Antion Background and Primer

History
Long ago, the nations of the various races were segregated. Elves, humans, dwarves, and the rest lived in their own cities, their own towns, forging various alliances and wars with one another. That came to an end in the Time of Dark Sky, when an evil force whose name has been lost to history began a campaign of destruction. The Entity began in the East, beyond the Zenimar Desert. It is believed that it originated in the crater now known as The Darkness Scar, and first traveled east where it encountered the dwarven kingdoms.

It is generally accepted that the dwarves, at that time were nearly incapable of breaking from tradition, which is the reason that they began to serve the Entity. It is believed that one tradition the dwarves held was that the final order a dwarven king gives before he dies must be followed, no matter what the order was, and that for some reason, the king of the dwarves ordered his people to serve the Entity in his campaign. Because of this, the dwarven people served as footsoldiers in the battles of the Time of Dark Sky.

The campaign continued throughout various lands, destroying many races and cities, until it reached the western coast. By this time, a single man had brought together a group of warriors, men and women from many of the various races and kingdoms. That man was the exiled firstborn son of a human king, and his name was Antion. Antion and his allies battled against the Entity, and eventually destroyed it.

With the world in ruins, the races began to work together to rebuild what they could. The city of Antion was founded, to be the capital of the nation of Antion, which would span as far as men have traveled.

Antion became the first king, and this title would be passed from father to firstborn son for hundreds of years. During this time, guilds began to grow in power, until the point came where it seemed that everyone was a member of at least one guild. Every job, every hobby, everything had a guild to assist the actions and to regulate who could do them, and when.

One hundred years prior to the setting of the game, the king attempted to tax guild dues. This caused the guilds to revolt, and the royal family was put to death. The king at that time had a brother who sided with the guilds in this revolt, and that brother was then crowned the new king, but was given nearly no power in the new social structure.

The Hall of Masters was founded at this point. The Masters were a group of eight guildmasters, each from the most influential guilds in Antion. The Hall of Masters was given the rights and responsibilities once held by the king, with the new king given the right to cast a vote only in the event of a tie in the Hall. This is the current method for rule.

Society
Because of the cooperative nature of putting the world back together from scratch, racial identity is a bit different than it once was. While the various races do hold on to some traditions from their past, many of them consider their national identity more important than their racial identity.

The nation of Antion is run by guilds. One of the central points in most people's lives is their membership in whatever guild/s they have been accepted to. Those without membership in any guild are perhaps the lowest people in the social structure. It is better to be poor but in a guild than to have money but no guild membership (it is unheard of to be wealthy and without membership to at least one guild).

The City of Antion
The City of Antion is a vast metropolis on the western coast of the continent. It's organized in a series of concentric, walled circles, with the higher-class citizens and guilds residing further internally. The center-most circle houses the Royal Keep, as well as the Hall of Masters.

Within the city, magical items seem very common. Most higher-ranked individuals have magical coins which serve as identification and allow them to enter and leave the innermost circles as they please. Wizards perform shows daily, and artificers create magical wonders to entertain (and make a profit). Food is magically produced, and water magically purified, in factories throughout the city, supplying for the needs of the ever-growing population.

The City of Antion was founded upon the ruins of an ancient city, where the final battle against the Entity occurred. There are many tunnels and ruins of destroyed buildings below the city if one knows where to look for them.

Religion
In earlier times, each race held strong to its own views of the metaphysical. After the near destruction of the world at the hands of the Entity, the dominant race, humans, spread their religion throughout the world.

The humans believe in two gods, one representing good and one representing evil. Puldar is the god which represents all things men consider right, while Zayne represents the side of wrong. Most humans worship Puldar through proxies, called Saints. Saints are humans (or, on rare occasions, other races) that have passed away but who, in their lives, strongly represented a certain facet of the human condition. Antion, for example, became known as the saint of battle due to his actions against the Entity.

There are no churches made directly for Puldar, instead every church is dedicated to worshiping Puldar through one of his saints. Worship of Zayne exists, but is illegal throughout the nation of Antion. The cults of Zayne worship their own saints, though there are cults that worship Zayne directly.

It is not illegal to worship in the traditional ways of the other races, but it is generally viewed as weird by the society of Antion.

Elves worshiped a third god, one that is passively accepted by human society as "nature." The Elven version of this god, Sel'khalun, is personified as an flaming bird dedicated to protecting nature. Sel'khalun had many other forms, which all personified other aspects of nature, and could be worshiped on their own.

Dwarves believed that fallen dwarven kings were given a place in the celestial order, becoming gods themselves.

Orcs believe that every object in the world has its own personal god, which should be respected and worshiped.

The Land of Elnrut
To the west, far across the ocean, a new land was discovered a century ago. The land, called Elnrut, is filled with strange creatures, and primitive humans. These humans have magic that is unheard of in Antion, but because of their primitive nature, Antion was able to set up colonies in Elnrut, and it has even been shown that the primitives can be trained in the ways of Antionian culture.