The people of Thaedros carry the legacy of two worlds. They are both the descendants and remnants of those who fled Encara, and also the children of the land that has remade them. A century and a half later, no one is wholly of the old world or entirely of the new. Those that recall the old world still mourn their loss, while those who have never known Encara now inherit the grief of their parents and grandparents.
Moreover, those who came through the gates did not arrive wholly united. While all who fled Encara arrived on Thaedros with newfound commonality, they also carried their rivalries and alliances, their empires and their enmities, into a world that had no interest in either. At first, survival left little room for politics. The first decades were spent building shelter, cultivating crops, learning which plants would kill and which would heal, and how to weather the wild magic that assailed the refugees of that shattered world on what at first seemed to be utterly at random. It was only when the storms eased and the wilds grew familiar, and some semblance of understanding allowed for an approximation of order that people began to dream again of homes, of nations, and of futures worth dying for.
The cultures carried out of Encara still pulse through life on Thaedros, each reshaped by the demands of a world that bends craft, tradition, and purpose in new directions. Dwarven metallurgists map the strange behaviors of Thaedrosian ore, forging alloys that echo the hidden logic of Essari devices. Elven architects cultivate living structures that follow the shifting lines of local aether, guiding branches and stone along unfamiliar currents. Human diplomats, builders, and lorekeepers strengthen networks of cooperation that let scattered settlements survive storms, scarcity, and the weight of memory. Orcish rangers temper discipline into frontier vigilance, guarding the borders where wild magic, roaming beasts, and dormant Essari mechanisms test endurance. Gnomish artisans and halfling innovators chase solutions across hardship after hardship, creating tools, comforts, and clever contrivances that root communities in places civilization has no reason to endure. Yet through all of this work lies an unspoken awareness of the Essari, and the quiet sense of building futures atop foundations shaped by hands no one alive has ever seen.
Across Arakol and Lengarth, generations born on Thaedros weave their identities from fragments of Encara and the demands of the present. Customs, languages, and beliefs intermingle as communities rely on shared survival more than inherited divides. Some households preserve songs and rites carried across the gates, treating them as anchors in a world still shifting beneath their feet. Others grow into entirely new expressions of belonging, shaped by the landscapes, mentors, and neighbors that raised them.
Far beyond the settled regions, the frontier reshapes people even more dramatically. Wild, storm-like magic, roaming aether currents, and dormant Essari mechanisms leave marks on those who traverse them. Travelers return with bodies or senses subtly changed; children are born touched by forces no scholar fully understands. These new lineages stand as living proof that Thaedros continues to shape its inhabitants in ways Encara's survivors never imagined and, indeed, could not have imagined.
As these influences blend, ancestry becomes only one thread in a larger tapestry. Communities form around shared challenges, shared teachers, and shared hopes rather than old-world notions of race. A mining village of mixed lineages may follow practices passed down from human stonecutters; an orchard settlement might adopt elven seasonal rites regardless of who lives there. Identity emerges from persistence and adaptation, not blood. Every person on Thaedros grows within this shifting tapestry, carrying the beginnings they inherited and the paths they choose down new roads that shape every choice to come.
Lineage speaks to the body. Culture speaks to the heart. On Thaedros, the two can pull in different directions as often than they align. Your ancestry gives you bone structure, certain reflexes, a tolerance for cold or an affinity for the roots of mountains. It marks the physical inheritance of a people shaped by centuries on Encara. But the culture that raised you teaches how you think, what you value, and how you meet the world. A dwarf raised among the Yundra learns their tremorsense through fungal networks instead of mining veins. An orc child adopted into a gnomish workshop measures patience in gears turning before learning the roar expected of their bloodline. A human born in Lengarth might spend years dreaming of the freedom beyond imperial discipline.
This split runs through every settlement, town, and city. Survival on Thaedros has scattered bloodlines and mixed communities in ways Encara never forced. The result is a world where upbringing shapes you as much as birth.
Character creation in Thaedros reflects this division. Your race describes how you were born. Your background describes how you were raised. The two do not have to match. In fact, the tension between them often provides the most fertile ground for story.
Consider the gaps. A Dresvadr dwarf who follows mycelium paths through the wilds instead of ore veins underground. A Kaldjari orc who learned reverence for the forest from Nafaldr teachings, blending their people's discipline with something quieter. A Kezaari elf who grew up among human traders and never learned the songs their ancestors carried from Encara. These mismatches are not flaws. They are the friction that sparks character arcs.
Each culture in this book offers unique backgrounds that tie personal history to the survival and adaptation required on Thaedros. Some reflect ancient customs carried through the gates. Others are entirely new, born from the demands of frontier life. You can choose a background from standard D&D options and weave it into Thaedros, but the homebrewed ones are built to reflect how culture and struggle leave their mark. Mechanically, Thaedros follows the 2024 approach to species design. Your race grants physiological traits—tremorsense, darkvision, natural armor. Your background grants ability score increases, reflecting what you trained, what you endured, and what you chose to pursue. A Yundra elf's blindsense is inherited, but the strength or intelligence they developed comes from living among stoneworkers or studying Essari relics.
Your character's roots tell where they began. Their road tells where they are headed. The distance between those two points is the where the real story is found.