Tvtyrant
2016-05-06, 10:05 PM
Jebell is a setting inspired by Greco-Roman myths with a dash of other inspirations. The game system in use is currently up for grabs, just getting the basic ideas down.
List of playable races on Jebell:
Arachnes, short for Arachne's Children. They are small sized spider-humans, with a tiny but normal appearing human body appearing out of a spider body sized like a large dog. They are nature loving creatures that dwell in forests and shy away from the use of fire, although they will purchase metal and other goods from other races. Fantastic and climbing, weaving and moving silently.
Sartyrs. Small sized Goat-men with tiny horns, Sartyrs are amazing musicians, stone carvers and smiths. They construct dwell in mountain homes, enjoying most especially cities carved into cliffs. Their natural leaping ability allows them to traverse dangerous terrain easily, and they produce fantastic works of metal and stone.
Centaurs are large sized Horsemen, the men often have horns or antlers and uniformly colored furs while females have whirled and spotted fur and no horns. Centaur's are magically talented and have a powerful warrior culture. Their societies live on open planes and trade with other races primarily in magical items and animal hides, but they are also the most destructive of the humanoids. Centaur hordes swarm out of the steppes , plains and deserts to bring down soft civilizations incapable of dealing with their lances and screaming war spells.
Harpies are small sized humanoids with wings instead of arms and hands instead of feet. They live in settlements similar to those of the Sartyrs. In some regions the two live side by side as the closest allies and cross species marriages are common, while in others they are dire enemies whose hatred for each other matches that of giant kind. Harpies are terrific archers and make the finest bows in the world, as well as hunting many of the most dangerous ground creatures by staying out of reach and filling them with arrows.
Goliaths are seven to eight ft. tall and weigh over 400 pounds. They are leaner than their Ogre parents and are functionally immortal, although a large number are only a few centuries old. The Ogres did not breed together but in individual spattering, which has allowed there to thrive a post-Gigantomachy sub-generation on both Jotunheim and Jebell. The Goliaths on Jebell are the playable ones, and have taken to Jebell's mountain crags and rocky islands with purpose. The other races have largely accepted that the Goliaths and their walled cities are here to stay, so long as they refrain from unwholesome levels of predation. Their extinction is seen as just a matter of time.
Aquatic:
Harpies who choose to live on rock islands rather than on inland islands are called Sirens, and are famous for their singing and magical abilities. Sirens “sing up” the ocean, and then catch animals with nets. As a result they lack the archery associated with their inland cousins, and are less integrated into the world. They gain the ability to hold their breath for indefinite amounts of time.
Merfolk are humans whose mid waist down are replaced by fish bodies. They come in many shapes and sizes, and are purveyors of the finest armor in the world and many semiprecious gems. They consume stones such as flint and obsidian which are useful to them but difficult to acquire, where metal rusts far too quickly.
The History of Jebell
The Primordial Age:
In a time beyond reckoning the world was divided into two groups. The first was the Masters, and the second was the Slaves. The Masters ruled over the slaves, growing rich from their work and powerful by sacrificing them to the hated Old Gods.
These Old Gods cared little for the Masters, but in return for great gifts of slaves and wondrous creations they would change them to fit their own image and so strengthen them. The Old Gods were not want to stay in one place, but drifted away and back at random times. As each one left the Masters would turn to the ones remaining, and as others returned they turned back to them. Their form shifted with each change, altered to fit the next Old Gods vision of perfection. In each new shift of worship and sacrifice the Masters would war amongst themselves over which form was best, and the winners would destroy or drive out the losers. So it was that the weaker Masters continually fled to other planes, planets and places.
The Slaves were the progenitors of the current races, but their form is unknown. Were they a single species that was shifted into a new form by eons of slavery? Were they hundreds of different races whose forms would be recognizable, or did they meld together into a single shape and then split again? The Masters cared little for the Slaves, and left no clues but old legends as to their forms.
The Mythic Age:
After many Eons of aching horror passed the prayers of the Slaves were heard by a chorus of Angels drifting through the heavens. They knew they were too few in number to defeat both the Masters and the Old Gods, and so they broke taboos from the beginning of time and mated with Slaves. In this world Angels and their descendants can only reproduce once, and so each angel gave birth to a great Nephilim.
The Nephilim were massive and immensely powerful like their parents. Each Angel could only birth one Nephilim in their life, and each Nephilim could only reproduce once. However they each bore twins, whose children came in fours, then eights, then sixteens, and so on until the final birth of the Goliaths. These creatures, called Giants because of their size and power, assisted the Angels in defeating both the Masters and the Old Gods. The Old Gods were impossible to kill, and were banished or imprisoned to prevent their interference in the world.
