The Vineheart Realm

World Snapshot

Four continents and a scattering of islands, shaped by the Divine War and the Godwound it left behind. The modern age runs on trade routes, inter-continental politics, and keeping the Godwound contained.

Story Summary

It was the end of the realm as it was known. Divine War erupted when the Gods split into two factions, and their devastating conflict nearly shattered the world.

The war ended with the creation of The Godwound, a tear in reality so catastrophic that both divine armies had to stop fighting.

In that chaos, the Vineheart Party rose as mortal heroes, protecting settlements, reducing casualties, and preserving what civilization they could. Their legacy was so great that the age that followed became known as The Vineheart Realm, marking the Dawn of The New Age of mortal self-determination.

The Godwound’s power split the old landmass into distinct continents and island chains. The gods survived, but diminished, and the wound never closed.

Now the world survives in uneasy balance. Trade, naval power, and political rivalry shape daily life, while The Wounded and the Wounded Priestesses maintain containment rituals to keep the scar from swallowing the realm anew.

Current Era Summary

The present era is about recovery, naval power, and political tension. The four continents are culturally distinct and depend on each other through trade, while rival factions and guilds compete for influence over routes, resources, and magical sites. Most day-to-day conflict is mortal-driven, but a Godwound anomaly can turn a local problem into a regional crisis fast.

Core Lore

Foundational Texts

The Timelines

The whole history at a glance, from the first divine conflicts to the current campaigns, laid out as timelines.

Divine War

The war that broke the old world. The Gods split over the fate of mortals, and the fighting nearly took the realm with it.

Gods

The six gods, their domains, and which side of the war they picked. They survived, but diminished and distant.

The Godwound

The scar the war left on reality. It bleeds divine energy into the world as raging seas, monsters, and worse, and it hasn’t stopped.

The Godwounded

The neutral order that studies and contains the Godwound. They run the four temples, manage the Priestesses, and have become the authority on the wound itself.

Wounded Priestesses

The four women, one per continent, who carry the ritual knowledge and act as living conduits to the Godwound. The role usually costs them years of their own lives.

Godwound Containment

The Binding. Four rituals, one per continent, performed twice a year within the same 48 hours to keep the Godwound’s power at bay. When one fails, the whole continent finds out.

Continental Pillars

Arcanum

The merchant kingdom, ruled by house Arca, who went from peasant traders to royalty. Its ports feed the realm’s central trade routes.

Onyxia

The mining kingdom under house Shadowrest. Rich in minerals, bad at farming, and still trading for food since the famine that followed the war.

Memberia

The scholar kingdom. House Sapient requires mastering three schools of magic before anyone takes authority, and the continent keeps the realm’s deepest libraries.

Luminia

The kingdom under the eternal aurora. House Dawnweaver claims descent from a solar deity and rules by divine right, with the religious institutions backing them up.

Gazetteer

Every named settlement, island, and pole in one list, with status markers showing which places have notes and which are still just names on the map.

The Peoples

Peoples

How the realm’s peoples actually think. The Core Races share enough assumptions to mostly understand each other, while peoples like the Goblins (no concept of Property) and the Orcs (the Soul grows through Challenge) run on entirely different rules.

Legends

The Immortal Soul

An old trap dressed up as a divine gift. The legend promises true immortality, and everyone who believes it ends up as one of the Soul bound.

Rules Hub

Rules Philosophy

Rules use DnD 5e + 2024 as the baseline, with homebrew on top where it makes the world more reactive and the pacing better.

Character and Session Rules

Character Creation

Races, classes, backgrounds, equipment, and ability scores, plus the house tweaks. Start here when making a character, and remember everyone starts at level 4.

Gameplay Changes

The house rules. Rest works differently here, Inspiration is a point system that grows with level, and high-level characters pick up problems like Cosmic Awareness.

Levels Breakdown

What each level actually means in the world, from untrained folk at level 0 to demigods at 20, and how rare each tier of person really is.

World and Domain Systems

Bastions Changes

The house take on strongholds. A Bastion isn’t a passive reward, it takes resources and attention to keep running.

World Additions

The world-level systems gathered in one place: Special Sites, the guilds, and Reputation.

Faction Reputation

Standing with kingdoms, guilds, and nations on a -2 to +4 scale, with real perks and real consequences at every tier. Some factions are rivals, so gaining with one can cost you with another.

Special Sites

Recovery sites, wild magic zones, planar anomalies, and other places where the world doesn’t behave normally, all with mechanics attached.

Items

A running list of the magic items that turn up in the realm, and how they behave here rather than in the books.

Campaigns

Era Snapshot

Campaigns run in both the pre-war and post-war eras, so the world gets seen before and after the Godwound.

Campaign Index

Completed

Y-226 BGW: Goblins in the Misty Falls

Completed. A pre-war dungeon crawl through a goblin cave and the forgotten castle beneath it, which ended with the whole party killed by a mimic posing as a dragon egg.

Ongoing

Y569 AGW: Secrets of Villainy

Active. It starts at the inn in Mistlin, with rumors of a cave gone quiet, a dwarven excavation site, and a cloaked figure in the corner.

Planning

Y357 AGW: The Curse of Hope

Planned. False miracles are spreading through coastal settlements, and the fanatic hope they create is turning dangerous.

Y482 AGW: The Feud of Fallowfield

Planned/Prep. Fallowfield’s east and west halves have feuded for ten generations, and the party lands in the middle of it during a shared festival.

Explorer

The Realm of Vineheart