```metadata
title: A Primer on Xelix
description: A quick primer on the homebrewed setting of Xelix.
tags: []
systems:
  - 5e
renderer: V3
theme: 5ePHB

```

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{{coverHeader A Primer on Xelix}}
{{coverDiamond}}
{{coverSplotch}}
{{coverFooter Get to know the basics of this homebrewed setting for D&D 5th Edition!}}

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\page
# The Story So Far
It's been nearly a year since Pandemonium struck. The once-stable world of Xelix has since been thrust into turmoil, its once-unified society riven into factions. Magic, fantastical creatures, and other stuff of myth have now become reality, and with this new reality comes danger... and adventure! It is in this troubled world that your adventure takes place, and your choices may very well shape its future.

## The World-City of Xelix
Xelix is a planetoid about the size of Earth's moon, and entirely covered in layers upon layers of cityscape. The history of this world is largely a mystery, as there appear to be no records of how many layers exist, how much time it took to build them, nor what Xelix may have looked like before it became a city. 

### Technology
Xelix's technology was once sufficiently advanced for its citizens to use exploding powder, steam engines, and incredibly complex clockwork mechanisms, though those advancements had been around for a long while and remained stagnant since. Since Pandemonium, however, much of those advancements have been lost or rejected by certain groups, with far fewer possessing advanced technology, let alone the knowledge and means to produce it.

### Inhabitants of Xelix
Prior to Pandemonium, Xelix had approximately a billion inhabitants. Of them, only a million survived. Entire districts, families, and clans were wiped out in the disaster, and that loss hangs heavy among many survivors. The event did not just bring about loss, however, as new creatures emerged from the ruins: most of these new entities are feral or monstrous, but a tiny minority are intelligent and not entirely dissimilar to the world's still-dominant species.

Six races once formed the entirety of Xelix's citizenry: dragonborn, dwarves, elves, gnomes, humans, or orcs. Though greatly diminished, they are still dominant in this changed world. Since Pandemonium, many new races have appeared, though in numbers so comparatively small as to be relatively unknown to most.

### Calendar
Time in Xelix is tracked by the rotation and behavior of the one, sun-like star in its sky, known as the Eye. Each day lasts 24 Earth hours, and each year takes 343 days, split into seven months per year, seven weeks per month, and seven days per week. On the final day, known as the Lost Day, the Eye disappears entirely, and all memory of the day is lost after it ends. It is during the previous year's Lost Day that Pandemonium took place.

### Pandemonium
In the space of a single day, Xelix was irrevocably changed in a cataclysmic event known as Pandemonium. As it occurred on the Lost Day, which none can remember, there is no knowledge of what exactly transpired, but the aftermath was felt by all who survived: tremendous shifts in landscape, a city in ruins, and the impossible suddenly a reality. Magic, which was once only considered purely theoretical in nature, became accessible. Creatures and monsters once mentioned only in fiction walked the remains of the city, and surviving members of Xelix's dominant species unlocked newfound ancestral traits. Ever since, Xelix has become a dangerous place to most, and the vast majority of the world-city's citizenry perished in the catastrophe. Those that survived have each dealt with these traumatic events in their own way.

## Factions
Three main factions vie for control over Xelix and its future.

### The Old Guard
Rebuild, recover, return. That is the Old Guard creed, as the faction sets out to go back to the way things were. Though mainly formed of surviving humans and gnomes, all of the original six races are welcomed, and many have found a place in their citizenry. Well-organized and bound by a common goal, the faction still wields the world-city's technology and has developed it at an unprecedented pace, revitalizing Xelix's infrastructure and administration across most of their territory.

