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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    This is a thread for campaign background for a current recruitment. Interested parties from the thread can post their questions here.

    Kalsema or Kaslema, the variation in spelling depending on whether one is a speaker of the Karun or Teuneun languages, is a strange land subject to the almost constant illumination of its three suns. Once, it is said, they waxed and waned in a cycle of twenty four or twenty seven hours, and that the light of each mirrored the other in a glorious, luminated trinity. However, at some distant age, perhaps in connection with the fall of the Empire of the Dreams of the Great Dragons, their lights were shaken, and now no clime of Kalsema received the blessed respite of night more than once in a given week. One sun diminishes a single day in a week, another once a month, and the third for but one night in a year. Their orbits bestow the variable grace of night irregularly upon the various territories of Kalsema.

    The mysterious tomes known as the Pahlar Vaolin and Palash Namqua, a pair of magical books which seem to manifest of their own accord, provide perhaps the greatest insight into the history and populations of these territories.

    The seemingly endless leaves of the Palash Namqua recounts, in an admittedly highly elusive, excessively prolix language, something like the following outline of history:

    In the beginning was the 'Elder Age' or 'Elder Most Age'; strange creatures -- dinosaurs, polydactyls, turtiformes, spinostomes, titaniformes, monoanticherans, jetocetes, cardiocetes, cardiocetoids, magnopsids, lophophids, sprogophidians, heterostomes, allotauriformes, fututoriformes, kahydroniformes, pescidonts, blumbomeniformes, and other such flora and fauna thrived alongside a sapient species known as the birrin or birilin. These hexopods apparently created a highly advanced technological civilization. The end of their era was brought about by some great disaster which may or may not have been connected with the arrival of the Dragon Lords. The remnants of this civilization can be widely observed in the territories surrounding the Sea of Santisacles - including the continents of Chamadron (Chamandron), Bha'al-Zauggor, Izox, and the isolated territory of Sanaadnida.


    A birilin mycovillam of the Most Ancient Age.

    The emigration of awakening of the Dragon Lords ushered in the Age of the Dream of Dragons, also known as the Dragon Age or the Age of Dreams, among other appellations. The Dragon Lords are said to have 'recreated' the world in this time, and introduced most of the standard flora and fauna, as well as magical beasts, which did not exist in the Elder Age. The end of the Dragon Dreamer Empire is somewhat shrouded in mystery. The Palash Namqua suggests that two factions -- the Dragon Teachers and the Dragon Students or Learners -- somehow began a conflict which ended with the banishment, capture, death, or sleep of the Dragon Lords. In the many years since this event, common tradition, has held that the Dragon Teachers were the Ancient Elves, the greatest of their kind who the Dragon Lords taught the arts of draconic metamorphosis, so that their creations might one day assume their own divine form. The Dragon Students or Learners are held to have been kobolds who were likewise instructed in the arts of draconic ascension, if such rituals in fact exist. The Ancient Elves who ascended to dragonhood are held to have been driven mad by their transformation, and resolved to replace their previous reptilian overlords. These 'Wise Masters' were opposed by the ascended kobolds of the Dragon Learners. At least, that is what has often be asserted as the purport of the thousands of pages of enigmatic text. The portion of the Palash Namqua that details the end of the Age of Dragon Dreaming is written in an unknown pictographic language that differs from that which comprises the rest of its endless pages. It may hold the truth of the disaster that ended the time of the Dragon Lords. In any event, the wake of this age saw the light of the three suns which rise over the Sea of Santisacles wax greatly, such that no land of Kalsema now enjoys more than one night in a week.

    For its part, the Pahlar Vaolin describes, and continuously updates, an account of the present climes and habitations of Kalsema. It states that all the Lands of the Long Light are surrounded by a mysterious storm, and that within this storm lie the continents of Chamadron, Bha'al-Zauggor, Izox, Sanaadnida, Vel-Samar, and Ikuin, along with countless isles.
    Last edited by Marcarius5555; 2021-11-15 at 10:33 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Troll in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    I have some metaphysics questions I'll as you on Discord, but in terms of topology, you mentioned that this world is akin to being on the inside of an Oyster, could you describe that a bit more? Are we dealing with more of a flat earth or can one see the "other side" by looking upwards?

