| SAAj |
The Beryl universe is a cosmology that can easily be adopted for use with D&D, Pathfinder, and virtually any other game world with minor alterations, since it details the composition of the world on a level not addressed by most of these systems.
MANA CYCLES
To understand the different 'layers' into which the universe of Beryl is divided, we must first understand how it functions in terms of energy consumption. When a creature dies in the Middle Lands, which are the equivalent of Earth, its life energies (but not necessarily its soul) pass into the Upper Lands. This life energy is converted into mana which fuels the natural processes of the Upper Lands. In this way, the Middle Lands 'feed' the Upper Lands and are in turn 'fed' by the Lower Lands. The Lower Lands feed the Middle Lands and are in turn fed by the Upper Lands. This is simply the way the Material Plane functions; for the sake of D&D and other systems that rely on the existence of the Ethereal Plane and other such layers of existence, those are still in place as normal.
ALLIANCES
In ancient times, most creatures had no idea there were worlds beyond their own; the closest any mortals came to an understanding of the worlds' structure was an acknowledgement of the afterlife. Nature ebbed and flowed, sometimes generous, sometimes unforgiving. Beyond the level of curiosity normal for sentient beings, mortals did not question these fundamental functions of their worlds. As civilizations rose and fell, however, great mystics and scholars began to piece together an understanding of the world beyond their perception. In time, through a combination of luck, miracles, and methods lost to us, mortals bridged the gap between the worlds and came to understand the nature of the mana cycles.
Naturally, all mortals want to live forever in beautiful worlds. So it came to be that whenever a world experienced a famine, natural disaster, or other irregular flow of mana, its inhabitants embarked on crusades against the creatures of the world that fed theirs, claiming their lives to bring prosperity back to their own homelands. These vicious cycles continued for eons, but slowly, steadily, alliances were forming. No one can say for sure why these pacts formed the way they did, as it could have just as easily gone the other way, but as it so happened, large groups of influential mortals from the Middle and Upper Lands came to a mutually-beneficial truce.
The premise was simple: the Middle Lands woulds support the prosperity of the Upper Lands to the greatest degree possible, through sacrifices both material and spiritual. This would increase the lifespans of the Upper Lands' creatures, who had already declared an internal cease-fire and developed into a peaceful super-civilization. The significant decrease in death rates in the Upper Lands would starve the Lower Lands of mana, weakening their armies and making it easy for the Middle Lands' defenders to fight them off. Often, the creatures of the Upper Lands would invest some of their bounty back into the Middle Lands, to bolster their defenses against the ever-desperate armies of the Lower Lands and sometimes just as a token of good will.
In time, the creatures of the Middle Lands came to see the Upper Lands' dwellers as powerful beings of goodness and prosperity, and the Lower Lands' invading armies as evil, destructive agents of chaos and ruin. Physically weaker than the inhabitants of the Middle Lands, and virtually insignificant in comparison to the well-nourished beings of the Upper Lands, the Lower Lands' denizens survive largely through cunning, exceptional violence, and a general disregard for personal safety. If they were not twisted and evil initially, they certainly are now; starvation, desperation, and the loss of everything once loved and lived for will do that to just about any creature, now matter how 'good'.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS
The Middle Lands
Standing on the ground, the Middle Lands look and feel exactly like Earth. Looks can be deceiving. The Middle Lands are not a sphere, but rather two slightly concave discs of land whose edges you can literally fall off. When you look up, you aren't seeing a sky; you're looking up at the ocean of the other disc. Each disc is so massive, and so great is the distance between them, that even the largest of continents are imperceptible specs against the vast ocean that forms the sky. At the center of each disc is a gaping hole, which focuses scattered starlight from the underside of the disc into one massive beam. This is the 'sun'; each disc's sun shines onto the other disc's surface as they slowly move past each other. This is the day cycle. When they are fully past each other, they move past each other in the opposite direction, with their backs facing each other this time and their surfaces facing out toward the stars. This is the night cycle.
Each disc has its own cloud layer; these layers cling to the surface of each world and replenish the oceans as they empty out into the void at the edges of the discs. During the day, the cloud layers interact, while at night, each layer follows its own disc out to face the stars. Each disc also has its own moon; the two moons alternate cycles (while one is full, the other is new, etc.). The moons sometimes follow the surface briefly into the day, but generally stay on the star side of each disc regardless of which way its surface is facing. The cloud layers are a spirit world of sorts; mastery of the clouds is what originally led the mortals of the Middle Lands to bridge the gap. Each moon is a spiritual portal of sorts, allowing travel between the Lands.
