The World of Nua

Nua exists as a demi-plane within the D&D universe, created by an ancient being called Enn'o thousands of years ago. Enn'o itself is an extremely powerful consciousness existing within the Plane of Concordant Discontent. The gods within Nua were also, for the most part, created by Enn'o. Some of them travelled here from other Planes before an extremely powerful immortal sorcerer named Menat created an interlocking system of shielding spells called the Triumvirate to lock Nua off from the rest of the multiverse. After a devastating war between the gods created in Nua, the continent of Everast was destroyed and scattered to the void, leaving only the continent of Dael. From millions of humans, elves, dwarves and gnomes, only a few thousand survived the event known as The Collapse, and now their descendants live as second-class citizens in Dael in the nation of New Everast.

Below you can find a short summary of the Races, Nations, Pantheon, and History of Nua.

Unique Races

The unique species in Nua can be broken down into four categories; Skin, Fur, Scales, and Fish.

• The Shalesfolk.  Originally Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, etc - now a blended mix of them all.  Outside of the Shalesland, these people are treated as second class citizens.  Players using the Shalesfolk race can expect to be spoken down to, as most of the wealthy ancient races of Dael see the Shales as an inconvenience at best.
• The Barba.  Their ancestral homeland is the Western Plains of Enn'o.  Barba are generally good natured, and include feline, ursine, canine, and vulpine phenotypes.
• The Nasz.  Their ancestral homeland is the more arid Eastern Plains of Enn'o.  The Nasz are typically more selfish and arrogant than the other races of Dael, and their homeland reflects that tendency with a history of conniving, cut-throat politics between the member nations of what's now called "The Empire of Esha." The Nasz include the Serpentine, Chameleon, Crocodilian, and Komodo phenotypes.
• The Kulitu. Their ancestral homeland is the deep oceans around the Shattered Isles. Mysterious, rarely seen in the surface world, and culturally unique - the Kuliltu include the Sharklike, Orcinus, Crustacean, and Iqnu phenotypes.

The Agh Maw Orcs of Nua are also wildly different from their traditional counterparts in other worlds. The Agh Maw are heavily inspired by the Green Martian Tharks of the Princess of Mars book series. They live short, violent lives as members of nomadic raiding parties, with their natural life expectancy not even surpassing 30-35 years old. Agh Maw reproduce in pods, sometimes bearing six to eight children at a time, which are raised communally until they reach physical maturity around 10 years old. While mostly confined to the savage rocky landscape of the Orclands, Agh Maw bands have at times swelled to such size that they've made ambitious, albeit ultimately doomed, marches into the outside nations.

Nations of Nua

There are eight Nations in Nua, each with distinct cultural differences and real-world comparisons for players to pick from, for origin stories or campaign settings.