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Quote Originally Posted by Genth View Post
    I have some metaphysics questions I'll as you on Discord, but in terms of topology, you mentioned that this world is akin to being on the inside of an Oyster, could you describe that a bit more? Are we dealing with more of a flat earth or can one see the "other side" by looking upwards?
    It's on the inside of the oyster. The whole thing is oriented at a 90 degree angle to the world below, so there's not really an up or down as such; they're both on the side.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Gunhaven's Avatar

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    I feel like the “stop the dragons from waking up” would be a good group goal based on the history of the setting, at least as far as my sleep addled mind can piece together. Something about the elves going mad with the knowledge gained from dragons could be spun by whatever force brings us into the world, I think.

    How well known are the Pahlar Vaolin and Palash Namqua?
    New job, who dis?
    I'll check in the evenings when I get home from work / take a break from whatever game has claimed my soul.

    Your understanding is appreciated.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Quote Originally Posted by Gunhaven View Post
    I feel like the “stop the dragons from waking up” would be a good group goal based on the history of the setting, at least as far as my sleep addled mind can piece together. Something about the elves going mad with the knowledge gained from dragons could be spun by whatever force brings us into the world, I think.

    How well known are the Pahlar Vaolin and Palash Namqua?
    Both are magical books which appear to have... minds of their own? They don't speak but manifest, sometimes in multiple locations at the same time, and seem to update themselves. They drift in and out of libraries across the world, and reports of their appearance go back millennia. They are perhaps the most famous two written works in the entire world.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Troll in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    What are the remnents of Hexpodean technology that are around? Or remnents of the hexapodeans themselves (as far as most people know, I accept in these cases there's ALWAYS some mysterious remnent hiding in a demiplane).

    Were the Dragon Learners, according to records, loyal to the Dragon Lords themselves, or was it two factions who overthrew their masters together, and then fell to infighting?

    You've mentioned that Underdark peeps are around, Drow, Duergar etc - where do they fit in, were there any Drow Dragon Teachers?

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Quote Originally Posted by Genth View Post
    What are the remnents of Hexpodean technology that are around? Or remnents of the hexapodeans themselves (as far as most people know, I accept in these cases there's ALWAYS some mysterious remnent hiding in a demiplane).

    Were the Dragon Learners, according to records, loyal to the Dragon Lords themselves, or was it two factions who overthrew their masters together, and then fell to infighting?

    You've mentioned that Underdark peeps are around, Drow, Duergar etc - where do they fit in, were there any Drow Dragon Teachers?
    There are abundant remnants of the hexpodean civilization on Chamadron and the other nearby continents especially Bha'al-Zhaugor, where their ancient tombs are frequent cites in the deep desert.

    The accounts of the Palash Namqua are written in an extremely elusive and prolix style -- the entire section which purportedly concerns the conflict itself is essentially unreadable. The portion leading up to the war and its aftermath are divided by an enormous section that even the wisest sages can essentially read the odd verb or proper noun. The part before indicates there was some kind of opposition between these two servants of the dragons, and then the story picks up intelligibly again when the dragons are gone, or asleep, or otherwise somehow not there anymore. The whole matter is one of the great historical mysteries.

    There is a Drow civilization below the Domain of Charon (or Choran, depending, with some many variations, on whether one speaks Karun or Tuenuen) known as Kyaeren. Not much is known of their civilization, as their route to the service is contested by the Steam Elves of Nisoroch, a client city-state of Charon/Choran. The Mist Elves claim that their rulers are the only surviving Dragon Teachers, though they only claim this to those who are aware these entities exist, mostly they deny that they exist to outsiders. It seems very likely that others exist, and might include the Drow of Kyaeren, or some other dark elf culture in another clime of the world.

    Spoiler: More behind the scenes info
    Show
    The ametrine dragons of Syranix are in fact ascended dragon-drow; their whole double double cross of their kobold servants is related to this ancient war. They were imprisoned during the war in a crystal cocoon on the continent of Sraan-Graba'al, to the east of Syranix and the Sundered Seas region. The kobolds there dug them up and thought they were reviving their ancient forebearers, but in fact placed themselves at the service of their ancient enemies. The had a conflict with the inhabitants of the city state from which they hailed, who tried to tell them there was something iffy about these particular dragons. To return to Kalsema, there are rumors among the mist elves that there is a radiance dragon (and unusual ascended draconic servant of the 'makers' (the white spheres)' -- some of the greatest sages of the mist elves are partially aware of this secret history
    Last edited by Marcarius5555; 2021-11-17 at 01:39 AM.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Aside from the varying levels of daytime and only the occasional night, what's the general climate like / what kind of biomes are common? Or does it vary wildly around the Lands?

