Jaern

A land of fantasy, sword, and sorcery, the planet of Jaern is the main setting of PFC. About 90% of Jaern's surface is water, with archipelagos and small landmasses dotting the world. Although planar-traveling adventurers have brought technology and knowledge from all sorts of ages, the main technology level of Jaern is similar to Earth's Age of Exploration (1500-1600). A single pantheon exists on Jaern, made up of fourteen gods.

Welcome to the world of Jaern! The historians of this little blue orb seem to insist on centering the entire cosmos around it. Little do they know that the Center of the Universe is in fact on a different plane entirely, on another little blue orb, in a place they call “Oklahoma.” - An excerpt from Mimir's Grand Enchiridion

See the timeline of Jaernian history here: Jaernian Historical Timeline

This section focuses on Jaern’s place within its (current) solar system, and its history within the cosmos. It details other bodies within this solar system, some of which are home to extraterrestrial life, and could make for interesting backstories and campaigns. While this chapter gives some general remarks about the orbits, rotations, and tilts of various astronomical bodies, more detailed measurements for the scientifically curious are provided in Astronomy.

Jaern is a water world - its surface is mostly water, with islands scattered about. These islands are where the vast majority of Jaernians live, with the largest landmass being Kratal. Many lizard populations live and swim beneath the waves, and the elusive Onivero do the same - but when it comes to adventuring and most activity on Jaern, the islands are where to go.

(AHN-rah) Yellow in color, Onra is a main-sequence star that is about 950,000 miles in diameter. The star has been very stable for as long as the recorded written history of Torandor, and the best magicians and scientists of Jaern do not predict this changing in the foreseeable future. A slow, 23-year cycle peaks in periods of high solar winds and flares. These rarely affect the surface of any planets with protective magnetic fields. This results in a luminous aurora on Jaern that can be seen even in the day.

The Onra system is quite large, totaling seven planets. From closest to Onra to furthest away, these include Hydor, planet of lava; Bastrador, an arid desert world; Jaern itself; Kleemudor, an icy world inhabited by a unique race of lizards; Lassidor, a binary “planet” made up of two orbiting moons; Peridor, a greenish gas giant around which orbits the moon of Chysyl, ancestral home of the Avians; and Icador, an unknown and icy world. The system also has two asteroid belts: one composed of Torandor's shattered remains, and one composed of dust and ice named Sahndi.

The vast seas and bustling islands of Jaern are split into three general regions, broadly defined by climate and ocean currents. Seafarers refer to these collectively as the Oceanaj. The Oceanaj of Jaern are the northerly Azurian Seas, the equatorial Sunovarm, and the southerly Malhelakvo.

Northernmost of Jaern's Oceanaj, the Azurian is densely populated, containing some of Jaern's most major population centers. It is known for freezing over during the winter months, and boasts a high population of humans - who moved northwards after landing on the planet from Torandor.

The Rhine Archipelago: Located in a northerly section of Jaern, the Rhine is an archipelago filled with seafaring adventure. It is home to one of the most major powers on Jaern, the grand island and metropolis of Centralia.

Lojem Region: One of the longest-settled and the largest landmass of Jaern, located in a more temperate area of the world. The history of Lojem is as storied as Jaern itself. Major cities within Lojem include Rougtero and the adventurers' city of Midnight's Rest.

Frøsland: An island far, far to the north on Jaern, even intersecting part of the northern polar cap. The land is largely desolate, with less than two percent of it being suitable for agrarian needs during the end of spring and the summer months. The government of Frøsland is loose and uncoordinated, only coming together once to face a great threat. Each city instead, is left to rule itself under the leadership of a Jarl. Jarls come and go based on tradition set in each city, which can vary.

Named “sun's warmth” in Paroli, this region lives up to its name: tropical and balmy year-round, Sunovarm is where many of Jaern's crops are grown. The warm, shallow seas are filled with coral reefs, schools of fish, semi-aquatic lizard settlements, and drifting Onivero villages. After landing on Jaern, most of the elves and dwarves elected to stay in the Sunovarm instead of moving towards the poles.

