Oa

  Oa is the world in which the adventure takes place. This campaign is set in an expansive world with a reasonably robust history developed gradually over a number of campaigns going back to about 1995. While those campaigns were generally smaller in scale, they shaped the history, culture and political geography of this world; and Echoes of the Autumn Age was always intended to be the campaign that made use of this textured game world on an epic scale.   The world is round, with a circumference of approximately 45,000 miles, making it nearly twice the size of Earth. Because technology, communication and navigation by sea are so limited, there is virtually no popular concept of the world as a unit. Although the ancients insisted that the world is round, with three major continents, there is widespread skepticism that this accurate view of the world is any more correct than heliocentrism was in ours. Its climate is similar to our own, if somewhat more arid and more temperate.

Cosmology

 

Planar Landscape

  Oa is situated in the Prime Material plane, with Planar Gates having been established by the High Elves of the Spring Age on the eastern coast of its largest continent. More direct gates to Hell, the Infernal Plane and the Planes of Paradise are accessible in the vicinity of Grand Mausoleum in the confederate kingdom of Portavia.  

Astronomical Features

  Oa is orbited by three moons: a large but distant icy moon known as Regni; a smaller, volcanic and closer moon known as Furiam; and a little potato moon that tumbles through the sky with sufficient speed that it can be entertaining to watch, known as Oko.   There are no stars in the Oan sky. The only light after the sun sets is moonlight; and accordingly the lunar calendar is of great importance to every civilization on the planet.

Flora and Fauna

  Due to its size, generous and varied climate, and interventions from extraplanar deities, Oa is bursting with life of many shapes and sizes. It is home to any number of intelligent species, Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblinoids and Wood Elves being most populous among them. Megafauna have also been identified in various places around the world, including Zaratan, Leviathan, dragons, and even for one horrifying period of time, a Tarrasque.  

Civilization

 

Historical Civilizations

  The world is strewn with ruins and relics from senior races such as the now-defunct High Elves and the suspected distant ancestors of humanity, known as the Old Ones or Yishanim. While most of their structures were built out of wood and have long since rotted away over the millennia, their most important projects were constructed from a form of graphite-shaded concrete tinged with a trace of enchantment to prevent decay. These projects continue to be in perfect condition and often exhibit practical, utilitarian magical properties.   By far, the most enduring and important contributions of the Old Ones are their infrastructure improvements: aqueducts vital to every civilization on the continent, roads like the High Spine, dams, levees and other crucial structures upon which everything from agriculture to commerce in the current age absolutely rely.   Apart from bare infrastructure improvements, comparatively few structures seem to have been adjudged appropriate for construction out of this advanced material. Those that were, and that comprised more than mere signposts or watchtowers, are regionally or globally famous landmarks. The bulk of Correhal, for example, is a repurposed Yishanim 'hive': a magnificent roofed installation twenty miles in diameter with towering window slats and endless staircases and winding ramps, beset with intricate carved knotwork and relief sculptures of events the meaning of which has long since been lost to time.   The structure is all the more impressive for the fact that the Old Ones seem by all indications to have been a heartier and more robust species, standing somewhere between nine and eleven feet tall and weighing more than five hundred pounds on average. The chambers towards the heart of the city have been maintained in place, decorated with elaborate silk curtains and woven flooring; whereas the ghettos towards the outer wall have been modified with wood, cloth and tin to house multiple families per chamber in packed, unsanitary conditions.  

Science and Technology

  Because relics and structures from this advanced civilization exist, institutional scientific advancement is at least as focused on repairing and reverse-engineering the wonders of the past as it is on developing new technologies. Why develop a longer-lasting torch when one could potentially learn how the hovering lights in the Western Watchtower come to life and follow visitors to the spire as they climb?   Very little is known about the origins of the Yishanim, other than that they claimed not to have been the first peoples on Oa themselves; and that they came to written communication comparatively late, after the bulk of their technological progress had been achieved, their settlements had expanded across the globe, and only a few short centuries before they ceased to be. Scholars speculate from reliefs in Yishanim cathedrals that they were a culture with a deep veneration for the oral tradition, and that they used exquisite, intricate knotwork and tapestries as aides-memoire to the storytellers and lecturers.   It is only with the benefit of the written Yishanim language, developed in the last few centuries of their existence that anything is known about their culture and technology at all outside of the mere observation of their aqueduct networks and clever marina design. This brief, recorded twilight of the Old Ones' civilization is commonly referred to as the Autumn Age, as it is entirely unclear whether the other intelligent species lived alongside the Yishanim and survived their extinction, or if there may have been another Winter Age of unknowable duration before this one and after the Fall in which no intelligent society existed at all.  

