The World of the Flarelands is a world of turmoil and tumult. The magic of the world roils and churns across the face of the planet, unleashing random magical effects that can strike without warning, permanently altering the terrain and the things that inhabit it. There are places, however, known as Flarehavens, where this chaos abates, making permanent settlements possible. People in these areas have been able to build homes and raise families, and have created civilizations and traditions that have spanned multiple generations.
Travel between these Flarehavens, however, is nearly impossible for all but the bravest and most powerful individuals. Known as Flarewalkers, these people have banded together in small groups to get people, supplies, and information from settlement to settlement through random bursts of magical energy across the dangerous and ever-changing landscape.
The most famous group of these Flarewalkers were known as the Wolfwalkers, a group whose legendary status grew over the course of a year during which they tracked down and defeated a cult known as the Quickeners. The final battle of the Wolfwalkers, the battle of Briarwall, is well known throughout every settlement on the continent, and is the subject of many popular songs. The Wolfwalkers encouraged a generation of imitators, groups who sought to build lasting legendary legacies as adventuring heroes.
Only a year or two after the battle of Briarwall, however, something changed in the world, something that altered the nature of the flares. Monstrous creatures and dangerous storms began spawning during flare events, and persisting after the magical outbursts had subsided. The danger of the Flarelands slowly increased, as more and more flares left a more permanent and mobile form of danger behind in their wake. Many Flarewalkers died during this period, and many more retired, putting down roots in a single settlement as the world slowly became ever more dangerous.
But some people, for whatever reasons of their own, still hear the call of adventure, and still are inspired by the heroes who have come before them. If they can find a few able companions, they will form a team, and go out into the world ready to make a name for themselves….
GLORY AWAITS! BECOME A FLAREWALKER TODAY!!
It is commonly accepted in most temples of worship across the Flarelands that at some point before the rise of the current pantheon, three unnamed Titans ruled the world, presiding over the skies, the seas, and the dark places beneath. The worlds of these three Titans were entirely separate, and each ruled their world entirely, as its creator and sole ruler, unaware that other worlds existed above or below their own.
As the murals and engravings outside any temple will illustrate, a great comet came from realms beyond the skies, driving down and punching a hole straight through the center of the Three Realms, giving birth to a Great Continent of land. The new continent touched the skies with its high spires and mountains, touched the waters with its shorelines and coasts, and touched the deep blackness below with its caverns and cave mouths. The Titans of the previous age now melded and mixed into a single, formless Divinity, a power waiting for a new age.
Across the face of the Great Continent grew plants, and beasts, and many different sorts of thinking mortal beings, and as these rose, the Divine energy of the Three Titans spun out a new set of six gods, the gods of the Land. This Pantheon included —
These six gods of the land made for themselves a home in the Ecclesium Halls in the Circles Above. They lived as equal siblings, taking counsel with one another and presiding over their domains, and luxuriating in the praise and worship of the mortal beings across the lands of the Great Continent.
As the mortal beings of the land expanded, they began to populate the Skies, the Waters, and the Caverns of the world which were once the domain of the Titans. Seeing that mortals were not content with the flat dry lands of the continent, the gods invited into the Ecclesium Halls the Three Fates, lesser divinities that had bestowed blessings on travelers and those who dared the frontiers of Sky and Sea and Darkness. These were—
The fates were given agodly share of power and ascended to join the pantheon of the Nine, becoming new siblings to the Gods of the Land. Other godlike powers exist, such as demigods, dreamlords, and the demonlords of the hells, and they are acknowledged to sometimes influence the world in major ways, but the Nine are worshipped in temples collectively by mortals seeking comfort or blessings from the Circles of the Ecclesium Halls Above.
Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Fauns, Giants, Simiah, Katari, Goblins, and Firbolgs exist in many variations throughout the Flarelands and form families in the way of most mammals, with mothers giving birth to their children, usually one at a time, but with twins or other multiple births possible. Galapa, Drakona, Fairies, and Ribbets also exist in a variety of forms across the Flarelands, however the mothers of these Ancestries, with some exceptions, give birth to young via eggs, which later hatch. Other lineages exist in the flarelands which have more exceptional ways of being born, and we will cover each in the following section.
Clanks in the Flarelands all trace their ancestry back to single ancient ancestor, an automaton named Clank. Clank was a masterpiece of magical machinery built and refined by different craftsmen over many years in a Temple dedicated to Solond, the god of Craft and Ingenuity.
Created to help artificers create, eventually he was able to produce amazing works all on his own, including other complex machines similar to himself. But as Clank saw his makers grow older, and interact with offspring who grew and changed in unexpected ways throughout their lives, he began to despair. He worried that his “children” were not truly alive, but merely clockwork imitations, incapable of growing and changing.
Clank prayed to Solond that he might be truly alive, and that he might pass that life forward into his children, and Solond, moved by the plea of this thinking machine, answered him with a blessing. The materials of his body became living metals, and when he placed bits of these into his creations, that living metal began to grow as part of them, changing them and giving them a spark of life. Each of those children eventually passed pieces of their precious “Clankmetal” into their own creations, creating true offspring that would each carry a piece of their parent into the unknown generations of the future.
The Clank community today consists of several different distinct lines. Some clanks inherited brass or bronze from their parent, others may have been given silver or gold, or steel or copper. Occasionally two or more clanks will build themselves a child together, gifting it with each of their metal types, but usually a Clank has a single parent, who bestowed it with a piece of their own inherited material.
Whichever type of “Clankmetal” they were created with, it grows into them and through them as they mature, healing when injured, reacting to curses and dangerous magics and even some diseases, and generally behaving as living tissue despite being entirely inorganic in appearance. Unlike other machines, Clanks can die. Even though parts of their well-engineered bodies may persist and be functional beyond their passing, an important part of their personality and identity comes from their living Clankmetal, which houses a “soul” every bit as real as those of their non-mechanical companions.