Neutral Ground, a tale of parallel worlds, p.2

The gods were part of a hierarchy of spiritual entities that no lonerr exists, either in Mae'lef or Ka'lef.

.  The Well
..  The paragon powers* (one per race)

... The gods (many racial pantheons arrayed beneath the nameless Paragons)

.... The great spirits (avatars that were the gods' direct hands in the world)

..... The Internecines (strange ethereal beings at were mankind's go-betweens with the gods)

* quasi real entities that created the well as a pool of power and a tool, and created the gods and various races to make war with it in their names and with the well as a tool

The gods rebelled against the paragons and severed the chains between them before they were corrupted by the poisoned Well. The corrupted Well was effectively destroyed, taking with it the very paragon powers that had created it.

The gods were decimated in number and lessened in power. The great spirits unraveled, their power running through the internecines and the people and into the land, becoming spirits of places and things. The Internecines dissolved into a web of life and magic connecting all of the spirits, including those that inhabited the people and became part of their souls. the gods are shadows of themselves, more abstract concepts than anything else.

Neutral Ground, a tale of parallel worlds, p. 1

Mae'lef is a dying world birthed out of a mad act. The gods had been at war for countless eons. One mad god sought to break the pattern for all time, and created a taint, a corruption that killed the gods. It went out of control, destroyed them all and damned the world. Thus was born Mae'lef.  A hard world where the gods are dead, magic is corrupted, and mad Blessed rule the blasted landscape between isolated pockets of life and civilization. 

The shadow world to the Battle Ground (Mae'lef) is the Neutral Ground (Ka'lef).

In Ka'lef, the mad one's poisoning of the well of power was discovered, and most of the gods banded together to fight the action. Many died, but in a last desperate act, the gods cast a massive spell which destroyed the Well from which they drew much of their power.

The corruption at the heart of the world had become so ingrained into the weave of the world that cutting it off effectively split off an alternate universe where the rot took hold, destroyed the gods, and birthed the Blood of the Gods. So was birthed Mael'eff, the battle grounds.

Magic in Ka'lef is lesser in scope than in Mae'lef. The corrupted well is gone, with it the nameless paragon powers that divided the races and turned them against each other. The gods were left cut off of the source of most of their power and largely bereft of purpose. They could no longer maintain the great spirits that were their avatars, or the Internecines as strands of their own power given life and thought.  The great spirits, the generals of the armies of the gods, dissolved. Their power unraveled and washed through the strange Internecines and into the land itself. The land gave birth to spirits that inhabited all things, including people. The Internecines dissolved into a web of magic that connected the newly created spirits together.

Nature came alive in a way that it never was before. Spirits infused everything, and became one with everything. Lall life became connected in a way that it never had been. A web and weave of magic was created, much lesser than the well had been, but calmer and more integrated with everything. Spirits came to life in all things,min places and ideas. The broken chains of power that led down from the nameless well, and the racial paragons that came beneath them immolated themselves to save those below them, and gave birth to a different, living world.

It is now 1000's of years later.

Kalef is a shamanistic/Druidic world that has benefited from 1000s of years or relative peace. High fantasy, it has many dangers, but it is a healthy world, full of a mix of brutal life and delicate, with high civilization throughout. Magic is everywhere, but it's generally a quieter sort of magic than it used to be.

Ammadhur, City Eternal

Mallek placeholder art

The Mallek.

Mallek

(Race based on a tunneling mole cricket)

[Editor's note: The Mallek are intended to have a Conan ish Byzantine ish culture. Only, in tunnels. They are enlightened and artistic, quiet except when in their"Nobel Savage" adventuring years. It's a Byzantine barbarian bug rumspringa!]

Armored burrower. Mandibles and claws maximized for digging.  Drones can exude a glue like substance that coats the dirt behind them and glue it together into permanent cemented tunnels.  Live in burrows and tunnels usually fairly close to the surface, but occasionally intersecting with the upper portions of the Dismal. Large family units. Drones, warriors, queens, etc. 

They live primarily in badlands, scrublands and desert areas, building huge tunnel complexes all throughout an area. Their burrows are beautifully sculpted, the concrete walls swirled into the crickets' flowing cursive script. The Mallek literally write their history behind them as they go forwards. 

They have a complex and sophisticated society. Though their culture is generally quiet, contemplative and communal in nature, their youth often take a period of several years to explore the world and eventually bring knowledge and riches back to the hive. They have agriculture, primarily fungi, molds and algaes that they grow in vast horizontal and vertical fields, almost entirely covering their huge, vaulted farm caverns.  They cultivate animals, including other insects. They do however take and keep slaves, of their own or any other race, usually as a manner of resolving debt or punishing criminals.  Slaves have some basic rights and a position in the hive, being seen as an important commodity for the tribe.

The drones are a quiet, thoughtful and artistic people. Their warriors however can call upon and find strength in a feral savagery when pressed into battle. Their magic culturally leans towards shamanism/necromancy. 

Mallek age ranges:

0-5 Childhood 

6-10 Adolescence 

11-15 young adult 

16-30 adult

31-45 middle aged 

46-60 venerable

61 and up Ancient 

Warrior:

Power +2

Health +2

Grace +1

Finesse 

Acumen 

Discipline -1

Charm -1

Drone:

Power 

Health 

Grace 

Finesse +1

Acumen +1

Discipline +1

Charm 

Both have:

Trait: burrower

Trait: scent

Trait: 4 arms

Warriors have:

Trait: Large

Trait: armored (thick carapace)

Trait: Natural Weapons

Beserker: Novice

Drones have:

Trait: tough hide (thin carapace)

Trait: gooey

Drones gain +1 sp per term that they can out into a domestic or artisan skill.

Queens are immobile, NPC only.

