World Foundations — World Building Core

Homebrew world · D&D 5e (2024) compatible

What this file is: This file is the skeleton of the world. It establishes the base framework for geography, races, gods, and the magic system. Detailed stories, regions, NPCs, and events will be built onto this skeleton later. Sections marked [TO BE FILLED LATER] await content you will provide.

Core Design Principles

Three constants define the character of the world:

1. High fantasy, restricted access. Magic is real and powerful in this world; however, most common folk can only reach simple spells that ease daily life (cantrip-level, minor rituals). True magic is a privilege.
2. Magic = power. Access to high magic requires political standing, wealth, bloodline, or loyalty to an institution. Magic is intertwined with wealth and power in this world; the line that separates it is a class line.
3. Rare innate talent. Very few people are born innately attuned to powerful magic. They are seen as both valuable and dangerous — some are cherished, others are hunted or controlled.

Cosmology — Two Layers of Evil

Evil in this world has two separate sources. They must not be confused:

• Evil/Chaos Gods: Peers of the creation gods, but their outcasts. Divine beings bound to specific concepts (e.g. destruction, betrayal, greed). They were not consulted in Creation, and they seek revenge.
• Cosmic Entities (Great Old Ones style): Ancient powers entirely separate from the gods, originating from beyond the world. They are the source of forbidden magic (the warlock vein). The mightiest of them were driven back into the cosmic dimension; from there they operate through deception and bargains.

Design key: The evil gods and the cosmic entities are separate layers. During the Cataclysm they came face to face, and they are currently in a tense partnership — their interests overlap, but they do not trust each other. This distrust is a crack the forces of good can exploit.

Magic System — Tiers of Access

The source of magic is mixed; it flows from multiple veins, and each vein has different access conditions.

Sources

The Access Pyramid

• Base — Folk magic. Everyday cantrips and minor rituals. Open to everyone, socially normal. (Lighting fires, minor mending, protecting crops, etc.) Still functions as it always has in the present day.
• Middle — Privileged magic. Monopolized by guilds, temples, and noble houses. Requires training, oaths of loyalty, or payment.
• Apex — High magic. True power. Unreachable without political standing, great wealth, or rare innate talent. Extremely rare in the present day — lost in the Cataclysm, actively researched for rediscovery.

Design key: Which tier an NPC or faction can access reveals their true power in the world. Magic access = the map of power.

Corrupted Veins — The Side-Effect System

The Cataclysm corrupted the veins of magic. Magic is still usable but no longer safe; when misused, the vein's corruption backfires.

• Surface examples: a healing spell working only halfway, a fire spell going out of control, a brief anomaly leak, a temporary physical/mental mark on the caster.
• The severity depends on how corrupted the local vein is and on the power of the spell.

[MECHANICS NOTE — LATER]: A punishment system for fail / critical fail rolls will be developed. The above are only surface examples; detailed mechanics will be provided separately within the game rules.

Creation Myth — Framework

This section establishes the mythological ground; exact god names and pantheon details will be entered later.

The world was shaped from raw power by the good creation gods, who govern its natural processes. Each god is bound to one process (the cycle of life and nature, death and passage, protection and order, etc.). These gods created the world, the races, and magic.

All created races were born with good alignment. The gods lived among these races for a time, taught them (each race may have been paired with a god or gods), and once the races reached a certain maturity, the creation gods left the world to them and withdrew.

But there were outcast evil/chaos gods who were not consulted in Creation. They sought revenge. Exploiting the withdrawal of the good gods, they began to integrate their evils into the order quietly and slowly — to corrupt the races over time.

• Pantheon structure: conceptual — each god bound to a natural process. The list will be set in order later. [LATER — via Q&A]
• Good gods & their domains: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• Evil/chaos gods & their bound concepts: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• Which race was paired with which god: [TO BE FILLED LATER]

Pantheon — Structure and Roles

The names of the gods and the pantheon will be decided later. This section fixes the roles, domains, and relationships.

General Structure

The pantheon is broad and layered:

• Upper layer — Chief Gods (Good): The great creator gods who govern natural processes. Each covers one major domain.
• Lower layer — Demigods & Servitors: Beneath each chief god, lesser beings who govern the sub-aspects of the domain. (E.g. under a "Water & Seas" chief god: servitors of storm, depths, rain.) These will be expanded as detail is added.
• The Outcasts — Chaos Gods (Evil): The 3 powerful gods not consulted in Creation, seeking revenge.