Gravity always pulls toward the discs, so the underside of the discs are generally not inhabited by animals. Plants and creatures which can cling to the underside thrive here, seeming bizarre and unearthly compared to the creatures of the surface. Many spirits and other supernatural beings not bound by the effects of gravity also seek refuge on the undersides. The underside of each disc houses a massive 'lens' of unknown material that focuses the starlight behind it into the beam perceived by surface dwellers as the sun. The hole in the center of each disc, and the lens itself, is incalculably hot, and water turns to steam near it. It is theoretically possible for adventurers with proper methods of resisting the heat to approach it at 'sunset', climb down through the hole, and emerge on the underside of the disc before being instantly disintegrated by 'sunrise', but no one is that crazy.
The edges of the discs end in waterfalls that plunge over into the starry skies below, but layers of multicolored mists form a deadly illusion. The sea seems to stretch on endlessly to the horizon, but these are merely vapors. Beautiful hues of blue, purple, red, and orange constitute these mists; they are what cause the sky to change color as it slowly yields to the night sky. The sky itself is merely a canvas stretched across the burning light of Eternity. Think of the discs floating around each other inside a tennis ball filled with small holes. The holes are stars; light from the 'outside' (Eternity) shines in through these holes, and is focused into sunlight by the lenses on the discs (the light of the moons is of a different nature, and not directly to the suns). Any creatures unfortunate enough to fall off the surface of a disc into the night sky land on this 'canvas' and slide along it into one of the star-holes, instantly reduced to nothing by the light of Eternity. There are rumors of lost civilizations that have somehow anchored themselves to the canvas and draw sustenance from the light of Eternity itself, but that's absolutely ridiculous.
Scholars agree that the moons somehow resupply the clouds with water, as it would otherwise fall off the edges of the discs and empty into Eternity. No one can say for certain how this occurs, even after having bridged the gap between the worlds.
The Upper Lands
The Upper Lands have no land mass; they are comprised of a massive, infinitely deep ocean and a massive, infinitely high sky. All creatures of the Upper Lands are marine (this does not necessarily mean they breathe water or can't leave it), while their spirits reside in the skies above their ocean. At the center of the ocean is an ever-churning whirlpool that somehow pushes all sea water outward instead of pulling it in. Overhead, an ever-howling hurricane rages, its eye aligned with the eye of the whirlpool. The light of Eternity shines in a brilliant shaft from the eye of the storm down onto the world; the portal to the other Lands lies within the eye of the whirlpool.
At the edges of the ocean, gravity reverses and pours in waterfalls up into the sky. There, it slowly, steadily vaporizes and falls back to the ocean via the hurricane. Most of the creatures the inhabitants of the Middle Lands interact with dwell near or on the surface of the ocean. Very few mortals regularly venture into the upper cloud cover or beyond, and even fewer stray into the unending depths far below. This is not to say there aren't vast underwater civilizations, just that they are all buoyant to some degree, and there is no ocean floor to speak of. Generally, the mortals of the sea are devoted to an understanding of 'how?' and pursue the sciences with great zeal. Their knowledge of ocean currents, weather patterns, and various beautiful phenomena that characterize the Upper Lands is a point of pride for these mortals. The spirits in the clouds above tend to concern themselves more with 'why?', focusing on religious studies. Though they don't have much tangible progress to show for their pursuits, you'd be hard-pressed to find a mortal scholar who wouldn't give up all his worldly possessions for a brief conversation with one of these beings.
There is no way to penetrate the powerful, fast-moving curtain of waterfalls surrounding the Upper Lands; the water falls infinitely upward, and there is no way to discern where it actually vaporizes and falls back to the ocean. It is a subject of heated debate among the scholars of the Upper Lands whether there is any proof that it ever turns into the clouds above, or if these two elements are not directly related, much like the clouds and oceans of the Middle Lands. There are no 'stars' in the Upper Lands per se, but whenever it rains, the entire world goes dark and the eye of the hurricane casts its light through cloud patterns in beautiful arrays that appear to the creatures of the Middle Lands as some surreal combination of rainbows and aurorae.
The Lower Lands
The Lower Lands were once breathtaking, but eons of mana starvation have left this world barren and brittle. The Lower Lands are unique in that their portals and source of Eternity's light are both living things. Scarab-like creatures known as Holy Norths and Holy Souths are the lifeblood of the Lower Lands. Holy Norths are similar to fireflies, and emit the light of Eternity. Holy Souths are similar to butterflies, reflecting the light off their prominent wings. There are no day/night cycles in the Lower Lands, simply migrating swarms of Holy scarabs that travel in regular cycles around the world. The world itself is something like a ring with a single continuous surface (imagine looping a strip of paper to form a ring, but twisting it once so that instead of an inner and outer surface, there is one continuous surface).