Power +1

Health +1

Grace -5

Finesse -1

Acumen +4

Discipline +4

Charm +2

Seafolk

Humanoid bodies with webbed hands and feet, and a mass of tentacles and eyestalks with a mouth in the center for a head. They are purely aquatic, and cannot survive on land without significant magical aid.

The Seafolk are mystics, artists and artisans. They trade with the dry lands usually through the Sinodyte, who often act as their go betweens.  They trade high quality art and luxury materials, as well as prophecies for the future, for Anyang else that they need or want from the surfaces.

Power -1

Health 0

Grace +1

Finesse 0

Acumen +2

Discipline +2

Charm -1

Corruption 0

The Kin

The rat folk tend towards learning broad approaches to wide ranges of skills, rather than be masters of one. Evolutionarily speaking, they are designed to act almost as a fractal racial mind, which each rat almost holding an image of the whole in its head, holographically. 

Most Kin remain tightly bound to ther own clutch, and form inseparable gp family groups that operate as a serene and machine like whole. Not all rats remain this hidebound. Some seem to instinctively form an intensive and wide ranging racial curiousity.  If the view world view of these curious seek could be summed up in three words, it would be "Always Learn More."

Adventuring rats, who live apart from the nests, tend to reflect this racial tendency by following the "jack of all trades, master of none" philosophy. These Kin can spend years traveling the world, learning bits and pieces of differnt skills, surviving in every possible environment, before finding a place to settle down and build a nest for itself and a family. When they settle down, they share their knowledge of the world with their families - those by birth or those chosen - to strengthen all. 

Each rat spends it's clutching years steeped in the constant chatter of its elders, it's brothers and sisters, and returning adventurers. They grow up nesting in scraps of journals, surrounded by pages of ancient tomes, bits of old carvings and artifacts from the days of the gods. They grow a deep curiosity about all things new and old and strange. 

Some Kin will bond themselves into small troupes or "families" of 3 or more, that move and think together almost as one. Kin that are in Clutch can become the quiet leaders and defenders of their nests. Rarely, a single Kin will bond him or herself in Clutch with a single member of another race. Note that although there is nothing necessarily sexual to the Cluthing bond, most Kin view this practice perverse. 

Kin mature quickly, but are not especially long lived.

Power -1

Health 0

Grace +1

Finesse +1

Acumen +1

Discipline -1*

Charm +1*

Corruption 0

Kin are fast, dexterous, clever and make friends easily.  But they are physically small in stature, not especially strong, and easily distracted.

*Kin that are in Clutch are not as outgoing as their brothers (CHA 0), but their unity gives them strength (DIS +1) as long as they are within line of sight of at least one Clutchmate.

Kin age ranges

0-5 Childhood 

6-10 Adolescence 

11-15 young adult 

16-35 adult

36-55 middle aged 

56-70 venerable

71 and up Ancient 

In character generation, a Kin gets one extra Specialization Point every term that she moves into a new environment (4 instead of 3). If staying in a particular environment for more than one term, the Kin gets the normal number of Specialization Poiunts (3).

The Blood of Dead Gods: A new look for the Geb, I think.

The Blood of Dead Gods: A new look for the Geb, I think.

A new look for the Geb, I think.

The girl pulled out a small rough made knife. A tiny thing, not much more than a fragment of sharpened metal half wrapped in scrounge get leather.

His laughter bellowed throughout the halls. He raised the visor of his helm, and sneered at the girl. "And what, you little cunt, are you going to do with that wee thing?"

She looked up at him through the skein of hair falling over her face, gave him a small grin, and raised the knife to her own wrist.

Hours later, city guardsmen found two corpses. The mercenary's body was so ravaged as to be almost unrecognizea lie. The small bedraggled girl, emptied of all blood, looked to have been dead for days, not hours.  

Kek Knife

Crescent shaped knife with a handle in the middle, essentially a  double curved dagger. It's named for the Sinodyte word for mandibles.

  /

(

|

(

  \

The Sinodyte, who typically are not very violent or warlike, traditionally make them from the mandibles of ancestors who are killed in battle, specifically to serve as an instrument of revenge on those who killed her.  The Sinodyte will hunt the killer down an execute him with the knife. Some Sinodyte-made true Kek have been captured by other races. Some Geb raiders have taken to capturing and killing ancestors and making their own.

The knife has been widely imitated an recreated, typically with more typical materials.

The Corruption System

YThe first goal of the game is always the enjoyment of all of the players. The second goal is to control the flow of the narrative. The players can theoretically create almost any character that could reasonably exist in the world that the game master is presenting. They are restrained only by what the game master will allow, and character generation should always be done together with the game master.

The GM and players are encouraged, once the characters are created and play officially begins, to completely ignore every game mechanic, and simply improvise a story together that fits into the universe the players and GM are creating together. That abstract a play style is not always possible or fun for every player, and not everyone always agrees on what would improve the story.  Thus,  gaming groups are encouraged to change or ignore any and every rule presented here until they find a balance that suits them. The only rule we'd recommend never changing is that the GM always has the final say in disagreements. It's his story that you're inhabiting.

Basic resolution mechanic:

For any given task, the GM assigns a numeric difficulty.  Success is a range around that number, from "abject failure" to "total success". The player rolls 3d6 + a modifier and compares it to the target number. Anything below the target number is a compete failure. The target number to the number +2 is either a partial success or a success at a price (player's choice). The target number +3 to +5 is an average/normal success.  The target number +6 to +8 is a better quality success. The target number +9 or above is an extraordinary success. The Difficulty Class for any given task is determined by the GM.  

Abject Failure DC -1 or below 

Partial Sucess or Sucess at a Price DC to DC + 2

Average Sucess DC+3 to  DC+5

Improved Sucess DC+6 to DC+8

Extraordinary Sucess DC+9 or above

The GM need never roll a die.  Instead, he should present the players with a situation, allow them to describe how they are handling a situation, assign them a difficulty number, and have them roll.

