Moving away from world-building theory this week, and getting into actual world-building practice, I thought I'd talk a bit about the Gods Of The Nine. While last week I spoke about mythological themes, theories, and meta-plots, this week I will dive into the meat of The Nine, and what makes them who they are. In part two of this topic (next week), I'll also cover a bit of what their respective clergy are responsible for in the day-to-day goings-on in the world. Unfortunately, I can't go into too much detail on the events that presage the arrival of Moran and Kolas, or their discovery of Graalis and Astares, without doing an entire post on the destruction of Kever and the circumstances surrounding that event, but I can (and will) give a decent amount of information as we proceed.
As previously discussed, it was the Gods Of Light And Dark that made the world safe for Man, separating the various layers of The Knot out into their current state. Their own home was made in The White, separated from The Waking World by The Veil. Into The Lower Dark they cast the forces of pure evil and chaos, imprisoning them behind The Howling, where they might never again be a curse and blight upon the world of Man. The Veil and The Howling served then - and still serve today - as barriers to the power of the other worlds, preventing them from wreaking havoc upon the Waking World. Though Man might sense The White or The Lower Dark through dreams and nightmares, the creatures of those realms could no longer walk freely upon the surface of Loris. Although the legends left over from the Kever Age clearly tell tales of the Gods coming into the Waking World to interact (or, if you prefer, interfere) with Man, it is commonly held in the modern era of The Nine that most of these tales are just that - tales. Moran and Kalis, for example do not frequent the temples of their followers. Kolas, for all his mad power, does not sit upon the Throne Of The High Inquisitor in Arthoriun.
Warning: Some of this is rather prosaic and uses the language from the game texts. It gets a bit Holy Book in a few places. Bear with me.
Some time toward the end of the Reign Of Kings, then, Moran (called The Keeper) and Kolas (called The Seeker) opened the Silver Door standing at the crossroads of The White and The Veil, and came through into the world of Loris. Where they came from, what they were leaving behind, who they had been before they arrived - these questions remain unanswered even today. The Keeper and The Seeker do not speak of such things to their faithful, and if the other Gods Of The Nine know the answers, they are not saying. At the foot of this door they found two infants, swaddled in the stuff of dreams and hope - these would be the babes who would grow to be Graalis The Seabeard and Astares The Starmaiden. Moran and Kolas looked out through The Veil and saw that the light that bathed Loris came from Alzin The Blazing and Alfin The Bright. The Keeper and The Seeker would have woken the Sun Sisters, had not Graalis and Astares grown to adulthood in the span of a dying man's last breath, and now urged to The Keeper and The Seeker to stay their hands. Though The Starmaiden and The Seabeard did not know how they held such knowledge, the both of them knew that to wake the Sun Sisters from their slumber would spell the end for the world of Man. And so The Four sang sweet songs to the Sun Sisters, and so they left The Veil behind and stepped fully into The White, and there they made their homes.
The Seabeard and The Starmaiden came together and from their union came Goran The Thundermaker, with a voice made of storms. A second time they knew each other, and from this came Shakur The Restbringer, who spoke little but said much. A third time the sea and stars met, and when they parted Astares birthed twin girl children: Tara The Woundhealer and Kalis The Lightbringer. The Woundhealer and The Lightbringer, inseparable in all things, joined with The Thundermaker each in turn and in their turns each bore a son. To Tara The Woundhealer was born Jengo The Luckbringer, while from Kalis The Lightbringer sprang Thalo The Starhand.
Ten Gods now lived within The White.
Moran The Keeper brought to The Ten the wisdom of ages, for he was old beyond reckoning.
Kolas The Seeker brought knowledge to The Ten, for he was driven to find the truth of all things.
Astares The Starmaiden brought the powers of magic and love to The Ten, for her heart was large as the night.
Graalis The Seabeard brought domain over the seas and waters to The Ten, and like the waters that made up his domain, his touch could bring relief or destruction if not given his proper respect.
Goran The Thundermaker brought storms and rain, and the clash of righteous battle. His temper was matched only by his love of seeing the growing things after a storm.
Shakur The Restbringer, who moved himself away from his kin so that he might know quiet contemplation, brought justice to The Ten, but also brought death, for he would become the Final Judge of all Men.
Tara The Woundhealer would take up domain over the protection of mothers, and would grant succor and healing to the Waking World, as befit her name.
Kalis The Lightbringer gave inspiration to those who sought out beauty and joy in the arts, and struck away ignorance, shedding light on the dark places of the mind and of the world.
Thalo The Starhand did take up the twilight duties of the world, finding his way into the dreams of Man, heralding the arrival and departure of the Sun Sisters, and striking the dew upon the leaves each day.
Jengo The Luckbringer, with his coins and his cards and his unending laughter, spread fortune to Man - and this made Jengo most important to those happenings that would end The Reign Of Kings, as for far too long had Man had no good fortune of his own to draw upon.
Moran did take Tara The Woundhealer as his bride, and their children were born still, without life. No blood stirred within them. Tara did cut open her own flesh, so great was her grief, and poured her blood into the mouths of her babes. They drew no breath, and would take neither milk nor blood from their mother. The Woundhealer's powers of healing could not relieve that which was not a wound, and so while Kalis bound up the wounds of the Woundhealer, so did the Restbringer take away the two silent forms to cast into the Final River. Then, between the twin Goddesses was born the Grim Rite. Pray for those mothers who have sung those words and taken up the ash and oils on their tongues, praise to The Nine that such words were never sung for you.
The Ten did speak to the Men of The Waking World. Through dreams cast out through The Veil, through signs left by The Starhand, and omens writ in the sky by The Starmaiden. The Ten sang songs down to the Eternal Kings, and said "The Power you use is ours by right of Primacy, for we live within The White, from whence that Power comes. Bend knee to us and that Power we will share, and the Waking World will be yours to rule as our Good Right Hands."
The Ten sang these songs in good faith, and in good spirit, but the Eternal Kings were wicked and cruel, and did not wish to share their power. Of the more than ten-score Kings, only four did heed the words of The Ten. They were:
Almaria Rex, King Of Flowers. His was the power of the growing things, and so his heart heard the truth and love in the songs of The Ten. He, most of the four, wanted only life and happiness for his people. He would lead a great exodus from Harak-Ur, ensuring the safety of the people of four Kings.
