The World

## Creation Myths

The world known as Caen is a scarred land, with the vestiges of past conflicts dotting it like a pox. It is only fitting that many of Caen's creation myths are also stories of conflict. The most common story, spread far and wide in the human kingdoms was that out of the formless chaos arose two great beings. The first was a masked paragon who sought order in all things, it was through his will that Caen was created from the void. This was Menoth, the Creator and Lawgiver, and where he strode upon the world, humanity rose up in his wake. The second entity came from the dark of the night sky, The Devourer Wurm. If Menoth was a paragon of order, then the Beast of All Shapes was chaos incarnate. An an ever-changing monstrosity whose sole purpose was to slay, ravage, and consume all that it could set its teeth and claws upon. The two were natural enemies, and their brutal clashes shaped the surface of the nascent world, shattering the land into continents and islands, digging great furrows in the earth, and pushing the mountains skyward. The conflict between the two gods proved to be too much for the young land, and eventually the battle moved to Urcaen, the spiritual mirror of Caen. There the two gods fight for all eternity, their battle continuing to this day.

Other races have different stories about the creation of all things, the Gobbers, Trollkin, and Ogrun tell of Dhunia the mother of all things, from who all the races were created from her ravaging at the hands of the Devourer Wurm. The Dhunian creation myths then say that Dhunia sought a protector from the Wurm and chose the most powerful of her children the mighty hunter Menoth to protect her from its attacks. Humanity still rose up from Menoth and in time many humans chose to either follow their patron in the hunt or gave themselves to worship his quarry.

Each race has their own stories, from the elves of Ios, telling of the divine court and how their gods lived among them before the cataclysm tore their nation low and destroyed much of the landscape, to the tales of the Rhulic dwarves speaking of how the 13 Great Fathers overthrew the god mountain Ghor to secure their freedom. The common underlying thread through much of these stories however is conflict, a theme that finds itself repeated into the present as war after war has began and ended between the many inhabitants of Caen.

## The World Today

The Iron Kingdoms are a region on the western part of the continent of Immoren, called such as the people there have created great feats of science and engineering, bending metal and magic to their will. It was with these advances that the inhabitants were able to win their freedom from oppressors from a distant shore many years ago, and it is with steel and coal that they continue to wage war amongst themselves.

The world is recovering from what many would consider to be the end times, which was thankfully averted. The Claiming is the name given to the invasion of Infernal forces from outside Caen or Urcaen to claim two thirds of human souls which were promised to them. Such an invasion was resisted by just about every force on the continent, human or not, and with a great loss of life the Infernals were driven back to whence they came. Immoren settled into an unsteady peace after that and has been mostly focused on rebuilding what was lost.