Homeland

Homeland is a misnomer, an agreement made when words took the place of weapons once they had been beaten into plowshares. In each of the six Imperial Tongues, the name for the land of its people, the soil itself, and the concept of the world at large were each the same word. In the aftermath of a decades long war that saw thousands die, both Godblooded and non-blooded alike, a tentative piece was formed, and a trade tongue created. Homeland was the agreement that the six had a shared world to protect.   Three hundred years ago the predecessors to what would become the six self titled Empires of Light decided that the world was big enough for them to split up. Prior to that, Ovri, Kurigama, Solash, Cieuray, Laubrok, and Haldus were in border skirmishes with each other, as well as the underdark for centuries. Each of the six had formed around a poorly understood artifact, a throne, that gave the owner immense power of the land itself. Each of the thrones functioned differently, and had its own will as well as method of removing those unworthy to sit the throne. In Kurigama for example, those that try and sit the throne who are deemed unworthy - by some unknown power or entity - are turned into jade statues instantly. The Empire of Jade, as Kurigama is known in the trade tongue, has an antechamber in its imperial capital that leads to the throne room lined with those who the land itself saw unfit.   While the people of the various empires pay more allegiance to their culture than their race, there is an understanding that each of the thrones seems to only be receptive of one of the six common races: Orcs, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Fairfolk and Gnomes. It is thought that in pre-history these thrones may have been where the various races got their start before migration, war, and cultural redistribution led to the more mixed cultures seen today. A seventh race, the wildlings, have only in the last generation or two come to be full members of the Imperial Alliance. With no throne of their own and no great armies they were considered little more than savages for centuries. That all changed when a group of adventurers, including a Godblooded wildling, uncovered a conspiracy that had been killing Godblooded wildling children to ensure that their people never challenged the Emperors for power.   Homeland, until recently, was thought to be made up of three continents. The imperial continent was for many centuries the only known landmass. As Ovri and Cierurary discovered ways to harness float stone, and the magic of artifice to create flying ships, two other continents were located, one to the north, and one to the west. While individual empires have more specific names, they are commonly referred to now as WesCol, and NorCol. These continents both became the target of colonization roughly eighty years ago. More recently, an expedition has been sent to an as of yet unexplored continent thousands of miles from the ImpCon. Most of those who know about the plan do not expect any of the possible colonists to ever return.   The gods of Homeland, The Twelve, are active in the affairs of their people, very active. Children born of the union of one of the gods and a human may result in a Godblooded child. These children have an incredible well of energy that allows them to take more damage, learn more quickly, and perform amazing feats that many non-blooded will never be able to attain.   The Imperial Alliance are not the only peoples that claim Homeland. Their opposites, the oft-maligned six dark empires of the underdark also worship the same 12 gods, in their own way. They too have Godblooded and thrones. Little is understood past these facts about the underdark other than their empires seem to belong to the hordes of goblinkind, the dark sorcerer king of the illyathid, the forges of the duergar, the xenophobic city states of the beholder alliance, the matriarchal theocracy of the drow, and the mad inventors of the Deep Gnomes.   Framing all of the various social and military conflict is the oddity of the geography of Homeland. While the people of the world know no better, if any visitors from throughout the planes were to wander toward the shore of any of the continents, the vast unending lack of ocean would be quite off putting. Where other worlds have oceans, Homeland has only mist. On average, the continental shelf is visible for two hundred feet before the mists thicken and block all sight. The Mists are feared, and rightly so, as they seem to have the ability to drive mad those who stare too long at their rolling depths. In fact, the Mists as a whole are considered taboo by the Imperial Alliance. They are not talked about, researched, or explored officially. Due to this, those crazy enough to be sailors in the navies of airships controlled by many of the empires are often shunned. Homeland does have the idea of an ocean, as there is a massive floating ocean, thought to have vast float stone deposits at its center.   The people of the Imperial Alliance have had three hundred years of relative peace, however, with the uprising of the Wildlings, the recent growth of a 7th throne in the Imperial City, the expedition to the lost continent, the growing worry about how long it has been since an underdark incursion, and word that children are being born with deformities on the colonial continents, that peace is growing fragile.