Lyradan Rex, King Of Rivers. He could hear the deep voice of the Seabeard and the Thundermaker in the ebb and flow of the waters, and so his soul rang with a yearning to stand at their side. Lyradan entrusted the welfare of his people to Almaria, and stood with the armies of Theleva Regina and Karabas Rex at the Battle Of The Last Days.
Theleva Regina, Queen Of Schools. Long had Elari Rex, King Of Books, taken away from Theleva's domain and diminished her power and her followers. She felt the yearning for knowledge that burned within Kolas, and trusted his voice. Like Lyradan, it was to Almaria Rex that she entrusted the safety of her people, while her small army stood to ensure their escape at the Battle Of The Last Days.
Karabas Rex, King Of Outcasts. Once he had been King Of The Small Things, holding sway over the tiny animals, insects, and plants that all the larger things depended upon. Once he was a great and powerful King, but now his power was only that of watching over the Small Cousins of Man, and that power waned as more and more of the Eternal Kings turned his charges to slaves and chattel. He had no army with which to stand at the Battle Of The Last Days, so he stood tall and proud in the face of his death. Of all the four, it is said that he is the only one who did not doubt that Almaria Rex would see his people to safety.
So it was that Almaria Rex, The Last Good King, led the faithful out of Harak-Ur and into lands long forbidden to them. The Rain Of Glass fell, and new nations were born from the ashes of the old.
It would come to pass, as these new nations rose, that Kolas would move his faithful in secret. They stole sacred texts from the holy shrines, and robbed items of worth and power from the sacred cairns. In quiet and with great stealth, the faithful to Kolas removed themselves from the Four Nations, and ready themselves for an unmistakable sign from The Seeker. They would receive it on The Night Of Burning Eyes.
In his time, Kolas The Seeker had become Kolas The Mad, though his followers now call him Kolas The Truth Bringer. In his madness, Kolas struck down and killed Jengo The Luckbringer. Severing the songs of the God Of Luck from The Knot, Kolas brought an end to Jengo's light and laughter, and with it split the world asunder.
From the far north of Vetris to the western isles of Cymrik to the eastern cities of the Cualish folk, and strongest in the proud lands of Angarn, the tearing of The Veil as Jengo's power was pulled away from the world and The Ten became Nine. From their beds, their screams said to echo through the very world itself, the Luckbringer's priests rose, their eyes aflame. Though the flames burn the sockets to ash and the pain cause them terrible madness, they did not die as did their God of Luck. Each of them saw what Jengo saw in his final moments - the terrible face of a trusted friend, the visage of Kolas The Seeker - and heard those final words: "Thus an end to my madness."
The rage of The Thundermaker at the death of his son was great, and again, Woundhealer and Lightbringer wept as one. The Seabeard swamped the coast with his grief, and as The Starmaiden mourned, stars fell from the sky and the moons turned to the color of blood in the night. Goran forged a new weapon, then, pouring his rage and grief into the blade. When his pain was gone, and he saw what he had forged, he was struck with horror, for he had not forged a weapon meant for righteous battle - he had created a tool for murder. Goran cast away the weapon, to a secret place that only he and his brother The Restbringer knew, where it lies to this day.
So it was that The Ten became The Nine, though in truth they are but The Eight. Though he is gone, the seat at the Great Table that once belonged to Jengo The Luckbringer is kept in good faith. Though he lives still, that seat that was once held by Kolas is broken and burned, its ashen remains left as a reminder of the treachery wrought by the Seeker upon those who loved him most dearly. Within The Waking World, no statues of Jengo remain, pulled down and replaced with eternal flames to show respect for the dead. The statues of Kolas remain, their eyes and mouths carved out, so that The Mad God may not see or speak through them, but may forever hear the condemnation of the truth faithful.
Kolas fled The White, but to where is unknown. Shakur The Restbringer journeyed through The Howling and with Goran Thundermaker at his side braved The Lower Dark in search of The Mad God, but did not find him. The agents of The Nine, for though he was dead, Jengo was still counted among them in reverence and remembrance, began to scour the lands for signs and portents of the new home of Kolas - and found it when the flag of Kolantha was raised in the southlands of Saron. Though The Nine, peering through The Veil and singing down to their faithful, could not see the power of The Mad God within the new nation, they could see its influence. Here was the seat of power for a new and terrible foe, and here was where evil stood.
... And that's that for this week. Bear in mind, as I've brought up in the past, that all of these events have taken place in recorded history within the game world. These aren't world-creation-level myths and legends. These are verifiable facts that have left their marks upon the game world. In many cases, those marks are still fairly fresh wounds, with all the emotion and all the consequences that come from such things.
Next week, more meat-and-potatoes world-building in regards to the role The Nine and their church plays in the game world, and some discussion on why it's important to have active, detailed goings-on in that regard as opposed to the usual way such things are handled in games.
See you then!
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Under Sleeping Suns: The Power Of Myth
So I thought instead of talking theory this time I'd talk about what it is I'm actually, actively doing with the creation of this here Fantasy RPG game world. This week: Myth structures and patterns, and how they relate to religion and the various gods of Loris.
One of the predominant and cool things I picked up on during my study of history, philosophy, and religion was that there are these repeating patterns that pop up in religions all over the world. The concepts of the Heroic Journey, the separation of the Earth and the Divine Realm, and the Escape From The Underworld to name but three. Joseph Campbell did an entire series of lectures on this sort of thing, and did it far better than I could ever hope to do, so I won't bother going too deep into it. What I'm calling on here boils down to, basically, the idea that there are certain over-arching meta-plots that recur time and time again throughout the myths of the cultures of the world. The idea that the Divine can interact with the Mortal and influence, guide, or outright compromise the world of Man is not something that is unique to the Fantasy RPG - it's endemic to the very mythic center of the human collective. With that in mind, I started applying the concept of recurring themes and meta-stories to Under Sleeping Suns.
When designing the religions and gods for the world of Loris, I decided on a few basic truths:
* The Gods Of The Nine come into power after a previous set of Gods have been eliminated by a world-changing event. The two primary Gods Of The Nine also come from somewhere else, and are not native to the world of Loris.
