The Book of the Arc

in the beginning

"Welcome refugees from a blasted land. To a world made, not born, for your safety and convinience. It is yours to hold dominion over. To be fruitful and multiply in. Until the Clock of Hours strikes End of Life and the Millennium beings. At which time all users are strongly advised to upgrade as no further security updates will be issued for this place of sanctuary." -- Source 0:1, Gospel of Titanian

(Welcome adventurers! You start at level 1.)

Numbers

"The dimensions of the Arc are as follows: length 1,333.33 leagues, width 150 leagues, average depth 1 league. This yields an approximate volume of 1,800,0000 cubic leagues and weight of 2.65 x 10^16th tonnes." -- Specifications 3:16, Book of Boaz the Builder

(Use the Standard Array for stats: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)

ikosothropos, The 20 peoples

These are the peoples the world was made for. Survivors from the Left Behind.

• Humans - the most numerous among the saved.
• Elves - seemingly ageless. No one has seen an old elf.
• Half-elves - lither than humans, more likable than elves.
• Dwarves - the undisputed masters of the Ironbound Section of the Bilateral Mountains.
• Dragonborn - dragon-men who dispute the Dwarven claims in the Bilateral Mountains.
• Gnomes - short, comes in two flavors: magically and mechanically-inclined.
• Halflings - short, lucky, tobacco-dependent.
• Half-orcs - called "Beast-Men" on the Arc. Offspring of a human and one of the Nameless Horde.
• Tieflings - also called the Devil Folk. For obvious reasons, ie horns, barbed tails.
• Aasimar - also called the Holy Folk. Probably because they can glow at will.
• Genasi - the children of the 'Principalities of Air and Fire'.
• Warforged - martial nickname of The Forged. Created by the craftsmen of the Déxian League in an attempt to reverse-engineer Titanian the Immortal.
• Aarakocra -- winged bird-men.
• Kenku - wingless bird-men with behavorial issues.
• Tabaxi - cat-folk. Somewhat nicer than actual cats.
• Tortle - heavily-armored turtle people. Rumored to make a delicious soup.
• Lizardfolk - cold, calculating lizard people who do not dress in human suits and run the Arc. That's a conspiracy theory.
• Yuan-Ti - known as Snake-Eyes or Snake-Faces. Humas born with the souls of snakes.
• Triton - a noble folk with enormous fish heads. On the Arc they're known as Sea-Men, or the Piskosefalii.
• Firbolg - people with the heads of large dogs. Commonly called Dog-Men, or the Kanisefalii Major.
• Goblin - people with the heads of small dogs. Usually the body is small as well. Known derisively as Yappy Dog-Men, or the Kanisefallii Minor.
• Goliath - small giants who reside near the polar caps atop the Retaining Mountains.
• Kobold - small, obsequious, dragon-men. Servants of the Dragonborn. They also come in a feral variety.
• Gith - visitors to the Arc. Each carries a silver sword that they're fixated on.

(These are the PC races. Here's a nice summary of them and the books they appear in on D&D BEYOND .)

Twenty?

"Astute readers will note that the canonical texts do not agree as to which species should be included in the Ikosothropos. Simply counting will reveal more than twenty intelligent peoples on the Arc. And don't get me started on the 'Nameless Horde'." - "Grievances, Volume 1", Progrom Tau, warlock formerly of the Autoschola

The Nameless Horde

Name given to the species of bestial humanoid creatures said to be without language or even names. They inhabit the wild places and forbidden lands. Some scholars believe they were placed on the Arc as either a moral or recreational challenge. Sometimes referred to as the Antinomial Horde.

(You can play the PC-approved monster races, too.)

The Seven Immortals

They made the Arc for the salvation of all peoples.

• Boaz the Builder (he/him/his) - The designer of the Arc. First among the Seven. Domains: Arcana, Order
• Shar, Who Keeps Secrets (she/her/hers) - Guardian of forbidden knowledge. Architect of the Purges. Domains: Trickery, War
• Min Meng, Lady of Peace and Storms (she/her/hers) - Caller of storms, calmer of hordes. She does what is required. Domains: Peace, Tempest
• Immortal Storyteller (he/him/his) - He tells their story and ours. Domain: Knowledge
• Titanian, Who Serves (it/it/its) The shape of a man made of a million reflective metal scales. Domain: Forge
• Oberond the Dawn-King (we/us/our) - the first King of the Arc. Lord of the Boreal Throne. Appears as an elf or gnome. Domains: Nature. Life
• Fire Ghost (they/them/theirs) - the alchemical untion of opposites. Either a woman haloed in burning light or a floating man of shadows. Domain: Light, Twilight.

(Clerics worship one of these.)