The Good Chief Gods — Ten Great Processes

Each process is a candidate chief god. Names will be entered later; the demigod layer beneath will be opened in a separate round.

THE IMPRISONED GOD (Protection & Order): Imprisoned by the chaos gods, who grew strong during the Cataclysm. Consequences: the world's divine shield weakened, anomalies spread, and certain high spells locked to this god became unreachable (see Spell Lock). Rescuing this god can be one of the great tension axes of the present age.

The Chaos Gods — Three Outcasts (Evil)

Not consulted in Creation, seeking revenge. Eight concepts of evil were distributed among three gods in logical clusters. Before the Cataclysm they were weak, feeding off the cosmic void; after the devastation their power became equal to the good gods.

Design key: The god of the Axis of Domination is the chief architect of corruption (individuals + institutions) — the hand behind the silent infiltration of the Second Age. The god of the Axis of Spite is the bridge to the cosmic entities; the crack of distrust the good side can exploit lies here.

God–Race Connection

Mixed model:

• Patron-bound races: Some races were clearly paired with a chief god at Creation; their cultural/magical ties to that god's domain are strong.
• Free races: Some races have no official patron; they worship whichever gods they choose.
• Which race is paired with which god: [LATER — to be settled in the races round]

The Gods' Relationship with the World (After the Withdrawal)

The good gods left the world to the races and withdrew; they no longer dwell in it directly. Communication is indirect:

• They declare their will through signs, omens, and prophecies.
• Priests and believers receive magic/guidance through this indirect bond.
• [Post-Cataclysm open question:] Did the imprisoned god's signs cease? This could create a felt "silence" in the world.

Spell Lock — The God–Spell Bond

The veins of magic are not wholly bound to the gods; however, certain spells are locked to specific gods (as with the imprisoned god).

• The divine vein flows directly from the gods; if a god is unreachable, so are that god's spells.
• Spells locked to the imprisoned god of Protection & Order are currently unusable — one reason high magic is "lost."
• Which spells are locked to which god: [LATER — in the magic system detail]

Demigods and Servitors — The Lower Layer

The two lower layers beneath the chief gods. Names will be entered later.

Structure — Two Lower Layers

Beneath the pantheon's upper layer (the chief gods) there are two more layers:

• Demigods: Few and select. Their number varies with the chief god's power — a mighty chief god may have several demigods, while a more modest god has one or two.
• Servitors: Lesser spirits/beings beneath the demigods. They handle the finest workings of the domain.

Origin note — the post-chaos emissaries: Some demigods and servitors were sent to the world to help after chaos seeped into the order. They deeply shaped the world's religious life: they left behind relics, temples were built in their names, and myths grew around them. The world's sacred geography is therefore full of these emissaries' traces.

Role — Mixed Function

Demigods are not reduced to a single job; they carry three functions at once:

• Sub-aspect: They govern a sub-dimension of the chief god's domain. (E.g. under the god of Water & Seas: demigods of storm, depths, rain.)
• Intermediary: As hands/messengers carrying the chief god's will, they touch the world.
• Task-bound spirit: Beings with a specific duty (gatekeeper, soul-gatherer, border warden, etc.).

Place in Folk Religion — Regional

The religious centrality of demigods varies by region:

• In some regions local demigod cults dominate — the folk form their primary bond with that region's demigod.
• Elsewhere worship turns to the chief gods, and demigods remain in the background.
• The relics and temples of the post-chaos emissaries form the core of local cults.

Relationship with Magic — They Grant No Magic

Demigods do not bestow magic. What they offer:

• Signs, omens, guidance.
• Protection and blessing (narrative/situational benefit, not mechanical magic).

The divine vein of magic still flows from the chief gods; demigods are not a link in that chain but a separate layer of "touch."

The Cataclysm's Impact — A Shattered Layer

The Cataclysm struck the demigods all at once; today three kinds exist side by side:

• The Fallen: Demigods who fell/perished together with their masters (especially with the imprisoned god of Protection).
• The Strays: Those who lost their master and remain unclaimed — searching for direction, at times dangerous.
• The Corrupted: Demigods who defected to chaos or cosmic power, now in enemy ranks.

Present-Day Activity — The Good/Evil Asymmetry

Good and evil demigods behave very differently today:

• Good demigods — withdrawn: After the war they returned to their masters' side. They no longer intervene directly; they communicate only through revelation. They have no direct presence in the world.
• Evil demigods — active: They do everything they can to reach their goals. Their primary aim is to exist in the world. To do so:
• They acquire temporary bodies through contracts.
• Or they manifest in the world briefly by their own power.