* The time between that event and the rise of The Nine is a time without the influence of Gods, although beings with extremely powerful abilities do end up ruling over the known civilization of Man in what is known as The Age Of Kings. These Kings are also removed by a significant, world-changing event.
* Before The Age Of Kings, and once again removed by a world-changing event (sensing a trend?), there were the Gods Of Light and Darkness. These Gods may have been native to the world of Loris - no one can say for certain, because conflicting tales are told by the story tellers. No one is alive today who was alive then, and no one has been brave/foolish/lucky/stupid enough to go diving into the ancient temple/libraries (if any still exist) to find out the truth.
* Before the Gods Of Light and Darkness, no one can say. This is the Old Time, and there are no records in existence of this.
And finally - and this is a big one, so pay attention to it:
* Loris has no creation myth. None. The world has just always been here.
That last piece is a big'un, and not just because it very precisely removes one of the fundamental necessities for a "jumping off point" for religions. It also eliminates one of the most common of those recurring themes I've been talking about quite handily. But, do consider the idea that without that sense of primacy - Our Gods made this world for us, bucko - there exists the very real (yet unspoken) undercurrent of "Well, if they didn't make it, who did?" Yes, this is a deliberate plot-point-creation device, but it's also there for the purpose of good storytelling. If the solitary set of Gods that rides herd over the planet doesn't come from the planet in the first place, how do they get their power? If they didn't make it, why can they influence it? And where did they come from, originally?
As I've said in a previous post, one of the things I wanted to avoid with Under Sleeping Suns was the trope of the perfect, infallible historical record that so many games make available to their player characters. To help with this, I've tried to front-load Loris with just as much uncertainty and doubt as I have solid facts and verifiable truth. The lack of a creation myth is part of this - if there is no myth of how the world came to be, then what happens if (or, more accurately, when) the Player Characters find out? World-shaking levels of horrific revelation? Or perhaps unity-inspiring unveiling? The world may never know. But I want that speculation to exist. I want the GM's and PC's of the game to have something to look for, and so I'm sprinkling hints all throughout the various histories and records to help move things along in that direction.
But, I promised you stuff about recurring themes and Deities and religions, so let's talk about those.
Out of the Old Time came the Gods Of Dark And Light, twelve Gods that split between them the various powers and aspects of the world. It was they who broke down the physical and spiritual worlds and split them apart in The Knot. They made the Waking World safe for man by separating the layers of reality to bring balance and order to the cosmos. Their own realm, The White, they split off from the Waking World, with The Veil between them to act as middle-ground between the world of Man and the world of Gods. Into the Lower Dark they threw the spirits of evil, decay, and corruption, and sealed them away behind The Howling. Five layers of being, one for each finger on the hand of man.
But five is an unstable number in the realm of myths - and thus the legends speak of a sixth, unknown layer of existence, interwoven and connecting all the other five layers. The concept of some over-arching, binding force is now introduced to the spiritual makeup of the world - five defined "worlds" and the unknown undercurrent that binds them all together. Now we have our "Divine Cosmos," as it were.
In the legends of the rise of the Kever Age, it talks about how Kalykan The Night Walker (Brother of Doan Lord of Light) and his wife Ardanta The River Queen, had children. This upset the balance of the Gods, as suddenly these children took for themselves powers that had previously been solely the realm of the original twelve Gods Of Light And Darkness. The resulting power struggle led to a period of unrest, imbalance, and strife on the world of man, as is the way of such things. The newborn Gods didn't necessarily fit into the molds of Light or Darkness, and were often chaotic and unruly. Now we have our upsetting of the established order, the reallocation of power from a small subset of Deities into a larger set, and the eventual return to balance (albeit a new one) that is often seen in real-world religions (this is especially true in the Greek or Egyptian myths - which Under Sleeping Suns draws heavily from, as you'll see).
The next recurring theme to appear is that of the significant, world-changing event; the "Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns" concept, if you will. At the end of the Kever Age, when the God Of Secrets had returned from his Long Journey South completely mad and begun slaughtering the rest of the pantheon (sparking a civilization-wide war while he was at it, no less), Doan Lord Of Light gathered up his forces and made one final push against the forces of his murderous enemy. He put on his armor and his helmet and went off to die. His daughters - the twins who would become the new suns of the world... which is a great myth for why there are two suns in the sky where previously there had only been one, I'll point out... - watched their father's body torn apart by the forces of the God Of Secrets, and in their grief and rage wept tears of fire. Fire fell from the sky, and Kever was wiped off the map.
These themes would play out again during the Age Of Kings. Where first there were but a handful of Eternal Kings, eventually others would rise up and claim their share of the power left in the land by the deaths of the various Gods Of Dark And Light. Again, a struggle would sweep across Harak-Ur, Land of Kings, and again, it would be the common man who suffered while the nigh-omnipotent Eternal Kings levied their powers against one another.
Eventually, the Eternal Kings would number in the hundreds, with each King controlling a narrow, unique aspect of the world around them. The King Of Rivers and the King Of Storms both held sway over aspects of nature, for example, but only the King Of Flowers could cause the ground to become fertile, or the bountiful fruit trees to grow from that ground. As before, it would be the one with power over secrets - in this case the King Of Books - who would start the downfall of the Age Of Kings.
Exactly what happened is unknown, but as the Kings grew more and more protective of their powers, and more and more secrets of the world were gathered up by the King Of Books, the Eternal Kings turned from the benevolent protectors of their people into brutal, vicious tyrants. Part of this may have been due to the fact that at some point near the end of their reign, the Gods Of The Nine (though they were originally ten) appeared. The King Of Books became obsessed with the lands to the south, where Kever had once stood. On the continent of Saron lay some great threat, some great treasure, some great unknown mystery that must be uncovered and possessed by him and him alone. But none of the subjects of the Eternal Kings must ever leave Harak-Ur, so had decreed the King Of Laws... so the King Of Books' plans were thwarted. Or so they say.