The Great Sky River

"Look up! It beggars the sun and drowns the smeared tails of the stars." -- Lost Eyes, poet and warlock of the Autoschola

The braided ribbon of energy that runs across the sky of the Arc from end to end. It's made of the souls of the dead who have not passed on to the afterlife, or to rebirth. Also called the River of Souls.

(There's a 5% each PC will have useful memories from a past life. Reincarnation is common on the Arc.)

Ātmen

The Great Sky River is home to seven great souls who warlocks bargain with for power, knoweldge, and assorted personal reasons. They claim their Patrons rival the Immortals in strength. Clerics of the Immortals like to point out if that were true, their patrons wouldn't be dead.

• The Fiend - the greatest black magician on the Arc. Slain by Oberond himself using the branch of a magic tree.
• The Archfey - the last Elven elder. Seeks to recreate the Left Behind.
• The Great Old One - a sage who touched the Void Beyond the Arc.
• The Undying - 2nd greatest black magician. Vowed to defeat death.
• The Hexblade - the living weapon. It had a varitey of motral hosts until it was slain by Fire Ghost.
• The Celestial - an aasimar saint who led the aninal people out of pet status.
• The Genie - a genasi princess and hero. Known for her lavish gift-giving and her sword, 'Cuts-Anything-Light'.

(Warlocks make pacts with one of these.)

A reading from 2 cartographers

"The lands of the Arc are divded into two sections by the Equatorial Sea (see also Shrouded Sea, Shattering Sea). In the east are the Dawn Lands. All the mortal nations of the Arc reside here.

On the western side of the Equatorial Sea are the Forbidden Lands. Of them nothing more can be said.

The mountains known as the Retaining Walls run the length of the Arc, forming its northern and southern borders. Scaling them is impossible as climbers grow heavier as they ascend.

The Gate of Dawn marks the easternmost point on the Arc. Through it the Immortals brought the peoples from the Left Behind, then shut it, lest the Darkness follow.

The Midnight Gate marks the westernmost point. At Millenium's End all peoples will pass through to Paradise or Perdition. -- Revised Book of the Arc, first printing Year 2, Great Purge of Shar

Heptahieron, the seven capitals

The major cities of the Arc, listed from east to west. Also referred to as the Seven Holy Precincts (by elves, naturally).

• The Boreal Seat at the City of Aspens. The first city. Founded by elves, which explains the name. Oberond was king here for 100 years. Site of the Keep of the Golden Dawn, the paladin training grounds. The city rules the lands of Aurora, due west of the Gate of Dawn.
• Epidéxios, the City of Craft. Founded by humans seeking a faster-paced, less ethical lifestyle than could be found in Aurora. Birthplace, so to speak, of the Warforged. Location of the Polymorphous Akademy, a center of learning and industry, whose nickname the 'Perverse Akademy' is surely undeserved. Epidéxios controls a trade confederacy called the Déxian League.
• Central Shaft - the vertically-integrated city of dwarves. Here the Dwarves pursue the noble goal of extracting all the valuable metals and gems from the crust of the Arc. Famed for the Powder Tower, the premiere explosives research facility on the Arc. Shaft is the capital of the Ironbound Section.
• Drogoproposkon - city founded by the Dragonborn at the end of the Territorial Wars. Home of the Bloodlines Council, the Horde Bank, and various schools of sorcery. It dominates the Dragon's Desmense, which included lands contested by the Dwarves of Shaft and the rebellious Dragon-Mayors.
• The City of Pacts - home to warlocks, witches, and mystics. Site of the Autoschola. Their scholars do their own research (with a little help from their Patrons and the collective knowledge of the numberless dead). The city controls a region of six towns called the Hexarchate.
• Filopelis - boasting a diverse culture of animal-people and celestial-kin, it is frequently called the City of Friends. The doctrine of heterokonoinia ('many fellowships') orignated here. Recently there's been a move to rename the city Kum-Bæ-Ya, the word for 'people' in three of the indigenous animal-people langauges. The city's territory is called the Free Range.
• Mahinyu-Belial - the Devil City of the Tieflings. They prefer to call it the City of Games. It's the only place in the civilized lands where the Nameless Horde are welcomed and the only city with an art school focusing on the art of the murder. The Devil City claims no territory.

Go west, Young Adventurer!

The rumors of the Simultaneous Revelations are true. The Forbidden Lands are open for exploration! The prohibiton against travel west of the Mahinyu Meridian, in place since the Great Purge of Shar is lifted. Adventurers, opportunists, and 'expert treasure finders' of all types converge on the town of Confluence, the westernmost outpost civilization and site of the Megakranion, the Fortress of Secret Lore.

What will they find? Fortune? Fame? The fabled City of the Immortals? And how will they cross the Shrouded Sea without being swept away by the Permanent Hurricane?