Sosine

Nations Native to Sosine

The Kingdom Under / Schildarunter

Races: Dwarves, Duergar, Svirfneblin, Stone Giants, Fire Giants, Azer

Prussia (Germany) in the 1880s, but they keep the lid on the deepest parts of the Underdark. Formerly the Unbreakable Empire, and many still push for expansion. Held in check by twin fears of the Emerald Holts and the Great Mind.

Allies: Crusader Kingdoms, Hangul, Enemies: Emerald Holts, Solaris

Crusader Kingdoms / Mazdayasna

Races: Aasimar, Human, High Elves, Hobgoblin

The Crusader Kingdoms are a group of city states mimicking the real-world Crusader States before they fell, except the Crusaders were Zoroastrian, now their god is dead, the angels are gone, and the survivors are aggressively imperialist. No longer good beyond hating evil, they are despised by their neighbors, especially the outlanders in the Laqueos Stretch.

Kingdoms: Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, Cicilia

Allies: The Kingdom Under, Solaris, Enemies: Porphyros, Hangul, Leng

Grand Principate of Hangul / Daegong-gug ui Hangul

Races: Hobgoblin, Bugbear, Goblin, Worghest (Goblin version of a Tiefling)

Korea under Sejong, a place of technological and magical learning and progress, but also profoundly isolationist and aggressive to outsiders. Not nice but fairly respectful of other cultures that are far away. Opposed to the warlike Northern Drake Tribes, and despises the posturing of the Crusader Kingdoms. They host a branch of the Immortals, a competitor to the Freelancers Guild.

Allies: Baghatur, Leng, Porphyros, Enemies: The Barbarian Drakes, Crusader Kingdoms

Baghatur, the First Kingdom / Baghaturi de Dra-Khans

Races: Orcs, Dragonborn, Humans, Half-Orcs, Goliath, Ogres, Hill Giants, Dragons

Think the Mongolian Empire at its peak, a pre-eminent state on Sosine that is a pioneer of magic and innovative warfare. Ruled by the Golden Council, six allied dragons, and despise the Gnomes for creating the Orcs and the Giants for unleashing Hill Giants into the countryside. They worship their Council as god-kings.

Allies: Hangul, Leng, Emerald Holts, Enemies: Barbarian Drakes, Hyperborei, Gustavus

The Barbarian Drake Tribes

Races: Dragonborn, Lizardfolk, Tortle, Dragons

Those Dragons and Dragonborn which did not accept Baghatur as the ruling authority on Dragons fled North and South. The Barbarian Drake Tribes are often at war with each other, and are intensely xenophobic of non Drakes. They consist of two states technically: the Nipon Drake Empire, and the Drake Tribal Alliance.

Allies: Emerald Holts Tribes, Enemies: Baghatur

Autarchist Commune of Leng

Races: Tiefling, Humans, Halfling, Imps

Once the Servants of Asmodai, led by the Legions, the forces of the Hells were broken by the sixth Crusade, leaving behind a penchance for self-sufficiency and independence. The Autarchist Commune is built atop the Plateau of Leng and defended by the Penitent Legion, a competitor to the Freelancer’s Guild.

Allies: Porphyros, Baghatur, Emerald Holts, Leng. Enemies: Crusader Kingdoms, the Kingdom Under

Porphyros, the Hyacinth Cities / Mudun Alsnbl

Races: Human, Halfling, Tiefling, Half-Elves, Goliath, Half Orc

The capitalistic, profane cities of Porphyros are all touched by the Dark Pharoah, Eyn Sof, molding their residents into the first Halflings and lording over them, before the Fourth and Fifth Crusades banished it beyond reality. Before said crusade, the Crusader Kingdoms were part of Porphyros, but were purged of all life before being resettled. Friends with Everyone and No One.

Allies: Kingdom Under, Solaris, Leng, Enemies: Crusader Kingdoms, Kingdom Under

The Titanomachy of Hyperborei

Races: Goliath, Human, Frost Giants, Storm Giants, Cloud Giants, Hill Giants

A classical greek utopia - meaning it’s awful to live there but very pretty and they talk nicely. There are escaped refugees in many major Sosinian states, and Hyperborei is generally disliked for its warmongering.

Allies: Porphyros, Enemies: Kingdom Under, Baghatur, Emerald Holts

Wisforgian Empire

Races: Human

The humans pushed out of the Holts were absorbed into the Mountainfolk tribes, creating the Vengrian subculture. The humans pushed out of Laqueos by the Dessication were forced into either Porphyros or Solaris. The humans of the Crusader Kingdoms bent the knee to the angels, rather than fall to the Infernal Legions. But humans are stubborn, and some would rather break than bend. Humans who chose not to surrender their self-rule instead traveled north, and eventually carved out an empire of the abandoned surface territories of the Unbreakable Empire. Wisforgia is the fifth oldest civilization on the continent, after Gustavus, Hyperborei, Hangul, and by a scant two years, the Kingdom Under. It has ties to the Red Hats and Hangul, the only surface powers to never violate the sovereignty of others.

