Sintanan
2007-09-05, 12:59 AM
I was thumbing through my daily fare of web-comics, such as Dominic Deegan, DMFA, El Goonish Shive, and more...
Then my mind began to wander: Since the majority (like... all of them) of D&D players I (play/played/will play) with do not read the web-comics I do, why can't I adopt ideas from them for my world? Well, one thing led to another and I decided to start a new world, a new universe.
First thing I did was decide I was going to refashion the cosmology. I decided to adopt the concept of the cosmology from Dominic Deegan (link (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-01-09) and link (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-01-10)):
Prime Material Plane
This plane pretty much remains the same. A bunch of balls of rock floating in the void.
The Inner Planes
The four Physical Planes (Air, Fire, Water, Earth) and the four Metaphysical Planes (Law, Chaos, Creation, Destruction) orbit horizontally around the Prime Material.
In a nutshell: Air, Fire, Water, and Earth are their respective planes; Creation is the Positive Energy plane; Destruction is the Negative Energy plane; Law would be Acheron (if I recall my planes properly), and Chaos would be Limbo.
What I figure is they can be multi-layered planes. The first few planes would be the home of the creatures, and the deeper you go, the more raw essence there is.
Heaven and Hell
The two Spiritual Planes are shaped like large saucers that are at the extreme "poles" of the inner planes. These two planes have direct links to the Prime Material Plane.
Heaven encompasses the Ethereal, the planes of the Celestials, and places like the Soul Bastion. The deeper down in the layers you go, the more ethereal things become.
Hell encompasses the Shadow, and the "Infernal" planes. The deeper down in the layers you go, the more shadow-y(?) things become.
The Outer Planes
The outer planes are now minor pockets and the planes of the gods (Gods come later in this post).
There will be one plane for each god, and many many minor pockets (not even really worth noting) that are the pockets generated by spells. These planes free-float in the Astral Plane (see below) and can co-exist with one another if they collide... this results in the gods either going at it with each other or forming pacts, or anything in between.
Astral Plane
Also known as: Planar Highway, Planar Pathway, the Transitive Plane.
The Astral Plane is pretty close to what it is in D&D, with the addition of twisting pathways of non-standard materials (such as rainbows, or magic that can be walked on). These pathways have gravity (not so much as a pull, but they have a top one can walk on normally). These pathways link all the planes together.
Generally, the distance between the inner planes is much shorter than the distance of the outer planes. The pathways are more for fluff than crunch. Only a single pathway leads to the Elemecca, and it cannot be found by normal means (searching/spells). Access to the Elemecca path (and therefore portal) can only be granted by the primary god (Under gods).
The Elemecca
Simply put, this is a giant machine surrounding all reality. The Elemecca is home of the primary god, and is charged with keeping all of reality in balance and protect reality from the Far Realm. While in the Elemecca, the planes appear as shapes free-floating in the center of the machine. Minor pocket planes are star-like pinpoints. This will create some "daboo?" encounters, seeing as the planes are usually infinite.
Far Realm
Uhh... I can't even explain it. Just follow this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Realm).
After getting the basics for my cosmology, I was letting my mind wander and I settled on changing the core races to that of Dominic Deegan (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2007-06-01): Spellwolf, Callanian, Semashi, Orc, Elf, and Nagasta.
I figured I'd develop the crunch for the races later, what I needed was the divinities woven in first. These developed alongside the races a bit.
I was aiming for something that would allow multiple beliefs (pantheons) without conflicting gods/domains. What I settled on was a sort of hierarchy of divine beings with each race focusing on only a certain part:
Callanian would worship the top of the pantheon, the One God, the Prime. This figure would be a figure of balance. Neither good nor evil, lawful nor chaotic.
------------
Pantheon Type: Monotheism
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Indifferent
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Gratitude
Active or Distant: Distant
Can the God(s) Die? No
Spellwolves would come next in the heirarchy with the worship of a dualistic nature: The Sun and the Moon. The Spellwolves are far from sketched out...
------------
Pantheon Type: Dualistic
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Benevolent / Hostile
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Love / Fear
Active or Distant: Active
Can the God(s) Die? No
Next comes the greater gods. The gods in this grouping wouldn't be able to be replaced by a mortal ascending to godhood. That would be for the later group. While mortals can't become the gods in this group, I couldn't decide if said gods couldn't kill one another, though. This "tight polytheism" is worshiped by the Semashi.
------------
Pantheon Type: Tight Pantheon
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Active?
Can the God(s) Die? No?
The Nagasta come next with their belief in a "loose polytheism". These lesser gods can be killed and replaced by mortals. This allows the options of divine ascension and a more chaotic belief.
------------
Pantheon Type: Loose Pantheon
Nature of Divinity: Earned
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? Yes
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Active
Can the God(s) Die? Yes
The worship of Mother Earth and prevailing animal spirits comes next with the Orcs. Like the loose pantheon of the Nagasta, the strength of an animal spirit is dependent on the number of the worshipers. I was thinking of "borrowing" concepts from Princess Mononoke for this group.