Design key: The campaign's active divine threat comes largely from the evil demigods — because the good ones withdrew, and the evil ones hunt for bodies and presence. This provides natural ground for warlock pacts, possessed bodies, and local "false cult" plots.

The Evil Gods' Lower Layer — Three Sources

All three chaos gods also have a lower layer, fed from three sources:

• Native servitors: The chaos gods' own direct creations.
• The Stolen: Former good demigods, corrupted/abducted into switching sides.
• Anomaly-born: Twisted beings born of cosmic anomalies (not technically demigods, but serving a similar function — the point where the chaos and cosmic layers intersect).

Demigods — Open Decisions

1. Each chief god's demigod count and sub-aspects — distribution by power. [LATER]
2. The post-chaos emissaries — who they were; which relics/temples/myths they left. [LATER — geography/cult round]
3. Notable stray/corrupted demigods — as campaign villains. [LATER]
4. Naming — demigods and important servitors. [LATER]

Pantheon — Open Decisions

1. Naming — chief gods, chaos gods, the pantheon as a whole. [LATER]
2. Demigods & servitors — structure and function fixed (see Demigods and Servitors). Remaining: per-god count/sub-aspect distribution, emissaries, naming.
3. God–race pairings — which races are patron-bound, which are free. [LATER — races round]
4. Spell locks — which spells are bound to which god. [LATER]

Main Timeline (The Ages)

Five ages, woven into a single flow: Creation → Rising Empires → Cataclysm (The Breaking) → War → The Present Age.

First Age — Creation

The good gods create the world, the races, and magic. All races are born with good alignment. The gods live with the races, teach them, then leave the world to them and withdraw. During the withdrawal, the outcast evil gods begin quietly seeping their evils into the order.

• Detail: [TO BE FILLED LATER]

Second Age — Rising Empires

The races unite; they pursue worldly and spiritual endeavors. Empires grow, and access to magic becomes institutionalized (the root of access inequality lies here). At first nothing seems wrong; but over time the embedded evil begins to influence the powerful and the institutions, using them for its own ends. Toward the age's end, one empire reaches the "Prime Seed" planted long before by evil — and triggers the Cataclysm.

• Principal rising empires: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• How corruption works: individuals and institutions corrupt; races do not fall wholesale.

Third Age — The Cataclysm (The Breaking)

The world's turning point. The empire that reaches the "Prime Seed" triggers two things at once:

1. The release of unbound/raw power — a magical blast shatters geography and opens anomalies.
2. An interdimensional rift — cosmic entities (who found their way in through the Cataclysm) and malevolent races pour into the world.

The evil gods, empowered by these two events, then imprison a good god — the god of Protection/Order. Consequences:

• The world's shield weakens: With the Protection god imprisoned, the divine defense against anomalies and outside forces collapses; anomalies keep spreading.
• Access to important spells becomes much harder: High spells bound to the domain of protection/order are locked away with the god.
• The cosmic entities fatten: Feeding on the anomalies spread by the evil gods, they grow — becoming nearly as strong as the good/evil gods.
• The evil gods reach parity with the good: Before the Cataclysm they were weak, feeding off the cosmic void; after the devastation their power becomes equal to the good gods.
• The empire that started the devastation collapses, and its place becomes an anomaly/cursed region — the geographic heart of evil.

This age is the moment evil stands strongest.

• The nature of the Prime Seed: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• First effects on the other races: [TO BE FILLED LATER]

Fourth Age — War

After the Cataclysm, a war lasting long years begins between good and evil. All the gains of the age of ascent melt away; societies regress, empires fall. Corrupted individuals become fallen and join enemy ranks — thus evil can now emerge from every race.

• The war's course, fronts, turning points: [LATER — to be detailed]

Fifth Age — The Present

The era in which political balances have settled and chaos has partly returned to order, but peace still does not reign. The balance of power is fragmented — it varies by region, with no unified front (the regional spread of anomalies makes this natural). Magic is not at its old splendor: low magic works, high magic is sought, the veins are corrupted.

• Current great powers / factions: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• Active conflict & alliance lines: [TO BE FILLED LATER]
• The campaign's starting point: [LATER]

The Prime Seed — Core of the Cataclysm

The keystone of the cosmology. The thing the evil gods nurtured across the ages, which triggered the Cataclysm. The chain below is chronological and has passed a full consistency check.

