Introduction to Trid

Trid is a world-spanning sandbox supporting a hodge-podge of cultures and technology consistent with Earth's early Middle Ages, but distinctly different through the infusion of magic, real gods, and massive caches of ancient treasure hidden in dungeons and guarded by monsters.  

A Brief History of Trid

Long ago, in the Dim Ages, the cruel saurians built a sprawling empire on the backs of dwarfs, humanoids, and men. They manipulated arcane magic to travel quickly across the Continent and impose their tyranny. To escape, the dwarfs tunneled into the The Deepreach while the humanoids hid themselves in the wilds. Men became nomads, ever retreating before the saurians, until they encountered the elves, who alone resisted the saurians and taught them how to reap, sow, build, and fight.   Together, elves and men defeated the Saurian Empire, giving rise to the Age of Fable. The great alliance between elves and men ensured their future peace by establishing the Ardic Republic, uniting two-thirds of the Continent. The chance arrival of the asteroid-moon Ophos brought with it the Ardic Curse that deprived the elves of their innate magical ability. The balance of power shifted to humans, and the Republic collapsed in violence. The elves were beaten back to their homeland, and those few who survived were driven from the Continent.   The Fall of the Republic turned settled areas to wilderness overnight and ushered in the current Age of History. Today, man stands alone against humanoids and monsters surging from the wild places, while the lure of rich treasure and magic from ancient ruins feeds the ambitions of power brokers who would reshape Trid to serve their own needs.  

What Everyone Knows

The Player's Guide is written from the perspective of Continental inhabitants, whose populations—given its vast area—are highly varied. Everything here is considered common knowledge (though that doesn't mean it's entirely accurate).  

Cosmology

Trid circles the star Ammonkis, joined by three planetary siblings.   Ammonkis: Trid's sun is larger and hotter than Sol, giving off bright yellow-white light and exerting significant gravitational pull on its four far-flung satellites.   The planets: Trid occupies Ammonkis' second orbit. Three other planets are in the Ammonkis Sphere:

• Aerchus: Occupying Ammonkis' closest orbit, Aerchus is a small and swift red planet traditionally associated with Chaos.
• Vincula: A pale blue orb whose size and orbit closely matches Trid's, Vincula occupies Ammonkis' third orbit and is associated with Neutrality.
• Hieron: Farthest from Ammonkis is Hieron, a massive planet that appears as a brilliant white star in the sky, associated with Law.

Trid’s moons: Two satellites orbit Trid: Lyolm, a verdant moon whose phases follow a 30-day cycle; and Opho, a radiant, hurtling asteroid whose erratic orbit disrupts Trid’s magical field.   The firmament: Within the sea of stars that surround Ammonkis’ family, nine constellations represent Trid's Gods, collectively known as The Circle. Deeply rooted in Trid’s Dim Ages, the influence of these constellations, and the gods they represent, is still felt today.  

Geography

Trid hosts two major landmasses and a handful of large islands and archipelagos:   The Continent: Spanning nearly pole-to-pole, the Continent is a Pangean expanse comprising two-thirds of the habitable land on Trid and homeland to elves, dwarfs, and men. The Continent is criss-crossed with Elven Roads, which formed the boundaries of the Ardic Republic during the Age of Fable.   Eremus: A large island south-west of the Continent, Eremus is the homeland of the diminutive halflings. The elves initiated trade in during the Age of Fable, mapping the island and laying roads to facilitate commerce.   The Far Isles: A trio of islands beyond the Shoreless Ocean west of the Continent, The Far Isles are unknown to Continentals, save for cryptic references within the Jade Chronicle and some vague scraps gathered through divination.   The Serpent Archipelago: The Serpent Sea east of the Continent contains a vast sprawl of large islands and small island chains. The ancient homeland of the now-extinct saurians, the Archipelago is dominated today by Inselmen city-states.  

History is Deep

It is 991 AH, the 991st year of the Age of History. While almost a millenium has passed since the Fall, it is an instant compared to the span of the three ages previous:   The Before Times: Trid is dominated by giant lizards and savage monsters, while the elves and saurians advance to a bronze age standard. Early men are nomadic tribes of stone-age hunter gatherers.   Dim Ages: Begins with the saurians’ advance on the Continent, where they immediately clash with the elves. Humanoid races scatter to avoid the saurians, but nomadic men befriend the elves, who help them advance their civilisation. Eventually, an alliance of elves and men overthrows the Saurian Empire, ending the age.   Age of Fable: The alliance between men and elves blossoms into the Ardic Republic, uniting two-thirds of the Continent with a common religion, language, and currency. The age is prosperous, with borders secure enough for the people within to practice law, medicine, and art. As the human population grows, so too do elven efforts to govern it. The onset of the Ardic Curse deprives the elves of their arcane edge over humans, whose violent rebellion precipitate the Republic’s fall. The elves‘ banishment from the Continent initiates the present Age of History.  

