NovenFromTheSun
2012-03-23, 05:17 AM
Right now I'm just getting things set up. I'll fill more stuff in later.
Fluffy Stuff
Introduction
From the writings of Nilos Ingham. Unknown date of writing. Procured from his abandoned residence at Chesrich amongst a collection of census data, historical records, and old letters. Nilos’ current location is unknown.
I’m afraid I have significantly less time than I thought; this letter is for anyone who finds it. Please, this is very important, spread what I say here amongst all the settlements and nomadic groups you came find, all must know of this.
For weeks I’ve poured over the texts I’ve collected, trying to find some hint to the origins of the Encroaching Hunger. I have found nothing of the sort; but I now notice something else, something just as important. The Encroaching Hunger is not a random force that desires our complete annihilation like we have once thought, it has a specific plan and its attacks are directed toward that goal. It wants to drive us to a definite location.
For most, I shouldn’t have to repeat what little we know of the Hunger, but during my travels to collect these texts I’ve found widely divergent speculations on its nature, many of which are clearly false. Therefore I have tried to put together the best picture of the Hunger as is possible:
-We know that it is not a singular entity, though we sometimes think of it as such. In our minds, a single vampire is as much the Hunger as an entire brood of puppet-corpses.
-However, we know they have a singular purpose. We have never seen any “units” among the Hunger oppose each other.
-Every “unit” was once a living entity. The Hunger cannot create anything, but it twists whatever comes into it, making what was once life into a broken reflection. People, animals, and plants are vulnerable.
- It always seems to “grow” from the East.
This last point is extremely important. I believe it is trying to drive us Westward. You see, our response to the Hunger when it comes is to try to fight it, become overwhelmed, and pack up as much of our settlements as we can and rebuild away from it. But have you noticed that the Hunger always seems to give us enough time to recover and restabilize our population? This is no accident; it does not want to destroy us.
I’ve seen where the Hunger is trying to drive us. Far to the west there is a massive wall, far too big for it to be manmade. It stretches up to the clouds and out beyond the oceans. It has no gate and it’s completely smooth surface allows nothing to scale it. I do not know what is on the other side, but I have a theory.
You have heard of the Dreamworld I’m sure, perhaps you’ve been there. I seem to have a close affinity with that place, it comes to me often. Reports of those who have found themselves there report their findings with remarkable consistency: it appears as a, far greater than anything we have built, of ruined black buildings and wraithlike inhabitants that rarely notice them. All have said they’ve heard a breathing sound that pervaded the city, the sound of something in pain and trying to escape from entrapment. I had another visit to the Dreamworld when I was near the wall, and I saw something that I have never noticed. There was a dome at the same general location as the wall. The breathing was coming from within that dome, something was trying to break out, and I could see cracks. I believe that whatever is in that dome is also beyond the wall, and the Hunger is directing us there.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, I just know that we don’t have a lot of room to keep going back until we reach that wall. Like I said, tell this to everyone you can. I have so little time, I have to leave.
Does it make sense? Does anything need clarifying?
Civilization
Excerpts from Daumant Patel's travelogue. After finding Nilos’ letter, Daumant went off to spread the message to all settlements. Along the way, he comments on the different groups and places he sees in his journey.
Fresnia
I once saw a tapestry of Fresnia as it was before the Hunger appeared. It used to be a place of great towers, cobblestone streets, and water that flowed from the aqueducts into the many handcrafted streams. Most of the old city has been lost, now most of it is made of tents and wooden barricade made to be quickly built up and taken down. Still, Fresnia remains the largest and most important known town, and is frequently visited by all sorts of people to trade and settle disputes.
The streets, as far as you can call them that, are frequently lined with merchant vendors. Fresnia attracts such a diverse assortment of travelers that one can find almost anything. The most important merchants are those from the mountains bringing down melt water, any group visiting Fresnia will generally look for them first, giving them access to the first imports of other merchants. Water generally isn’t too hard to come by, but no one regrets having some in reserve.
