The Imperial Unification

Stats:6m4d6v1, 4d6 drop the lowest, or 30-point buy.

Species:
Human : You may choose to be of either Northern stock (+2 str, +2 con, -2 int, -2 wis), Western stock (+2 con, -2 cha), Southern stock (-2 Str, -2 Wis, +2 Int, +2 Cha), or of mixed descent (No bonuses or penalties).
Half Elf: Half elves get -2 con, +2 dex.
Dragon Theorist: Species class listed here, and I'll also put it on the board. If you take the species class on one side of your gestalt, you must max it. If you don't have a gestalt, you can cross-class.
Tiefling or Aasimar, per SRD.

Classes: No spellcasters that get level 9 spells will be allowed.
Paladins begin casting at level 2 and follow normal paladin progression as if they were two levels higher for purposes of casting spells.
Psychic warrior and mindblade allowed, psions and wilders are not.
Warlock is allowed.
Most classes from the Complete set (except those that get level 9 spells) are allowed, but subject to my OK. I don't have them all memorized.
TOB not allowed. Artificers not allowed.
This game is a perfect place for off-the-wall builds that are not mechanically optimized in a world full of wizards, druids, and clerics. By the same token, party healing is likely to be the duty of a bard or paladin.

Level: You may choose to be either level 6 gestalt, or level 8 non-gestalt. Either way, you have reached the maximum level attainable by a relatively human being.

Feats: You may spend a single feat to gain a single level 1 spell, usable once per day as a spell-like ability, as a first-level sorcerer. This spell may be off either the sorc/wiz, cleric, druid, or psion/wilder lists. All other feats not in the SRD subject to DM approval.

Alignment: Any. Alignment restrictions for the werewolf template are waived. Paladins may follow the freedom/tyrrany/slaughter class variants.

Background: You are either a military leader, a chieftain, or a close ally of one of the more remote northern tribes. How you came to be in the north, and what you are doing leading a tribe, is up to you; the game world is open to any background you want that leads you to this place, at this time, with a burning desire to rule the world.

Followers: Barring special requests and dragons, each player will start with 20 level 1 generic class warriors to lead in combat. The idea is to take care of your followers, and lead them to gain levels so that they'll be more useful to you in combat. Dragons retain their follower wealth as the start of their hoard, must protect it and may not spend it. Unusual circumstances subject to negotiation. Your followers may take a spell feat, in the same way as players may.

Starting Wealth: 18,000 starting wealth to equip your character and 9,000 starting wealth to equip your war band. Note that npc's tend to be much more effective if they have mounts and bows!

The Northlands stretches from the Line of Fire south about one to two hundred miles to the Lake of Three Gods, and from shore to shore about four or five hundred miles. Within this vast, inhospitable area, groups of about 50-150 humans eke out a hunter-gatherer existence, with occasional seasonal forays into the West and Southlands (both south of the Northlands).

By tradition a thousand years old, anyone captured by a warrior during a raid is a slave for a year and a day, after which they are invited to either return home, or join the capturing tribe. Captured women often marry their captors, while captured boys can be adopted as foster sons. To the northern tribes, this ensures that the blood of a tribe doesn't stagnate. Often, weak southerners who are captured are simply sacrificed to Thor, or to the dragons, rather than permit such blood to weaken the Spears of Thor. Those strong enough, however, are welcomed as assets to the clan.

Tribes are organized with a Chieftain, a Shaman, and, if they are so honored by the gods, a dragon, who spearheads their raids and scouts to provide information for them. There are legends of such dragons growing large enough to bear a human rider, and there are certainly dragons north of the Line of Fire that large, but dragons south of the Line rarely live long enough to grow so big; usually they are no larger than a pony, plus wings.

The westlands stretch from the edges of the Northern Markwardens south and west to the sea, and east to the Great Dividing River and the Lake of Three Gods. The Westlands are split into a hundred warring nations, some no larger than a single castle, others stretching over as many as a dozen towns and forts. There is no centralized government; each state makes the best of its neighbors as allies or enemies.

The westlands has no tradition of slavery, and by common law a slave setting foot into the westlands is a free man. The westlands are arguably even more volatile than the northlands, however; political boundaries are redrawn practically on a weekly basis, frequently with bloodshed over who has rights to what.

States are organized with a markwarden leading a dedicated band of soldiers, usually a mix of mounted riders, archers, and spearman levies. Standing forces vary, from no more than a dozen men to several hundred. Individual mercenaries are everywhere, usually soldiers who survived their states, and roving bands of mercenaries are not uncommon...and in lean months, most mercenaries find double duty as bandits.

The southlands stretch from the sea to the east and south, north and west to the Lake of Three Gods and the Great Dividing river that runs north/south between the West and the Southlands. Although nominally as fractured as the Westlands, the single great unifying force of the Southlands is the Church of Light, which is a military, political, and religious body bent on unification by whatever means available.

Criminals, prisoners of war, the offspring of slaves, and anyone without a large armed escort who run afoul of slavers, are all slaves for life, bought and sold in the great markets of the large southern trading port of Atalantea. Farmland is generally owned by nobility, and tilled by either serfs or slaves; slaves also fight in the great gladiatorial pits that are a major attraction in Atalantea, which is also the seat of the Church's power. There is a small but growing middle class of merchant investors who the landowning nobility see as a significant threat to their power, and the three-way squabble between nobles, merchant guilds, and church leaders has effectively paralyzed the south for centuries.

Power is dispensed through the church to minor kings, who pay their knights in land rights to land tilled by serfs who are considered just as much chattel as are slaves.