Of Godlings and Thralls

On the edge of the vast expanse of obsidian and melting sands known as the Shatterbright towers the mythical spires of the Gleaming City which have stood for millenia. This is where the Lords of Fire rule over a seething mire of competing faiths and conspiracies, where aspiring godlings and their restless thralls compete for power.
Inside the walls, tithes of worship and power are given, stolen or traded as the ambitious rise, heretics fall and the clever manoeuvre in the spaces between.
Outside, failed gods and the scavenged dead fight with the Lords of Fire for the remnants of ancient powers hidden beneath the scorched and shattered ground.
Will you be master or thrall, godling or ghost? Hone your will and sharpen your knives before others decide your fate.
There is nowhere to hide beneath the Everfire.

The setting

The Gleaming City sits deep within the sunside lands of Shadwfire. It is surrounded by desert near where the waters of the Godswollen River emerge from beneath the ground and spread out over a steaming delta.

The city

The Gleaming City is the heart of the Lords of Fire power. The Highspire towers over 500 metres above the shores of Godswollen River. The upper city is where the Lords reside, served by the bureacracy and the military kight of the Flaming Brand. Cowering in shade of the spires, lies the sprawling markets and tenements of the outer city where the foreign merchants and supplicants gather. beneath the sands lies a warren of secret tunnels, and the heart of the Usokufas mortuary where the dead are transformed into servents for the mighty.

The Gleaming City

Surrounds

Surrounds

Factions

Factions

History

History

Your characters

You are members of a fledgling cabal, working together to gain power and influence within the lands under the sway of the Gleaming City.
You will take missions to build alliances, defeat your enemies, secure your reputation, and collect tithes of faith and wealth for those you serve, or to keep for yourself.
Your advancement will bring you more power and influence, and with it the attention of those more powerful still.
Godhood beckons the faithful, and damnation awaits the foolish.

Shadowfire

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Wecome traveller, to the world of Shadowfire. This is a land of extremes, where an ancient cataclysm caused time itself to stop. Now, the sun never sets, bathing one side in fire, while the other freezes in eternal night. In between there is a band of twilight where many struggle to survive and thrive. This map shows the places of the world, and the stories that have been told within it. Use the layers in the rop-right of the map to show and hide the different article locations within the world.

Local heritage

The majority of people within the Gleaming City will come from the three ethnic groups that make up the peoples of the Deserts and wastes surrounding the city itself. These peoples are of the same species, and there are endless variations between the three archetypes, especially within the Gleaming City itself where ethnic divisions are blurred and inter-relationships relatively common.

From far-off lands

While rare, it is not unknown for people from cultures even further afield to find their way to the Gleaming City. Perhaps through diplomacy or trade, or even through slavery.

Shimmerland clans

by Midjourney

Clans from the lush grasslands far to the east in the Lands of Twilight, who grow crops and raise livestock, and often live semi-nomadic lifestyles as they trade their produce. Shimmerland Clans are the most diverse of all cultures in Shadowfire, and will often welcome outsiders from across the world into their clans.

The Returned

The Returned by Midjourney

Mysterious kin with stern gods who recently arrived from a magical refuge where they had hidden for millennia from the ravages of Destruction. Their diplomats bring with them technologies and strange tales of a past where the sun rose and set, and a fervent desire to conquer and assimilate the lands that they think are rightly theirs.

Goblinkin

Goblinkin by Midjourney

The peoples from beyond the Twilight mountains have been displaced by the Returned and much of their traditions are under threat. They traditionally have a mystical connection to their dead ancestors and those refugees that make it to the Gleaming City seek safety and freedom, and possibly power to strike back against the Returned.

Strange evolutions

Technologies and arcane magics can potentially change kin into one of these strange evolutions.

Scrappers

Sentient machines that have survived and evolved since before the Destruction. Their bodies renewed many times over, and their minds and memories warped by time. Many are curious mystics and vagabonds who commune with echoes of the deep past. Some believe it possible to transfer the soul of the living into these machines and so live forever.

Scrapper by Midjourney

Chimera

Creatures made from a sentient network of bloodstone that has been stitched together with discarded body parts. Most live alone deep in the desert, preying on the unwary, but there are rumours of an emerging society of the Chimera and even some that masquerade as normal kin within the Gleaming City itself.

Soulhusk Chimera by Midjourney

Symbiote

If a living person bonds with a bloodstone network, they become a Symbiote, with greatly augmented abilities. The augmentation is unstable however, and failure can mean death for the host, and a transformation of the body into a Chimera.

by Midjourney

Ghosts

A ghost is the disembodied spirit brought about through arcane means or a more natural death. They can move unseen and possess the unwitting. Some people have learned how to commune and consort with ghosts, and gain access to their knowledge of the past.

by Midjourney

Bodyservants

Automatons created from the dead by the necromancers of the Gleaming City. They are normally sold as mindless and unquestioning slaves to the rich, but it has been known for a ghost to have access to one or more ‘bodies’ that they possess at will in order to pass as normal within the Gleaming City.

by Midjourney