Well, here's the setting.
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The Island Republic of TerandraCapital: Hearth
Industrial Centers: Cog
Other Cities and Towns: Mandon, Brubaker, Caverdon, Daven’s Rest, Qerdon, Cimber
Myriad Villages and Small Towns
Neighbors: Deicher (East), Ember Peninsula (North), Hinterland (South)
A Brief HistoryOver a millennium ago, in the year 544, the mighty warlord Cimber united the feuding rulers of Western Terandra under a single banner with the aid of the wizard Mencius. With his newfound power, King Cimber I set about expanding his fledgling Kingdom’s territory. His great unified host conquered the entire country within a decade, even bringing the proud highlanders of the Ember Peninsula and the starkly independent Hinterlanders to heel. United, the Kingdom endured several wars with its eastern neighbor Deicher, and weathered the storm of a violent rebellion led by the Hinterlander hero Gibson.
This kingdom lasted several centuries, enriching itself with trade from across the strait with its eastern neighbors Deicher and Perland. However, in the year 912, the young and ambitious King Werner IV took the throne. A year after he ascended to power he and his army invaded Deicher across the strait, a bid to expand Terandra into an empire. Without a wise wizard at his side as his ancestor had, however, King Werner’s army suffered defeat after humiliating defeat, eventually fleeing back across the channel with his forces reduced to a fraction of their previous might.
However he was pursued by the full might of Deicher’s lords united. The great Lord Daven Elmar and his armies landed on the east coast of Terandra, quickly taking the nation by storm. The Hinterlanders, seeing an opportunity to reacquire their prized freedom, rose up in arms. The Kingdom established by Cimber collapsed over the course of a month.
Lord Daven established his fortress at Daven’s Rest, near where he had originally landed. Because the land was now Kingless, Daven proceeded to seek out a progressive young noble with Deicherian sympathies to install as ruler. He found such a noble in Lord Marcus Richter, and the reign of King Marcus I began.
Under King Marcus, Terandra and Deicher were strongly allied, and the nation prospered as it had under King Cimber I. Of course, a few hundred years later there was another revolt, the Richter dynasty fleeing east across the channel.
Terandra now is a Republic, and is as strong as it has ever been. The tradition established by the wizard Mencius flourishes in the city of Hearth; no one has challenged the military might of Terandra for years, and aside from a recent increase in criminal activity, all is well.
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The cultural and economic center of the Republic,
Hearth is home to several important landmarks.
Home to the Spruesworths, the hereditary rulers of Hearth, the
Lord Mayor’s Palace in the Carrock District originally housed the rulers of Terandra before a populist revolt in 1750 forced the ruling family into exile. Now it is the residence of the Lord Mayor of Hearth as well as the meeting place for the Council of Lords, the governing body of Terandra. Because it has stood for centuries, the building almost looks like a patchwork assembly of brass, iron, and stone – successive rulers would modify it to their tastes, and in 1750 a large chunk of wall was removed by a particularly dim revolutionary with a very large bomb.
The Lord Mayor’s Palace also houses the
Airways Regulatory Office, which is responsible for the licensing of airships and flyers. Because airships have figured prominently in criminal activity in recent years, it is very difficult to get a license nowadays (which doesn’t matter to most criminals, who couldn’t care less about the legality of their vessel).
The building just outside the walls of the Lord Mayor’s Palace is the
Telegraph Office. Using these wonderful machines (an invention of the
Alchemist’s Circle) people can almost instantaneously communicate with distant relatives. Many richer homes have their own, private telegraph machines installed, but anyone without access to such an expensive installation must take their message to the Office and pay a sum of money for their services. This has the side benefit of allowing the Lord Mayor to monitor the correspondence of suspicious persons.
The King’s Bazaar in the city slums is renowned as a place where you can get anything you wish… as long as you’ve got the money. The sprawling collection of shops, stalls, and branching alleys also houses a good 70% of the city’s (very) active criminal population. Weaponry, illicit concoctions, alcohol, and illegal contraband can be bought and sold in the warrens of the Bazaar, as well as additional manpower for those intending to carry out less than savory tasks. Understandably the city guard is rarely seen within the confines of the slums.
