The Astral Tribunal: The Astrals are a small group who, along with their followers in the Tribunal, have focused their abilities on photokinesis--that is, light manipulation. Long ago, Mentalis's sun burned out, and the plane was shrouded in darkness. Only the Astrals had the power to channel their psychic energy--with the help of the Astral Spire--to bring light to Mentalis once more. Because they are, in essence, the life-givers of the entire plane, they have the power to keep order.

The Mesmerics: The Mesmerics are a group of mages who have focused their abilities on mental manipulation. That is, they excel at creating illusions and hallucinations, and often use deceptive tactics to meet their ends. They are highly skilled at manipulating others through these illusions, and they do so often enough to stay behind the scenes in most of their work, even though they're quite infamous. They are playing a long game to take control of Mentalis from the Astrals--the have yet to figure out how to keep the Astral Spire running without the Astrals, and the Astrals have built a resistance against the Mesmerics' manipulations. They keep looking for new ways in, though, and they will persist until they are in control.

The Foundry of Damnation: Often just called the Foundry, this cult is filled with mediums--that is, creatures who commune with the dead and their spirits. In the Days of Light, the Foundry were once ruled by a great and powerful demonic master (who...we have yet to name, and have simply been calling Joe ). Some say the Foundry were responsible for the plane's darkness, an attempt to take control in the night. When the Astrals restored light to Mentalis, they banished Joe, and now the Foundry continually sacrifices victims left and right, guiding their souls to try and return Joe back to Mentalis and take their rightful place as rulers of the eternal night. (Potentially, the only souls powerful enough to bring Joe back are the souls of all the highest Astrals...which is a problem since the Foundry has so far been weaker than the Astrals). They have a turf war going on with the Soulburners (see below).

The Soulburners: (Name also subject to change--potentially soon to be the Flamehearts) The Soulburners are the brutes, rapists, thugs, and generally untouchable creatures in Mentalis. They have channeled their psychic abilities toward pyrokinesis, or fire manipulation. Like the element they control, their tempers are extremely hot. They are quick to lash out at and seek revenge for the tiniest of offenses--and almost everything offends them. Other citizens generally try to avoid them, but they're also often hired as bodyguards, assassins, and other jobs requiring a dearth of morality and a surplus of rage. The Foundry often consider the Soulburners ideal victims for their sacrifices, as no one cares enough to investigate a Soulburner's death. Meanwhile, Soulburners are constantly seeking revenge on the Foundry for these murders, leading to an ongoing turf war between the two factions.

The Silent Shepherds: The Silent Shepherds (or simply the Shepherds) live outside the boundaries of society. They prefer to live in harmony with nature, embracing life over ambition. They have developed their psychic abilities into an almost symbiotic relationship with nature and with each other, a psychic thread tying all life together. They have a disliking for each other faction for various reasons: they hate the Foundry because of their blatant disregard for life; they hate the Astral Tribunal because of their unnatural governmental restrictions; they hate the Mesmerics because of their conformance to minds rather than to nature; and they hate the Soulburners because of their chaotic and inharmonious nature. Although they're known for their nonviolence, preferring to simply live outside society rather than interrupt it, power struggles within the city have disrupted the Astrals' light source. This has caused the deaths of many plants, and through the food chain, ultimately many other forms of life as well. The Shepherds will be silent no more--they have decided to enter the city and destroy the creatures responsible for destroying the light. What they find is that every other faction plays a role in the disruption...and so it becomes them against all others, a true free-for-all.

Fire elementals all used to be Flamehearts, but as their control of fire grew, so did their temper, until the very flames they controlled engulfed them, and all that was left was a blaze-filled shell in the shape of their old bodies.

Spirits normally pass on through the Darkveil into the afterlife, but because of the Foundry's messing with them to feed them to Joe (we need a better name for him), the Darkveil is unstable. Sometimes the Darkveil will spit out the souls of dead who have already passed over, leading to Spirits; other times, the dead can't even cross it, leading to Ghouls/Zombies.

Earth elementals are similar to golems in that they're created from the earth itself by the Shepherds, and imbued with intelligence as part of the Shepherds' usual harmonic psychic link.

Obviously, Illusions come from the Mesmerics. Also, the Djinn are not natural species on Mentalis. Djinn are Mesmerics who have become so powerful, honed their illusory skills so much, that they seem to bend reality to their will. Of course, it's all still just an illusion, so even though the Djinn provide wish-granting, it's almost always temporary. Usually, they grant the wish until you complete a favor for them, and then they take it away when you're done.

I wanted to complete the cycle of ideas here by connecting a creature type to the Astrals...but the Foundry have spirits, and I don't really know of a creature type that embodies light itself. So I thought, "Hey, why not introduce a new creature type?" Grin I don't know if we should make the Astrals themselves a creature type, or introduce one for the creatures they create... for now, I'll go with the latter and call them Luminals. The Luminals are creatures made of pure light. As light never stops moving, they all have vigilance. Most of them will have a non-keyworded mechanic representing their special ability: they can create a burst of light from within themselves that blinds their opponents, but if they do, it burns them out quickly. Mechanically, that means Luminals would have something like "[COST]: ~ can't be blocked until end of turn. Exile it at end of turn."

