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The world is in the tag end of the bronze age. Some enterprising Toans discovered how to economically forge iron several years ago and the use of this amazing new metal is slowly spreading. Before, the cost was too great – and magic and iron do not play nicely together!

Cylenia is a country within Maska, a largely flat country bordered on its northern and southern ends by mountain ranges, with the eastern border being coastal. The western border is nonexistent; the country is sorta triangular, and the two mountain ranges meet at the westernmost point of the country. The northern part of the country is relatively warm and heavily forested. The central part of the country is fairly open land, sorta like English countryside. There are lots of farms around, with fruit orchards being a popular source of revenue. The southernmost region is wind-blasted and snow-driven. The mountains are far more formidable here and beyond a certain point are covered in snow year-round.

The city of Shas Isa is in the country of Cylenia along the southern border. The city is situated in the foothills of the southernmost mountain range of Cylenia, serving as a guardian city and last port of call for people travelling south through the pass. Defending the pass itself is Shriekwind Bastion, a huge granite fortress that looms over the city from further up the mountain. Shas Isa is almost perpetually covered in snow to one degree or another. The rest of the world is a mite warmer, although things are still warming up properly thanks to ten days without the sun.

Humanity is the dominant sapient race. There was once a nation of Elvish people (In fact a race of humans!), but they, uh... well, they were on a continent on the side of the world that was facing the sun when it was cut in half. So they got roasted. Yeah. The scattered remnants of the Elvish nation are few and far between; in a thousand years, the Elves will have been fully bred into the mainstream human races and will no longer separately exist. But that’s a thousand years away.

The main races are as follows:

Cylenian:
Pale-skinned people who inhabit Cylenia. The nation’s primary industry is mining, so Cylenians for the most part tend to be direct, strong and unequivocal. Their magic tends to be similarly direct. Cylenians don’t get along so well with the Yagalians or the Toans.

Some Potential Racial Abilities:
+1 to strength/endurance rolls
+1 to direct-damage magical combat rolls
-1 to charisma rolls against Yagalians and Toans

Limerete:
Bronze-skinned, green-eyed people from the Limero Isles. Fantastic seamen and avid adventurers. Limeretes are masters of weather magic. They tend to trade a lot, so get along pretty well with most everyone.

Some Potential Racial Abilities:
+1 to agility/endurance/perception rolls while at sea
Less likely to panic
+1 to weather magic

Southlanders:
From the land of Zue’qki’Ptar (Their name has a few clicks in it!), most people call them Southlanders so as to not dislocate their jaws. They are tall and dark-skinned people hailing from a land of ice and snow , yet have somehow managed to tame the spirits of the land enough to allow them to farm. Nobody’s quite sure what to make of that. At least their vegetables stay fresh for a long time!

Some Potential Racial Abilities:
+1 to spirit magic rolls (eg: shamanism, elemental controlling)
+1 to charisma rolls against spirits and the Fae
-1 to endurance rolls in hot climates

Yagalians:
For some bizarre reason, Yagalians are grey. They hail from Yagal, a nation to the north of Cylenia and separated by the Stena mountain range. Yagal is a land overrun with minor demons; as a result, many Yagalian mages practice summoning magic. Eastern Yagalians and Western Yagalians don’t get along so well with each other and distrust Southlanders.

Some Potential Racial Abilities:
+1 to summoning magic rolls (Not for elementals, though!)
-1 to charisma rolls with some Yagalians and Southlanders
+1 to Luck rolls

Players who want to play as mages need to be aware of a few things. Magic comes in a few ‘schools’, although basically anything goes. Magic also comes in a series of eight ‘flavours’ that are the magical elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Life, Force, Light, Dark.

Any one element can be cast as a spell. Multiple elements require multiple rolls. Opposite elements (Earth-Wind, Fire-Water, Life-Force, Light-Dark) get a -2 to their rolls, although this can be improved with practice.

Magic also comes with a cost. Every time you cast magic, you run the risk of injuring yourself. The bigger the spell, the bigger the cost will be – up to, and including, your life.

But the scariest part? Mages in this world are allergic to iron. Contact with iron causes your magic to go out of control... which is bad. Kaboom bad. Iron is thankfully not very common yet -  the world is still struggling to exit the bronze age – but be careful.

Summoning works a little like Pokemon, to be honest. If you want to be able to summon a demon, you have to find one and defeat it, binding it to your will in the process. Yagal is a good place to go for that, since demons naturally occur in the wild there. You'll find the odd one around the rest of the world too, don't worry.

The world is rife with ´natural´ magics that aren’t very well understood. While not as powerful as the magical forces wielded by mages, they don’t suffer from the same problems of sudden blood deficit or iron-based explosions. So, y’know, there’s that going for them. So don’t worry too much, you won’t be massively outclassed by mages. Unless he rolls a six. Then you’re in a spot of bother.

