Humans- The humans are the preeminent power of the world, making the most significant advances in magic and government. They are an empire that has known peace for as long as it has existed. The feudal system is one that has surprisingly worked, taxes remaining fair and corruption nearly unheard of in the nobility, thanks largely to the dynasty of monarchs that is concerned with meting out justice as much as remaining in power. The royals know that the people are the key to their rule and happy subjects are loyal beyond those who are merely downtrodden. The merchants make up the majority of the middle class and artisans, builders, and shippers alike are driving the economy. The empire’s coffers are full of gold mined from the subterranean caverns rich with it. However, gold seems to be the primary metal that veins the empire's foundation, iron nearly unheard of. Most of the weapons produced by the empire are bronze or copper.

Given the weakness of the metals available, the humans have chosen to pursue matters of the mystic instead, coming to master the arcane in a way that none other in the land can compare to. With their intellectual pursuits, wizards are widespread, mages making their occupations in fields as varied as entertainers, fortune tellers, fortune seekers, transportation, and soldiers. The human empire, it could be said, is built on the back of sorcery and enchantment as much as anything else.

With all that being said, the largest flaw that the empire can be said to possess is one of greed. They are overly protective of their resources. They cannot actually even utilize the entirety of what they have, but they are reticent, if not downright averse, to parting with any of what they consider their own. They do not pursue wealth or power for they have plenty already, but they have never shared without expecting a profit in return.

Politically, the empire has long controlled the majority of the world, though this is partly in thanks to the lands acquired in the alliance with the Kithkin kingdom centuries ago, a marriage that was more about politics than love and effectively passed the royal lineage to the human queen. Following the death of the Kithkin king, the queen, who was quite a bit younger than him, remarried and produced an heir, giving rise to the modern dynasty. The human seat of power, Tanago, has more or less been abandoned for the fairer climes of the kithkin capital, where the current Queen commands from the ancient Imperial Palace.

In the modern day and age, the two societies of the Empire have become virtually inseparable, just like their royal houses. It is the skills that each race brings that make the empire strong despite the differences in cultural traditions each race holds.

Kithkin - Nominally, the kithkin are beholden to the humans, but their population is larger than that of their imperial partners. Still, because of their symbiotic society with the humans and the long held cultural belief in pacifism, they have become reliant on the human military for their defense, though the kithkin contribute in their own ways.

While the humans mastered the arcane, the kithkin have long been more attuned with the natural world. They are trainers and farmers by trade, and are in fact responsible for breeding the most common beast of burden in the Empire. Horses are almost unheard of in the world except on the furthest frontiers and oxen are more useful in the fields than as mounts. The kithkin found a solution by breeding highly intelligent omnivorous lizards, bipedal creatures that are fit for virtually every job. They are suited for most terrains and are as useful for pulling carts as they are acting as mounts for both humans and kithkin. Different breeds, as indicated by their scale coloring, are best suited for different tasks.

It is this ingenuity which have made the kithkin so invaluable to the empire. Their culture is fiercely community oriented, but they make easy friends and once considered an ally or friend, they are gregarious and deeply attached to their compatriots. The kithkin make up much of the middle and lower class, living earnest and simple lives. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, they are fiercely prideful of their skills and positions. They are drawn to positions of reliance rather than positions of power, often acting as advisors or knights rather than hold any authority themselves.

With all that being said though, the kithkin are not without flaws, and their past demonstrates this well. Their pride and affinity for nature led to the creation of the thallids as a servile race, but their own skills ultimately turned against them, leading to the Thallid uprising.

Thallids – Products of the kithkin skills, the thallid were grown originally as a servile race and meant to grow fruit to provide a cheap and easy source of food for the kithkin and humans. Despite the humans’ involvement, the kithkin were the beings responsible for their growth and primary use. In the beginning, they were pliant and considered a total success. In fact, they were much more adaptable than the kithkin originally expected and they quickly grew to be more and more useful as time passed on. The kithkin gained great influence and acclaim for their creations and the empire seemed to be headed for a new golden age.

What they couldn’t have expected was the revelation that changed everything. A thallid spoke. It asked what its purpose was to be, what its life was. They had proven to be intelligent and the kithkin and humans alike were left with the ethical quandary of a servile race that were never meant to think suddenly gaining that very ability. A congress was called to discuss the matter, and an agreement was reached that the Thallids should be freed. The question then became what was to become of them. They were created beings, but there was hardly space for them. It was a thorny issue that dragged on for months, years, and all the while the thallids grew less satisfied with their lot. Finally, as one, they violently rebelled, unhappy that the matter was being held on their behalf without their say.


They declared their people sovereign and told the empire that they would find their own place in the world rather than rely on whatever the nobility would decide, choosing freedom over security. They left, en masse after freeing themselves from their settlement camps, and journeyed to the forests where they could live by their own ways. In their new homes, they quickly adapted to their new surroundings, becoming omnivorous and forming a complex society that is largely a mystery outside their groves. What is known is that their appearance has spawned a chain reaction in the wilds of the land, causing an upheaval in the natural order as plants and animals alike try to adapt to the new order.