I've said that the Gods Of The Nine came from somewhere else, and that's dealt with in more detail in the actual text, but for now I'll encapsulate: The White, realm of the Gods, intersects with the Waking World by way of The Veil. At the juncture of The Veil and The White, there came to be a great silver door. Through this door stepped Moran - God Of Wisdom - and his equal, Kolas - God of Knowledge. At the foot of the door, they found two infants: Graalis The Seabeard and Astares The Starmaiden. If you're paying attention, you'll see that Graalis and Astares share a naming convention with the Gods Of Light And Darkness. This is intentional, and the ties between the two are born out in later revelations in the text.
But back to myth patterns. You can see where this is going: the inevitable strife that comes from these "upstart" Gods - two of whom aren't even native! - coming along and suddenly laying claim to power that the Eternal Kings have held for over a thousand years. Goran The Seabeard and Astares The Starmaiden bore children (raising the number of Gods to 10... or 12 if you count the Sun Sisters... seem familiar?) and thus the fight between the Eternal Kings and the Gods Of The Ten began. At the very end, the King Of Flowers would lead his people (and those of at least one other Eternal King) out of Harak-Ur and into a new land; mere hours before Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns. It was called the Rain Of Glass, and it left Harak-Ur a blighted, forbidden wasteland.
So now we come to the current era, and once again, we have our recurring themes: The usurpation of powers, the corruption of the truth-seeker, and the inevitable war in the world of men brought about by the conflict between the Gods.
It would be Kolas, God Of Knowledge, who would start this pattern. Roughly 300 years ago, so still within recorded history, Kolas began whispering to his believers that the other Gods were false. What's more, they were not only false, but they were not real. They did not exist. They were merely apparitions, brought into being by his own fevered imaginings. The Curses of the Eternal Kings had been wrought up on him, and as such he had gone mad for a short while. Now, however, he was sane once again, and the other Gods - his hallucinations - had taken on lives of their own. He would empower his faithful, and make them ready for a journey to the lands of the south on the continent of Saron. (Again, look at all the patterns!)
Kolas would kill Jengo The Luckbringer, shattering the God of Fortune's power and removing it from the House Of The Nine forever. His people would begin their journey southward, and form their own nation in Kolas' name: Kolantha. From here, they would launch their war and their Inquisition against the nations of the North, and build up their temple cities and their strict, brutal form of law and order.
The recurring themes for Under Sleeping Suns, then, can pretty quickly and easily be sorted out:
* The rise of a few, specialized Gods who control a large spectrum of power
* The fracturing of that power by the creation or introduction of new Gods or powerful entities
* The conflict brought about by that fracturing, and the eventual settling and re-ordering around the new paradigm
* The corruption of the truth seeker following, or during, the investigation of a far-away place
* The obsession with that far-away place driving the truth seeker to more desperate and violent acts
* The inevitable war between the Gods spilling over into the world of man
* Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns
Now, savvy players and GM's will ask "What's so all-fired important about the continent of Saron?"
And they'd be right to do so. But I'm not telling.
Not yet, anyway.
One of the predominant and cool things I picked up on during my study of history, philosophy, and religion was that there are these repeating patterns that pop up in religions all over the world. The concepts of the Heroic Journey, the separation of the Earth and the Divine Realm, and the Escape From The Underworld to name but three. Joseph Campbell did an entire series of lectures on this sort of thing, and did it far better than I could ever hope to do, so I won't bother going too deep into it. What I'm calling on here boils down to, basically, the idea that there are certain over-arching meta-plots that recur time and time again throughout the myths of the cultures of the world. The idea that the Divine can interact with the Mortal and influence, guide, or outright compromise the world of Man is not something that is unique to the Fantasy RPG - it's endemic to the very mythic center of the human collective. With that in mind, I started applying the concept of recurring themes and meta-stories to Under Sleeping Suns.
When designing the religions and gods for the world of Loris, I decided on a few basic truths:
* The Gods Of The Nine come into power after a previous set of Gods have been eliminated by a world-changing event. The two primary Gods Of The Nine also come from somewhere else, and are not native to the world of Loris.
* The time between that event and the rise of The Nine is a time without the influence of Gods, although beings with extremely powerful abilities do end up ruling over the known civilization of Man in what is known as The Age Of Kings. These Kings are also removed by a significant, world-changing event.
* Before The Age Of Kings, and once again removed by a world-changing event (sensing a trend?), there were the Gods Of Light and Darkness. These Gods may have been native to the world of Loris - no one can say for certain, because conflicting tales are told by the story tellers. No one is alive today who was alive then, and no one has been brave/foolish/lucky/stupid enough to go diving into the ancient temple/libraries (if any still exist) to find out the truth.
* Before the Gods Of Light and Darkness, no one can say. This is the Old Time, and there are no records in existence of this.
And finally - and this is a big one, so pay attention to it:
* Loris has no creation myth. None. The world has just always been here.
That last piece is a big'un, and not just because it very precisely removes one of the fundamental necessities for a "jumping off point" for religions. It also eliminates one of the most common of those recurring themes I've been talking about quite handily. But, do consider the idea that without that sense of primacy - Our Gods made this world for us, bucko - there exists the very real (yet unspoken) undercurrent of "Well, if they didn't make it, who did?" Yes, this is a deliberate plot-point-creation device, but it's also there for the purpose of good storytelling. If the solitary set of Gods that rides herd over the planet doesn't come from the planet in the first place, how do they get their power? If they didn't make it, why can they influence it? And where did they come from, originally?
As I've said in a previous post, one of the things I wanted to avoid with Under Sleeping Suns was the trope of the perfect, infallible historical record that so many games make available to their player characters. To help with this, I've tried to front-load Loris with just as much uncertainty and doubt as I have solid facts and verifiable truth. The lack of a creation myth is part of this - if there is no myth of how the world came to be, then what happens if (or, more accurately, when) the Player Characters find out? World-shaking levels of horrific revelation? Or perhaps unity-inspiring unveiling? The world may never know. But I want that speculation to exist. I want the GM's and PC's of the game to have something to look for, and so I'm sprinkling hints all throughout the various histories and records to help move things along in that direction.
But, I promised you stuff about recurring themes and Deities and religions, so let's talk about those.
