Etain
Size: Moderate
Population Density: Low
Shape: Sphere? Insufficent exploration; no obvious variant form
Gravity: Normal
Day/Night Cycle: Normal
Moons: 2, both pale-silver as observed from the ground, one about twice the apparent size of the other. The smaller moon can be observed at times to pass in front of the larger. Some native cultures hold the presence of a third, black moon. No comprehensive astronomical study can confirm or deny this belief.
Land Mass & Description: Average surface coverage with a tendency towards small, shallow seas and archipelago formations. Known Etain consists of countless small islands and a few larger land-masses that could be charitably referred to as 'continents' due to their variety of land forms. All are in the cool-temperate band, warmer to the south, and experience warm summers, freezing winters (Often mild due to proximity to water; it can snow in the southernmost isles, but this is quite rare), and periods of light and darkness that allow nights to be slept through and days to be lit all year. All these lands appear to be on one major shelf, and between them the depth of the sea is not great. Surrounding the known lands is the Great Sea, which presents deep water and, besides reaching some nearby islands, is considered unnavigable due to its size, lack of landmarks for navigation, and leviathan population.

Population: Etain's sapient population consists of Humans, Orcs, Ogres, Dwarves, Elves, and Aven as major contributors to culture. There are also merfolk and faeries, the former being of the hybrid type, where their human parts appear almost perfectly human but they possess full fish tails they must use magic to turn to legs for going upon the land, and the latter of the type of small, gossamer-winged folks with no other apparent insect traits.

No culture of Etain has widespread reading and writing. In fact, only the dwarves have developed any writing system at all, and they regard their runic inscriptions as extremely sacred, so literacy is limited to their priesthoods and the act of writing (Engraving, always, for they will have no other surface but stone for theiur words) reserved for sacred or at least priestly uses. This has flummoxed extraplanar scholars attempting to gain knowledge of the plane's history, as it is recorded solely in oral traditions, and those can differ wildly from each other and from the truth as well.

The dominant cultures do agree on one fact, and that is the present division between themselves. There are five major tribes, and each calls themselves the children of a particular divine or semi-divine progenitor.

Children of Tuathal
The Children of Tuathal are humans, and most of them live rustic lives. They are the most widespread tribe, by land and by sea, and this is in part because while they do maintain small towns (never large) a sizable portion of their population is itinerant, traveling between the many towns trading wares and stories. Children of Tuathal possess relatively wild magic, and display numerous different diciplines though beast-taming and illusion are probably the most common. They have allies in the fae and are not on bad terms with the merfolk, though in conflict merfolk will side with Lir's children over Tuathal's

Children of Lir
This is the story that they tell – The Children of Lir are human, like the Children of Tuathal (This much is essentially true), but their patron, Lir, granted them the magic of flight, such that the Children of Lir can take the forms of birds or unfurl great wings, and many are potent wizards besides. Some time later, some of the Children offended Lir and were cursed into forms neither man nor bird, but somewhere in between, and these are the Lowborn of Lir. To one with experience outside Etain, it is painfully obvious that this story is likely the history of conquerors, for the Lowborn are not humans or even human-related. They cannot interbreed with humans. They are, in fact, Aven, and aven that take their avian morphological traits from swans at that. It is very likely that the “Children of Lir” as the modern plane knows them were from the same stock as the Children of Tuathal, but used their magical powers to subjugate the aven, the actual Children of Lir, and thereafter have built their own culture on the backs of Aven slaves. The Children of Lir build tall castles and orderly cities of white stone, favoring limestone and marble for their creations, and settle primarily in coastal regions. They trade by sea, their ships of bleached-white wood with carved swan prows unmistakable for any other. Aside from their aven slaves, they do seem to have an affinity with birds in general, waterfowl in specific, and swans most of all, and keep great aviaries and flocks of the creatures, while using pure-white feathers in much of their decoration and fashion. The 'highborn' Children of Lir are few in number compared to their slaves, and thus are mostly aristocratic, concerned with the pursuit of magic (beyond their signature ability to turn into swans or gain swan-wings) and the cold, calculated dance of internal politics. The Children of Lir are not cruel, not exactly, but they are a hard, pitiless, and unkind society. They don't hate, but neither do they care, and surviving in their high society requires a sharp mind and a thick skin. “As beautiful and terrible as their marble castles”, the Children of Tuathal would say of the Children of Lir, and they are not wrong.

