Khaiel
2016-11-12, 07:37 PM
Recently, I started playing a game of Anima Beyond Fantasy with some friends centered on Deloran, one of the Interregns featured in Gaia Vol 2: Beyond the Mirror. Trapped within holes in the great supernatural Barrier that makes Anima's setting what it is, Interregns are small, but quite different from the rest of the world.
Deloran was inspired by D&D's Midnight, and it drew the attention of one of our friends, who finally decided to GM a campaign for us. So here's the result. It's been quite enjoyable so far, even though we have only started playing, but I feel it will make for a very good journal.
Since I currently don't have a lot of information on the other PCs (I would ask their players, but I'd rather discover more about them during play), you will find that only Anthony's background is "complete".
Rules wise, the only mentionable house rules are that Dereck is using a custom Blood Legacy that I made some time ago (A major version of Toa's Legacy) and that LA is not being taken into account, being balanced by giving the guys without LA some special things during the game.
Deloran is bigger than most Interregns, even though it is barely 700 miles wide. Most of the land is composed of plains, although there are some mountain ranges in the east and north. The center of the Interregn is dominated by a small interior sea, known as the Bronze Sea. The land is fertile, and in normal conditions, it would be a nice place to live in.
Alas, conditions in Deloran are anything but normal. The membrane that separates the real world from the Wake (The world of Dreams and Nigthmares, connected to the Nexus of Souls, origin of existence and magic) is extremely thin in Deloran, almost nonexistant in some points. And Deloran's Wake, for some unknown reason, is a very dark place. The darkness of Deloran's Wake makes people go crazy, dark creatures grow stronger and bad things happen. This, in turn, creates fear and other negative emotions, which translates into the Wake getting darker. In fact, this darkness in the Wake has invaded the real world, and the sun rarely shows in Deloran. Most of the time, the land is covered by darkness, barely illuminated, although for some reason this hasn't affected plants.
This alone makes life in Deloran quite dangerous. What makes it extremely hard and miserable are the Gods of Darkness. Powerful entities that have managed to connect with the Wake of Deloran, and have claimed certain areas of the Interregn for themselves. Within their own areas, these creatures make honor to their titles, becoming beings of divine energy and powers. And even outside them, they are almost unstoppable.
Currently, three creatures claim the title of Gods of Darkness:
Lord Xarabas, the Ancestral Vetala. A vampiric creature that leads an army of creatures of darkness and mortals that have shown to serve him. He controls the southeast area.
Nephila Clarimonda, the Spider Goddess. A dark Kami with great knowledge about the Wake, and the first creature that ever claimed the mantle of God of Darkness. The northlands are her domain.
Zerath, known as the Shadow Beyond Night. The only God of Darkness without any direct servants, Zerath is powerful and unpredictable, acting always through the use of corpses reanimated with a shard of its own essence. The Land of Death are its domains, located on the western part of Deloran.
These three beings maintain an uneasy truce, and are the last survivors of the six creatures that once claimed the title of God of Darkness. They would gladly kill each other to obtain the others' power, but for now they bide their time.
On the coast of the Bronze Sea is Seven Seals, the only free city of the Interregn, a last bastion of resistance against the Gods of Darkness. Its existance is only allowed due to the infighting between these entities. However not even Seven Seals is completely safe. Not all darkness is controlled by the Gods of Darkness, despite their name. Some creatures act independently, sometimes fluctuations in the Wake cause supernatural phenomena, and sometimes lesser creatures manage to establish a link with the Wake, in a manner very similar to the Gods of Darkness, but on a much smaller scale. Thus, Nightmare Hunters are needed. These brave men and women fight darkness wherever they find it, and most of them work on the area near Seven Seals.
The Gods of Dakness allow the Nightmare Hunters to exist as long as they don't meddle in their business because they root out the creatures who would seek to become new Gods, while possibly being an annoyance to their competitors. But nevertheless, these Nightmare Hunters become Beacons of Hope to the people of Deloran.
Finally, as an Interregn, the Barrier that divides the world surrounds all of Deloran. In Deloran, this manifests as a wall of darkness that surrounds the land. Anyone that tries to cross it, dies horribly, fusing with the darkness.
