TelBova Gazetteer

Dungeon master Info

Introduction -

The Battle of the Blood Moon

812 years ago the War of the Blood Moon began. This war was fought between the adjacent countries of Telendria, to the West, and Bovario, to the East. This war would not only change the course of these two nations, but the entire world forever. King Armand DeNilo of Bovario, waged war on Telendria in an attempt to attain the vast commodities found in their mountain ranges. These ranged from rare and expensive metals, to gems, and lumber. Telendria was already famous for their advance technology through the use of steam, clockwork apparati, and wild magics, but, DeNilo knew that obtaining these rare and special materials would further advance his technology and set Bovario up to be the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. He amassed an army in the hundreds of thousands and made swift his invasion. Armand set his army on a warpath spanning the entire distance of the Telendrian nation. Ormis, King of Telendria quickly mounted a defense and met the Bovarioan army head on. The Telendrian army was no match for the hordes of Bovarioan soldiers and their advanced technology. Telendria was quickly pushed back to the mountainous region of the country. Ormis, being the diplomat that he was, spoke with a local tribe of savages, known as The Lycan, in hopes that they would join him in defending the nation that they all cherished dearly. Iban Bear Spelacnar, the tribal elder and great shaman, agreed to assist as long as his village was not harmed by the conflict. Ormis vowed to protect the Lycan village community in return for the superior fighting ability of the tribesmen. Iban, a follower of an old nature deity named Lupei, prayed for the protection of his followers and his village. In turn, Lupei granted the Lycan a great blessing that would boost their physical fighting abilities. During a ritual under the moon, Spelacnar was granted the wisdom to wield great new magical powers. These would allow the members of the Lycan to transform their physical shape into that of their different totem animals. With these new powers, the Lycan became an elite guerilla unit that was able to take out many of the Bovarioan armies higher ranking members, sending their squads into chaos and breaking their will. Not to be outdone, DeNilo called upon the gnomes and tinkerers of Bovario to design their greatest warmachine ever. He wanted something that would decimate entire villages and make Telendria roll over and give up. After many clockwork automations, steam powered devices, and failed experiments, the gnomes finally came up with a new device that would obliterate all. The device was a magical ballista that shot wild magic as a bolt and could be driven without the need for horses or other beasts of burden. They called it, The Chaos Bolt. It took some time to wind up, but when it launched, it left a path of devastation unmatched by anything seen before or since. DeNilo used the Chaos Bolt to great effect, taking out several strategic settlements and outposts along the ______Mountain range. When Spelacnars group of elite soldiers attacked the squad controlling this Chaos Bolt, he suffered several casualties and was unable to destroy the giant war machine. Due to the nature of the Chaos Bolt, it was difficult to destroy. It was held together by wild magics and at any given time would unleash different elemental and energy based bolts. Some villages were destroyed when it shot fire, others were buried in an ice storm conjured by one of the bolts. It is even told that one small outpost was destroyed by negative energy fired from a black bolt of death.

