medical response is to amputate the part that touched it immediately, before the transformation spreads and you are remade entirely. An Ederstone spear to the stomach is instant character annihilation, regardless of HP. Only Kobold characters are safe. Since Ederstone is so dangerous, avoid taking the campaign into a Chaos Nexus or giving enemies Ederstone weapons unless the point of the game is to end in horror. 
For media inspiration for mutations and changes, see Annihilation (the book), Annihilation (the movie), and the Fallout series of video games. 

Stildane 101

Now, let's move beyond Ederstone. What else is going on here? 
Well, now that you know what a big deal mutation is, it should be clear that a species immune to that radiation would be equally important. Enter Kobolds, the one thing in the world immune to Ederstone. If you or your players associate the name "kobold" too deeply with little lizard guys, I recommend using a new fantasy name for the species like Kiv or Purian. Kobolds being immune to Ederstone means that, while everyone else is always changing with the world around them, they remain the same. Many Kobolds see themselves as fundamentally apart from the rest of the world; everyone else is part of the dreamscape, but not them. This idea is radically articulated by the most common religion among Kobolds: Kivishta. 
These Kivish Kobolds see the reality as a dream, and believe that they are the only real people in all the world being reincarnated over and over again into the dream. Some Kivish use the fact that non-Kobolds are just imaginary to excuse horrible crimes of imperialism; others try and find "the point" or "the message" of the dream. The current number one Kivish Empire is the Empire of Kizen, which used to use their religion to excuse using Ederstone as a weapon to terrorize the rest of Stildane - but hasn't done that in a few centuries. The Kivish are more of a powerful political presence the further North you go.
Most of Stildane that isn't Kivish or chaos wasteland belongs to the religion of Uvara. This religion basically is all about moderation and survival, and they worship the God Ustav as a symbolic "main God" that will one day make the world painless and pure. Many kingdoms practice Uvara in many ways. The main two are:

• The Kingdom of Hain in the North, which is basically Ren Fest knight kingdom
• The Empire of Eketen in the South, which is all about a central government imposing law and order on the chaos of the world - but is currently in a nasty civil war

In the Southern reaches of Stildane, a third religion - The Suneka - has been approaching from the South. The Suneka is a religion that is also a lifestyle; basically super-communal and highly formalized order, where everyone has a carefully defined (and sometimes limiting) role to play. The Sunekans believe that, by making people Ordered, they can make the Ederstone become Ordered as well. The Sunekans have ties to the continent to the South ([Suneka ) and have superior technology and wealth. 
There are a lot of groups here, but the average party won't be encountering them all at once. The Kivish are more relevant in the North, the Sunekans are only in the South, and the kingdoms are mostly limited to their zones. 

Aesthetics, Tone, Themes

Stildane is all about the strange, the alien, the magical, and the chimeral. Everything is multi-faced: a deer that is a plant, a butterfly that is also a human child, a rock that is also a beating heart. You never know what is over that hill, if it will be wonderful or terrible. The kind of high fantasy present here is much more "weird fiction" and "1900's odd fantasy" than "fairy tales" or "classic fantasy" - though those other things aren't banned. Think H.P. Lovecraft's short stories (including the goofier parts) or the 'Morrowind' video game. 
Stildane is 'about' two things: coping and colonization. 

• When I say 'colonization', I mean 'externally-motivated change forced upon a subject that has no ability to resist, that leaves the subject a mixture between the original and something entirely new'.
• And when I say 'coping', I mean 'self-motivated change to try and make the best out of something bad or difficult'.

The settled kingdoms colonize the wasteland and seek to impose order and "normalcy" on the chaos. Ederstone and the wastelands colonize the settled kingdoms, subtly transforming the ecosystems and biology of even the safest places. People are constantly being shaped by the mundane forces of very intense religions, cultures, and states, while also being shaped by the magical forces that invisibly re-arrange their bodies. To be static is to be dead; change is not optional in Stildane. Player characters have lots of opportunities to physically and emotionally transform during a Stildane game.
I use the word 'cope' to mean survival and adaptation, because there is a certain amount of trauma and fear involved in this process for a lot of people. The villains and heroes of Stildane are all survivors with ideologies built to cope with impossibility. The Kivish are coping with a world that isolates them with no clear reason why; the chauvinistic knights of Hain are trying to dress up a desperate militarized society in pretty ornamentation. Local villages try to exploit whatever monster or anomaly shows up for money and resources, because they need any temporary advantage they can to get ready for the next disaster. This Stildanian pragmatism can lead to people having open minds about strange things - why lose warriors killing the weird sludge beast entering your town if you can try and offer it food to do something for you? This same pragmatism sits at the core of the continent's greatest evils, as powerful people have exploited the worst of the wasteland to oppress and exploit others. 
How you want to make all of this your own is up to you. Maybe you want to do a sad, scary campaign about the change and transformations that the characters must suffer to survive. Maybe you want a campaign that plays with normalcy - the way that weird things become normal, or the underlying normalcy of people being people in the wasteland. Maybe you want a fun and funny high magic romp that revels in the weird and wondrous possibilities of imagination - a campaign that embraces dreams and desires. Or maybe you've got your own thematic and tonal take on this. Have fun, communicate with players, and go wild!

