Overview of the Campaign

## Background Info - Inveils

Inveils is, fundamentally, an inverted world. A vast sky with floating islands and seas made of clouds, surrounded by the Worldcrust, a layer of hardened bedrock-like stone that envelops the entirety of this sphere. At its very center, a glowing sun illuminates the islands that surround it, a cage of light with one of the few remaining gods of this world trapped inside of it, Sola the Illuminated. Or at least that’s the version of the story told to the majority that ask.

### **The Floating Islands**

The majority of life in Inveils flourishes inside of the floating masses of earth that populate it’s cloudy skies. Not all islands are large enough to have life, but those who boast the necessary size provide their own gravitational pull derivative from the material that composes them, a magnetic-like rock similar to that of the Worldcrust material, that unfortunately once broken loses most of its pull and becomes simple gravel. Islands can vary from country-sized to only enough to hold a single hut and garden, with varying shapes from geographically believable to perfect rings and sometimes even stranger appearances.

Islands containing cities and settlements may be pulled together by the effort of its residents. Massive steel chains are seen linking them together and forming sky archipelagos that house hundreds of thousands of beings.

Finally, not all islands are stationary, as some tend to orbit around the cage of light, or even take seemingly random paths through Inveils, making the finding of certain land masses to be quite difficult at times, as some may even have eluded charting for centuries before being found.

### **The Worldcrust**

Widely considered to be one of the most treacherous locations of Inveils, the Worldcrust envelops the entirety of the world, it's said to be a massive network of craggy fields and deep tunnels that lead to god-knows-where. It is, however, a precious collective of mineral resources. And those brave enough to form a settlement in the Worldcrust find themselves with an alarming fortune, if they are capable of remaining in such a place.

Tremors, rock slides, and cave-ins aren’t the only risks of the Worldcrust, as many creatures make their home in the rocky wasteland, from tunneling worms to hulking monstrosities. And there are always tales of boogeyman-like humanoid races that plague the mining camps with raids and ambushes, leaving little behind in their wake.

### **The Cloud Seas and the Vast Sky**

What anyone that travels Inveils will experience the most, the vast expanse of the skies is inhabited by all manner of flying creatures, and the cloud seas make for beautiful wonders of nature, drifting around the world and carrying with them a bounty of sky fish, wrecks of fallen airships, and treasure within. Hunters prize the cloud seas for the fishing trade they provide, with sky whales being especially valuable, as the creatures take respite and are more vulnerable inside of the cloud masses, though not making them much less dangerous.

Travel through the skies and clouds is done through the use of airships of various different designs, marvels of magic and technology. Anyone who fancies themselves a trader, officer or sky pirate is either on board or in ownership of one of these beauties. The design of which changes from people to people, technological designs usually belonging to gnomes or dwarves, while more mystical and elegant ships may be from the genasi or elven cultures around inveils. Though military ships tend to be standardized and deadly, no personal ship is like the other. Each carries a name, story and a most certainly strange crew.

### **The Luminous Cage and Sola**

Inveils boasts a divine source of light and warmth. With Sola as the brilliant beacon of light at the very center of the world, said by the Solarians, the religion around the divine being, to be a confined god, a survivor of the War in Heaven from millenia before. The light of Sola does dim, as in mostly uniform intervals the God “sleeps” which gives way to darkness in the world. Light produced by different sky creatures and the islands that dot the void is reflected from the various crystalline stones in the Worldcrust, making earthen constellations used by sky captains to navigate and find their way through the vastness of Inveils. Due to that the mining of certain locations in the Worldcrust is not only outlawed, but severely punished.

Though the phenomenon of night is widely considered to be simply the respite of Sola, some are of the belief that another entity lulls it to sleep, a mystical songstress of the name Luna. Though her religious presence is small, those who believe and even worship the nightbringer are quickly finding a rise in Inveils.

### **The Races of Inveils**

Much like it would be expected of a world so different, the races that reside in Inveils aren’t all the same you'd see in Faerun. Some of the races contained in the Player’s Handbook and beyond have gone through some chances, physical and behavioral, for them to be better suited to this world.

* Humans -  Not much has changed in humans, they’re still one of the most commonly found races, they’re still industrious and expansionist, they live fast and do all they can to make an impression on the world before their time is over. Thrill-seekers, the human race can often be seen being the crew of many airships and conducting explorations throughout the skies in search for elusive islands and treasures of olden ages. While plenty still adapt to the calm life in the various settlements within inveils, taking to trading, farming and simpler lives, being the bulk of the populace in most places they’re found.