    Semi-relatedly, how well have the people/flora/fauna of the Lands adapted to the extensive daytime?
    Last edited by Llyarden; 2021-11-17 at 02:33 PM.
    "Follow the moonwalking Nosepass!"
    "Can you put the lich in a box?"

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Quote Originally Posted by Llyarden View Post
    Aside from the varying levels of daytime and only the occasional night, what's the general climate like / what kind of biomes are common? Or does it vary wildly around the Lands?

    Semi-relatedly, how well have the people/flora/fauna of the Lands adapted to the extensive daytime?
    The climes vary greatly. The continent where we begin, Chamadron, is similar to continental Europe or the temperate portions of the eastern seaboard of the United States. The campaign area is similar to a more densely-wooded southern England or France, or the Carolinas. The far north of the continent contains a chill region similar to the Lands of Always Winter in Game of Thrones -- there is a massive ice barrier that encloses the domain of the Winter Elves, sinister fey who worship the Great Tuunbaq and the Wendigo, among other malign powers.

    Southerly, the continent of Bha'al-Zhagor contains several different desert biomes. The northern coast, facing Chamadron across a large ocean, contains pockets of dense jungles, large rivers, and oases, making it more similar to Egypt, the more fertile coastal regions of the Arabian peninsula, or the West African coast. The interior is a blasted waste drier than the Sahara, and the far south is essentially unsurvivable without magical adapatations. The middle of the region is a land of ash and darkness which contains tombs of the hexopodean civilization and unusual forms of undead. Levitating over this region are about a dozen smaller flying continents surrounded by a sea of fire and blood -- this are is inspired by Dark Sun. The far, far south is a very strange polar desert which is alternately blistering hot (like hotter than the surface of the sun) or similarly cold.

    The Lands of Sanaadnida, to the far west, are a strange lost world biome consisting of immense jungles, high mountains, and abundant ruins. The interior of the continent appears to be somehow much, much larger than its outward coastline would otherwise indicate -- which would otherwise suggest a continent about twice the size of Australia. Explorations of the interior have suggested the real dimensions may be more like 100,000 miles or more in breadth. There also appears to be a kind of inner sea in the center of the continent which contains yet another continent filled with ruins and a strange, immense pillar in its very center that rises beyond the clouds, and is visible from every vantage.

    Izox, to the east of Chamadron, is Mediterranean and Baltic in climate, and contains a set of slaver city-states in some ways comparable to the nations of Slaver's Bay in Game of Thrones.

    There are a number of essentially Polynesian or Indonesian type islands in the oceans between these lands-- hundreds of thousands or even millions of islands.

    The 'roof' of the world contains at least two additional continents -- Vel-Samar, a land dominated by elemental forces and races, and Ikuin. Vel-Samar is essentially medieval Europe if Rome had not fell -- the preservation of concrete construction styles, road networks, sewers, and aqueduct systems; the architecture style is predominantly Romanesque, with gothic and some areas inspired by the sui generis style of gaudi. Ikuin is similar to Sanaadnida, but also contains large quasi Mesoamerican civilizations.


    The adaptations the flora and fauna have made are that photosynthetic entities have flourished -- the forests and jungles are denser and there are more plant-based races and monsters than in a 'baseline' fantasy realm like Golarion or Faerun.

    Additionally, there are more solar entities/aligned creatures of every variety.
    Last edited by Marcarius5555; 2021-11-17 at 08:49 PM.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    SwashbucklerGuy

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Does your world currently have any plans for the Cherufe(Dinosaur folk)?

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    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Some fluff for my character's race - let me know if any of it doesn't fit / overlaps with what you already had planned.

    Spoiler: This Got A Bit Long
    Show
    The bentharians are a race who have lost much to time. More commonly known simply as 'white snakes,' bentharians claim to have grown to become a sentient race at the very depths of the ocean, the lords and ladies of all they surveyed. Over the centuries - or perhaps millenia - though, they have slowly lost the ability to survive at such depths and been forced to migrate to higher waters, with only a handful of physiological changes and their dwindling traditions to remind them of who they used to be.