• The Nation of New Everast is located in the northwest peninsula known as the Shalesland. Rocky, arid, and unwelcoming, it was a relatively useless piece of land begrudgingly gifted to the Everastian Refugees following the destruction of their continent nearly a thousand years ago. While impoverished, the Nation of New Everast functions as a Federal Republic, with the city of Shelshome operating as its capital and central hub. Despite being a Federal Republic, New Everast is modeled after traditional euro-centric medieval fantasy in terms of its towns, culture, and architecture.
• The Orclands, while devoid of any form of central government or leadership, is considered a nation in its own right despite being made up mostly of warring bands of Agh Maw Orcs. Their ancient holy city of Don'Thurok is a neutral meeting ground for the clans, and outsiders are strictly forbidden from entering its borders.
• The Kingdom of Theonor, spanning the Western Plains of Enn'o, is among the poorest nations on the continent. Home to the Barba and run by Czar Tyriosz Stormtooth, Theonor is a welcoming nation to all - enthusiastically including the Shalesfolk, and is the only nation on the continent outside of their own where they're treated as equals. With the massive coastal city of Limani as its capital, Theonor is modeled very heavily on a combination of the Ottoman Empire and Slavic Monarchies. As far as the Nations go, Theonor is typically written as a lovable underdog.
• Graamor, the swampy Oligarchical nation to the southeast uses the large mountain burg of Durnoch as its central capital city. Graamor is thematically based very heavily on the old American Southern states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, and is home to mostly Nasz and Kuliltu transplants. It's a "free" country, despite using slavery for much of it's labour force, and incredibly rich in natural resources. Graamor plays more of a wildcard or antagonistic role, with pseudo-political references in some of its stories to everything from the underground railroad to the Iran-Contra scandal.
• The Empire of Esha is the largest and wealthiest nation on the Continent, spanning from the Daelish Marshlands down to the Vinegrip Jungle and the wild city of Baset. The Empire has a handful of somewhat culturally diverse member nations, however its capital of Astoran and its central government lean very heavily on ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian history and mythology. It's massive size, cultural diversity and overbearing presence can allow for Esha to be portrayed as anything from a journey through some poorer desert villages, to a rich cultural experience, to an overbearing military power depending on the story being told.
• The Feudal City-States of Resu-Nasu lie deep beneath the ocean surrounding the Shattered Isles in Northeastern Dael. Resu-Nasu's mythology and culture is based on a mixing both ancient Greek and ancient Japanese stories and mythologies, as both nations mythology is steeped in naval, aquatic, and stormy references that blend together really well. Stories involving Resu-Nasu typically mention the tumultuous political state of the nation, which changes leaders and shifts power as often as the tides. Tiamat makes an appearance here as the demigod Mushussu, a mutli-headed underwater serpent/dragon that is worshipped by the people of Resu-Nasu. (Ironically, Mushussu is another Mesopotamian lesser diety, the mythology from which Faerun's Tiamat takes her name)
• The Stony Wastes of Cloch Talamh lie north of the Deadwood, and are home to the proud nomadic and peaceful Centaurs of Nua, with inspiration drawn from Canada's First Nations and Inuit peoples. The Centaurs are dedicated to healing the land and reclaiming their ancestral home from the damage caused by the ancient wars and the growth of the Deadwood, as well as the seafaring Minotaurs of Nua. Contrary to their traditional dungeon-bound counterparts in other mythologies, the Minotaurs of Nua are adept seafarers, fishermen, and raiders, strapping dense clawed chain boots to their hooves to maintain footing on the wet docks of their massive, rugged vessels.
• The mountain range of Hetats Reach is the location for Nua's iteration of the Underdark - beneath these mountains lie the Goblin Kingdoms, the homes of the Myconids, and everything else you'd expect to see in the chaotic underworld of these high fantasy settings. The Goblin Kingdoms themselves are portrayed as a chaotic no-mans land, with rival gangs rising and falling from power, a criminal underbelly spanning the length of the continent.
• The Deadwood is a region of forest that was destroyed during the Collapse, when a single fragment of the Death Goddess Reshka's essence collided with the city of Telabor, corrupting the land around it for miles. Full of all manner of undead creatures, it's not a place any party of adventurers should take lightly before taking the risks of crossing its misty borders.

Notable Factions

Nua has a few extra-national factions who have can have a significant impact on the events unfolding around their sphere of influence, or even the world as a whole.