With this vision comes inflexibility, however, and none are less tolerant of differences than the Old Guard. All that came from Pandemonium is deemed an aberration to be eliminated, from its strange new creatures (often lumped together as demons) to magic, which is illegal in the faction's burgeoning capital of New Xelix. Its government verges on the authoritarian, and its civilizing mission brooks no compromise, putting the faction at particular odds with the more primal Evolutionaries. The Old Guard enjoys an uneasy truce with the Delvers, whose open practice of magic is anathema to their principles but is considered a necessary (and temporary) evil as part of their recovery efforts. The two factions partake in carefully-controlled trade, with the Old Guard providing the technology the Delvers so avidly desire in exchange for the service of their arcane and divine practitioners, who are granted conditional exception to their laws against magic.

\page

### The Evolutionaries
To many, Pandemonium was a cataclysmic event of death and destruction, and nothing more. Others, however, saw it as an opportunity to cast down the shackles of the past and truly grow. The Evolutionaries (or Evos, for short) embrace change and the unlimited potential of all living beings, freed from the constraints of technology and bureaucracy. Though there are as many Evolutionary ideologies as there are Evolutionaries, one common belief exists in the Glorious Evolution, a quasi-mystical advancement of all living beings across generations to an eventual transcendental state of perfection.

It is difficult to explain the Glorious Evolution in precise terms, as the understanding varies, though it is often expressed as letting nature taking its course: all living things have the potential to evolve, yet it is only through challenge that they can truly grow. The weak die out, and the strong bring about an even more perfect generation than the last. The harsh wilderness of Arvor and the high peaks of N'Rek, both of which sprung from Xelix's inner layers after Pandemonium, offer the perfect proving grounds and a home for most Evolutionaries, who live in small and diverse communities largely disconnected from one another. Most are elves or orcs, though all races, even non-sapient, can form part of an Evo tribe, and some make their home deep in Old Guard and Delver territory.

Evos and the Old Guard do not get along, for many a reason. Though Evolutionaries have no government to speak of, they are unified by their hatred for the central authority and technology the Old Guard hold dear. Those Evolutionaries gifted enough to wield primal magic are celebrated in their communities, and most Evos have no qualm raiding Old Guard territory, whether to retaliate against past violence, obtain supplies, or drive back the stain of so-called civilization. For this reason, Evolutionaries have a reputation for wanton savagery among the Old Guard, and many a tale has been told of Evos rampaging across the frontiers, in the wilderness, and generally anywhere far enough from a large settlement.

Evolutionaries and Delvers share a commonality in their practice of magic, though given the lack of a unified Evolutionary government, diplomatic relationships are formed on a per-tribe basis. Generally, Delvers stay cordial with nearby Evo tribes, and sometimes provide them with supplies to keep the peace or conduct research in tribe territory. Most Evolutionary tribes who conduct these exchanges are satisfied with these arrangements, though few Evos would truly trust Delvers and their obsession with magical artifacts, which are all too similar to technology.

\column
### The Delvers
As a faction, the Delvers are largely a mystery, even to Delvers themselves. Though there is very much a structure to the organization, the details are shrouded in secrecy: Delvers are generally organized in small cells, known as expeditions, answering to one direct superior and few other contacts, and communicating through self-made signs and symbols unrecognizable to an untrained observer. Despite this clandestine means of operations, Delvers are unified by a common pursuit of understanding, whether it be through the study of magical artifacts, faith in a deity they call the Brilliance, or both. Many Delvers resultingly wield arcane or divine magic, and rumors abound of Delver troves and caches containing fantastical magical items.

Delvers are so called because of all the factions, they are the keenest to explore the world-city's deeper layers, which are said to contain many hidden treasures and long-lost magical knowledge, but also great dangers. As such, many Delvers are dwarves, who often lived below the surface already, and dragonborn, who have an affinity for magic (and treasure). To make up for their smaller numbers, Delvers often enlist the aid of others, including Evolutionary tribes and citizens from Old Guard territory, though they make a point of sharing only as much information as is necessary to complete the task at hand, if that. Though this ensures a relative peace and cooperation with both factions, it also earns the faction an enduring mistrust from the others, and Delvers are believed to have infiltrator expeditions embedded in Evo tribes and Old Guard settlements for nefarious purposes.