Torus 3.5 (WIP)

[lunar2]

torus is a setting i've been working on in my head for some time now. i felt that it would be a good idea to gather my thoughts in one place, where they would hopefully be reviewed and improved on.

to start with, what makes this setting different?

this setting has no planar travel. there are 3 planets orbiting the center of the universe, the Source of heat, light, and positive energy. the edge of the universe is the Void of cold, darkness, and negative energy. the magical storms thorughout space prevent any form of travel between the planets except when they align for one month every 500 years.

the minor positive dominant inner planet, Musiley, is home to the angels, a race of uber lawful descendants of a human empire that migrated there several thousand years ago. they embody all that is law, having a strict hierarchy, placing the needs of the community far above the needs of the individual, and an absolutely codified and enforced standard of behavior in all situations.

the middle planet, Thera, is where most campaigns would take place. it is a poster child for prime material, earth-like planets, with a few exceptions. there are no oceans. the planet is land dominant, with only a few large, shallow seas. because the geology is more reminiscent of mars than earth, Thera tends to have large, singular mountains rather than chains of smaller mountains. Thera also lacks any global cave system like the underdark. certainly there are extensive underground tunnels in any given region, but they are isolated from each other, and have their own ecosystems.

the minor negative dominant outer planet, Shade, is home to the demons, the chaotic foil to the angels. they are highly individualistic, with no codes of conduct or laws as such. they are, however, highly intelligent, and know the value of teamwork and paying attention to good ideas. even the lowly imp has a voice in any strategy talks, since everyone knows even children have good ideas sometimes. Shade is also home to a negative energy based ecosystem, championed by the mighty nightshades. these creatures may resemble undead, but they are different in that they were never "alive" to begin with.

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culture of Thera

Thera's culture is defined by one event. the Quin-centennial alignment of the planets. it is at this time that hordes of angels and demons pour in from the edge planets, trying to gain a foothold in their ancient war. this war devastates the native peoples, resetting society back to a semiprimitive state, and drastically hindering any advancement beyond a certain point (think eberron level magitech at the time of the alignment, knocked back to medieval levels afterwards). because of this, the 6 humanoid races (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307579) have developed a unified society, where each race has its own role in society to fill, and none of the races are superior to any other.

other major power groups include the Dragons, who seek only to expand and protect their mountain hoards from damage or theft; the Fey, who experiment with life itself for unknown goals; and the Aboleths, who rule the seas and act as a library of vast knowledge, for a price.

changes to magic:

planar travel is, of course, nonexistent. the standard casting classes are also out by default. instead, limited list casters in the vein of the beguiler should be used. in fact, these (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=261952) rough drafts are what i'd recommend, if i ever got around to finishing them.


as for mundane base classes, i would suggest some fighter fix (or just dungeoncrasher), barbarian, rogue (with d10 HD and full BAB) and a beastmaster class for the goblins.

[Malachi Lemont]

Sounds like fun. I get the feeling that the campaign might be a struggle for balance between the two extremes - the lawful, no-nonsense angels and the hedonistic demons. I have a few questions.

First of all, I'd like to know more about how the Angels' and the Demons' governments work. For the angels, you mentioned that they have a strict hierarchy. Who gets to rule? If they are immortal, does the ruler ever step down? If not, how do they choose a successor?

As for the demons, do they lean more toward democracy or anarchy? You seem to have picked the best of both. If they're more democratic, people might all have a voice in group decisions, but they'll have to sacrifice some of their autonomy in order to have their life and safety protected. If they're more anarchic, each one can have total autonomy over his or her life, but they risk being killed by a stronger individual and having no one to call on for protection.

To get to my next set of questions, how do the Angels and Demons typically behave. Are Angels, Demons, and Humans all hard-wired with the same basic morality? Are Demons more or less inclined toward violence than Humans? Are Angels more or less compassionate than Humans? How much variation is there among Angels or among Demons?

Finally, I'd like to know some more about the 500-year event. It seems unlikely that the invasion could happen the exact same way each time, in some sort of perpetual cycle. If this were true, how could there be any suspense? It seems much more likely that the people would learn from their ancestors and be more prepared for the invasion each time. Especially if the 500-year clock was accurate, I'd expect a sudden military surge right before the event. True, 500 years might be longer than anyone could remember, but if it happened 10 times in a row with the exact same interval each time, I'd expect someone would catch on.

Or the other extreme could happen. If Angels and Demons are powerful enough to invade Thera every 500 years, and the Humans are still at a medieval level of technology, what's to stop the Angels and Demons from wiping them out completely and simply fighting each other? What chance does humanity have if it gets knocked back to the dark ages every time? Why would it keep advancing technologically only to get beaten once again?