Magic and Alchemy

  Magic and Alchemy are like science, but potentially mad science. The peoples of Oa are familiar with magic and generally comfortable with it in the same way we are comfortable with electricity. Most of us don't know exactly how to wire up a house, and we're impressed with those that do -- though we understand that working with it is extremely dangerous and no one would be blamed for keeping a great distance from any situation in which that power could potentially get loose.   It is also understood that while there are many magical devices anyone can use, one must be born with a natural magical affinity in order to wield the stuff in its raw form. Social attitudes towards magic users vary based on the culture in which it is wielded. Gnomes are naturally fascinated by magic and their inquisitive nature leads them to venerate and gape at skilled casters; whereas most humans would be amused by a performer's cantrips but would consider advanced spellcasting to be a needless risk equivalent to building a makeshift nuclear reactor in one's backyard.  

Law and Government

  Depending on your location on Oa, criminal justice is a coin toss. There is no universal consensus on whether murder is bad, or under which circumstances. You would be well advised to enquire as to local customs or to consider the general tenor and values of a location before resorting to violence or property crimes. In Tenthun, the noble classes --- from wheresoever they may hail --- cannot, by definition, commit crimes. (A noblewoman can act there with complete impunity unless a peer sues to the Crown for justice.) In certain communities in Portavia, an inappropriate comment about one's facial hair may be considered a challenge to one's masculinity not only worthy of, but requiring a duel to the death. Corran justice can be disturbingly demonstrative, and crimes committed against the halflings will be sorted out by a veritable army of barristers at no small expense months or years after the lawn in question was, arguably, walked on.  

Measurements and time

  Most Oan civilizations on the central continent reckon time and distance with a version of the Imperial system. There are seven days in a week, thirty days in a month (except for Winter, which has only 27 days), and eight months in a year. There are 237 days in a lunar year. The days of the week are:

• Moonday,
• Eireday,
• Tilday,
• Grenday,
• Renday,
• Satyrday (weekend) and
• Sunday (weekend).

The eight months are simply named after seasons and transitions between them:

• Springfall
• Spring
• Summerfall
• Summer
• Autumnfall
• Autumn
• Winterfall
• Winter (short month).

Commerce

  The deep integration of the Human kingdoms and the Halfling economy on the central continent have necessitated a standard currency. It isn't until you reach the dwarven territories to the northeast in the Twin Kingdoms of Borea and Deria or attempt to barter with international merchants in the Wandering City that other systems of trade will come into play. The Wood Elves have no need of currency and carry none.  

Creation Myth

 

Origin of Oa

  The legend everyone in Oa knows goes something like this. Sylvanas, the god of brutal, merciless nature, drew upon the Green Dream (like the Force or the Holy Spirit) to create elves at the dawn of the Spring Age. Those elves gradually figure out how to use that power themselves, and the queen of one group in particular creates dwarves as a slave race. Civilization begins. Fearing the strength and numbers of the dwarves, the other elves create the ur-humans, the Yishanim, as a check against aggression. The inevitable happens, and war breaks out.  

The Spring Age: War, Genocide and the Archlich Naraoch

  Sylvanas, infuriated that his simple, beautiful creation has been reduced to war, summons the power of the Green Dream to unmake the elves, suffering only those that had remained neutral and in tune with nature to remain. (These are today's Wood Elves, to whatever extent they still exist.) The god allows the dwarves and humans to live on, as they were blameless instruments in their masters' war -- on the condition that they never again take up a war that threatens the natural order. The sole elf powerful and intelligent enough to escape destruction was the one responsible for creating the dwarves in the first place: the Queen and archmage Naraoch. She escaped destruction by floating into the Green Dream and simultaneously existing and not existing in this world as the elves were unmade. While her soul survived, her body was horribly corrupted by the purge, resulting in her eternal undeath as a lich. In this stasis, she forms an obsession with getting to the other side of the Green Dream, to get over into the "real" reality gods like Sylvanas occupy -- not this artificial shadow-puppet show -- to extract revenge against the petty, thoughtless deities of the realm and take control herself.  

