Storyline

Dawntide is, first and foremost, a place. The known world is bordered by impassable mountains and reefs, called Cieve (meaning The Cage) by its inhabitants, but this cage is a vast one, full of old, broken continents, magic, and creatures. Civilized lands extend only a small way; Human, Santyrian, and Andrun nations have only small contact with the strange things beyond their borders. Traders whisper of the Seelie courts, of corpses in the sands, of Sirian witchcraft hidden in the snow, but who can be sure? Life goes on as it always has. There's the harvest, wood must be stored for winter, and a watch must be kept lest a Drift--a predatory flying whale-jellyfish--tangle livestock its stinging tendrils and float off with a favorite cow.

The people in Dawntide are no members of a great Race or Nation set out to Save or Destroy the World as We Know It. They're simply people, subject to their own specific cultures, race, personality and religion. They make their living in a world that is similar to our darker ages, but which is populated by powerful and alien creatures of magic, and they have a deep fear of the unknown. The world is real: houses do not spring whimsically from the mountainside whenever a new shore is discovered, but must instead be built with wood and stone and sweat. Food is ate and drank to stay alive, not to recover from arrow wounds, and even magic has a hard time with the latter. Hosts of horrible creatures have their place in myth and legend, but most wars are between men for land, coin, power, or spite. Despite this, taverns abound with talk of hidden sorcerous cabals, goblin witches with the ear of powerful nobles, of weavers snatching away madmen when their words wander too close to truth. The truth is often an ugly marriage of the two, as humanity's darker side is cajoled and fed by things most folk dismiss as 'witchery' and 'demons'.

The two playable races, Vynn, and Santyrian, occupy a small handful of peoples residing in the northeastern corner of Cieve. Silkport, a trade hub and cosmopolitan port city, is home to most Santyrians; their race has suffered under the aggressive expansion of the Cevanti Empire, and to this day they maintain a status as second-class citizens. Plagued by poverty and misunderstood by other races, the lot of the Santyrian is poor, but improving. Their race has an ancient culture and old ties to the land, but past that, the Santyrian heart is a strong one. Santyrian hedge magic may not have the best reputation, but Santyrian song and verse are the stuff of legend. Silkport trades with anyone, though relations with Cevanti remain cool.

For their part, the noble Cevanti houses buy so much silk from Silkport that the thought of invading it is laughable, but as the cracks in their empire grow ever-closer to the cornerstones, who can say? Their rise came at a heavy cost to Vynn, and though that nation has enjoyed independence for a generation or two, they still remember the empire's bloody hubris. The senate has had no real power for many years, the imperial treasuries leak their remaining war-loot like time through an hourglass--wars grow easy in such climate, but war with whom? The Vynn navy is made all the more fearsome by Andrun cannons and gun technology, and invading the frozen wastes to seize Orc hovels serves no purpose at all. Still, the population is kept happy with games, menageries of strange beasts captured abroad, and the highest standard of living in the region. Things are not all bad for the Cevanti.

As for the Vynn, flush with angry elation at finally winning independence, they try desperately to forge themselves into a nation. Copying the hated Cevanti traditions are unthinkable, but the disparate Clans must build close ties to remain strong in the face of outside aggression. An urban religion known as the Way is making inroads all over the land, displacing a mishmash of old pagan gods that many elder Vynn hold to be their culture, the very soul of their nation. A full clan maintains quasi-independent status in the mountains of West Vynn over this issue, offering lip service to the larger government but remaining separate and deeply mistrustful of the Way. But over it all, they have their freedom and their land, and they will build the rest.

The Andrunians, who greatly helped the Vynn struggle for independence, have existed in much their current state since before the humans can remember. Expert geologists with an advanced understanding of the nature of land and stone, the Andrun are old and practical and cultured, loathe to fight, but backed by siege weapons of incredible power, and possessed of an entirely distinct culture of underground naturism and natural affinity with the ways of the world itself, of weather and the hidden workings of magma, of the play of storms as they feed like plants from the sun. They are master forgers, yes, but also gardeners and writers, sailors and explorers, astrologers and alchemists. The Andrunians stand to gain much in the years to come, if they would only open their eyes and see it.

Old god-works litter the cage, but are often misidentified and misunderstood. The great cataclysm that shook the world and shattered the lands of the cage also broke the memories of civilization, and very little of the previous age remains in mortal knowledge. The Cevanti occupation of Vynn is over and their empire wanes, but their attempt to breach the Cage is perhaps more significant--it was a disaster that spread a massive swath of uninhabitable eerie corruption across the empire, and none may say what happens there now.

Santyrians struggle for recognition from the bigoted mass of common folk. The Cevanti struggle to hold on to their greatness, even as it withers around them. The Vynn would like to characterize Vynnlant as apart from the Cevanti territories, but privately envy the trappings of civilization... and of empire. The Andrun are locked in stasis - too few in numbers to advance their scientific understanding, but unable to significantly connect with the other races.

On the edges of the cities, Goblins live off garbage and Weavers live off wealth, each solidifying their place within the societies that scarcely know they exist. Sirians trade with the Vynn, but few humans truly understand how fiercely alien in thought, mind, and heart these Children of the Trickster are. A mass of squidgy tendrils infest and hoist aloft a talking skull, repeating the will of the Kraken, ruling the seas as it always has, and occupying a place in Vynn mythos as a bearded man of the sea.

Creatures mundane and fantastic squabble unknowingly for control over the last habitable spit of land in the world. The world is big, mysterious, arcane, and full of secrets, things that are built into the nature of the world, and which play a huge part in shaping it. Every race, every city, every culture has stories to tell and secrets to keep.