Gravity functions very oddly in the Lower Lands, with the ring always pulling inward toward itself, no matter which 'side' of it a creature is standing on. Once, a massive central river-ocean ran through the core of the ring, but it has since dried up almost entirely. Dense forests used to cover the ring's surface as well, the tallest trees on the 'inside' surfaces reaching past each other (this world is no smaller than the others, meaning these trees were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of MILES tall). Looking at it from a distance, it was impossible to tell the Lower Lands weren't a spherical world, due to the thick vegetation that entwined to create a biomass more dense than the world itself. Sadly, large skeletal husks of petrified trees and the indestructible carcasses of the Holy scarabs are all that remain of the world's former glory. Without the Holy Norths and Holy Souths to create and refract the light of Eternity, the Lower Lands are plunged in perpetual darkness.
If mortals from the Middle Lands could see the skies of the Lower Lands, they would be thoroughly bewildered. Like the set of infinite reflections created by a pair of mirrors facing each other, those looking out from the ring see an infinite number of rings stretching into the distance. Oddly enough, those aren't different rings; they are actually looking at the other side of their own world. If a creature were to somehow jump off the surface of the ring and fly/fall towards another ring in the sky, all the creatures of the world would see him falling toward all the rings in all directions, and he would simply find himself on the other side of the ring. To put it in perspective, imagine blasting off in a shuttle from America, flying straight away from the Earth, and running nose-first into China on the same Earth. This bizarre property of the Lower Lands is the subject of much speculation among scholars of all worlds.
The Outer Lands
The mortals of the Middle Lands can, through death or other, less natural means, visit the Upper Lands or the Lower Lands. This should logically mean that mortals of the Upper Lands and Lower Lands can visit both other worlds as well, but this is not the case. There is something beyond both of them that mortals of the Middle Lands can not set foot in, the Outer Lands. This world does not seem to feed, or be fed by, any of the other worlds, but it stands between the Upper and Lower Lands. Mortals from the Upper Lands can visit the Middle and Outer Lands, while mortals from the Lower Lands can visit the Middle and Outer Lands. This world and the creatures that inhabit it are unlike anything else in the Beryl universe. Dragons hail from this far-flung world, and are somehow able to cross into any other world. Though little is known of these majestic and powerful beings, it seems that they are in fact refugees, fleeing from terrors so unyielding that even they are powerless in comparison. Though dragons are as varied as any other mortal creature, even the most righteous and benevolent of dragons knows it must retain an aura of power and respect to prosper among lesser mortals, and so none of them speak of the horrors that hunt them and drive them from their homelands.
The Outer Lands are perhaps the most beautiful in the Beryl universe; at their core is a living 'star' that exudes a dim, moon-like light and rains life-giving water outward; all the dragons that pass into other worlds make some sort of pilgrimage to this star, leading scholars to believe it contains a portal like the moons of the Middle Lands. The entire star system is cloaked in an atmosphere created by the interaction of the star's rain and various 'moons'. Orbiting the star are 'planets', large solid masses sculpted by the winds into aerodynamic shapes like wings and corkscrews. Each of these planets is gigantic, most of them easily as large as the discs in the Middle Lands. Orbiting the planets are 'moons', which are actually small stars that emit the light of Eternity. The misty atmosphere pervading the star system is created when rain hits these moons and turns to steam. Day/night cycles on the planets are a thing of truly unearthly splendor; each planet's unique shape, combined with the trajectory of its moon(s), creates distinct patterns of light and darkness unevenly splayed across its surface(s). Like comets, the orbiting moons leave tails of flame as they meet resistance from the system's weather patterns, so sunsets are often marked by trails of fiery residue illuminating the surface long after the actual moon has 'set'.
Little is known about any other inhabitants of the Outer Worlds, but it is clear enough that most of them are aerial creatures. Beyond the edges of atmosphere (dictated by the furthest reaches to which the star can propel its rain), there is an unending void. Peppering this void are stars (real stars, not the star-holes of the Middle Lands). For ages, dragons would stare longingly out into the sea of stars and wonder what lay beyond their own. It is believed that they had begun to venture forth with armor that would let them survive in the absolutely cold, airless void, but before they could make any real progress, something from that infinite darkness found them first.
This is, in a nutshell, the Beryl universe. Personally, I feel unsatisfied with the Upper Worlds, and will probably be making some changes to make them more dynamic and varied. Please let me know what you think of Beryl; any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
| SAAj |
ALTERNATE ALLIANCES
A History of the Worlds
The True Cycles
In the beginning, there were the True Cycles, in which each world simply defended itself from the world it fed and attacked the world that fed it. Though this may seem like a brutal existence, it adhered closely to the way a predator/prey relationship functions in nature. Each world prospered fairly steadily, with influxes and shortages of mana self-regulating, as is nature's tendency.
