A Loli's ENF Adventure/The World of Luminia

Luminia, The Land of Light

Overview

Luminia, meaning the Land of Light in the oldest remaining spoken tongues, is the center stage of a fantastical universe where monsters lurk in the dark, magic dances off your fingertips, and gods look down upon the world from above. A vast land, Luminia stretches far and wide in every direction, from the insurmountable mountain ranges of the east, to the endless frozen wastes of the north, to the vast ocean waters of the south and west, with plains, forests, valleys, deserts, and more in between.

Three mighty rivers span the lands, two, the Florins and Langis, beginning in the frozen Northern Wastes and emptying into the western and southwestern coasts respectively, while the third, the Priah, begins in the Eastern Ranges and merges into the Langis later on. To the southeast lies the Internal Sea, a massive landlocked lake fed by a series of small rivers from the Eastern Ranges that's connected to the ocean via a thin river that was turned into a busy canal several centuries ago by an army of Dwarves over the course of a generation. The largest, most populated cities lie upon either these waterways or along the coasts.

Pantheon

Many Gods and Goddesses preside over Luminia, chiefest among them being Luminae, the Goddess of Light, the Pathfinder, accredited with discovering the uninhabited world by shining her light upon it and for whom the land was named after. Other deities watch over the world, governing aspects such as Fate, Luck, Animals, Plants, Health, Commerce, Love and War, and more. The gods are born sporadically from the Aether fully formed, so the visage and mentality they get is the visage and mentality they're stuck with.

The only god equal to Luminae in status is Mortuus, the God of Mortals, mortals being an ancient word for Children of Mortuus as it's from Mortuus that all souls are created. Loving his children yet unable to help them all, Mortuus created a race of beings greater than mortals but below the gods in order to guide and protect the mortals in both life and death. This race, whose name is long forgotten, would later split off into two races, the angels and the demons, thus granting Mortuus his other titles: The Father of Angels and The Father of Demons.

The original race was created to help the mortals, but a disagreement on how to do so split them down the middle and led them to change their appearance to reflect their viewpoints. The side that would later become the Angels believe they should protect the mortals, be their silent guardians who aid them in times of need, while the side that would become the Demons believe they should challenge the mortals, throw difficulties their way so they might grow and overcome them. Unable to find compromise, the two sides eventually came to blows and fought on and off for millennia, and only recently stopped with the "birth" of Aria and Tamara, the firstborn child-like angel and demon since the fighting began.

However, these aren't the only inhabitants of the greater cosmos. Long, long ago, there were another kind of being far more ancient than the gods of today, and far more alien in concept than what mortals could possibly conceive, known only as the Forgotten Ones. These beings fought in a violent war with another, even more horrific race at the dawn of time, their clash reshaping the cosmos into its current shape throughout the universe. The Forgotten Ones eventually slew their enemies so completely not even their names remained, and thus the tale of them only refers to them as the Nameless Ones.

Yet the war took a heavy toll on the few remaining survivors. Fading in power and prominence they took their servants, the Gods and Goddesses of today, and set them free upon the universe. Now nothing more than a shadow of their former glory, the Forgotten Ones are content to stay in the background and observe the universe as the Pantheon governs it.

Races

Civilized Races

Humans

By far one of, if not the most, widespread of all the races, humans live all throughout the lands of Luminia and it is rare to find some form of settlement that doesn't have a few humans poking about it. Whilst they have the shortest lifespan of all races and similarly lack any defining physical attributes, humans make up for it through a combination of industrial might and sheer numbers. Indeed, whenever a problem arises that seems insurmountable, you can always rely on a human to not only devise a solution but also gather the numbers necessary to get their project underway and accomplished in no time at all.

As a result of their unparalleled might when working together, humans have established cities and nations across Luminia, both through conquest as well as diplomacy. While they possess a rather bloody past in regard to interracial relations, human nations nowadays live in peace with the other civilized races and any conflicts that arise is instead between other human kingdoms. Humans have close relations with dwarves and wood elves in particular and often have to serve as the intermediary when have disagreements crop up between the two.

Dwarves

Small in stature but sturdy in build, dwarves are most well known for three things: mining, smithing, and drinking. This reputation is quite well earned as dwarves have always preferred living underground, which led them to mine out mountains to build their subterranean cities, which had the side effect of amassing vast quantities of ores and gems, which naturally led to the smithing and processing of said resources, which then leads to having a good drink after a hard days work. Rinse and repeat for generations of a race that lives for upwards of two centuries and you get the master miners, smiths, and brewers that are the dwarves.

As stated dwarves prefer to live in massive underground cities carved from mine shafts, so most of the "city" is a massive labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels that only resident dwarves can navigate, but there's normally plenty of signs and a large central chamber as the "town square" to aid visitors. These mountain homes also have the side benefit of becoming impenetrable strongholds in times of conflict, not that any visitor would know it as dwarves are incredibly hospitable, pulling out all the stops for their guests.

Dwarves have long been close to humans, never once has there been a sizable human-dwarf conflict, but have always butted head with wood elves, mostly over philosophical differences. Despite this, they have good relations with the wood elves' cousins, the dark elves, a fellow subterranean people.