When Spelacnar and his tribe were unable to destroy or even push back the Chaos Bolt, they retreated into the mountains to regroup. This is when the Chaos Bolt targeted the very village that Ormis vowed to protect. In a flash, the village was burned to the ground in a fire storm launched from the Chaos Bolt. Spelacnar, angry with Ormis for being unable to protect his village, retreated into hiding with the remaining few members of his tribe. They began a ritual that would last 15 days, but would ultimately end the war and give it the name by which it is referred today. The battle that turned the tide was fought at the base of the _____ Mountain range in an old ruined city named Keldaria that once belonged to Giants. The battle would be called named, the Battle of the Blood Moon. The Telendrian army had been using this ruined city as its main military base and supply outpost. Without the supply outpost and the winter months setting in, DeNilo knew that taking Keldaria would force Ormis to surrender. Ormis led troops to reinforce Keldaria when his scouts reported DeNilos army converging on the area. From atop a nearby peak, Spelacnar and his men continued their ritual, praying to Lupei for the strength to crush their enemies and the man who broke his promise. Spelacnars ritual was nearing completion when the two armies converged on Keldaria. As the Chaos Bolt began to charge, the sky blackened and Spelacnar knew his prayers had been heard. A comet plummeted toward the ground in a great red blaze. DeNilo saw this comet and ordered the Chaos Bolt to be pointed toward the sky in hopes to destroy the comet before it landed, killing everyone. What happened next is still unclear. History states that comet stopped before entering the atmosphere and glowed bright red. The Chaos Bolt exploded in a great shower of wild magic. Many men died from the abrupt exposure to the elements and several were tainted when a great wave of negative energy expanded outward. The Chaos Bolt continued to emit erratic bursts of energy as the wild magics that held it together crumbled and broke apart. With both armies weakened, Spelacnar and his men stormed in to finish what they had started. Under the light of this floating comet, they were unable to control their animal shaping abilities and several of them became stuck in an animal-human hybrid form. This caused a bloodlust that will never be forgotten. Men from both sides had to band together and fight this new enemy before they lost their lives. Ormis dropped back to find a building so he could avoid being surrounded on all sides. DeNilo retreated at the same time after being weekend by the wave of negative energy. Both met face to face in an ancient, halfruined building and barricaded the doorway. Spelacnar and his Lycan ripped through most of the remaining soldiers on their way to this barricaded building. It was in this time of peril that an alliance was made. In order to defeat this new enemy, both Ormis and DeNilo fought back to back as the Lycan poured through the walls. They fought through the night and when Ormis was injured by a particularly large man-bear hybrid, the battle seemed lost. It was at this point that he turned to DeNilo and suggested a union of nations. DeNilo agreed that it would be best and continued to fight. Soon, the sun came up, and there in the sky were not one, but two moons. Both fading as the light crept over the mountain peaks. The Lycans new power started to wane, and they began transforming yet again, this time, back into their human forms. Having lost their new-found strength, they retreated back into the mountains. At the end of the battle, more than 100 thousand soldiers were dead. They had died from elemental damage, negative and positive energy exposure and by the horde of Lycan that poured over the walls. Several Lycan were dead or dying including Spelacnar, who died during the final explosion of the Chaos Bolt. Ormis was able to recover from the injuries he endured from battle and he and DeNilo immediately signed the Treaty of the Blood Moon, officially ending the war. This treaty declared the nation of Telandria and Bovario to be one consolidated nation, TelBova. Both men were partners in running this new nation and would use their combined resources and technology to defend against this new threat of the Lycan. The capital city would be built directly on top of the ruined city of Keldaria. A couple of months after the signing of the treaty, Ormis died from complications from the injuries that he had endured during the battle. DeNilo was crowned the lone ruler and king of TelBova. In months to come, more and more of these hybrid-men would pop up, always around the light of a full moon, and always always following plague of dead, mutilated corpses. It was found later that the bite of one of these animal-men was infectious and spread this curse. It was eventually named The Curse the Lycan or Lycanthropy for short, also known as The Curse of the Blood Moon. DeNilo declared open war on the Lycan and the Great Purge began.

The Great Purge

The great purge would begin four months after the Battle of the Blood Moon. DeNilo, with the help of the high priest of St. Cuthbert, would create elite teams of men to seek out and destroy the remaining Lycan. They would be known as The Lycanbane in the years to come. These Lycanbane were handpicked by DeNilo for their fighting prowess and tracking ability. Thirteen squads would be created, with six members each. They set out to destroy all Lycan and make the land of TelBova safe to live in. DeNilo would also offer a reward for any and all Lycan that were captured or killed and turned over to the authorities. The purge lasted several years and in this time, thousands of people afflicted with the Curse of the Blood Moon were caught, killed, and dealt with in various ways. The mindset of DeNilo was to show no mercy for the Lycan and any Lycan sympathizers. On top of the thousands of Lycanthropes that were annihilated, thousands more people affiliated with Lycanthropes were captured and tortured into giving up information on Lycan houses. It is estimated that fifty-thousand Lycan and Lycan sympathizers were killed during the great purge. Though so many had been purged, there always seemed to be Lycanthropes popping up from time to time. It is even theorized that there are whole villages or even cities made up entirely of Lycanthropes. Priests of St. Cuthbert still hunt the Lycan to this day even though the numbers of Lycan have dwindled. Today, the church of St. Cuthbert still gives a reward for any Lycan brought to justice and/or turned over to them.

