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Empyrea is either the second or third planet1 out from Corag, the sun, at an average distance of about 1 milion miles. It is 16,000 miles in diameter at the equator. It rotates on its axis once every 24 hours, and revolves around Corag once every 384 days. This leads to a calendar of twelve months, each of which have four weeks of eight days.
It has two moons:
Empyrea has a slight axial tilt of 1.5 degrees, which means that the difference between summer and winter weather is also slight. It is a very moderate climate all over, with highs barely breaking 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the tropics during the hottest time of the year to lows rarely going beneath -5 degrees at the poles.
Empyrea is your typical medieval fiefdom setting, with an Emperor, a bunch of Kings, and various Barons and Dukes scattered here and there. All land is claimed by the Emperor, but there are sections of land that are claimed by no other political leader, like forests, deserts, and extinct volcanoes. These "no-king's lands" are usually governed by a dragon.
The Emperor is mostly just a figurehead, but a figurehead with a lot of money and military power to back him up. Everyone pays taxes to the Emperor because they know they'll be in a lot of trouble if they don't.
One popular belief is that the dragons picked which niches they wanted first, and that the Emperor got stuck with the land the dragons didn't want. This still amounts to 80% of the planet, however, so whichever way you want to look at it, both the dragons and the Emperor got a pretty good deal.
(all numbers are estimates)
It is believed that the Dragon population has never exceeded 1,000.
The Empyrean Bible is a huge, mostly incomprehensible collection of books that go into incredible detail about almost every action of the gods in the first four Ages. Only half a dozen copies are known to exist; one is in the Emperor's palace, one is at Lightstone Keep (the training ground for paladins of Punctilio) at Heir Helm, one is at the MARD (the Magician's Academy of Research and Development), and the other three are in private collections around the world.
Because the Bible is so rare and incomprehensible, one of the Emperor's bards wrote The Work during the later days of the Age of Stagnation from the Emperor's copy. The Work is a condensed version of the Empyrean Bible; the interesting parts are called The Beginning, which covers the Age of Formation, and The Damnation of Quisling, which covers the ages of Gold and War. There is also a section that covers the Age of Knowledge.
Most of the people that have taken vows to support one of the Empyrean gods are priests. Due to Ataman's dominanace over Empyrea, it should come as no surprise that most of the priests on Empyrea worship Ataman. The breakdown is believed to be as follows:
(it is believed that Sangfroid and Quisling priests number less than 1% of the total priest population, if they exist at all)
There are three distinct types of paladins, or holy warriors:
Since the empire is so big, law enforcement is thinly spread in rural areas. That's why there are rangers. Rangers are part law enforcement, part standing army, part Hand of Ataman, and part Conservation Corps... so go read about them.
The Age of Formation is when all the planets and life forms, and six of the gods, came into being. This age lasted for twelve Years (a capital-Y "Year" being defined as one orbit of Ignavus around Corag, or about seventy-five Empyrean little-y "years"), or about 900 Empyrean years.
It is believed that there was a time before the Age of Formation, since the Empyrean Bible begins with what can only be described as a sense of boredom among the original six gods, and that they set out to make things happen. But since by definition there are no records of anything that happened before anything happened, nobody can say for sure.
It was during this time that Ataman became overseer of Empyrea, and she created the Draconim (Dragons), the dominant sentient life form. Punctilio and Sangfroid made a moon for Ataman. Ataman chose Mameluke, one of the Draconim, to be her handmaiden, and Sangfroid made a moon for Mameluke too.
Although it's not found in any of the existing records from the Age of Formation, there are nursery rhymes and ancient songs dating from the Age of Formation that hint of a romance forming between Sangfroid and Mameluke.
All of the other sentient races on Empyrea besides the Dragons are immigrants from other planets. All of the other races on Empyrea (humans, elves, dwarves, and goblinkind) are the descendants of no more than twenty original emigrants from Canopus, Melior, Alkar, and Trochil respectively.
The force of Free Will was introduced, and that made six more gods appear. First Armistice and Quisling sprang into being, and then their helpers followed a little later. These six are collectively known as the Gods of Morality, and you can read about them from the Empyrea home page. The original six are known as the Gods of Reality, and you can read about them from the home page too.
You can read what The Work has to say about the Age of Formation in The Beginning.