A physically and mentally "average" person attempting to accomplish a very simple, basic and unopposed task of which she is physically capable but at which she has no skill or training, should have about a 50/50 shot at a basic success (about a DC 10), with the affects of differing degrees of success being defendant on the task. The GM has final say on whether a task is possible, and how difficult it will be. 

[Note that I'm not necessarily married to using 3d6 spefically. A different combination if dice is possible, as long as it leads to a strong bell curve]

For example:

An average adult human academic, of average health, with no physical training or particular physical talent, snaps and lashes out, trying to punch another alert, average adult human academic who also lacks physical training or particular physical talent. He has a roughly 50% chance of successfully landing a punch on him to any appreciable effect. It is a Difficulty 10 check on a straight, unmodified 3d6. 

A roll of 9 or below on the dice is an abject failure, with consequences (for example, he swings and misses completely, going momentarily off balance and allowing the other guy an opening).

A roll of 10 through 12 to would be a partial success (for example, he brushes the guy with his fist, causing not much damage but distracting him momentarily, possibly allowing himself a future opening); OR a success at a price (for example, he lands a good punch that will be felt, but leaves himself temporarily out of balance, and vulnerable to a punch in return). 

A roll of 13 to 15 would be a good punch, doing normal temporary damage. Another punch like that will start to slow the guy down. 3 or 4 punches like that should knock the other person unconscious, or at least out of the fight, with a small chance of having caused a more seirous injury. 

A roll of 16 to 18 would be solid punch, slowing the other guy down and imposing a temporary penalty. Two like this will take the guy out of the fight. OR, he can take an extraordinary success wat a price, for example he knocks the guy unconscious but breaks two of his own fingers. 

A roll of 19 or above, were it possible, would be an extraordinary success. He lands a lucky blow and knocks the guy unconscious with one punch, and comes out unscathed.  However our average academic would need at least a small edge to get this result, something that would give him at least a plus one. 

Corruption - Character Generation

The player first decides her race. Based on the race chosen, she then decides on her character's age bracket, and from there determines her starting age.  The aged brackets are:

Child 

Adolescent

Young Adult

Adult

Middle-Aged 

Elderly 

Venerable

Each starting age category gives different possible starting stat packages, and will allow access to differnt character history environments (see below).

Players are highly discouraged from playing a character younger than "young adult" or older than "middle aged", but can do so with GM permission,if they can justify it in their character background. 

[i.e. players should speak to their Game Master before choosing to start the game younger than Young Adult or older than Middle Aged, as it could have dramatic effects on the kind of game played. Ultimately, the Narrative decides what is allowable, and the GM controls the Narrative.] 

Each race has a different life span, and for each race a character will of a given age will be considered to fall into a different age category. For example:

Human Age Catgeory

0-10 child 

11-15 adolescence

16-20 young adult

21-40 adult

41-60 middle aged 

61-80 elderly 

81-100  venerable.

Lotho Age Category

0-15 child

16 to 25 adolescent

26 to 35 young adult

36 to 60 adult

61 to 90 Middle Aged

91 to 150 elderly 

151 to 200 venerable

  Characters have picked up skills, knowledge, professions, tricks and strange experiences over time as they reached the points where they are at the start of play.  For every block of approximately 5 years of the character's past life (round down, minimum of 1), the players will be able to choose single loosely defined "Environment" in which they spent a significant amount of time.  Some environments are considered 'Advanved', have prerequisite; can only be chosen within certain age brackets, or after other environments.

Sample environments: 

Farm

Rural

Estate

Urban

River

camp follower

Soldier (advanced)

Mercenary (advanced)

Islander

Desert

Academic (advanced)

Adventurer (advanced)

Sailer

Forest

Swamp

Mountains

Underground

Environments can generally be chosen multiple times (I.e. for multiple blocks of five years). Player will have to justify to the game master the environment changes based on his character's back story. 

For every year of the players life, he gets a single build point, which can be put towards purchasing traits and Areas of Expertise. Every trait and area of expertise, along with having a point cost, has a prerequisite environment or environments.  Areas of expertise can be taken more than once, advancing from Novice (cost of 5 points, +1 bonus) to Grandmaster (cost of 25 points, +5 bonus). Traits cost the number of points listed.

SO:

A 26 year old human, a quarter of the way through his full adulthood, can choose up to five environments, and has 26 points to spend on areas of expertise and traits.  A Sinodyte larvae of 27 years of age, also considerd an an adult, could also pick up to 5 environments. Within which to spend her 27 pointed An Aelth of 65, which makes her an adult, can choose a pool of up to 13 environments in which to have lived. 

Areas of expertise have prerequisite environments. For example "Hunting" is a general area of expertise is available to those whose pool of environments includes a "Wilderness" environment, which includes Forest, Swamp, mountainous, underground, etc. a hunter who is attempting to hunt in an environment with which he is unfamiliar will treat his Expertise as one level lower until he has learned the ropes of where he is (GM's discretion)

The available areas of expertise depend on the environments that the person spent their time in. If a 70 year old Aelth spent her entire life  just aimlessly wandering around the forest, living a mostly nomadic lifes and living off of the land, she'd be required to take 13 areas of expertise that are available in the "forest" environment, which will likely involve raising a small number of areas each to high levels of expertise.  Such as:

Hunting: Master (+4) [20 points, prerequisite of at least one wilderness environment]

Forest Survival: Master(+4) [20 points, prerequisite of Forest]

Stalker: Expert (+3) [15 points, prerequisite of either Hunting of Expert, or a Wilderness Survival of Expert, or others]

Forest Beastfriend*: Novice (+1) [10 points, prerequisite of "Forest Survival: Master"]

Blooded** [Trait, 5 points, prerequisite of at least one magical environment or trait]

Defiler***: Novice (+1) [5 points, prerequisite of a "Corruption" score of at least 1, and either a Beastfriend or Plantfriend Area of Expertise]

* Beastfriend is considered a Magical area of expertise. As such, it is a prerequisite  for a number magical traits. It also allows the player to begin play with the "Blooded" trait, if they so choose.