------------
Pantheon Type: Animism
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? Yes
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Varies
Can the God(s) Die? Yes?
Finally, the Elves. They actually do not have a/many divine being(s) giving them power. Rather Elves have no divine spells, but an increase in arcane (and possibly psionics to give them access to healing magics). Their belief is that everything has a spirit and can be used to empower oneself.
------------
Pantheon Type: Philosophy/Force
Nature of Divinity: Nil
God(s) Behavior: Nil
Dependent on Mortals? Nil
Why Mortals Worship: Nil
Active or Distant: Nil
Can the God(s) Die? Nil
In summary:
Prime -> Sun/Moon -> Greater Gods -> Lesser Gods -> Animal Spirits.
Finally with the fluff of the divine beings done (their actual crunch would come after plans, in case I needed to tweak anything). Next I decided to come up with racial fluff and crunch... and now I'm at a brick wall.
Callanian
Callanian belief started as a "must maintain balance in the world and follow the way of the Prime God" to a focus on the extremes: Paladins enforce laws and protect the weak, rebels overthrow strict governments, assassins are hired to remove good kings, holy warriors stop evil rulers, and such. Rather than being a civilization of balance, the Callanian would be the extremes.
Spellwolves
I was thinking a rough basing on Norse beliefs and ideas, with enough focus on the dualistic nature of their gods.
Semashi
I was thinking of imitating the Egyptian beliefs here. There is a divine ruler that watches all Semashi as a whole, but there are stragglers that would rather do their own thing (nomads) as apposed as living in society.
Nagasta
Possibly an Aztec-like society. I have no clue here.
Orc
Possibly like American-Natives. I was thinking sort of stealing ideas from the Tauren of Warcraft for influence. I also wanted to weave in the herbivore nature of the Orcs in Dominic Deegan.
Elf
I know what I want, but not how to get it: Oriental influences here. Local rulers, samurai, ninjas... everything one thinks when someone mentions Oriental. This way I don't need to worry about trying to weave it in later if a player wants to do a Samurai-ish person.
Also, I know I wanted one society to view necromancy as not evil, but a tool. Using undead to do the menial tasks until they wear out and the bodies are finally laid to rest... I was thinking of throwing this into the Semashi, but the Nagasta could be another possibility.
I know after this bit, I got to work on classes (which classes are common where), and all the crunch. Plus things like the terrain and everything. It's a big project, but something I want to see through... and something I would love input about.
Oh, and yes, I am planning to change the names later... but for right now, it makes for easy reference.
Then my mind began to wander: Since the majority (like... all of them) of D&D players I (play/played/will play) with do not read the web-comics I do, why can't I adopt ideas from them for my world? Well, one thing led to another and I decided to start a new world, a new universe.
First thing I did was decide I was going to refashion the cosmology. I decided to adopt the concept of the cosmology from Dominic Deegan (link (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-01-09) and link (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-01-10)):
Prime Material Plane
This plane pretty much remains the same. A bunch of balls of rock floating in the void.
The Inner Planes
The four Physical Planes (Air, Fire, Water, Earth) and the four Metaphysical Planes (Law, Chaos, Creation, Destruction) orbit horizontally around the Prime Material.
In a nutshell: Air, Fire, Water, and Earth are their respective planes; Creation is the Positive Energy plane; Destruction is the Negative Energy plane; Law would be Acheron (if I recall my planes properly), and Chaos would be Limbo.
What I figure is they can be multi-layered planes. The first few planes would be the home of the creatures, and the deeper you go, the more raw essence there is.
Heaven and Hell
The two Spiritual Planes are shaped like large saucers that are at the extreme "poles" of the inner planes. These two planes have direct links to the Prime Material Plane.
Heaven encompasses the Ethereal, the planes of the Celestials, and places like the Soul Bastion. The deeper down in the layers you go, the more ethereal things become.
Hell encompasses the Shadow, and the "Infernal" planes. The deeper down in the layers you go, the more shadow-y(?) things become.
The Outer Planes
The outer planes are now minor pockets and the planes of the gods (Gods come later in this post).
There will be one plane for each god, and many many minor pockets (not even really worth noting) that are the pockets generated by spells. These planes free-float in the Astral Plane (see below) and can co-exist with one another if they collide... this results in the gods either going at it with each other or forming pacts, or anything in between.
Astral Plane
Also known as: Planar Highway, Planar Pathway, the Transitive Plane.
The Astral Plane is pretty close to what it is in D&D, with the addition of twisting pathways of non-standard materials (such as rainbows, or magic that can be walked on). These pathways have gravity (not so much as a pull, but they have a top one can walk on normally). These pathways link all the planes together.
Generally, the distance between the inner planes is much shorter than the distance of the outer planes. The pathways are more for fluff than crunch. Only a single pathway leads to the Elemecca, and it cannot be found by normal means (searching/spells). Access to the Elemecca path (and therefore portal) can only be granted by the primary god (Under gods).