Fresnia is also home to the Assembly of Behn, named a man who look at four groups vying for dominance of a plot f land and said, “Okay, this is a mess. You, you, and you, we’re going up to that hill right there and working something out until we’re all satisfied!” He was never the most formal of administrators. With the continual disbanding of civilization by the attacks of the Hunger, the Assembly has become both increasingly important and increasingly powerless. Its ability to enforce its decrees has been reduced to being over just a few towns, often the only thing they can do is let the leaders of two factions speak and hope they’ve settled everything honestly there. I’ve managed to get a meeting with them to show them Nilos’ letter, but they have not yet came to a decision regarding it. I once heard a rumor about The Man From The Ocean being on the Assembly, but people will say anything about him.
Some times I think about the old Fresnia, sometimes I want to go see what’s left of it. Of course, I would have to go through Hunger territory to get there, a suicidal venture. Maybe I could go there after this business with them and that wall that Nilos mentioned is over, though I’m probably being far too optimistic about that.
This will be occasionally updated.
The Encroaching Hunger
The Frontier
The Wall
From the journal of Placia Avana. After the discovery of Nilos’ letter, Placia took a group of fifteen scouts toward the wall.
I can just see what might be it just over the horizon. It’s certainly too straight to be a mountain.
*
I’m here; this has to be the wall Nilos talked about. He wasn’t exaggerating on its size either; I can see clouds lower than its top. Just looking at it-it’s hard to describe. Not the wall itself, which is just a gray slab. But being in its presence-this isn’t working; I need some time to figure it out.
*
One of the scouts had a nervous breakdown. Conleat Beck, I remember that he was having a lot of problems with his family; I invited him along to give him some time away. That was a mistake; something about this place must have triggered something. I really don’t blame him. I haven’t quite figured out how to describe the wall, but just it being there puts me on edge. Every little sound I hear is enough to make turn right toward it. It stares at you. You look at it and it stares right into you.
*
Nilos could only give a vague theory about what was behind the wall. Looking at it myself, I almost feel like the world could just end on the other side. I talked with some of the scouts about it and we all made suppositions: some serious, some joking.
Nilos also said that the wall extends from ocean to ocean. I’m not quite sure how he managed to make the journey to verify that, we certainly don’t have enough resources to travel to even one coast.
*
We took a closer look at this thing today. No one liked the idea of going right up to the foot of the wall, but we managed to return without it eating us or something. As Nilos said it’s entirely smooth, without the slightest visible or tactile protrusion or extrusion on the portion we analyzed. While we weren’t exactly prepared for a siege, we did try to see if we could cause any crack or take out a piece. I’m personally happy to say that we couldn’t cause a single dent.
Conleat isn’t doing any better I’m afraid. He’s trying to say something, but it’s unintelligible aside from some “and”s and “to”s. I wonder if he’s in the Dreamworld and seeing the dome Nilos mentioned.
*
I think I know what I was trying to say earlier. You see, when you look at a wall it always says to you, “You will not pass me unless…”,: unless you go through the door, unless you climb over me with some rope, unless you break a hole in me. This one just tells you “You will not pass me”, end of story. I can’t say I begrudge it for that; often times the more important the thing behind a wall is, the more difficult that “unless” condition is. If one has no “unless”, than I can assume that whatever’s on either side is best left there.
Why would the Hunger want to bring us here? It’s not just so they could trap us, if they really just wanted to destroy us they already could have. Maybe we shouldn’t stay around to find out, maybe it’s best if we took to the sea and tried to find a new home were they can’t follow. But would that really work? It’s rumored that the Hunger came from the ocean; could they not follow us through there?
I think my scouts are done here; we’ve seen all we can of this wall and I’m not going to risk Conleat’s sanity just to wait a few more days.
The Dreamworld
What Kind of Campaigns Work Here
Fluffy-Crunchy Stuff
Races
Classes
Animals and Monsters
Crunchy Stuff
<This will come much latter>
Pre-writing thoughts
-Given that this is a relatively small setting, it would probably be best to use a lower number of races.
-I think I'd prefer to keep the cosmology a mystery.
-Areas taken by the Hunger should obviously be higher level.
-I want there to be enough uncorrupted wilderness for those who get tired of undead and such things. At the same time I want the wall to feel close.