Out of the Old Time came the Gods Of Dark And Light, twelve Gods that split between them the various powers and aspects of the world. It was they who broke down the physical and spiritual worlds and split them apart in The Knot. They made the Waking World safe for man by separating the layers of reality to bring balance and order to the cosmos. Their own realm, The White, they split off from the Waking World, with The Veil between them to act as middle-ground between the world of Man and the world of Gods. Into the Lower Dark they threw the spirits of evil, decay, and corruption, and sealed them away behind The Howling. Five layers of being, one for each finger on the hand of man.
But five is an unstable number in the realm of myths - and thus the legends speak of a sixth, unknown layer of existence, interwoven and connecting all the other five layers. The concept of some over-arching, binding force is now introduced to the spiritual makeup of the world - five defined "worlds" and the unknown undercurrent that binds them all together. Now we have our "Divine Cosmos," as it were.
In the legends of the rise of the Kever Age, it talks about how Kalykan The Night Walker (Brother of Doan Lord of Light) and his wife Ardanta The River Queen, had children. This upset the balance of the Gods, as suddenly these children took for themselves powers that had previously been solely the realm of the original twelve Gods Of Light And Darkness. The resulting power struggle led to a period of unrest, imbalance, and strife on the world of man, as is the way of such things. The newborn Gods didn't necessarily fit into the molds of Light or Darkness, and were often chaotic and unruly. Now we have our upsetting of the established order, the reallocation of power from a small subset of Deities into a larger set, and the eventual return to balance (albeit a new one) that is often seen in real-world religions (this is especially true in the Greek or Egyptian myths - which Under Sleeping Suns draws heavily from, as you'll see).
The next recurring theme to appear is that of the significant, world-changing event; the "Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns" concept, if you will. At the end of the Kever Age, when the God Of Secrets had returned from his Long Journey South completely mad and begun slaughtering the rest of the pantheon (sparking a civilization-wide war while he was at it, no less), Doan Lord Of Light gathered up his forces and made one final push against the forces of his murderous enemy. He put on his armor and his helmet and went off to die. His daughters - the twins who would become the new suns of the world... which is a great myth for why there are two suns in the sky where previously there had only been one, I'll point out... - watched their father's body torn apart by the forces of the God Of Secrets, and in their grief and rage wept tears of fire. Fire fell from the sky, and Kever was wiped off the map.
These themes would play out again during the Age Of Kings. Where first there were but a handful of Eternal Kings, eventually others would rise up and claim their share of the power left in the land by the deaths of the various Gods Of Dark And Light. Again, a struggle would sweep across Harak-Ur, Land of Kings, and again, it would be the common man who suffered while the nigh-omnipotent Eternal Kings levied their powers against one another.
Eventually, the Eternal Kings would number in the hundreds, with each King controlling a narrow, unique aspect of the world around them. The King Of Rivers and the King Of Storms both held sway over aspects of nature, for example, but only the King Of Flowers could cause the ground to become fertile, or the bountiful fruit trees to grow from that ground. As before, it would be the one with power over secrets - in this case the King Of Books - who would start the downfall of the Age Of Kings.
Exactly what happened is unknown, but as the Kings grew more and more protective of their powers, and more and more secrets of the world were gathered up by the King Of Books, the Eternal Kings turned from the benevolent protectors of their people into brutal, vicious tyrants. Part of this may have been due to the fact that at some point near the end of their reign, the Gods Of The Nine (though they were originally ten) appeared. The King Of Books became obsessed with the lands to the south, where Kever had once stood. On the continent of Saron lay some great threat, some great treasure, some great unknown mystery that must be uncovered and possessed by him and him alone. But none of the subjects of the Eternal Kings must ever leave Harak-Ur, so had decreed the King Of Laws... so the King Of Books' plans were thwarted. Or so they say.
I've said that the Gods Of The Nine came from somewhere else, and that's dealt with in more detail in the actual text, but for now I'll encapsulate: The White, realm of the Gods, intersects with the Waking World by way of The Veil. At the juncture of The Veil and The White, there came to be a great silver door. Through this door stepped Moran - God Of Wisdom - and his equal, Kolas - God of Knowledge. At the foot of the door, they found two infants: Graalis The Seabeard and Astares The Starmaiden. If you're paying attention, you'll see that Graalis and Astares share a naming convention with the Gods Of Light And Darkness. This is intentional, and the ties between the two are born out in later revelations in the text.
But back to myth patterns. You can see where this is going: the inevitable strife that comes from these "upstart" Gods - two of whom aren't even native! - coming along and suddenly laying claim to power that the Eternal Kings have held for over a thousand years. Goran The Seabeard and Astares The Starmaiden bore children (raising the number of Gods to 10... or 12 if you count the Sun Sisters... seem familiar?) and thus the fight between the Eternal Kings and the Gods Of The Ten began. At the very end, the King Of Flowers would lead his people (and those of at least one other Eternal King) out of Harak-Ur and into a new land; mere hours before Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns. It was called the Rain Of Glass, and it left Harak-Ur a blighted, forbidden wasteland.
So now we come to the current era, and once again, we have our recurring themes: The usurpation of powers, the corruption of the truth-seeker, and the inevitable war in the world of men brought about by the conflict between the Gods.
It would be Kolas, God Of Knowledge, who would start this pattern. Roughly 300 years ago, so still within recorded history, Kolas began whispering to his believers that the other Gods were false. What's more, they were not only false, but they were not real. They did not exist. They were merely apparitions, brought into being by his own fevered imaginings. The Curses of the Eternal Kings had been wrought up on him, and as such he had gone mad for a short while. Now, however, he was sane once again, and the other Gods - his hallucinations - had taken on lives of their own. He would empower his faithful, and make them ready for a journey to the lands of the south on the continent of Saron. (Again, look at all the patterns!)
Kolas would kill Jengo The Luckbringer, shattering the God of Fortune's power and removing it from the House Of The Nine forever. His people would begin their journey southward, and form their own nation in Kolas' name: Kolantha. From here, they would launch their war and their Inquisition against the nations of the North, and build up their temple cities and their strict, brutal form of law and order.