Nestled in the city center, protruding skyward like a giant obsidian finger, is the
Arcanist’s Tower. This great center of learning and science is home to the
Alchemist’s Academy and the
Hearth University. Established by the wizard Mencius hundreds of years ago, much of the technological development of Terandra and its neighbors can be traced to the Tower. The Alchemist’s Academy in particular is renowned for developing a new kind of smokeless coal.
The
Hearth Rail Station near the Lord Mayor’s Palace is where most people go for relatively cheap, affordable transit to other cities. The area surrounding the station is usually crammed with a teeming mass of people, doing their business where they are most likely to catch the attention of passersby. Recently a spate of armed train robberies has plagued the Royal Rail Company, making it difficult for them to proceed with their usual activities without at least one member of the Iron Guard on board.
Important People and Organizations: 
Lord Bryston Spruesworth III, Lord Mayor of Hearth, chairman of the Council of Lords, and Lord Commander of the Iron Guard is a man of wealth and taste, considered by many to be almost singlehandedly responsible for Hearth’s current prosperity. Rumors of liaisons with shady characters and dealings with Deicherian spies are almost certainly vicious tales spread by his family’s political opponents.
The
Council of Lords meets at the Lord Mayor’s Palace every month to discuss matters of state. The Council is composed of the Lords Mayor of the cities of Terandra: Lord Hartford of Mandon, Lord Brubaker of Brubaker, Lord Wesley of Caverdon, Lady Fawkes of Daven’s Rest, Lord Ivelyn of Qerdon, and Lord Suthfield of Cimber. In addition to the Lords Mayor, participants of the Council include Mister Matthew Stokesy of the Merchants’ Guild, Captain Robert Smith of the Iron Guard, Commander Quinton Blake of the Constable’s Office, Mister Hubert de Certeau of the Printers’s Office, Mister Arthur Connelly of the Airways Regulatory Office, and Mister Robert Paget of the Finance Office.
The
Concerned Gentlemen and Friends to Those in Need, or the
Friends for short is a monolithic criminal organization whose history stretches back to the time of the Gibson rebellion (when it was known as the Thieves’ Guild). Based primarily in Hearth, the Friends is composed of people from every walk of life – upper class gentlemen with a knack for thievery and strongarm louts can be found in the organization’s hierarchy – united primarily by one common factor: the love of money. The police have many times tried – and failed – to take down the Friends, failing repeatedly due to its ties to many prominent members of Terandran high society.
The
Iron Guard is a fighting force descended from the legendary Knights of Cimber – the armored cavalrymen that served at King Cimber’s side during his heroic conquest of Terandra. Based in Hearth, the Iron Guard serves in times of peace as a police force (working closely with the policemen of the Constable’s Office, although strictly speaking they answer directly to the Lord Commander) and in times of war as the elite core of Terandra’s army. They are called the Iron Guard for one very good reason: their famous steam-powered suits of armor, which increase their height to one and a half times that of a normal man, greatly amplifies their strength, protects them from bullets, and can be outfitted with all sorts of gadgets that aid them in their criminal hunting duties. The mere sight of an Iron Guardsman in his fighting-machine can be enough to reduce even the most hardened of street toughs to a nervous wreck.
The
Merchants’ Guild is a relatively recent organization, but one that holds a great deal of power. Headed by the notoriously miserly Chairman-Elect Matthew Stokesy, the guild has the final say in almost any business endeavor within the borders of the Republic of Terandra. Accusations that certain prices are artificially high, or that independent craftsmen find themselves being hounded out of house and home by guild-hired thugs are deflected easily by guild spokesperson Daniel Carpenter, whose chain of deli shops across Terandra have benefited greatly from Guild sponsorship.
The
Alchemist’s Circle is composed almost entirely of graduates of the Academy. Based in the Arcanist’s Tower, the Circle serves as a regulatory body over matters of Alchemy, Physics, Medicine, Astronomy, and Communications. Moves to rename the body to the “Circle of Alchemists, Physicists, Astronmers, Physicians, and Communicating Fellows” have been rejected repeatedly by the Master of the Academy,
Jose Quintos. As far as he is concerned, all sciences are Alchemy, only of a different sort. The Alchemist’s Circle is responsible for the licensing of the sale and manufacture of firearms across Terandra, although this responsibility has not stopped the Academy from looking for newer and better ways to kill a man from a hundred feet away.