Children of Balor
The Children of Balor consist of both orcs and ogres. According to their creation myths, Balor was, unlike the other demigods, without a mate. He first used his own blood and seed to craft the giants, but the great giants, though impervious to age, were too much in Balor's own image, for they were very warlike and had themselves no women to beget another generation. Thus their race soon met a violent end. After that Balor crafted the first Orcs and Ogres, and he gave the orcs his cunning and malice and the ogres his power and ferocity. This holds well enough. The Children of Balor, which work together in a cohesive society, follow a philosophy of “Make war, not goods”. There are countless legends of great battles against the Children of Balor by the other tribes. This much seems to be fact: Generations ago, a grand effort managed to soundly defeat the Children of Balor, slaying their high king, razing their citidels, routing their armies, and containing what remained of their society to but one of the three greater land masses, with many fortified outposts of the Children of Durin keeping watch for the day when the Children of Balor should recover from their loss. Thus for what is probably centuries the Children of Balor have been tearing themselves apart. They have yet to find a new leader powerful enough to pull their scattered tribes together and make a sally against the other races, and so they fight among themselves.
Ogres are very large, standing as much as ten or twelve feet high, are prone to rage, and sometimes have a rudimentary skill in pyromancy, though they are not counted among the very wise. Orcs stand on average six feet tall, and are as smart and importantly as cunning as any human, and frequently wield war-magic to befoul or destroy their enemies. Both Orcs and Ogres can be endowed with the Evil Eye. Called also the Gift of Balor, shamans of the Children of Balor perform a ritual, removing one of the recipient's eyes and replacing it with an enchanted black stone. Thereafter, when the recipient opens that eye, it places a dark curse over whatever it gazes upon. Plants wither and die, people and animals sicken and may perish if too long beneath the gaze, and even those who escape are afflicted with lingering weakness. Some tribes can also animate the severed eye, which swells in size until it becomes a monstrous creature known as an Evil Eye of Balor. Because the Evil Eye does not discriminate between friend and foe it is not awarded nor used lightly. Still, it has caused many a battlefield of the Children of Balor to be blighted for long years. In their long period of infighting, many have also learned the arts of necromancy, that the dead may be made to walk (and fight, perhaps for new masters) again.

Children of Durin
The Children of Durin are dwarves, short, sturdy creatures fond of industry and... that's about it. They find their gift to be durability, strength of both mind and body against adversity. They are also gifted craftspeople, martial of disposition, and among their own lovers of drink and revelry. It's said that every dwarf has two faces – the one he shows the world, a perfect mask of hard work and no play; and the one he shows his friends, which is usually full of songs, boasts, and more than a little liquor. The society of the Children of Durin is a caste system, but while the groups are segregated and the work of one is not to cross with the work of others, the lower castes are roughly equal to one another: the Workers who farm, sculpt, smith, and craft; the Soldiers who do battle and enforce the law; and the Wise who remember the songs, stories, histories, and grudges of their people are unequal in number but nominally equal in rank. Above them are the Priests, who deal in runes and magic and mediate between the living and their gods and ancestors; and the Nobles who do the mundane tasks of ruling and directing their civilization. Dwarven society is matrilineal, so in the case of a mixed marriage or unknown paternity, a dwarf is of its mother's caste. Unfortunatley, less is known about dwarves than there is to know, for they are on the whole mistrustful of outsiders.

Children of Morrigan
The Children of Morrigan are elves. Elves, here, being a people thin and drawn, their skin corpse-pale and hair jet black, eyes wide and yellow. Furtive stalkers of the deep woods and comers-after to battlefields, what is best known of elves is their affinity with the crow: groups of elves are often attended by flocks of black, shrieking birds and some say that elven shamans can see through their eyes. They also share with the crows their notorious ghoulish appetite, and wherever there has been fighting and killing, elves are sure to arrive and scour the field for dead to take as their meals. “(May) Morrigan's Children gnaw your bones!” is hurled as a curse even among the Children of Balor who are themselves fierce and frightening enough to figure in the curses of the other tribes. Feasters of carrion skulking through the dark make few friends, and their mannerisms are often peculiar at that, prone to whispering and muttering and never quite looking at what they should be looking at. The faeries tell a different story, of palaces in the deep, dark woods wherein dwell elven royals as lovely as they are terrible. Even beyond the faeries it is held that the elves are the guardians of the Underworld, and hold the way between that realm and the world of the living so that the circle of life and death is not thrown out of balance. It is certainly clear from the elves themselves that they abhor necromancy and believe life and death to be intertwined in a complex fashion. Nor do they ever strictly deny tales that they are the jailers of the damned, though neither will they confirm such. It is not known how long an elf lives, and they love playing coy with questions on that subject. Some native tales suggest that elves do not exactly die as other peoples do, but simply lose much of themselves then live again. While the hearts of their holdings are seldom if ever viewed by outsiders, their outposts and traders are known, their favored terrains being woodlands and marshes, especially ones that other peoples find dismal, and their architecture looking when new like the knotted, worm-eaten husks of vast and hideous trees, with twisted lines and bare and crooked branches (ornamental perches for their crow pets most often) on their wagons and structures. Elven construction is always shadowy and enclosed, with covering awnings and at best tiny windows to better preserve the gloom they would rather live in than brightness.