    As their common epithet suggests, while bentharians have humanoid, reptilian torsos, their lower body is that of a great serpent, and their scales are usually either white or various pale shades, with faint hints of elegant patterns. They tend to grow to about seven-and-a-half feet long, weighing on average a hundred and fifty pounds. They are an aquatic race with a remarkable capacity for pressure tolerance, and from birth are able to withstand depths down to about two hundred feet. An adult bentharian can tolerate the pressure about three hundred feet down - and a strong bentharian can dive deeper still - and cope with the lack of pressure at the surface as well. Thanks to their ability to store air in internal bladders, they can make themselves effectively weightless underwater with minimal effort, and support their own weight again through sheer buoyancy. Their powerful tails let them move (albeit somewhat awkwardly) on land, and they can store enough oxygen in their lungs that they can survive above water for a few hours, but they are fundamentally still water-dwellers. Their beautiful pale scales, though, leave them cripplingly vulnerable to the harsh light of Kalsema's three suns. Bentharians tend to live about 120 years, though some of the eldest bentharians are reaching their second century.

    Bentharians are split into two - biologically distinct - sub-races, often referred to as castes among the bentharians. The sun-seers are capable of breathing air and water alike (though they have no more resistance to sunlight), while the coral-tenders have retained their ancestors' ability to sense movement and faint emissions of heat in the water, allowing them to see even in the darkest underwater caves. The two races breed true, and children of mixed pairings can be of either caste - although such mixed pairings seem to result more and more in sun-seer children in recent generations. Vary rarely, such a mixed pairing results in a child of both castes who possesses the sun-seer's air-breathing and the coral-tender's deepsight. Such children are considered an omen of good fortune, and their births widely celebrated. (Children of such a bentharian are inevitably of the partner's caste.) A third caste - of a sort - are those bentharians who don't inherit the pale skin so common to their race, allowing them to survive the harsh sunlight without issue. Far from being accepted, though, these rare bentharians are accused of accepting the new nature of the race instead of maintaining old traditions - of giving in to the suns. Though the bentharians are not cruel enough to exile their kin for a quirk of biology that they had no part in, these so-called vibrant bentharians are expected not to flaunt their capability, and many of them dye their scales white with alchemical pigments in an attempt to blend in. It's unknown if the child of two vibrant bentharians would themselves be vibrant; by contrast the child of a vibrant and non-vibrant bentharian has never been known to be vibrant, and so the bentharian elders in major settlements subtly - or not so subtly - encourage such pairings. (Those bentharians who develop the ability to magically protect themselves from the sun are not treated the same way, however, as it's viewed that they've earned their protection.)

    Aside from their physical traits, bentharians are naturally psionic creatures, almost innately capable of creating a powerful mental shield to protect them from telepathic prying, and many are capable of offensive telepathy as well. Tales tell of would-be raiders and pirates being hypnotised by the eyes of dozens of bentharians, unable to do anything but watched as they were surrounded...and of weak-willed innocents of other races being lured into the ocean by the hypnotic serpents and devoured; whether or not this is a regular occurrence, the bentharians certainly have no qualms with consuming the corpses of sentient creatures and using their bones and organs for other purposes, seeing it as a waste to allow them to merely rot.

    Bentharic society is a celebration of skill and self-expression. Though not forced to choose any particular path, young bentharians are expected to find a path - be it skill at arms, knowledge of the arcane, or something more mundane like fishing - that takes their interest and devote a significant portion of their attention to mastering it. Many bentharians will take on multiple skills at once, but those who repeatedly pick up new hobbies only to abandon them are often looked down upon. And whether it's some latent magic in the bentharians, or an expression of hundreds or thousands of psionic creatures all with a similar outlook on life congregating in the same area, it's not uncommon for bentharians to find that their mundane skills translate to mystical properties. Toymakers who bring their constructions to life, singers whose voices can literally leave an audience spellbound, blademasters capable of impossible feats...very few bentharians are truly mundane. And a popular event in bentharic settlements are competitions between two such mystics, competing to overwhelm the other with their powers. Such competitions are usually symmetrical, with both participants using the same skills, though it's not unheard of for asymmetrical competitions to be held. These competitions are usually playful enough, though on occasion they're used to decide a disagreement between two bentharians, and can grow more serious.

    In most bentharian societies, there are five different strata of prestige - six if one includes children too young to take part in society properly, and it's expected that most bentharians will reach at least the fourth of those five over the course of their life. There's no sense of inherited privilege; while the child of successful parents may have the advantage of doors opened for them and contacts pre-established, they have to earn their way just as an orphan with no connections would.

