Lore Collection & Latest Info
General info:
One part of the starting world is dark and dreary and full of evil Baba Yaga-esque witches and demigods and even gods who just want to consume, kill, destroy. So their children, all kinds of aberrations, litter the world. A lot of the Necromantic nobility and the royal family flex their strength by having as many horrific monsters under their thumb as possible. The more fucked up and hard to control, the more respect you get.
There are also all kinds of insidious people, plots and plans. The royal family is not to be fucked with out of respect and admiration, and by the weaker ones, fear, but they are not a dictatorship or something else so meager. They are more akin to an absolute monarchy, but their role is to keep other kingdoms in check and protect their people, not so much lord their power over them.
I think you can compare it to... um... uhhh... I can't think of any one thing in particular but you mentioned The Witcher, that's somewhat of a good indication, but there are not many similarities other than monsters abound, and magical creatures are normal. Maybe it is a little bit like LOTR in that sense? But it's like an Edgar Allan Poe, gothic horror, supernatural dark fantasy type thing.
The magic system... ah, the magic system. I am not home so I am typing this on my phone, but here is the core idea:
You borrow from and manipulate nature. If a magic is more powerful and dark, you will probably have to pay some kind of price. The more powerful, the heftier the price. It's mostly as a force that exists within nature's forces, which the beings it made can channel into their will. It's as much a force as gravity (ok bad example that's convoluted... I'll say as gravity in the high school physics sense) and electromagnetism. In fact, that's a really good parallel. Instead of electronic components channelling electricity or your cells exchanging electrons and ions, you get to control this '5th force of nature' called magic. If we include humans, they would have to either learn through years and years and difficult trials to harness magic, be gifted by a deity or cursed by a malicious being, or basically never be able to control it. They somehow evolved without the biomagical systems to be able to channel it.
The force itself comes in a pure form, like raw energy, and the wielder can form it into what they wish, which is why it looks like many different types.
Technology in this world is more like pre-industrial Victorian times. People are starting to dabble with steampunk type technologies, and maybe even things like hextech if you've seen Arcane (not sure about adding this yet, or if we do want it, it'd be super new and belong to one of the other regions. I think I forgot to mention this but we would be in a world made of 4-5 kingdoms with distinct specialities and philosophies. While the dark area is full of monsters, others can be full of other mythical beings, dangerous and majestic and peaceful. Ofc you have non-harmful beings in the dark area too, but those are far and few inbetween.
There are 2 moons and a rocky ring around the planet."
New information:
The world is composed of 4-5 kingdoms (probably 4), with the above, horror-centred one being one of them.
The kingdoms:
1. Denhart: dark, gothic, Edgar-Allan-Poe meets the Witcher world.
2. Nannallia: the fae kingdom, full of wonderful beings, playful tricksters, psychedelic, crazy forests that you can get lost in for centuries, hags of a different kind from those of the Denhart region, so on. This place is full of free-dwellers, but near multiple castles and bigger gatherings which could be cities, some nobility and some richer 'laypeople' coexist.
3. Karvia, the steampunk kingdom. Relying on steampunk technology, full of awesome airships with magical-energy cannons, full of strange and wonderful beings similar to lizardines, marine-type beings, mermaids, humans(?), maybe even elvish type beings.
4. The Vleugsians, from The Vleugs Kingdom. The Sky Island' type of 'floating city' which is gold and white and full of pegasi and celestial-type beings, astronomers, sky-gazers, beings with wings, knowledge and poetry seekers... this kingdom used to be a powerful empire that lost against a rebellion about 300 years ago.
5. Potential fifth 'kingdom', which is subservient to The Vleugs and is an island in the sea, somewhere below Vleugs.
"Hmm so Denhart were sort of like colonial Britain? I was actually aiming for having them be the 'outcasts' because of their natural inclinations. However, I actually think making the sky people (if you guys like the idea of the 4th kingdom being a floating island kingdom) be the Imperialists. Maybe they were so arrogant and powerful due to their position (I mean, the could fly lol), but their influence got culled a long time ago. Now they kind of live in isolation up in the sky, bitter about their loss. I want to keep Denhart as the 'misunderstood' necromancers who live hard lives and as such are tough and 'evil' in the eyes of the other kingdoms. Perhaps they started the rebellion a long time ago, but the other kingdoms willingly ignore that because they think they're creepy and distrust their 'evil ways'.
The fae kingdom (I say fae because it's not just faeries, it's anything fae), Nannallia, can be the way you described it. I don't want to make Denhartians the villains because it feels too antithetical to what I designed them as, and also I think it's too easy to make them the villains, lol. Their whole philosophy is that they might be necromantic and seemingly 'evil', but they are too hastily misjudged by the other kingdoms.