All three heroes are Nightmare Hunters, and have been for quite some time. They have never met before, but they trust each other to be good at their jobs, and there is some measure of proffesional respect.
Anthony would like to live a quiet peaceful life without worries. However, he never could. Before the creation of the Barrier, Jonathan Dawn was a knight from an order that worshipped Azrael Beryl, the Crusader. When he found himself trapped in the new dark world, he used his knowledge to separate a part of his soul and imbue it in pure Light, creating a Sheele, a Spirit Companion. Calling herself Aranjuez, this Sheele was bound by Jonathan to his bloodline, as he thought that he would need help against the darkness.
Some time later, Jonathan died, and Aranjuez became bound to his son. However, this was an act against the nature of Sheeles. These companion spirits are usually bound to a single person, dying with them. The ritual created by Jonathan to allow Aranjuez to help his descendants worked against the natural order, and was corrupted. With each death of one of Jonathan's descendants, Aranjuez would be touched by the dark energies lying in the Wake of Deloran for a brief instant, and her Light would grow weaker. Eventually, from a Shina, a Sheele of Light, she changed into a Xianne, a Sheele of Darkness, taking the shape of a woman in a black, dark armor. This changed her personality and methods, but her dedication to purging Deloran of evil and her fondness of the Dawn bloodline remained.
Aranjuez became a mixed blessing, giving power and assistance to the Dawn bloodline, but also causing them to suffer and eventually die whenever the balance of the Wake was altered, forcing them to become Nightmare Hunters whether they wanted it or not, as only eliminating what caused the balance to be altered would help them. Anthony is the last of that bloodline. A young man in his early twenties, born in the plains, always living on the saddle of a horse, and trying to live a good life whenever he wasn't forced to restore the balance.
A bit arrogant, but good natured and pacient, Anthony is no fighter, but he shares a bond with Aranjuez much stronger than that of most of his ancestors. He knows how to best channel the Sheele's powers, and his minor magical gifts allow him to help her fight to her full potential. Aside from that, Anthony's natural charisma has allowed him to easily gain the trust of people, something that is very useful to him whenever he is investigating. Anthony is a Nightmare Hunter by need, but he shows some compassion, and he is essentially a jerk with a heart of gold.
Anthony is Dark Paladin, focusing on Control to increase the Sheele's powers, with no fighting skills by himself, and some knowledge of Occultism, but otherwise mainly focused on social skills and riding. Aranjuez focuses on using her natural Sheele abilities, and can become intangible and invisible to anyone not able to see spirits, thus acting as a spy for Anthony.
The youngest of the group, Dereck was trained in martial arts and apparently was raised on oriental traditions, mostly lost in Deloran except by those living in Nephila's territories. An honorable young man, his training is mainly deffensive, but he is quick to jump into a fight if he believes he is fighting for a good cause.
Dereck's father was, apparently, some kind of Earth Elemental, corrupted by evil. This is what inspired him to become a Nightmare Hunter, as he wants to destroy his father for some reason that he keeps to himself.
A Tao focused on deffensive martial arts, when he activates his elemental powers, he gains natural armor and inhuman strength, becoming quite a juggernaut. He also has the inusual but useful ability of being able to See the Supernatural. Quite the oddity, he is optimistic in world of black and very dark grey.
In his early thirties, Pietric has been a Nightmare Hunter for over a decade. A scarred veteran, he is crazy prepared, paranoid and intolerant of amateurs, but also a compassionate man that only ever charges for his job what he knows people can afford.
A jack of all trades, Pietric is always prepared, and he knows a lot about the supernatural. An expert in the art of rituals and crafts, he always brings his wagon with ingredients for rituals, special ammunitions and materials to produce whatever item he might need in order to get the job done.
While he can defend himself in a fight, and he will not hesitate to do so if it is the only way to destroy a creature, he prefers other approaches. After all, if a guy with a sword was enough to defeat the nightmares that prey on Deloran's inhabitants, then Nightmare Hunters wouldn't be so needed.
