Under Sleeping Suns: Cogito Mundi

So, last week, I opened up the floor for some questions about what sort of things I have in mind for Loris (and Under Sleeping Suns as a whole), and while I didn't get nearly the inquiries I'd hoped for, I did get a few good questions - a couple of which are of the really good, deep-digging variety. I'll save those for last, as they're the best, and that's what you do with such things.

Okay! Let's dive in!

Is Loris a Heliocentric universe? It's got two suns, so how does that work?

Loris is not Heliocentric. In fact, it's quite Loris-centric. Somewhere around here I have a quick-and-dirty Orrery of the Loris system. Let me find it.

Okay, so. Here's the Earth. No, wait, wrong line. So this is an incredibly out of scale and not at all scientific representation of the known universe around the world of Loris. It's a rough estimate made by astronomers and astrologers who don't have precise stellar cartography tools in an attempt to show their cosmological domain as they know it.

It is also, however, mostly factually correct. Barring distances and orbital planes and the like, this is an accurate map of the Loris universe. As you can see, Loris sits at the center of the cosmos, and everything else revolves around it.

Loris itself is a world roughly the same size and density as that of Earth (I think I figured out it's actually something like 1.125 Earths, once, long ago), and currently has a surface that is about 80% covered in water. It has three moons, Ymera, Unim, and Neleo. These moons are named in an early Keverite dialect, and their names mean First, Second, and Third, respectively. In Haraki, their names mean Daughter, Son, and Dragon. Linguistic drift is awesome!

The people of Loris, by and large, know that their world is round, and they know that things revolve around it. Even if they didn't have The Nine to verify these things for them, simple observational evidence (the way that shadows are cast on the moons when the suns are warming the other side of the world, for instance) would be enough to provide these details.

Next up on the list are the Sun Sisters, the Sleeping Suns themselves, Alzin and Alfin. Daughters of Doan, Lord Of Light, and his wife Mur, Queen Of Air (some scholars think that Doan's "true" wife was perhaps Beshef, Lady Of Starlight, a nearly forgotten and relatively minor Keverite goddess... these scholars are usually relegated to the back rooms of the libraries and aren't taken very seriously...), the Sun Sisters now slowly spiral around one another in the same orbit that their father's divine form once traced daily. Doan, like all the Keverite Gods, had both a mortal and divine form, and when the former was slain, so too did the latter perish. The remaining priests of Doan, along with Doan's allied Gods, sang the two radiant princesses to sleep. Laying them down in beds of glittering crystal, their mother (Mur or Beshef, you be the judge!) set them spinning in the sky where they might never again be harmed by the cruelties of Man. Their slumbering dance takes them twenty-eight hours to complete - each hemisphere of Loris gets roughly fourteen hours of daylight - and Alzin is always the first to rise.

Alzin is slightly redder in hue than her sister, and her mortal form is depicted as having hair slightly longer and darker than that of her twin.

There is a near-fanatic cultural importance placed on making sure the Sun Sisters never wake up, by the way. This is important.

Next is Hurac, which in Keverite means Forge and in Haraki means Cauldron. It is believed that Hurac is a world made of fire, ash, magma, and burning stone. What few telescopes are powerful enough to pick out details of the Red World usually reveal a world covered in clouds and what looks like the smoke from enormous, angry fires. The Nine do not often grant details about Hurac, save that it is "Not for the concern of Mortals."

Finally, Kelon (Keverite Jade, Haraki Greed) and The Goslings round out the Loris system. Kelon is bright and green and it is believed that this world is a great forest, or perhaps a glittering emerald. Some legends speak of the Keverite Gods forging their weapons and armor from the wood of the trees of Kelon, and of loyal and faithful hunters, or bold and stout warriors, being rewarded with a final challenge upon Kelon's surface before their spirit was given its final rest. Very few telescopes exist that can even pick out details on Kelon, and like Hurac, The Nine are rather silent on its disposition. The Goslings are a cluster of five glittering objects that trail about behind Hurac. Although they almost always form a neat line behind the green world, they do sometimes change position, and have at other times "milled about" over the course of years or decades, as a group of goslings might do when disturbed.

There are some five dozen easily recognized constellations in the night sky over the lands that make up the Allied Nations, such as The Huntsman, The Lovers, The Gambler and The Whore, and the ever popular Eye Of Astares. Much like Earth, most sailors look toward a particular, unmoving point as their guide home: Jengo's Tooth, which is not truly the tooth of the dead God Of Luck, knocked free by the killing blow from Kolas, but it's a good folk tale, and it is a bright, tooth-white star, just the same.

Why is it called "Under Sleeping Suns"?