I love your setting so far. I think it has a lot of potential to grow. You don't have to try to answer all my questions at once, but I hope they will help shape this into an even greater setting. Good luck.

[lunar2]

the angels have a sort of meritocracy, in that the most powerful rule.

Solars command Planetars, Planetars command astral devas, and astral devas command protectars (miniatures handbook).

the angels have slight good tendencies, but as far as actual alignment, they are LN. they have their version of compassion, but it is to bring everyone under their wing, willing or not.

the demons are anarchic in nature. no demon holds any authority that they can't personally enforce, and you only own what you can hold. this leads to a slight evil tendency, but again, they are actually CN, because they aren't actively malevolent.

for the "demons", i'm actually using imp, malebranche (FC2), horned devil, and pit fiend. they all get death ward as an at will SLA, since they live on a negative dominant planet.

there is very little real difference between the various angels. there are superficial personality differences, such as what foods they enjoy, but nothing significant. a truly unique angel is almost unheard of.

demons show much more variation, sometimes even drifting one step in alignment (CG, CE, or TN), but they are united in their hatred (or at least fear) of angels.

neither angels nor demons are immortal. they both live 350-500 years.

angels are born as protectars, live a full human lifespan, and are reincarnated upon natural death as astral devas. the process then repeats itself for deva to planetar, and planetar to solar. when solars die of age, they are just dead, as is any angel that dies of any other cause.

demons are born as imps, and gradually grow into more powerful forms over the course of about 100 years. basically an imp is an infant/toddler, a malebranche is a child, a horned devil is an adolescent, and a pit fiend is an adult. from there, they live another 250-400 years.

@ the alignment event. neither side is intentionally trying to attack the humans in the war. human civilization is simply an unintended casualty. in fact, the reason angels and demons migrated to their respective planets to begin with is because their war threatened to destroy Thera. they were both originally human empires (at the time, the demons were democratic/republic rather than anarchic), but they became so advanced in their war that it was causing widespread fallout (think the magical equivalent of nukes), so they moved their bases of operations to the outer planets as a means of self preservation. the only reason they fight on Thera is because you can't travel directly between Musiley and Shade.

everyone knows about the event, and roughly when it will happen again (scholars can tell down to the minute when the portals will start opening, and when they will close). but the angels and demons are simply so much more powerful than the humanoids that preparation means survival, not any kind of meaningful victory. for the last 3 cycles, it has indeed been a stalemate, where humanity manages to advance to the same point before the war wipes it all out again.

now, maybe some exceptional individuals (read: PCs) could change that next cycle, either by uncovering some lost super barrier, or tipping the balance of power between the two sides. after all, the next alignment is just a few years away, and anything could happen between now and then. might be worth asking the aboleths about, if you had something worth trading. or maybe the fey have some old kaiju that could be revived. one strong enough to actually break the portals. or who knows what might be in the hoard of a 5,000 year old dragon. he did manage to survive 10 invasions, after all.

now, some information about death. when a character dies, they can be revived before midnight of the day they were killed. at that time, either their soul gets pulled into the void, or resists, and becomes a spirit. either way, they are beyond any resurrection magic.

undead are either a body, a soul, or both, depending on the type of undead. corporeal undead, with few exceptions, are soulless bodies, even if intelligent. they are not inherently evil unless their existence requires evil acts (such as ghouls craving human flesh), and intelligent undead generally keep the knowledge, memories, and abilities of their former selves (i.e. a 5th level fighter that becomes a wight is now a wight fighter 5, not just a wight). incorporeal undead are body-less souls. they always keep the abilities they had in life. a rare few undead, like necropolitans and liches, have both a body and a soul.a necropolitan can actually be "raised" from death if destroyed, although they will still be necropolitan afterwards.

there is a 4th class of undead, native to Shade. these are those that were never positively aligned to begin with, and are naturally occuring lifeforms based on negative energy. the most famous examples are, of course, the nightshades.

a little more on the fey. the fey are not merely a creature type. they are an organization, like the angels and demons. the original fey spirits are the closest this setting has to deities. they created most of the fey you actually interact with. they have no stats, and don't directly interact with anyone except the greater fey, like the nymphs. the feys' end goal is unknown, but their present work revolves around understanding and controlling life. they are responsible for the creation of elves and orcs from human stock, as well as lesser fey (like the giants and the centaurs). they also created the kaiju, immense creatures of mass destruction, the tarrasques (yes, plural) being the most well known.

