Setting provided by teh Eronarn. Low-powered world, where mages find it very difficult to draw on the power of magic, and multiple mages in the same area increase the difficulty exponentially (in practical terms- hurting someone about as much as an arrow would fatigue your average mage, and doing it twice would exauhst them. Magic isn't to be used lightly.) Steampunk tech level.
In general (see below for a much longer and intracit explaination of the setting) there are 4 races, the humans (balanced, adaptable,) elves/craftsmen (dedicated with sleeker, slightly more advanced tech), the lizardmen (strong, warlike, communist and with slightly less tech than humans), and the Fishmen (Same tech as humans, society concentrates more on intrapersonal relationships, kindness, helping your fellow being etc. Kinda like communism, but it isn't government sponsored- its all volentary.)
All of these races are stuck in an immense underground complex of caves and caverns, which has been formed into one huge city. After a huge cataclysm, there was no desireable land on the surface, and the only people who survived were those who fled underground. People eat fungus, use luminous underground bugs to light their houses and roads, and use underground lakes to get fresh water and water to power their steam engines.
The situation is thus. There are 5 districts, one for each race and an extra. The extra lies in the middle of these other districts, in a lush and valuable area which grows fungus for the rest of the 4 districts, and is very small. This area is immensely important, as recent cave-ins have cut this particular cavern-complex off from heavy traffic, and food cannot be imported except in small doses.
Unfortunately, the yeilds of these crops has gone down to almost half in recent months. Each district leader is blaming one or more of the other districts, saying they're stealing food, getting food from an outside source, and/or sabotaging the crops to undermine their district. Tensions are mounting between the districts. Few investigations are actually being made into the why in the low crop yeilds. Each leader marshals his forces and gets ready to move into the neutral district, who's leaders flee and who's people arm themselves as best they can in order to stave off a potential attack, from any of the 4 districts. The Fish-people are wary of this, but say they are ready to defend the neutral district.
Teh Eronarn wrote:
Humans were created by Trickery, they were made adaptable so they could learn to do anything necessary to attack others.
The Sho'Kir (lizardmen) were made by War, so he would have strong fighters to defend his territories with.
The Craftsmen (proper name Monath-ilir, they're the 'space elves') were made by Purpose, so he would have someone always dedicated to accomplishing something.
The Skell (fish-people) were made by Love...Love tried to help all creations, give them something besides the negative parts of Trickery, War, and Purpose (which is rather dull)
Yet, in doing so, Love used up too much of its power, and had to choose between outward beauty and inward beauty for its creation. So, the Skell are eternally ugly, because they creator loved everything enough that it sacrificed for it.
Those are the four races. Go
here for the leaders of each district.