Introduction to Malpos

Malpos: A Shared Campaign World

Hello! Welcome to Malpos, a homebrewed world for fantasy roleplaying games. This world is slowly being built over time with permanent influence from the players. Not only do the players guide what gets developed based on where they go and what they do there but their backstories permanently change the world even if the players never go there. Malpos is a large world meant to accommodate the characters brought into it. While the pre-established areas are respected, there is always room to add in the key aspects of character's design. This can be seen easiest in religion. While there is an established pantheon for Malpos, it is designed to allow the inclusion of any god a player wishes to worship or oppose. This is discussed further in A Pantheon of Pantheons and Old Gods, Aspects, and Paragons.

Malpos is large with multiple sprawling continents. Most of this World Anvil is centered on the Storm Broken Lands because it serves as the default continent for the early Milestone Play campaigns. The remaining continents are being explored as different adventuring parties begin to delve beyond the Storm Broken Lands and learn what else is out there.

Races & Cultures

Malpos contains unique interpretations of cultures for the standard D&D races. Despite this, there is room built-in for the archetypal interpretations of Elves, Dwarves, and the like. Players are encouraged to include as much or as little of the world lore into their characters as they want.

Continents

The Storm Broken Lands

The Storm Broken Lands are labeled as such due to their unique geography. The center of the area is a freshwater sea known as the The Everstorm Sea. The Storm at it's center is created by a planar vent that connects to the Elemental Planes of Air and Water. The water then flows outward from the Everstorm Sea through three major channels and two great rivers. The surrounding lands are not only divided by the Everstorm but it has influenced how they relate to each other.

Hiskalon

The largest of the continents, Hiskalon is the one most dominated by humans. The demi-folk have found their isolated niches in the world to interact with foreign nations in smaller amounts. Monstrous and bestial folk are almost entirely despised upon the continent. To continue reading, please see: Hiskalon: Basic Information

Sagma

The smallest of the complete continents, Sagma resides upon the bottom of the world. This continent was the last continent to be claimed by folk as they spread across Malpos and has been the center of the most conflict in the world. Sagma has as many wars in an Age as other continents have had in their history. This conflict, along with the mysteries of the Tower of Tazioc, have also bred the most innovation in the world as well.

Zhalvazho

Zhalvazho refers to both a northern continent that rises with cliffs from the waters as well as the name of it's surrounding archipelagos. The region is home to both bestial and monstrous folk. Humans and demi-folk only arrived to Zhalvazho in bulk during the late Age of Community. To continue reading, please see: Zhalvazho: Basic Information.

Ages of the World

The basic history of these lands relevant to most players can be split into three Ages: The Age of Heroism, the Age of Isolation, and the Age of Community.
For more detail, please see: Ages of Malpos
The Age of Heroism lasted 1,000 years and is the source of many modern legendary heroes, ancient ruins, and abandoned dungeons. During its prime, it was extremely stereotypical high fantasy with castles and knights with ogres in the woods. Towards the end of this period, a series of wars and monstrous uprisings broke many of the kingdoms and communities. The most influential of these was the Abtinar Fields in 973 AH though it is still just one piece of the puzzle. Riscor-Calashen is the only kingdom from this time that has survived with all of the lands it held at it's peak.

The 500 year Age of Isolation developed as mistrust of anything foreign grew. Communities had to fend for themselves and betrayals during the end of the Age of Heroism prevented the independent and repairing communities to want to form new bonds. It is during this time that connection with lands across the Ocean of Aber also ended.

The Age of Community has lasted the ~1000 years. The age was sparked by the founding of New Derth by dwarves from across the Ocean of Aber. A slow growth of interconnection has been led by the city state of Phaloxil that began to establish colonies during this timeframe. While Phaloxil is the dominant force through the lands, there are still many areas beyond their influence. Argil’s connection to the West makes them the primary competitor. The different Dwarven societies of New Derth, Draman, and Bactran are quite powerful and could easily compete if they chose.
All campaigns thus far have taken place between 990 AC and 1050 AC, though a transition in the ages is coming...

Inspirations

Like all fantasy worlds, real world history and culture has inspired different sections of my world. Our own world is rich and I believe RPGs provide an excellent space to be able to interact with concepts otherwise untouched in our daily lives. Interacting with aspects of culture or history can allows us to see in ways we otherwise wouldn't. Below I have listed the parts of history and culture that have inspired different aspects of my world. While many provide simple guides of where different historical and region periods are represented, others are more in-depth like Lacington.

Lacington: The city of Lacington is inspired by the history of the City of London and the modern demographics of Japan. Lacington is essentially a gnomish village that has been swallowed by a human town. Historically, the city of London was slowly surrounded by the growing capital of Westminster. In the end, both became known as London thought the City of London reserves special rights for itself. The difference of having Lacington split between the original gnomes surrounded by humans who came for their inventions creates a defined racial gap. With having a small population of gnomes isolated from the surrounding lands, there becomes a barrier on self-sufficiency and growth. Similarly, Japan has always been limited by it's size and resources. These have been factors in it's history of conflict and economics. In modern day Japan, an additional factor is an aging population. Automation for low skill labor has increased faster than elsewhere in the world for a simple reason: they continue to have fewer and fewer younger workers to fill service jobs. Rather than needing three or four people to operate a bodega, one or two people can maintain and stock a hundred vending machines (numbers made up to explain the concept). In Lacington's gnomish center of Kinjome, not only are gadgets created to help in industrialization to decrease laborers, but most of their food comes from the Crystal Orchard tended to by a handful of priests rather than dozens of farmers.

Riscor-Calashen: Riscor Calashen provides a darker region than typical high fantasy. Meant for lower levels of play, Riscor-Calshen is based on Middle Ages Western Europe with strong influences of the Brothers Grimm

New Derth: New Derth operates as a social modern metropolis like New York. It plays with the concepts of urbanization, drawing in rural workers with fluctating safer jobs for constant jobs of greater risk, and the greater politics of structured guilds and uberguilds.

Phaloxil: Phaloxil is inspired by a mixtured of Enlightenment France and Italy mixed with the Roman Empire's use of military service as a social ladder for lower citizens.

Argil: Argil plays with themes of the Age of Exploration and the social politics of Renaissance Iberia.

Draman: Despite being visually inspired by aspects of the Middle East, the society is twisted by Industrial Revolution London and a Dickensian labor classes

Bactran: Opposite of Draman's grit, Bactran takes the visual aspects of the Middle East and heightens them to the fantasies of One Thousand and One Nights and myths of the Indian Subcontinent.

Ulgoine Valley: The Ulgoine Valley explores an in-world view of our own world's transition from having creatures like goblins and orcs go from an inherently evil race to a deeper, complex social identity.

Heartsieve Waste : This region serves as a wild west environment of mining, ghost towns, outlaws, cruel capitalists, and independent lawmen.