Aar

(English isn´t my first language)     Aar is a world of many wonders. It features five continents, yet not all are known to mankind by now. Speaking of mankind, Aar host a broad variety of races, the first and most mysterious of them are the aetherials or "the aetherfolk", better known as gods. Nobody has ever seen them, but they keep haunting the other races with visions and dreams. Even though they are called gods, one shouldn´t think they are friendly beings. Oh, some of them are for sure, but where you find the brightest light, you´ll find th darkest shadows too, as the saying goes. When interacting with aetherials, everybody needs to be careful, you never know, what you might get. Long after the aetherials gave up their physical forms, the other races appeared.   The first of them were the Elves, the modern highelves claim to be direct decendants of the gods, constantly fighting with other elven tribes, who claim the same. The highelves are tall and slim, at first glance they mighht appear fragile, but that impression will fade soon. They are blessed - or cursed - with ethernal youth, so the uneducated might mistake one for a child - yet still they can be a thousand years old. Other elves share their blessing, but just as the land, they come in many forms. There are the woodelves from the deep and lush forests, the pale snowelves from the frozen mountaintops and some more that yet have to be discovered. Just as the elves appeared, bright, mighty and filled with pride, their dark siblings emerged from the shadows. The demons. They form the exact opposite of the elves. Where elves are distanced and most of the times keep their emotions hidden, the demons have driven hedonism to its fullest, where elves are about faith and honor, demons care about their own desires and goals. Considering their looks, they are quite similar from afar, yet nobody would take and elf for a demon or the other way round, when they are close.   When elves and demons were exploring Aar, they stumbled over other races. In the deep caverns they were faced by dwarfs, not much in hight but very broad shouldered. In the plains of Nandaahr they were driven out by Orcs and in some places they found fairys, but these seem to be keeping to themselves and just dissolve into air as soon as they are bothered by other folk.   Atlast, a millenia later, suddently humans showed up at Nandaahrs northern shore and spread quickly throughout the continent.   But where were we? Ah, yes, the continents. As you might remember, Aar has five of them, Nandaahr beeing the most northern one. Once, an unspeakable long time ago, Nandaahr colided with another landmass to its east, but this now can only be seen in the two "trenches" who seperate the part of the humans from the part of Nandaahr wich is ruled by the orcs. The second biggest continent is Andaahr. Andaahr is a little southeast of Nandaahr and starts a bit north of the equator and stretches far down south into the southern hemisphere. Thoose are the two continent mankind knows so far. The spread of mankind somehow stopped after reaching Andaahr. Expeditionships never returned, or if they returned, the crew has been driven mad and would squabble gibberish about monsters, strange lands and weird folk. But maybe these stories aren´t entirely made up? Who knows for sure?   The big continent in the west is the homeland of the demons. Whats known through myths is, that its highly volcanic and covered in dense misty rainforests packed with beasts and diseases, waiting for explorers to feast on their guts and bones in the wet parts, and scorching deserts in the arid parts, where coinsidence decides wheter one dies of thirst or is ripped to shreds by hungry behemoths, lurking beneath the sands.   But beside our humanoid races this world is home to a whole bestiary of fascinating, yet horryfiing creatures and beasts - to land, sea and sky.   The other continents have never seen an explorer from a culture with written history and are more or less completly uncharted - waiting for some daring soul to discover their secrets. For every new discovery there are ten more waiting.