Wood Elves

Unlike the more industrious humans and dwarves, wood elves are a much quieter race, to put it simply. They aren't as widespread and ambitious as humans and don't toil on their craft ceaselessly like dwarves, but they make up for it by being what's best described as the most "attuned" of the races. They have an intuitive grasp of the world around them; they can sense a disturbance miles away by the way the forest feels, can calm wild animals and get them to do their bidding, and know exactly where to go to forage or hunt for food. That isn't to say they're weakling nature lovers, as they live for over half a millennia on average and spend their whole lives practicing the art of archery.

While wood elves tend to be the most common race among primarily human settlements across Luminia, their own major cities a few and far between because, as one might guess from their name, they're deep within large, untouched woodlands. As they are more in touch with nature wood elf cities, and even houses in small human-founded towns, look more like a cluster of small buildings built in the middle of the forest as unlike humans, wood elves avoid felling more trees than they absolutely must and build around nature, rather than on top of it.

Wood Elves are very close with their "cousins," the dark elves, often acting as a go between for them and other races and every wood elven city has at least one entry point to their underground cities. They get along quite easily with humans, but struggle greatly with dwarves, whom to them are very "out of tune" with the world.

Dark Elves

Quiet and reclusive, the dark elves are a highly withdrawn race. Gifted with the ability to see in pitch black conditions the dark elves live deep underground within vast caverns spacious enough to build entire cities in without reaching the cave ceilings. Because of their xenophobia not much is known about dark elven culture outside of what the wood elves will share, but they do possess a similar level of "attunement" similar to their above ground "cousins" by way of reading water and taming underground fauna, and are highly lucrative trade partners with elaborate jewellery and luxurious silken garments being their primary exports.

Part of the reason for their seclusion is their rocky history with other races. During times of conflict dark elves mercenaries served as valuable spies and assassins with their night vision, dark purple skin tones, and natural talents for stealth and agility making them remarkably effective at their tasks. However because these ruthless mercenaries were the primary way other races interacted with dark elves they gained a bad reputation, one that took nearly a generation, over half a millennia like their cousins, to shake off and earn the trust of other races, humans in particular, although remnants of the stigma still follow them to this day.

Aside from naturally close relations with wood elves, dark elves get along remarkably well with dwarves, as being a fellow subterranean people the dark elves will trade ores they unearth for uncut dwarven gemstones. They also have a slight kinship with orcs and goblins as fellow races with a bad reputation they've had to fight against.

Orcs

Tall, strong, green, and tusks protruding from their lower jaw, orcs have a way of making other races nervous regardless of intentions. Orcs, like wood elves, are wide spread in the sense that they're integrated into many human cities and towns across Luminia, but unlike other races they are the only ones to have a sizable kingdom. The Northeastern Steppes and the surrounding valleys and foothills are the ancestral homeland of the orcs and where their large cities reside, with orc caravans flowing in and out of this region enabling trade between human nations and the orcish kingdom of Gohkresh.

While they only live slightly longer than humans orcs have carved out a place in the world due to their tremendous strength and endurance, with male orcs able to do the physical labor of three human men in half the time. During large scale conflicts orc men were paid quite handsomely to act as shock troops as even a handful of orcs can change the tide of battle. This legacy, along with their intimidating appearance, have given orcs a reputation as blood-thirsty brutes, but thankfully those who spend any significant amount of time with orcs will find them to actually be quite peaceful and levelheaded, if a bit stubborn at times.

Orcs get along with other races quite well as they're always willing to provide extra strength where needed. Due to their unsavory reputations orcs tend to have a sense of kinship with dark elves and goblins, and are usually able to get the two rather uncooperative races to work with others.

Goblins

With dark green skin, large, triangular ears, and an surprisingly long lifespan, almost that of a dwarf, goblins definitely stand out among the other races. Goblins are on average the size of a ten year old human child, while goblin children are born incredibly small, so small an orc could hold a new born in one hand, but grow very quickly and within a year they're just a head smaller than their parents, even if they still possess the mind of a toddler. Lacking any large settlements of their own, all goblins are fully integrated into human large cities, particularly those along the south and southeastern coasts, but there's a rumor that the ruins of a large city that used to belong to goblins only lies at the bottom of the Internal Sea.

With their tiny stature and enhanced hearing granted to them by their large ears, most goblins willingly make their homes and businesses in the dark drainage systems of large human cities, referred to locally as Undercities. Whilst open to all races, mainly goblins reside in the Undercity, and because it's out of the eyes of the city above it's also where many shady dealings and transactions take place. This, combined with a long history of being very capable saboteurs and thieves for hire thanks to their small builds and good hearing, cause many to be untrustworthy of goblins. Despite that goblins for the most part are accepted as ordinary citizen by most, just as good or bad as any human.

Unlike other races goblins aren't exceptionally close with any other race. There's a sense of mutual respect between them and humans as they're able to live in close proximity to one another with no serious issues, and they share a kinship with dark elves and orcs over their stigmas, but otherwise keep to themselves.