The Elemecca
Simply put, this is a giant machine surrounding all reality. The Elemecca is home of the primary god, and is charged with keeping all of reality in balance and protect reality from the Far Realm. While in the Elemecca, the planes appear as shapes free-floating in the center of the machine. Minor pocket planes are star-like pinpoints. This will create some "daboo?" encounters, seeing as the planes are usually infinite.
Far Realm
Uhh... I can't even explain it. Just follow this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Realm).
After getting the basics for my cosmology, I was letting my mind wander and I settled on changing the core races to that of Dominic Deegan (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2007-06-01): Spellwolf, Callanian, Semashi, Orc, Elf, and Nagasta.
I figured I'd develop the crunch for the races later, what I needed was the divinities woven in first. These developed alongside the races a bit.
I was aiming for something that would allow multiple beliefs (pantheons) without conflicting gods/domains. What I settled on was a sort of hierarchy of divine beings with each race focusing on only a certain part:
Callanian would worship the top of the pantheon, the One God, the Prime. This figure would be a figure of balance. Neither good nor evil, lawful nor chaotic.
------------
Pantheon Type: Monotheism
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Indifferent
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Gratitude
Active or Distant: Distant
Can the God(s) Die? No
Spellwolves would come next in the heirarchy with the worship of a dualistic nature: The Sun and the Moon. The Spellwolves are far from sketched out...
------------
Pantheon Type: Dualistic
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Benevolent / Hostile
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Love / Fear
Active or Distant: Active
Can the God(s) Die? No
Next comes the greater gods. The gods in this grouping wouldn't be able to be replaced by a mortal ascending to godhood. That would be for the later group. While mortals can't become the gods in this group, I couldn't decide if said gods couldn't kill one another, though. This "tight polytheism" is worshiped by the Semashi.
------------
Pantheon Type: Tight Pantheon
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? No
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Active?
Can the God(s) Die? No?
The Nagasta come next with their belief in a "loose polytheism". These lesser gods can be killed and replaced by mortals. This allows the options of divine ascension and a more chaotic belief.
------------
Pantheon Type: Loose Pantheon
Nature of Divinity: Earned
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? Yes
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Active
Can the God(s) Die? Yes
The worship of Mother Earth and prevailing animal spirits comes next with the Orcs. Like the loose pantheon of the Nagasta, the strength of an animal spirit is dependent on the number of the worshipers. I was thinking of "borrowing" concepts from Princess Mononoke for this group.
------------
Pantheon Type: Animism
Nature of Divinity: Innate
God(s) Behavior: Varies
Dependent on Mortals? Yes
Why Mortals Worship: Varies
Active or Distant: Varies
Can the God(s) Die? Yes?
Finally, the Elves. They actually do not have a/many divine being(s) giving them power. Rather Elves have no divine spells, but an increase in arcane (and possibly psionics to give them access to healing magics). Their belief is that everything has a spirit and can be used to empower oneself.
------------
Pantheon Type: Philosophy/Force
Nature of Divinity: Nil
God(s) Behavior: Nil
Dependent on Mortals? Nil
Why Mortals Worship: Nil
Active or Distant: Nil
Can the God(s) Die? Nil
In summary:
Prime -> Sun/Moon -> Greater Gods -> Lesser Gods -> Animal Spirits.
Finally with the fluff of the divine beings done (their actual crunch would come after plans, in case I needed to tweak anything). Next I decided to come up with racial fluff and crunch... and now I'm at a brick wall.
Callanian
Callanian belief started as a "must maintain balance in the world and follow the way of the Prime God" to a focus on the extremes: Paladins enforce laws and protect the weak, rebels overthrow strict governments, assassins are hired to remove good kings, holy warriors stop evil rulers, and such. Rather than being a civilization of balance, the Callanian would be the extremes.
Spellwolves
I was thinking a rough basing on Norse beliefs and ideas, with enough focus on the dualistic nature of their gods.
Semashi
I was thinking of imitating the Egyptian beliefs here. There is a divine ruler that watches all Semashi as a whole, but there are stragglers that would rather do their own thing (nomads) as apposed as living in society.
Nagasta
Possibly an Aztec-like society. I have no clue here.
Orc
Possibly like American-Natives. I was thinking sort of stealing ideas from the Tauren of Warcraft for influence. I also wanted to weave in the herbivore nature of the Orcs in Dominic Deegan.
Elf
I know what I want, but not how to get it: Oriental influences here. Local rulers, samurai, ninjas... everything one thinks when someone mentions Oriental. This way I don't need to worry about trying to weave it in later if a player wants to do a Samurai-ish person.
Also, I know I wanted one society to view necromancy as not evil, but a tool. Using undead to do the menial tasks until they wear out and the bodies are finally laid to rest... I was thinking of throwing this into the Semashi, but the Nagasta could be another possibility.
I know after this bit, I got to work on classes (which classes are common where), and all the crunch. Plus things like the terrain and everything. It's a big project, but something I want to see through... and something I would love input about.
Oh, and yes, I am planning to change the names later... but for right now, it makes for easy reference.