-Right now I'm just kind of grab-baging names. I guess if any of them sound to out of place let me know.
Fluffy Stuff
Introduction
From the writings of Nilos Ingham. Unknown date of writing. Procured from his abandoned residence at Chesrich amongst a collection of census data, historical records, and old letters. Nilos’ current location is unknown.
I’m afraid I have significantly less time than I thought; this letter is for anyone who finds it. Please, this is very important, spread what I say here amongst all the settlements and nomadic groups you came find, all must know of this.
For weeks I’ve poured over the texts I’ve collected, trying to find some hint to the origins of the Encroaching Hunger. I have found nothing of the sort; but I now notice something else, something just as important. The Encroaching Hunger is not a random force that desires our complete annihilation like we have once thought, it has a specific plan and its attacks are directed toward that goal. It wants to drive us to a definite location.
For most, I shouldn’t have to repeat what little we know of the Hunger, but during my travels to collect these texts I’ve found widely divergent speculations on its nature, many of which are clearly false. Therefore I have tried to put together the best picture of the Hunger as is possible:
-We know that it is not a singular entity, though we sometimes think of it as such. In our minds, a single vampire is as much the Hunger as an entire brood of puppet-corpses.
-However, we know they have a singular purpose. We have never seen any “units” among the Hunger oppose each other.
-Every “unit” was once a living entity. The Hunger cannot create anything, but it twists whatever comes into it, making what was once life into a broken reflection. People, animals, and plants are vulnerable.
- It always seems to “grow” from the East.
This last point is extremely important. I believe it is trying to drive us Westward. You see, our response to the Hunger when it comes is to try to fight it, become overwhelmed, and pack up as much of our settlements as we can and rebuild away from it. But have you noticed that the Hunger always seems to give us enough time to recover and restabilize our population? This is no accident; it does not want to destroy us.
I’ve seen where the Hunger is trying to drive us. Far to the west there is a massive wall, far too big for it to be manmade. It stretches up to the clouds and out beyond the oceans. It has no gate and it’s completely smooth surface allows nothing to scale it. I do not know what is on the other side, but I have a theory.
You have heard of the Dreamworld I’m sure, perhaps you’ve been there. I seem to have a close affinity with that place, it comes to me often. Reports of those who have found themselves there report their findings with remarkable consistency: it appears as a, far greater than anything we have built, of ruined black buildings and wraithlike inhabitants that rarely notice them. All have said they’ve heard a breathing sound that pervaded the city, the sound of something in pain and trying to escape from entrapment. I had another visit to the Dreamworld when I was near the wall, and I saw something that I have never noticed. There was a dome at the same general location as the wall. The breathing was coming from within that dome, something was trying to break out, and I could see cracks. I believe that whatever is in that dome is also beyond the wall, and the Hunger is directing us there.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, I just know that we don’t have a lot of room to keep going back until we reach that wall. Like I said, tell this to everyone you can. I have so little time, I have to leave.
Does it make sense? Does anything need clarifying?
Civilization
Excerpts from Daumant Patel's travelogue. After finding Nilos’ letter, Daumant went off to spread the message to all settlements. Along the way, he comments on the different groups and places he sees in his journey.
Fresnia
I once saw a tapestry of Fresnia as it was before the Hunger appeared. It used to be a place of great towers, cobblestone streets, and water that flowed from the aqueducts into the many handcrafted streams. Most of the old city has been lost, now most of it is made of tents and wooden barricade made to be quickly built up and taken down. Still, Fresnia remains the largest and most important known town, and is frequently visited by all sorts of people to trade and settle disputes.
The streets, as far as you can call them that, are frequently lined with merchant vendors. Fresnia attracts such a diverse assortment of travelers that one can find almost anything. The most important merchants are those from the mountains bringing down melt water, any group visiting Fresnia will generally look for them first, giving them access to the first imports of other merchants. Water generally isn’t too hard to come by, but no one regrets having some in reserve.
