The Heroes of Midnight
The legendary heroes of past ages are all dead or corrupted by the Shadow. The lines of the kings are all but ended, and the strength of the elves and dwarves has waned. The only thing standing between the helpless masses of the people of Eredane and the overwhelming evils described above are a handful of desperate, determined heroes. The player characters are among these unbowed, unbroken few.
They may begin their epic journey as inexperienced and desperate fugitives, but they are destined to become Aryth’s last great champions. They are often unwelcome and unheralded, for danger often follows close behind them, and even the common folk they strive to protect may turn against them. This is an age of darkness and fear, and for many, all hope is lost. Despair turns to desperation, and most of the common people merely wish to save themselves and their families from the ravages of the Night Kings. To aid heroes blinded by glory is to call down the wrath of the Shadow, and few have any interest in dying for a lost cause.
Despite the odds stacked against them, the heroes of MIDNIGHT have a few simple but powerful edges over their foes. The races of the free peoples of Eredane have been tempered by years of want and war. They know their homelands like no others, dependent as they are on the terrain for survival and protection. They have greater natural affinities for certain skills, abilities, and weapons than races from other settings; whether it be the way of the horse or the way of the sword, the use of magic or the use of stealth, the races of Eredane excel at their chosen paths. Even the creatures bred by Izrador himself, the orcs, can be heroes in Midnight, and their strength and savagery when turned against their fellows is a dire thing indeed.
The Power of Aryth
Also, though few sword-arms join their cause and no gods answer their prayers, Aryth herself gives aid to those who fight Izrador. Her animals have united and grown wise, and begin to fight the invaders. The power nexuses that grant the ability to create magic items are hidden from the legates and their hunting beasts. Charms and herbal concoctions offer boons to the champions of good that cannot be detected like other magics, and can be made only by those in tune with the natural world and rhythms of life.
Aryth also reaches out to her defenders in another, less subtle way. With the power of heroic paths, characters in MIDNIGHT can call upon extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities previously known only among magical beasts and the like. The giantblooded tower above normal men and have the strength that goes along with it, while the feyblooded claim the grace and insight of the ethereal woodland spirits. The guardian and beast each bring the fight to the enemy, one with a will and determination as strong as any paladin, the other with as much ferocity and viciousness as a ravenous predator. The quickened and the shadow walker, the steelblooded and the warg, the ironborn and healer, each bear gifts that none can explain and none can take away, gifts that make great heroes even more powerful and draw those who would otherwise cower or flee into the fight. For when the burden of a heroic path is placed upon a person’s shoulders, her destiny is no longer her own. She has become a defender of Aryth and her free peoples, and has become an enemy of the forces of darkness.
In part because of these heroic paths, in part because of desperation, the heroes of MIDNIGHT come from all circumstances and walks of life. They are not adventurers, glory-seekers, treasure-hunters, and the like. They are normal men and women, even children, whose freedom and way of life have been taken from them. They have had to watch their people and families beaten, murdered, tortured, and starved. They have had their weapons, their lore, their homes and food, all taken away from them.
But there is one thing that the enemy cannot take from the heroes of Midnight. That thing is hope.
The Races of Eredane
Of the heroes who stand against the Shadow, the humans have both the greatest challenges and the easiest paths. All of the once-human lands are now conquered, the playgrounds of orcs, legates, and collaborators. The Dorns in the north have paid for their history of resistance with near-annihilation and total subjugation. The Sarcosans in the south can blame many of their own kin for their fall, as many of that once-proud race have become servants of Shadow. The true Erenlanders, that recently born race of men that comes from the mixed blood of Dorns and Sarcosans, lack the cultural traditions and pride of their parent races, which is both a benefit and a liability.
While such challenges have crushed and defeated the human masses, they have strengthened and tempered the heroes among them. Dorns have begun to look once more to their Great Houses and to revive their warrior traditions. Sarcosan freeriders raid Shadow forces from the vast plains of southern Erenland while their urban kin use intrigue and stealth to maintain a quiet but deadly insurgent movement in the cities. Because so little is thought or expected of the Erenlanders, they have few restrictions on the ways in which they fight the Shadow. Lacking taboos and operating beneath their conquerers’ notice, they hone the best strategies and skills of their two parent races and adapt to an existence few others could stand.
Whereas the humans have a choice between occupation and defiance, freedom or slavery, the elder races have none. The Night Kings hunt the elves and dwarves because they know it is in their natures to resist the Shadow until the last of them falls. The elves boast the last stronghold of magic and peace in their vast forest of Erethor, a thing that the dark god cannot abide. The dwarves are at the edge of extinction, besieged by orcs in their mountain holdfasts and cut off from their allies and kin.
The halflings are a decimated people, equally prized as slaves for the legates or as a food source for the orcs. Then there are the gnomes, among the most heroic of all, who suffer bitter resentment from the other races while doing all they can to save them. They have won a measure of peace and freedom by aiding the minions of the Shadow as traders, merchants, and transporters of goods, but they work in secret to sabotage the war efforts of the Night Kings.
