Setting Primer

The Purpose of this primer is to explain and prepare players for the place that their characters will hold in the world and how they differ from “regular folk”. It will also include concepts that form an integral part of the setting, but don’t really fit into any other categories.
This article will most likely be updated on occasion.

0. How to use this Wiki:

The end Goal of this Wiki is to, once its finished, provide you players with the ability to look up anything about this setting which you could possibly want to know, except for things that are in-universe secrets of course.
This Wiki has 4 major sections: Character Options, which includes special backgrounds, setting-specific spells that can be found in the world (Ancient and Blood Magic are not available at character creation unless otherwise noted), and all information for the Strains. Geography contains 2 tabs, Regions of the world, which has articles on the specific regions, and Landmarks, which has a usually small article on every single named landmark on the map. The Society section contains the two major tabs of Faith and Nations/Polities, i don't think i need to explain their contents. FInally there is the Flora and Fauna tab, this one is pretty minor as of now, but will contain the statblocks for setting-specific mounts, plants and materials, for the people that are interested in that.
FInally there is a small list of ungrouped articles, of which this is also one. These ungrouped articles provide general overarching information about the setting such as Economy & Prices, The Thaamir Calendar, The Concept of Magic, The Otherworld and more.
As a rule of thumb, if a thing has a name on a map it probably has its own article, even if there might not be much written there. The exception here are cities, which only have their own article if they are noteworthy enough, and are not already part of a greater nation or region. Currently it is a bit hard to tell which is which because i have yet to make a map with the nations all drawn in, but that will follow soon after I fully finish the actual map.
If a city has no own article, the information about it can either be found in the Major Settlements section of whichever nation it is a part of, or if it is not part of a major nation, it can be found in the Polities section of the region it is a part of.
Now, onto actual Setting Stuff:

1. What makes a player character special?

In this world, there are basically 2 types of people: normal people and “special people”. These special people physically operate mostly like normal D&D characters would, they can suffer extreme damage, be poisoned, burned, frozen, electrocuted and be brought to the brink of death repeatedly in a span of minutes, only to recover and act like nothing happened just hours later, and even if brought to the brink of death and being left for dead, they might be fine and walking around just like nothing happened just hours later, without the need for medical attention or anything like that.
That doesn’t mean they are immortal, stab them enough, drown them, burn them to ash and even they will perish eventually, but you better make sure of it. And even then, they can be easily resurrected with relatively minor consequences for their physical and mental wellbeing, nothing compared to the things that regular folk would have to endure, if it even works for them to begin with, which is anything but guaranteed.
Different cultures and religions view these people in different lights and call them by different names. As a general trend, people seem to view them as individuals with a connection to great ancestors, heroes of old or even the divine, as heroes with a great destiny or even demigods. They are however also feared and envied by many as individuals capable of incredible violence and destruction.
In The Draconid Empire for one they are referred to as Hrushakal or “blessed warriors”, entities that hold blood of incredible potency and are worthy of fear and respect. In Zagesi, on the other hand they are often referred to as Ashaadid, or “great ones”, and are believed to have a much closer connection to The Immortals and Asha (See: The Ur-Ashaar ) than your average guy.
While no one can know for sure, it is generally believed that around 1 in every 500 people is born as one of these special individuals, though their true nature usually doesn’t become apparent until years after they are born, if they even make it that far. After all, even if they might be better at recovering from disease and wounds, it doesn’t exactly take much to kill a newborn or toddler.
To put into perspective what a sweet deal being one of those special people really is, let's look at all the stuff that “normal people” have to deal with:

1.1 The Stuff that normal People have to deal with:

Normal people are exactly that, normal people like you and me. When we get seriously hurt we can’t just sweat it off in a matter of hours. Recovery can take weeks and even then, perfect recovery is not a guarantee. Even with minor wounds though there’s a risk though, while a small cut might not inconvenience you much, leave it unattended and it might get infected, and that's where the real fun begins.
This doesn’t mean that regular people aren’t capable of great things, but we are quite fragile all things concerned, at least when faced with the stuff a D&D character has to deal with on a regular basis.

Slow recovery:

Regular people recover at a much slower rate from both injury and disease.

For a short rest they require the same amount of time it would take a PC to take a long rest, requiring a full night's rest, food, water and at least rudimentary treatment for serious injuries they might have sustained. At the end of it they regain 1HP if they are below half HP, or an amount of HP equal to twice their con modifier (minimum of 2) if they are at or above half HP.

