Introduction to Aeldrum

This meta-article is meant as an introductory page for people new to the Aeldrum setting
== Welcome to Aeldrum! ==
The Aeldrum Cosmos is an original science-fantasy universe, used as a setting for (homebrewed) Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. The setting has been developed collaboratively since the early 2010s, with Christophe (User:Shrouger) as the original creator of the setting and the primary source of worldbuilding and lore.
As of 2025, Aeldrum RPGs have been running pretty regularly for over a decade, with 37 separate campaigns and dozens of one-shot sessions, involving a total of 49 different players and 8 gamemasters.
= The Aeldrum Setting =
== Cosmology ==
Physics in the Aeldrum universe behaves differently than in our own. There are no stars, and light is instead produced by atmospheric energy discharge. "Worlds" in Aeldrum are actually pocket dimensions inside the greater aether, which is a realm of roiling and unstable energies. Pocket dimensions are connected to the aether via aetheric gates, and interplanetary travel is carried out between pocket dimensions by following the path of aetheric ley lines.
The position of a pocket dimension within the aether and relative to other pockets is typically non-euclidean, and two aetheric gates on a given planet can connect to vastly different parts of the wider aether. Although technological breakthroughs in the modern era of Aeldrum history have made translane navigation possible, interplanetary travel, commerce, and warfare is still primarily dictated by the positions and connections of aetheric ley lines.
Gravity in the cosmos is a constant and universal force (as opposed to being mass-and-distance-based), and though there are no suns (or moons, or stars) most planets experience day-night cycles, weather patterns, seasons, and other familiar and life-conducive phenomena by way of aetheric atmospheric effects.
The aether in the Aeldrum universe is both a background energy field, an analog for electricity, and also the underlying substance of which all matter is composed.
→ Read more about Cosmology and Cosmological Phenomena
== Gods, Magic, and the Occult ==
Many different gods exist in the Aeldrum setting. Some are well known and widely worshiped and actively intervene in mortal affairs, while others are obscure and mysterious, and still others are completely unknown or forgotten. Likewise, some gods are capable of altering the course of the entire universe (or are responsible for some aspect of its creation or maintenance), while others are relatively powerless and perhaps hold dominion over only a particular pocket dimension or a limited period of time, while still others are so minor as to be better thought of as demons or eldritch beings rather than as true gods.
The oldest gods are the Elder Gods, responsible for creating/shaping reality, but inscrutable and holding less influence over the modern cosmos. The most powerful and influential gods in the modern era are the gods of the Great Pantheon, while popularly worshiped gods falling outside the Great Pantheon tend to be Savage Gods. Additionally, some mortals may be raised to partial godhood as angels, the semi-immortal proxies of the gods.
Apart from the powers of gods, there is no "magic" in Aeldrum the way there is in other fantasy settings. However, there are many scientific phenomena that would be seen as magical on Earth. Souls exist as a biological phenomenon, with many interesting scientific consequences. Psionic abilities imbue a small fraction of people with powers of telepathy, mind control, telekinesis, or other uncanny abilities. Sufficiently advanced technology in the modern era can achieve things like levitation, teleportation, invisibility, and transmutation.
In addition, there are many things in Aeldrum that are unexplained, unknown, or unknowable. "The Occult" is an umbrella term for all the wonders and horrors that exist at the boundaries of mortal knowledge. Those who study the occult run a great risk of insanity, death, or worse.
→ Read more about Gods, Religions, and the Occult
== History ==
=== The Partition ===
In the beginning of the Aeldrum cosmos, the gods had a direct and overawing presence in the universe. Roughly a million years before the modern era a cataclysmic millenia-long cosmos-spanning war between the gods, known as the Pantheon War, caused the surviving gods to come together and voluntarily bind their powers in a pact called The Partition. The Partition set new laws for the universe which limited the gods' ability to intercede in the mortal realm, laying the groundwork for stable and relatively secular mortal progress. In the immediate aftermath of the partition, however, the withdrawal of the gods led to the collapse of cosmic civilization -- archaeological evidence of interplanetary contact diminishes sharply in the post-Partition.