Religion: Druids, regardless of what world they are from, insist upon this state of being as the purest and most natural. Though their seemingly savage outlook on life and death frightens and disgusts most civilized creatures, druids insist that balance is more important than the well-being of one select group. Many druids, for this reason, seclude themselves from civilized life and will relentlessly hunt down mortals without regard for their sentience or self-appointed importance.
The Sport of Gods
The first alliance to form was between the Lower and Upper Lands. In those days, Uplanders and Lowlanders were significantly more powerful, and the Middle Lands were a dark, mana-weak place they used as an arena of sorts. They played a game of sorts; the Uplander and Lowlander would pick out a target (usually a powerful Midlander, but sometimes an entire civilization or region) and compete to destroy it. If the Uplander won, the Lowlander would be bound to its service until it destroyed an equally powerful target (the death of Midlanders fed the Upper Lands, making this doubly profitable for the Uplanders). If the Lowlander won, however, the Uplander would be bound to sacrifice Uplanders of equal power, oftentimes through ritual suicide (this compensated the Lowlanders for the mana they fed to the Upper Lands, in the interest of fair sport). In this manner, both the Upper and Lower Lands grew mana-rich and powerful, their inhabitants rising to the status of demigods and raining destruction on the pitiful Middle Lands they toyed with. On occasion, powerful Uplanders and Lowlanders would have epic duels to the death, tearing the Middle Lands asunder in their terrifying shows of strength.
Religion: Midlanders of this time period followed religions similar to the pre-Abrahamic pantheons, such as the ancient Greek and Norse gods. Midlanders saw these deities as neither good nor evil; simply strong where they were weak, crushing them underfoot like insects. A fierce self-sufficiency pervaded such societies, but humility was equally emphasized. Sometimes, the only way to survive was to strike a deal with the nigh-indestructible beings that ravaged the world, often in the form of worship and sacrifices.
The Great Hunt
Over time, bonds formed between the Lower and Middle Lands, as they were much more similar in composition than the all-marine Upper Lands and their otherworldly life forms. The Midlanders found the powerful Lowlanders much easier to appease for this reason, and as soon as civilizations of the Middle Lands developed flight and began traveling to the Lower Lands, cultural exchange blossomed. Feeling that they had the upper hand, the Lowlanders united with the Midlanders to fight off the Uplanders and claim the Middle Lands as their domain. By protecting the Midlanders against the natural and supernatural dangers of their world, the Lowlanders drastically reduced their death rate, starving the Upper Lands and weakening their inhabitants. Further, large groups of 'demon hunters', Lowlanders specially trained to hunt Uplanders, scoured the Middle Lands for their quarry. Even if the Uplanders succeeded in killing them, the death of the Lowlanders simply fueled with Middle Lands, giving the Midlanders more strength to repel the Uplanders. Thus, the Midlanders prospered under the protection of their powerful allies.
Religion: Midlanders of this time period worshiped in a very shamanistic and animistic manner, placing emphasis on 'spirits', 'guardians', and other supernatural beings very similar to them in composition, rather than grandiose deities towering over them, incomprehensible and alien in nature. The powerful Lowlanders watched over the Midlanders, helped develop their societies, and influenced a great many aspects of their lives, resulting in them being worshiped as patron guardians or totemic spirits. In the modern era, in which the Uplanders are allied with the Midlanders, such religious practices are seen as heretical.
| Mikhaila Burnett 313 |
*blink* Wow, I am humbled by the sheer awesomeness of your world. You are an incredible craftsperson and as one to another, I salute you.
| Mikhaila Burnett 313 |
With that said, some feedback.
1) What happens if the lands eliminate the majority of the population of another. In the modern, this seems very likely for the Midland/Upland alliance to depopulate completely the Lowlanders. Is there any sort of 'eternal cycle' that ensures a rebirth of a devestated land? It would seem that the Lands are inextricably linked, so one land's complete devestation might have Epic Consequences(tm)
2) Do Midlanders actually worship Uplanders? Are there Clerics and/or Paladins? If yes, do Uplanders worship anyone? Clerics/Paladins among them?
3) Who created all of this?
4) What is the general level of technology and magic on each Land?
5) What is the general governmental style of each Land?
6) Is there an established diplomatic protocol between Lands?
7) Are adventurers and heroes common? What purpose do they serve and what role do they take in the overarching setting? (Do they kick doors and take treasure in dungeons? Do they champion the interLands war(s)?)
| SAAj |
With that said, some feedback.
