Geography
The world is divided in two main continental masses connected by a northern circle of treacherous mountains, with several minor islands in between.
Toran is the continent where the Magedom lies, and also the biggest of the two, but on the other hand around a third of it is filled by the Wasteland, a massive desert at north-east, whitout much on the way of resources. To the south rivers provide for the fertile Erengrad coastal region that's rich in commerce. To the west-center the vast Solland plains ocasionally broken by hills. At their middle lay the Grey Mountains eternally covered in snow, and north-west from the deep Reikwald forests.
The other continent is Gaien, smaller, but the giant Gaien lake at its center has always provided a plentiful source of food This means it's much more densely populated. Tick forests are commonplace all over the continent, the largest ones being Lawrelom at north-west, the Forest of Shadows at north-east and the Great Forest at south. The Middle Mountains go from the eastern coast to the lake, and the rest of the continent is composed by a mixture of hills, valleys, marshes and small plains. The main continent cities of Tehah, Pharamond, Noslaw and Veile are focused on the central region of Bragal around the lake.
The northern mountainous range is simply known as the World's End, and is basically an hellish area of treacherous rocks filled by tempests all year long where barely anything grows. Few members of the civilized races dare to enter them, and even fewer return. Legend is that it's possible to cross between both continents trough the World's End, but really, you're better off taking the boat trip.
The Moon
The celestial orb in the night sky, progressively appearing and disappearing in cycles.
Legend is that it is inhabited by the highly advanced and immortal Lunarians, that consider the world below too filthy for their tastes. Suposedly sometimes they send envoys with mysterious agendas to manipulate the events of the world, altough their last “visit” would've happened several centuries ago. Ones attempts to reach the moon by magic or technology have resulted in disastrous failure. A few lucky individuals managed to somehow get there in some cases, more by luck and accident than anything else. They were soon expelled, never to return, but they always brought back great knowledge with them.
Taint in The Moon
It doesn't exist. It's the only constant from the reports of those few that managed to reach it. Lunarians keep purity above all, and have structured their society to make sure Taint never gets any presence in their domains.
Some actually say the Lunarians were once earthlings that escaped the filthy world to the untainted moon, where they could make a new society free of corruption and depravity.
Other darker stories say that Taint was a creation from the Lunarians to forever plague the earthlings below them.
Magedom
The capital of the magedom is the Scarlet Moon Citadel, located just under the Wasteland and the Erengrad region. It's from where the Mage Lord rules supreme, and one of the prerequisites for the position that he/she must still be alive.
In the wasteland, lie numerous cities of undeads ruled by the mummies and dry liches of previous Mage Lords and other important Magedom individuals. Togheter with the skeleton armies of fallen Magedom soldiers, they form the tomb legion, the main military arm of the Magedom. As the legend goes the Wasteland was once a quite fertile area filled with life and numerous kingdoms, but after a tremendous war is was reduced to the desert it is now. High Elf Empress Sairah then rose as the first Mage Lord, with no one left to dare to oppose her.
In Erengrad lies most of the living population of the magedom, between scholars, farmers and merchants, scattered among several cities, the central of which is the port of Mislato. The population is mostly a combination of humans and elves of diferent kinds. Their griffon riders are their best known military force.
In the Solland plains various halfling/human villages make dinossaur creation and also develop magic, producing a great amount of contract-based arcanists like warlocks and binders.
The grey mountains have some mine settlements but just one significant population center, Grayridge. Besides a large amount of cold-based mages, the bravest/foolest of all seek to bond with White Dragons. Those that suceed provide yet another powerful force in service of the Magedom.
The Reikwald forest is actualy out of control of the Magedom, ruled by mysterious feys and wood elves that resist the advance of civilization. Most who enter those forests end up never being seen again or returning "different", rarely for better. The forest spirits however have been known to come out of nowhere and help the Magedom forces in time of need against other threats, specially heavily mechanized enemies or undeads.
The process of choosing a new ruler of the Magedom simply consists on the current Mage Lord picking a sucessor, promoting exceptional individuals that shine by themselves and manage to impress. To kill the current mage lord is however considered unadmissible, and any atempt to do so ended up with most of the magedom ganking on the murderer. In that case it's usually the one who kills the usurper that suceeds as new Mage Lord.
The current Mage Lord is high sorceror Yadima, a human of exceptional charisma with multiple consorts as his main ministers. His inspiring presence is legendary and it is said those that meet him directly cannot resist to follow every word and whim of Yadima as their main purpose in life.
Taint in the Magedom
It is a taboo topic among most of the Magedoom, people who start asking too many questions about it end up going missing. Sometimes, houses or even villages are found burned to the ground, and the authorities dismiss it as a simple incident.