=== The Thannasid Era ===
While countless minor states rose and fell in the long recovery of the cosmos post-Partition, very few achieved dominion over more than a single world, or possessed the technology to navigate and colonize the aether. The Veiled Masters trace their origins to these murky and poorly recorded lost cultures. The first civilization to recover, and then exceed, the scale of the largest Pantheon War era societies were the Thannasids. These sorcerers used a form of blood magic to extract and manipulate the energy of souls, allowing them to replicate divine power. The fortunes of individual Thannasid states rose and fell for millennia, at times worshipping or spurning different gods, but ultimately converging upon a culture of worship for their sorcerer-elites, who began to style themselves as God Kings. These God Kings built infrastructure to conduct blood magic at an unprecedent scale: the scope of their power, and of the suffering required to fuel it, exceeded anything since the height of the Pantheon War. The gods of the Great Pantheon are said to have intervened, and even suspended the ordinary rules of the Partition, around 20,000 years ago to crush the Thannasids when the God Kings escalated from using blood magic for comparatively mundane purposes to using it to write and execute Elder Script, which permitted them to change the laws of reality in much the same way as the Pantheon gods themselves. History now shows that the Thannasids were not fully destroyed, but rather that a contingent of the latter day God Kings escaped outside of material reality and possibly time itself, reappearing late in the modern era. 
The Thannasids passed into myth and inspired successor states and a "Thannasid Revival" period circa 8000 - 7500 years ago, which mostly relied on scavenged Thannasid technology rather than replicating the underlying knowledge -- the Revival was contested by civilizations that worshipped one or more pantheon gods (and often used Thannasid artifacts themselves), and was ultimately ended in a holy war by the Adalna-worshipping precursors to the Mage Imperium (see below).
=== The Mage Imperium ===
Some 7,000 years before the modern era, a powerful and sophisticated empire known as the Mage Imperium spanned much of the known cosmos, its strength built largely on a covenant with the goddess Adalna, the Loregiver. In many ways, the science and technology of the Mage Princes of the Imperium was more advanced than even the most cutting-edge science of Aeldrum's modern era.
Roughly 2,000 years after its formation, due partially to Adalna's seeming disappearance or abandonment, the Mage Imperium collapsed and the cosmos fell into a 5,000-year-long dark age known as the Interregnum.
=== The Modern Era ===
The modern era is, by convention, said to have begun with the restoration and unification of the pocket dimension of Aeldrum, the decimated capital of the former Mage Imperium (and the location from which the Aeldrum setting takes its name). The first D&D campaign in the Aeldrum setting concerned this restoration of Aeldrum, and most games since then have steadily advanced the timeline of the setting forward.
The following 500-odd years saw technology in the cosmos advance from the steam engines and crude gunpowder weapons of the late Interregnum to sophisticated aetheric computers and interplanetary dreadnoughts, meeting or surpassing the technology of 21st-century Earth. Deep aetheric exploration turned a cosmos shrouded in mystery into one well mapped and with comparatively few blank edges, with many pocket dimensions that had lain abandoned or forgotten since the Mage Imperium being rediscovered and reintegrated into the fold. Whereas pocket dimensions in the Interregnum were commonly split between multiple nations with only occasional multi-planetary empires, the modern era saw these various polities gradually coalesce (whether through true coalition or through conquest/colonization) into only a handful of empires and major cosmic powers.
With the growth and development of the Aeldrum setting, the focus of campaigns largely shifted as well, from stories of insignificant adventurers on unimportant quests to high-stakes games of great power politics and cosmos-wide wars.
=== The Post-Leandran Era ===
The Leandran War, which occurred 550 years into the modern era, has come to be seen as a turning point in the history of the Aeldrum cosmos. Whereas previous centuries witnessed the steady forward progress of technology and statecraft, the post-Leandran era is characterized more by dissolution and decline. Bizarre new paradigms in occult technology have upset the stability of cosmic politics and have even come to threaten the fabric of space, time, and reality itself, with the Leandran War nearly culminating in direct divine intervention and a reopening of the Pantheon War.
As the cosmos becomes increasingly strained and unbalanced, it draws ever closer to The Horizon, a future point at which the gods will withdraw completely from an insane and unworthy timeline.
→ Read more about History, Technologies and Technology Levels, and the Aeldrum setting's Timeline
== Demography ==
In addition to humans, the Aeldrum setting includes most of the standard fantasy races (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc.) and several original setting-specific races (Fialta, Gul'Dan). Some pocket dimensions and nations are composed entirely or almost entirely of one type of people, while others are much more diverse.