1) What happens if the lands eliminate the majority of the population of another. In the modern, this seems very likely for the Midland/Upland alliance to depopulate completely the Lowlanders. Is there any sort of 'eternal cycle' that ensures a rebirth of a devestated land? It would seem that the Lands are inextricably linked, so one land's complete devestation might have Epic Consequences(tm)
2) Do Midlanders actually worship Uplanders? Are there Clerics and/or Paladins? If yes, do Uplanders worship anyone? Clerics/Paladins among them?
3) Who created all of this?
4) What is the general level of technology and magic on each Land?
5) What is the general governmental style of each Land?
6) Is there an established diplomatic protocol between Lands?
7) Are adventurers and heroes common? What purpose do they serve and what role do they take in the overarching setting? (Do they kick doors and take treasure in dungeons? Do they champion the interLands war(s)?)
Why thank you; I am quite humbled by the fact that you are humbled. To answer your questions:
1) It is possible, though highly improbable, for a world to go 'extinct', and it is theorized by a number of scholars that, like our world, theirs have gone through multiple 'mass extinctions'. There are even rumors of exalted organizations that exist to maintain balance on a cosmic scale, transcending the worlds and their petty rivalries (more on this below). Even without such intervention, it is exceedingly difficult for a world to be completely killed off. Here's why:
-As the world's mana 'dries up', the weaker creatures die or are killed first. The 'drier' a world, the stronger the average creature in that world. A world on the verge of extinction is populated by only the toughest, most powerful inhabitants, since they were the only ones who could survive in such extreme conditions.
-The world's mana reserves affect the world it feeds, so after the spike in death rates, the lower (and exceptionally tougher, thus harder to kill) population likewise weakens that world, which in turn experiences mass extinctions and weakens the world above it. This ripple effect causes mass extinctions in the tertiary world to feed mana back into the originally-starving world, rejuvenating it somewhat.
-A combination of toughened inhabitants and mana-starved invaders makes it easy to deplete but exponentially difficult to actually kill off a world, to the point where it would have to be specifically orchestrated in order for such an event to even take place. That's not to say it hasn't happened before, or could again, just that it's very difficult.
Let's say a world does die. This means the world it feeds also dies eventually. The massive influxes of death in this world feed immense amounts of mana into the only remaining world. It thus experiences a huge burst in population, and the resulting rise in death rates slowly feeds new mana into the originally-extinct world. The cycles of life and death begin anew, feeding mana into the next dead world, until all three are functional again. In this manner, it is virtually impossible for a world to permanently die unless all 3 worlds are killed off simultaneously and completely (which would require horrific power by an outside force; the Outlanders from which the dragons seek refuge may well be capable of such destruction).
2) Because this world is meant to be compatible with virtually any system, this aspect of Beryl is variable. At the very least, the Midlanders of the current era see the Uplanders as patron saints of sorts, if not outright gods. In large pantheons with many minor deities, it may even be the case that certain minor deities are Uplanders (or Lowlanders, ancient Midlanders, or even Outlanders), mortals who ascended to demigodhood or minor godhood. True (more powerful) gods exist outside of this cycle of worlds, and may or may not frown on this sort of worship. I have a magic system that makes this world tick like clockwork (perhaps I'll make another post dedicated to it), but it is safe to say that Uplanders (and other powerful mortals) who are worshiped are either very powerful arcane casters who can alter reality with Wishes or very powerful clerics who worship true gods and alter reality with Miracles. Their followers may or may not be aware that they are not 'true' gods; even if they know, they may not care, preferring to worship something they can more easily relate to rather than a nigh-unapproachable (much less comprehensible) deity.
So yes, Uplanders and other powerful mortals may have clerics and paladins who receive powers and spells from them, which they receive through actual immortal gods that they, in turn, worship.
3) Again, this is based largely on the game being played. The simplest answer is that the entirety of Beryl is simply the Material Plane, and whoever created that plane in the game you're playing created these worlds. In my magic system, the gods that created Beryl and all living creatures sacrificed themselves to cast the equivalent of Permanency on their creations, and very few, if any, mortals actually know these creators once existed.
4 & 5) Each world is easily several times the size of Earth (to put it in perspective, keep in mind that the 'sky' in the Middle Lands is the opposite disk's ocean, and that ocean is so vast that even Asia or Africa-sized continents can not be seen as green specks against the blue). That means each world is as varied as the Material Plane in whatever game you're playing (usually meaning it encompasses technology from Neolithic to Steampunk, with magic being anywhere from forbidden to inseparable from any aspect of life; government styles tend to range from theocracies/monarchies to pseudo-democratic/tribal councils, as is the norm in high fantasy).