    Once a child is old enough to begin to understand bentharic society, they become known as Novices (although in the bentharic tongue a more literal translation would be Explorers). As Novices, bentharians are exposed to a wide range of tasks and duties, lightly tested - they are still children, after all - to help them find a path they are interested in. Once they settle on a path, usually around the age of fifteen, they must seek out a Master to train them in their chosen field, and become Apprentices. Apprenticeship can last from between five to ten years, depending on the master and apprentice, but fundamentally lasts until the master is satisfied that the apprentice knows enough that they could earn a living with their chosen task. Once this task is achieved, they become known simply as Citizens - it used to be the case that becoming a Citizen was also when a bentharian became an adult, but the two have been decoupled in recent generations. It's not uncommon for a bentharian to apprentice in multiple fields, or become an apprentice in a new field after becoming a Citizen, but only the first successful apprenticeship matters for the purpose of bentharic hierarchy. The next stage - and the final stage that most bentharians will reach - is the stage of Master. Any Citizen can become a Master simply by taking an Apprentice, and tutoring them in their chosen field. Unlike the preceding ranks, it is possible for a Master to fall back to being a Citizen again, if their Apprentice quits their apprenticeship before it is complete; Mastery is only officially certified (and permanent) once the would-be Master's first Apprentice has become a Citizen.

    The final rank is that of Grandmaster. Where bentharic society expects its people to rise from Apprentices to Citizens to Masters, becoming a Grandmaster is a different matter. To become a Grandmaster, there is a simple requirement: to add something to bentharian society that it never knew, or had, before. This is judged by a group of twelve Masters in the field (and bentharian tales - fictional and real alike - of would-be Grandmasters making great and perilous journeys to find twelve Masters to judge their discovery are common). Grandmastery doesn't confer any automatic benefits of its own - with the exception that it can allow a Citizen who becomes a Grandmaster to avoid ever having to take an Apprentice - but those bentharians that reach the ranks of Grandmaster earn great respect, and various gifts of admiration and rewards, from their peers.

    For all their drive towards self-improvement and advancement, though, in many ways bentharians are still traditionalistic. They have adapted to the harsh sunlight and their vulnerability to it where they must, but in many cases they still try to sustain their ancient traditions. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the bentharic script, created in a world that never saw sunlight. The core component of bentharic script is simple etchings that can be read by touch, but turns of phrase, tone, humour, honorifics, and even the equivalent of body language can be encoded using faintly bioluminescent alchemical pigments, with different colours, their relative sizes and positions, and so on all conferring their own meaning. An extraordinary amount of information can be encoded in a small space using the full-fledged bentharic script - but it can only be read in near-total darkness, making it rather implausible to use in the modern day. That said, a bentharian library is a sight to behold, a darkness lit only by the kaleidoscopic whorls of colour and light.

    Bentharians, for the most part, police themselves. Most bentharian settlements do have guards trained to apprehend criminals, but vigilanteism to prevent overt crimes is entirely permitted and often relied upon, particularly in smaller settlements - the aforementioned 'guards' often earn their places by apprehending criminals as vigilantes to begin with. Judgement is passed by the local community, with weight given to the injured party's wishes. Investigations into a less overt crime, however, are a delicate matter, as bentharic society is extremely privacy-focused, an artifact of traditionalist bentharian lawmakers claiming, accurately or not, that their racial defences against magical prying demonstrate that is their duty as a species to all protect their own and each others' privacy. It is not permitted, therefore, for vigilantes to *actively* look into criminals; trained investigators trusted to keep any secrets they might uncover safe and not reveal them to anyone unless necessary for the case are responsible for uncovering the guilty parties.

    The biggest concentration of bentharians can be found in their capital city, named Benthos - in honour, so they say, of the original Benthos thousands of feet below the surface. The new Benthos sprawls between a hundred to two hundred feet down, in the ocean to the north of Bha'al-Zhagor. Large portions of the city are situated under great coral shelfs, to protect the bentharians from the sunlight, and the serpents - those who aren't capable of manifesting a magical protection from the sunlight for themselves, that is - don long cloaks and robes, cumbersome though they may be, or ride in covered underwater carriages drawn by hippocampi or other aquatic beasts of burden, when they have to brave the sun (which is not too uncommon; even those bentharians that don't breathe air use it to control their buoyancy, and a large portion of their farming requires sunlight). Perhaps unsurprisingly, those rare instances of night are greeted with jubilation by the bentharians - which is the case among most bentharians anyway, but Benthos takes it to an extreme that only such a large settlement can easily do. Those nights are virtually city-wide holidays, as the serpents try to cram as much freedom and excitement as they can into the short time before the accursed sun forces them to retreat back to their shelter.