Climate and ecology can vary by pocket dimension as well. Some pocket dimensions resemble biomes found on Earth, others are quite alien, and some involve a mix of the two. Most plant and animal species found on Earth can be found somewhere in the Aeldrum cosmos, as can many creatures that are completely fantastical.
→ Read more about Races and Culture
== Cosmography ==
One of the most difficult aspects of cosmography ("cosmic geography") is grasping and mapping out the non-euclidean nature of the Aeldrum cosmos. Rather than a 2- or 3-dimensional map, it is better to think of the cosmos as a connected graph with nodes representing pocket dimensions, connected by aetheric gates to interplanetary ley lines. Since interplanetary travel is almost fully confined to the aetheric ley lines, the territory of cosmic empires consists of 1-dimensional segments of ley lines (and the gates and corresponding pocket dimensions encompassed by those segments) rather than 2- or 3-dimensional "areas" of space.
Since two aetheric gates on the same pocket dimension can (and usually do) open onto two very distant points in the aether often located on different ley lines, these multi-gate worlds are the key to traveling between different parts of the cosmos. The more aetheric gates a planet has, the more important it is for travel, commerce, and warfare: The pocket dimension of Aeldrum has 7 gates, the most of any known planet (making it the obvious choice for the capital of the Mage Imperium, as well as the capital of the modern era's premier empire, the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum), while the pocket dimension of Bishant takes second place with 5 gates.
The Aeldrum cosmos can be broadly broken up into three main regions: Imperial Space, Celestial Space, and Naga Space. Recently in the modern era, technological advances have opened up a fourth cosmic region known as Conduit Space. Most campaigns in the Aeldrum setting have focused on Imperial Space.
=== Maps ===
The following map of Fialta Space (a sub-region of Imperial Space) shows the entirety of Ley Line 7 and portions of Line 6 and Line 8, and all of the adjoining multi-gate pocket dimensions (along with the single-gate capital world of Fialt).
The positions of pocket dimensions and ley lines shown in this map are arbitrary and meaningless due to the non-euclidean nature of the aether—only the connections shown are important. Additionally, while the positions given are arbitrary, the 1-dimensional distances between pocket dimensions when traveling along a ley line are drawn here approximately to scale.
Other than Fialt and Hybern, all of the pocket dimensions shown are two-gate worldsTechnically, Korinth is a three-gate world, but since its third gate connects to Ley Line 5 (not considered part of Fialta Space), this third connection is not shown. Similarly, the three-gate world of Saldan connects to Line 8 between the gates of Mir'Thalran, but is not shown since its other two gates are on Ley Line 9.. The two-gate worlds of Mir'Thalran and Marivan both have gates which open onto different parts of the same ley line, rather than connecting different ley lines. Hybern is a three-gate world, with two gates on Line 6 and one on Line 7. Note that there are many more single-gate worlds in Fialta Space that are not shown on this map. The vast majority of planets in the cosmos have only one gate, but since single-gate worlds can only connect to a single ley line at a single point, they are not useful for cosmic navigation and are thus often excluded from aetheric maps.
A full cosmic map including modern political boundaries can be found here in spreadsheet form, and here as a visual representation.
→ Read more about Ley Lines and Cosmic Locations
== Cosmic Politics ==
=== Modern Era ===
In the modern era, Imperial Space was controlled primarily by three major empires:
*The Serene Duchy of Aeldrum, a secularist democracy (though leaning toward plutocracy) centered on the pocket dimension of Aeldrum. The Serene Duchy is dominated by a minority elvish population, but is home to many different races, ethnicities, and religions.
*The Shantine Empire, a mostly-human theocracy dedicated to the goddess Kirva, the Flame, with the pocket dimension of Bishant as its capital.
*The Fialta Imperium, a warlike nation of half-demon Fialta, worshiping the five-god pantheon of the Lords of the Pentacle and with its capital on the pocket dimension of Fialt. The Shantine and Fialta had historically been fiercely hostile to each other.
Significant minor powers in Imperial Space included:
*The Empire of Alusia, a former client state of the Shantine Empire which broke away and became a sophisticated bureaucratic and economic powerhouse and major cosmic power, before its influence was dimmed somewhat after its defeat in the Alusian-Shantine War.