Pietric is the group's grandpa, and he will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
A Freelancer with good combat skills and Knowledgable in all Fields, he is our balanced guy, able to cover our weak spots if we need it.
Soon I'll bring the first session: An investigation of some murders in a village near Seven Seals.
Deloran was inspired by D&D's Midnight, and it drew the attention of one of our friends, who finally decided to GM a campaign for us. So here's the result. It's been quite enjoyable so far, even though we have only started playing, but I feel it will make for a very good journal.
Since I currently don't have a lot of information on the other PCs (I would ask their players, but I'd rather discover more about them during play), you will find that only Anthony's background is "complete".
Rules wise, the only mentionable house rules are that Dereck is using a custom Blood Legacy that I made some time ago (A major version of Toa's Legacy) and that LA is not being taken into account, being balanced by giving the guys without LA some special things during the game.
Deloran is bigger than most Interregns, even though it is barely 700 miles wide. Most of the land is composed of plains, although there are some mountain ranges in the east and north. The center of the Interregn is dominated by a small interior sea, known as the Bronze Sea. The land is fertile, and in normal conditions, it would be a nice place to live in.
Alas, conditions in Deloran are anything but normal. The membrane that separates the real world from the Wake (The world of Dreams and Nigthmares, connected to the Nexus of Souls, origin of existence and magic) is extremely thin in Deloran, almost nonexistant in some points. And Deloran's Wake, for some unknown reason, is a very dark place. The darkness of Deloran's Wake makes people go crazy, dark creatures grow stronger and bad things happen. This, in turn, creates fear and other negative emotions, which translates into the Wake getting darker. In fact, this darkness in the Wake has invaded the real world, and the sun rarely shows in Deloran. Most of the time, the land is covered by darkness, barely illuminated, although for some reason this hasn't affected plants.
This alone makes life in Deloran quite dangerous. What makes it extremely hard and miserable are the Gods of Darkness. Powerful entities that have managed to connect with the Wake of Deloran, and have claimed certain areas of the Interregn for themselves. Within their own areas, these creatures make honor to their titles, becoming beings of divine energy and powers. And even outside them, they are almost unstoppable.
Currently, three creatures claim the title of Gods of Darkness:
Lord Xarabas, the Ancestral Vetala. A vampiric creature that leads an army of creatures of darkness and mortals that have shown to serve him. He controls the southeast area.
Nephila Clarimonda, the Spider Goddess. A dark Kami with great knowledge about the Wake, and the first creature that ever claimed the mantle of God of Darkness. The northlands are her domain.
Zerath, known as the Shadow Beyond Night. The only God of Darkness without any direct servants, Zerath is powerful and unpredictable, acting always through the use of corpses reanimated with a shard of its own essence. The Land of Death are its domains, located on the western part of Deloran.
These three beings maintain an uneasy truce, and are the last survivors of the six creatures that once claimed the title of God of Darkness. They would gladly kill each other to obtain the others' power, but for now they bide their time.
On the coast of the Bronze Sea is Seven Seals, the only free city of the Interregn, a last bastion of resistance against the Gods of Darkness. Its existance is only allowed due to the infighting between these entities. However not even Seven Seals is completely safe. Not all darkness is controlled by the Gods of Darkness, despite their name. Some creatures act independently, sometimes fluctuations in the Wake cause supernatural phenomena, and sometimes lesser creatures manage to establish a link with the Wake, in a manner very similar to the Gods of Darkness, but on a much smaller scale. Thus, Nightmare Hunters are needed. These brave men and women fight darkness wherever they find it, and most of them work on the area near Seven Seals.
The Gods of Dakness allow the Nightmare Hunters to exist as long as they don't meddle in their business because they root out the creatures who would seek to become new Gods, while possibly being an annoyance to their competitors. But nevertheless, these Nightmare Hunters become Beacons of Hope to the people of Deloran.
Finally, as an Interregn, the Barrier that divides the world surrounds all of Deloran. In Deloran, this manifests as a wall of darkness that surrounds the land. Anyone that tries to cross it, dies horribly, fusing with the darkness.
All three heroes are Nightmare Hunters, and have been for quite some time. They have never met before, but they trust each other to be good at their jobs, and there is some measure of proffesional respect.
