Arena of Storms

The World

The Arena

A large and variegated section of the world cordoned off by the Wall, a gigantic structure erected at the wishes of the God of Storms to prevent mortals from approaching Paradise. It is home to all races except the Reptiloids, who inhabit the Sands Vast and Burning between the Wall and Paradise. The gods view the affairs of the Arena as a kind of game which they join or leave with little thought to the long-lasting consequences of these actions. They often play favorites with one tribe or another, or will aid a tribe to interfere by proxy with another god's chosen people.

At the center of the Arena is Mount Beartooth, home of the God of Ice, which is located on the Frozen Sea, which borders on the Great Sea, which extends to the Wall and takes up one third of the Arena. The Great Sea contains the Ymargerrous Isles, home of the Cyclopes. The rest of the Arena is covered mostly by jungle and forest, with some plains and steppes.

The Corporeal Paradise

The home of most of the gods when they desire to take corporeal forms. Some gods reside elsewhere most of the time because of their dislike or fear of the God of Storms, who is the de facto ruler of Paradise. Paradise is the location of the Sacred Orchards, wherein grow the Apples of Life that grant the gods their longevity and allow them to maintain their powers.

Gods

The High God also known as the God of Elements, the God of Storms and the God of Lightning

The God of Storms is indisputably the most powerful god. He is also the most ruthless and cruel of them all, and enjoys plaguing the Arena-dwellers with lightning, hail and the dreaded Thunderborn hordes. His cruelty causes the Arena-dwellers (except the Minotaurs) to refuse to give him worship, which angers him and causes him to punish them more, creating a vicious circle of punishment and defiance. It is widely believed that even if all the Arena were to worship him exclusively, the malice of the Storm God's heart would not be contained and he would continue his attacks anyway. His ceaseless cruelty has roused heroes and other gods against him numerous times, but these attempts to depose him have all been quashed under his mighty fist, though some were very nearly successful. The God of Storms ordered the construction of the Arena and the Sands Vast and Burning to prevent further attempts by the mortal races to interfere with his endless brutality.

According to one legend, the God of Storms' anger and hatred of mortals are the result of his loss of control of the element of fire. He used to be the God of Elements, but fire was stolen from him by a man and woman who ventured into Paradise.

The Goddess of Water

A consort of the God of Storms and mother of the God of Ice and Goddess of the Sea.

The Goddess of Air

The chief deity of the Birdmen and wife of the God of Storms. Her main concern is ensuring that mortals don't climb over the Wall, which the Birdmen have made one of the main focuses of their culture.

The Goddess of Fire

A goddess worshiped by the Reptiloids and one of the creators of the Sands Vast and Burning. She is mostly loyal to the God of Storms, and is allowed inside Paradise.

The Goddess of the Underworld

A goddess whose original station has long been forgotten, who once challenged the God of Storms and was killed as punishment. However, she was powerful enough even in death to assume control of hell, which is a physical place deep underground and now the home of the Demons and Titans.

The God of Creation

Creator of the sun and the world, which was corrupted by the other gods. Possibly the father of the God of Ice and/or the Goddess of the Sea.

The God of Rivers

The God of Rivers is lord of the River which flows through the Wall and provides the Arena's inhabitants with most of their water. He is the foremost opponent of the God of Storms and because of this, he is one of the most widely worshiped gods. However, it is unclear whether his opposition stems from his sympathy with the mortals of the Arena or his jealousy of the Storm God's power. In any case, his defiance resulted in being banished from Paradise to his river. He is entirely intolerant of those who would pollute or otherwise interfere with his river, and will punish them severely.

The Goddess of the Sea

An erstwhile wife of the God of Ice who left him when his Demigod son waged war on the God of Storms. She is the daughter of the Goddess of Water and either the God of Storms or the God of Creation, and therefore sister or half-sister of the God of Ice. She was banished from Paradise for having been married to the God of Ice, and now resides in the Great Sea, where she is the chief deity of the Cyclopes.

The God of Ice

The God of Ice resides atop Mount Beartooth and is worshiped by the Humans who live there. His mother was the Goddess of Water and his father was either the God of Storms or the God of Creation. He inadvertently angered the God of Storms by taking a human wife, and was punished by being banished from Paradise. His son by her, the first Demigod, raised an army against the God of Storms, but was narrowly defeated. According to some, this resulted in the God of Storms separating the mortals and the gods, though others maintain that the existence of the Wall predates the war.

Races

Birdmen

Birdmen are nearly as advanced as the Minotaurs. They live atop the Wall, and serve the Air God by preventing other races from climbing over the Wall and escaping the Arena. Their feathers contain a peculiar metallic substance which, when melted down, is forged into tools and weapons. Only down feathers, or the feathers of the dead, are used in this way. A Birdman colony contains at least one Insectoid hive, which are used as sources of slave labor and occasionally food.

Centaurs

Centaurs are savage steppe-dwelling archers who are a persistent bane to Human herdsmen.

Cyclopes

A race of one-eyed giants and the apparently the only race to use boats. According to legend, their native islands are home to great stone structures that surpass even those of the Minotaurs. They subsist mainly through piracy and raiding and often terrorize coast-dwelling Humans.