Humans Dominate

The nine human ethnicities are concentrated in ancestral territories, generally defined by the Continent’s Elven Roads. Yet the Continent is surprisingly cosmopolitan, owing to dozens of human migrations throughout the Age of History, typcially prompted by encroaching wilderness and conflicts over fluid borders. Non-human races are scattered—halflings on Eremus, dwarfs beneath the Continent, elves anywhere but the Continent—and they carefully limit their interactions with man to avoid costly entanglements with human power-grabs.   Dwarfs: To avoid saurian invaders, dwarfs of the Dim Ages fled into the Deepreach. They remained there well into the Age of Fable, when small bands emerged to trade with the Ardic Republic, only to disappear back underground during the chaos of the Fall. Explorers have discovered dozens of dwarven glitterpits, though all were abandoned (and universally assumed to lead to larger dwarf enclaves deeper below).   Elves: The oldest surviving empire-builders on Trid, elves reached the apex of their power during the Ardic Republic and the nadir during its Fall. Following their exile from the Continent, the elves sailed east through the Serpent Archipelago, eventually settling on Eremus, Pon, or one of the hundreds of islands along the way. Elves honour their exile from the Continent, though they do little to counter the perception that they are hostile to humans, and their territories cannot be entered   Halflings: Native to Eremus, where they were "discovered" by elven traders in the early Age of Fable, Trid's halflings maintain some trade relations with the city states of the Serpent Archipelago and select Ostland ports. Halflings tend to be isolationist, though rare individuals may be encountered in Continental capitals, trade centres, and small "expatriate" communities.   Humanoids: Since the Dim Ages, humanoids have been synonymous with the peril of the wilderness. Encountered in every corner of the Continent but violently factious, bugbears, goblins, orcs, trolls, and gnolls have never managed to create anything approaching a sustainable society for more than a few generations. Humanoid populations were lowest during the Republic but have climbed steadily since the Fall, constantly threatening civilised borders.   Saurians: Ruled by the deified nagaraja caste, the saurians dominated the Dim Ages until they fell to the alliance of elves and men, ushering in the Age of Fable. Saurian ruins dot the middle latitudes of the Continent, but they're most abundant within the Serpent Archipelago. Tales of saurian sightings abound, though they refer to what remain of their servitor races: lizard men, kobolds, troglodytes, and medusae.  

Civilisation is Rebuilding

The Fall of the Republic reverted the majority of settled land into wilderness, now overrun with humanoids, monsters, and opportunistic men. The nation-state does not exist on Trid, and a polity’s size is the physical extent to which the settlements within can push back against (or expand into) the surrounding wilderness. As a result, settlements and their surrounding territory are safe havens separated by stretches of lawless wilderland.   On the Global Map, Continental realms are defined by their capital settlements, whose patrols dominate a certain amount of the surrounding area whose borders adhere to rivers, natural features, or roads. The land between a polity's claimed borders and how far it can actually maintain them is best defined as frontier, while the land beyond is wilderness, where chaos and danger invariably await.  

The Gods Exist

The efficacy of divine magic proves that the gods are real, and the peoples of Trid have no shortage of deities to venerate:   Local Gods: Prior to the Republic, early human cultures assigned entities to represent the immutable natural forces and tractable human emotions they recognised in the world around them. The vast majority of local gods are immortalised monsters, heroes, and heroines of cultural import, and their influence is correspondingly limited to the values and geography of the population who eternalised them. Cultures outside the Republic—notably the Nordmen and the nomads of the Scour—still commune with their local gods, as do wildermen across the Continent.   The Celestion: The Nine Gods of Trid were first known to the elves, who assigned them to the nine ecliptic constellations of The Circle. Each god of The Celestion represents a fundamental mortal instinct that rises and gives way to other instincts, in an infinite cycle of Law and Chaos. The elves—who venerated each deity in turn—believed that ultimate wisdom lies in stiffling one’s instinct to resist this cycle and instead flow with it.   Humans of the Republic adopted The Celestion, but discarded the elves’ pantheistic view after the Fall, keeping the gods, but reinterpreting them as stand-alone powers who championed either order or disorder. Today, most city-building men adhere to the Lawful Faith, an ecumenical ideology dedicated to the three Lawful deities who support order and the civilised societies that spring up around it. The Faith tolerates worshippers of the three Neutral deities as useful, if misguided, so long as they’re not disruptive. Followers of any of Chaotic deity, or any local god or elder power, are universally opposed, if not actively hunted as heretics.   Elder Powers: Responsible for the primal forces of the multiverse, the innumerable elder powers are reclusive immortals who represent putative constructs like alignment, thought, emotion, or time. The elder powers’ esoteric portfolios are too recondite for practicable worship, and the powers themselves—at least those who are self-aware—have little care or interest outside their narrow scope. However, the few mortals aware of and sufficiently inspired by a power's perspective may offer their service for guidance. Less frequently, a power may decide to promote their views on Trid by visiting a worthy mortal through dreams, portents, or suggestion. Veneration of an elder power is rare and invariably relegated to cults, who in turn busy themselves with laying a path to elevate and execute their immortal patron's vision on Trid.  

Magic is Real

The magical field that surrounds Trid results from radiant energies passively emitted by the Elder Powers. This field enables clerics to receive divine magic, while magic-users harness these energies directly to wield arcane magic (through doing so carries the risk of contracting the Ardic Curse.   Arcane Magic: Arcane magic reflects the will of the caster. Arcane spells tend to enhance the wielder's offensive and defensive capabilities, reveal hidden knowledge, or exert influence over others. Arcane magic relies on the caster's ability to understand how to access, manipulate, and release Trid's magical energies to the desired purpose.   Divine Magic: Divine magic reflects the will of the gods. Divine spells are tools granted to mortals in furtherance of the deity's interests, and typically provide healing, protection, and guidance. Divine magic relies on the caster's devotion to their deity, who grants power only to their most worthy servants.  

Technology is Limited

Trid's technology is analogous to 10th-century Earth and advances at a snail's pace, primarily because humans spend the majority of their resources either securing their borders or advancing on someone else's. Until the Age of History, magic was the driving force behind alchemy, engineering, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine—man, wary of all things arcane, has only recently explored these fields through mundane means. Of those states who have achieved sufficient social stability to make such advances, the Midlands excel in metallurgy and navigation, while the Sovereignties boast advanced engineering and alchemical remedies.