The recurring themes for Under Sleeping Suns, then, can pretty quickly and easily be sorted out:
* The rise of a few, specialized Gods who control a large spectrum of power
* The fracturing of that power by the creation or introduction of new Gods or powerful entities
* The conflict brought about by that fracturing, and the eventual settling and re-ordering around the new paradigm
* The corruption of the truth seeker following, or during, the investigation of a far-away place
* The obsession with that far-away place driving the truth seeker to more desperate and violent acts
* The inevitable war between the Gods spilling over into the world of man
* Fire Falls From The Sky, Everything Resets, New Era Dawns
Now, savvy players and GM's will ask "What's so all-fired important about the continent of Saron?"
And they'd be right to do so. But I'm not telling.
Not yet, anyway.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Under Sleeping Suns: Breaking down the Monoculture
Something that I've long railed against in Fantasy RPG's is this idea that only Humans get to have cultural diversity without also going through racial polymorphism. The idea that Humans are the only playable race in a Fantasy RPG that gets to have different cultural and societal types without having first generated "offshoots" of their own species is something of a staple - and it's also utterly ridiculous.
Consider - In The Forgotten Realms, arguably the staple sandbox on the playground of D&D games around the world, an Elf is an Elf is an Elf. Unless, of course, it's a High Elf, in which case (these days in 4E) it's actually an Eladrin. It could be a Wild Elf, in which case it's actually still an Elf, but it's now a sub-race of the "original" Elven race (The Sylvan Elves), with different statistics, cultural cues, and social mores. And So On for Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, and the rest. In order for a cultural shift to occur or in order for social mores to change in a non-Human player character race, the species must undergo some manner of polymorphism - it must branch away from the "True" nature of its race. And once it's done that, it gets its own culture, its own designator, and in some cases, its own language.
This manifests itself in the creation of the Racial Monoculture so typical to the games we all love to play. If I said to you "I am playing Ulfgar Rockhammer, son of Rorick Rockhammer, Grandson of Strom Rockhammer. Ulfgar is Fifteenth Stone of the Hearth City of Opal's Deep, bearer of the Axe of his Fathers," you would almost certainly incline yourself to understand that I was playing a Dwarf - and some manner of Dwarf with no small martial prowess and pride in his deep-rooted heritage at that. It is safe to say (in most settings and games), that if the race "Mountain Dwarf" exists, that a Mountain Dwarf from the Eastern Gold Range will be functionally and culturally nearly identical to a Mountain Dwarf from the Southern Silver Cliffs or a Mountain Dwarf from the Great Western Ridge Walls. If you want to get a different kind of Dwarven culture, make a Hill Dwarf. The same holds true with Elves - if you want something other than the standard Sylvan Elf, play a Wood Elf. Or better, yet, play a Wild Elf. They get different stats, you know.
This isn't so of Humans, though. I can count a half dozen culturally and socially different nations in the Realms off the top of my head, and if you give me another few minutes, I can make it an even dozen, easily. Humans, in Fantasy (and many Science Fiction) RPG's, are, as I like to call them, the ones who make sense. It seems that for Humanity, the normal methods of developing societies and cultures are not thrown out the window. For Humanity, factors such as commerce, religion, geography, politics, and gender composition all influence the communities and nations that they form into. There is a general understanding that among Humanity, you can find it all. There are no "River Humans" who differ from the "Desert Humans" so vastly that their physical and mental attributes go through some strange transmogrification and end up making them a specific sub-species of some "True Human" progenitor.
The same holds true in just about any other Fantasy RPG, honestly. Sure, there are some notable exceptions (Warhammer FRPG, immediately springs to mind, for instance), but by and large, this is so.
And I can't stand it.
I think it's because I spent so long studying history, politics, civics, and economics (along with art and philosophy and languages!) in college. I learned what causes people to do the things they do in terms of societal and cultural clustering. I learned how cultures, religions, and societies actually form, and what it takes to shape them and the role they play in a larger world. Why, for example, a devout follower of a particular religion might pay absolute heed to the words of his or her holy book, yet ignore the blatant disconnect between what the book says and what his or her culture does. Or, oppositely, why some religious and political viewpoints so closely cleave to the long-standing cultural mores and traditions of the regions they spring up in. This is evident all over the world - My culture does this, even though my religion says not to, but it's always been done this way so why stop it now?
My biggest problem with the Monoculture issue in Fantasy RPG's is that it is very clear that rather than attempting to solve the problem of "What role do these Non-Humans play in the (generally) Human Dominated Game-World?" that the writers tend to take a tack of "What sort of brush-stroke can we use to handle all these Elves?" And that makes sense on a lot of levels! It's a quick, easy, and easy-to-adapt-to method of dealing with such things. You can pick up nearly any RPG in existence, and take a few minutes to read up on the various races, settling on the one that plays like the character race you're most used to. "Oh, the Shleb-Ula are like Elves? I can play that! Let me get my Haughty Tree Hugger ears out of my game bag!"
Let's be clear, here: Nearly every game that does this is drawing upon the great-grandfather of all RPG worlds - Middle Earth. Numenoreans. Rohirrim. High Elves. Hobbits. Dwarves. It had 'em all, baby. And only Men, of all the races, had more than one culture to draw upon. For whatever his reasons, Tolkein drew in tiny enclaves of culture and isolated them into the bases for the various races of Middle Earth, firmly cementing them in place in our nerdy consciousnesses.
So today, you pick up a game book, and you say "I want to play something like this," and your GM nods and says "Play the blue skinned aliens. They're just like Halflings."
Bam. You're set.
Playing to the lure of the Tolkein-esque Monoculture is, therefore, something we're all used to. And it's not bad! There's nothing wrong with it. It's fun and I admit that I play into it quite frequently. I just don't think it's something that a game needs in order to be fun or interesting.
The thing about cultures is that they develop both independently and co-dependently with those of their neighbors. Cultures and Societies and Religions spring up based around geography, politics, the availability of foodstuffs, population growth rates, and gender diversity. When crafting Under Sleeping Suns, I approached the idea of world-building from these perspectives, trying to keep in mind what happened, and to whom, in order to develop certain aspects of the cultures of the world. The first thing I did was closely tie the two Non-Human races (the Haran and Ulehu) in with the history of Humanity.
