Cradle of Civilization(Mayan-Inspired Stone Age Campaign!) First game on March 7th!

Ik'Ye'Lakha (Bones of The Ancient Earth)

The Cradle of Civilization is a sandbox campaign, set in the paleolithic era of a fantasy world that we usually don't see in D&D Campaigns.
It will chronicle hopefully the founding of the world's first multicultural settlement. The setting draws primarily on Mayan and Yucatec mythology, as well as some broader dnd themes to show the origin of some of those ideas and creatures, like some of the first spells or members of certain classes. The region, Ik'Ye'Lakha, is based on the Yucatan peninsula for inspiration, so expect dinosaur fossils, cenotes, dense marsh and jungle. Brutal stone age fantasy with grit, gore, and forced improvisation. It will be a challenging but rewarding campaign.

All names within were used based on ancient Yucatec and Classic Mayan words. I will post a link to the documents I used at the bottom if you want to use them to create your characters.

A Brief Background

The Divine Beasts are nigh-immortal creatures of various ilk that have ascended at one point or another to the highest form of life and power attainable. They are entirely tangible beings that walk the earth. Their movements shape the fate of the world, and lately, most of them in turn have charted on a path first begun by Chab'Akwoh: Creating sapient beings in their likeness or at the least fostering such. B'Atz'Chuah fostered humans, the Three Deaths in their mystery have fostered the goblins, dwarves, and gnomes. Mimi'Xu, the Great Mother, has created the ant-like Thri'Kreen, and so on. While not every of the current divine beasts agree, this is clearly the way that Ik'Ye''Lakha is turning. It may symbolize the end of the age of great beasts, and now become the age of the two-legs and their workings.

To this end, the Tortle historian and 'prophet' Ka'Matz, meaning literally 'Our Sage' has gathered a smattering of disparate, yet talented outcasts and desperate folk to follow him to a 'promised land'. This land is 'A'Bix'Otoh', The Home Of The Five Waters. It is also the domain of the Divine Beast Mim'Pacta, The Weeping Crone.

Mim'Pacta is one of only three divine beasts herself that walks on two legs, a great Caiman that has become a forest witch within her lagoon, and while one of the weaker divine beasts, has staked out this lake and its' surrounding geographic features within the very geographical center of Ik'Ye'Lakha. It is on this land that Mim'Pacta has agreed to allow this experiment to foster and to harbor them as they try to build this eclectic community of misfit wretches as they try to find a way to not only survive but prosper in the unerringly harsh land of Ik'Ye'Lakha.