Humanoids in the Broken Empire
Characters from the most common lineages in D&D appear in the world of the Broken Empire, bound tightly with gods and myths.
Dragonborn and Tieflings
Dragonborn and tieflings have evil reputations, usually unearned, due to their heritage. Dragonborn are most common around the Sea of Storms itself, said to be the birthplace of the dragon-goddess Tiamat, queen of the abyss. Tieflings are most common in Zyirra and lands longest held by the Zyirran empire, which gave its allegiance to infernal powers.
Dwarves
Dwarves, whose skills and strong sense of tradition outweigh their jealous secretiveness, have a friendly relationship with humans around the Broken Empire. Some say dwarves taught smithing, building, and craftsmanship to humanity. In a famous Samarran legend, dwarves sprang up from furrows dug in the earth by the fingers of Mala the Mother when she birthed Harvalun the Smith.
South of the Sea of Storms, human tales conflate dwarves, gnomes, and halflings with goblins and kobolds. All are feared as thieves, rapists, and killers. Few people in those lands have ever seen a dwarf or have reason to believe the tales, but the tales linger.
Elves
Elves in the Broken Empire are called the “Shining Ones,” born of the heavens. Said to be direct descendants of the gods, they are often fey and dangerously unpredictable. Almost every one of them is obsessed with some singular goal or facet of the world, making some harmless and others terrible.
Children of the Shining Ones are sometimes left in the place of mortal babies to be raised among humans, but their inhuman nature soon becomes plain, along with their elvish physical features. Sometimes, such a changeling journeys among humanity for many years.
The Shining Ones are said to live forever, or at least for uncounted years. Sometimes one remembers secret paths to the heavens or the underworld and vanishes for decades or centuries. In many legends, elves taught humanity the arts of magic and war.
Some say that most elves live in a secret island in the Sea of Storms, filled with wonders and madness. Others swear they have met elves in the deep woods or deeper caves, and that the Shining Ones have abandoned the heavens for fear and darkness.
Gnomes and Halflings
Around the Sea of Storms, secretive and earth-dwelling gnomes have a reputation for helping strangers at crossroads in wild places, as do halflings in lands of pastures and farms.
Halflings are best known on Keleos, a large island in the Sea of Storms. Keleos is mostly pastoral land between mountains and a network of coastal city-states. It was loosely held by the Zyirran Empire, which encouraged the Keleosan navies and mercenary armies to raid and pillage. Then it was closely held by the Samarrans, who required the worship of their gods. Then the occupiers gradually departed, leaving their descendants mingled with those who had long been there. Its halflings are druidic, like its human shepherds and farmers.
South of the Sea of Storms, human tales conflate dwarves, gnomes, and halflings with goblins and kobolds. All are feared as thieves, rapists, and killers. Few people in those lands have ever seen a gnome or halfling or have reason to believe the tales, but the tales linger.
Orcs and Half-Orcs
In the Broken Empire, orcs, ogres, and all their goblinoid kin are said to descend from Orcus, the Zyirran underworld demon-god of oathbreakers and traitors. Legend says Orcus sent his children, strong and wrathful, up to the mortal world to send him the souls of oathbreakers. But being the children of betrayal, they betrayed their purpose. They remained, formed tribes, and set out to conquer and devour a hateful world. Many orcs around the Sea of Storms still worship Orcus as their forefather.
Orcs that harry the nomads and cities of Iskutai say they rose from the mountains to avenge the delving of dwarves and humans and to take back the riches of the earth for their own.
Orcs in the Valkan and Kiavalkan forests and mountains of the north say their forefathers were mighty rulers before the gods of humanity conquered all, and they fight to reclaim their rightful place.
Orcs in the far south say they came from the underworld, where the devil dwarf-god Alubo used his magic to enslave them until they fled to the upper world and conquered their way to freedom and power.
Which tale is correct, none now can say. Perhaps each is true in its way.
Occasionally, an orc or half-orc leader learns or remembers their origins as the grim instruments of the gods’ justice. But the orc tribes, writ large, simply vie with each other for the strength to survive. Inspired by the great conquerors and slaughterers of the legendary past, most are dedicated to the survival of the fittest, the subjugation of the rest, and the destruction of those who will not be slaves.