For a long rest, they require a full week's worth of rest without much strenuous physical activity, including food, water, treatment and all that jazz. They might still do work, recovery training or any of the other things that would be required on a day to day basis, so long as they don’t sustain real harm from these activities and are in a physical state suitable to do so.

The Dangers of Healing Magic:

So if it takes so long for regular people to recover, why not just use healing Magic? Well... the bodies of regular folk really aren’t made to handle that kind of rapid regeneration. You with your godly genes might be fine, but for them there’s a real risk their body might tear itself apart trying to fix itself.

When a regular person becomes the target of a healing spell or similar supernatural ability (Think Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration as well as stuff like The Paladins Lay on Hands or The Mercy Monk's Hand of Healing), they have to succeed on a DC11 Constitution saving throw. If they fail, they don’t get healed and don’t get any of the spells benefits, instead taking necrotic damage equal to the healing they would have received. Regardless of the result, they also immediately suffer 1 level of exhaustion unless the damage kills them, in which case they are dead and cannot get more exhausted.

Furthermore, the issue of Overhealing can be a real concern for regular people receiving supernatural healing. For every point of healing they receive which goes over their maximum HP, they take 1 point of necrotic damage instead.

The Dangers of Resurrection:

While it isn’t impossible to resurrect regular people, there are a series of significant issues to consider:

First of all, there is about a 50% chance that the spell won’t work to begin with.

Second, if the spell does succeed, they have to roll both a DC 15 Wisdom Save. If they fail, they are afflicted by a form of long-term madness. If they fail by 5 or more they are instead afflicted by a form of indefinite madness. If they fail by 10 or more, their mind is broken and all their mental ability scores are permanently set to 1.

Third, presuming the resurrection was a success, the person will immediately be set to 9 levels of exhaustion.

The Genetic Lottery:

I mean you already know this one. Some people are just born with better genes than others, that’s just a sad reality of life.

Regular people are born with 1d6-1 Strain Points.

2. Miscellaneous Information:

What do HP represent?:

HP or Hit Points are an abstract representation of a character's general toughness and ability to avoid serious injury and is generally divided into three parts:

The First Half (50% rounded up) of your HP is essentially your capacity to dodge, block or deflect attacks effectively. It is not until this pool of HP runs out that you start sustaining real damage, and before then you are essentially getting tired from blocking and dodging, and maybe sustaining some minor bruising. Temporary HP effectively are an extension of this part of your HP, they give you a bit more fuel in the tank, but don’t heal any of your injuries.

The second Part (25% rounded up) of your HP is where you start sustaining real battle damage. While you are still dodging, blocking and all that Jazz, you have been worn down enough to where attacks can slip past your defenses and cause actual damage, albeit minor.

The third Part (25% to 0) of your HP is where you start sustaining serious injuries. This is where you get stabbed through the abdomen, break your bones and get your skin melted off.

The Purpose of doing HP like this is twofold:
First of all it gives the world a bit more of a grounded feeling. I like Monster Hunter just as much as the next guy, but I'm always a bit taken out of the moment in D&D when it seems that most living creatures seem to be capable of just eating damage that would kill a regular person 5 times over. I know a Grizzly is stronger and tougher than a Human, but it's not like it can take 10 stabs to the heart where Bill from accounting could only take 1. This way the “Actual” HP are much more in line with one another, while still making creatures with big HP pools formidable enemies.
Second and this is kinda subjective but this is my game so it be like that: I feel like this makes the PCs seem a lot cooler. They aren’t just getting stronger and harder to kill because they are supernaturally though, even though they still are of course, but because they are better combatants, they can read their opponents better, they can dodge and deflect better and that’s the main differentiator.
For the record: Average commoner HP is 8 because their Hit Dice is a d8 and i max the first Hit die on every stat block.

Scale of Power and Character levels:

I feel like I've made one of these for every game I have ever DMed for, so I might as well make one for this game as well.
Class levels are just one measure of power, but they are a good approximation for a general tier system. I will state that having a Class doesn’t necessarily mean that one is automatically special, as regular people can also train, gain character levels and become stronger. For them it is just significantly more dangerous because they can’t be easily healed, and they require significantly more time to recover their resources, making it all the more impressive when they DO reach such heights.