The Races of Fardenrule
Fardenrule is home to a diverse array of intelligent races, each with their own unique traits and cultures. While countless conflicts have been fought between and within each race, so have alliances been crafted.
Humankind’s origins are lost in time, but their victories in conquest are aptly recorded in the Seekers’ libraries. Humans can wield twelve of the thirteen schools of magic, which, combined with their intelligence and ambition, have helped them settle across Fardenrule. Over the ages, their aggressive expansion has diminished the territories of the realm’s other races, creating pockets of hostile land such as Longmorn Forest and the Aggeris Highlands. Around these dangerous regions, humankind has drawn its provinces, each governed by the alliance of the Major Guilds.
‘Demon’ is a blanket term used by humans to describe a variety of beings that hail from the poorly explored Demonic Realm, such as imps, fiends, and succubi. Like humans, demons can wield twelve of the thirteen schools of magic and appear to have equal intelligence and ambitions of conquest. Humans who study demonic culture—demonology—are branded warlocks and are outlawed by Justicars’ rule.
Whenever humans first settled on Fardenrule, it is known that orcs came well before them. Masters of the elemental magics, orcs built grand temples where they practiced their spells and governed their societies. Their wisdom went forever unlearnt by humanity, who warred with the orcs for all of known history. The countless wars led to the extinction of the orcs in the Peridot Age, and now all that remains are the ruins of their temples.
Mysterious magical beings that embody the element of their plane, elementals have the potential to unleash devastating death and destruction if left uncontrolled. Elementals are brought into Fardenrule by summoning, their will bound to the caster, but if set loose, they can wander freely. Their motivations are unclear, their existence likely older than Fardenrule itself, and their reason for creating the elemental anchors remains undiscovered.
Plant-like humanoids with waxy skin and leaves for hair, dryads are highly attuned to naturemancy and the forests and jungles in which they reside. Their knowledge has been invaluable in helping human druids excel in naturemancy, but those relationships have dwindled in recent years as humanity’s expansion has destroyed many woodlands. In Aggeris specifically, the dryads are poisoned against humanity, and they defend their forest borders with targeted aggression.
Half-human, half-sea serpent, sirens were the masters of hydromancy. Their empire beneath the waves remains unexplored, and its vastness is rumoured to be greater than the five human provinces combined. Upon land, the sea-serpents claimed many of the islands that surrounded Fardenrule, where they built wonderous structures of coral and stone. Sirens made frequent raids upon the coast, plaguing humanity for much of history, but at the dawn of the Larimar age, a plague ripped through their kind, and in the one hundred years since then, nobody has seen any trace of a living siren.
These mole-like beings have sprawling underground nests across Fardenrule, the deepest of which are akin to subterranean villages. Burgwrats are master crafters of keratin and amber, and they have a deep understanding of worms and insects. One legend exists of farms beneath the Malodour Mire that breed glow worms in the tens of thousands, which are then used to light the burgwrats’ nests and tunnels. Most burgwrats tend to avoid humans, but throughout history, a select few have learnt Rulish and formed productive relationships with certain individuals, favouring alchemists above all else. Unfortunately, outcast burgwrats gather in nests closer to the surface, and so human adventurers more commonly encounter these undesirable, almost feral burgwrats, which have tainted the common people’s general opinion towards these often peaceful, intelligent beings.
Ogres as a race are large, one-eyed humanoids with innate strength and an inability to cast magic. There are many ogre tribes scattered across Fardenrule. In the Aggeris province, they congregate in the Highlands, and the tribe Arthur encounters resides within one of the region’s great mountains. Their sanctum delves deep into the rock, reflecting generations of mining expertise, but they are just as successful outside the mountain as within. The tribe has skillful hunters who keep their kin fed, and crafters who create much of their tools and outdoor shelters from bones and leather. Their chieftain, Brodfug, commands from a skeletal throne, and he is as wise a leader as he is physically strong.