Anthony would like to live a quiet peaceful life without worries. However, he never could. Before the creation of the Barrier, Jonathan Dawn was a knight from an order that worshipped Azrael Beryl, the Crusader. When he found himself trapped in the new dark world, he used his knowledge to separate a part of his soul and imbue it in pure Light, creating a Sheele, a Spirit Companion. Calling herself Aranjuez, this Sheele was bound by Jonathan to his bloodline, as he thought that he would need help against the darkness.
Some time later, Jonathan died, and Aranjuez became bound to his son. However, this was an act against the nature of Sheeles. These companion spirits are usually bound to a single person, dying with them. The ritual created by Jonathan to allow Aranjuez to help his descendants worked against the natural order, and was corrupted. With each death of one of Jonathan's descendants, Aranjuez would be touched by the dark energies lying in the Wake of Deloran for a brief instant, and her Light would grow weaker. Eventually, from a Shina, a Sheele of Light, she changed into a Xianne, a Sheele of Darkness, taking the shape of a woman in a black, dark armor. This changed her personality and methods, but her dedication to purging Deloran of evil and her fondness of the Dawn bloodline remained.
Aranjuez became a mixed blessing, giving power and assistance to the Dawn bloodline, but also causing them to suffer and eventually die whenever the balance of the Wake was altered, forcing them to become Nightmare Hunters whether they wanted it or not, as only eliminating what caused the balance to be altered would help them. Anthony is the last of that bloodline. A young man in his early twenties, born in the plains, always living on the saddle of a horse, and trying to live a good life whenever he wasn't forced to restore the balance.
A bit arrogant, but good natured and pacient, Anthony is no fighter, but he shares a bond with Aranjuez much stronger than that of most of his ancestors. He knows how to best channel the Sheele's powers, and his minor magical gifts allow him to help her fight to her full potential. Aside from that, Anthony's natural charisma has allowed him to easily gain the trust of people, something that is very useful to him whenever he is investigating. Anthony is a Nightmare Hunter by need, but he shows some compassion, and he is essentially a jerk with a heart of gold.
Anthony is Dark Paladin, focusing on Control to increase the Sheele's powers, with no fighting skills by himself, and some knowledge of Occultism, but otherwise mainly focused on social skills and riding. Aranjuez focuses on using her natural Sheele abilities, and can become intangible and invisible to anyone not able to see spirits, thus acting as a spy for Anthony.
The youngest of the group, Dereck was trained in martial arts and apparently was raised on oriental traditions, mostly lost in Deloran except by those living in Nephila's territories. An honorable young man, his training is mainly deffensive, but he is quick to jump into a fight if he believes he is fighting for a good cause.
Dereck's father was, apparently, some kind of Earth Elemental, corrupted by evil. This is what inspired him to become a Nightmare Hunter, as he wants to destroy his father for some reason that he keeps to himself.
A Tao focused on deffensive martial arts, when he activates his elemental powers, he gains natural armor and inhuman strength, becoming quite a juggernaut. He also has the inusual but useful ability of being able to See the Supernatural. Quite the oddity, he is optimistic in world of black and very dark grey.
In his early thirties, Pietric has been a Nightmare Hunter for over a decade. A scarred veteran, he is crazy prepared, paranoid and intolerant of amateurs, but also a compassionate man that only ever charges for his job what he knows people can afford.
A jack of all trades, Pietric is always prepared, and he knows a lot about the supernatural. An expert in the art of rituals and crafts, he always brings his wagon with ingredients for rituals, special ammunitions and materials to produce whatever item he might need in order to get the job done.
While he can defend himself in a fight, and he will not hesitate to do so if it is the only way to destroy a creature, he prefers other approaches. After all, if a guy with a sword was enough to defeat the nightmares that prey on Deloran's inhabitants, then Nightmare Hunters wouldn't be so needed.
Pietric is the group's grandpa, and he will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
A Freelancer with good combat skills and Knowledgable in all Fields, he is our balanced guy, able to cover our weak spots if we need it.
Soon I'll bring the first session: An investigation of some murders in a village near Seven Seals.