**The "Blooded" trait raises a character's corruption score from 0 to 1, and allow the character to have thus far avoided destruction by the Blood. A character may gain a Corruption score above zero during character generation only by purchasing the trait. It is assumed that a starting character has managed to stay alive aghast the call of the blood thus far. It is not recommended that any character start with a corruption score higher than 1. 

***Defiler is considered a Corrupted skill, thus having a prerequisite minimum Corruption score equal to the bonus obtained. (Novice requires a COR of 1, Journeyman requires COR 2, Expert requires 3, Master 4 and Grandmaster 5.)

Should a player ever progress her Corruption to 10 OR  raise any Corrupted skill or Area of expertise to "Grandmaster", she is considered to have fully transformed into a true Blessed. The character is effectively destroyed in her old form, and arises as an entirely new creature.  The character is removed from play. OR,  With the consultation and permission of the GM, the player may pick one of the Blessed templates for which she qualifies, or create a new one of comparable power, with the help of the game master, and continue play in the new form.

Quick notes on "natural" magic

There are multiple forms of "natural" or inherent magic, magical styles that grew traditionally with the races, or that different races have affinities for, and all of them have ways of attempting with varying degrees of success to avoid corruption. 

Elemental (Sinodyte, hypothetical bird folk )

Druidic (Lotho, Aelth)

Shamanic (Shar, geb)

Dreamers (hypothetical sea folk)

Druidic magic uses and manipulates the life force inherent in the natural world. Corruption is unusual but not unheard of, as all life force on Maeleff is tied together with magic. 

Shamanic magic invokes local spirits. Again, as with Druidic magic, those spirits are composed of life force, which is tied ultimately to the same poisoned pool. Spirits may become corrupted, and so may those that work with them.

Elemental magic had the same dangers as sorcery. Slow, gradual and simple uses are fairly safe, anything else is extremely risky.

The sea folk (think deep ones) are mystics who divine with dreams, and manipulate dreams. It is a slow and simple form of magic and is fairly safe, though not absolutely so. 

Kel Mar, 38th Tyrant of Ammadhur.

Shar

Sava

Duer

Notes on magical traditions

Druidic magic exists, practiced primarily by the Lotho. The Aelth dabble in it, but they're really the "guardians of the forest" types, so much as the "vicious bastards that live in the forest".  Lotho Druids are known to frequently use an affect similar to the D&D/Pathfinder spell "Awaken", on plants and animals. Unfortunately, the awakened beam magical in nature, and are subject to the Blood. This has been the cause of a number of despoiled areas.

Shar magic tends to be Shamanic in nature.

Sava have no magical tradition, for obvious reasons.

Geb magic is primarily shamanic and personal, concerned with changes to oneself more than anything else. Includes blood rites and sacrifice.

Kin are very adaptable, and use any kind of magic they can find,their own traditions are ceremonial in nature, with spells traditionally cast by entire troupes working together.

Sinodyte magic is rare, and tends to be elemental in nature when it exists.

Umami magic is arcane and ceremonial in nature.

Duer magic is a combination of ceremony and enchantment.

Solemn Guardians

Solemn Guardian- stone and metal constructs brought to life by duer magic. Silent, but understand spoken commands.  They possess enough intelligence and sense of logic to try and interpret commands in such a way as to make sense out of them. They can be programmed to have an ethical code, or they can develop one with time, based on the commands they have been given.

Maeleff racial politics

Geb are compulsive debaters, and for all f their militaristic tendencies are fanatics for democracy.  Every decision in a Geb city is made as the result of weeks or months of debate. The some exception is the decision to fight the blooded or eliminate evidence of gods, regarding which they are to say the least intense.  They use criminals and war prisoners as slave labor, but are otherwise fairly friendly to outsiders.

Shar have a strict hierarchy, with a small oligarchy at top, and strictly delineated castes beneath them. Most Shar cities are closed to outsiders.  They raid nearby settlements for slaves or food or just for the fuck of it.  Gladiatorial contests that can raise one's caste. Outsiders are sometimes allowed to compete, sometimes forced to, but will never be integrated into Shar society as a result.

Sava are clannish anarchists. Families stay together because they want to, and wen they no longer want to, they leave. They cooperate to hunt or for defense, and because they are naturally outgoing and friendly, but they almost never feel obligated to do so by anything beyond affection or enlightened self interest.

Aelth have a tribal structure, and are generally hostile to outsiders.

Duer are insular and clannish. They are polite and open to outsiders as prudent, but generally keep very mug to themselves.  Ruled by councils of elders who vote among themselves.

Lothar, as far as anyone can tell, have no sort of organizational structure at all. They appear to live mostly individual existences, acting together only when necessary.  They at a extremely private, and did not even attempt to make contact with outsiders until quite recently.

The bugs claim that they are ruled by the wisdom of their elders, but nobody else can even determine if said elders are sentient, let alone in command. Mysterious.

The office of the Tyrant of Ammadhur

The primary government offices are in an old stone fortress on the central island, a fort left over from before the Falling, that was restored after people began to re-emerge from the local caves.

The Tyrant's offices take up most of the third (top) floor if the central keep.  The maethen berry vines that climb the outer walls pierce through the stone here, and completely cover one interior wall. The ceiling has been replaced with alchemically reinforced glass. The berries are of top quality, alchemically enhanced, and are used to make a small batch of Maethen wine every year, most if which is given as gifts to important visiting diplomats.

The old way vs. the new way....