Allies: Hangul Enemies: Kingdom Under, Solaris, Crusader Kingdoms, Gustavus

The Colonial States: Former colonies from the Outremer / the Empire Across-the-Sea

The Freeholds of Miezul / Miezul Autoritate

Races: Drow, Shadar-Kai, Spiderlings, Grimlocks, Myconids, Mongrelfolk

Competes with the Kingdom Under and the Great Mind for the under-continent. Displaced the Myconids and the Grimlocks, who fight them for dominance and serve them as laborers. They are on good terms with the Outre-mer, and are responsible for the majority of mining operations not done by dwarves. Think pre-Civil War USA, but the cities are vertical.

Allies: Leng, Porphyros, Enemies: Kingdom Under, Solaris

The Emerald Holt Tribes

Races: Wood Elves, Half-Elves, Shifters, Dragonborn, Gnomes, Lycanthropes

Isolationist protectors of the wilds, and keep to an agreement between themselves and the mysterious Ancients. They live within the Clangorous Woods, and are a contentious people.

Allies: The Atlantean Conspiracy, Enemies: Anyone that expands into or harms the Clangorous Woods, the Kingdom Under, Gustavus-Datorn

Imperium Solaris / The Solar Dominion

Races: High Elves

These guys make the Wood Elves and the Goblins look positively welcoming. Basically Nazis that decided to look inwards instead of outwards, they despise everything that isn’t an Elf. They also hunt Half-Elves for sport, considering them to be a crime against nature and calling them “nefas”.

Allies: Porphyros, Enemies: Everyone else

Gnomish States: States made by the Gnomes or their Experiments

The Gustavus Technocracy / Gustavus-Datorn

The unitary Gnomish state, ruled by the Gustavus Complex, dwelling deep under the sea and above the clouds. Their technology is a century or so ahead of the rest of the continent, except in terms of genetic experimentation, which is straight sci-fi. They created the Simic Hybrids and Vedalken out of their own people, abducted what would become the Tabaxi, the Aarakocra, and the Loxodon from the Wood Elves, made the Kenku out of the Drow, and created the Worghest of the Hangul. They also created the merfolk and aquatic elves out Crusader Kingdom abductees, and the Orcs out of the humans of Baghatur. Not a well-liked group.

Allies: The Alliance of Mer, Enemies: Everyone not them, especially the Kingdom Under

The Atalantean Conspiracy / Atalantean Konspiraton

Races: Vedalken, Kuo-Toa, Simic Hybrids

A nation of Vedalken which stole tech from the Gnomes, they want to free fellow experiments from Gnomish bondage. Vedalken cities are fully submersible to protect against assault or detection, but typically float along the tops of the sea. Their largest settlements are the affectionately named Sharktown, a ship city in the Gnomish style built by The Conspiracy, and the floating fortress Bastion, a powerful weapon stolen directly from their creators.

Allies: Emerald Holts, Baghatur, the Leviathan, Enemies: The Gustavus Technocracy, the Alliance of Mer

The Alliance of Mer / Havets Allians

Races: Merfolk, Triton, Gnomes

The Alliance of Mer is an offshoot of the Gustavus Technocracy that mainly exists below the waves of the Screaming Sea. They’ve “earned” their independence, which is to say, the Gnomes find it troublesome to track or support their undersea colonies, so they granted them approval to exist independently.

Allies: The Gustavus Technocracy, Enemies The Atalantean Conspiracy, the Leviathan

The Leviathan / The Consortium Beneath the Waves / Sjöodjur

Races: Kuo-Toa, Aboleth, Water Genasi, Water Elementals

The theocracy of the Kuo-Toa, madness made reality, the broken minds of a race destroyed by colonial invaders. The Kuo-Toa of Leviathan are usually of a benevolent kind of madness, often serve as smugglers, and so are tentatively allied with the Atlantean Conspiracy. The Leviathan is likely to be the largest civilization to ever exist on or under Sosine - no one is sure how big it is, likely not even them, but it spans at least three planes.

Allies: The Atalantean Conspiracy, Enemies: The Alliance of Mer, the Gustavus Technocracy, Outremer, Miezul

Other Groups

The Gith

Races: Githzerai, Githyanki, Kalashtar

A group that dwell beneath the Astral Sea, who seem to oppose the Great Mind. They do not speak to the surface races, save in dreams. None are sure what the Gith desire.

The Great Mind

Races: Illithid, Alhoon, Elder Brains, Joined Others (Forced members of the Hivemind)

No one is sure how organized the Great Mind is, but most agree that brain devouring or integration are issues. It seems to have a functioning government, unless those integrated into its hivemind are capable of fooling truth detection spells. They don’t really have allies, besides the idiots desperate enough to negotiate with them.

Ru / Red Hat / Mountainfolk / Vengrian Subculture

Not organized in a traditional sense and dwelling in the volcanic Vengrian mountains, the Red Hat Tribes are mostly planar outsiders, escaped gnomish experiments, and humans that fled the swathe of destruction carved out by the Wood Elves when they first emerged from the Mother Tree. The two factions of the Red Hats, the Tenzing and Sharpa, represent the two primary responses to the persecution visited on the mountainfolk: mystic isolation for the Tenzing, and brutal, undying resistance by the Sharpa.