Aithea
A homebrew Pathfinder setting
Twelve years ago, you and your people woke up inside a vault, buried underground, with no
memory of what happened before. You walked outside into a wild landscape illuminated by bright
sunlight. Nobody was there to welcome you. Then, twelve years ago, was the time to rebuild. Now,
is the time to reclaim and perhaps even remember.
The first vault to open contained mostly dwarves, but also gnomes, humans and a handful of other
races. Far in the north, they had a hard time surviving and many succumbed to the cold and hunger.
Now the city of Stroln stands proud as a warm haven in the cold and harsh northern wastes. Inside
the vault was the recipe to gunpowder, and several other technologies. Lately the dwarven
technomancers have been trying to develop machines that fly. Stroln does not have an official ruler,
but the people of Stroln look to a group of old and wise dwarves for decisions.
People that venture further north into the mountains often disappear, and rumor has it that there are
giants living there.
The second vault was filled with a mixture of all the races, most of them human or half-human. The
lands of the now-called midlands were fertile and bountiful. They swiftly settled at the broad river
curving between the hills, and built the city called Dawn. As humans will, they chose a person to
lead them, and pronounced him king.
King Bragos, first of his name, was a kind ruler to his people, but has grown old and reclusive.
Some say the city is effectively being ruled by his council. Dawn has become a center of culture in
a still untamed world, one of the main events being a weekly masquerade at the palace. Some of the
richer citizens have started wearing masks on the streets as well. Trade with other lands has been
recently plagued by bandits.
The third vault to open was an elven vault. Buried alongside the elven people were all manner of
cultivated plants and welbred animals. They awoke in a giant humid forest, and built a home in the
trees and over the rivers, Nilistria, the moon palace. The elves called the world Aithea (new world),
and the name has since become popular with the other races.
Many elves found they had a close connection to the animals they woke up with, being able to feel
their emotions. They founded a shamanistic order to protect and develop this ability. Their leader,
Celeste, is seen as the de facto leader of all elves.
The elves are not the only beings living in the forest. It has many exotic and dangerous creatures,
some being as big as the ancient trees.
Other vaults have opened ever since then, some large and some small, most of them containing a
mixture of the races. Orcs have become a nomadic steppe culture, and other groups have started
settlements all over.
Now that civilization has been (re)established, most cultures have started to change their perspective
from inwards to outwards. Many people believe that there are more vaults out there, containing not
just people but treasure or knowledge as well. Ancient ruins are also common, who knows what
they may hold. Little else is known about the land except for the direct areas of where the vaults
have opened. Maybe there are other new civilizations just beyond the horizon.
New players are all members of a new guild in the city of Dawn, called the Royal Explorers. Its purpose is
to discover and reclaim. Its members travel in groups to overgrown ruins, deep dungeons and
faraway lands. Its risk is high, but so is its pay. |