Okay, interesting thought. Or I think so anyway...

Despite the danger inherent to magic, Mayes have for obvious reasons always wielded tremendous power in Maeleff. Even aside from their personal power, this is a world whose people were raised and evolved with magic and sorcery being just the way certain things were done. The ability to use magic is of course to some extent damaging to a society's "technological" growth, insofar as they have never had a reason to learn how to do certain things without magic. 

Now of course, things are a bit different. It's been 500 years or so since the gods died and their Blood ran.  The people have had 500 years to get used to the idea that magic is dangerous, destructive and poisonous. So there has been a rising movement to learn how to do things without magic. Philosophers, scientists and engineers are just starting to appear, looking for other ways to do things. 

This of ourselves sets up lots of neat conflicts. Old power structure looking to keep its grasp of things vs. those looking to brak away from that while structure. Neophobes vs. Neophiles.

Magic and spell casting

Casting a spell has three steps:

1. Forging a Connection

2. Gathering Power

3. Shaping the Power

In Forging a Connection, the Mage temporarily opens himself to the magic at the heart of the world, or to some other source of power, and binding himself to it for the duration of the spell.  For a Blessed or Blooded Mage this is an easy task; as the Blood grows within them, they become their own source of power. For others, it requires a significant mental effort, that can be aided by ritual.  Most mages Forge with the Well, the main pool of magical and metaphysical power placed by the gods at the heart of the world. There are however other sources of power that can be tapped, usually for limited and situational purposes.  Shaman (and Defilers) can tap the life force and spirit of the natural world around them, for small and local effects. By sacrificing an animal or sentient creature, the Mage can tap into the life force and energy inherent to that creature. One who has been granted power by a Weeping can draw on that connection, as long as the Weeping allows it (or at least does not actively prevent it). 

In Gathering Power, the Mage, having opened himself to magic, draws upon that bond and fills himself with magical power sufficient to create the effect he desires. The wells of power are vast and deep, and the gathering power stage can take as little or as much time as the Mage desires. However speed comes with a great potential cost. A Mage must have the mental strength to absorb what he needs, and simultaneously requires sufficient mental agility to dive into the well without contacting the blood, and damning himself. It is much easier to do this in a slow and methodical manner, drawing in tiny amounts of power over a long period of time. Drawing great power through the bond rapidly runs a much greater risk of contacting Blood.  Note that the risk of becoming corrupted is lessened by using a source or power other than the Well, but with the sole exception of a Weeping bond, the risk is never entirely eliminated.  Even the slowest, most cautious and well protected Alchemist or Shaman still has a chance of touching the Blood at the heart of all magic. All power, all energy, on Maeleff is in a sense bound together by the magic of the gods, and us it is all subject to the blood.  

Shaping Power is an act of will and imagination. Now that the power has been gathered, the Mage must force it into the pattern he wishes to create to create the desired effect. 

Sinodytes - bug folks. Sapient larva, nonsapient adults.

New race notes

Aquatic insect race.  The medium sized larva are sentient, the ultimate huge beetle adult is not sentient. 

Relatively short lived as intelligent larva, but there are methods of extending their lives and avoiding pupating.

The adult beetles are fairly docile and slow, but very tough, and are both revered as ancestors and used as mounts and transportation by the young.

Very big river and coastline traders.

Shadowmancy

The Dwellers in Shade, or Shadowmancers, are a small and secretive ascetic order of Blooded mages, who believe that their discipline can be used to slow the progress of corruption while still making use of the power that it grants.

Because magic, and Blood power, are to some extent metaphysical in nature, and malleable by will, the Shadowmancers believe that the danger of the Blood is at least in part because of the way people think of it. They attempt to change this in part by changing the metaphor for its use.

As I've noted before, the Parable of the Poisoned Well is so widely spread that it is how most people - even most mages and magical scholars - think of magic and Blood.  The Shadowmancers believe that this metaphysical construct has become so widespread that it is effectively real, and they seek to change it. They instead believe that the corruption of the Blood of the Gods, as it is a phenomenal (if deadly) power source, should be thought of as the ultimate source of visible power - a sun. They attempt to focus their minds and wills to imagine the Blood in their systems as a small metaphysical sun, radiating its power and corruption outwards, rather than something internal that spreads outwards. They will then create what amounts to a shield of magical shadow to block the rays of this malevolent sun. Instead of manipulating the light from the Blood sun to create magic, they manipulate its shadow, using the negative metaphysical space to manipulate their environment in ways similar to those of standard mages.

This is all of course metaphor, and metaphysical construct. They are not physically creating a ball of light and a shield. Its essentially a use of creative visualization that manipulates the metaphysical realm in which magic has its physical stuff, rather than an actual physical creation.

Interestingly, the Dwellers in the Shade do seem to have something. On average, those Blooded who master their visualization exercises, and who can manipulate their own minds to fully set and accept the proper metaphors, do on average seem to be able to hold out against Corruption longer than most, and can seemingly hold off the decision between destruction and Blessing for years longer than most others.  Whether this is simply because the most studied ascetics possess the greatest willpower, or because of some material benefit of the discipline itself, is an open question.

So, the wastelands on Maeleff were basically painted by this guy.

http://i.imgur.com/P8jH0Z1.jpg

Shar male.

Ignore the writing on the image, it's a Shar male, not Sava.

Game systems

Been looking at open source tabletop RPGs, to try and find one to fit BoDG, but can't find anything that grabs me. Either not flexible enough to easily handle the corruption and transformation processes, or don't have a stat system that I think will fit. I think I really may have to just design a bare bones story based system and leave it at that.

Maeleff Underground maps!