The Seed's Nature — Abstract Essence + Vessel

The Prime Seed is, at its deepest, an abstract idea (a principle of evil). Yet to penetrate the world it always needs a vessel: sometimes an item, sometimes a demigod/god behind the idea, sometimes a spell gone wrong.

In its manifestation in this world, the vessel is: a ritual awaiting completion, placed at the sacred Nexus where the leylines of the good gods intersect. In other words, evil turned the world's most sacred point into its own weapon.

• Its source is mixed: born of the union of multiple cosmic veins (unbound power + the will of the chaos gods + cosmic leakage).

The Ancient Poison — How It Was Planted

• At Creation: The leylines of the good gods intersect at one point; this becomes the sacred Nexus. Because of its sanctity, the god of Protection & Order is given wardenship over it.
• At the same time: The outcast chaos gods secretly poison the Nexus — leaving a dormant seed. What is ancient is not the ritual itself but this hidden poison; the ritual would merely awaken it.
• After the gods withdrew, the Protection god guards the Nexus from the spiritual realm but is unaware of the poison's existence.

Cultural Position — Forbidden and Sacred

For ages the Nexus was held a forbidden/sacred zone; common folk were kept away. This secrecy enabled two things:

• The poison slept undetected.
• Only those with power/access (the corrupted empire) could reach it — consistent with the "magic = privilege" principle.

Nourished Across the Ages — Mixed

The seed grew not by one path but through three channels:

• Ambition: Every wicked decision of the corrupted powerful fed it.
• Cult: Deliberate blood/sacrifice rites.
• Unwitting feeding: The empire's magical research funneled power into the seed without knowing what it did.

Throughout this process the chaos gods' infiltration corrupted the powerful and the institutions (individuals + institutions; races did not fall wholesale).

The Trigger — Lust for Conquest

An empire fell for the promise of limitless power. A corrupted race/individual who had somehow made contact with the chaos gods set out to awaken the dormant poison at the Nexus with a ritual. The motivation was conquest and lust for power — to seize the power the seed promised.

The Mechanics of the Cataclysm — A Chain

Once the seed was triggered, events unfolded in a chain:

1. Blast — raw power set loose.
2. Gate — an interdimensional rift; cosmic entities and malevolent races poured through.
3. Awakening — suppressed/dormant powers set free.
4. Corruption — the fabric of the world changed; the veins of magic corrupted at that very moment.

The Protection God's Tragedy — The Bond of Imprisonment

Though the Protection god's imprisonment seems a separate event from the seed, it is causally bound to it:

• The god guarded the Nexus from the spiritual realm but did not know it was tainted.
• At the moment of the blast the chaos gods deceived him: saying "we will handle this," they drew his attention to themselves and prevented him from intervening in the ritual below.
• Meanwhile the corrupted race completed the ritual and the seed detonated.
• The Protection god realized too late and could not arrive in time. As a last resort he tried to contain the blast; his power was exhausted, and he was sealed.
• Result: the world's divine shield collapsed, anomalies spread, and the high spells locked to this god became unreachable.

Design key: This is the emotional heart of the cosmology. The Protection god fell not through error, but because he was deceived and sacrificed himself. Rescuing him (breaking the seal) is one of the great tension axes of the present age.

After the Cataclysm — The Seed's Current State

The seed did its work as a trigger and, in that form, belongs to the past. But its remnants remain in the world:

• It transformed: The seed's essence is now the heart of the cursed region — it has become a new being/focus. This is where the empire that started the devastation collapsed.
• It shattered: The blast scattered its fragments across the world; they are still being sought (dangerous prizes for power-hungry factions).

Campaign tie: The real struggle is not to "replant" the seed but with its consequences: the spreading anomalies, the sealed Protection god, the tense cosmic–chaos partnership, and the threats formed by the scattered fragments and the Cursed Heart. The seed itself is in the past; its shadow shapes the present.

The Prime Seed — Open Decisions

1. The nature of the Cursed Heart — what exactly is the transformed seed now (a being, a focus)? [LATER — geography/enemy round]
2. The scattered fragments — how many, in whose hands, what do they do? [LATER]
3. The triggering empire & the corrupted race — who were they, their names, their fates? [LATER]
4. The condition for breaking the seal — how can the Protection god be rescued? [LATER — campaign design]

Races — Peoples and Political Actors

Racial diversity is not a static list but a historical process. As the ages advance, the world opens toward the full D&D 5e (2024) race roster. The names below reference 5e races; homebrew races may be added later for missing niches.

