Editing Midgard (section)

==Setting Summary==
[[Image:Veles.png|400px|thumb|right|A representation of Midgard's Material Plane.]]
The world is a flat disc surrounded by the dragon-god Veles biting its own tail to keep the oceans from spilling out. Magical energy known as ley lines flows through the world, and magicians aware of their existence can tap into local sources of power to enhance their spells. These ley lines proved instrumental in the founding of civilization: the Egyptian knockoffs found a bigass ley line along a river which they built their cities along, the elves used them as teleportation networks to create a world-spanning empire, and some human magocracies used them to summon and develop Lovecraftian superweapons for war...which naturally plunged their kingdoms into a nightmarish hellscape. [https://i.imgur.com/wVPNdjx.jpg Great going, guys.]

Midgard was originally a savage place, but some buff Nordic dudes found the way to becomes gods. That bastard Loki spilled the beans to his catgirl girlfriend Bast, allowing for other people to take the divine mantle themselves. Soon things got out of control, and the gods started killing each other to suck out each other's god-juice powers. Eventually the world-serpent slapped them around and set some ground rules. Ever since the gods wore masks, taking different forms in different cultures and obscuring their true number. As a result there's much speculation on which god is a mask of another, and where one begins and the other ends. Some are open secrets (the war god Perun is known as Thor in the Northlands) but some gods are sneaky and adopt entirely different portfolios.

Overall the world has many classic fantasy tropes, but with neat twists. The major city of Zobeck is a steampunk metropolis with a [[Rava|patron clockpunk deity]], warforged knockoffs, true dragons are the nobility caste of a mighty empire who are invading everyone, and the last bastion of elves is now run by the half-elf and human aristocrats who outbred them. For villains you have the mythical Baba Yaga whose own dentures are an animated object which are actually smarter than her, a living primordial Margreve Forest home to all the twisted fairy tales of Grimm and Aesop's fame, and the tiefling Master of Demon Mountain who's heavily implied to be a direct or distant father figure of PC tieflings. A major sourcebook was made for the Southlands, Midgard's Africa/Arabia analogue, and the upcoming Brilliant East is its [[Oriental Adventures]].

====Crossroads====
The geographic heartland, where Midgard's Germanic/Slavic influence is strongest. Is home to the steampunk city of Zobeck, the fairy tale Margreve Forest, a nation of gun-slinging dorfs, and a kingdom of man-hating amazon paladins.

====Dark Kingdoms====
These were once Crossroads nations, but a bunch of vampires and undead took over and now oppress the peasantry. They have trade relations with the gnome nation of Neimheim, whose king sold his people to devils in order to stay Bab Yaga's wrath. The most Dark Fantasy of the regions.

====Rothenian Plains====
The Eurasian Steppes. Filled with gypsies, Mongolian archers, centaurs, and a pseudo-Russian kingdom ruled by a crazy Tsar.

====Dragon Empire====
The Ottoman Empire, if Arabs and Turks were reptilian races. Midgard's dragons realized that sleeping around in hoards was counterproductive to wealth generation, so they combined into a larger kingdom so they can tax the tiny races and add their wealth to their hoards. Now that they got a taste of government, they now want to rule the world! The scaly races are the norm here, and humans and their ilk are low-caste civilians.

====Southlands====
Midgard's Africa, most known for its pseudo-Egyptian Kingdom of Nuria Natal whose animal-headed gods chill in their favorite cities. A group of Arabian traders sail the deserts in sandships, and further south are more classic African nations such as a jungle magocracy and magical Zulu warriors.

====Seven Cities====
Instead of fighting for loftier ideals, the people of this peninsula realized that war's just an excuse for people to plunder the losers. As a result they organized society along the lines of orderly mercenary skirmishes who gain and lose territory every season for the glory of the war god Mavros.

====Wasted West====
The shattered remnants of human magocracies who thought it'd be a swell idea to summon the Great Old Ones into the Material Plane. Now said eldritch gods are frozen in time from ancient rituals, looming over alien horizons. The few bastions of civilization are meager outposts or tyrannical kingdoms making hard decisions to prolong society.

====Grand Duchy of Dornig====
The former seat of the elven empire of Thorn. It's now mostly ruled by half-elf and human families jockeying for meager parcels of forest with a confusing array of land and inheritance laws. The Queen fell into a deep slumber, and the shadow fey are making inroads with forest colonies.

====Northlands====
VIKINGS! MEAD! GIANTS! This realm is as hardcore as the people it's based upon, where status is defined by martial ability and longships set sail for distant realms to raid and loot. It's home to an advancing glacier slowly consuming the land, as well as a nation of several thousand god-giants who by all rights should have conquered the region (they're CR 20+ beings) but they've fallen from grace and are depressed about the fact that Midgard is literally made of the slain corpse of their god.

====Shadow Realm====
The extraplanar realm beneath Midgard. It is a land of perpetual twilight, a dark mirror to the world above. The Shadow Fey are its most famous denizens, but is also home to an outpost of bearfolk warriors resisting the darkness and a lost legion of ghoul soldiers from the Dark Kingdoms.