Setting Description
Borderlanders have often witnessed and chronicled a close relationship between the world’s magic and emotions. At a festival, where a large concentration of positive emotions occurred, new plants grew, with healing properties, people had uncommonly good luck, benevolent magical beings appeared more often.
This phenomenon led to much research, innocent, and otherwise. Similarly, it was found out that a large concentration of negative emotions made it more likely that a malicious magical being appears. Harmful spells were easier to cast. This soon came to be abused, with ruthless, unscrupulous wizards and witches kidnapping people, and then using the torment they inflicted on them to twist the magic around them. This made it easier to summon specific beings and bind them to the will of the tormentor.
It was, in fact, one of such people, Andrik, forevermore known as the Abomination, that perfected this process. Driven by curiousity at the start, he experimented with drawing out intense emotions from other people and seeing what effect it had on magic. Very soon, he found out that causing suffering came easily to him. Drawing out pain, fear, hatred, self-loathing, he learned how to twist the magic of the world around him. Magical beings corresponding to the twisted charge of the area’s magic started appearing. This led to more experiments, curiousity morphing into lust for knowledge and power. Soon, one victim wasn’t enough. Having them artfully arranged in geometric shapes, Andrik became a master of inflicting pain, both physical and emotional. And he mastered calling on specific creatures soon after. Each of those creatures he bound to his will.
Andrik’s ambitions grew, and so did his army of demons. Small groups of victims were not enough anymore. Entire villages started vanishing and ever worse monsters appeared. Soon, Andrik was a threat to entire countries.
There was a coalition of kings and nobles that rose against him, but with every battle, his army grew. Soon, he was winning battles by dread alone.
A witch named Morta was desperate to save what remained of her people. Seeing the doomed struggle of the armies opposing Andrik, she knew one thing. She needed fighters that feared nothing. No living being could stand against Andrik’s monstrous army. But the dead feared nothing. Seeking information where she could, she experimented with dead bodies, until she managed to raise them. Slowly, she gathered bodies for her own army. However, while she started led by noble aspirations, pragmatism and ruthlessness soon settled in her hardened heart. Her undead soon brought her more bodies of their own volition. She cared not where they came from, more bodies were needed for her ultimate goal of stopping Andrik. If some villages had to disappear, it was necessary.
Morta soon became infamous among her people, an extremist on her way to becoming a monster. Her terrifying army proved effective, however, and Andrik’s advance was halted for the first time.
In the end, three armies met for a climactic battle, Andrik and his demons, Morta and her accursed undead, and an army of the remaining kingdoms. The magic unleashed in that battle had no equal. Fury reigned.
And fury still reigns in what is now known as the Plains of Dread. Demons and undead rise, die, and rise again. Magical storms scour the Plains. The magic unleashed centuries ago started a cascade that has yet to end. Abominations are born and die every minute. None who enter the Plains survive. Bound by their hatred and rage, the combatants of long ago still fight and kill and die, and fight again, imprisoned in a cycle without end.
About household spirits
Much like bodies of water, mountains, forests, even some individual plants have their spirits, households have those too. A lived in household is haunted, Depending on the mood or air in the household, the being that comes to live there will act either beneficially, or maliciously.
So, in a harmonious house, people will start noticing some happy coincidences. Lost things are found again. Fragile cups last through several falls, food lasts longer. Animals may greet a friendly presence that adults don't see. Children are able to see them and the beings love playing with children, often watching over their sleep and making sure that a little child does not get hurt. It is generally considered the polite thing to do to leave a bowl of milk and cookies somewhere for the little helper.
In an unfriendly home, the being is at best mischievous, hiding important things that people need, moving furniture overnight, making loud noises at night, cracking earthenware, spoiling food.
In fact, House Elves and their treatment are one of the points of contention between Borderlanders and Earthers.
The Potters
Now about the Potters in the Borderlands. Currently they are holding the title of Counts of Pale Forest. They are considered Warder Lords, because aside from their usual duties, they watch over an extremely dangerous place, making sure it is not disturbed, and that no threat leaves that place. The Pale Forest, as it is currently known, looks hostile right at first glance. The wood of the trees has an unnatural pallor and fallen leaves are usually the colour of blood. There is an unnerving silence hanging around the area, no bird are singing, the air feels heavy. The silence is occasionally broken by the crackle of the trees. If one were to enter the forest, they would hear a persistent hum coming from the trees. Walking there is difficult, the fallen leaves are slippery and tend to hide roots. Some trees even move their roots to trip an unwary traveller. Many people ended either impaled on a branch after they slipped and fell, some people vanished entirely, absorbed by the sinister trees. Boars are extremely aggressive, deer look gaunt, with a glint of malicious intellect in their eyes. Lean wolves roam in packs and are unafraid to hunt humans. Were one to venture deeper (and survive the perilous journey) they would find the ruins of an ancient city hidden between the trees.
Nobody walks the narrow streets nor inhabits the dilapidated houses. None living. Corpses fresh and ancient rise to greet the visitor, driven by a primal need to defend their home with a weapon in hand. And even should someone hide from them, their mind is assaulted by the furious spectres of warriors long since dead. Begone! Begone! Begone!
Centuries ago, the forest was witness to an atrocity, a group of adventurers heard tales of a city among the trees, hiding untold treasures. They went there, led by a bold pathfinder, and attacked the forest's denizens. Having better weapon, larger numbers, and more skilled spellcasters, the attackers quickly slew them. However, such was the need to defend their home, so passionate were their pleas to the heart of the forest, that the forest granted them their desire. The fallen defenders rose again, and again and again, until all the attackers were either slain or driven off. And since then, the Pale Forest is a twisted, hostile place.
It is the Potters' hidden shame that it was a Potter who was the bold pathfinder.
The Fair Folk
The Atlanteans were not the first to come to the Borderlands, or perhaps the Fair Folk were the original inhabitants. Over the centuries, there had been numerous conflicts between the two sides, just as there were numerous armistices. Intermarriage is not rare, yet not common. The unions of Atlanteans and the Fair Folk can produce children, though it requires magical assistance for the child to survive.
Nowadays, the Fair Folk mostly live in isolated communities, closed off either in forests or in mountains. Or perhaps the right term would be under the mountains, for through their unique magic, they had been able to carve out their own pocket realms in which they live in relative safety. They are varied, though have certain things in common. Although humanoid, they each share features of animals, with the features being inhertable in families. Thus there are clans of Winged Folk, Cat Folk, Lizard Folk, and many others. Each realm is independent, though they seem to have peaceful relations.
Their unique magic, as mentioned, is very tightly bound to nature and they especially abhor the Atlantean Dark Arts that twist nature so drastically. Most Fair Folk also posses the power of glamor and illusions, able to appear especially attractive, which they had used to devastating effect in many conflicts.