Core Principle — Diversity Spread Across the Ages

• First Age (Creation): The good gods create a few great civilization races with good alignment.
• Third–Fourth Ages (Cataclysm & War): With the chaos/cosmic incursion, the malevolent core races arrive in the world.
• Over time: These two origins mix/clash and give rise to hybrid and special lineages.
• By the present day: Every D&D 5e race finds a place in the world — each tied to a specific age and origin.

First Age — The Founding Races (Born Good at Creation)

The core great civilization races are few; they form the world's backbone. The other good races begin at the margins and spread over time.

Aasimar technically ties to the end of the First Age: a celestial lineage bound to the good gods afterward, close to the light/divine vein (see Hybrid & Special Lineages).

After the Cataclysm — The Malevolent Core Races

Peoples who came into the world with the chaos and cosmic incursion. In two clusters:

• Warband incursion races: Orc (in its raw/feral form), Goblin, Kobold — the frontline peoples of the chaos incursion.
• Monstrous peoples: Gnoll, hobgoblin, and similar more monstrous communities — deeper forms of evil.

Note: The "malevolent" birth of these races is not absolute. In later ages some (especially the Orc) can drift toward neutral/good — just as the fallen emerge from good races, redeemed emerge from evil-born ones. Detail: [LATER — enemy round]

Hybrid & Special Lineages — Born Over Time

Lineages born from the mixing of the two origins (good creation + malevolent/cosmic incursion). Each ties into the world through its origin:

God–Race Bond — Free vs. Patron-Bound

Mixed model:

• Patron-bound races: Races clearly paired with a chief god at Creation are loyal to that single god. Their cultural and religious life revolves around that domain.
• Free races: Races with no specific patron are polytheistic; they worship whichever gods they choose.
• Which races are patron-bound and which free: [LATER — in the naming/detail round]

Magical Aptitude — Mixed

The chance of producing innate spellcasters is distributed by a mixed logic:

• Some races have higher odds (ancient/magic-adjacent peoples produce innately talented individuals more often).
• Certain special bloodlines are magically inclined regardless of race (specific families/lineages).
• This aligns with the "magic = privilege" principle: innate talent is both rare and concentrated in certain lineages.
• Detailed distribution: [LATER]

Political Organization — Fragmented Successor States

In the age of ascent before the Cataclysm, the races had built great multi-racial empires. The Cataclysm shattered them. The present landscape is fragmented and layered:

• Successor states: The shrunken heirs of the old empires — some still multi-racial, some gathered around a single race.
• City-states: Independent urban centers charting their own course.
• Tribes & refuge communities: Peoples at the margins, nomadic or displaced.

Design key: "Race = state" does not hold. States formed by historical accident; some are race-centered, some mixed. This structure aligns with the fragmented balance of power and the regional alliance/enmity model.

Inter-Racial Relations — Regional

Current relations vary by region: old allies in one place, blood-feuding neighbors in another. After the Cataclysm trust is fragile, and the fear of the fallen (since evil can emerge from any race) feeds social suspicion.

Outcast Status & Bridge Positions — Varying Degrees

Some groups are socially outcast or stand as bridges between two worlds — but their degrees of exclusion are not equal:

• Anomaly-touched sub-lineages: Deemed "tainted" and shunned.
• Races with a fallen past: Viewed with suspicion for their ancestors' sins.
• Hybrids (Half-Elf/Half-Orc): Between two worlds, fully belonging to neither.
• Cosmic-blooded (Tiefling): Feared for their appearance.

Each group's degree and reason of exclusion differs; these will be tuned one by one [LATER — via Q&A].

Races — Open Decisions

1. God pairings for the core races — who is patron-bound, who is free. [LATER]
2. Evolution potential of the malevolent races — which can turn neutral/good. [LATER — enemy round]
3. Degrees of exclusion — the social position of each bridge/outcast group. [LATER]
4. Distribution of magical aptitude — which races/bloodlines are favored. [LATER]
5. Naming & homebrew races — for missing niches. [LATER]

Geography — The Structure of the World

Geography has two layers: the pre-Cataclysm realistic base (coherent climate, mountain/river/sea systems) and the post-Cataclysm warped overlay (scars, dead zones, shifted boundaries). Every important region has a "before/after" story. This section builds the macro skeleton; anomaly patterns, power centers, the habitat matrix, and sacred geography will be added in later rounds.