A few factors to affect each world as a whole. For example, a mana-starved world will probably be much more prone towards higher technology (as desperate creatures strive to maximize efficiency) and less stable governments (as social order falls apart and traditional medieval systems lose influence). In addition, each world is unique in certain ways:
Lowlanders tend toward moderate technology and a stronger connection to magic, since the Holy Norths and Souths are a very tangible and essential part of their world. Because the world is not divided by large tracts of water, Lowlander societies tend to be decentralized and well-connected, as opposed to the more authoritarian style of rule that emerges when societies are isolated from each other.
Midlanders tend toward higher technology and less emphasis on magic, since maritime lifestyles require a good deal of manufacturing and ingenuity and the nature of magical phenomena in the Middle Lands is much less accessible, occurring mostly on the undersides of the disks where most mortals will never venture. Civilizations are divided by oceans, and tend to develop top-heavy governments that generally don't get along, as they are all intent on expanding ever outward and acquiring more resources.
Uplanders have a huge variety of technology and magic that, unfortunately, is mostly inapplicable outside of a marine environment. Most other mortals aren't even aware they have such resources at their disposal, since the marine Uplanders are, by nature, larger than other creatures and can simply overcome them with raw physical power. Uplander societies tend toward anarchy, as nothing is ever static in the ever-churning oceans and skies of their world and there is little point in well-established social order. There are exceptions, of course, but it is much less common to see a rigidly-structured society in the Upper Lands than in other, less dynamic settings.
6) The diplomatic efforts between the worlds are essentially the different eras, though there are elements of each during any time period. For example, even during the modern era, in which the Midlanders are allied with the Uplanders, ancient 'sea monsters' (Uplanders from the Sport of Gods era) stalk the oceans of the Middle Lands, amusing themselves with the destruction of lesser beings. At the same time, demon hunters from the Great Hunt era might aid Midlanders in hunting down these creatures, even going so far as to work with the 'good' Uplanders of the modern era in doing so. These alliances are usually between specific (oftentimes very powerful and far-reaching) cultures of the worlds, but it is almost impossible to get an entire world to agree on any one policy or course of action (imagine the UN trying to pass resolutions without modern long-distance communication or even a complete map of the world). The only consistent rule regarding inter-world relations is that the vast majority of mortals, regardless of what world they are from, have no idea how their own world works, much less that others exist. All they know of this cosmology is what they've heard from fairy tales.
7) That depends entirely on the party. The way I would play a Beryl campaign is to let the party start out in the Middle Lands with no idea that they are not in a 'normal' world (they don't even know the sky above them is an ocean, much less that other worlds exist). As they explore (or accidentally stumble upon) the intricacies of their world and others, they interact with various creatures from the worlds and decide who to make alliances with (for example, they could ally with a powerful Lowlander and join him in the Great Hunt, raiding the Upper Lands and slaying 'sea monsters', or help a dragon fight off the Outer World invaders that are trying to capture it). They could just as readily join a group of druids who travel from world to world slaying creatures to 'maintain the balance', or try to forge some sort of everlasting peace between all the worlds with the blessings of true gods and whatever creatures watch over the mana cycles. They could just as easily decide to never leave their home country and just go on a good old-fashioned adventure to the nearest dungeon.
I hope I answered your questions sufficiently. Thanks for taking notice; I've been trying to get attention for Beryl for quite a while now, and I'd given up on anyone actually offering feedback. If you've got regular groups you play with or know someone who would be willing to try it in a campaign, please let me know how y'all like it. I'm hoping it gains enough popularity and exposure to warrant an actual campaign text (or even become the default setting for a game system).
| Mikhaila Burnett 313 |
Well, I love a good story and I'm also a rather rabid and voracious reader. QED, I try and read as much about as many worlds as I can so that I can assimilate the parts I like in the things I'm doing.
FWIW, I'm doing my own world over here: http://worldoftinris.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/tinris-wip-v0-3/
That said, I guess the next question that comes up is... what sorts of creatures populate these worlds? Obviously you're following the 'this is a Prime' school of thought, and therefore the obvious answer is "If it's in the Bestiary/SRD then it exists here" but I'm curious what sorts of unique creatures exist in your own view of the world.
How are the 'standard' races different here?
Are they different between one Land and another?
Is there general inter-racial harmony amongst the races on each Land?
What drives people to become better? (Obviously it could be just Maslow's Hierarchy)
These and other things are what I wonder when reading your source.
| SAAj |
Well, I love a good story and I'm also a rather rabid and voracious reader. QED, I try and read as much about as many worlds as I can so that I can assimilate the parts I like in the things I'm doing.
FWIW, I'm doing my own world over here: http://worldoftinris.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/tinris-wip-v0-3/
That said, I guess the next question that comes up is... what sorts of creatures populate these worlds? Obviously you're following the 'this is a Prime' school of thought, and therefore the obvious answer is "If it's in the Bestiary/SRD then it exists here" but I'm curious what sorts of unique creatures exist in your own view of the world.