Fresnia is also home to the Assembly of Behn, named a man who look at four groups vying for dominance of a plot f land and said, “Okay, this is a mess. You, you, and you, we’re going up to that hill right there and working something out until we’re all satisfied!” He was never the most formal of administrators. With the continual disbanding of civilization by the attacks of the Hunger, the Assembly has become both increasingly important and increasingly powerless. Its ability to enforce its decrees has been reduced to being over just a few towns, often the only thing they can do is let the leaders of two factions speak and hope they’ve settled everything honestly there. I’ve managed to get a meeting with them to show them Nilos’ letter, but they have not yet came to a decision regarding it. I once heard a rumor about The Man From The Ocean being on the Assembly, but people will say anything about him.
Some times I think about the old Fresnia, sometimes I want to go see what’s left of it. Of course, I would have to go through Hunger territory to get there, a suicidal venture. Maybe I could go there after this business with them and that wall that Nilos mentioned is over, though I’m probably being far too optimistic about that.
This will be occasionally updated.
The Encroaching Hunger
The Frontier
The Wall
From the journal of Placia Avana. After the discovery of Nilos’ letter, Placia took a group of fifteen scouts toward the wall.
I can just see what might be it just over the horizon. It’s certainly too straight to be a mountain.
*
I’m here; this has to be the wall Nilos talked about. He wasn’t exaggerating on its size either; I can see clouds lower than its top. Just looking at it-it’s hard to describe. Not the wall itself, which is just a gray slab. But being in its presence-this isn’t working; I need some time to figure it out.
*
One of the scouts had a nervous breakdown. Conleat Beck, I remember that he was having a lot of problems with his family; I invited him along to give him some time away. That was a mistake; something about this place must have triggered something. I really don’t blame him. I haven’t quite figured out how to describe the wall, but just it being there puts me on edge. Every little sound I hear is enough to make turn right toward it. It stares at you. You look at it and it stares right into you.
*
Nilos could only give a vague theory about what was behind the wall. Looking at it myself, I almost feel like the world could just end on the other side. I talked with some of the scouts about it and we all made suppositions: some serious, some joking.
Nilos also said that the wall extends from ocean to ocean. I’m not quite sure how he managed to make the journey to verify that, we certainly don’t have enough resources to travel to even one coast.
*
We took a closer look at this thing today. No one liked the idea of going right up to the foot of the wall, but we managed to return without it eating us or something. As Nilos said it’s entirely smooth, without the slightest visible or tactile protrusion or extrusion on the portion we analyzed. While we weren’t exactly prepared for a siege, we did try to see if we could cause any crack or take out a piece. I’m personally happy to say that we couldn’t cause a single dent.
Conleat isn’t doing any better I’m afraid. He’s trying to say something, but it’s unintelligible aside from some “and”s and “to”s. I wonder if he’s in the Dreamworld and seeing the dome Nilos mentioned.
*
I think I know what I was trying to say earlier. You see, when you look at a wall it always says to you, “You will not pass me unless…”,: unless you go through the door, unless you climb over me with some rope, unless you break a hole in me. This one just tells you “You will not pass me”, end of story. I can’t say I begrudge it for that; often times the more important the thing behind a wall is, the more difficult that “unless” condition is. If one has no “unless”, than I can assume that whatever’s on either side is best left there.
Why would the Hunger want to bring us here? It’s not just so they could trap us, if they really just wanted to destroy us they already could have. Maybe we shouldn’t stay around to find out, maybe it’s best if we took to the sea and tried to find a new home were they can’t follow. But would that really work? It’s rumored that the Hunger came from the ocean; could they not follow us through there?
I think my scouts are done here; we’ve seen all we can of this wall and I’m not going to risk Conleat’s sanity just to wait a few more days.
The Dreamworld
What Kind of Campaigns Work Here
Fluffy-Crunchy Stuff
Races
Classes
Animals and Monsters
Crunchy Stuff
<This will come much latter>
Pre-writing thoughts
-Given that this is a relatively small setting, it would probably be best to use a lower number of races.
-I think I'd prefer to keep the cosmology a mystery.
-Areas taken by the Hunger should obviously be higher level.
-I want there to be enough uncorrupted wilderness for those who get tired of undead and such things. At the same time I want the wall to feel close.
-Right now I'm just kind of grab-baging names. I guess if any of them sound to out of place let me know.