    The original Benthos, of course, holds great interest to the bentharians, and the ruling council of the new Benthos have a standing rule that anyone to become a Grandmaster in the field of bentharian history by uncovering a new find related to the ancient city will be rewarded with wealth and luxury beyond their wildest dreams. But although many bentharians have attempted the journey to the lightless depths of the ocean, none have claimed the reward. Some to attempt it have been forced back up by the water pressure, but far more have simply never returned at all - whether because they overestimated their ability to handle the ever-increasing water pressure, or for some other reason, no-one knows.
    "Follow the moonwalking Nosepass!"
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    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    With the Suns being rather powerful and omnipresent what kind of religions and philosophies have sprung up around them?

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Quote Originally Posted by Genth View Post
    With the Suns being rather powerful and omnipresent what kind of religions and philosophies have sprung up around them?
    There are several.

    Radiolaria, Dragon Queen of Radiance, the White Queen, Mistress of Illumination, Handmaiden of the Unwavering Dawn

    One of the most prominent is the veneration of the Goddess Radiolaria the Queen of Radiance, a white dragon goddess. A prominent opinion among historians is that she was among the major deities, alongside her brother Drazhasthur, venerated during the Age of the Dreaming of the Dragons. Another opinion holds that both Radiolaria and Drazhasthur only appeared after the fall of the Empire of the Dreams of Wyrms, and merely presented themselves as venerable objects of worship to potential adherents. Taking advantage of the fall of civilization that appears to have accompanied the war between Teachers and Students of the Dragons, these deities successfully enmeshed themselves in the religious practice of northeastern Chamadron. However, their substantial absence from other regions of the continent, including regions that were indisputably heartlands of the Dragondreamer Empire, suggests some truth to the claim that they are later interlopers arrived from heretofore unknown planes of existence that have only recently come into dimensional alignment with the Lands of Long Light.

    The faith of Radiolaria is the dominant religion only in the Resplendent and Auroric Realm of Radiolaria, which is named after its divine patron. The goddess' channeler emissaries known as Radiances, Auroras, Halos, Glistens, and other, similar, titles, enjoy a pride of place in society as the chief engineers of the distinctive radiance-dependent technology which powers the weapons and tools of the realm. The proclaimed beneficence of the goddess is in part undermined by the actual effects of the powerful planar energy of which she is, if not the sole source, the major purveyor in the Lands of the Long Light. Radiance is both a powerful and dangerous source of energy -- it can consume those who channel it too much or too speedily, and possesses powerful mutagenic properties which manifest in those who spend an inordinate amount of time employed in its use.

    The channelers of Radiolaria often depict her as a solar deity, but this identification is widely rejected outside the adherents of the goddess, who see the radiance of her realm as a different type of illumination than the suns which light the realms of the mortal races.

    Zalur the Unconquered Son, the High Lord, Master of the Heavens, the All-seeing Eye

    The deity Zalur is widely venerated throughout southern Chamadron, including the realms of the Domain of Choran, as well as the kingdoms of Zaltas, Chanur, Shobadar, Valtrac and Hyrethule. The Knights of Sol are among his most widely recognized emissaries, holy warriors who administer the highly-fortified temples of the Master of Light. Outwardly at least, Zalur is the patron of unvanquished light and abundance. However, a substantial minority of his followers venerate the deity under the name Sar Saitan or Saitan ba'alazmon, the Blazing Lord -- these proclaim the true identity of the deity to be a tyrannical god of order and unremitting fury; these 'blister knights', or 'emberlings', operate in clandestine cells distributed throughout the Summer Houses of Zalur.

    The veneration of Zalur is unusual in that it is a principle faith among the humans, tavi, ryven, kitsune, tanuki, and other mammalian races, who are usually adherents of non-deific fonts of channeling. This situation creates a subtle tension between the faith of Zalur and the adherents among the warm-blooded races of the various non-deific solar powers -- the adherents of the 'Suit of the Sun' of the Faith of the Tarot, the priests of the Summer and the Spring, those who worship each of the three suns of Kalsema, or their unity, among others.