How are the 'standard' races different here?
Are they different between one Land and another?
Is there general inter-racial harmony amongst the races on each Land?
What drives people to become better? (Obviously it could be just Maslow's Hierarchy)These and other things are what I wonder when reading your source.
I'll be sure to give your world a thorough read-through tonight. As for the bestiary, each world's populace is tied to its geology. Over time, many creatures from one world have overlapped into another, and it is difficult for even the most learned historians to say for sure what the origins of a race are.
The Middle Lands feature most of what would be considered 'natural' creatures and races that are tied strongly to the land in some way. Halflings, Dwarves, and Humans all hail from the Middle Lands.
The Lower Lands have a strong magical presence, and so most 'magical' or at least mythical creatures originate from there. Many types of elves populate the Lower Lands, as do creatures such as unicorns.
The Upper Lands are almost entirely marine or aerial in nature. The marine inhabitants are quite large compared to other creatures, as the water supports their mass much more easily. The aerial creatures are quite large as well, as there is little or no place for them to land except the water's surface, forcing them to have large, gliding wings like birds of prey. Many creatures that others see as 'angelic' in nature come from the Upper Lands.
There is war within each world, just as there is between worlds. There are cases of grand alliances and long stretches of peace (such as between most of the Upper Lands' sentient creatures in the modern era), but these are oases in an ocean of conflict, as is the norm for most high-fantasy worlds.
The motives for betterment are often simply survival, but a very Anglo-Saxon sense of duty and service pervades. All sentient creatures worship in some way or another (even those without gods 'worship' or idolize legendary rebels and infidels), and these relationships drive civilizations and individuals alike.
There are a lot of little stories and intricacies that can be gleaned from the way the worlds are set up. I'll be adding more backstory tonight after work.
| Mikhaila Burnett 313 |
Loving the responses so far, and the forethought and insight they show. It is my opinion that every good craftsperson needs someone to provide feedback, and so I completely understand how it can be to effectively shout at the void and hear nothing back.
That said, really really digging on what's been shown so far.
Next round! (Most of these, I imagine, are very campaign specific rather than world specific, but I am mostly looking for your 'vision' rather than an integration)
1) How does one Land's myth affect the others? You mention that the Lowlands have unicorns, for example, do the other Lands have legends thereof? Why? How?
2) Is there a coherent planar structure for this Prime? By which I mean that many campaign worlds build their own cosmology, does this exist in its own as well? To better flesh this out, I'll point to both Golarion and Eberron. Golarion has its own build of the Planes, as they exist as interconnected shells. Eberron has its own as well, with each plane being reimagined almost completely with different names and looks and feels (Xoriat, the plane of madness, for example)
3) Do other Primes interact at all with Beryl? How?
4) Does Beryl exist within the Phlogiston/Arcane Space? (Spelljammer)
5) With such large landmasses, is there a resource challenge? (Beyond the mana flows, of course) If not, what are wars actually fought over?
6) Does time travel exist?
7) Does magic work differently between one Land and another?
| SAAj |
Loving the responses so far, and the forethought and insight they show. It is my opinion that every good craftsperson needs someone to provide feedback, and so I completely understand how it can be to effectively shout at the void and hear nothing back.
That said, really really digging on what's been shown so far.
Next round! (Most of these, I imagine, are very campaign specific rather than world specific, but I am mostly looking for your 'vision' rather than an integration)
1) How does one Land's myth affect the others? You mention that the Lowlands have unicorns, for example, do the other Lands have legends thereof? Why? How?
2) Is there a coherent planar structure for this Prime? By which I mean that many campaign worlds build their own cosmology, does this exist in its own as well? To better flesh this out, I'll point to both Golarion and Eberron. Golarion has its own build of the Planes, as they exist as interconnected shells. Eberron has its own as well, with each plane being reimagined almost completely with different names and looks and feels (Xoriat, the plane of madness, for example)
3) Do other Primes interact at all with Beryl? How?
4) Does Beryl exist within the Phlogiston/Arcane Space? (Spelljammer)
5) With such large landmasses, is there a resource challenge? (Beyond the mana flows, of course) If not, what are wars actually fought over?
6) Does time travel exist?
7) Does magic work differently between one Land and another?