Cats

A race loyal to Humans, though only those they deem intelligent enough to be worthy of their aid. Cats are attuned to the spiritual world and thus have magical abilities, most notably shapeshifting, which they can bestow on Humans who deserve it. Cats often shape-shift into Human form (though they retain some cat-like features as they can't shift completely) to communicate more directly with the Human world.

Dogs

A race loyal to Humans. Dogs are acutely attuned to the physical world, and can grant boons of strength, speed and other physical skills to Humans they favor.

Dryads

An all-female race that hails from many of the forests and jungles of the Arena. Due to their plant-based physiology, they must always be wary of the enormous herbivorous jungle beasts.

Elves

Elves are children of the God of Death and the Goddess Woodlands, and servants of the God of Sickness. They are putrid, hideous creatures who often mask themselves in more humanoid forms. They spread rot and sickness and pervert any area of woodland they stay in. However, their latent life energies cause the rot and sickness to be undone when they leave an area. They are unable to communicate with the good deities (the High Gods).

Insectoids

The Insectoids are a barely sentient race of winged bug-people who have long served the Birdmen as menial labourers. They speak their own language, as well as an Insectoid-Birdman pidgin. They are very simple creatures, unable to comprehend ideas not related to instinct or direct experience. As such, they do not attempt to flee the Wall to escape to Paradise, because they can't understand the possibility of it existing. They have no real desires or ambitions beyond serving the hive, resting, mating, and eating.

They are genetically related to the Devilflies in the Sands.

They are socially organized into hives, each of which is structured around a queen (the only member of the hive who can incubate fertilized eggs). Aside from a queen, there are two other sexes: "X", who supply the eggs and protect the hive (though hostility to their abusive Birdman overlords has been beaten out of their genes), and "Y", who fertilize the eggs and gather food. Shortly before dying, a queen generate a "princess"; a smaller, softer version of a queen who is, of course, tended to with the utmost care. The entrails of princesses are a delicacy among the Birdman elite. Hives are housed in enormous wasp-nest type structures that adhere to the Wall.

Humans

Humans are found in all places within the Arena, and are the dominant race on Mount Beartooth in its center. They have domesticated animals to use as warmounts, including mammoths, giant rabbits, dire bears and even tigers, in the case of the jungle-dwelling Xinorran tribes. Humans are used as the mortal parents of Demigods much more frequently than other races, even though they are most inclined to defy and make war on the gods. In general, males are warriors and hunters and females are gatherers, with the exception of the aforementioned Xinorrans, where the roles are reversed.

Minotaurs

Minotaurs are the most advanced race, having the capacity to build villages, towns and, in some cases, cities. Other races are permitted to live in their settlements, but they are taxed heavily,e their women may be raped without legal consequence,and the Minotaurs may consume the corpses of dead lower races. Minotaur society is divided into herds, which are led by a bull who has sired at least two adult calves. His cows, along with his unwed siblings, compose the upper class of the herd. Powerful herds usually have vassal herds.

Minotaur Namers are different from those in other races because their Names take the form of pictographic runes depicting the True Shape of things, which are stored in a Bag of Shapes and activated by a Runecaster. This means that a Runecaster's spell is guaranteed to have a predictable result, but he can't change the actual machinations of his spell like a Namer can. Once a rune has been used, it must "cool down" for a period proportional to the strength of the spell before it can be re-imbued with mystical energy and activated again. Particularly powerful runes shatter upon use.

Their open worship of the God of Storms often puts them at odds with other races.

Reptiloids

A lizard-like nomadic race who inhabit the Sands Vast and Burning, between Paradise and the Arena. They are the only race to live outside the Arena, and are almost completely isolated from the other races, except the occasional Birdman runaway, from whom they learned about the gods and law. Their numbers are quite small as a reptiloid female can't lay more than three eggs in her lifetime. Reptiloids are able warriors who practice a unique form of wrestling in which victory is attained by lifting one's opponent above one's head, then dropping them. They also are skilled in armed combat, particularly with their traditional weapon, the spear-mace (comprised of a bludgeoning end and a stabbing end). Combat festivals and tournaments are the main way in which Reptiloid clans petition the gods. Their chief deities are the Goddess of Fire and the God of Earth.

Snakemen

A traveling, merchant race, cunning at many crafts but often seen as untrustworthy. Snakemen can secrete powerful pheromones to deter aggressors; this trait has given rise to many superstitions in other races about Snakemen having hypnotic powers as a result of consorting with Demons or evil gods.

Thunderborn

When the Storm God's thunderbolts strike a stone, this creates a Thunderborn egg, which is hatched on contact with water into several Thunderborn, mindless and savage creatures of mud and earth who terrorize all the races. Even a ceasefire between the races isn't a guarantee of peace in the Arena, as the Storm God will take any opportunity to unleash a new horde of Thunderborn to scare them back into line.

Volgyn

Volgyn are the descendants of a band of Humans who tried to escape the Arena by digging under the Wall. They were forbidden by the Storm God to ever leave the bowels of the earth, but the Earth God pitied them and granted them the ability to survive in their new environment. They have since become a blind, mole-like race who have learned some use of magic from the Titans and Demons trapped underground.

Fauna

Most fauna is similar or identical to ice-age megafauna. The world is inhabited by woolly mammoths, dire bears, tigers (of both the sand sabre-tooth variety), giant sloths and giant rabbits. Most of these animals have been domesticated by Humans and other races. The Sands are also home to Devilflies, gigantic winged insects created by the Demons.