Rather than having these two companion species rising up and separate from the race of Man, I decided early on that their fates would be woven back into the beginnings of recorded history. Although Man clearly came first, the other two weren't far behind. They've lived in Man's shadow for thousands of years, being pushed to the side, trodden on, cast as slaves, chattel, and worse. They've been equals under the eyes of the Gods in one age, and driven to the brink of extinction in another. But they're always there. They live in and among Humanity, taking part and place in Man's world, but never fully being accepted into it. Realizing this, I managed to come up with ways that the Haran and Ulehu have, by being within - but not of - Man's culture, actually further shaped that culture in their own ways. Rather than giving them their own separate Monocultures, one for each Race, they have in fact contributed to the various cultures of Man they find themselves in. And it comes out pretty neatly, if I do say so myself.
The other angle I played up was that of National Identity. It's something that you don't really see very often in what I refer to as "low-altitude games." These are the most commonly played games: an adventuring party going out and righting wrongs, kicking dragon nests and seeing what falls out, all that sort of thing. In high-altitude games - the "Kingmaker" style of game, complete with world-building sandboxes where everyone gets their own nation to build - you do see this, but only at a macro-level. Players are encouraged to delve into the politics and culture and religion of their chosen nation. It's rare to find a game in which you'll see any kind of diversity in these topics within a single player's nation. It's rarer still to find a game in which that diversity is actively encouraged. And that's kind of sad for me, because I think you can do a lot of good in a game by playing up National Identity as a factor in player character motivations.
I own a lot (let me emphasize that - I own a lot of role playing games), and I have only rarely seen a game in which the idea of a National Identity entered into the lives and attitudes of the characters. It happens more in Science Fiction and Modern-era games, as most of those draw upon the Real World We Live In, and so we naturally expect them to exist. But in Fantasy RPG's, this is almost unheard of (Iron Kingdoms is a really good example of National Identity done right, in my opinion). Given that you can have two vastly different (yet still vastly similar) cultures between two cities in the same Nation, I think that this is something that needs some examination and advocacy in RPG's. What happens when a well-meaning ally from just over the Northern Border inadvertently insults your King? What sort of differences exist between your home city - fifty miles and several days South of here - and this one; and what sort of trouble will you get into if you misinterpret that particularly fetching lass's use of the Language Of Scarves?
National Identity can serve as the "over culture" for a particular region of the game world without turning it into a Monoculture. By providing an umbrella of similarities and traditions; i.e. - a consistent system of government, economic principles, and a common history - the National Identity can tie together the various sets of geographic, religious, and ethnic groupings that make up the various cities and regions of that same nation. This still allows for a great deal of individuality and region-specific idiosyncrasies, yet ties it together into a larger whole, providing a feeling of a larger picture to the game and the world it takes place in. And it does it without resorting to the concept that only Humans get to have diversity in what sort of societies they build. A nation made up of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, or whatever-other-race-you-prefer, bound together through history and culture and love of King and Country is a lot more interesting than yet another game world where the Elves live in their forests and the Dwarves live in their mountain halls and only Humans get the cosmopolitan ports and backwater river-towns.
Just my opinion, mind you. But I plan on showing my work and putting it all on the table when this is all done. I hope I do it justice.
Consider - In The Forgotten Realms, arguably the staple sandbox on the playground of D&D games around the world, an Elf is an Elf is an Elf. Unless, of course, it's a High Elf, in which case (these days in 4E) it's actually an Eladrin. It could be a Wild Elf, in which case it's actually still an Elf, but it's now a sub-race of the "original" Elven race (The Sylvan Elves), with different statistics, cultural cues, and social mores. And So On for Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, and the rest. In order for a cultural shift to occur or in order for social mores to change in a non-Human player character race, the species must undergo some manner of polymorphism - it must branch away from the "True" nature of its race. And once it's done that, it gets its own culture, its own designator, and in some cases, its own language.
This manifests itself in the creation of the Racial Monoculture so typical to the games we all love to play. If I said to you "I am playing Ulfgar Rockhammer, son of Rorick Rockhammer, Grandson of Strom Rockhammer. Ulfgar is Fifteenth Stone of the Hearth City of Opal's Deep, bearer of the Axe of his Fathers," you would almost certainly incline yourself to understand that I was playing a Dwarf - and some manner of Dwarf with no small martial prowess and pride in his deep-rooted heritage at that. It is safe to say (in most settings and games), that if the race "Mountain Dwarf" exists, that a Mountain Dwarf from the Eastern Gold Range will be functionally and culturally nearly identical to a Mountain Dwarf from the Southern Silver Cliffs or a Mountain Dwarf from the Great Western Ridge Walls. If you want to get a different kind of Dwarven culture, make a Hill Dwarf. The same holds true with Elves - if you want something other than the standard Sylvan Elf, play a Wood Elf. Or better, yet, play a Wild Elf. They get different stats, you know.
This isn't so of Humans, though. I can count a half dozen culturally and socially different nations in the Realms off the top of my head, and if you give me another few minutes, I can make it an even dozen, easily. Humans, in Fantasy (and many Science Fiction) RPG's, are, as I like to call them, the ones who make sense. It seems that for Humanity, the normal methods of developing societies and cultures are not thrown out the window. For Humanity, factors such as commerce, religion, geography, politics, and gender composition all influence the communities and nations that they form into. There is a general understanding that among Humanity, you can find it all. There are no "River Humans" who differ from the "Desert Humans" so vastly that their physical and mental attributes go through some strange transmogrification and end up making them a specific sub-species of some "True Human" progenitor.
The same holds true in just about any other Fantasy RPG, honestly. Sure, there are some notable exceptions (Warhammer FRPG, immediately springs to mind, for instance), but by and large, this is so.
And I can't stand it.
I think it's because I spent so long studying history, politics, civics, and economics (along with art and philosophy and languages!) in college. I learned what causes people to do the things they do in terms of societal and cultural clustering. I learned how cultures, religions, and societies actually form, and what it takes to shape them and the role they play in a larger world. Why, for example, a devout follower of a particular religion might pay absolute heed to the words of his or her holy book, yet ignore the blatant disconnect between what the book says and what his or her culture does. Or, oppositely, why some religious and political viewpoints so closely cleave to the long-standing cultural mores and traditions of the regions they spring up in. This is evident all over the world - My culture does this, even though my religion says not to, but it's always been done this way so why stop it now?
