Great Nederian Steppe

The Heart of Archaea, the Great Nederian Steppe is a land ravaged by conflict. It is the ancestral home of the Lizardfolk, once a glorious empire of the Dawn Years, even before the Sorcerer Kings rose in the West. Now, it is a home to hunter-gatherer tribes subjected to a terrible curse.

## Geography

The Steppe is a largely homogeneous region of flat or rolling plains and prairies. The entire region is carpeted with

grass and scrub, occasionally interrupted by a short, scrawny tree. However, little of this region except its very borders are to be found on any map. The lizardfolk tribes have violently repelled any trespass inside of their borders since time immemorial. Few have ventured more than several miles onto the grass sea before being violently waylaid. It is said, however, that from some points in the Whitespine Mountains a vast crater-lake can be seen at the very heart of the Steppe, and only Elven lore goes deep enough to remember that this was once the site of Aken-Aten, the great temple city of the Sun. The city has not stood since an age before the race of man had ever reached Archaea, and even elf lore has little to say about its history.

## History

### Ancient History

In the earliest Dawn Years, after the Elves had taken up residence in the Eldwood, the first great civilization to rise on the continent of Archaea was the Lizard Empire. Claiming descent from the dragons and dominion over all other peoples, the Empire was thick with hubris even in its early years. Its glittering ranks of centurions marched from land to land, conquering other peoples and carrying them back to the Temple Cities to pay obeisance to the Sun.

The Empire quickly found that its expansion was outpacing its population's ability to sustain new territory, and so the Lizard-Priests decreed that the other races of the land must be bound to the service of the Sun and its chosen rulers. And so they began to take slaves, first from among the gnomes of Archaea, but later from lands abroad as the empire took to the seas in search of new riches. It was then that Orcs and Goblins were brought to the continent in the belly of Lizardfolk ships.

The only places the Empire's Legions dared not tread were the darkling bowers of the great eastern Wood, where lethal elves and fae spirits made their homes. For the Lizards, the Wood was a place of bone-deep, ancestral fear bordering on superstition. The sun did not shine beneath its eaves, and so their god's protection would not help them there. The elves, while impassive toward the outside world, fiercely defended the borders of their arboreal realm. Over the centuries, the Legions outfitted several expeditionary campaigns to penetrate the Deeps--none of them to return.

### The Cataclysm

The Empire seemed destined to last eternal. Of its end, there is no record. The elves, aloof in their forest home, did not witness or make note. Rumor holds that the subjugated and oppressed peoples of the Empire opened their hearts to a Dark God promising vengeance, and channeled his power to defeat the slavers who tormented them so. All that is known for sure is that there was a great cataclysm called down from the heavens, which smote the heart of the Steppe, the heart of the Empire, and caused years of darkness in which famine broke those who yet survived.

But this was only a herald for the true devastation to follow.

Out from the wreckage seeped a living curse, a parasitic Outsider conjured to seek out the Lizards huddling in the rubble of their homes. To creep its way into their bodies and set down malign roots in their minds. And from that day on, the Lizardfolk of the Steppe knew their own cruelty a thousandfold--for they were no longer their own masters. The curse dampened their higher functions and filled them with hate, preventing them from ever again creating a stable civilization. They divided into warring nomadic tribes--warring against each other, and all other living creatures in their reach.

### The Modern Era

As the years passed, life on the Steppe seemed to fall into a cycle dictated by the Parasite's influence. For several years they would remain on the plains, content to maintain their lands and occupied by inter-tribal war. Then, as the Parasite's cycle waxed, every tribe across the plains would fall into a breeding frenzy, often doubling or even tripling their population size in a matter of years. As the Steppe began bursting at the seams, the tribes would explode outward over their borders, unified in purpose to make war on other lands and carve out new holdings--each time causing destruction and chaos amongst the other peoples of Archaea before being driven back.

Those who remained upon the Steppe were mostly the new hatchlings too young to march to war. Unable to support themselves, famine would follow, causing the Lizardfolk to shrink far back within the borders of their plains. And thus the cycle would reset.