Designing a Character

Every character race and class works here. The different parts of Stildane offer different local character options - a Kivish character in Northern Stildane will hit differently than one in the South - but nothing is off-limits. So, let's start with some questions:

• Are you a local Stildanian, or are you here from elsewhere? If the latter, why are you here?
• If you have money, why do you not use it to leave Stildane? You need to want to be here to not end the character's career rather early.
• If you are from Stildane, are you from the settled lands or the Chaos Wastelands? 
• If you are from the settled lands, are you Uvaran, Kivish, or Sunekan? Or something else?
• If you are from the Wastelands, are you a nomad, a villager? Did you grow up isolated, with little knowledge of the world beyond the chaos and the village, or did you regularly interact with merchants or visitors from the wider world?

Species-wise, this is the most open and flexible setting of them all. Not only is every Halika species present, but Starspawn can be anything. You want to be an orc? You want to be a turtle-guy? You want to just be a human with sharp teeth, purple skin, and horns? You can choose any of those things. The only thing worth remembering is that most starspawn do not have their own country or culture or 'place' - you might have a village or extended clan of people who look like you, but there is no drow kingdom or unified 'orcish culture'. Your body is just your body, it doesn't mean anything about your social position or personality.
The only species choice that really matters is whether or not you are a Kobold, because Kobolds are born immune to Ederstone radiation and are often part of the Kivish religion.
Once you've decided where your character fits into the setting, time for a name. 

• Wakingtongue language for Kivish, wastelanders, and sometimes just in general
• Hainish language for Northern Uvarans
• Kasten Language for Southern Uvarans
• High Sunekan for Sunekans

For character languages, Wakingtongue is the default "common" of this setting; it is the trade language. Hainish is a useful local language for speaking to farmers and other commonfolk in the North, while Kasten is that in the South. High Sunekan is a useful language for interacting with Sunekans in the South; many imported books are also in High Sunekan, so it is a useful academic language and very common among wizards. For some extra languages of use: 

• Many sailors speak Borim, the language of the Far North. 
• Selkie is a useful language for trading with selkie ship merchants. 
• Cat is useful for speaking with the feline population. 
• Ancient's Tongue is a useful language for deciphering text on pre-Ederstone ruins.
• If you wish to speak with underwater people, knowing Sonrild, the language of the Stildanian cephapeople, is useful.

Getting into the specifics of classes and backgrounds here would not be helpful, as North and South Stildane have very different opportunities and it would get cluttered getting into all of them.

Designing a Campaign

Campaigns here can be most anything: 

• A monster hunting campaign where you travel the land dealing with a monster of the week scenario
• The group finds a treasure map to ancient ruins with treasure deep in the wasteland, and must figure out how to plunder those ruins
• A powerful monster or cult leader has found a way to entice monsters and destructive Ederstone anomalies to attack their enemies - and now monsters are focusing in on one small area. 
• A mundane conflict, like a civil war or a noble feud, has allowed a tide of chaos to disrupt a swath of settled life. Heroes must step up to help the local people survive and restore harmony.

Given the number of possibilities, be sure to check in with your players about what they want. If they want a free-form wandering game to pursue character goals, Stildane works for that; if they want an epic quest, that means coming up with a threat. 
Most threats in Stildane will be relatively small-scale, though that doesn't mean that they aren't powerful. Ederstone monstrosities just don't naturally want to raze kingdoms and kill all people - and typically people also don't want to do that. But a powerful beast, spirit, or witch can still really have it out for a border town or a clan, and there can be plenty of collateral damage in that.
If you do want a bigger scale of action, consider an Apocalypse Campaign. This is a game where cosmic forces have aligned to cause the entire world to begin to collapse - not just Stildane. An Apocalypse Game has lots of diverse threats and enemies, as well as high stakes. I'm keeping things vague here on purpose here, but the Monster Manual is all about filling in some of these blanks.

• Cults of the Dark One, where cults communing with a sinister presence have begun to set the stage for total war and collapse. They are trying to re-radicalize the Kivish into a new war machine, while corrupting Uvarans into destructive and oppressive parodies of their own faith and kingdoms. You can make this about intrigue and cult-fighting, or have the cults start having turned the Kivish into a war machine that is now taking over Stildane again.
• The Hungry Wastes, where the wasteland has decided to stop tolerating the trespasses of the settled world and now a swarm of mutants and monsters are flooding from the Chaos Nexii. The people of the wasteland are struggling to survive, while the settled kingdoms are suddenly tested.
• The Purity Crusade, where a hive mind of light-magic-wielding zealots have hijacked the Suneka and are seeking to conquer and assimilate the people of Stildane.