Thanks for understanding; the questions are helping me refine concepts I had previously only thought about in passing. Here we go:
1) Each world has myths regarding the others, varying greatly per era. For example, in the modern era, the Lower Lands are seen as the equivalent of Hell or Hades, and the mythical creatures that emerge from them are more reminiscent of ancient evils than unicorns and the like (for example, medieval leprechauns, who grant wishes and attempt to twist them to the wisher's misfortune, might emerge from the modern Lower Lands). In the Great Hunt era, in which the Upper Lands suffered mana shortages, the creatures were like something you would find at the bottom of the sea; the fish are still clearly fish, for example, but quite frightening and even deformed by our standards (even the 'angelic' aerial creatures would be closer to the medieval gargoyle-like angels than the family-friendly cherubs we are familiar with). In general, legends of magical creatures originate from the Lower Lands, tales of heroes and feats of heroism originate from the Middle Lands, and tales of angels and demons (or simply 'monsters', depending on what religious organization you ask) originate from the Upper Lands.
2) The magic system that accompanies Beryl does have its own set of 'planes', so to speak. Each world is actually a very small, almost insignificantly small, part of a larger whole. The other 'systems' within each world are like different planes.
The Lower Lands have an unending grid of rings stretching outward; this constitutes their sky. When the Holy scarabs are on one side of the ring, it is night on the other side. However, since all the rings are simply the same ring being viewed from different angles, the night side sees the Holy scarabs faintly on the other rings, creating a perfectly symmetrical grid of 'stars'. However, a few of these 'stars' don't seem to shine in sync with the others. In reality, there are alternate rings hidden among the endless grid; traveling to one of these doesn't simply land you on the other side of your own ring, but rather on another ring altogether. These alternate rings are different versions of the main ring representing different planes, each usually the domain of a deity or other powerful supernatural force.
The Middle Lands are actually an inverted planet of sorts; the entire sphere moves through the light of Eternity like a planet. If mortals can somehow make it out of one of the star-holes and survive in Eternity (such as by studying and learning how to emulate the fabric that forms the night sky), they will see that there are countless other fabric spheres floating around in the void, each its own world like their own.
The Upper Lands have a ring of permafrost around the 'borders' (the waterfalls where gravity inverts), as the water freezes a certain distance out from the point in the eye of the hurricane where the light of Eternity shines out onto the world. The only surface-dwelling creatures of the Upper Lands live on this permafrost, and the immense ice floes are so massive that even the powerful gravitational pull of the borders is only enough to slowly erode their edges; the land masses stay in place while water flows by underneath, new ice forming near their inner borders as their outer borders are slowly chipped away by the upward pull. On occasion, these land masses are forced, by events natural or supernatural, outward, being torn to pieces by the fierce gravity of the borders but temporarily blocking the upward waterfalls and providing a glimpse into what lies beyond: calm seas and skies punctuated by other hurricane/whirlpool combinations like theirs, each its own self-sufficient system, or plane. Blocking the water flow with the land masses is not the only way out of the 'gravity cylinder', of course, but it is definitely easier than just about any other method.
The Outer Lands are the most interesting; they are simply a solar system enclosed in an atmosphere within OUR universe. The void beyond their sky is deep space, and the invaders from the void who hunt dragons are a spacefaring civilization that may or may not be future humans. Other solar systems and celestial formations (such as nebulae or asteroid belts) act as planes, and are inhabited by true gods.
3) Yes, in the sense that the Outer Plane is our world. This allows for a steampunk or sci-fi element that could even be a new era in which the invaders come to dominate the worlds of Beryl.
4) No; although I am quite fond of Spelljammer's take on classical astronomy, Beryl is a small part of our universe.
5) Each world's population is relative to its size, so despite how large they are, resources are still a problem for the equally-large populations. Wars are fought primarily over resources, as they are in any setting, but wars of principle, religion, and even personal vendettas are not unheard of.
6) In the magic system that accompanies Beryl, chronomancy (the manipulation of time) is a universal crime that makes the most vile and perverse necromancy look like minor vandalism in comparison. Unlike necromancy and other practices which mock or defile the process of creation, absolutely no deity endorses chronomancy, as it disrupts the composition of the universe in a manner not even true gods can easily anticipate or keep in check. That said, it exists; just be very, very careful with it, as it is meant to have devastating repercussions.
7) Magic works (more or less) the same way in all 4 worlds, but the levels of mana in each world affect magic differently in each world. For example, when the Lower Lands abound with mana, divination spells have no natural chance of failure due to failed concentration checks. When the Middle Lands are starved of mana, destructive evocation spells are cast at +3 caster levels, but have a 1% chance per adjusted caster level of backfiring on the caster. Small differences like these affect the worlds based on mana levels, but the fundamental nature of magic is the same in all worlds (these examples use the D&D casting system; Beryl's own magic system works a bit differently). Other planes/systems within each world may significantly alter the rules of magic, often based on a deity's whim.
There you have it; it's becoming increasingly difficult to talk about Beryl without introducing its magic system, so I suppose I'll have to do that fairly soon. I'll write it up tonight and hopefully have it up by tomorrow.