Master Arabicus (formerly John Cooper) is the current Grand Arcanist, which makes the Arcanist’s tower his home. Heir to the tradition of Mencius, Arabicus is one of the few true wizards left. His personal quest is to compile all of Mencius’ ancient scrolls, most of which are written in a strange alphabet reputed to be used by the men of the Far East, and he has paid anyone who brings him these scrolls richly. Sure, one of those scrolls turned out to be a receipt left over from one of the Lord Mayor’s parties, and Arabicus can’t actually read the scrolls in the first place, but he’s doing his best.
TechnologyThe Alchemist’s Circle, center of Science(!) and learning, is responsible for many inventions and has taken credit for hundreds more. However, one of the most era changing inventions available is not one from the modern age.
When Mencius came to Terandra with the intent of creating a King, he brought with him the secret of the Black Powder. This fearsome concoction invented by the sages of the Far East could, if ignited, create fiery explosions that would frighten horses and kill men in their tracks. Mencius supervised the creation of the “Gonne”, a kind of metal tube that, if charged with the Black Powder and provided with a metal projectile could hurl that projectile many yards, killing the unfortunate man struck. With these weapons King Cimber I conquered Terandra. Nowadays the “Gonne” has spread across the world in many forms.
Electricity is a modern curiosity, but outside of the telegraph no one has discovered a practical use for it. Homelighting is provided by fires and more commonly gas lighting, which acts on a principle of coal-gas (developed, of course, by a graduate of the Academy).
The telegraph in its modern form was created by James Smith of Brubaker. Employing various alchemical and electrical reactions, it is an incredibly fast method of communication that trumps even those sent with the aid of messenger pigeons, and is many times faster than a message delivered by a man on horseback. The downside is that almost all such communications in Terandra are monitored by the Telegraph Office.
Transportation is chiefly by foot, horseback, horse-drawn carriage, ship (for those traveling to the Ember Peninsula or the continent) (for those who can afford it) or the steam trains of the Royal Rail Company. The abundance of coal has made the steam train the go-to for long distance travel, but there is another, more exciting option that runs on roughly the same kind of technology.
A curiosity Mencius brought with him from the Far East, the Balloon was a simple skin or bladder that was filled with air, which could be bounced about. If filled with a special type of gas, the secrets of which were only known to Mencius at the time, it would in fact float.
In recent years the Balloon has been employed to create ships that can sail through the air as though it were water. These air-ships employ that special gas (“Hydrogen”) known to Mencius in great quantities. They are used for travel between cities and countries, and at least once have they been used for criminal endeavors. Famously, Lord Spruesworth once held a ball on an airship that lasted almost twenty four hours before the vessel had to descend to take on supplies.
MagicMagic is a very poorly understood Science(!) that has been around for more than a millennium. While magic was known in Terandra before the coming of the wizard Mencius and his building of the Arcanist's Tower, it had yet to become a formal discipline. Nowadays magicians are very rare, and many of the few true wizards left are more flash than substance. While they certainly can destroy a city block with the aid of certain tools, most of these wizards can do nothing
but destroy things.
Some of the tricks known to the magicians of Terandra are as follows:
Producing a coin from inside a subject's ear.
Conjuring fire, thunder, snow, rain, and lightning.
Retrieving any number of animals of varying sizes from a top-hat.
Repairing machines and buildings with but the snap of a finger.
Sawing a person in half and putting them back together again.
Greatly increasing the physical strength of a person for a short duration.
With the aid of smoke and mirrors, producing such illusions as to awe a crowd.
Inscribing certain Far Eastern characters onto machines in order for them to function better (such machines include the famous fighting-machines of the iron guard, as well as cheese-presses).
Producing brightly colored silk from inside a sleeve.
Hatching eggs instantaneously into doves.
Perhaps other, more elaborate tricks could be learned if the scrolls of Mencius (and someone who could read them) could be located.
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And that's what you guys will be mucking around in. If there's any details that need to be clarified, ask away!
I guess you can start generating characters now.
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Topic: STEAMPUNK M&M 2E GAME (OOC thread) (Read 10063 times)