Millenia ago divine factions fought – with elves, dwarves, hobgoblins and gnolls as proxies, primitive humans mere cannon fodder – till Metora neared destruction. A desperate truce overseen by two moon goddesses (one dark, one bright) extracted the gods from the mortal realm, creating Time. Western Metora was left a poisoned wasteland of strange energies, stalked by magitech killing machines. With Idrasil the Sacred Tree destroyed, the Labyrinth became all but inaccessible.
In eastern Metora an elf-dwarf alliance pushed gnolls and hobgoblins into the wilderness till the dwarves, frustrated by elven high-handedness, retreated into their forge-cities, leaving the surface world to their allies. In violation of their supposed values, the now-unchallenged elves held the “minor” peoples in near-enslavement till the Moon goddesses channelled divine outrage to lay low their arrogant empires. Only the decadent Wizard Kings of Ys, distant Symbillion (the “Hermit Kingdom”), and the Wild Elf forest realms survived. The multiracial Bright Empire that eventually emerged oversaw Metora’s Golden Age before precipitately falling, overwhelmed by repeated waves of apparent planar interlopers – savage orcs, previously unknown in Metora, and warlike Ska humans. These Ska colonised much of Metora; the orcs rampaged until driven into the mountains.
Centuries on, eastern Metora is a patchwork of nations, human-dominated but for the dwarf-human condominium of Westmark, undead-infested Khem, and Gorzont, a crushingly repressive hobgoblin realm. Most humans worship a pantheon around sun-lord Helis, though Storm worshippers remain amongst northern Ska, remote islanders maintain the druidic Old Way, desert Amrites practise an austere monotheism – and heresy erodes the power of Helis’s self-reincarnating Holy Vessel.
While there have been no Ska or orc incursions for generations, wizards mutter of “thinning dimensional membranes”. In the benighted Wastelands, corruption once declining bursts forth again. Ambitious young rulers eye neighbouring territories. Religious conflict looms. Some thought virtuous are not what they seem. In obscurity, near-forgotten powers stir….
People & Places
Grodias: A cruel and insidious magician seeks divinity by seizing the portfolio of the enigmatic Master of Monsters, one of few gods still anomalously resident in the Mortal world.
The Blind Seeress: Lady Chua, ex-succubus, fell foul of Grodias, losing eyes, tongue, horns and tail. Rendered mortal, she roams Metora in her magic carriage, covertly pursuing vengeance. Adventurers returned her tongue – what if she recovers the rest?
The Ratfolk Saint: An albino prophet battles his people’s fiendish overlords. But whence comes his power?
Artak, City that Walks: A huge relic war-machine, reactivated and (marginally) controlled by scavengers, stalks the Great Wasteland, its inhabitants greedy for ancient wonders.
Idrasil: The Sacred Tree’s withered hulk stands in The Great Wasteland, but is it completely dead? While spectral ratatosk haunt its dry branches, the unnerving gnome magician dwelling beneath claims it may yet be revivified.
Westmark: The “New Metoran Empire”, Dual Kingdom of Dwarf and Man, has barely emerged from bloody religious strife when shocking events provoke a succession crisis and the possibility of a thoroughly unsatisfactory Emperor.