Well, part of that was just answered up above, but another part of it comes from my own inability to do anything by half-measures. Remember Rajual DaCarda? Yeah, so, this guy? Massive engineering, scientific, theological and philosophical genius. Also a painter, one of the first non-clergy practitioners of the surgical method, and a prolific writer and poet. While developing him for historical and meta-plot purposes, I worked up a series of Sonnets, Villanelle's, and other poetry forms of his work. Among them, one of his most well-known works, "The Free Man's Path" opens with Sonnet One:

“When bright from Heaven 'ere the Sun King fell
And silver blood of Kings now turn'd black
Into fifty score and more years did all
Fall to torment of tyrants will and wrack.
Through reign of Lies and War, to rain of glass
Sons buried before fathers and mothers grief
Until Flowers bloom vouchsafe'd the pass
And did lead lost souls to songs of relief.
Now see! Burned skies and forever Kings
Shall no more bear down our noble spirit!
Freedom like clarion bells through morn’ rings;
And brings tears to eyes of those who hear it.
Swear none shall take the freedom won this day,
As our path now under sleeping suns lay.”

So, not only is it a literal reference to the Sun Sisters, the mortal and divine forms of which legends tell us are now set in motion around the world of Loris, it's also a figurative reference to a DaCarda poem (one of his most popular, even) that in and of itself also references a series of historical events - The Sunfall, The Age Of Kings, and The Rain Of Glass. So many cross-references! It's almost like I know what I'm doing!

Why only three PC races in Under Sleeping Suns?

If you don't mind, I'm going to defer this one down to the bottom, and combine it with another question. 

You keep talking about The Gods Of Light And Darkness. What came before them? Why don't you have a complete recounting of the creation of the world?

Part of this harkens back to what I spoke about back in Coming Up From The South: the idea that when you have a complete and factually accurate recounting of the history of the game world, that more often than not the players or GM will lose the sense of discovery and wonder that comes from uncovering the unknown and peeling back the layers of history and mystery that blanket the world. Part of the fun of playing these games is discovering new things, taking bold new adventures, and seeing the world through the eyes of your character. Where's the fun in any of that if you (or your character) already know all there is to know? The Gods Of Light And Darkness are who they are and where they are for a reason. Before them is a time "before time," which of course means "nobody remembers this era, anything could have happened, and probably did." The GOLAD are credited with pulling the world out of the "Nightmare Age" (or the "Age Of Darkness," or the "Age Of Formless Night," take your pick), ripping reality apart, and settling it down into The Knot. That's some pretty fantastic, game-changing levels of power, there. If the people of Loris want to start keeping track of time from when the GOLAD got their game on? That's a pretty good place to start.

Now, I do (of course) know what happened before that. And there are seeds of it throughout the game world. The players and the GM get to discover it. Pretty cool, eh? 

What game system is Loris intended for, if any?

Right now? I'm currently running world-based playtests under Pathfinder, by Paizo, and have in the past run the world using everything from The HERO System to R. Talsorian Games' Interlock and Fuzion systems. Ultimately, I had hopes that something along the lines of the Star Wars Saga RPG would become the "fourth edition" of "the game," but that was dashed. I have some plans in mind to re-jigger the Pathfinder RPG rules into some more Loris-friendly forms and make a PFRPG-compatible sourcebook, but that's a ways out.

More than anything, Loris is supposed to be a campaign setting first and a rules supplement second. I want to give new, inexperienced GM's (or old, well-seasoned GM's who don't feel like creating their own game world) something to sink their teeth in to. Players, too. I hope to make it work.

Does Loris have a scientific method, as in a philosophy of observation and experimentation (to put it lightly), and does the discipline of magic fall into this?  If so, how?

Yes and no. There was historically no need for such a thing, especially during the Kever Age and the Age Of Kings. If the people needed the knowledge, they could get it through the Priesthood of the GOLAD, or later if the Eternal Kings decided the knowledge should be provided, they did so. Under The Nine, however, the "way of scholars" has been encouraged - priests and clergy of all levels are encouraged by The Nine to seek out the way the world works, and make it known to the common person. I've mentioned before that The Nine mandate that the public be educated. This is a matter of religious duty for the various churches of the Gods, then, and is something that isn't taken lightly. Magic, as in the arcane powers woven and focused by Magicians, is not so much a part of this method as it is a dovetail to it. Magic requires intense experimentation, focus, and a whole lot of trial-and-error. It's literally different for every Magician out there. Sure, the various schools and colleges have their "home" methods, but even so, within the school there will still be an ever-so-subtle variance between every Magician within the halls. Because of this, Magicians and their ilk are usually quite astute in terms of cause-and-effect (or, if you prefer, the Conjecture-Hypothesis-Analysis-Theory path).

It should be noted, however, that it is the "way of scholars" that has led the Woundhealers of Tara to understand that some illnesses and diseases are carried by agents and vectors that are not visible to the naked eye, and can only be found through culturing, careful observation, or direct Divine revelation. In essence, this is the formation of a sort of Germ Theory: the Woundhealers know that sickness can be caused by exposure to outside vectors, and is not caused by "miasma," or "etheric vapor" or the like.

How do you intend to help new GMs in their world-construction exercises?

I've thought a lot about this, and to be frank, there is already a ton of material out there for new and upcoming GM's in terms of building their own worlds. Paizo (see previous link, above) and many others have a plethora of essays, handbooks, campaign-building guides, and the like. While almost all of them are genre- or system-specific works, a good number are system/genre agnostic, and all of them provide good, solid advice from world-builders a lot more savvy than I am. There is very little I could add to the discussion.

