The World

The creation myth, the five gods and their realms, and the rogue domains between them.

Rogue is set in a high fantasy world with a single founding story and five powers arguing over what to do with it. Before anything else there was nothing but a longing drifting in the void. From that longing came a tremor, from the tremor a spark, and from the spark the first cry that broke the silence. The world began in that sound.

Light unravelled into sky, stone rose as mountains and water surged into seas. But creation was unsteady. Some threads twisted and broke, leaving lands that no law ever settled over. These are the rogue domains, feral scars that neither mortal nor divine hand has managed to tame, and they are what the game is named for.

Five sparks drifted through the waking world. They were not gods yet, only beginnings waiting for a purpose. Once purpose took hold, divinity followed.

The Five#

Each of the five took a domain, and each raised a realm around it. They are not allies. Kranos regards the wild freedom of Thalos as ruin; Sivaine demands the confrontation Loralei spends her light softening; and all of them are wary of Morbis, because memory spares no one.

A character may serve one god, and one only. What that means in practice, and what it buys, is covered in Religion.

Aurin, the Radiant City#

Loralei rose from the gold of the first morning and lifted white stone out of a valley so the city could mirror her brilliance. She holds that the heart is the source of all true power, that desire shapes destiny more surely than fear or discipline, and that nothing real can flourish in darkness.

Aurin is that creed built into architecture. It climbs in sunlit terraces with gardens spilling over the balustrades and fountains throwing the light back as gold. It has no single ruler, which is the point: authority is spread across institutions bound by reputation and held in tension against each other. The highest crime here is not violence but harm to trust. Credibility is currency in Aurin, and losing it does not get you punished so much as ignored.

This is where every new character begins. It holds the Explorer's Guild, the Golden Bazaar, the Gilded Vaults, the Temple of the Radiant Heart, the Arcane Quarter, and beneath the terraces the Gilded Veins, where the parts of the economy that do not enjoy sunlight go about their business.

Olympus, the Iron Crown#

Kranos woke from the roar of mountains and the fire of the earth, and his waking shattered a peak. Finding mortals scattered by fear, he gave them discipline, unity and purpose, and forged tribes into armies. On the highest peak he carved Olympus out of stone by sheer will.

Olympus is fortress, forge and temple at once, crowned in iron and deep red banners. There are no gardens and no gilded invitations, only switchback roads, drill yards where the clash of training never stops, and grey walls smoothed by centuries. Power is earned rather than given, and it flows through rank and oath. It is the spiritual home of warriors and paladins, and when a threat outgrows charm or coin, it is the legions of Kranos that march.

Morrigan, the Obsidian Judgment#

Sivaine awoke in the deepest shadow of the first dawn, born from the first mortal understanding of fragility. She rose as a guide for spirits lost between worlds and carved Morrigan into obsidian cliffs.

Morrigan descends rather than ascends, cut into sheer dark rock in tiers of polished glass, every surface a mirror that shows a visitor exactly as they are. Its lanterns burn cold and blue. Sivaine holds that illusions hinder growth and comfort conceals what must be faced, so comfort has been deliberately designed out of her city. To walk Morrigan is to feel watched, not by guards but by truth.

Iasos, the Untamed Sea#

When a falling star struck the ocean the sea split open and Thalos rose crowned in lightning. The storms bowed to him and the beasts of the deep followed. He claimed the archipelago of Iasos but raised no walls and accepted no throne.

Iasos is the one realm with no city, because Thalos builds nothing the sea could not unmake. It is a scatter of storm-lashed islands under a violent sky, where sanctuaries are caverns carved by waves and cliffs shaped by weather. Strength here is earned in the open, beneath wind and tide. It is the natural home of rangers, and it stands as the argument against Olympus: that the world thrives only when it is allowed to change, rage and breathe.

The Underworld, the Realm That Remembers#

Morbis formed in the quiet fractures of creation, out of memories unclaimed and moments forgotten. When the first lost soul drifted between life and dissolution, Morbis extended a hand and revealed the path below.

The realm has no fixed city, because it shifts endlessly. It is a labyrinth of mist and shadow where memories run like rivers and every corridor holds something to be faced. Morbis does not argue with the living gods, since their quarrels belong to the surface, but all of them fear what he keeps. The Underworld remembers everything they would rather hide, and forgetting is the only sin it will not forgive.

Every character will see it eventually. Death outside a protected area sends you to the Gates of the Underworld, and you walk back from there.

The peoples#

Twelve races are playable, shaped by the First Cry and forged in the chaos that followed it. They range from humans and dwarves to shades caught between life and death, scorpiens armoured in chitin, and dryads who are more forest than person. Races has the full comparison.

Getting around#

The playable world is one continuous map with real coordinates, so directions are consistent and areas sit next to each other in a way you can hold in your head. Aurin is the hub. Three named roads leave it: Mistwood Road to the north, Silverwood Road to the south and Dawnshore Road to the east. Almost everything in Loralei hangs off one of those three, and the northern road eventually climbs through a mountain pass into the realm of Kranos.

Your Tideglass Compass will point you at any of a list of named destinations in Aurin. compass destinations lists them. Further afield, the browser client's mapper draws the world as you walk it, and telnet players can turn on minimap for a small local map with every room description.

Areas lists everywhere worth going, with the level range each one is built for.