My biggest problem with the Monoculture issue in Fantasy RPG's is that it is very clear that rather than attempting to solve the problem of "What role do these Non-Humans play in the (generally) Human Dominated Game-World?" that the writers tend to take a tack of "What sort of brush-stroke can we use to handle all these Elves?" And that makes sense on a lot of levels! It's a quick, easy, and easy-to-adapt-to method of dealing with such things. You can pick up nearly any RPG in existence, and take a few minutes to read up on the various races, settling on the one that plays like the character race you're most used to. "Oh, the Shleb-Ula are like Elves? I can play that! Let me get my Haughty Tree Hugger ears out of my game bag!"
Let's be clear, here: Nearly every game that does this is drawing upon the great-grandfather of all RPG worlds - Middle Earth. Numenoreans. Rohirrim. High Elves. Hobbits. Dwarves. It had 'em all, baby. And only Men, of all the races, had more than one culture to draw upon. For whatever his reasons, Tolkein drew in tiny enclaves of culture and isolated them into the bases for the various races of Middle Earth, firmly cementing them in place in our nerdy consciousnesses.
So today, you pick up a game book, and you say "I want to play something like this," and your GM nods and says "Play the blue skinned aliens. They're just like Halflings."
Bam. You're set.
Playing to the lure of the Tolkein-esque Monoculture is, therefore, something we're all used to. And it's not bad! There's nothing wrong with it. It's fun and I admit that I play into it quite frequently. I just don't think it's something that a game needs in order to be fun or interesting.
The thing about cultures is that they develop both independently and co-dependently with those of their neighbors. Cultures and Societies and Religions spring up based around geography, politics, the availability of foodstuffs, population growth rates, and gender diversity. When crafting Under Sleeping Suns, I approached the idea of world-building from these perspectives, trying to keep in mind what happened, and to whom, in order to develop certain aspects of the cultures of the world. The first thing I did was closely tie the two Non-Human races (the Haran and Ulehu) in with the history of Humanity.
Rather than having these two companion species rising up and separate from the race of Man, I decided early on that their fates would be woven back into the beginnings of recorded history. Although Man clearly came first, the other two weren't far behind. They've lived in Man's shadow for thousands of years, being pushed to the side, trodden on, cast as slaves, chattel, and worse. They've been equals under the eyes of the Gods in one age, and driven to the brink of extinction in another. But they're always there. They live in and among Humanity, taking part and place in Man's world, but never fully being accepted into it. Realizing this, I managed to come up with ways that the Haran and Ulehu have, by being within - but not of - Man's culture, actually further shaped that culture in their own ways. Rather than giving them their own separate Monocultures, one for each Race, they have in fact contributed to the various cultures of Man they find themselves in. And it comes out pretty neatly, if I do say so myself.
The other angle I played up was that of National Identity. It's something that you don't really see very often in what I refer to as "low-altitude games." These are the most commonly played games: an adventuring party going out and righting wrongs, kicking dragon nests and seeing what falls out, all that sort of thing. In high-altitude games - the "Kingmaker" style of game, complete with world-building sandboxes where everyone gets their own nation to build - you do see this, but only at a macro-level. Players are encouraged to delve into the politics and culture and religion of their chosen nation. It's rare to find a game in which you'll see any kind of diversity in these topics within a single player's nation. It's rarer still to find a game in which that diversity is actively encouraged. And that's kind of sad for me, because I think you can do a lot of good in a game by playing up National Identity as a factor in player character motivations.
I own a lot (let me emphasize that - I own a lot of role playing games), and I have only rarely seen a game in which the idea of a National Identity entered into the lives and attitudes of the characters. It happens more in Science Fiction and Modern-era games, as most of those draw upon the Real World We Live In, and so we naturally expect them to exist. But in Fantasy RPG's, this is almost unheard of (Iron Kingdoms is a really good example of National Identity done right, in my opinion). Given that you can have two vastly different (yet still vastly similar) cultures between two cities in the same Nation, I think that this is something that needs some examination and advocacy in RPG's. What happens when a well-meaning ally from just over the Northern Border inadvertently insults your King? What sort of differences exist between your home city - fifty miles and several days South of here - and this one; and what sort of trouble will you get into if you misinterpret that particularly fetching lass's use of the Language Of Scarves?
National Identity can serve as the "over culture" for a particular region of the game world without turning it into a Monoculture. By providing an umbrella of similarities and traditions; i.e. - a consistent system of government, economic principles, and a common history - the National Identity can tie together the various sets of geographic, religious, and ethnic groupings that make up the various cities and regions of that same nation. This still allows for a great deal of individuality and region-specific idiosyncrasies, yet ties it together into a larger whole, providing a feeling of a larger picture to the game and the world it takes place in. And it does it without resorting to the concept that only Humans get to have diversity in what sort of societies they build. A nation made up of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, or whatever-other-race-you-prefer, bound together through history and culture and love of King and Country is a lot more interesting than yet another game world where the Elves live in their forests and the Dwarves live in their mountain halls and only Humans get the cosmopolitan ports and backwater river-towns.
Just my opinion, mind you. But I plan on showing my work and putting it all on the table when this is all done. I hope I do it justice.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Sorry, No Big Post Today...
Sorry, no big post today. It's been a pretty insane week, followed by a weekend that has given me no time to sit back and collect my thoughts for this week's post.
I am happy to say, however, that "Number One With A Bullet" - a "Classic Cyberpunk" genre serial fiction work - is currently posting weekly at 12pm Pacific Time, every Friday. It's about 14K words, and I'll be posting about 1-1.5K words weekly.
Check It Out. If you like it, spread it around. I hope you do like it, but it's cool if you don't. It's not like I'm going to send ninjas after you or anything.
I am happy to say, however, that "Number One With A Bullet" - a "Classic Cyberpunk" genre serial fiction work - is currently posting weekly at 12pm Pacific Time, every Friday. It's about 14K words, and I'll be posting about 1-1.5K words weekly.
Check It Out. If you like it, spread it around. I hope you do like it, but it's cool if you don't. It's not like I'm going to send ninjas after you or anything.
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