TIL - the MTA has maps online of the subway tunnels all throughout NYC. I think I've found an instant map for some of the underground tunnels and pathways that cut all through Maeleff.

http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_Track_Maps

Note to self

Need to remember to write up Despoilers (blessed anti-druidic types, typically corrupted Lotho). Also: someone on a reddit rpg thread said that they had a party member animate the corpse of a bear, hollow it out, fill it with shelves, and have it act as a walking closet. I so need to steal that.

Maeleff, southern continent.

Myth and History

Myth and lore tell us much that the scholars and alchemists of today can only guess at, or discuss in the abstract.

We know that the stars of the night sky are suns like our own, and have worlds around them both greater and lesser than Maeleff. We know that the gods came here from one of those worlds, and remade Maeleff as their battlefield and playground.

We know that all of the peoples of Maeleff were raised up by the gods to be their tools, both servants and soldiers against each other. We know that the gods made magic and gave it to their servants in order that they might better make war against each other.

We know that the gods died, killed in hatred by a weapon so powerful that it poisoned the world. We know that at their death, the gods spilled their poisoned blood into the world. We know that the Blood and its poison are the unmaking of everything, and that out of the arrogance of the gods, the world will someday die, either withered and foul, or so altered and rendered Blessed and strange that it will no longer seem our world.

We know that the world contains mysteries we no longer understand, artifacts of the gods and their servants from the elder days of endless war. We know that, and we have hope, that in the annals of those older and grander than ourselves, yet perhaps less wise, we may still find the wisdom to save us.

Some new flora and a blessed

Sanguine Blooms

A breed of flowers that grows only near or above physical pools of the Blood. Deep red roses that can grow either in the light or in total darkness. Their scent is hypnotic and grants visions that are sometime true, and sometimes perilous. Inhaling the scent of the blooms will cause hallucinations which may reveal truths, but is usually safe. The flowers themselves are poisonous to mortals, and the roots actually contain traces of the Blood.

Many Blooded claim that keeping or wearing a sachet made from the petals and other parts of the plant grants them powers of vision beyond the usually in incomprehensible imagery usually associated with the flowers. Certain Blessed have been known to smoke or otherwise consume the flowers. What they gain by doing so is unknown, but many will actively seek the blooms out.

Blessed:
The Hollow / The Faceless

Masters of illusion and manipulation.
Normal looking (whatever) except with no face, just an opening that appears usually to open up onto a portal into deep space - they appear filled with sky and stars.

The Hollow are empathic blessed that create illusions and hallucinations in the minds of mortals, do that they can feed on the powerful emotions. Brief contact leaves one feeling calm and dispassionate, incapable of deep emotion for a period if time. Longer exposure can damage minds, as the Hollow feeds on more and more, until they leave their victim mindless and drooling.

There are rumors of some people, usually wealthy and powerful, hiring Hollow to feed on a specific emotions, leaving them for example utterly (if temporarily) fearless.

Some have been known to become addicted to the gaze of the Hollow. These poor souls inevitably are one day found mindless and drooling.

The Hollow are not mindless at all. They are as varied in intelligence and personality as any mortal race. Their kind appear to drawn from all of the various races (save Sava of course), and some come from no race that can be readily identified.

Note that the blooded are not immune to a Hollow's illusions, nor are they safe from his feeding. Some Hollow who have not fully resigned themselves to evil have developed a taste for the Blooded, and will seek them out to feed upon.

Hollow reproduce by draining a blooded of their mind, and then pouring son of their own essence back into their victim. They may also expose the mindless (but alive) body of a victim to the blood after they have new drained, and then pour their essence into the vessel.

==========*===========


He screamed in fear and rage and struck the final blow, striking the creature's head from its shoulders, and dropping it at his feet. He set the point of his blade on the ground and leaned on the hilt, panting heavily as his adrenaline drained from him.
It was then that he felt a peculiar but not unpleasant tingling warmth in his hand.

Gateways, need a name...

I'm a bit ashamed to be cribbing an idea from the Eye of the World series, daft as it is, but I will admit that some bits of it inspired this thought:

Id like to have a series of permanent portals, gateways that are set up in interconnected sets of 3 or 4 all over the world, or at least the continent, offering near instantaneous travel from one to the other. They would mostly be underground, deep in labyrinths in the Dismal, and they are old relics from before the Blood.

As they are magical, and existed before the corruption, many of the portals are infected, and traveling though then would be perilous, probably impossible, for those who are not already blooded or blessed.

Why "the nails"?

I came up with the nickname without knowing what it meant yet.

I think the reason that the Office of Causal Oversight is referred to as "the Nails" is that in their earlier, less refined days, the criminals that they sought had an unfortunate tendency to be found later nailed to things.

The Wiki of Dead Gods

I'm starting to edit this shit into a real wiki, at http://blood-of-dead-gods.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Thoughts on changing the tone from undead-horror to unknown-horror

Is Maeleff a world, in the way we think of one? A roundish planet hovering in space somewhere around a star? Do I need to be that... I don't know, mundane? Literal?

I might make it a flat world, with the "outer edges of the universe" being the far reaches of the flat plane, encircling a small island of order. But I do't want to have to figure out the physics of that.

I've said before that the gods found Maeleff as a raw natural world, file with animals but no intelligent life, and changed some of the animals into the intelligent races. Buy what else did they do to shape the world?

Ideas:

- no molten core, the gods changed the core into pure magic. That's where magic power comes from, and where mist of their blood now resides.  Thus it's not really a well of magic, it's a literal sphere of liquid power, with a denser liquid core if corruption.

- the planet below the surface was changed extensively over time, for whatever incomprehensible purposes the gods had. The entire crust and mantle is riddled with tunnels, huge caverns and cavern complexes, occasional decaying artifacts and incomprehensible machines, some of them incomprehensibly large, and all of then incomprehensible in purpose. Along with other things, this gives a reasonable excuse for the prototypical dungeon crawl.