[lunar2]

so, i guess i should explain a little more about why i chose the geology i did for thera. the mountain issue was purely so i could put in one particular mountain, called the Wall. the inspiration for this is an old sci-fi novel called kingdoms of the wall, in which the main character must climb a huge mountain (apparently dwarfing even olympus mons). i loved the concept, so i made the world have that mountain. the mountain also will have a 10 level prestige class associated with it, where the prerequisite to take each level is to climb a certain layer of the wall. the capstone would be spell immunity and no longer needing to breathe, since the wall's summit is actually in space, where you would be exposed to the magical storms of space.

as for why there are no oceans, that was something i just came up with. i figured that the 3 planets were just the only things that came out of the source big enough to not get sucked into the void. since the planets formed whole, and not through the real planet formation process, thera came with plenty of water, but hasn't been hit by comets to the extent earth has. so no oceans, and only a few relatively shallow (read, less than a mile deep) seas.

now, the name of the setting. i chose torus because the shape of the universe is a hypertorus. the setting is actually just one half of the universe. the matter and energy coming from the source comes from the other "side" and when it gets sucked into the void it returns to that other side.

the demons accidentally managed to prove this about a thousand years ago. they tried building a ship that could withstand the magical storms, so they could attack musiley directly. it failed spectacularly, and was swept into the void on its maiden voyage. a few decades later, a piece of the hull landed on thera, where the demon portal guards recovered it. some of the markings on it proved it was from the same ship, but it also had writing on it that even the aboleths didn't recognize, proving that it had passed through the other side of the universe and came back through the source intact. as a footnote, the writing was eventually translated. it meant, roughly, "stop littering on our side".

[SquidOfSquids]

so, i guess i should explain a little more about why i chose the geology i did for thera. the mountain issue was purely so i could put in one particular mountain, called the Wall. the inspiration for this is an old sci-fi novel called kingdoms of the wall, in which the main character must climb a huge mountain (apparently dwarfing even olympus mons). i loved the concept, so i made the world have that mountain.

You know, this sounds a lot like Tharn (http://www.worlddreambank.org/T/THARN.HTM).
It's an interesting thought experiment on what a realistic low-water world would be like. Without deep oceans, what would have been continents on an Earth-like world ends up as high-altitude plateaus that are pretty much in space. For "the Wall" you could easily have a continental mountain range next to a deep trench (kinda like the Andes on Earth). Since there's no ocean covering half of the height, you effectively get a cliff-face twice the height of Earth mountains.

http://www.worlddreambank.org/T/THA1TEC.GIF

[lunar2]

ok, that is seriously cool. i wasn't sure if something like what i envisioned was seriously viable, but i guess it is. however, thera is bigger than tharn, roughly earth size, with an atmosphere to match. and it's not just earth without oceans. since the tectonic activity more closely resembles that of mars than earth, i envision large plains and areas of low hills, with a scattering of single, giant mountains. the planet itself is fairly wet, just not drenched like earth. not to mention the water level is ever so slowly rising, thanks to a few create water traps at CL 20 underneath one of the seas. that sea is artificial in nature, the result of a post scarcity experiment gone wrong. infinite resource traps are now banned for exactly that reason.

[lunar2]

i have a request for anyone willing to help me. could someone draw me a world map for Thera, please? it doesn't need to be anything complicated. just about a dozen mountains, including the wall. 3 or 4 major seas. the capital humanoid city and racial capitals for the 6 humanoid races (i'm going for more of a points of light feel here because a few huge cities are easier to defend against the inevitable celestial war, so just 7 major cities is fine). a few big forests. one huge desert to the west of the wall. oh, and two portal sites, one to Musiley and one to Shade.

[lunar2]

so, got the base classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=308501) up. next i need to finish the dragons. i plan to only have one variety of true dragon. they will breath dragon fire (like hellfire in that it damages even things immune to fire) and will be immune to both fire and cold. otherwise, they will use the best stats of all non epic dragons (so gold dragon, but with the dex of one of the gem dragons, and white dragon fly speed). they cast as sorcerers of any list, rather than one of the available base classes, so a true dragon is a major threat to just about anyone.

[lunar2]

So, got some more stuff for the setting.

first, i'm going to be expanding the subsystems available in setting, since i found a way to make them fit.

arcane magic, which is all spontaneous and all charisma based, is draconic magic. it is inherited, but not genetic, as the elves prove. they have no draconic DNA at all, but are still able to use draconic magic.

divine magic, which is all prepared and all wisdom based, is fey magic. it is also the magic used by the angels and demons (instead of using the kinds listed above, i'm going to brew a single racial class for each side, similar to what i'm doing with giants). this magic is purely genetic. it can't be learned, and it can't be advanced by any means beyond the potential of your race.

