World Overview
Theme and Tone¶
Tir Hathar is a wounded world on the edge of war. A fantasy setting that should feel closer to Shadowrun or a spy game than Dragonlance or Greyhawk. The uneasy peace that followed is a cold war of maneuvering nations, competing intelligence operations, and political pressure rather than open combat.
Key tone pillars: - A world rebuilding from catastrophe, mostly unaware of how much was lost - Uneasy peace maintained by mutual fear and exhaustion - Magitech prosperity concentrated in Sigil bloodlines - Healing is precious and scarce — injury has real consequences - The Sigils divide society into haves and have-nots - War is always one incident away - The ceiling on magic, divine power, and knowledge is felt everywhere without being fully understood
See the World History document for the full context of the Long War and its aftermath.
Technology Level — Flintlock Fantasy¶
Technology sits at a "flintlock fantasy" level. Magitech is real and pervasive, powered primarily through the Sigils. Firearms exist and have largely replaced crossbows in professional militaries, though crossbows remain common among militia and the poor — the poor man's firearm. Magic and swords remain central; firearms supplement rather than replace them.
Armor works as WWN's standard Armor Class. Shock, the damage a melee attack still deals on a miss unless the target's armor is heavy enough to turn it, keeps armor realistic without any house rule.
Runes and Magic Items¶
Magic item crafting uses a rune-based system drawn from Iron Kingdoms. Runes are modular — items can be upgraded by adding runes, and there is a craft to the system that feels native to the setting. The House of Artisan operates at the highest end of what the rune system allows. Rune application is a core function of the Mechanik class.
Pre-war artifacts occasionally surface that operate above the current magical ceiling — items that cast spells no living practitioner can replicate. These are extraordinarily valuable, politically dangerous, and not well understood by anyone currently alive.
Warcaster Armor¶
A relic of the Long War. A finite number of suits exist; no new ones are being made — doing so would be read as preparation for the next war. Walking into a city wearing Warcaster armor is the equivalent of driving a tank down a street today. It is a declaration of intent that demands a political response. Best used as a temporary story element rather than a persistent player item.
Variant Rules in Use¶
- Healing arts instead of spells; serious magical healing requires the Healer Sigil, borne only by mothers — many of them in the Azure Flame's healing arm
- Spell level cap: no wizard or divine caster has access to spells above 5th level through normal means; see Magic System and World History documents for context
- No mechanical alignment system. Character (and creature) motivation runs on an edict/anathema/goals framework instead — see Edicts, Anathemas, and Goals document. Where documents describe a people or a faith as "chaotic evil" or "lawful evil" (the goblins' demon patrons, the Giants'/Hobgoblins' devil patrons), that's cosmological flavor about what those outsiders are, not a stat tag applied to individual characters — see Religion document.
Geography and Notable Locations¶
- Taniere (tan-YEAR) — the Elven homeland; isolationist, ancient, guarding knowledge and guilt in equal measure
- Tallas — a major city with Greek/Roman naming feel; likely Confederacy territory
- The Blue Boar — a world-spanning chain of inns operated by the House of Hearth; universally recognized as neutral ground
- Dead zones, echo sites, and corrupted nodes — scattered across the map where the Long War left its deepest marks
Player Races¶
Nine races total.
| Race | Notes |
|---|---|
| Catfolk | Scattered, colonized, playing a long political game |
| Changeling | Shapeshifters; no nation, natural wanderers |
| Dwarf | Mining monopoly, absolute monarchy, palatial underground cities |
| Elf | Isolationist, druid-aligned, oldest living memory of the pre-war world |
| Human | Three cultural variants — Imperium, Confederacy, Scholar Nation |
| Kuwaffri | Amphibious deep-trench people, short and cephalopod-headed; homeland untouched by the Long War, rare and poorly understood on the surface |
| Nasrin (Jinn-touched) | Descended from one ancestor's pact with a Jinn, renewed generation to generation; Scholar Nation adjacent |
| Warforged | Created people; intentionally outside the Sigil system |
| Wayfolk | Wanderers and traders; no nation, wanderlust culture |
Race Notes¶
Elves are the only living people with direct memory of the pre-war world. The oldest among them were barely adults when the Long War began. They guard this knowledge — and their guilt — behind Taniere's isolationism. Their Primal magic draws on traditions that predate the schools entirely, untouched by the planar scars in ways that arcane and divine magic are not.
Warforged are intentionally excluded from the Sigil system. They have no Sigil bloodlines and no house affiliations, which makes them politically complicated in a world where Sigils equal economic access.
Changelings and Catfolk have an unspoken affinity — neither has a homeland, neither fully belongs anywhere. Not a formal alliance, just a natural understanding between people who know what it means to hide.
Wayfolk are wanderers and traders with a wanderlust that makes them useful as intelligence sources but unreliable as allies. Their loyalty is to the road. They lean toward the kender end of the spectrum without the compulsive theft — it's wanderlust, not kleptomania.
Nasrin; the Jinn-touched. Nasrin is a Persian name meaning "wild rose." The entire race descends from a single ancestor's pact with a Jinn, kept alive since by periodic renewal at the family level. Visually distinct. Can breed with other races, but always breed "true".
Kuwaffri live at the bottom of a drowned rift (see Geography document), reached only by a long, lightless, lethal swim — depth, not distance, is why nobody's found them. Genuinely alien feeling. Their skin flares involuntarily under strong emotion, including lying, which makes real deception among their own kind nearly impossible and shapes a whole culture — the Code of Stillness, the Glow, and the Depth — around that one biological fact. Rare on the surface, uncomfortable in bright light, and read as unsettling by people used to lying freely and getting away with it. See Kuwaffri document for the full write-up.
The Sigils — Visual Identity¶
All Sigil-bearing individuals share two visible traits regardless of which Sigil they carry: - Purple eyes — constant, visible, immediately identifying; present from birth - Luminescent veins — glow purple when channeling any magic (Sigil or otherwise); intensity scales with power; cannot be hidden while casting
The houses' understanding of the Sigils is incomplete. The theoretical and theological framework that explained their full capabilities was partially maintained through divine tradition — a tradition that faltered when the god of Teachers and Sages died, and with it the means of properly passing that framework on. What the houses know now is what survived in family practice, oral history, and fragmentary records. It is enough to function. It is not enough to be certain.