- the gods cut Maeleff off from the rest of the universe when they were alive, but their walls fell when they did.  Stars and sun only became visible when the gods died, before that the surface had patches of light or darkness as the god willed.  Mages and academics are only now starting to really look at the universe outside their world and form theories about it.  For some years, it was believed that the sun was what killed the gods, and the stars were the gods' dead souls. Now we are unsure.

- the gods were simply another race, from another world. An old, old race, decadent and powerful, that had traveled the galaxy for uncountable eons performing experiments and changing worlds before moving on.  The creation of magic, and ultimately of the virus that killed them, were the first truly new things they had done for millions of years. One of their number had continued to explore the universe, and came to its absolute edges, where things broke down into insanity without form or natural law, and strange, directionless and shapeless power. He brought some o that strange stuff back, and the gods studied it, and from it they crafted magic. Unknown to the rest if the gods, that one explorer also brought something else back, the very thing that eventually killed them.

- magic is in everything and is a part of everything, but that was not always the case, the gods simply made it so. They were so enamored with their new creation that they bound it to life force somehow. In a sense, the sphere of power at the planet's core is thus in some sense a vast ocean of life force.

Think very carefully before making this change:

- magic is just shapeless power - like electricity that responded to will and intelligence.  The Blood of the Gods however is something else. It is, in some sense, alive. A parasitic organism, a virus, that lives for no purpose other than to spread itself.

Tonal changes - Blessed

Since I'm thinking of slightly changing the tone, from undead-centered to "outer strangeness" albeit diety-free lovecraftian in nature, consider the following Blessed changes:

- weeping - no change save that if you look into its cuts or empty sockets, you see things moving. Picture a writhing mass of tiny red worms.
- Shadekin - eyeless, otherwise unchanged
- skinwalkers- the ribcages of the skeletons, when not dressed in skin, are filled with twisted, discolored and distorted organs. Those organs can maintain the skin for months, even years if it is properly and ritually prepared
Otherwise unchanged

Kin/Shadekin

This is a picture of a dog with its head out of the window of a fast moving car. However, I like it and think it looks fairly menacing. I think this is what Kin and/or Shadekin look like. I'm even thinking about making them eyeless just to conform to the picture.
If eyeless: Kin rely on scent, hearing, and a sort of psychic awareness of their environment to "see". Psychic sense is tied in to the kin family group mind

Personnel with the Office of Causal Whatever I Called It

Oversight. Causal Oversight. That's it.

Racine Zed

Human female, 70 years old. Long and varied career, including merchant, smuggler, pirate, fence, and for the last 30 years, the captain of the Nails.

Tall (though getting a bit bent now with age), and still deceptively tough. Gray hair, hazel eyes. Still strong, though fighting off a bit of a gut. You can tell that she was once mildly pretty, if not outstandingly so, still has a very commanding presence.

Sarcastic sense of humor. Wickedly smart. Good with secrets, and nobody can be said to know all or even most of the projects and agents she is running at any point in time.

Tinkered with a bit of alchemy in the past, but has avoided the Blood.

Commands great respect from her people, who also (very reasonably) fear her.

Two husbands plus a Sava lover, three children, seven grandchildren. Has apartments within the trade quarter, as well as a modest estate outside the city walls.

Kepli Thikt Sen

Male Shar, Blooded Mage, and a close advisor to Zed, who is the only person in the Office who is aware that he is blooded. String willed, he has so far avoided any physical changes from the Blood, but it had started to affect his mind. Friends have noted that he is getting more paranoid and insular. Small, with blue and black stripes.

Taen Shalun Marithire Ru'Halena ma Sheer (Tall red blossom in the outer reaches of the high forest)

Called "Taen" by most non-Aelth, or "Red" by friends.

Female Aelth, former scout and mercenary with a Traveller's Society, joined customs and the Office about ten years ago, recruited by Zed. Thin, deep yellow skin, red hair and eyes

Landscape feature - Craters

Giant craters, leftover from the gods' wars, that breach huge networks of tunnels, and all kinds of strangeness.  Come up with a suitably dramatic name

The craters make up a significant portion of the landscape.

In the time since the gods died, natural weathering and growth have started to change the landscape. Plantlife begins to reclaim the blasted lands.  The huge craters that broke open underground cities and networks of ancient tunnels have turned into cities reminiscent of Native American pueblos.  The great Geb city of (whatever it's called) is one example.

More on the death of the gods

The virus (for lack if a better term) that destroyed the gods was not of this world.  It was found in the outer reaches of the universe  by one forgotten god, modified and unleashed.

The virus was inimical to the stuff that the gods were made of. Not matter per se, as the gods were never truly material in the way we think of it, but they did have a real substance to them. Not anymore, they were utterly unmade.

The virus' effect on other things is less predictable.  Magic is similar to the power of the gods, but not identical.  Thus magic carries the virus, but is not destroyed by it.  In fact, the virus itself being made up of an incredibly powerful and strange energy, magic was in many ways made stronger, if far more dangerous.

As for mortal flesh, life on this world was altered drastically by the gods, and infused with a portion of their power and essence. Thus, the virus is almost always  inimical to it. But unlike the gods, who were helpless before it, mortals are made of different stuff that gives them strengths and options that the gods did not have.  Thus usually they are unmade, but sometimes they are only changed.

Work on making Blood-touched mutations and changes more Lovecraftian in tone than straight up undeath, at least in its greater forms.

I keep thinking I should come up with names for this stuff - the blood, the virus, the dead gods, etc.   But I kind of like having the stuff unnamed.  The names of the gods have been deliberately forgotten.  Nobody understands the virus or even know it exists really, so it just the blood as far as they know.

Time Line

I guess I have to decide once and for all how long it has been since the gods died.  I've been somewhat inconsistent over the course of my writing.

