Gorah

The Physical World

This world is a flat, "round" disc. It is the ONLY thing in its universe. There is no "outside", only what exists as described here. [this is the first draft of my world map]

The world is about 2000 miles across. It is about 4 miles thick. The surface area of the world is "normal breathable earthlike terrain". It is ringed by mountains, capped by an impenetrable ceiling which curves slightly up from behind the mountain-tops, and is apparently impenetrable. The tallest of the mountains, at the edge, are about 2 miles (10,800 feet) high.  The "beneath"of the world is a layer of rock and earth and water. It is also about 2 miles thick. Digging "down" through this results in hitting an impenetrable barrier. In fact, if anyone ever penetrated this barrier, they would find themeselves falling from the sky to the earth below. The sky barrier is an actual physical limit; it might be made of force. It is constantly being pushed out by the force of the eruption of the Light of the World; this causes the star-crystals to move within the sky, slowly being pushed to the edge of the world. Eventually, the sky-stuff actually slides down behind the mountains, wraps around the bottom of the world and is pushed back into the center, where it then erupts again, probably hundreds or thousands of years later. The "moons" of the world are extra-large star-crystals, which pulse with an inner light of their own, which waxes and wanes over a roughly month-long cycle. 

In the same way, if anyone ever tunnels through  one side of a mountain on the edge of the world, they would find themselves emerging from the mountain on the opposite side of the world. The dwarves may have done this...

The surface world has a large lake/sea (saltwater) in the center. It is about 500-700 miles across. At the center is a volcano with a small island around it. This volcano is know as the Light of the World. Each morning, it "erupts", shooting a massive blast of hot, steaming water at the sky. Where it hits the sky it creates a wave of light. This light spreads across the sky at an even pace, creating "dawn". The eruption lasts about 9 hours, and then slowly ceases. About three hours after it stops, the light of day fades away, bringing night. It takes about one hour for dawn to spread, and about the same amount of time for night to creep out, or for day to fade away. People in this world don't speak of sunrise or sunset; instead they speak of dawn, or lightspread, and dusk or lightfade. They sky is studded with crystal stars. These sometimes fall from the sky, jarred loose by who knows what turbulence. These fallen star-crystals are powerful magic, and may create all sorts of effects in the world, some good and some bad. Their fall can also be read as an omen. No moon has ever been known to fall in current memory, although myths tell that if a moon falls, terrible change will impact the world. 

There are two "other" planes of existence. One is the feywild/shadowfell sort of world - it is very similar to the prime world, but wilder and more intense. There is no true lightspread or day here; instead dawn creeps out as a rosy glow, and fades away into purple twilight that never truly darkens completely. The second is an elemental plane, where earth, fire, water and air are far more primal, separated, and alive. This world is incredibly harsh and dangerous to the humanoid races, and few ever go there. Day and Night  are far more pronounced there; daytime is brilliantly hot and bright, while night plunges into blackness, with only the fiery elementals visible. Travel between the Prime and these other planes is truly limited in nature; only the elves know the way of reaching the fey/shadow plane, and only the djinn/elementals can traverse the Elemental planar barrier.

History and Politics

The prime world is dominated by fifteen draconic rulers. The Light of the World is home to an eight-headed dragon/hydra type being, who is often called the Suzerain. He/she/it is the parent of fourteen offspring dragons, who have divided the world between them. These fourteen beings are neither good nor evil, nor are they "color-coded" like traditional dragons. These rulers go by the title of Dracon. Their lands are called Domains. All are extremely  powerful rulers with breath weapons, spell-casting, and other abilities. They do have more "normal" dragon subrulers who are their descendants who are called Dukes/Duchesses, Princes and Princesses and Marcher/Marchesses. They also have many draconic descendants, who typically serve as their soldiers and enforcers amongst the humanoid races.  Beneath them are the human, elven, dwarven and halfling peoples, who are ruled by the dragons. There are also wilder regions where lizardfolk, hobgoblins, and other creatures still dwell, each ruled by one of the more unruly dragons. No humans quite know why the Dracons find it necessary to retain these troublesome groups, but they have learned  that it is always necessary to keep up their defenses, for sooner or later, they will boil over out of  their lands and attempt to swarm the more peacable countries.

Every thirty to fifty years (once or twice as little as a year, and at least once over a hundred years), the Suzerain dismisses its current mate, and selects a new one. At that time all the Dracons travel in a grand procession to the Light of the World, and emerge weeks later. The chosen mate remains behind.

When a mate is dismissed, in general they return to their Domain, but every so often, the Sovereign simply announces that it is taking a new mate, without ever clarifying what happened to the previous one. On most of these occasions, within a year or three, a new young Dracon is sent from the Light of the World to replace the missing one. But on rare occasion a new Dracon  never arrives, and then a war begins, in which all the other sub-Dracons fight to claim the open territory. On occasion, even when a new Dracon emerges, there is war as the other more experienced rulers decide to claim some or all of the untested Dracon's Domain.

The domains 

Kairalind

Astralen

Chedria

Xerith

Sedrun

Borova

Kysta

Orana

Atelari: This is one of the central domains, to the east of the Light of the World. It is more than half Ocean, and the Dracon who rules there dwells in the ocean. The land-dwelling demi-humans keep themselves to themselves, and rarely see him. There is one fairly large city, named (X). It boasts a population of 90,000. There is a fair amount of trade between Atelari and Morae, mostly on land. 

Morae: this is one of the largest domains, in the south-east. Forested mountains separate the domain into two regions - the area close to the Ocean is mostly human-dominated; the forests are rich with elves, and there are at least two clans of dwarves. 

Zekrit

Vincos

Solbeg

Canto

Other things: 

Races of Gorah; humans, elves, dwarves, draconics and lizardfolk, but no half-orcs (there are no orcs), and only a few rare half-elves. Elves all live on the feywild and only  interact rarely with humans. Most forests have a gate to the fey/shadow plane in them somewhere; often more than one, depending on the size of the wood. Centaurs! Races of sea-dwelling humanoids like locathah and merfolk (I don't expect them to be PC classes). Halflings and gnomes are replaced by grippli and some sort of tiny fey, which I will invent - a sort of blend of pixie and grig, but less powerful than either. 

Religion: druidism/world-worship is common. So is worship of the Dragon/hydra being. Also worship of small "spirits of the place" and "aspects" such as Justice, Law, Chaos, various emotions and ethical stances. But they are not "beings" and have no humanlike personality. At most,  an avatar in a humanoid or animal form may be created to interact with their worshippers, if they are even capable of recognizing they have such things. Those who worship the small spirits and aspects are also likely to pay homage to the world as an entity itself. There are few/no temples in this world. Those that exist focus mainly on the Dragon Being. Shrines, henges, and other simple structures are most common, and there are no large heirarchical religious organizations, but there could easily be smaller groups of folk who band together in mystery cults, knightly orders and monkish groups. The "small spirits" can often be malicious, dark things that demand sacrifices from their followers to protect and empower them.

Seasons: the day/night cycle created by the eruption of the Light of the World is what controls the seasons. In a fixed-time pattern (of similar length to a year), the length of the day varies from less than 10 hours to over 14 hours. Long day-periods are warmer, generally dryer, and better for farming. The shorter day periods are colder, wetter and less suited to travel or farming. I will have to create a calendar! Essentially this means seasons are the same over the whole world at the same time. There is no equatorial region, no arctic region, and no reason for anyone/anything to migrate.