akma
2020-08-24, 01:52 AM
Hate filled, murderous envy, the kind that makes you want to kill someone and take its place, grants magical powers to those who feel it and increased competence to those that are envied.
For mere mortals, the increased competence rarely amounts to much, but for the gods it is everything. The increased competence applies to every action an individual takes. The gods accumulated such power for tens of thousands of years and designed all human societies around harvesting it.
They also kept the truth about envy hidden.
Side note: this world will probably not include any non-human humanoid races.
For the layman, magic is believed to come from hate that will eventually consume the caster.
It is not far from the truth. Murderous envy is not so different from hate, and dwelling in it is not healthy for the mind. If the envy is gone, the magical powers quickly diminish until they are gone too.
I haven’t built the magic system in depth, the basis is that casters can cast a few spells with destructive and short lasting effects, that thematically tie into their specific envy.
A very long time ago, the forgotten gods created the world
and ruled with wisdom and harmony. But some people didn’t like that. Born as regular humans, they grew in power and overcame their creators, slaughtering them and taking their place. They established a new social order with them on top.
This historic precedent leads to the societal standard that power is legitimacy. Taking what you want from someone who is obviously much weaker then you is considered just, but those who use this right often tend to create too many enemies to survive. Nobles and rulers tend to hone their personal fighting abilities to make themselves more legitimate.
This history is just a bunch of lies and not even remotely close to what really happened. It is crafted to make the gods feel more unfit to rule and give people hope of defeating them, since it states such precedent for mortals. The real history is summarized under the monsters section.
I hadn’t named any of them.
God of rulers
According to legend, as a human he was a very spoiled king. Several kingdoms claim he was their king, that the dynasty extends from his blood, or both. He was a tyrant, exploiting his power and authority without caring how it would affect his people.
He helped defeat the forgotten gods, but hadn’t performed any noteworthy feats in the war. After the victory he became the king of gods, or anounced himself as the king of gods.
Goddess of executions
She is the only god with the authority to execute another god.
Her mortal clergy is also equipped with such authority, each executioner is allowed to judge and execute anyone who is in an equal or lower social status. Traditionally they all judge people in the same social class. There are executioners in every social class, from slaves to an executioner king.
Despite their absolute diving authority to execute for any reason, or without a reason, people are often not so cooperative, so they are well trained in combat. They use weapons that would be good for executions, usually big axes but could also be executioner swords.
According to legends, she killed more forgotten gods then any other god.
The birther, mother of monsters
The great birther, the mother of monsters and successful people. Certain leaders claim she birthed and raised them. There is more about her in the monster section.
Children of the great birther, those big beasts come in a variety of shapes, but they all have several common characteristics. They do not eat, they do not sleep, they do not tire, they do not fear.
And they do not fall easily. Rare are those who managed to slay a monster, as beneath their strange skin, lies a body as hard as steel.
That’s because it is steel, the skin is usually just rubber put mainly for aesthetics. Fighting robots with medieval weapons is hard.
Tens of thousands of years ago, humanity settled the globe. They knew how envy really works and they were careful. Still, a few individuals managed to gain great power, helped by communication networks that spread across the globe. Those people would later be known as the gods.
The civilization was advanced, a few decades ahead of our own.
With great technological advancements comes great weapons and with them, humanity almost went extinct. The gods preserved the survivors through the nuclear winter and then began the long process of redesigning human society. They decided to keep humanity technologically backwards so such a thing could never happen again.
The goddess known as the birther builds the monsters manually, for many different purposes. Some are guardians of places that the gods want no men to see, some are built for environmental conservation. Occasionally, some robots develop sapience or malfunction. In some of those cases, the gods care.
Since the gods gain power from those who envy them, they want to keep them alive for as long as possible. However, they don’t want to be perceived as wanting or not caring about such hatred, which is sometimes stated publicly and repeatedly.
So their clergy ruins their life without harming them. Executioners execute some of their allies, clergy of the god of wealth steal their possessions and ban trading with them, clergy of the god of rulers strip them of their honors and declare them as slaves.
There is generally a gradual escalation, executioners won’t immediately execute someone’s mother after he’ll declare his hate for their goddess. The clergy focuses on those who gained magical powers, and don’t react with more then scolding towards minor bitter remarks.
