Cain Anuun

Cain Anuun is the setting for Phillip (sic) Kennedy Johnson's The Last God / Fellspyre Chronicles. It has 5e roolz in The Last God: Tales From the Book of Ages but here we'll mostly deal with the lore as a whole.

Theme: The heroes beat the BBEG, and they rule with justice. All is well. ALL IS WELL!

Languages

Aelva, dwarrow, and humans all speak their own languages.

One point of departure is that human arithmetic runs on a base-12 system. "Nynth", "Decth", "Ellenth" before "Tenth" (12). Then "Oneteenth", "Twenteenth" before "Thirteenth" which is actually 15 in our base-10.

Gods

We learn the collapsible from the comic fairly soon - as readers. But as a /tg/ dood you might be playing this thing... so the collapsible isn't for you.

To hear the Humans (in issue #5) tell it: "the storm god Borl made the world and Freyth was his only son ... Freyth hunted Naga into the Underworld". To hear the Aelva tell it (issue #8), "the Spirit Mother sang the world into being" - as far as she could. Eastward, the Void resisted and, between Her song and the Void, the Karkarok arose.

These races agree on one thing: the Black Stair was where the world and the Void hit their stalemate. Neither race ventures that far east. Unless . . .

The Book Of Ages [spoilers!!]

The following draws from Issue #5. Which isn't #1, so isn't for first-time players.

First came Ang Luthia, Author Of All Things. For Its children was imposed one rule - Thermodynamics. If a god is to create life, that god must sacrifice segments of His/Her/Its life. Yes, they're gendered. Deal with it.

The second-order gods take the honorific prefix "Mol", Ang Luthia's flag for the genitive. Mol Anwe ("Of Light") was the founder of magic and music. Mol Uvanya ("Of What Groweth") was the goddess of nature which, here (as opposed to Tollers), is antithesis to magic. Then there's Mol Kalakto (Of Creation) god of the forge and the Abyssal Realm, and Mol Rangma ("Of Flame") born of fire. Mol Choresh ("Of Knowledge/Riddles") was "god of knowledge and of riddles", and composed the Book Of Ages.

The Book of Ages' lore makes up the exposition-dump here. It is stored in the Pinnacle and first accessed by the "heroes". Who ain't tellin'.

As typical of origin-myths, then ensued a titanomachy. Mol Anwe passed beyond the Black Stair thence brought a Mol Uhltep - "Of Void". This turned out to be ... a mistake. Ang Luthia and Mol Uhltep did the M.A.D. thing, at the Stair. As typical of edgelord post-Nietzsche fiction those gods descendate of Ang Luthia are mostly dead now too.

But there's one god left who lives! That'd be (gulp) Mol Uhltep.

Whilst we have your attention, a race of "Fey" exist. They're magical. Humans are wholly unaware of them and the Aelvan tribes know little more than that.

Races

The Aelva race being not fey descend from Mol Uvanya. Tribal and nomadic. They follow Feist's moredhel "we hate other elf tribes almost as much as we hate you" pattern around not being Mary Sue.

Then there's the djorruk, golems from Mol Kalakto - he didn't sacrifice himself at first, but as he lay dying he ended up passing on his Divine spark to them.

The dragons are all fire breathers and come from Mol Rangma.

Dwarrow sprang out of Mol Kalakto's corpse; they're Wagner dwarves. They inhabit the Abyssal Realm under the Karkarok with those djorruk... and one Norduuk. That's Mol Kalakto's erstwhile demon-lover whom He chained up. And you thought Ramsay Snow's bromance with Theon was creepy.

Other races, like ursulon and - er - humans, are not children of Mol Anybody; like djorruk (at first) they're creations, mostly of Mol Rangma. Mol Rangma figured that all these races would work best in a predator / prey relationship... and humans count alongside deer and hare (unsure if actual rabbits exist here). Mol Rangma's monsters can however access some Divine gifts. Even others': notably bards who can tap into Mol Anwe's legacy of music.

The humans here are Nordic-themed, because they came out of the Riverlands to the north. As often in Gritty fantasy, when Man met Aelva went much like when Spaniard met Carib-and-Arawak so, humies are the dominants.

... if said humies stay in the cities. Out in the wilderness, humans aren't always top of the food chain (in part because of the dwarrow) nor even the rape chain (because of the harpies). Cain Anuun harpies have an ecology where they require human seed to reproduce; but have the praying-mantis thing going on with us. A flock of these abominations is a "torment". Did we mention grimdark here yet?

The World

Fairly basic Beleriand, except there's - literally - nothing past the eastern mountains here the Dragonspyre aka Karkarok.

Also, more like Beleriand after that First Age - this landmass is split, by a great gash surrounded by badlands. The locals consider the Riverlands (and Hinterlands) north of that rift to be a separate continent. (Like "Europe" and "Asia".) That's where humans came from in the first place; the Aelva are native to the warmer lands south of that.

Under the Karkarok range is the Abyssal Realm, where the dwarrow lord over the djorruk as far as you know and tap into their demon prisoner's power.

As every Jerusalem has its Gehenna, Cain Anuun has a garbage pit of its own. The Author Of All was not an omniscient; she tinkered, and she cast her mistakes away - beyond that Karkarok barrier. The ledge over the tophet of this world would be the Black Stair. One difference: no all-consuming fire. Sometimes they come back.

As for other features here, the maesters' Guild here is the Pinnacle, which the Guild erected upon the Aelvan-sacred Bloodsgrove. So: here's Mount Rushmore. Also like Rushmore, nobody asks the Aelva about to which tribe it's supposed to be sacred; all the Aelva agree that at least it is not human.

Also Aelvan, sort of, is Tyrgolad. This was renamed from Olvargolad. THAT was renamed from Nauthla Loa. That's an Aelva word. A human, Cyulí, founded that; she had escaped an arranged marriage and went-injunaelva. She figured, not without reason, that the Aelva should go Bronze Age to beat Bronze Age. Her plan almost worked. But "almost" doesn't count in race war, hence "Olvargolad". Didn't count much in the modern age either, since Tyr - The Hero - beat back the Void and got to rename this city anew.