"Be you crafty,
strong and bold!
Those with weapons
of Darkness we fight,
already our hates press them hard."

-Alberich
Wagner, Gotterdamerung, II, I

KRAE - TALES OF THE KORTHIAN HOLD is set in an ancient mythical world, replete with grim peril and wondrous treasures. It is a world dominated by the emerging society of Man and the long reticent Elder Races. Scattered across the continent, like so many hidden gems, are relics and ruins of a past societies, wars, and glories.

Man has come to call this world The One Land, a name that has its origins in the philosophy that society is set around their coastal realm to the south: the world not unlike a large isl and. The Dwarves, with their roots solidified in the mountain realms of the world have come to call the land Daergoss, which roughly translates to "the self which upholds the mountains." In their forest kingdoms the Elves, who first developed civilization, called their world Arindia. It translates to "trees beneath the deep," and really has no bearing on the lands outside the forests. The Elves consider the forest realms of the land to be the only real world, and anything outside of their realms is widely considered inhospitable, akin to a kind of purgatory.

In this world lay scattered the communities of the Edler Races. The Dwarves remain hidden in their mountain holds in the Korthian Valley and ruined kingdoms to the north. These strong holds, for the most part, were created a thousand years prior, as stations to the old Dwarf Kingdoms. The great mountain of Gal'Jertam be yond the Northern Ridge, with it's carved faces looking to each distant end of the compass, is a weary reminder of the power of ancient gods.