Actually, the Magedom is somewhat tolerant of Taint, as long as they can keep it controled. Their Tomb Guard in particular has a significant part of its members with at least Slight Taint, as well as numerous living officers and ministers. However moderate or worst levels of Taint are not admitted, and tainted beings are expected to take the necessary measures to keep it in check. Failure to do so means burning at the pyre. Tainted items are only to be used by the undead, and tainted areas work as fortresses of research in the Wasteland.
When Taint crops out in the Magedom whitout intention, the official protocol is to bring in Tainted beings and items to the Wasteland, and incinerate any corrupted terrain. Such Tainted beings are then checked for their depravities, to see if they're willing to serve. Most are not, and thus turned in undeads. Those that can still follow orders join the Magedom's secret order, the Desert Ghosts.
Despite their name, the Desert Ghosts are actually fully composed of living beings (and the occasional construct), an intentional decision to hide their true nature, and allowing them to better blend in with the local populations. Several of them have Slight Taint of different degrees, but many have not, having joined the Desert Ghosts for their talents. They work as spies and secret police of the Magedom as needed, elite agents that can do precision jobs, but their main work is keep the Taint in their continent in check. They're always in the lookout for any traces or rumors of corruption and depravities, tracking down anyone or anything suspect of being “unclean”, while making sure the common people are kept in the dark about this terrible force, least they misuse it.
United Cities of Bragal
Formed after a series of conflicts, the main cities of Gaien ended up deciding they had more to gain from an alliance than war, specially when surrounded by other dangers. It is ruled by a large council of members from the main five cities of Bragal and numerous other smaller towns from the continent that joined along the centuries.
Tehah lies in the north-east, a massive city specially renowed for its old libraries and universities. It provides most of the raw intellectual and arcane power of the UCB, altough it focuses mostly in transmutation magic. The artifact stolen by the Magedom was said to be here, and since then Tenah has invested great resources in trying to get it back. This ended up with them developing top infiltration agents that can go months or even years on enemy territorry stalking a target, backed up by both magic and powerful equipment.
Pharamond, lying in the south-west, a human city of cathedrals and temples provides worship to a multitude of gods and works as the spiritual center of the UCB. It used to claim itself the capital of the world as they represented the will of the gods, but when the other cities started building their own temples and cathedrals in protest to Pharamond's arrogance, the city ended up acepting the idea of the union in return for their religious authority remaining uncontested. Their divine magic is actualy a direct match to the Magedom's own agents of the gods.
Noslaw on the South-east lies just near the Middle Mountains and has strong relations with the dwarves inhabiting there. Its blacksmiths have thus acess to pretty much the best ores in the world, combined with rune priests to enchant them, and produces top quality weapons and armor for the union. Their elite knights fight on foot protected by indestructible armors and wielding weapons with multiple layers of destruction enchantments.
Veile on the north-west is a mostly gnomish city, infamous for its large amount of artificers and alchemists that work day and night on developing new substances, trinkets, constructs, machines. They're the ones having developed the mass-produceable warforged and all the related variants and upgrades. More than one battle has been turned by Veile's engineers unleashing some new revolutionary technology.
Taint in the United Cities of Bragal
Taint is a scary story you tell to scare children, or to excite bored teenagers. That's at least what most people believe in the United Cities.
The truth is that the United Cities have heavily invested in propaganda in the last centuries to turn Taint into a myth, while at the same time implementing a series of laws and traditions to minimize the risk of it ocurring. For those that know it's true nature, Taint is an abomination against nature, something to be prevented at all costs.
This is is the job of the Cleansing Templars, a secret order over a millenia old composed of members of the different cities, financed by all their governments. Once they fought on the frontlines against undeads and fiends seeking to spread taint, now they wage their eternal war against Taint in secret. They now consider violence a last resort tough, and will always try peaceful cleansing of corruption and depravities first. Except when dealing with undeads or fiends, which they consider beyond redemption, and to be slain on sight. The Cleansing Templars always mask their work as other activities, and most of the people they save don't even realize they have ever been tainted.
If someone is smart enough to notice the Cleansing Templars actions, they're offered a position to join. Refusal means they're put under Geas to keep their secret.
Order of truth
First originated in the the humble village of Cynas in Solland, the Order of Truth answers to the High Chancellor Valfred. No known means of sucession are known, as since the Order of Truth formed some decades ago, there's only been one high chancellor.
Untill now, the Order of Truth has managed to just spread trough the Solland region, but the converted villages have quickly expanded in powerful cities. Cynas itself is now a powerful citadel with a tower that rises to the skies and easily rivals with the Magedom and UCB own main cities, or so the word goes.