Map Philosophy — Mixed (Realistic Base + Mythic Scars)

• Base: Realistic geography — consistent climate belts, mountain ranges, river and sea systems.
• Scar: The Cataclysm wounded this base physically and mythically; certain regions became warped (inland seas, chasms, seasonless zones, dead lands).
• Result: a single current map, marked by the warped stains the Cataclysm left on it.

Macro Structure — A Whole Main Continent + Surrounding Lands

The landmasses were always separate; the Cataclysm did not physically create them, but it broke the relationships between them and wounded the main continent from within. The scale is continental (journeys take months). The Cataclysm's impact fades outward in waves from the Cursed Heart.

The Main Continent: The great landmass that, in the end, appears whole and single. But its interior was wounded by the Cataclysm — inland seas, chasms, rifts, and dead zones divide it from within (without fully shattering it). The Cursed Heart lies at the center of these wounds.

The Surrounding Lands (four lesser continents):

The Two Polar Regions: At the north and south extremes, unexplored polar lands. The edges of the known world; mystery and future exploration ground.

Design key: The "always separate lands + the Cataclysm broke the relationships" model explains why the world is fragmented and lacks a unified front. Since even the main continent's interior is divided by scars, establishing a single central authority is geographically difficult too. In climate/terrain the world is diverse and extreme — glacier, desert, forest, volcanic zones side by side (the habitat matrix will hook in here).

The Cursed Heart — Fixed Anchor (Within the Main Continent)

The single fixed point of the geography:

• Location: Inside the main continent, at the center of the wounded regions — the source of the shattering/scars.
• Before the Cataclysm: A sacred/forbidden mountain region. The Nexus, where the leylines of the good gods intersect, was hidden here; the folk were kept away. The old civilization rose around this sacred region — the most advanced empire was born here.
• After the Cataclysm: The empire collapsed; the region became the Cursed Heart. The blast tore its surroundings with inland seas and chasms — this is the source of the main continent's wounded fabric.

Alignment: The "sacred/forbidden mountain region" location is fully consistent with the Prime Seed section's decision that "the Nexus was held forbidden and guarded; none could approach."

Campaign Start

Which land the campaign begins on will be chosen when the world is complete. [LATER — once the setting is finished]

Geography — Later Rounds

1. Anomaly geography — the pattern of anomalies spread by the shield's collapse (outward from the Heart, or at weak points?). [LATER — Round 2]
2. Power centers — successor states, city-states, tribes; distribution across the lands. [LATER — Round 2]
3. Habitat × tier matrix — matching regions to threat levels with the 09* monster compendium. [LATER — Round 3]
4. Sacred/mythic geography — relic/temple/myth centers of the demigod emissaries, racial homelands. [LATER — Round 3]
5. Naming — the lands, the Cursed Heart, regions, the poles. [LATER]

Power and Society — Framework

The world's core tension: magic is a class line.

• Forms of government: do those with access to high magic rule? Theocracy, magocracy, noble houses? [LATER]
• The social position of innate spellcasters: protected, exploited, or hunted? [LATER]
• Forbidden magic and prosecution: The price paid by warlocks who bargain with cosmic entities. Who prosecutes them? [LATER]
• The fallen threat: Since evil can emerge from any race, how do trust/paranoia work in society? [LATER]

Open Design Decisions (To Be Settled Later)

Headings to be decided in the coming rounds:

1. Pantheon — structure and roles fixed (see Pantheon — Structure and Roles). Remaining: naming, demigods, god–race pairings, spell locks.
2. The Prime Seed — nature, planting, and Cataclysm chain fixed (see The Prime Seed — Core of the Cataclysm). Remaining: the Cursed Heart, scattered fragments, the triggering empire, the seal condition.
3. Races — structure, spread across the ages, and political model fixed (see Races — Peoples and Political Actors). Remaining: god pairings, degrees of exclusion, magical aptitude, naming.
4. Geography — macro skeleton fixed: whole main continent (wounded interior) + 4 lesser continents + 2 poles, the Cursed Heart's location (see Geography — The Structure of the World). Remaining: anomaly pattern, power centers, habitat matrix, sacred geography, naming.
5. Present-day balance of power — fragmented factions, regional conflicts, campaign start.
6. [MECHANICS] Corrupted vein punishment system — fail/critical fail penalties (to be developed by the user).

Attribution This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2 ("SRD 5.2") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.