Of Clockwork Titans and the Witchfog…

Core Ethos Sentence

The Fallen Land of Yaelish is a dangerous world of desperate city-states, where eccentric artificers attempt to uncover the lost secrets of
ancient magetech, and daredevil treasure-hunters risk the poisonous Witchfog to reclaim the mysteries of the great ruin of Khalish.

Who are the Heroes (Examples by no means exhaustive)?

Hustleburr Knimbleknucks – A twisted Nearman artificer, who explores the poisonous ruins, clad in ancient clockwork armor he barely
understands. Hustleburr seeks to mend the Witchstones and end the curse of the Witchfog and the fiends that dwell within it.
Gregor Longshanks – A hulking warrior born to the nomadic tribes which savage the land between the walled city-states. Gregor attempts
to unite the nomadic tribes into a great nation whose Witchfog-resistant warriors will reclaim fallen Khalish.
Elmark Morgrave – A Mageborn sorcerer who opposes the Orders of the Four Stones – secret orders who steal elemental crytals from the
Witchstones in order to harness their elemental power. This weakens the power of the Witchstones, allowing the Witchfog to proliferate. Natural
mages (the Mageborn) oppose their selfish borrowed power.

What do they [the heroes] do?

Heroic characters do battle with the demonic fiends that accompany the poisonous Witchfog. The Witchfog originates in the ruin of fallen
Khalish, and is largely contained by the Witchstones that surround the ruin. However, where the Witchstones have been damaged, the Witchfog rolls
through, allowing the hideous fiends that dwell within the ruin to escape and terrorize humanity.
Heroes also oppose the Orders of the Four Stones – cabals of elemental sorcerers who steal the elemental crystals that give the Witchstones
their power. The Orders include many powerful merchants and politicians within their secret ranks, giving them significant mundane power to
augment their stolen elemental sorcery.
Those heroes who are resistant to the poisonous Witchfog (either as a result of an accident of birth, or through the use of magic or
clockwork relics) scour the ruins of Khalish in an attempt to end the Witchfog, bolster the power of the Witchstones, or simply rediscover the magic
and clockwork science of the fallen civilization.
Even when not engaging in any of the activities above, there is sufficient intrigue within the warring city-states and the nomadic barbarian
tribes to offer heroes limitless opportunities for adventure.

Threats, Conflicts & Villains

The greatest day-to-day threats to the civilized people of Yaelish are the occasionally violent nomadic tribes who travel the wild lands
between the scattered city-states. While most of the nomads are peaceful enough, there are certainly vicious bandits among them. The nomads
themselves are primarily descendants of those residents of Khalish who fled the disaster that ruined their Empire. They are now debase, but many
have inherited odd powers from their ancestors. Among them dwell a large number of Nearmen, a race of animal-human hybrids created by the
people of Khalish to serve as slaves, jesters and soldiers. Many of the city-states are suspicious or hostile toward the Nearmen, and violent
confrontations are not unusual.
A less common but more hideous threat are the mindless demonic humanoids that accompany the poisonous Witchfog. The fog tends to
disperse when the weather is bright and clear, but while it persists the fiends can destroy entire communities in an orgy of blood.
The Witchfog grows more and more common as the ring of Witchstones constructed by the ancients to contain it are looted of their sources
of power - magical crystals imbued with the essence of the four elements. The greatest culprits are the secret Orders of the Four Stones. These
sorcerers steal the crystals to grant themselves power over the elements. Their activities have given the true sorcerers of Yaelish – the Mageborn (the
descendants of ancient sorcerers exiled from fallen Khalish) an undeserved reputation for black magic and inhuman cruelty. The secret masters of
the Four Stones plot to destroy the Witchstones completely, insuring their mastery over the cities they ward with their stolen power.

Nature of Magic
During the height of Khalish, magical relics created in the Empire were common in the provinces. Now, most of those items – largely
clockwork automata – have ceased to function. Most working relics are little more than toys or curiosities. True magic survives in the Mageborn –
powerful sorcerers born with magic in their hearts. The rare Mageborn are the descendants of those sorcerers who fled Khalish in anticipation of the
catastrophe that claimed their homeland. The Mageborn are adaptable sorcerers, capable not only of drawing upon the natural magic of living things
to influence and alter the land and its bounty, but also of summoning the ghosts of their ancestors to act in their behalf. At one time the Mageborn
were powerful elementalists as well, but gave up that power to craft the Witchstones that ring fallen Khalish.
Elemental magic now exists in an occasional gifted nomad – likely a descendant of a refugee from Khalish. More common, however, is the
stolen elemental magic of the Orders of the Four Stones. Behind a veil of secrecy, these sorcerers very nearly rival the power of the Mageborn. It is
also their propaganda that perpetuates the myth that the Mageborn are vile warlocks whose presence invites a second fall of civilization.
The grandest magic that remains in the world, however, are surely the great clockwork titans - enormous automata in the shape of animals
created by the ancients for an unknown purpose. The secrets to controlling these behemoths have been lost, and while they are so rare as to be widely
considered mythical, none can witness a 100’ clockwork bear destroying everything in its stride without being profoundly awed.

What’s new? What’s Different

Yaelish is different from most fantasy world in that it includes weird science in the form of clockwork automata. Other differences include
the radically different forms of magic practiced by the Mageborn and the Orders of the Four Stones. Traditional fantasy races are absent, but the
Nearmen provide limitless possibilities for exotic characters with a diverse range of animal traits. There are also built-in motivations for heroic
adventures in the threat of the Witchfog and the preservation of the Witchstones. Characters born with the ability to withstand the poisonous
Witchfog (roughly 1% of the civilized population and 20% of the Nomadic tribesmen) have a social responsibility to protect their fellows from the
Curse of fallen Khalish. Furthermore, there is an entire ruined empire to explore – peopled by twisted fiends, blanketed by poisonous Witchfog, and
peppered with relics of both magic and clockwork science.

David Michael Williams