Ageron: One of the larger contiguous landmasses of Jaern, the land of Ageron is fairly new - having been created by the joint efforts of earth mages. It is located in Jaern's southern hemisphere, and maintains a mostly subtropical climate. Many adventurers have taken up residence in Ageron, particularly in the psions' city of Uzumi and the necromancers' city of Toth.

Geleia: Perhaps the oldest settled landmass of Jaern, and the ancestral homeland of Jaernian elves. Geleia is a mostly agricultural and rural place, split into three provincial Realms: The Kingdom, Southam, and Liston. [WIP]

The Great Rice Patty (GRP): An expansive shallow area of Jaernian sea, adjacent to Geleia, where much of Jaern's staple crops are farmed. Much of this land is shared between dominion of Centralia, Keer'Levex, Geleia, and certain powerful adventurers.

Kratal: Located on the other side of the globe from the rest of civilization, Kratal is an isolationist land populated mainly by dwarves. Travel in and out of Kratal must be facilitated by portals, usually those accessible through the Centralia Mages' Guild's Alpha Site.

Keer'Levex: An island originally on Torandor that was transported to Jaern's equatorial seas by devotees of the dragons. Remains the center of Jaernian dragon worship to this day. Surrounded by a magic barrier that keeps invaders out, but allows merchants and peaceful visitors to come and go freely.

Paroli for “dark seas”, the southern oceans of Jaern are filled with mist and mystery. No major settlements from Torandor settlers have been established here, and few (if any) lizard civilizations have reached out. The Malhelakvo seems to have fewer large islands than the northern half of the planet, as explorers report nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see. Presumably, this region also freezes over during the cold months of the year.

Certain departments within the governance of Centralia City, Vesuna, and Geleia have been hiring adventurers to set off into the Malhelakvo in search of land - who knows what one could find out there?

Alwadiha: [WIP]

Between the major settlements and beyond the sphere of civilization's influence are countless more archipelagos and islands. These are free reign for the enterprising GM; go forth and forge something new!

Jaern currently orbits the star Onra, but it is not native to the Onra System. Originally, the planet Jaern orbited a binary star system composed of a red supergiant and a blue main-sequence star named Bluto and Rebyc, respectively. This binary pair system was called the Athor system, and the stars Bluto and Rebyc appeared to outside observers as a single star. One of the native people of Jaern, the Onivero, had incredibly developed psionic powers, and were able to predict that the red supergiant Bluto was about to explode in a supernova. In a daring plan, the Onivero collectively harmonized their psionic magic across the planet to position Jaern in the blast shadow of the blue main-sequence star Rebyc, and create a psionic shield around the entire planet.

Through the help of some wayward time-traveling humans, Jaern was successfully protected by the shield, but was sling-shot out of the Athor system, and hurled through interstellar space as a rogue planet. The native people of Jaern went into a cryo-hibernation as their oceans froze over, with some lizards living deep beneath the waters subsisting on geothermal warmth to survive.

Jaern spent about nine million years traveling across 23 lightyears of empty space before it ended up drifting into the Onra System. Entering the system triggered a held psionic ability and reactivated the planet-wide shield, as well as charting a course towards the star’s habitable zone. Unfortunately, the Onivero did not anticipate that Jaern’s new home would already be occupied by another planet with developed life.

Within Onra’s habitable zone, the planet Torandor was home to the many races we categorize as humanoids and orcish, including Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblinoids, and more. Jaern’s entry into the Onra System was seen as an apocalyptic calamity that spurred the people of Torandor to act, and a great human leader known as the Chaos Lord reconfigured a weapon of mass destruction into a city-sized ark known as the Kaaren of Destruction, in order to assure the survival of many thousands of people. Jaern collided into Torandor’s moon, Tysyl, destroying it and sending Torandor into a spiraling orbit into the star Onra, where gravitational tidal forces tore it apart and turned it into an elliptical asteroid belt. Jaern then took Torandor’s place within the Onra system, albeit orbiting the star in a “backwards” orbit compared to the other astronomical bodies.

The Ark landed on Jaern, and the Torandoran refugees founded the Empire of the Veil on Jaern. The next few thousand years have been spent rebuilding what has been lost, and the Jaernian and Torandoran peoples became the progenitors of the current population.