Mentalis is a cone-shaped plane. In the days of old, an unsetting sun sat atop The Tower, showering the plane's inhabitants with light and white mana. At the foot of The Tower, there was a huge kingdom surrounded by a lush forest, in which the Astrals, Mesmerics, and Shepherds lived in uneasy but sure cooperation, where many haughty Astrals believed themselves superior to others due to their ability to draw power from the sun. In the mean time, a group of those who were adverse to the light calling themselves the Foundry gathered underneath the kindgom, in the sewers and at the foot of a great demon by the name of "Joe", always plotting, though what they plotted none could fathom. Outside the bounds of the kingdom and beyond the reaches of the forest and the sun's light, was the dark continent, the extent of which none of the inhabitants could be sure of. All they knew were that monsters, beasts and beast-men seemed to spawn from the darkness without rest.

As time passed, the sun began to wane in power. For what reason, none could tell, though many of the kingdom's inhabitants suspected the Foundry for foul play. The three tribes immediately formed an army to hunt down the Foundry in the sewers. Despite being on familiar grounds, the difference in power of arms was too much to overcome, and the Foundry soon succumbed in war, with "Joe" sealed away by some obscure trick the Astrals pulled on them. The Foundry's remnants vowed revenge for their master, as well as their brethren who died in battle.

Though the perceived threat of the Foundry had been scattered, the waning of the sun saw no slowing. The Astrals, feeling the Sun in need, climb The Tower for the first time in recorded history, where they managed to preserve some of the sun's power before it went out completely. Nowadays, the Astrals keep a significant portion of their members in the Tower, constantly amplifying the salvaged power so that enough could be spared for the continuation of life on Mentalis. While seemingly of good intentions, the fact that they were essentially the ones keeping the plane alive, the Astrals' haughtiness grew with no bounds. They began to oppress the Mesmerics and the Shephards, and in particular, the Shephards, whose trees and plants needed the nourishing light of the sun, were forced to follow even the most unreasonable demands of the Astrals. In this, they were forced to move to the outskirts of the greatly reduced kingdom, in the small circle of trees that still remained alive in the weakened "sun"'s sphere of influence, forced to defend the kingdom from the fire beasts, whose numbers seemed to only grow as the darkness beyond the kingdom deepened. The Mesmerics fared better, not having to rely on light for their art's survival. They kept a sense of pragmatism to themselves, trading and tricking the other tribes for profit. The Foundry grew in power over time, as more and more Astrals were kept busy within the Tower, and more and more inhabitants grew tired of the Astrals' oppression.

To Recap:

Astrals - A race of photokinetics, whose abilities are honed in the creation and manipulation of light. A haughty kind from the beginning, their pride only grew in face of hardship, and fashioned themselves to be the rulers in their greatly darkened home plane. Since a great number of them are occupied at The Tower at all times, they send their agents, the Luminols, a race of artificially created light spirits, to do their bidding.

Mesmerics - A race of mesmers, whose abilities involve controlling other's minds and perceptions. They are masters of deceptions and a deeply pragmatic group, willingly bartering with the other races for profit, and not above a few tricks along the way. While they are on friendly terms with the Astrals, they are also not loath to trade with the Foundry, either. Their greatest arsenal lies in the creation of various illusions to deceive opponents, and the greatest of Mesmerics are capable of temporarily turning themselves into a djinn - a being of omnipotence, though one whose influence only lasts as long as its illusions are maintained. The Mesmerics recently began finding great enjoyment in experimenting with and betting on fighting fire beasts.

Shephards - A race that communicates with nature through their mind. They live peacefully in what is left of the forest, as what used to be a vast and far-reaching forest shrunk as the sun's lights reached shorter and shorter distances. With their ability, they can create golems out of mud and raise trees to aid them. They have been forced into a compromised position due to the trees' need for light, thus putting them at the mercy of the Astrals. They now station themselves at the edge of the kingdom, fighting off fire beasts almost constantly.

Foundry - A race whose powers deal with communion with the dead and supernatural beings, namely demons. Founded under a great demon by the name of "Joe", the Foundry was once destroyed in accusation of maiming the sun, with "Joe" sealed in the process. As the Astrals grew in power, so did the Foundry grow in numbers, as many disgruntled inhabitants turned to the Foundry. They situate themselves underneath the kingdom in the sewers, where they practice their dark arts, reanimating corpses and summoning demons to do their bidding. Recent trends seem to indicate that beast-mens from the Dark Continent have become popular sacrifices for the group's dark rites.

??? - The race of beasts and beast-men living in the darkness outside of the kingdom. Their powers are a those of pyrokinesis, though hardly any of them have developed-enough intelligence to make good use of their powers. Particularly powerful individuals of the race, however, have been known to suddenly erupt into flames at times of high emotion, turning into a blazing fire elemental. It is unknown how these beasts come to be, but their already seemingly infinite numbers only continued to grow as the sun wanes. In recent times, the Foundry have being using the beasts as sacrifices to their dark rites, while the Mesmerics derive enjoyment from them by pitting mind-controlled fire beasts against each other in secret rings. It is here that eruption of fire beasts is most often observed, except in the lands of the Dark Continent. In fact, fire elementals are treated as rare commodities among the Mesmerics. Though they meant danger to the mesmerics since they didn't have enough of a mind to trick or control, the light it afforded them outside the Astrals' influence brought prestige to any mesmeric who owned one.

As time passed, the Shephards came to understand that the fire beasts and beast-men were also part of the natural world, and began communicating with them. In the process, they have learned much more about the beasts' pyrokinesis, and the possibilty that they may be able to survive without aid from the Astrals. In the mean time, the Foundry finally succeeded in summoning "Joe" back to the plane, and "Joe" is none to happy about what the Astrals had done to him.