The cinders have a legend passed to them by a nameless traveler from a distant land. They call it their secret history, their darkest shame, but it is anything but secret. Everyone on Phostus has heard the tale in one form or another, but it seems the cinders are the only ones who actually believe it. Many believe they're insane because they think such an outlandish story is true. Most just think they're insane regardless.



The cinders are terrible shells of fire, their skeletal visage and broken obsidian bodies bleeding the flames that make their soul. It is that fire that is their obsession and so long as it flickers, it means their lives will continue. However, that flame burns on life itself, but it does not necessarily need to be a cinder's own life. To ensure that their flame is never extinguished, they have found an equitable trade, their services for the vitality of others. They have found no employ more lucrative than that of demons, who pay in heavy obol coins for the cinders to burn so that they do not have to spend their own lives to exist.

Cinders make up the highest combat echelons of the demonic armies, shock troopers, knights, and elite guards. They revel in the violence and find the life suits them well. It is best that they find it agreeable, because few others in the cities wish to have much to do with them. The demons seem to be the only ones who do not mind their presence, and even then, it seems they are more amused by them than anything.

Cinders possess a touch that burns the flesh in a way that will never heal, for it is a necrotic burn that scorches the soul from the body, consumed by the dreadful foe that inflicted it. It is not uncommon for someone marked with a cinder scar to be viewed as a person to pity, and many on the streets begging are nothing more than cinder victims.

Despite finding easy employ in the demonic armies, there are still a few of their numbers who choose to wander the wastes and steal life from whatever they happen across. They are near feral scavengers, who take whatever they can find or kill for. It is not hard to tell a wild cinder from one of the others, for they bear a clashing collection of armor and weaponry without the steady supply the demons provide. Despite their violent and desperate lifestyle, they live a more spiritual life, in some ways, but it seems to only support the other race's opinion that they are all psychotic.

In the vast tracts of history, there have been petty tyrants who have done their best to ascend to heights never touched before, to dominate the world in a way that left no question as to who the master is. In one such effort, the ruler of former demonic city sought to create a new soldier who would reap destruction and chaos untold, to command an army of soldiers that were completely expendable and were possessed of no fear, beings more potent in numbers greater than any other force that had ever been assembled before. These beings would require no supplies, subsist solely on the bloodshed they inflict, and reproduce quickly and in overwhelming numbers.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a terrible move.

The devils hatched from that first generation have gone on to become one of the most pervasive and malignant pests Phostus has ever known. In many ways, that demon lord was far more successful than he intended, for he created a race of beings that are cunning, resilient, and utterly fearless. (Or idiotic. It’s difficult to tell at times.) Unfortunately, what he did not predict in his experimentation was that by creating something with so few needs, that they’d have no need to follow his orders. In fact, they almost immediately turned against him and escaped into the wastes. They exist solely to spread anarchy and chaos and have few needs and absolutely no loyalty. They have no civilization nor any true culture, only malice.

Despite their chaotic natures, one should never think of devils as being stupid, lack of self-preservation aside. They are actually extremely intelligent and patient creatures, and though it would seem strange, they are often given to deep reflection. For all the anarchy that they wish to spread, seemingly their only wish, they do fit seamlessly, if at times violently, into existing societies. Be that as it may, they are solitary by nature and a devil should never be trusted. For all the dire warnings and recklessness, they do have their uses to those who are clever enough to persuade them to follow an objective.

Devils have scaly scarlet skin, tiny white teeth, and immense green eyes with an inner membrane. They possess short nubs of horn and thick claws, both of which are glossy and black like their lips, and they seem to have a reptilian countenance about them. It has led some to speculate that whatever they were originally constructed of included aspects of the dragons. This is further supported by their reproduction method, as devils are known to produce clutches of eggs from which their young hatch. However, if there is a dichotomy between the males and females, none has been observed, suggesting they are asexual.