*The Republic of Sermaye, a commercial power falling somewhat within the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum's sphere of influence.
* The Elvish Enclaves, a reclusive nation of elves devoted to the elvish patron deity (or deities) known as the Elven Triad.
* The Thalranese Marches, a somewhat less advanced collection of militarized states, significant for being the only major Fialta power not part of the Fialta Imperium, although it played a much less prominent role on the cosmic stage following the Second Coalition War.
Major powers in Celestial Space included the Veiled Dominions of Nippon (formerly the "Nippon States", a trade power controlling main routes between Celestial and Imperial Space), the Brass Cities (a nation ruled and populated by faceless automata), the Middle Kingdom, the Grand Celestial Confederacy, the Ashgarate of New Nippon, and the Kingdom of Aksai Chin.
Naga Space was controlled by the fearsome psionic Naga (who also ruled over much of Celestial Space during the Interregnum), until a catastrophic outbreak of the Mind Virus devasted their empire. Since then, Naga Space was overseen by the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum, with local affairs controlled by various factions of the Perfect Princes, former vassals of the Naga who claim descent from the Mage Princes. Conduit Space contains several small and relatively primitive kingdoms along with several colonial ventures from the great powers of Imperial Space.
=== Post-Leandran Era ===
In the post-Leandran era, the Shantine Empire has largely collapsed and been succeeded by a smaller pariah state known as the Leandran Dominions. The remainder of the Shantine Empire has been partitioned between a "temporary" Fialta occupational authority and Kirvan successor states that openly disavow Leandra. The Serene Duchy of Aeldrum has become increasingly isolationist, leading Aeldrum's "sister republics" to pursue increasingly autonomous foreign and security policy, and the Second Fialta Imperium taking over the role of cosmic hegemon. Alusia, in concert with a regime of Thannasid God Kings, has once again become a superpower, while Sermaye has come to be completely controlled by superintelligent artificial minds. Aeldrum remains the nominal suzerain of Naga Space, and carries out a brutal containment policy against the Mind Virus, but the region has become a haven for Celestial privateers and lesser Thannasids, who vie for power with the Perfect Princes. While Alusia is ruled by a Thannasid court, relations are increasingly strained with other Thannasid powers, especially over policy toward "lesser" Thannasids that are re-emerging into the timeline. While the Veiled Masters were allegedly exterminated in the Dominions War, rumors persist throughout Celestial Space that they continue to carry out a shadowy game of influence, which now includes the Fialta and different shades of Thannasid.
=== Major Wars ===
*240s A.U. — The Orcish-Fialta Wars represented the last cosmic-scale military incursion by shamanistic orcish populations, consisting of a mass invasion of the Fialta States. The war resulted in the formation of the Thalranese Marches and the Orcish Directorate. 
*305-310 A.U. - The Alusian War of Independence, undertaken with support from the Aeldman Trade Company, resulted in the independence of the Despotate of Alusia from the Shantine Empire and precipitated the decline of Shantine power, which would reach its nadir at the end of the Fialta-Shantine War.
*354- — The Fialta-Shantine War ended with defeat for the Shantine Empire and led to the formation of the Fialta Imperium.
*360s-380s A.U. — The Fialta Unification Wars consisted of a series of related conflicts against individual Fialta Princes and the Thalranese Marches by the Fialta Imperium, and accompanying large-scale repressions of conquered populations, as the Emperor Mithranatus ultimately asserted control over three quarters of Fialta Space.
*396- — The First Coalition War was the first cosmos-wide war of the modern era, and saw the Fialta Imperium defeated by a coalition of nations led by the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum.
*420s A.U. — The Gunboat Wars saw Aeldman naval and dragoon forces deployed against the Thalranese Marches (which were backed covertly by the Fialta Imperium) to assert navigational rights and keep the Fialta Confederacy open to outside commerce.
*447- — The Second Coalition War again saw the Fialta Imperium defeated by an Aeldman- and Shantine-led coalition in response to the Fialta invasion of the Thalranese Marches.
* — The Great Celestial War saw conflict between two major blocs within Celestial Space primarily over commercial rights: the Nipponese and their allies on one side and a coalition of "interior powers" led by the Middle Kingdom and Kingdom of Aksai. 