The Gnome Disappearance

DeNilo was a strong leader, forever pushing the envelope on technology and trying to advance his country as the dominant super-power in the world. With the new materials to be found in the _____ Mountain Range, and the gnomes on his side, this was a guarantee. The gnomes had a different plan. After seeing what had happened at the Battle of the Blood Moon and the devastation caused by their inventions, the gnomes wanted nothing to do with DeNilo or the nation of TelBova. Gramble Glittercrank, the master tinker and highly respected gnomish engineer, rallied his race and fled the country. They took with them the blueprints for all of the war machines that they had been worked on and many of the prototypes. What they did not take with them, they destroyed using magics and explosives (another invention that they took with them). DeNilo immediately sent dwarven search parties to the surrounding countryside to search the mountain caverns from which the gnomes haled. The gnomish communities were abandoned overnight and there was not a trace to be found. It was theorized that the gnomes fled out to sea, as some ships had come up missing, but nothing could be found and no stories from abroad ever surfaced to prove that they had sailed away. To this day, there are only stories of where the gnomes went, but gnomes have not been seen in the world for nearly 800 years.

The DeNilo Curse

DeNilo continued to have complications from the negative energy burst that he endured when the Chaos Bolt exploded. He was often sick and never seemed to fully recover. He did last long enough for his wife to bear a child, a beautiful baby girl named Audrasil DeNilo. When Audrasil was only 6 years old, King Armand DeNilo died, leaving his wife, Phoebe, as reigning queen over TelBova.

As Phoebe grew older, she wanted to teach Audrasil how to be a leader, for she knew she would become the sole heir to the throne when she was gone. She gave Audrasil the best education available, with scholars from around the world coming in to teach her about history, mathematics, herbalism, and even engineering. Audrasil was a quick learner and a bright student. She became adept in the art of magic and eventually went to and graduated from the TelBova Institute for the Magically Enlightened. As is inevitable, Phoebe eventually passed away, leaving her daughter to run the country. Audrasil was still young and this was a great weight to be placed onto her shoulders. She was able to cope with the loss of her

mother and eventually married and had a baby. To the dismay of Audrasil and her husband, they only had one child, a girl that they named Annabelle DeNilo, princess of TelBova. Throughout the years, the DeNilo house was plagued with bad luck, later to be called the DeNilo Curse. Each DeNilo queen only ever gave birth to a single child, and always a girl. It is said that this Curse was passed down from generation to generation and started by the negative energy taint that King Armand DeNilo receive in the Battle of the Blood Moon. Today, Anasilia DeNilo is the reigning queen. She has not had any children yet and is unmarried. Still, she is young and ambitious. She is currently working on a magical device that will eradicate the lycanthrope threat once and for all. She is currently developing a team of procurers that are tasked with retrieving items and components to be uses to make this magical device. She feels that if this happens, she will lift the curse upon her family, and that she will be the one that will finally give birth to a boy.

The TelBova Institute for the Magically Enlightened

Phoebe DeNilo, like her late husband, was very interested in the technological advancement of her nation. She turned to wizards for their expertise in creating constructs and other animated beings. With the help of the local wizards, she was able to create several personal guards, though none were as magnificent as what the gnomes had created. Phoebe toyed with the idea of creating an entire army of automated soldiers, but this was later deemed to be too time consuming and expensive. Phoebe eventually assisted with the creation of a local Wizards College. This college would be named the TelBova Institute for the Magically Enlightened, or simply as the TIME tower it is called around the City. Each student wears a pin with the symbol of a sundial on their lapel. The TIME tower has several subdivisions for all specializations of magic. Only the most gifted magicians are allowed to study at the school and a lengthy application process is required. TIME also has an extensive library with texts dating back over 1000 years. These texts are not loaned out, but with a high enough donation to the college, they will allow someone to utilize the library with supervision of course.

History as the Gods Know it

Geography

Society

Races

Social Standing

Religion

Societies and Organization

Language

Currency and Trade

Governance

Crime and Punishment

Relations with Other Nations

Military

Monsters

Artifacts, Treasures and Hidden Places

Adventures

Players Guide
History as the people of these lands know it

Creating local Characters

Special Rules