Danor

**Capital:** Cherage

**Government:** Constitutional republic

**Head of State:** ~~Sovereign Han Jierre~~ ~~Eloise Duffet~~ President Cleone Weld

**Official Language:** Common

**Common Races:** Human 81%, tiefling 17%, other 2%.

Guided by a congress of businessmen and scholars, Danor is devoted to endless progress. Old beliefs, especially religion, are cast aside in the face of newer and more profitable ideas. After surviving an apocalyptic collapse five hundred years ago, reason and hard work have created armies more powerful than any in the world, where a common man can wield weapons as mighty as the magic of legendary heroes. After centuries of complacency, the other great nations eye Danor with envy, and with fear.

Following the Second Victory, the social order in old Danor was upended. The Great Malice left the capital of the Clergy bereft of magic. Horrible monsters that spawned in the border regions of wild magic wrought havoc as quavering holy warriors struggled to destroy them without their divine aid. The whole country was cut off from its usual channels of communication, and in a matter of weeks, thousands of priests killed themselves, believing their gods had died, and many more fled in every direction. A once-mighty nation fractured into desperate enclaves, and the old capitol was abandoned as an accursed place.

A major contributor to the region’s downfall was that its previous leaders—the hierarchs of the Clergy—had been transformed by the Great Malice into seemingly demonic creatures with horns and barbed tails. People in what today are the Malice Lands refused to let these people reach the new capital in Crisillyir, believing the old rulers were “from the deep pit of hell,” and thus dubbed them “deeplings” or “tieflings.”

After decades of chaos, a tiefling named Jierre who had once been a priest near the top of the sacred hierarchy gathered the fractious leaders and managed to convince them in the span of a mere five years to reunite under a new vision. If the hands of the gods could no longer reach into Danor, then it would be the hands of mortals that would give them power and safety.

It was magic, after all, and the superstitions and archaic beliefs that were its trappings, that had held back the people of Danor from their potential. Jierre understood that they had a unique opportunity. No foreign nations would bother a land without magic, so the new Danor needed not to worry about invasion. It would decide its own fate, and as long as all were devoted to the ideal of progress, Danor would one day be the strongest nation in the world. Finally, after centuries of insular work and struggle to build a new society, Danor has begun to claim its place in the world.

Trains powered by steam crisscross the nation, and the great Avery Coast Railroad runs from mountainous Beaumont on the west coast, through Cherage, and on eastward to Drakr, passing through Crisillyir, before finally ending three thousand miles away just across a channel from Elfaivar. Warships armored with iron churn along the nation’s coast and among the islands it holds in the Yerasol Archipelago, protecting shipments of food that feed Danor’s burgeoning population of industrial workers.

## Government

Though officially Danor has only a Congress and a Sovereign who is elected every decade, the House of Jierre is effectively Danor’s royal family. Where they point, most follow.

The Sovereign today is Han Jierre, former president of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academy of war, the Jierre Sciens d’Arms. Various relatives and in-laws hold many positions in the government and military. A few have even traveled abroad to study magic and apply Danoran principles of science to explain how it works, rather than relying on traditional beliefs. So far, detailed theories have eluded them, as if magic itself refuses to let itself be understood.

Without a doubt, the House of Jierre rules Danor, but their prominence has not gone uncontested. Periods of riots and protests have plagued the nation, especially in the early days of its industrial revolution, though it certainly helped that, in a realm where few have ever even seen magic, any tiefling can still rebuke a person who attacks him by engulfing him in infernal flame.

## Dead Magic

Within Danor’s borders, magic quickly seeps away, a consequence of the Great Malice, where the high elf goddess Srasama died five hundred years ago. Magic item powers and enhancement bonuses function normally, subject to GM adjudication, but spell-like abilities and spells cast through the items do not.

A creature’s own innate magical powers still function, such as racial spell-like and supernatural abilities. Class-based supernatural abilities function as well, but a character cannot use spell-like abilities or cast spells from his classes unless he has an appropriate magical focus, such as a wizard’s bonded item or an associated familiar, to use as a conduit. Most hats, cloaks, periapts, and similar items that enhance mental ability scores are infused with enough energy to act as a focus, but over a period of weeks or months, even their power fades entirely.

## Major Cities and Locations

* Methia
* Cherage
* Beaumont
* Gagneux

## Campaign

The party visited Beaumont and Cherage in Danor briefly in Adventure 4 as part of their trip on the Avery Coast Rail, and later on Cherage and Methia in Adventure 8 as part of the quest for Kasavarina's memories. They returned to Cherage again in Adventure 10 for the Forward Symposium.

Cleone's presence in the party meant that maintaining stable Risuri-Danoran relations was more important than it might be without her, a fact tested in Adventure 5 when Aodhan suggested blaming the Colossus' existence on Danor and declaring war accordingly. The party eventually requested that Aodhan instead blame Drakr to preserve their relations with Danor.

This didn't go unnoticed in Adventure 6 when the party repeatedly encountered Lya Jierre, but at the same time it became increasingly clear that Danoran resources were being openly and willingly used in service of Obscurati goals by at least the Jierres. This was further strengthened in Adventure 7 when Danoran assassins began targeting the party, and in succeeding adventures the Obscurati was consistently co-opting Danoran military for its operations.

By Adventure 8 the party learned that in truth Danor was indeed founded as a place free of magic and the Clergy, but also as a country in alliance with the Obscurati. This relationship ended up an unequal one from the time of Jierre himself, Danor's interests always secondary to those of the Ob as in the case of an epidemic where Danoran lives were sacrificed to maintain the country itself. Danor's wars with Risur were in fact the Obscurati's method of obtaining control of Axis Island, which it would need for their goals. During Adventure 9 Danoran forces were once again used to secure Axis Island, abandoned when Gradiax attacked, and used again in the Obscurati's attempts to retake Axis Island.

After the planar shift in Adventure 9 the Obscurati went public in Danor, casting themselves as enlightened thinkers that Danor had been supporting. Nicodemus planned to use Danor's resources to mobilize for war against Risur until the Forward Symposium in Adventure 10, where the narrative flipped against the Obscurati both in terms of international relations and public sentiment. Cleone exposed Danor's history with the Obscurati to the public during the following hivemind incident in Cherage and called for revolution against the Ob.

Since then Han Jierre has fled Cherage, joining the Obscurati attempt to retake Axis Island. Danor itself has been busy reevaluating its history while simultaneously trying to organize what it can (not much) against Gradiax at Axis Island. Eloise Duffet rose to power, but her policies were even more militaristic and forceful. A hardcore democratic political faction cropped up in response to Eloise's rule and the revelations about Danor's history, and Cleone has allied herself with this faction in her own bid for future Danoran leadership.

During the timeskip in Adventure 12-13, Gardienne de Cherage and the Obscurati promoted Millerist propaganda in Danor in order to set them up for the worldwide hivemind and prime them for a future Watchmakers planar arrangement without involving the Ob's name. Unfortunately, this backfired and those who felt unable to contribute to society began committing mass suicide. When the party returned, they exposed the Ob's involvement a second time.

Following Adventure 13, Cleone Weld was elected President of Danor with the goals of reforming and rebuilding the country, and maintaining peace with other countries. Danor entered an alliance with Risur and Crisillyir three months after the new world was set.