After the Gods of Morality sprang into being, the whole solar system (what the Work calls "the Sphere") entered the Age of Knowledge. This lasted about twenty Years (1500 Empyrean years) and was basically marked by the various life forms finding out things about each other, and the gods that made them.
This is when space travel became possible. By far, the most travel happened between Empyrea and Canopus, with travel between Canopus and Melior, and Empyrea and Melior, coming in a very distant second and third. One of the really important things that was discovered was that there was a limit to how far you could go in space. There is a large black sphere with all the stars burning on it about twice as far out from Corag as Melior is. You could go up to it, but no further.
There was still a lot of fighting going on, but most hostilities took the form of more of a "cold war" than anything else. Everyone hated the Pragmatim of Pallia (what most D&Ders know as "mind flayers"), but nobody knew enough about them to feel confident in conquering them.
It is here that Sangfroid's and Mameluke's affection for each other became known (and stronger). You can read about it in the Song of Mameluke.
The Age of Knowledge came to an end when it was discovered that it was possible to travel through the big black sphere with stars burning on it, if you had the right magic. Unfortunately, the first forays out of the sphere attracted the attention of some life forms that lived in a different big black sphere, and they had better weapons than the inhabitants of this sphere had.
These extra-spherical life forms are known only as Invaders. No pictures or descriptions of them exist; all that Empyreans know about them currently is what they did in the next two Ages.
The Age of Gold started when the gods decided that they needed to beef up their defenses against the Invaders. Ravelin was picked to train an elite fighting force (the Paladim), which consisted of forty-two of the best fighters and organizers from each planet, who would then go back and train others on their home planet.
The Age of Gold lasted but a single Year (75 Empyrean years).
The Work goes into more detail about the Age of Gold in The Damnation of Quisling.
The Age of War started when Quisling had Ravelin's heart and Rundle taken out of the Sphere, thus disabling Ravelin and the Paladim, and framed Rundle for it. Before he left, though, Rundle guessed what Quisling was up to, and prophesied that Quisling's scheme would be victorious for only three Years. This made Quisling very angry, and he knocked Trochil out of its orbit into an extremely elliptical one.
Meanwhile, the Invaders got to Melior and really made a mess out of it; got to Pallia and had a harder time of it, since the Pragmatim are better fighters than the Sagacim of Melior were; and got halfway to Canopus from Pallia.
During this time, Halcyon, Punctilio, and Imbroglio went looking for Ravelin's heart and Rundle, and while they were gone, Quisling made a power play for Head God position (which is Monroe's). Azimuth decked Quisling before Quisling could do anything really terrible, however.
While the three gods were gone, Punctilio accidentally killed Imbroglio, and Punctilio came back to the Sphere with Imbroglio's body, leaving Halcyon to find both Rundle and Ravelin's heart. She did, came back to the Sphere, and gave Ravelin's heart back, which restored Ravelin and the Paladim.
Punctilio was so upset by his killing of Imbroglio that he created the Radiatim, an elite force of non-fighters that helped the Paladim beat back the Invaders.
Rundle got to punish Quisling, since Quisling set Rundle up to take the rap for stealing Ravelin's heart.
Sangfroid decided that the rest of the gods were losers and exiled himself after proclaiming the Great Prophecy which dictated the circumstances under which he would return.
The Age of War lasted three Years (225 Empyrean years).
Read more about the Age of War in The Work's most depressing section, The Damnation of Quisling.
The Age of Stagnation started when the Quarantine (also known as the Lock) was put into place, which barred any god or life form from traveling between planets or exiting the Sphere.
Since Imbroglio, the God of Decay, was dead, nothing decayed, and everything got really, really boring. There really isn't that much more to tell about this Age, except that it lasted about 70 Years (5250 Empyrean years), making it the longest by far of all the Ages.
The current Age is the Age of Reconstruction, which began when a replacement was found for Imbroglio.
In AR 212, the first of the Talionim, Halcyon's elite fighters, was ordained. The other two types of paladins (the Paladim of Ravelin and the Radiatim of Punctilio) both came about because of some great need; so far, the great need for paladins of Halcyon has not been determined.
In AR 223, Mameluke's moon's orbit changed (see Planetary Data) . It used to orbit Empyrea itself; now it orbits Ataman's moon. Nobody is entirely sure why.
The current year is AR 228.
This age will end when Sangfroid's Great Prophecy is fulfilled.
Who knows yet?
1) depending on whether Trochil is close or far from Corag in its orbit
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