But there is something I can add: And that is the concept of internal consistency and the persistence of history. I've spoken before about how history eats the evidence, and how time erases all footsteps, and I think that this is somewhere that I can really provide a good, solid set of instructions and advice. I also feel that a lot of pre-fab campaign worlds, in an effort to provide something "new, bigger, better" often forget their origins. They end up offering new and exciting things, sure, but they also end up with what's commonly referred to as "power creep," and in an effort to make the new thing shiny and desirable, they just use increased power levels to entice the players and GM's back, rather than using the revelation of secrets, or the solutions to mysteries, or richer, more intricate historical tapestries.

As far as providing the up-and-coming GM who wants to use Loris as a jumping-off point, I was hoping to use an option that I've seen put to great effect in games such as R. Talsorian's Mekton Empire: that is to say, "Here is Scenario A. You can use it as written, in which case Scenario A is caused by Root Cause B and has Impact C, or you can choose Root Causes B1, B2, or write your own (B3)! And then, grab Impact C1, C2, or write your own (C3)!" This method provides a lot of flexibility and numerous campaign options, and in so doing provides the following:

• It gives the new GM a good, solid, internally-consistent jumping off point that shows what the writers had in mind (Scenario A, Root Cause B, Impact C), as well as some branches that the writers think are pretty cool (B1, B2, etc).

• It shows the new GM good places to make up their own stuff (C3!), as well as providing a framework for how that new stuff can interact with the larger game world as a whole.

• It means that while no two GM's will have a precisely identical campaign world history, as they will certainly choose different paths and story-branches, any official game world updates that come out will still be close enough to the main "trunk" of their games as to not completely invalidate the adventures they've gone on, or force them to retro-script their games. At least, that's the plan.

And now for the last two questions, one of which I deferred earlier, and will now wrap in here:

Why only three PC races in Under Sleeping Suns? Do other races exist? Are any of them (like certain D&D races) inherently good or evil (which would seem to go against the approach you're espousing here)? 

Okay, in that order:

Because I said so.

Maybe.

Certainly, yes.

Okay, those aren't good answers, but they're factually correct. Let me expound a bit.

Why only three races? Well... There are only three PC races in Under Sleeping Suns because I have long felt that the addition of tons of Non-Human races in fantasy RPG's has stopped being about telling stories in which people have to overcome prejudices and predispositions toward other people, and more about "How can we shoehorn this particular non-mainstream or obscure aspect of Human culture into this type of racial idiom?" Someone more brusque than me said "Non-Human races in Fantasy RPG's have basically become methods of exploring non-Western, non-Anglo civilizations in a safe suburban environment." I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's certainly a valid observation, to a point. I want the conflict and culture-clash in Under Sleeping Suns to come from actual, real-world reasons: geography, economics, philosophy, education, and the like. I don't need a world in which artificially introduced conflicts based on whether or not all the Blue Skinned Elves just for whatever reason don't get along with the Green Skinned Elves and their Brown Skinned Dwarf friends. I'm also going this route due to the "everything and everyone has a part to play" nature of the game world. The Haran and the Ulehu - as a whole - have an actual, integral role in Loris' history, that will eventually play out. They're just as important as Humans in the grand scheme of the meta-plot. Adding much more than two non-Human PC races, in my opinion anyway, just waters down the soup.

Do other races exist? Well, the answer to that is a definite "maybe." Consider that Humans, Haran, and Ulehu all came up North out of the jungles of Saron at the same time (even though the Haran and Ulehu are considered "younger" than Humans for some weird culturally ingrained reason). If there were other races out there, they either didn't come out of the jaguar, serpent, ten-thousand-other-things-that-want-to-kill-you infested jungles, or they broke off and went further South. The current "known" world - if you were to overlay it on a map of the Earth - stretches from what amounts to Norway and the British Isles in the North, to Ethiopia in the South. You're looking at Mauritania as the furthest charted Western expanse, to Turkey and Iran in the East. As bounding boxes go, this is a lot of land to cover. So while it's entirely possible that there are other player-capable races out there, none of them have been found in that sandbox as yet.

Are any of them inherently good or evil? Well, if there's another race out there that has an ulterior motive within the meta-plot, and whose entire cultural and spiritual make up was based around the concepts and tenets of evil - that is to say, oppression, tyranny, and power at all costs - then they would certainly be considered "racially Evil." If such a race were out there.

There are absolutely Humans, Haran, and Ulehu that fit that description. These people are evil, pure and simple. But they are not racially so. They are not born with a lust for wanton death, destruction, and chaos. The problem with evil, true evil, is that it thinks it's good. These people, in all likelihood, most likely honestly believe that they're doing this because they're the only ones who see the truth for what it is. And that is, in and of itself, even more dangerous than someone who is born chewing scenery.

Now, as to the idea of someone who is just systematically, endemically, evil? I'll point you to the many varied works of Rajual DaCarda, especially during his Reflection Period as your answer. You might want to listen to The Offspring's tune "Conspiracy Of One," while you're at it.

Just saying.