The Giants did not worry about dying out in these days, as they did not age and were all but impossible to kill. No Giant ages past adulthood, even the least of them is functionally immortal.
The Angels and Nephilim constructed great cities on solid clouds where they dwelt above the now peaceful world of the Slaves. They divided their civilization into hierarchies based on their generation, with the Angels and Nephilim taking on the mantle of New Gods. Their council of 20 ruled the world for thousands of years.
Below the Angels and Nephilim were the 20 Titans, beings of incredible power and size but lesser than them. They were tasked with ruling the great cloud-cities so that the New Gods could focus on protecting and bettering the former Slaves. Each Titan was completely unique in power and shape, but all were over 100 ft. tall and endowed with magic.
The next generation were the 80 Storm Giants, each some sixty feet tall and relatively uniform of shape, looking like modern men and women. The Storm Giants were tasked with hunting down the Masters who sought to hide themselves in the world.
Below them were the Cloud Giants, the 640 giants who specialized in magic and the construction of magical items. They bore no responsibilities as they made the Cloud-Cities and the buildings which the New Gods lived within. They were similarly large, but had less direct power than the Storm Giants.
The last of the generations born before the Masters were defeated were the 10,240 Elemental giants, beings similar in size to elephants and more limited magically than their ancestors but powerful in their own right. They fought as the soldiers in the Primordial War that broke the Masters, and became farmers and artisans on the Cloud-Cities.
After the construction of the Cloud-Cities the Elemental giants began to reproduce great broods of children, strange fell creatures like Ettins, Trolls and Oni whose sole universal trait was an ingrained predatory nature. Dubbed the Monster Generation, their numbers grew too large for the Cloud-Cities, and the New Gods decided to move them to a single continent on the planet. The races growing there in their primitive tribes and early cities were set upon and destroyed by the giants, despite their size being nor larger than a large bear.
The Monster Generation gave birth to the Ogres, dumb and weak by the other generations standards but growing in numbers almost like a Slave race. They lacked entirely the magical powers of their ancestors but more than twenty million of them walked the continent, and devoured the Slave races there.
The final generation was the Goliaths, larger than men but smaller than any older generation. They were smarter than the Ogres and some of the Monsters, and their population was grown in such numbers that they ran out of food. They were kept in check to a certain extent by the cannibalism of their elders, but their numbers still surpassed the total population of the Slave races and they began plead with the New Gods to be allowed to travel to the other continents in search of sustenance.
Ordnung:
The New Gods: Epic level beings
10 Angels
10 Nephilim
20 Titans
The Greater Giants: High level beings.
80 Storm Giants
640 Cloud Giants
10,240 Elemental Giants
The Lesser Giants: Medium to low level beings.
327,680 Oni, Trolls, ettins, etc.
20,971,520 Ogres
2,684,354,560 Goliaths
Now came the great Civil War of the New Gods, the Titanomachy (war in the Cloud-Cities) and the Gigantomachy (war on Jebell). The Angels refused to allow the Goliaths to leave Jotunheim and the Nephilim began to make land bridges for them. The Angels were supported by the Storm Giants and Cloud Giants, while all other supported the Nephilim. The Angels fought a war on their Cloud-Cities which broke them, leaving ruined buildings and gardens to float across the skies forever, and then came to ground to unite the races there against the Giants.
The Nephilim in Jotunheim launched hundreds of invasions of the other continents, met by armies of humanoids and a dwindling number of greater giants. Their own numbers decline with each invasion, but their starting number of Ogres, Monsters and Goliaths allowed them to continue long after their greater giants were declining into unsustainable numbers.
At last the slaughter broke the will of the giants, and the lesser giants and elemental giants refused to fight further. They waged a second civil war against their ancestors, losing millions more but at last ending the conflict when the few remaining Titans and Nephilim fled the world. The Angels and their descendants were too few now to recreate their cities and continue on, so they built a vast fortress to prevent the return of their families and left the word to the humanoids.
Jotunheim is ruled by Elemental Giants who have set up kingdoms there, with Monster, Oni and Goliath followers. The Goliaths are reduced now to tens of millions instead of billions, the Ogres are in the millions, and there are scant hundreds of Elemental Giants in the world.
The Golden Age:
In the age after the Gigantomachy ended the humanoids were left with governments and institutions implemented upon them by their gods. Highly developed agricultural systems, complex laws and production that they did not fully understand had forcibly replaced their tribal societies.
The various humanoid races continued their integrated, highly developed societies by simply accepting in the place of their gods and the Greater Giants priest classes which spoke for the lost gods. These priest classes sought to keep the “celestial kingdoms” exactly as they had been under the gods, including massive war efforts to prevent giants from invading their territories. Each kingdom was propped up in its original shape for over a thousand years, the priests meeting each new problem with strict adherence to past traditions.