    Apalas, Lord of Song, Prince Sunsprite, Herald of the Dawn, Weaver of Mirages

    Apalas is a popular deity whose portfolio combines the role of a trickster and a pastoral deity. He is held to be responsible for mirages and sunblindness, as well as vision and agricultural fecundity. He is also the patron of the Music of the Spheres. One popular story relates how he stole the Shani'el, wife of the war god Myanor, whilst a guest in his house. The priests of Apalas are famous for producing displays of fireworks and similar entertainment. Its principle adherents are among the chameleon-like subspecies of lizardfolk known as Lan Khamai.

    Lightkeepers

    This order of druids of Rast Vadame caretake ancient stone monoliths used to count the passage of the ages. It is also rumored that they possess the power to walk backwards in the stream of time, or see into the varied currents of future events.

    Faith of the Spring

    The adherents of the Spring are among the most popular temples of southern Chamadron, found in most major cities. Sacred spring is the source of fecundity and renewal. However, it is also a faith of sacrifice and bloodletting, a duality expressed by its many martial orders and legions of inquisitors. In particular the Paladins of the New Fire are feared for their blood-drinking blades which they whet in the opened veins of their foes.

    Nisnai, Mistress of Absolution, Heart of Nova, the Princess of Immolation

    Nisnai is a mysterious goddess symbolized by the supernova -- the destruction of a sun. It is disagreed whether this portfolio technically classifies Nisnai as an anti-solar deity, or the representative of the ultimate effusion of light in a dying star. Many of her followers are a strange form of positive-energy undead known as the irradiated. She is also known as the 'ever-dying', and there are numberless stories which recount different reasons for her death. Many depict her implosion as some kind of noble sacrifice on behalf of the cosmos. Her adherents include an order of assassins known as the extinguishers. Her most prominent evangelists are the minstrel clerics known as the nuclear heralds.
    Last edited by Marcarius5555; 2021-12-12 at 01:02 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    gnomish dwelf's Avatar

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    is an isekai rpg a thing or you consider it an original idea you had? 'cause I came to think about isekai ripgs myself and seeing someone else with the same idea makes it a tad less special, although I still have some unique twists to make my projetc all mine
    You are reading a group of ten completely false words...

    ____
    May the force protect you from the ill will of the nightmarish combat wombat.
    May you never feel prey to the urges of being a culture vulture...
    May you, above all and most importantly, have the luck to pat a nat cat.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Troll in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    Race - the Kagamijin

    According to their own traditions, the Kagamijin, or 'Mirror-People' were originally of elvish stock, uplifted by a cabal of Outer Dragons to serve them in the vastness of space beyond Kalsema. Their progenitors, as is written in the Kagamijin's books, were taught only some of the Metamorphosis rituals, permitted to take on a few of the Outer Dragon's characteristics while avoiding the full-fledged transformation that became their cousins doom. For generations, the Kagamijin served, protected from the hostility of the void by their modified biology, exploring and seeing wonders that the earthbound never could. This age of exploration would come to an ignoble end however, with the Kaze no Koohai, a great "Devestation of Shadow" which scoured and nearly wiped out everything. It was, the Kagamijin claim, they who guided arks of survivors into the void to hide from the devestation before returning to the Land of Long Light and regenerating the earth. Most scholarship descended from the Dragon Teachers and Students consider the story of the Kaze no Koohai as self-aggrandizing allegory for the war that ended the Dragon Age.

    Physically, the Kagamijin are indeed an offshoot of elves with draconic traits, tall and slender with metallic scales on their hands and forearms, thickening into plates on their shins. Along with their silver or golden horns and long, plated tails, they polish these protective parts to a bright, preferably reflective sheen. Their bodies are quite tough, and they have an advantage quite unique amongst the population of Kalsema in that they do not need to breathe, and can in fact survive in a vaccuum. Admittedly it is an advantage that rarely comes into use, but it does make them well-suited for their homeland in the unreasonably high mountains.

    The Kagamijin make their homeland in a range of, as mentioned, unreasonably tall mountains along the eastern side of Sanaadnida. Atop the sharp, near-conical peaks of these mountains are large, complex monastery in which the mirror-people make their home, and from afar, the monasteries glitter like diamonds. This is because they are filled, and often covered, by mirrors, constantly shifting to capture and redirect the light of the suns. Some of these mirrors are used to communicate with other monasteries, flitting light across tens of miles, others for defense, able to condense the light into pulsed beams of devestating heat and power. The few accounts of visitors to the monasteries however say that the majority of light they capture is sent deep into the mountains, the Kagamijin talking about filling the world's 'inner sea' with light.