That's right, I'm bringing Kashius back into the archives, if only for Keeper to use him. It's all because he found an origin.

The amphin are one of the few people who, even in service to demons, have maintained their independence. They are lore brokers, magi, seneschals, and confidantes to demon nobility, sworn to neutrality by their most sacred symbol: The Knowledge Pool, an almost mythical well rumored to lay beneath the capitol of Mixolotlan.

All water is sacred to the Amphin, who believe it is the vessel of the world’s knowledge. It would seem a strange philosophy to any who do not understand the Amphin’s origin, deep beneath the world’s skin, in the darkness of the underground pathways and cisterns. In that cold stygian darkness, the Amphins have carved out a civilization, a network of tunnels and pools that stretch beneath over half the world. None save the deserpate journey there, for no light exists in the Amphin’s domain. They have no need for it, for they are blind.

Their cultural beliefs begin with the knowledge pool, and the loss of their sight.



Without sight, the Amphin’s hearing has become extremely acute, and is further supplemented by specialized organs. They have tendrils on the backs of their heads covered in sensitive sensory organs that detect mana pulses. These pulses map images in their minds allowing them some form of mental sight, which they believe are a gift from the Knowledge Pool, a small shadow of omniscience. However, when the Amphin travel away from their homelands, the conditions above ground trigger a metamorphosis that cause these tendrils to disappear. Without these neotenic tendrils, their psychic abilities become much more potent.

The amphins share some tunnels, particularly near the surface, with the Ouroboro with whom they have a violent history. However, in most recent eras, the amphin have a practiced apathy towards the “Coatl” (their somewhat derogatory term for the Ouroboro). They have a long-standing arrangement with the other that allows them to pass through the Ouroboro territory unmolested and in return, they give them a percentage of the metal they take from underneath the ground.

Within the ceaseless churning clouds lurks the most singly destructive beast that calls Phostus home. They are the Leviathans. They are little more than an immense maw filled with towering fangs and tremendous scales along a sinuous body. The few features they bear other than that are the sparred fins which more resemble wings, the drifting barbels that flow in the wind, and the colossal fluke that stirs the air behind them into terrible hurricanes. No other beast, land nor air, can rival the size of a leviathan, which grow as large as a city.

The storms of a leviathan’s wake are ultimately little worse than the turbulent storms that blow up every now and then, but where the true devastation of a leviathan’s passing comes from is when they plunge below the clouds, to rip furrows through the ground and swallow whatever is in their path. In the not so distant past, such an attack, if one can call it that, struck one of the lesser towns of a demon’s keep, one of the inconsequential barons, and everything simply… vanished between its jaws. If such an event should ever strike one of the greater cities, the loss of life would be catastrophic, on so many levels. Around the cities of the demon kings, and even the free city, defenses are meant to dissuade a leviathan should one ever breach the clouds near them, but if they were to ever choose, there would truly be nothing to stop them.

The leviathans’ diet comes mostly from feasting on drakes, but they have been known to swallow dragons, and entire clans of gargoyles whole. Such beasts are lost for all time, for a leviathan consumes its prey entirely, digesting them utterly and leaving nothing behind.

The only being known to have ever tamed a leviathan is Hjalla, and the terrible creature she has in her thrall is legendary in its own right, Mistrosorm, the greatest leviathan within all of Phostus.

Drakes are omnivorous scavengers who feed on the carcasses in the wastes and feast on a specialized fungal growth, one of the few things that can manage to survive the environment that they grow in. Commonly found in the higher reaches and in places where the clouds hang low, this fungus has a symbiotic relationship with the drakes, and covers their bodies in spores when they perch to feed. The spores then scatter as the drake takes flight, but if it does not pass these spores within a certain period, they will take root inside the creature and eventually lead to its death.

When a drake dies in such a manner, they crash into the wastes and their bodies burst and are quickly overgrown by this root like fungus, which because of its associations, are known as mandrake.