List of playable races on Jebell:
Arachnes, short for Arachne's Children. They are small sized spider-humans, with a tiny but normal appearing human body appearing out of a spider body sized like a large dog. They are nature loving creatures that dwell in forests and shy away from the use of fire, although they will purchase metal and other goods from other races. Fantastic and climbing, weaving and moving silently.
Sartyrs. Small sized Goat-men with tiny horns, Sartyrs are amazing musicians, stone carvers and smiths. They construct dwell in mountain homes, enjoying most especially cities carved into cliffs. Their natural leaping ability allows them to traverse dangerous terrain easily, and they produce fantastic works of metal and stone.
Centaurs are large sized Horsemen, the men often have horns or antlers and uniformly colored furs while females have whirled and spotted fur and no horns. Centaur's are magically talented and have a powerful warrior culture. Their societies live on open planes and trade with other races primarily in magical items and animal hides, but they are also the most destructive of the humanoids. Centaur hordes swarm out of the steppes , plains and deserts to bring down soft civilizations incapable of dealing with their lances and screaming war spells.
Harpies are small sized humanoids with wings instead of arms and hands instead of feet. They live in settlements similar to those of the Sartyrs. In some regions the two live side by side as the closest allies and cross species marriages are common, while in others they are dire enemies whose hatred for each other matches that of giant kind. Harpies are terrific archers and make the finest bows in the world, as well as hunting many of the most dangerous ground creatures by staying out of reach and filling them with arrows.
Goliaths are seven to eight ft. tall and weigh over 400 pounds. They are leaner than their Ogre parents and are functionally immortal, although a large number are only a few centuries old. The Ogres did not breed together but in individual spattering, which has allowed there to thrive a post-Gigantomachy sub-generation on both Jotunheim and Jebell. The Goliaths on Jebell are the playable ones, and have taken to Jebell's mountain crags and rocky islands with purpose. The other races have largely accepted that the Goliaths and their walled cities are here to stay, so long as they refrain from unwholesome levels of predation. Their extinction is seen as just a matter of time.
Aquatic:
Harpies who choose to live on rock islands rather than on inland islands are called Sirens, and are famous for their singing and magical abilities. Sirens “sing up” the ocean, and then catch animals with nets. As a result they lack the archery associated with their inland cousins, and are less integrated into the world. They gain the ability to hold their breath for indefinite amounts of time.
Merfolk are humans whose mid waist down are replaced by fish bodies. They come in many shapes and sizes, and are purveyors of the finest armor in the world and many semiprecious gems. They consume stones such as flint and obsidian which are useful to them but difficult to acquire, where metal rusts far too quickly.
The History of Jebell
The Primordial Age:
In a time beyond reckoning the world was divided into two groups. The first was the Masters, and the second was the Slaves. The Masters ruled over the slaves, growing rich from their work and powerful by sacrificing them to the hated Old Gods.
These Old Gods cared little for the Masters, but in return for great gifts of slaves and wondrous creations they would change them to fit their own image and so strengthen them. The Old Gods were not want to stay in one place, but drifted away and back at random times. As each one left the Masters would turn to the ones remaining, and as others returned they turned back to them. Their form shifted with each change, altered to fit the next Old Gods vision of perfection. In each new shift of worship and sacrifice the Masters would war amongst themselves over which form was best, and the winners would destroy or drive out the losers. So it was that the weaker Masters continually fled to other planes, planets and places.
The Slaves were the progenitors of the current races, but their form is unknown. Were they a single species that was shifted into a new form by eons of slavery? Were they hundreds of different races whose forms would be recognizable, or did they meld together into a single shape and then split again? The Masters cared little for the Slaves, and left no clues but old legends as to their forms.
The Mythic Age:
After many Eons of aching horror passed the prayers of the Slaves were heard by a chorus of Angels drifting through the heavens. They knew they were too few in number to defeat both the Masters and the Old Gods, and so they broke taboos from the beginning of time and mated with Slaves. In this world Angels and their descendants can only reproduce once, and so each angel gave birth to a great Nephilim.
The Nephilim were massive and immensely powerful like their parents. Each Angel could only birth one Nephilim in their life, and each Nephilim could only reproduce once. However they each bore twins, whose children came in fours, then eights, then sixteens, and so on until the final birth of the Goliaths. These creatures, called Giants because of their size and power, assisted the Angels in defeating both the Masters and the Old Gods. The Old Gods were impossible to kill, and were banished or imprisoned to prevent their interference in the world.
The Giants did not worry about dying out in these days, as they did not age and were all but impossible to kill. No Giant ages past adulthood, even the least of them is functionally immortal.