    Philosophically, the Kagmijin revere stars and suns, including the three that grace Kalsema, and discuss such heavenly bodies as 'perfect spheres of light', seeing them as the origin of life and the ultimate power of the universe. Light, they say, can heal and harm, communicate and empower, and as such should be rightly venerated as powerful. They are also, perhaps unsurprisingly one of the few groups in Kalsema to take a deep interest in what lies outside their world. Most people do not believe in the tales of stars and worlds outside Kalsema (although highly-educated groups know full well that there is a whole universe beyond their narrow slice). Elvish polities tend to view the Kagamijin as failures - partway through a transformation they were too cowardly to fulfil, and only reluctantly acknoledge that they have an elvish heritage as well.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

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    Jan 2019

    Default Re: Kalsema: The Lands of the Long Light (Isekai Homebrew Setting)

    The Glorious and Resplendent Trade Federation of Tshralon which is Graced by the Inestimable Light of the Three Sovereigns of the Great and Noblest Gambit

    The peninsular lands of southern Chamadron from which the strangely-named 'Republic of Tshralon' has recently emerged were, for a long age, occupied by independent city states. The name of the new nation, or its shortened name, is quite at odds with its actual form of government, as well as that suggested by its full, internal title -- The Glorious and Resplendent Trade Federation of Tshralon which is Graced by the Inestimable Light of the Three Sovereigns of the Great and Noblest Gambit. The latter also has little to do with the actual rule of the realm. This reality becomes clear when the recent history of the region is examined in any detail. Until recently, the Peninsula of Cashael -- or Kash'aye'aelle, was a riverine, swamp-bound extension of southern Chamadron. Its civilization was divided between a number of city-states founded by refugees from the savage incursions of the nomadic Karthargian, Vann-Dlial, and Mongg nations, who arose in the central plains some time after the end of the Empire of the Dreaming of the Dragons. The refugees from the border cities of Iskatlian, Takriss, Aumandar, and others whose names are lost, established their cities on the literal decks of the great carracks with which they fled up down the treacherous Rapids of Asumandrion the Swift. The greatest of these settlements was the city-state of Cashael. The typhonic elves of the old Empire of the Wyrm's Dreaming allied themselves with the various races of marsh dwellers -- diverse tribes of lizard folk and grippli, as well as marsh-dwelling nations of halflings. Cashael and its sister 'cities of refuge' eventually established profitable trading enterprises with the peoples of the Asandarian Isles which lie in the Sea of Salcarist between Chamadron and the northern coast of the desert continent of Bhaul-Zhagor, as well as the druidic enclaves of Rast Vadame and the various Successor States established further to the west. In Cashael, three deities native to the region, venerated primarily by the lizardfolk, were paramount -- Khazz-Samar, Lord of Luck, a patron of trade usually depicted in the form of a river otter, Assadar the Lord of Love, an amorous power who most often took the form of a hare, and Shabur Beck, the Minister of the Knife, a reptilian deity of assassins. These three were collectively as the Triumvirate or the Lords of the Three -- and governors respectively of the mercantile, personal, and martial spheres of endeavor. The Triumvirate were venerated in a network of shrines along the peninsula, and their faith was marked by regular festivals. However, the Faith of the Three was little known outside of the swampy peninsula, and none considered it an enterprising or missionary conviction. It had no one canonical scripture, and little theology. This religion experienced a remarkable transformation which dramatically changed the political circumstances of the city-states upon the emergence of an inspired evangelistic known as Prust Satalnis. This raving member of the platypus-like kljunari species, an ancient but otherwise hardly noteworthy population within the Peninsula of Cashael, produced thousands of reams of highly-complex theological exposition that completely recast the nature of what he called the Great Three or the Dark Three. He presented each member of the divine triad in a new form -- Khazz-Samar in the form of a platypus, Asadar in the form of a flying squirrel, and Shabur Beck in the form of a axolotl, narrated a complicated myth whereby the three had planned a 'Great Gambit' for eons, and were only now prepared to enact this most ingenious of stratagems. The result, so claimed the self-ordained Voice of the Three Divines, would be no less than the dominion of all mortal lands.

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