These abilities are things like prescience, psychic gifts, various odd abilities that possibly belong in anime and other such things. Don't be afraid to play a non-mage; you won't get short-changed!

Character creation is simple! Just follow the outline below.
Name: I’m assuming you can work out what goes here.
Race: Ditto.
Appearance: Likewise!
Profession: Pick a profession. If you're a mage, give me an idea of what kind.
(Mages Only) Magical Affinity: Pick one or two elements that you are particularly adept at. If you're a summoner, you only get one, since you also get a summon.
Favoured Weapon: So you can start with... something. Like a stick or something.
Short Backstory: Flesh ém out a tad. Give me something to turn against you! Also gives me something to work with when assigning you your abilities.

Biomes: Terrifying forest and Terrifying Mountains.
Water: A brook, running N-S.

Expedition Leader: Doren Asstukon, Weaponsmith and Axedwarf
Militia Commander: Ushrir Tusungreg, Armoursmith and Axedwarf
Medtob Idenzon, Carpenter, leatherworker and Axedwarf
Tun Sanreblokum, Stonemason and Axedwarf
Erush Egulzuntir, Miner
Tobul Astebavuz, Miner
Urvad Uzolkubuk, Woodcutter and brewer.

It was the Age of Legends – a time when Men, Dwarves and Elves shared the land with creatures of terror and might. Titans ruled the world of Ospazstrasp and all creatures knew to fear the coming of these legendary beasts.

In the 126th year of the Age, brave Dwarves set out to establish an outpost deep within a set of mountains home to all manner of evil creatures. The Dwarven Queen sent them forth, having decided that the villages and towns near to the terrifying mountains were to no longer be afraid of the night and all it held.

Four Dwarves, axes in hand, vowed to their queen to fight these abominations for the glory of all Dwarfkind. Trained in the arts of weapon- and armour-smithing as well as masonry, carpentry and leatherworking, the Queen knew of no better Dwarves suited to surviving in the face of the terrors that made their home in the mountains and surrounding forests. She gave them three of her finest hounds as companions and assistance and gifted them with the keys to one of her personal cellars.

Two brave miners volunteered to travel alongside them, wishing to aid in conquering the forces of darkness in their own manner. As their friends and family bid the six brave Dwarves farewell – perhaps for the last time -  a woodcutter offered to give them a lift in his wagon.

After many weeks of travel, the seven Dwarves arrived at the innermost point of a small valley. The four axedwarves’ axes were notched and covered in the blood of a dozen evil creatures; three of the axes had been damaged beyond repair and lost to Dark Gnomes, as had their armour. The only surviving supply of metal was a small quantity of copper that had been salvaged from a wrecked traders’ caravan – and through sheer luck an encounter with a fire imp had resulted in a large number of trees being burned down to lumps of charcoal.

As a final curse upon the Dwarves, dark gnomes stole the wheels straight off of the woodcutter’s wagon one night as they camped! The Dwarves could go no further; this place, with a small brook for water and large forests of alder and oak for wood, would have to become their home.

And so, with the last remaining axe devoted to fending off packs of dark gnomes from the meagre stores remaining, the miners hefted their picks and attacked the mountainside – and Mengidos, “Lashcalls”, was born.

“Hurry yer fat arses, ye human-livered boggards!” Ùshrir Tusungreg roared, waving her well-polished axe at the fleeing donsy of gnomes. “Move those supplies inside before the bloody gnomes come back!” She stood over the broken wagon with a menacing glare on her face, terrifying her compatriots almost as much as she did the dark gnomes. Doren Ässtukon, the weaponsmith – and the unofficial leader of the group – had put her in charge of their defences. It was a job she took seriously and gleefully, whistling the Queen’s gift of war dogs to her as they chased off a second group of gnomes.

“Give the buggers hell for me!” Urvad Uzolkûbuk yelled  in reply, hefting a barrel of the queen’s finest mushroom wine onto his shoulders. “Bastards stole me wagon wheels!”

The miners were nowhere to be seen, though Ùshrir wasn’t surprised. They had attacked the jet walls of the mountainside with the wild abandon that only miners are capable of and had nearly cried with joy when they struck veins of haematite only a few metres in. Within a few days Erush Egulzuntîr had emerged from the hole in the mountain, blinking against the bright sun reflected off of the last snow to melt, to inform the waiting dwarves that there was now a room to store everything in.

Miners being miners, the old Dwarf had a strange idea of what constituted a room; it was little more than a large space hewn out of the rock and filled with the rubble of the miner’s passing. The floor was still uneven and there was no light to speak of, but it would suffice.