I've been vacillating between 1000's of years and just a few.  I think I need to sort of split the difference and make it a several hundred years, maybe between 500 and 800. I want enough time for society to rebuild in a new image, and for a lot of knowledge to be lost, but not all of it, with new technology/magic to be derived from the remnants of the old.  This also makes it long enough for archaeology to be a significant factor in the rediscovery of old knowledge and power.

So there was a bit of an apocalypse maybe 600 or so years ago. Civilization survived in isolated pockets until about 100 to 150 years ago, when isolated populations started to reconnect with each other.

That's not to say that those isolated populations had been idle all that time.  Ammadhur for example has been growing steadily for the entire period, exploring the ravaged world and starting to reconnect with whomever they could find.

There are some groups that have banded together - by choice, conquest, or whatever - into budding nations. But most of the world - or at least of this continent - remain smaller city-states, some like Ammadhur with areas around them that depend on the city for any number of things, like unofficial de facto nations.

Not with a bang...

The virus (for lack if a better term) that destroyed the gods was not of this world. It was found in the outer reaches of the universe by one forgotten god, and unleashed.

The virus was inimical to the stuff that the gods were made of. Not matter per se, as the gods were never truly material in the way we think of it, but they did have a real substance to them. Not anymore, they were utterly unmade.

The virus' effect on other things is less predictable. Magic is similar to the power of the gods, but not identical. Thus magic carries the virus, but is not destroyed by it. In fact, the virus itself being made up of an incredibly powerful and strange energy, magic was in many ways made stronger, if far more dangerous.

As for mortal flesh, life on this world was altered drastically by the gods, an infused with a portion of their power. Thus, the virus is almost always deadly to mortals that encounter it. But unlike the gods, who were helpless before it, mortals are made of different stuff that gives them strengths and options that the gods did not have. Thus usually they are unmade, but sometimes they are only changed.

Work on making Blood-touched mutations and changes more Lovecraftian in tone than straight up undeath, at least in its greater forms.

I keep thinking I should come up with names for this stuff - the blood, the virus, the dead gods, etc. But I kind of like having the stuff unnamed. The names of the gods have been deliberately forgotten. Nobody understands the virus or even know it exists really, so it just the blood as far as they know.

Shar city

Found this picture of a town in Buenos Aires that was underwater for 25 years after a dam broke, and is now being revealed again. I'd like to use this as the basis for the map of a Shar city.

The Office of Causal Oversight

Ammadhur's legal system, like every other aspect of its governance, is an immensely complicated tangle of rights, duties, obligations and spheres of influence. The guild of barristers is quite powerful as a result.

The city being a central port and hub of mercantile activity, the role of the customs office is extremely important, and they are universally given a surprising amount of leeway in the legal system. Some time ago, a smart Tyrant took advantage of this by creating a small cadre of the customs police whose job was ostensibly to investigate corruption at the highest levels, and who were answerable to nobody but the Tyrant himself. He then manipulated changes in several bodies of law to make sure that certain holes were left unfilled, and which resulted in the group having no charter to speak of, and few if any legal limits on their powers.

That group has the innocuous title of The Office of Causal Oversight, but are referred to by most as "The Nails", for reasons lost to history. In effect, they act as the Tyrant's own hounds and secret police. They recruit their numbers from many sources, not the least being Ammadhur's prisons, where any number of pirates and smugglers have found themselves shanghaied with the simple choice of service or death.

It is rumored that the Nails have dealings with the Blooded, possibly even with Blessed, and may harbor some within their numbers. They are suspected especially of having several Skinwalkers in their ranks.

*chirp...chirp*

For the record, this project is not dead. It's been on hold during a lengthy hospitalization and recovery, but I'm starting to think about it again and hope to have some updates soon.
Cheers,
Chris

The old ways

"The world has abandoned the old ways. We have not. We  will be raised up, proven, when all else  fails."

"Proven to who? The gods are dead, the world is doomed by it. What ways?"

"They will return. We are being tested. We remain strong."

"You're mad. All geb are fucking mad and you'll doom us."

Ignore the names...

Living ships - controlled by a shipspouse. Left over from the days of the gods. Engineered from whales, semi-sentient, huge ships, originally warcraft but adapted to fast cargo hauling through rough and dangerous waters. Imagine a corrupted one..

In the days of war, some of the gods crafted certain enormous marine animals into living warships. Leviathans are something between a whale, a giant squid and an immense nautilus. The warships that were made from them are called Galleathans.
They are immense creatures the size of galleons, with decks covered by a transparent crystalline nautilus shell, and weapon ports covered by gill-like flaps. They lack any control schemata, instead each is mentally bound to a particular family of sentients. More specifically, they are bound to one person, and on the death or incapacity of that person the bond will pass to the most genetically similar person, usually a child. They can either be forced to obey, or trained to build a bond of trust and obey voluntarily. The Galleathans are relatively strong willed, so forcing obedience is difficult for most.

Pilots must be magically active and trained in order to create the bond in the first place, although they need not be trained to accept a bond passed from another. An untrained person who suddenly finds themselves bound to a Galleathans can actually be taught and trained by the beast itself

Because the nature of the bond is at its heart magical, the Galleathans may be corrupted through the bond to their pilots. Along the same lines, a corrupted ship whose pilot dies, whose bond then passes to another, will in turn corrupt that person.

Sava cannot be pilots, and cannot be bound by a Galleathans. In fact, Galleathans generally will not tolerate having a Sava on board, as their anti-magical field interferes with the bond and causes them pain.

Galleathans are affected by the will and personalities of their pilot. A pilot who is laid back, generally happy, and works with his ship rather than forcing obedience will generally have a playful, happy ship that may stretch its commands but will no seek to break the bond. A brooding, angry pilot who forces it's will on his ship will have an angry ship, difficult to control, that constantly seeks to break its bond or pervert it's pilot's intent.