Eyesore
A world beneath a burning eye that never blinks.
The Eye
Eyesore is a habitable moon, Earth-sized, locked in orbit around a vast flaming eye — the eviscerated eye of some unknown being, roughly as big as the world it watches. The moon is tidally locked: the same face always turns toward the Eye, and the Eye never moves in the sky.
There is still a sun, and a normal day and night. By night the Eye glows like a bright red moon that is always full. Nights beneath it are never truly dark.
Heat and radiation fall hardest on the lands directly under its gaze: arid, blasted country. A temperate midrim wraps the moon between that and the far side, where the Eye never rises and the world runs to tundra and ice.
The Eye arrived many thousands of years ago. No records from before it survive. Everyone agrees on one thing: the gods exist, somewhere among the stars, distant and silent — and at least one of them is always watching.
Magic and steel
Magic is real and disputed. Some find power in faith, some in spirits and the land, some in hard study of laws that may or may not be universal. Most places fear it. Healers are welcome; witches often are not. Tread lightly.
In the holy land, pistols are common enough that you will see them on the road.
Peoples
The elves came with the Eye as colonizers, and no longer remember from where, or why. High elves venerate the Eye and favour the arid lands beneath it. Dark elves hate it as an ancient enemy, and live in deep caverns and on the frozen far side. Wood elves treat it as a great spirit, and keep to the midrim and its local powers.
The dwarves were here first. They fortify underground, fear the Eye as a harbinger of doom, and have never forgiven the elves for the Arrival.
Humans are everywhere — adaptable, tenacious, tolerated almost anywhere. Halflings and gnomes live among stronger neighbours. Orcs were bred long ago from captive elves by the dwarves, broke free, and now hold no homeland of their own; a martial code of honour still binds the diaspora. Rarer folk — tieflings, aasimar, dragonborn, and other outsiderkin — are the children of mortals and spirits or dragons, and are usually feared, sometimes revered.
Good and evil here are relative. Cultures disagree. Alignment is a tool for what your character believes, not a law of the cosmos.
Ages
Five eras, in brief: an Unseen time before any written record; the Arrival, when the Eye and the elves remade the world and war with the dwarves began; long Ancient Kingdoms under elven kings and dwarven houses; the Free Cities, after the orc emancipation shattered the old order; and the Reclamation Age — now — when power is forming again, and adventurers can still change the map.
The holy land
The campaign country sits directly under the Eye. The Sacred Desert of bleached white sand rises west toward the city. East, beyond a cliff, the Ashlands sink into soot, smoke, and volcanoes. Mountains — scars of the Eye's arrival — wall the province. Nightfall is never dark.
Tower stands on the lip of that cliff: megacity, destination, prize.
A few names every traveller hears:
- The glass flats — fused glass on the desert road short of the city; scavengers pick at it for trinkets.
- The oasis — a palm-ringed spring a couple of days west of Tower; a common caravan halt.
- Bitter Blackstone — an ancient dwarven keep in the only western pass; court of Morvash II, who styles himself King of All Orcs.
- Folly — unmappable country to the north. Some cross it unharmed. Some never leave. Only the desperate or the mad go in.
- The Great Graveyard — a bone field and tar pits south of the road. Creatures have come here to die since ancient times. Few who mean to leave again go in.
Kenku voice-sellers walk the roads, selling messages repeated word for word. Thri-kreen bands roam the desert; cast-outs among them prey on caravans.
Tower
Tower is a megapolis of ten to fifteen million, built directly beneath the Eye and wrapped in shimmering heat shields. Dark stone, black iron, glass, skyways, lifts, and glowing arcane signs: dungeonpunk, closer to cyberpunk than to a medieval city.
There is no single ruler. Churches, colleges, corporations, builder clans, noble houses, paramilitaries, and crimelords share the skyline — and race to build the highest tower, closest to the Eye.
The oldest towers are grounded flying ships from the Arrival, long since claimed by high-elven aristocracy. That fact is public knowledge. Each is a city unto itself. Newer spires climb past them. Height is status: the poor and the unnoticed live low; the rich live high.
Elves (especially high elves) hold much of the power. Humans, gnomes, and halflings are common. Orcs, otherkin, and stranger folk usually take labour, muscle, service, or crime. Dark elves live here too, mostly in the lower levels.
Simple undead work the docks, workshops, and night watch alongside constructs. Higher society finds them distasteful. Talking or scheming undead are rare and unsettling.
Names you will hear
- The Thousand Eyes — the faith of the Eye in Tower: many churches, no single hierarchy; healing, rations, and water for the city.
- The Arcane Assembly — colleges and magitech firms; patents, licences, and research.
- The Builder Clans — outcast dwarven clans who raised much of the modern city.
- The ship-tower houses — ancient high-elven lines still holding the grounded ships.
Power shifts. Alliances rot. The Eye does not blink.