Welcome to the game! This is a wiki devoted to my D&D setting of Anhur, as explored in both my tabletop games and in Play-By-Post on Rondak's Portal.
Wiki Updates
I'll be adding information here as I find time to do so. Some of this will be rules or character-related information, though most of it will be detailing the game world. Whatever the information, I'll keep record of what I've added here. The most recent additions are at the top.
09/18/08 - Modified entries on Cygnar, Khador, Magador, the Taltain, and Wroclaw, regarding naming traditions.
09/17/08 - Modified entry on the Wroclaw.
09/05/08 - Added Wiki Updates section.
Overview
Two ages ago, Humans were freed from cruel bondage. As slaves of the Dwarf and Elf empires, they along with countless other races were forced to labor and fight on behalf of their nearly immortal masters. Then came the Flame From Beyond The Stars, who called them Firstborn and led them to freedom. He anointed a Divine Imperatrix from amongst their number to lead this new nation, and sent his Harbingers - divine beings of immense power - to give her counsel.
Yet nothing in this world can entirely escape the reach of evil, and even the Harbingers themselves proved not to be above corruption. They divided over how the world should be ruled, and that division spread to their followers, fracturing the Firstborn into a hundred squabbling kingdoms. The Divine Imperatrix, recalling the noble nature of the Flame Beyond The Stars, remained true to those Harbingers who stood for life and honor, and her kingdom, Anhur, prospered for it, becoming a beacon to all other Firstborn lands.
The Dark Harbingers would not allow this to stand, and warred against the Anhurians with every weapon in their arsenal. In the end, it was the Trickster, Enkili, who turned the tide. Deceiving the Divine Imperatrix into betraying her own, Enkili drove a rift into the Anhurian people's hearts. Now, centuries later, three nations clash to win the mantle of Divine Imperatrix, the god-given right to rule the Anhurian peoples: the chivalrous orders of Cygnar, Kingdom of the Swan; the disciplined legions of Magador, Kingdom of the Condor; and the cryptic sorcerers of Khador, Kingdom of the Raven.
Where To Find It
The Setting page contains information on the lands, cultures, magic, religions, technology and notable personalities of the land of Mithra and beyond. This will probably be growing regularly as I find the time to type up more details about the game-world. No promises, as I need to keep my career as top priority, but I'll do what I can to familiarize you with the setting.
For a more mechanical look at the campaign, House Rules is where you'll find details on character creation: races, classes, and so on. There are also listings of the rules variants I plan to use for this campaign, cribbed from Unearthed Arcana and a smattering of other sources. I wouldn't worry too much about trying to memorize all of these rules; I'll remind you of them as we play.
I've included a page of Links which you may find useful, or at the very least interesting.
Inspiration
Anhur is a setting that is kluged and kit-bashed together from many other settings. It was born of desperation. Our group had just played through what was originally intended to be a one-shot D&D adventure. However, as the DM parceled out XP awards at the adventure's conclusion, one of the players lamented that her character still needed resolution - there were loose ends that concerned the fate of her mother! We concluded that another game needed to be run. I volunteered to DM, as is my wont. When I asked the previous DM about the gameworld, she had no concrete details - she had made it all up on the fly. Thus, it would fall to me to build a gameworld that was consistent with both the details given in the adventure we had just played and with the unusual composition of our character party. And I had one afternoon to build it!
My design goal was to create a setting suitable for bog-standard D&D, with room for all the bells and whistles I might like to introduce from other published supplements. It had to be a world that I would feel eminently comfortable with, and one that wouldn't require me to do too much work. Looking over the many other settings I owned or had created myself, I ultimately concluded that I should simply and shamelessly steal anything I liked from these disparate worlds, originality be damned. After all, it wasn't as though I was getting paid for this! If I thought an idea was cool, it went into the pot. If a name or concept inspired a pang of nostalgia, I chopped off the bits that bothered me and threw the meat in. The end result was a setting that I find thoroughly enjoyable, containing themes and elements that resonate with me with details that I can remember as if it were second nature. You may find as you plumb these depths that there are concepts you have seen before, or names you recognize but may associate with something entirely different. Should this happen to you, I humbly ask your apology, and that you allow a fellow gamer a moment of indulgence.
So it should go without saying that nothing here is intended as a challenge to existing copyrights. This was put together for no other profit aside from good, clean fun.