It had taken Tun Sanreblokum all of a day to carve a set of double doors for the modest entrance to their home and less than a week for Medtob Idenzon to sew together some bits of leather – scavenged from the Traders’ caravan wreck that the seven had passed on their way in – into sets of armour, boots and gloves for the four Dwarves who knew how to handle weapons. The woodcutter and the two miners refused armour, saying that the armour inhibited their ability to swing their tools.

As the last barrel of food passed through the doors and into relative safety, Ùshrir sighed and climbed down from the wagon. She whistled up her dogs and walked inside, pleased to finally have a chance to drink. Maybe she could spend a little quality time with her dear Tun, too. He took so long to tire out, for all that he was rather round.

Doren was already hard at work in the forge, putting the finishing touches on a set of copper axes. “Sorry, commander,” he grumbled in his rolling burr as she passed. “We have nought but copper to work with. The stuff is only fit for young sprouts, but it’s all we have until we can get the smelter up and running.” He passed an especially sharp one to Medtob with a wink and a smile as she traded it for a leather cuirass; as the commander’s attention wavered towards the wine he pulled the cuirass on, noting that it fit him quite well. “I’ll turn out what I can, but the diggers’ll have to give me more to work with.”

Ùshrir nodded vaguely in his direction as she picked up a barrel of wine and began to drink noisily. “Don’t…” she mumbled as she stopped for a breath; “Don’t use it all. I’ll…” She took another large mouthful of the wine and sighed happily. “I’ll bash out a few helmets. We’ll need them, don’t ye doubt.”

“Good, ye do that. I’m going to grab that lazy sod ye call a lover and go see what we can find to eat outside. If ye see Urvad around, tell him to build us a still. We’re going to need it before Summer’s out.”

The commander snorted as she hefted a heavy hammer and began knocking a bar of copper into an approximately hat-shaped form. “Then get that whale of yours to build us some barrels. Or did ye want him to brew it and just pour it into the dirt?”

Doren chuckled. He and Ùshrir had been friends and comrades for years, along with their respective lovers; the four of them had been feared by beasts and Elves alike for their axes. The jibes between them flew thick and fast at the best of times and it was only when they stopped that Dwarves knew something or someone was about to come to terms with being turned into pants.

Tobul Astebavuz led a happy life. He was at his merriest with a pick in his hand and at the forefront of the digging works, feeling the earth itself yield to his pick’s point.

The earth called to him. It understood him. And he knew, without a doubt, that it wanted to be carved out by him. Whispers in his ears told him the best way to strike a rock to cleave whole slabs free at once. A thousand little cracks and whorls on the surface told him what lay in front of him, even in the darkest of mineshafts. And though he was barely skilled enough to be considered professional, he loved the earth.

Erush thought he was odd, but agreeable. The old miner didn’t have quite the same love of the earth or the intuition about how to strike it as Tobul did, but he adored digging gems out of  the rock. There was something satisfying about working for hours to find a beautiful, sparkling diamond. It didn’t bother him that he only had the rough rock to sleep on; as long as his pick was in his hand and the rock before him yielded treasure like the thick vein of haematite he and Tobul had discovered earlier, he was happy.

Tobul stopped for a breather and wiped sweat from his brow before tying his hair back in a ponytail. “Damned hair keeps getting in me eyes,” he muttered to the empty room. He eyed his handiwork; a large hall, carved out of the disgusting siltstone that made up nearly half of this mountain, stretched around him. The woodcutter – what was his name again? Urvad? Who cared, he wasn’t a miner – was busy placing a set of weapon and armour racks in the middle of the room. “Oy, what are ye about?” Tobul called. “This ain’t an armoury, it’s an entrance hall!”

Urvad looked at him pityingly. “We’re going to be up to our arses in werewolves soon, digger. We’re not here for fun. Them four that call themselves The Cremated Oars need a place to keep themselves sharp whether ye like it or not, so the faster ye dig ‘em a proper room fer swingin’ an axe in, the sooner ye can have yer precious entrance hall back.” With that, he swung his notched axe up onto his shoulder. “While ye go play with yer rocks, I’m going to go brew us some beer. Unless ye like to drink the rocks too?”

Tobul growled at him and stomped off. With any luck, he and Erush would finish carving out the living quarters by the end of summer. He swung at the rock face with a growled curse, working out his frustrations in the only way he knew how.

 Tun smiled as he put the finishing touches on the front gate. Although nobody had quite gotten around to constructing the mechanisms necessary to close the gate, he at least was finished with his work. A good, solid wall built from blocks of jet stood between them and the outside world, giving them a safe haven to retreat to should the forces of darkness outside their walls begin to overwhelm them. He was proud of his work on these walls and the gate. Hopefully they would stand firm against all that these terrifying mountains could throw at them.

He knew that their test would come soon. One day, very soon, they would come. The werewolves, the titans, the goblins and the kobolds – all would catch wind of this new fortress, the bastion of Dwarven light against the darkness of these mountains.

And Mengidos would be ready.