Author Topic: The New World Thread  (Read 1759 times)

Offline Quillwraith

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The New World Thread
« on: April 26, 2016, 06:09:35 PM »
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Once, the Makers protected the sentient races they had create, but five thousand years ago, they vanished from the world. As their great wards have faded, the world has grown more dangerous. The boundaries between planes have become thinner and portals less predictable; many powerful monsters inhabit the multiverse, and they are not likely to help an inadvertent planar traveler. The uncontrolled creations of the Makers are as likely to be dangerous as benevolent.   

Humans fear (for instance) being enslaved by formians, who in turn dread being drafted into the blood war, and even balors and pit fiends fear the epic monsters of some demiplanes. However, travel has its advantages, as even the Plane of Erosion has valuable resources and benevolent extraplanar beings. Occasionally, a traveller can even find an intact magic item from the time of the Makers.

There's definitely societies, but they're small and isolated from each other.

The things people are terrified of would actually be the main use for social skills (for an adventurer), because the outsiders don't tend to kill humanoids. We're too valuable for that. They'd rather enslave you, or keep you as a source to drain energy from, or send you to get something from an area warded against evil by the Makers.

Cosmology: all the standard planes exist, except for the positive and negative energy planes. Instead of those, there are 2 new groups of planes:

The positive planes:The positive planes:
    Prolifar (the plane of growth)
    Simulcron (the plane of knowledge)
    Syllogria ()
    Altipros ()
    Ettek (the plane of solidity)
    Etrivon(the plane of intensity)
    Taea (the plane of clarity)
    The Maze

The negative planes:
    Ukrolus (the plane of impermanence)
    Okelys (the plane of shards)
    Vodremk (the plane of weight)
    Asculos (the plane of fear)
    Yrst (the plane of fury)
    Itanat (the plane of forgetting)
    Reyennon (the plane of sorrow)
    The Maze

(Names thanks to SirPercival)

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The curtains of the world:
A shimmering transparent veil thousands of kilometers long and higher than even a dragon can fly lies over the oceans between Alfheim and Vessar, and East to West between the Norselands and the Frostfell. It is intangible, and causes no harm to those passing through it, but blocks most spells and effects, including teleportation.


The Makers:
Ancient beings, no longer present in the world. Their power surpassed even that of the gods, and they created many new species of living creatures, for reasons no longer known. Many of their creations and artifacts remain, and some say all the humanoid races can be counted among those. Some say that they created the world itself. Few records of their civilization survive, and those ancient creatures that remember that era are not inclined to spread their knowledge.

Deities:
Minor gods can appear spontaneously from the material of the astral plane. Most major ones are mortals who ascended during the time of the Makers. (This includes the Greyhawk pantheon listed in the DMG and a pantheon based off of Norse mythology. Unoriginal, I know, but not creating a whole new pantheon makes things easier for everyone, and Loptr was worth including Norse myth expys for.)

There were once 8 overdeities, but they do not grant spells, and have not been worshipped for so long that even their names have been forgotten by most.


The first heroes:
In the time of the makers, there was no need for great warriors, healers, or mages. Those who were the first to master the skills humanoids need to survive in the multiverse on their own are known as the first heroes. Most mortal disciplines of power were invented by them, and the shape of the world today shows their influence in every facet of life.
Among them are such legendary figures as Reshar and Mordenkainen, but also many less famous yet equally significant pioneers.


The Fey:
The Seelie and Unseelie courts (NG and NE aligned, respectively) reside in the two sides of the Maze, ruling many lesser courts and kingdoms of Fey according to rules often incomprehensible to mortals.
They value and honor the company of extraordinary humanoids - or other creatures - and compete to impress the queen with their guests, yet can be as cold and deadly as any Norseland blizzard.
Few fates, even among the dangers of the planes, are more feared than the Wild Hunt.

The Humanoid Races:
The world is older than history. Even the gods are young in comparison, though they may know something of it. The humanoid races, however, are known to have been created by the Makers, only a few centuries before their fall, with a few exceptions such as the Drow, the first generation of whom were elven followers of Lolth transformed upon her ascension.
The first generation of humans were created somewhere in Ves (the continent the map is centered on), and the elves and dwarves can likewise trace their ancestry back to Alfheim and the Frostfell respectively, though over the millenia since members of each species have migrated and diverged, and all three races are common in most regions. Orcs are said have crossed Glav Nazh, though this is far from certain. Other races are less common, though not unknown.

Historical miscelania:
Langt-Eldheim war - some centuries ago, the Norse Kingdoms dissolved, the High Kings of Eldheimhaving become corrupt and lost the support of the Norse pantheon. The Lady Protector, who overthrew the King of Eldheim, a descendant of the dynasty that once ruled the north claims, the divine right of rulership over the surrounding area that the monarchs lost, and some of the gods support her, though not all. Many of the other local city-states were not willing to give up their independance, leading to a series of wars between Eldheim and a coalition led by Langt over the course of the last five decades.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2016, 07:31:05 PM by Quillwraith »

Offline Quillwraith

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Re: The New World Thread
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2016, 06:09:48 PM »
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Offline Quillwraith

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Re: The New World Thread
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2016, 06:10:04 PM »
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