The Angels and Nephilim constructed great cities on solid clouds where they dwelt above the now peaceful world of the Slaves. They divided their civilization into hierarchies based on their generation, with the Angels and Nephilim taking on the mantle of New Gods. Their council of 20 ruled the world for thousands of years.
Below the Angels and Nephilim were the 20 Titans, beings of incredible power and size but lesser than them. They were tasked with ruling the great cloud-cities so that the New Gods could focus on protecting and bettering the former Slaves. Each Titan was completely unique in power and shape, but all were over 100 ft. tall and endowed with magic.
The next generation were the 80 Storm Giants, each some sixty feet tall and relatively uniform of shape, looking like modern men and women. The Storm Giants were tasked with hunting down the Masters who sought to hide themselves in the world.
Below them were the Cloud Giants, the 640 giants who specialized in magic and the construction of magical items. They bore no responsibilities as they made the Cloud-Cities and the buildings which the New Gods lived within. They were similarly large, but had less direct power than the Storm Giants.
The last of the generations born before the Masters were defeated were the 10,240 Elemental giants, beings similar in size to elephants and more limited magically than their ancestors but powerful in their own right. They fought as the soldiers in the Primordial War that broke the Masters, and became farmers and artisans on the Cloud-Cities.
After the construction of the Cloud-Cities the Elemental giants began to reproduce great broods of children, strange fell creatures like Ettins, Trolls and Oni whose sole universal trait was an ingrained predatory nature. Dubbed the Monster Generation, their numbers grew too large for the Cloud-Cities, and the New Gods decided to move them to a single continent on the planet. The races growing there in their primitive tribes and early cities were set upon and destroyed by the giants, despite their size being nor larger than a large bear.
The Monster Generation gave birth to the Ogres, dumb and weak by the other generations standards but growing in numbers almost like a Slave race. They lacked entirely the magical powers of their ancestors but more than twenty million of them walked the continent, and devoured the Slave races there.
The final generation was the Goliaths, larger than men but smaller than any older generation. They were smarter than the Ogres and some of the Monsters, and their population was grown in such numbers that they ran out of food. They were kept in check to a certain extent by the cannibalism of their elders, but their numbers still surpassed the total population of the Slave races and they began plead with the New Gods to be allowed to travel to the other continents in search of sustenance.
Ordnung:
The New Gods: Epic level beings
10 Angels
10 Nephilim
20 Titans
The Greater Giants: High level beings.
80 Storm Giants
640 Cloud Giants
10,240 Elemental Giants
The Lesser Giants: Medium to low level beings.
327,680 Oni, Trolls, ettins, etc.
20,971,520 Ogres
2,684,354,560 Goliaths
Now came the great Civil War of the New Gods, the Titanomachy (war in the Cloud-Cities) and the Gigantomachy (war on Jebell). The Angels refused to allow the Goliaths to leave Jotunheim and the Nephilim began to make land bridges for them. The Angels were supported by the Storm Giants and Cloud Giants, while all other supported the Nephilim. The Angels fought a war on their Cloud-Cities which broke them, leaving ruined buildings and gardens to float across the skies forever, and then came to ground to unite the races there against the Giants.
The Nephilim in Jotunheim launched hundreds of invasions of the other continents, met by armies of humanoids and a dwindling number of greater giants. Their own numbers decline with each invasion, but their starting number of Ogres, Monsters and Goliaths allowed them to continue long after their greater giants were declining into unsustainable numbers.
At last the slaughter broke the will of the giants, and the lesser giants and elemental giants refused to fight further. They waged a second civil war against their ancestors, losing millions more but at last ending the conflict when the few remaining Titans and Nephilim fled the world. The Angels and their descendants were too few now to recreate their cities and continue on, so they built a vast fortress to prevent the return of their families and left the word to the humanoids.
Jotunheim is ruled by Elemental Giants who have set up kingdoms there, with Monster, Oni and Goliath followers. The Goliaths are reduced now to tens of millions instead of billions, the Ogres are in the millions, and there are scant hundreds of Elemental Giants in the world.
The Golden Age:
In the age after the Gigantomachy ended the humanoids were left with governments and institutions implemented upon them by their gods. Highly developed agricultural systems, complex laws and production that they did not fully understand had forcibly replaced their tribal societies.
The various humanoid races continued their integrated, highly developed societies by simply accepting in the place of their gods and the Greater Giants priest classes which spoke for the lost gods. These priest classes sought to keep the “celestial kingdoms” exactly as they had been under the gods, including massive war efforts to prevent giants from invading their territories. Each kingdom was propped up in its original shape for over a thousand years, the priests meeting each new problem with strict adherence to past traditions.