psionics, which is intelligence based, is the magic of aberrations. it is powered the psionic node, an organ in the brain. aboleths have natural psionic ability, but they can also give a person a psionic graft, where they implant the psionic node of a dead aboleth into your brain. this gives you -2 dex, +2 int, -2 cha, the manifesting of a first level psion, power resistance 1, and one aberration HD. additionally, there will be a single 10 level prestige class, not available before level 7, which will advance psion manifesting. so at level 16, you can manifest as an 11th level psion, but you won't advance past that.

i'm using the psionics is different variant. additionally, i'm using an spell/power resistance variant that i came up with. SR, instead of having a chance of making the spell not work, instead lowers the effective caster level of the spell by 1. so if you have SR 2, and get hit by a CL 6 fireball, you only take 4d6 damage. however, this CL reduction is at the target, not at the caster. magic missile, for example, produces the same number of missiles no matter who you target, and as such is not affected by this version of SR. orb of force, on the other hand, is, because it deals 1d6 damage/CL.

shadowcasting is the magic of the undead. it is only usable by creatures with the undead type. again, not available as a base class, but some of the undead on Shade have the natural ability to use mysteries, and there will be at least one PRC that grants/advances shadowcasting.

incarnum is available through feats. but no matter how many soulmelds you know, you can only shape one at a time, since it is shaping your own soul. because of this, soulless creatures, like most constructs and corporeal undead, can't shape soulmelds at all. on the other hand, the soulmeld is always invested with max essentia.

martial adept classes are not included, but martial study/stance are, and the limits on number of times taken has been removed.

truenaming will also be available through feats, but will work differently. instead of making truespeak checks, you can use an utterance if you know a certain number of languages, depending on the level of the utterance.

gotta go, so i'll post more later.

[lunar2]

so, in another thread, i came up with some fluff on dwarves and dragons.

long ago, so long it was old news before the celestial migration (the point where the angels and demons left thera due to the destructive nature of their war), dwarves were a group of the original small humanoid species. when the event that split the three groups (i haven't yet decided what it is) occurred, the group that would become the dwarves left the forest for the nearest mountain, where the local dragons offered to protect them and use their magic to help them if the dwarves would mine the mountain, and turn over any gold to the dragons (after refining it and crafting it into beautiful things, of course). also, like in the novel Dragonsbane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonsbane), dragons love gold because it reflects their truenames back to them.

anyway, during the generations that dwarves served the dragons, they evolved to be taller and stockier than the baseline, due to the heavy labor involved in mining. they also developed advanced crafting abilities, being able to craft "exceptional items" that function in many ways like magic items, despite being formed purely through skill and alchemy (from this they developed the battlesmith class, which will replace the fighter in this setting once i have it brewed). also, due to their enhanced endurance and work ethic, they can do twice the work of other races in a day, making craft and profession checks twice as effective (and getting a racial bonus to those checks). on the other hand, dwarves developed a mild agoraphobia. they are never comfortable outside, or even in a building. in order to get a good night's sleep, they have to be underground, or wake up fatigued. since dwarves have a burrow speed, this is generally just a fluff thing, since it only takes a minute, at most, for them to set up a burrow to sleep in. the exception is when they are traveling places they can't burrow. anyway, dwarves grew apart from their dragon patrons long ago. over the course of several generations, they trained and equipped an elite army, and escaped the mountain after a die-off of old dragons in a battle, leaving only the younger, weaker dragons to watch over them, which were too busy competing over the hoards of the dragons that had passed. they have varying opinions of dragons now. some think they were essentially slaves, since the dragons didn't really give them a choice in the arrangement. others think it was generous of the dragons to take them in while they were vulnerable, and that the loss of a little gold was nothing compared to the benefits they received in exchange.

anyway, on to dragons. as I've said before, there is only one species of true dragon. dragon type creatures evolved from dinosaurs on a separate line form birds. they are greedy for gold because of the way it reflects their truenames in their presence, and are sexually attracted to wealth. dragon society, such as it is, is organized by wealth. if you are richer than another dragon, you outrank them, and will generally get your way. dragons rarely directly attack each other no matter what their alignment is, instead playing xorvintaal (although they don't take the template). as far as the dragons are concerned, they rule the world, despite what any other group may think. they allow the humanoids to colonize the world, even up to the lower reaches of their mountains, because humanoids can mine and shape the gold that dragons crave. dragons could do it themselves with their magic, of course. but they prefer to let others do what they consider menial labor. they don't interfere with the celestial war partly because the angels and demons are among the few creatures that can challenge an adult dragon in a one on one fight, and partly because they just don't care what happens "down on the plains", as long as it doesn't affect them. eventually, they say, they'll teach those upstart celestials a lesson in true power, but eventually has already been nearly 5,000 years.