• The Heartsblood Mercenary Guild is an organization based in the city of Limani, in the Kingdom of Theonor. Among the many mercenary guilds of Nua, the Heartsblood Guild is simultaneously the oldest and the smallest. A century of strictly adhering to a code of honour when determining which contracts to accept has left them outmatched by competing factions willing to operate in moral grey areas. Nonetheless, the beloved underdog of the mercenary world maintains their guild hall in Theonor's capital and membership with them is sought after by those seeking glory and honour around the world. This faction is used as an easy go-to explanation for "why characters are working together" for many one-shots and short campaigns.
• The Agh Maw Orc Clans are a disorganized and chaotic collection of roving, raiding bands of Agh Maw Orcs. Constantly at war with each other and the different peoples around them, the Agh Maw Orcs have been a consistent threat to the areas surrounding their homeland. They breed and mature incredibly quickly, speak a strange language unknown to most outsiders, and worship a strange deity called Bohagh - a completely invented deity resulting from hundreds of generations of oral tradition conflating the two stories of Neto, the God of Nature and the Wilds with Hetat, the God of Chaos and Destruction, two gods who not only represent conflicting forces, but who are quite literally at constant war with each other.
• The Arcane Triumvirate is a collection of three groups of magic users split into factions based on their area of study and source of power. They are the Wizards of Neverwhere, the Vestini Warlocks, and the Sorcerers of Menats Keep. The three groups of the Triumvirate manage various universities around the continent of Dael, while also overseeing and managing restrictions on the use of magic therein. The original, and most important duty of the Triumvirate is to protect the demiplane of Nua from extraplanar detection or invasion. Menat, an immortal extraplanar entity himself, founded the Triumvirate thousands of years ago after finding Nua and falling in love with his new home.
• The Iron Faith is the name of the religion dedicated to the worship of Arkan, the God of War and Vengeance. Arkan's Crossing sits as a physical barrier between the Shalesland and the rest of Nua, levying heavy tariffs on trade caravans passing through it's ultimately necessary gates. Akan's Crossing is said to be a hundred-fold larger than it appears, with a deep cylindrical city housing tens, or hundreds of thousands of its members. Constantly training for combat, most of them live and die without ever seeing the sun. They do not recruit from the outside, and haven't done so for nearly a thousand years - with a sustainable population of their own people in their impregnable fortress. As a result, the Iron Faith no longer resemble any of the races of Dael, and have gradually become a race of their own. (Gith.) The Iron Faith is very heavily influenced by both the (incredibly inaccurate) portrayal of the Spartans in the movie 300, the Unsullied from Game of Thrones, as well as the incredible and stoic Krasians from the Demon Cycle book series.
• The Northwind Constabulary is an organization headquartered off the eastern coast of Dael. A shipping and mercantile focused company, they have offices in every port city on the continent (except for those in Cloch Talamh) and operate as a sort of self-appointed police and mercenary force, taking taxes and fees from ships in ports in exchange for their protection while traveling across long distances. They keep the seas free of raiders and pirates and can all but guarantee safe passage to those willing to pay their required fees. In truth, the NWC is a completely pirate-run organization simply holding shipping lines hostage. The attacks on those who refuse to pay them are quickly blamed on the Minotaur Raiders of the Stony Wastes, and using this scapegoating method has worked in the Constabulary's favour for decades.
• The Goblin Territories, or the Goblin Kingdoms, are a group of anarchical cities and communities deep beneath the mountains of Hetats Reach. Criminal gangs rise and fall from prominence, and no single group holds influence over too much territory for too long. Lawless and without anything even resembling a central government, the Goblin Territories are exactly as they like'm: chaotic and free. "Nowhere on Dael will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
• The Order of Aldir are the primary order of Paladins within the continent of Dael. Politically Neutral, their bastion is located within the eastern reaches of the Orclands to keep watch on their Gods sworn enemy Arkan and his forces within the Iron Faith. Defending the trade roads through the Orclands and monitoring the goings on around Arkans Crossing, the Paladins of the Order of Aldir are well respected by people of all nations. A secondary order founded a few hundred years ago during an event called the Saga of Rebirth was titled the Order of Vine and Stone, founded deep within the New Everast Forest under the Great Bear Tree, in a tranquil place called The Grove of the Keepers of the Bloom. The Order of Vine and Stone and the Order of Aldir work in conjunction with one another, with the newer faction being more similar to traditional druids than paladins. (The Oath of Vine and Stone is a custom 5e subclass specific to Nua, and easily translatable to other systems like Pathfinder of Black Flag.)

The Pantheon and Origin

Nua has many unique gods or god-like beings which are led by a divine consciousness named Enn'o, who resides in the Plane of Concordant Discontent from the greater D&D Multiverse. Most of the Nuan gods are based on Mesopotamian mythology, and many share names with similar figures from that specific pantheon. Many of the lesser gods were created through player backstory or communal worldbuilding, but Nua has it's own creation mythology as well, involving a "who's who" and "who did what" for the formation of the Seven Primes and the world itself.

The main Pantheon is made up of the Seven Primes:

• Enn'o, the Warden of Balance
• Shel, the Goddess of Light and Life
• Reshka, the Goddess of Darkness and Death
• Aldir, the God of Hope and Protection
• Arkan, the God of War and Vengeance
• Hetat, the God of Chaos and Destruction
• Neto, the God of Nature and the Wilds

There are several demigods or god-like beings, as well:

• The Twins, Selos and Gormos, Gods of Water and WInd
• Ninurta, The Soldier
• Pulina, Lady of Rot and Disease
• Heron, God of Debauchery and Selfish Intent
• Sikari, Goddess of the Hunt
• Ti'leth, the Shepherd
• Mushussu, the Serpent (Tiamat)
• Geroth, the Stoneshaper
• Na'ab, the Watcher
• Anan, the Trickster Goddess
• Uifi, the Lord of Small Things
• Mestus, Prince of the Tide
• Gilria, Princess of the Lightless Underworld
• Kramrush, demigod of Ale and Brawling

Player Resources

• Crafting guide