Southland: Overview

THE SOUTHLAND

A Fantasy Core Setting

© Jerry Harris 2014

Published here as Open Game Content.

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)

[Apparently, I've suddenly regained access to my blog.  Don't know how long this will last.]

Design

Terrain Features

Ancient History

Pre-Colonial History

The Commonwealth Colony

Foreign Powers

     Oriental Empire

     The Hegemony

     The Crossbones, Pirate Stats

Humanoid Lands

Monster Lands

Sample Town and Adventure

Southland Secrets 1

Southland Secrets 2

Southland Notes

Southland Adventure: Stone Grave

OVERVIEW

Imagine finding an entire unknown continent.  Imagine that you’ve found a continent that is a source of ancient tales of a magical empire.  It was rich and powerful, but fell suddenly in a catastrophe.  And now, whatever is in the interior of that mysterious land is yours, all yours.

Hi, friends.  JDH417 here, and I’d like to sell you a continent.  Get comfortable, this’ll take a while.  The map may look vaguely familiar.  Essentially, what we have here is Fantasy Australia, but with a couple of important differences.  Long ago, the inhabitants of the land were mighty wizards, the Ancients.  They destroyed themselves in a civil war and a handful of survivors took their magical knowledge and tales of their civilization around the world.  While their land was not technically “lost,” it has only been recently that humans have been able to resettle there. 

   

There are armies of sub-human creatures (Humanoids) created by the Ancients who populate the continent.  Unnatural creations, they live only to fight, and they have the ability to self-replicate themselves.  The Ancients carefully regulated this ability, but the Catastrophe that finished them off, saturated the Southland in magical energy.  This magical “fallout” has allowed the Humanoids to replicate, unchecked.  This effect has finally begun to fade along the coastal areas, driving the Humanoids inland into the Outback.  The human colony settlements are able to tenuously cling to the coasts.

While potential riches, magical knowledge, and artifacts abound, overwhelming forces of creatures inimical to mankind hold them.  The fallout is slowly diminishing, but for now, the Humanoids and a whole menagerie of other powerful creatures rule the interior.  The sea lanes about the continent are no safer.  Giant monsters from the Tasmanian Island prowl the waters.  Gillmen raiders are ever seeking new prey.  The most dangerous foe is, as always, man, in this case, the Crossbones.  Their base in Tasmania, protected by monsters, is home to a nation of pirates. 

The so-called Commonwealth is the current colonizing force.  They are a collection of allied nations under one ruler.  They were the ones who happened upon the Southland, just as the monsters began pulling back.  However, other nations are well aware of the continent and that it is now possible to settle there.  The numerous, but disorganized forces of the Commonwealth’s primary foe on the home continent, the Hegemony, make frequent raids and challenges to the colony.  The nearby Oriental Empire is, of course, threatened by this incursion so close to their sphere of influence.  Their strategy is one of subtly and disruption with plans of taking over colonial towns in such a way that they will be welcomed as liberators.    

The theme of this setting is Mystery.  Where is the good stuff and what’s going to be there when we find it?  For example, the legendary capital of the Ancients, Circumsphere, has not been found.  Well, it’s not a mystery if I sit here and blab it in the introduction.  The continent and its history are a mystery for the characters and the players to discover through exploration.

While the characters may decide to enter the Southland as adventurers, other options will be presented in this setting, though perhaps not explicitly.  Characters may want to later join or start off as members of some of the various Commonwealth organizations in the colony.  Being a former member of such organizations, could also make for an interesting character background.  They might even not start off as Commonwealth citizens, but rather Hegemony raiders, Crossbones pirates, or as agents of the Oriental Empire.  Far away events may also entirely change the situation that the characters originally entered into, regardless of their affiliation.