* — The Alusian-Shantine War saw an ascendant Empire of Alusia defeated by the Shantine and a third of the Alusian Empire partitioned among the Shantine and Fialta Imperium, as well as confirming the territorial partitioning of the Fialta Confederacy among the Fialta Imperium, Thalranese Marches and newly formed nation of Istomir.
* - After the chilling of Aeldman-Nippon relations and the collapse of the "Walled Garden" policy, the Second Great Celestial War saw the New Celestial Confederation, acting as Aeldrum's proxy, challenge the regional hegemony of the Nippon States. The NCC intervened in the Interior Wars, a series of civil conflicts that embroiled the Middle Kingdom and several princely states, and through its victories secured near-peer status with the Nipponese. Flush with new status, the NCC retitled itself the Grand Celestial Confederation.
*490s A.U. - The Veiled Masters of Nippon asserted direct control of the Nippon States and several outlying petty kingdoms in a series of shadow wars, coups and terror attacks collectively known as the Veiling of Nippon, after which the territory became formally known as the Veiled Dominions. The Veiling led to the Third Great Celestial War, which saw failed interventions from the Ashgarate of New Nippon and the Grand Celestial Confederation in support of attempted breakaway worlds from the iron fist of the Veiled Masters. The Ashgarate was subsequently undermined and subjugated into the Dominions.
*533- - The Dominions War was initiated by a secret pact of Aeldrum, Alusia, Bishant and the Fialta Imperium (the "G4") in response to the demonstration of occult capabilities by the Veiled Masters which the G4 concluded were the work of a semi-sentient aetheric "demon virus". Paranoia and fear of a VM first-strike led the G4 to invade the Veiled Dominions, eventually joined by the Brass Cities. While the Veiled Masters unleashed their virus in retaliation, to significant economic effect (especially against the Fialta), the G4 managed to hold the momentum of their invasion and prosecute a successful conventional and intelligence war against the Masters, resulting in the partitioning of the Dominions into Mandates that would be governed by each of the victorious powers.
*550- - The Leandran War was a cosmic-scale conflict between the Shantine Empire, under the leadership of the Kirvan angel Leandra, and the Fialta Imperium, Serene Duchy of Aeldrum, Empire of Alusia, Thannasid Dominions and various secondary powers. Leandra, empowered by a vast network of soul-computer farms, fought a war of aggression to conquer the cosmos, with the ultimate aim of reopening the Pantheon War and supplanting Adarnum as Kirva's archangel. The "mortal" powers narrowly managed to restrain the Great Pantheon from intervening by demonstrating that they could counter Leandra from "within the timeline," while forming a New Compact to constrain their use of the terrifying occult technologies leveraged in the war. The Leandran War ended inconclusively, with the greatest damage to the Shantine Empire (Bishant was destroyed) but Leandra herself forming about half of the former Empire into a new pariah state, the Leandran Dominions. The Fialta Imperium assumed principal responsibility for annexing or managing most of the remainder of Shantine territory, while Alusia fully unveiled its Thannasid regime and forced the cosmos to accept both it and the Thannasid Dominions as members of the cosmic community, while a devastated Aeldrum turned increasingly toward isolation.
→ Read more about Factions and Wars
== Notes ==
= The Aeldrum Wiki =
== Using the Wiki ==
In addition to clicking through the various articles linked above, browsing the hierarchical listing of article categories might help with making navigation more grounded.
Alternatively, for a more stochastic approach, try going to a random page.
In addition to this wiki, all rulesets, campaign docs, and other sorts of non-wiki Aeldrum links and files can be found on the Aeldrum website at https://aeldrum.neocities.org.
== Editing the Wiki ==
YES!! Please contribute and help the wiki to grow! I love you, person-reading-this-"Editing-the-Wiki"-subsection.
Before editing (and especially before creating a new page), please have a look at the Style Guide.
Probably the best way for people to get started with helping out this wiki is to add information for campaigns they've played in, and in particular for characters they've played. Beyond that, Wanted Pages, Stub Pages, and Incomplete Pages would all be good places to start. An ongoing project has been to get more pictures onto this wiki, whether homemade, commissioned, or just found on the internet somewhere.
For wiki questions, the two admins/primary editors are Craig and Lux. For deep Aeldrum lore questions, get in touch with Christophe.
Category:Meta