Overall the Order of Truth is expanding and growing so fast that little is actualy known about its current state.
Taint in the Order of Truth
Valfred seems to have an hate/love relationship with Taint.
He has made sure to spread the truth about corruption and depravities among his followers, doing his best to make sure everybody under his leadership understands its periles-and potential.
You see, Valfred won't allow anyone tainted to hold a position of power on his system, any tainted land is to be cleansed as soon as possible, and his untainted servants are never to touch untainted items.
But on the other hand, Valfred seems to have little trouble unleashing Taint on his enemies. More often than not, instead of trying to cleanse tainted individuals, he sends them to the frontline and on covert operations, to cause as much damage to those that would oppose the Order of Truth as possible.
Those are the Doomed Ones, since for the followers of the Order of Truth, to become tainted means that they can either drain the Order's limited resources to try to cleanse themselves, or they can fully embrace it so they may help their cause in a final blaze of glory.
One could think this strategy would backfire horribly, but so far Valfred seems to have an uncanny talent for use his Doomed Ones to cause horrible damages to his enemies, while keeping his own people safe from Taint. Even the Doomed Ones that end up overloaded by Taint keep their fanatism to the Order of Truth.
World's End Mountains
A region of chaos filled with monsters and savage tribes. If there's any ruler in this region, is the lich Kristof the Blasphemous, altough it is never seen outside its frozen fortress. Giants and dragons are relatively common on this areas. In the past, periodically ravenous undead armies come down from this regions to assault either the Magedom or the UCB (or sometimes both)
The closest thing to civilization are some drow and duergar cities, protected by magic from the harsh condition and inhabitants. It is also said they "buy protection" from Kristof in the form of tributes of magic items and services. The duergars are exceptional artisans and know how to enslave the wildest beasts (at least for a time), while the drows know plenty of the arcane and divine arts, if you don't mind making some sacrifices.
Savage Barbarians
Orcs, kobolds and goblins can be found everywhere across the lands, hiding in the forests and underground and attacking whatever they can get away with, subsisting out of raiding and pillaging. They're however too disorganized to be considered more than a nuissance by the magedom, UCB or even the Order of Truth, but legend tells of a time powerful leaders had united the scattered bands of those tribes in mighty armies that ruled the lands. If anyone could unite them again, they could probably conquer the continents.
Traveling giants and wandering dragons are not too uncommon, and they can easily provide a blessing or a curse depending on their mood.
Ogres on the other hand seem to have adapted to a mercenary existence, when one of their chieftains realized they could kill and pillage and then get paid handsomely for it! Since then ogre warbands roam the lands offering their muscle to the highest bidder.
Merfolks are the main water race, and they seem to be as unstable as the changing tides, one time helping boats trough the right courses, others leading them to their dooms. Why they do that is unknown.
Taint among the Savage Barbarians
It varies quite a lot. Some actively try to fight it off, some fully embrace it and become living plagues of corruption and depravity until destroyed, many just don't care much. Sometimes individuals with moderate or worst taint are shunned by their own and become isolated wanderers, other times their corruptions allow them to rise to positions of power, even if temporary before they're done in by their own depravities.
World's End Mountains
A region of chaos filled with monsters and savage tribes. If there's any ruler in this region, is the lich Kristof the Blasphemous, altough it is never seen outside its frozen fortress. Giants and dragons are relatively common on this areas. In the past, periodically ravenous undead armies come down from this regions to assault either the Magedom or the UCB (or sometimes both)
The closest thing to civilization are some drow and duergar cities, protected by magic from the harsh condition and inhabitants. It is also said they "buy protection" from Kristof in the form of tributes of magic items and services. The duergars are exceptional artisans and know how to enslave the wildest beasts (at least for a time), while the drows know plenty of the arcane and divine arts, if you don't mind making some sacrifices.
Taint in the World's End Mountains
It's a place saturated with corruption and depravity, always threatening to spill out and engulf the world.
Ancient stories tell that this almost happenned once millenia ago, and only a desesperate last alliance by every other sentient being on the planet stopped it. Since then, the Desert Ghosts and Cleansing Templars worked togheter to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
But times have changed. The Desert Ghosts and Cleansing Templars have grown bitter with each other due to the conflict between their nations. They hardly cooperate anymore, they've actually clashed against each other multiple times. This has allowed Taint to start spreading again in massive scale from the north. Corrupted and depraved monsters and abominations venture forth from the World's End Mountains once more, tainting the land as they pass trough it, destroying northern settlements. Reports about severe tainted fiends and undeads showing up across the globe are multiplying. Something must be done. But everybody seems to busy with other things to do anything about it...