For mere mortals, the increased competence rarely amounts to much, but for the gods it is everything. The increased competence applies to every action an individual takes. The gods accumulated such power for tens of thousands of years and designed all human societies around harvesting it.
They also kept the truth about envy hidden.
Side note: this world will probably not include any non-human humanoid races.
For the layman, magic is believed to come from hate that will eventually consume the caster.
It is not far from the truth. Murderous envy is not so different from hate, and dwelling in it is not healthy for the mind. If the envy is gone, the magical powers quickly diminish until they are gone too.
I haven’t built the magic system in depth, the basis is that casters can cast a few spells with destructive and short lasting effects, that thematically tie into their specific envy.
A very long time ago, the forgotten gods created the world
and ruled with wisdom and harmony. But some people didn’t like that. Born as regular humans, they grew in power and overcame their creators, slaughtering them and taking their place. They established a new social order with them on top.
This historic precedent leads to the societal standard that power is legitimacy. Taking what you want from someone who is obviously much weaker then you is considered just, but those who use this right often tend to create too many enemies to survive. Nobles and rulers tend to hone their personal fighting abilities to make themselves more legitimate.
This history is just a bunch of lies and not even remotely close to what really happened. It is crafted to make the gods feel more unfit to rule and give people hope of defeating them, since it states such precedent for mortals. The real history is summarized under the monsters section.
I hadn’t named any of them.
God of rulers
According to legend, as a human he was a very spoiled king. Several kingdoms claim he was their king, that the dynasty extends from his blood, or both. He was a tyrant, exploiting his power and authority without caring how it would affect his people.
He helped defeat the forgotten gods, but hadn’t performed any noteworthy feats in the war. After the victory he became the king of gods, or anounced himself as the king of gods.
Goddess of executions
She is the only god with the authority to execute another god.
Her mortal clergy is also equipped with such authority, each executioner is allowed to judge and execute anyone who is in an equal or lower social status. Traditionally they all judge people in the same social class. There are executioners in every social class, from slaves to an executioner king.
Despite their absolute diving authority to execute for any reason, or without a reason, people are often not so cooperative, so they are well trained in combat. They use weapons that would be good for executions, usually big axes but could also be executioner swords.
According to legends, she killed more forgotten gods then any other god.
The birther, mother of monsters
The great birther, the mother of monsters and successful people. Certain leaders claim she birthed and raised them. There is more about her in the monster section.
Children of the great birther, those big beasts come in a variety of shapes, but they all have several common characteristics. They do not eat, they do not sleep, they do not tire, they do not fear.
And they do not fall easily. Rare are those who managed to slay a monster, as beneath their strange skin, lies a body as hard as steel.
That’s because it is steel, the skin is usually just rubber put mainly for aesthetics. Fighting robots with medieval weapons is hard.
Tens of thousands of years ago, humanity settled the globe. They knew how envy really works and they were careful. Still, a few individuals managed to gain great power, helped by communication networks that spread across the globe. Those people would later be known as the gods.
The civilization was advanced, a few decades ahead of our own.
With great technological advancements comes great weapons and with them, humanity almost went extinct. The gods preserved the survivors through the nuclear winter and then began the long process of redesigning human society. They decided to keep humanity technologically backwards so such a thing could never happen again.
The goddess known as the birther builds the monsters manually, for many different purposes. Some are guardians of places that the gods want no men to see, some are built for environmental conservation. Occasionally, some robots develop sapience or malfunction. In some of those cases, the gods care.
Since the gods gain power from those who envy them, they want to keep them alive for as long as possible. However, they don’t want to be perceived as wanting or not caring about such hatred, which is sometimes stated publicly and repeatedly.
So their clergy ruins their life without harming them. Executioners execute some of their allies, clergy of the god of wealth steal their possessions and ban trading with them, clergy of the god of rulers strip them of their honors and declare them as slaves.
There is generally a gradual escalation, executioners won’t immediately execute someone’s mother after he’ll declare his hate for their goddess. The clergy focuses on those who gained magical powers, and don’t react with more then scolding towards minor bitter remarks.