* Dwarves - Dwarves are still the mining and industry masters that they’d be expected to be, so much so that their bodies reflect such a thing. The physicality of a dwarf in Inveils includes non-organic materials in it, with traditional mountain dwarves having metals imbued in them like Iron, copper, tungsten and the likes. While hill dwarves have makings of crystal in their bodies. Dwarves are considered almost elemental creatures due to their composition, and are the butt of a lot of jokes saying they pop out from the earth of the islands and the Worldcrust like the world’s grumpiest moles. There have been attempts to harvest the materials from dwarven bodies, though they much like organic matter decompose upon death, making them worthless in the market. Dwarves are much more attuned to larger islands and the Worldcrust, staying anywhere that they can use the land around themselves to make fortresses and provide for industry.
* Elves - One of the most long-lived and ethereal forms of life in Inveils, elves are very much opposite to dwarves. While they have become part of the land, elves have become part of the skies, of the clouds and the rain, embodying elegance and fluidity of such elements. Elves are hardly ever seen in proper cities, prefering to dwell in the cloud seas, wandering isles and their own floating colonies, living among their own and the beauty of the unending skies. High elves and wood elves take a more ethereal form in their physicality, flowing hair like wind that hardly stays in one place and cloud-like markings on their body, sea elves and shadar-kai might show signs of stormy clouds and the more rage and gloom-filled portion of the skies. Drow are...Rarely seen, but those that dwell in the Worldcrust usually share the same fate

* Halflings - The homely, the ever-friendly, the charitable and carefree little beings of the material plane. Not in Inveils, no. If there was ever a race that embraced the “being short just means I'm closer to hell” saying, it’s this one. Halflings are usually the ones running unsavory businesses in the cities of Inveils, families that link back centuries ago commanding smuggling, dealing in iron and blood. Not every single halfling is like this of course, but family runs deep in this race, and when most families are born rooted in the same heritage it’s a tad difficult to question it. They’re likely to be found in cities, deep within urban centers, as well as in ships across the unending skies in some kind of business. Dealing with a halfling family may as well get you what you want, just make sure that it’s worth it.

* Gnomes - One of the most prized helpers in Inveils, the people you’d go to if you needed something crafted, repaired or a blueprint made from the ground up. Gnomish minds are valued in the skies for their proficiency in tinkering, airships of gnomish make are sturdy and efficient in their flight, making them the standard in sky travel and something that captains crave, though the price is always something that makes the greener captains back down and rethink their finances. Gnomes go where money is, where a patron might have an investment for them, where an artifact was recovered and is in need of appraisal and study. Their creative and industrious minds demand it, so much so that a gnome with little to do will quickly fall into a very sour mood.

* Dragonborns - Dragons became rare after the War in Heaven, much more than they were before. Though their spawn on the other hand, from wyvern, to drakes, and to the half-dragon humanoids, they thrived. Said to have been born from the blood spilled from dragons during the war, dragonborn are a much newer race than the other inhabitants of Inveils, though quickly making themselves known as a force to be reckoned with. Their imposing size and personality make for intimidating or charismatic allies, though still seen with varying amounts of scorn by other races due to it’s recent arrival. All manner of tales fly about dragonborn, saying they herald the return of dragons, or that they were made so that dragons could disguise themselves and live among other races, biding their time to reign, or even that the dragons are actually all dead, punished by the old gods for their power, and cursed to a mortal existence. Either way, dragonborn carry weight in their presence, be it scorn or awe, and they are realizing that.

* Tieflings - Fiends are powerful and fearsome things, and a race that is their spawn is likely to find the same treatment given to them. Tieflings however, seem to be much more of a wild card when it comes to it, though none of them is safe from scrutiny. Fiends in Inveils crave emotion, feeding off from it and using it to trap mortals in their dealings. While tieflings are born from it. They are the embodiment of an emotion, and most of the time, the excess of it. A tiefling of glee revels in happiness, of themselves and of others, however the excess of it might lead to more depraved ways of seeking such happiness. Much like a tiefling of rage is aggressive and barbaric, though some focus such rage towards an objective, becoming centered and powerful enforcers of a just cause. Interactions with tieflings are usually a flip of a coin if you don’t know them, and as such, they are either feared or valued.

* Half-Orcs - Another recent sight in the islands of Inveils, the orcs are said to have spawned from the suffering of the earth during the great war. Beings of great strength that embody the primal power of the land and at the same time understand it in an instinctual way. Orcs are creatures of the land, and as such it’s rare to see one in a civilized environment, half-orcs however being the mixture of two species are seen as primitive yet respectable guardians and warriors. The culture among orcs causes their half-bloods to speak little, but carry a presence in every word, fearsome fighters that carry the might of primal rage in their blood.