The steampunk kingdom could have learned certain technologies, which they turned into steam-based due to their proximity to water sources and such, which can be seen as the effect of the influence the Empire had on them before they lost their grip.
If you want a separate, annexed kingdom (something else, not the fae because they are ancient and started up a long, long time ago, before they got subjugated), we could make an island nation in the sea, under the floating kingdom give or take, who operate as an extension of the sky people."
The Plot:
A war is
just breaking out, after x years of peace between the nations, which did not have peace before because instead of 4 kingdoms, the world was full of scattered civilisations, like tribes and dutchies. Someone does something wrong at a meeting of the nations, and war breaks out. We could have 2 kingdoms vs 2 kingdoms (alliances and whatnot). But instead of being on the front-lines, we have a strange collection of people. Our players:
People who excel at niche things, such as espionage, magic-based sabotage, detectives, problem-solvers... and they end up finding the same truth: someone, something, is doing something that seems to be a danger to everyone simultaneously, which makes no sense. Ofc everyone blames the other countries, but who's truly to blame?
More Fleshed Out:
The Kingdoms:
1. Denhart: dark, gothic, Edgar-Allan-Poe meets the Witcher world. (more incoming).
It has a lot of different environments (aka forests, swamps, volcanic lands; these are closer to the coast). It has things like forest clearings with an enormous lake, where a big island in the middle hosts a tower full of spooky evil witches (it 100% has this).
In a world such as this, where monsters are constantly harrying people, a group or some individuals will have some reason to seek vengeance upon monsters, or help people from other kingdoms kill monsters, so monster hunters (groups or otherwise) exist. Now, the royal family, the Korakis, are
very proud of the monsters in their lands, so people who specifically are out to kill monsters (even the ones who sneak out of their borders!) are seen as... well... enemies. In fact, rumour has it that the Korakis house a leviathan-scale basilisk under their castle, who eats monster hunters when they are caught!
2. [General:] Nannallia: the fae kingdom, full of wonderful beings, playful tricksters, psychedelic, crazy forests that you can get lost in for centuries, hags of a different kind from those of the Denhart region, so on. This place is full of free-dwellers, but near multiple castles and bigger gatherings which could be cities, some nobility and some richer 'laypeople' coexist.
[RK]: Faeries are the most organised and humanoid of the fae creatures, having built the first advanced civilization in a bygone era that contributed fundamentally to early understanding of the world as well as culture and philosophy (Think maybe Ancient Greece in terms of cultural importance). In present times the modern incarnation of Nannallia has long since stopped being the cultural powerhouse of the continent, but they remain a considerably powerful nation nonetheless with relatively good diplomatic relations with the other Kingdoms.
I think due to their fae nature they are naturally charismatic beings, and this manifests in their magical abilities revolving around psychological manipulation (To charm, influence emotion, hallucinate, the like) enchantment of weapons and items, as well as the knack of illusifying and decrypting messages, images, and other forms of visual communication.
Faeries are mostly humanoid but possess 4 wings that allow them powered flight, which are made up long muscles stretching from the band blood, extremely flexible and stiffen in flight. They are covered in chitinous scales which reflect a blue-purple metallic sheen. The agility and speed at which they fly is partially influenced from innate magic that fairies evolved to facilitate flight. Their skin is usually fair but posses some bluish sheen, and hair that ranges from shockingly white to jet black. Eyes can be a myriad of different colors, and glow softly when using magical powers concerning psychological manipulation.
They worship the twin gods of the two moons (More elaboration on this necessary)
They speak Faeish, which is shared among other Fae creatures and has many dialects. (I'm thinking I'm going to base this language on Irish)
3. Karvia, the steampunk kingdom. Relying on steampunk technology, full of awesome airships with magical-energy cannons, full of strange and wonderful beings similar to lizardines, marine-type beings, mermaids, humans(?), maybe even elvish type beings.
4. The Vleugsians, from The Vleugs Kingdom. The Sky Island' type of 'floating city' which is gold and white and full of pegasi and celestial-type beings, astronomers, sky-gazers, beings with wings, knowledge and poetry seekers... this kingdom used to be a powerful empire that lost against a rebellion about 300 years ago.
This should put everything in one place and make it easier!
I'm quite certain I dropped a decent sized paragraph with a bunch of ideas, and I'm not asking for a fully fleshed out story, I just said that. I can make a character for this easy, and hop in and write sure, but I'm looking for direction... Otherwise I'm just gonna be some random dude raising some random dead army for a tea party lol there's nothing stressful about this. I can do the random aimless bits but without some sort of narrative compass I'll just be frolicking about 
