Setting

Avaria is a world much like Earth, with a host of cultures and countries spanning a large globe. Many of the various kingdoms, republics, and empires of Avaria have rough analogues within Earth's own history, though none are an exact match. The continent of Idiri can be considered to correspond roughly to Africa, Ruvera to Europe, Near and Far Ruleska to the Middle East and northern Asia, and Riendu to southeastern Asia. The island of Jalanjhur, almost a continent in its own right, occupies something like the place of India and is a valued trading partner to some in Avaria and scarcely more than a rumor to others. More information can be found on each of these landmasses in the Geography section, along with descriptions of the diverse political entities that call these places home.

Atmosphere

Between the extremes of gritty realism and high fantasy, Avaria falls close to the middle. Most people in the world remain only lightly touched by the fantastic in their ordinary lives, and most magic that people are familiar with in their day-to-day existence is not terribly flashy. Injuries can be genuinely crippling, fighting can have potentially serious consequences, and though people have been rumored to return from the dead, for the vast majority, PCs and NPCs alike, death is truly the end of their sojourn in the mortal realm. But this is only part of the story. The weird and the whimsical are also abroad in the world, and politics, faith, and the beginnings of science mix freely with the supernatural, the arcane, and the world beyond. Powerful and monstrous beings, non-human peoples, and even extremely potent magic are all real, and strange and fantastical things just might happen to anyone.

Religion

The dominant faiths in Avaria are monotheistic, with large segments of the population of Ruvera, Ruleska, and northeastern Idiri following some variety of worship of The One God. There are however a great many more localized religions scattered across the globe, particularly faith systems based on shamanism and the worship of ancestors and spirits. A few major deities and demigods, such as Nirzali and Nthandu, have followers throughout Idiri, and even the ancient pagan pantheon known as the Children of Dawn and Dusk still have some adherants in isolated parts of Ruvera and Far Ruleska. In the even more distant lands of Riendu and Jalanjhur still other gods and supernatural beings form the core of diverse worship.

The vast majority of Avarians believe quite matter-of-factly in some deity or pantheon or cosmic force, though there is wide variation in people's levels of piety. Generally the humbler people tend to be the most devout, though their observations of the faith may not always satisfy the most orthodox among the priesthood. The most culturally sophisticated circles -- members of the court, certain academicians, and the like -- tend to be less devout, being usually more willing to entertain doubts about some points of dogma, and to actively pursue intellectual and philosophical endeavors that sometimes clash with orthodoxy. However, only the most deeply cynical and disillusioned invdividuals would ever consider themselves atheists, and fewer still would actually openly express a full rejection of faith.

Magic

Magic in Avaria is very much like magic as it has been historically believed in and practiced on Earth. Large-scale magic and flashy spells are the fodder of stories and legends, generally taken with a grain of salt -- though there just may be more than a grain of truth in these tales. But the magic that most consider real is both different from this and amazingly diverse: weather magic, harvest rituals, charms and talismans, alchemy, divination, spells to cure maladies of the mind and body, voodoo magic, the evil eye, and a host of other things both helpful and malign. For many in Avaria, magic is also synonymous with religion -- priests are socially-approved magi, prayers are both invocation and evocation, miracles are at once magical and divine.

Starting out, no PC will have access to magical abilities in character generation. Knowledge and ability in magic is instead something that a character may gain over time, by pursuing certain storylines or developing their character in certain ways. Magic is not meant to be an all-powerful force and there will be trade-offs to pursuing magic above all else, but characters that wish to will have the opportunity develop unique abilities and become masters of their art with sufficient dedication.