The Summer Age: Peace and Prosperity

  The Summer Age begins and untold eons pass in relative peace. Gradually some of the most warlike dwarves evolve into orcs, whereas the more civil ones gradually came to be gnomes or halflings. (Dwarves are known to still exist somewhere in the mountains, but most people will never see one.) Humans proliferate madly, taking up most of the arable land on Oa and risking infringement on Sylvanas' decree.  

The Autumn Age: Expansion, Exploitation and Near-Omnicide

  When the Autumn Age begins is a matter for academics, but all agree that it encompasses the period of time in which large-scale industrialization, technological advancement and war broke out again between nations and their allies. Sylvanas awakens once more in a fury and decides that he's seen enough; that intelligence inevitably breeds war. He decides to eliminate all creation and start over, drawing upon the full force of the Green Dream to summon a Tarrasque -- an unstoppable killing machine -- as his instrument to conduct the Omnicide.   That's where the plucky Trilune Fellowship kicks in: the Apostles, the Myrmidons, the Knights of the Round Table all rolled into one. They're the chosen among all nations to defeat the Tarrasque and save the world. They fail. They try again, they fail again. They realize that there's only one person that knows enough about how the Green Dream works to turn off the taps and starve the Tarrasque of its energy, to return it to slumber. Only one person with the power to challenge a god.     They go on a big adventure around the entire, massive globe and manage to find and resuscitate Naraoch. They ask her for assistance. She's not interested, but eventually they convince her to help. She teaches them how to attenuate the flow of the Green Dream from its source, but plots to betray them. Months later, just as mages from all the nations restrict the flow of the Dream and suffocate the Tarrasque as they were taught, she engages the second part of her plan and -- now that the current of creation is weak -- strains her powers to their maximum in an attempt to move upstream, to see what lies beyond our reality at the source of the Green Dream.   Having anticipated this betrayal, the mages at each fissure-point reach in to seize her at the apex of her effort, as she exists across all those locations at once. The cleric Astras clobbers her and drains her blood, which is the source of much of her arcane energy. Just to be sure, the mages at each fissure-point sever whatever piece of her they had in hand, and lock it into their lantern. Those lanterns now serve double-duty as attenuators of the Green Dream, keeping the Tarrasque dormant and as magically pressurized prison cells for the relics of her body. At this stage Naraoch is gone, the Tarrasque is asleep, everyone is about to celebrate, but Sylvanas is still mad and threatens to unmake creation in any number of different ways.   Eldath, the elven princess and the Trilune Fellowship's bard, convinces the god to allow life to continue. She proposes that he simply act in the hearts of his creation to endorse peace, and suggests that civilization can make wonderful things that might please him. He rejects her utterly, but enraptured by her personally, makes a counter-proposal. If she will give up her mortal existence and become his adopted daughter, a goddess of peace residing with him in the heart of the forest and charged with ensuring no further destructive conflict, he will allow creation to continue. She reluctantly accepts, bidding farewell to her companions -- most particularly her lover and unlikely soulmate, the Orcish khan, Kuros. Sylvanas relents, the Tarrasque remains in a torpor, the world is saved.  

The Winter Age: Extinction, Rebuilding and Renaissance

  Then a millennium or two later, something happened. The Yishanim developed written language and promptly died out or changed suddenly into a weaker version of themselves known as humans. The elder races are terrified and prepare for another war or omnicide, but none ever comes. A savage curiosity remains in the mind of every educated individual to this day about what became of the Old Ones.   As a result of all these events, clerics and parents the world over admonish generation after generation against overpopulation, industrialization, technological advancement and war. If the legends are true, though, in respect of the nine centuries of the Winter Age thus far, the Halflings, Humans, Gnomes and Orcs respectively could stand to atone for some civilizational sins.  

Historical Timeline

  History of Oa