### The Split

Unknown to the outside world, not all Lizardfolk suffered this fate. Before the advent of the Cataclysm, an elven sage named **Izumo** arrived at one of the Temple Cities with a dire warning of the events to come. It is not understood whether he came to this knowledge through prophecy, or if the elves had a hand in calling the Cataclysm and Izumo's conscience stung him to action. The elf offered sanctuary to any who would come with him away from the City, but it was only a small number who believed his words and chose to follow. Izumo used his loremastery to take them into the Dream, where he created for them a replica of their old home, a sub-plane spun whole cloth from an exertion of Will. Izumo spent all of his energies on creating, maintaining, and perfecting this realm hidden away from the events on Munda. His intervention allowed a refugee splinter of the Lizard Empire to survive, eventually spreading to encompass the entire mirrored sub-plane. These refugees were unable to return to the mortal plane, however, for fear of falling victim to the Parasite.

This parallel realm lived on in peace and isolation for untold millennia, until its sanctity was violated by a group of mortals fleeing from Ignotean's agents. Their intrusion led to a series of events ultimately resulting in the deaths of the High Priest of the Sun and Izumo at the hands of a daemonic assassin. With Izumo's death, the Will holding this demi-plane began to unravel, its borders dissolving. Of its inhabitants, only a handful were known to have escaped: **Kalak**, the Blue Eyes of the White Dragon brood; **Gurthang**, a warrior-priest of the Sun; and less than twenty of their most trusted centurions.

### Reunification

After his escape, Kalak managed to chase down the outsiders who inadvertently caused the destruction of his world, joining them against Ignotean in exchange for their help releasing the Archaean Lizardfolk from their parasitic curse. With the help of a hidden benefactor, this band of companions made their way back into Izumo's fragmented dream-shard, which was in the process of being absorbed into neighboring Outer Planes. Kalak scoured the land for survivors, and along with Gurthang led them to the temple city of Aken-Aten. They arrived to find a city overwhelmed by shadowy blight--a manifestation of the Parasite which plagued the Mortal Plane. Long had its roots lived here beneath the surface, using this dream-shard's connection to Munda as a means of transmitting its curse; the ultimate perversion of Izumo's noble act. As the will maintaining the dream-shard dissolved, the parasite's power over its surroundings grew out of control: it covered the city, filling it with monsters of shadow and corruption.

Kalak and his companions penetrated the benighted city, battling their way to the heart of the Temple. It was here that one of the adventurers unmasked themselves as a Champion of the Elder God Soltis, who had gone into self-imposed exile after seeing his followers destroyed by the Cataclysm. The champion unveiled a sentient blade imbued with a shard of the Sun God's soul, which was used as a conduit to channel the God's power into a final revocation of the Parasite.

In the same action, the Sun God used this mortal conduit to reunite the sub-plane Steppe with its modern counterpart in the real world, bringing along with it all of the surviving life forms within the plane and drastically changing the landscape of Archaea forevermore. As a parting touch he granted his long-suffering Lizardfolk adherents with a final boon, cleansing and empowering them with his fire and leaving behind a race reborn, now claiming the title of 'Dragonborn.'

## Settlements

None of the original Temple Cities still stand, even as ruins. Their stones have tumbled and spread across the plains, weathered into unrecognizable fieldstone. However, the Reunification brought with it the remains of cities and villages from the Dream Shard, including a badly damaged Aken-Aten.

## Civilizations

* **Lizardfolk Tribes** - Since the advent of the Parasite, the Lizardfolk have been scattered and disorganized, surviving as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes which roam the Steppes. Between inter-tribal wars and the cycle of Lizard Wars, the tribes have been unable to achieve any sort of stability that might lead to stable governance or rule of law.
* **Frontier Folk** - At the very southern border of the Steppe, strung along the coastline between the Whitespine Mountains and the Lychwood**,** lie a number of tiny human frontier towns and villages. Occupied by only the hardiest stock, these villages serve the shipping routes which run along the southern coast of Archaea toward Kataleon. Though they are far enough from the central Tribelands to escape the Lizards' attention, it is not uncommon for the villages to be raided and sacked. And when the Lizard Wars truly wind up, most of the frontier folk leave the towns and make their way either to the Whitespines or the Lychwood to take refuge until the hostilities die down again.

## Notable NPCs

* **Kalak, Blue Eyes of the White Dragon Clan** - A refugee from a Lizard Empire which thrived in the Dream     Realm for long after the Lizards of Munda were scattered and debased. He works unwaveringly to rebuild his people on Munda and free them from the yoke of compulsion.
* **Gurthang, Warrior-Priest of the Sun** - Kalak's close friend and captain. He managed to escape the collapse of Izumo's demi-plane with a small contingent of Kalak's most trusted soldiers.