Viashino – The viashino are a warlike, seemingly barbaric, race that live high in the volcanic mountains and look down upon the vast stretches of the Empire with envy and resignation. They are ancient, and their culture has followed quite a different path than that of the Empire below. Currently there are ten tribes, most of which are ruled by high ranking shamans, but those shamans answer to the king of the Viashino, an enormous and fearsome monarch who despite his brutal rule is considered a hero to his people. He is considered by the shamans to be a figure of prophecy, his life tied to the passage of a comet, and they have done their best to please him, and he in turn has tried to live up to the destiny the shamans have foretold. The mythos surrounding him has made the viashino fiercely loyal to him, and they throw themselves into battle at the simplest command.

Their ferocity in conflict is almost a necessity, as the high mountains and craggy lands that they inhabit are fairly resource poor. Little in the way of vegetation or water is present, and so they must make do with what they can scrounge… or more commonly take from others. They most often are seen as raiders, making forays against the Empire for their valuables. Despite the rough conditions that they live in, the poor resources for living, there are two things that have made the viashino a legitimate power to watch. The abundance of iron in their mountains give them better weapons than the lowlanders and the sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter that can be found across their lands are the ingredients to their greatest achievement: Black Powder.

The mysticism and violence of their people often make people mistake them for primitive, but that is actually far from the truth. They are expert smiths and artificers, and while mysticism is a very large part of their culture, they are rather poor at most forms of magic. Among their most impressive creations are a collection of small mechanical beings called Gnomes. The gnomes are very small, but they have an amazing array of uses, including as munitions or self portable storage.

The viashino, while being very progressive, as much as their resources allow, value tradition quite strongly, and it is for that reason that they have retained their relationship with their ancient mounts, large terrapins surprisingly suited for their mountainous homes. These tortoise-like creatures form a central part of the viashino life, a mount and rider having dependent upon each other in the harshness of the wilds. When they die, the shells and bones of the deceased creature are used as ornamentation and their flesh as food. It has made the armor the Viashino wear a macabre combination of organic and metal and cemented the fear that they are capable of spreading.

While they are vicious, they are not so aggressive that they cannot be reasoned with. They would prefer to be treated with respect rather than fear, but given their harsh lot in life, they make for gruff companions at best. However calm they are capable of being though, the viashino as a culture have recently become far more aggressive in the past few decades, and it is believed that they have made alliances with the thallids and sought dark magic from the undead kingdoms.

The Undead Kingdoms – There is something strange to the afterlife of this world that means some who die simply find no rest. While a majority of these beings become ghosts, there are others whose bodies rise from the grave, unsure of what they have left to do. All the undead that have risen, whether corporeal or physical, act much as they did before they died and are largely unaware of what happened since their deaths. It is as permanent an existence as it is fleeting. Ghosts begin to have trouble remembering what their lives were like before and the zombies soon begin to decay, ultimately becoming animate skeletons.

The largest problem the deceased face isn’t one of memory or maintenance, but one of prejudice. Through no fault of their own, people are often disconcerted by the presence of the undead, and even if they were friends or family, there will come a time when their loved ones can no longer deal with the continued presence of their dead relations. There are some who react even more violently to the undead, and invariably, the undead have to depart. Each year, hundreds of the undead end up making their way to the legendary kingdoms of the undead.

The kingdom is a haven meant to let the dead find some meaning in their continued existence. The dead have a strange language, an amalgam of speech from all across the different races and different eras. Once the undead arrive, they find some purpose to occupy themselves with. Many take up philosophy, their new outlook on life offering a distinctly different take on things, some take up fine art, knowing they have all the time in they could need to complete works, and still others choose to take up the scepter and master the arcane simply because the secrets are there, but a sizable number choose a more ignoble path. They plot, they plan, and they resent. Many become thieves or merchants, intent on amassing whatever they can, not because they need anything, but simply because they don’t want the living to have it. The irony of the harm they do to their reputation, perpetuating the prejudice against them, is not lost, but death has a way of changing one’s priorities, particularly well after your own death.

The Brotherhood of Masks – A mercenary group that knows no loyalty to any kingdom, working for the highest bidder. They are considered one of the most elite soldiers on Clarika. They see no profit in denying admittance to anyone because of their race, nor do they turn away from working from anyone so long as their money is good. To symbolize this detachment, they have masks that act as their badge of membership, proving that the face underneath is not as important to them as their allegiance to the brotherhood and their contract.

Mazo Archipelago – Off the coasts of the main continent, a chain of islands exist that have long been a hotbed of strife. Pirates, led by a boisterous viashino renegade, use these islands as their base, but the local population, both sapient and less than, have taken unkindly to their incursion. Despite the increasing tensions on the mainland, the participants of the Mazo conflict are largely disinterested in the potential war.

There is at least one other nation worth noting on Clarika: The High Elvish kingdoms (and their neighbors) in the far west. Although smaller, it has as much history and nearly as much influence as the empire. Despite its influence, it is largely isolated from its peer, with trade being very rare to and from their lands.
Scattered throughout are other pockets of civilization, though these are so small as to be hardly worth noting.