Etharis

“Only a few warriors remain. Defenders of humanity against the horrors of the dark. Their numbers dwindle with every new moon. You see, this world belongs to the darkness, and darkness will not give it up easily.”   FROM ITS DEEP AND FORBIDDING FORESTS, where horrible beasts lurk, to the hulking and impenetrable mountains ranges where lost legacies lie, the landscape of Etharis is formidable. However, the true monsters of this land can be found in the degenerating cities of old, where humanity clings to survival. The world of Etharis is the official world for the Grim Hollow setting. Here, players will find a few familiar and many unique tropes of the fantasy genre. Before embarking in this unforgiving land, it is important to establish several defining features of Etharis and the Grim Hollow setting.   Darkness and Obscurity Large swaths of Etharis are shrouded in darkness, supernatural and otherwise. In the farthest north the sun is hidden half the year in the natural progression of seasons. It’s no surprise, either, that the deep halls of the dwarves are plunged in darkness. But the darkness shrouding the land of Ostoya is more sinister and magical in origin, and in the forests of the Charneault Kingdom, the dense mist that covers the land is the work of benign spirits—or at least spirits that bend to the will of mortals, for good and evil. The people of all these lands have adapted to a hostile environment. Punishing storms are frequent across the land, foreshadowed by howling winds and then drenching rain. Where the sun never dries the ground, mud is a constant fact of life. The crops that grow are strange and bitter. For most people, there is no safety outside the radius of a torch’s glow.