What the Hell is This Special
Snowflake?
This Slavic acid fantasy snowflake is the world of Zem. The Hill Cantons is a region
proper (a loose collection of poorly-run borderlands cantons
ostensibly ruled by the Overking), the name of the seven-year
campaign and now a published backdrop to
be ignored and smiled at indulgently like an eccentric uncle.
Zem is a world divided into four
near-symmetrical parts, double bisected by the World Canal, domed by
the heavenly firmament, and riding on the shell of the World Turtle
that swims in a spiraling loop through the cosmic void. It is
believed to have its reflection in an mirroring Anti-Reality.
Old wives also foolishly believe it to
be a spherically-shaped, concentric “shellword” , a world inside of an Overworld and containing another Underworld.
And that the heavenly firmament is but the illuminated rock underside
of that upper layer of the world which itself elliptically orbits an
outer sun, one of countless billions.
But that's crazy talk.
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Where did Zem Come From?
Some believe that a dreaming Overgod in floated from Demonspace to this dimension and created it in his
self-loathing/loving image. Others believe that the world is but a psychic
projection of another, a shadowy cave of folk-spirits and broken platonic
ideals.
What Kind of Cracked God Would Want
to Live Here?
For a world dominated by a monotheistic
religion (the Sun Lord and Solarity) that denies even the existence
of other divine forces, Zem is crawling wall to wall with countless cohorts of
failed gods, godlings, local gods, beast gods, hero cults, and atrophied
gods.
Read all about it in the Hill Cantons Cosmology if you aren't asleep yet. Or see here for
the Cosmological Appendix N.
Just What Exactly is Up with the
Weird?
The Weird is a marble-cake band of
mythic wilderness/underworld and magitech other dimensions bleeding
over and living in a constantly changing/moving (dialectical) tension
with human civilization. It is a shifting zone of Other Reality. It's
where the feral things are.
But I said it way better and with more detail here. One of the in-game models of this is
the Chaos Index campaign idea.
Civilization?
Human civilization
is smaller, more thinly-rooted and more inwardly-focused than our world.
There's a small-scale survey of the campaign spots in Hill Cantons
Compendium II , but here's the big picture rundown:
The Overkingdom
of Nemec, Nurian, Heimeti, and Pahr Lands, a “bright colors”
psychic projection of late 16th century Western and
Southern Slavic (the Pahr) and German (the Nemec) countries. The
coreland Overkingdom has three large semi-autonomous borderlands
regions: the Hill Cantons, the Translittoral Canton of Hoimatbuch and
the Marches of Nur (famous for its War Bears and kuduks).
Kezmarok on the
Rock and Over The Water, a former empire now clinging to life in
a half-ruined metropolis after 500 years by the Turko-Fae. Run by the
Decade King, a monarch that until late was deposed and blinded each
decade. Quite a bit written about this glorious dump here, here, and here.
Himyar, the
19th century Orientalist/pre-Muslim Arabic-ish “Scarlet
Sultanate” of the south (with a splash of Clark Ashton Smith necromancy).
Hy-Brasos, barely-settled Magyar-esque horse nomads cum feudalists with war
wagons. Pity the poor dirt-gnomes, glammer-slyphs and talking dogs
enslaved by them.
The Kozak
hordes, Old Pahr horse nomads. The western horde being led by
Hetboy Pavol.
Oiorpata,
that distant and exotic isle near
the resting point of the Sun Lord's daily ride, are a fine,
strong-boned, if verbally assertive race of Amazons noted for their love of
high-crested, baroque helmets, polished armor, and knitting circles.
Races and Places Weird
Hyperboreans. A
long-fallen, world-spanning super-human civilization that possessed great
lost sorcerous techologies (read Kirbyesque space gods/science fantasy). Shit went south a millennia ago and their
Necromancer-King successor-states left great undercities and ruins on
their way out.
Anticantonal
Eld. Lords of one of the Cold Hell (a rigid, hierarchical anti-reality). You know, these assholes.
Turko-Fae.
Grey-skinned and inscrutable, these strange turbaned warlords have
laid seige lines outside Kezmarok for five centuries. They wipe clean
(literally) any bit of civilization they wrestle control over.
Grugach.
Crazed homicidal and anarchic they pore forth from the so-called "Summer Country" in elk-riding hordes to lay waste to...well anything.
Vlko. A
lost (but found by the players) Old Pahr kingdom.
The Feral Shore. A former Kezmaroki borderlands completely wiped clean 500
years ago by the Turko Fey. Now thick with Old Pahr mythic wilderness
and the center stage for the current campaign.
So Wait, Aren't We Still Talking About an
Elfgame Here?
Yes, yes we are. While I will admit to
slipping semi-embarrassingly into long daydreams during the real
world grind, there is no childhood hand-carving figurines, collection
of awkward short stories for my made-up world. The HC is a creation
that has no independent force driving it other than the anarchic and
organic process of layer being laid down on lair from the repeated
bruising contact with the play table over seven years of running it.
It's a campaign world that has an arc
divided up my discernible “phases”. Starting as a West Marches,
radically plotless and exploration style campaign, it morphed into a
broad-bases sandbox with layers of accreting layers of mystery. (That devolution plotted here).
Still the game, D&D and its
microexploration focus, drives the setting. And all roads lead to the
dungeon.
