The Campaign Builder's Guild

Following Luminous Crayon's and Steerpike's setting primer idea for Jade Stage and CE, here's a short summary for Arga. This is probably the third or fourth reboot attempt at a world I've been tinkering with for the better part of a decade. I should hopefully have a world map up soon, because who doesn't love world maps.

Arga World Synopsis

The World is Young and Fierce – The forge that made the world still glows, warm and red, an ember drifting in the black cosmos. The seas still churn and the mountains still reach for the clouds. The jagged stone of the earth has yet to feel the long, smooth kiss of the wind; the shores the susurrating caress of the tides. The Five Moons streak across the star-strewn skies, tails of gold, stone, fire, iron, and ice trailing in their wake.

Unlike other worlds with eons of history, thousand-year empires, established kingdoms and written histories, Arga is a world wet from birth – the bastard gods battle across the shining heavens for the scraps of creations while the mortal folk forge their destinies across the sundered earth and savage seas below. 

Yet there are things that belie Arga's youth. From the cold void, the first gods gathered the scraps and shards of dead worlds, drifting lonely in the dark, and, like so many colors of clay, shaped the world into being. Folktales speak of massifs built from the ruins of impossible cities, of moors littered with spires of iron and gold sharp enough to cut a man in two, of roaming atolls dripping with madness, and of labyrinth-heaths that stretch as far as the eye can see.

Hidden deep within the crevices and corners of those dead and desiccated worlds were things better left to the void, Mortal and Immortal alike. Like roaches, rats, and leeches, they huddle in the dark places of Arga, scurrying, gnawing, and sucking. Most exist only to feed, while a terrible few plan and plot, seeking their own dark glory on this new world...

A Land Unknown – Arga, being a young world, is little known. Maps are rare and impossibly valuable things – and rarely correct. The Mortal cities are connected more by stars in the sky than by lines on parchment. Arga is a realm of myths and rumors, hearsay and sailor's talk. The truth of the world is for the players to discover, unearth, and, if they dare, to define.

The immediate action in Arga takes place on just a sliver of the world. Jagged and violent, a dozen different lands and innumerable islands jut from the Thirteen Seas. Ice and rime bind the North. Fetid, fecund winds blow from the South. To the West lies an ocean without end, and to the East sit the rumored shores of unknown realms, outlandish and odd.

Mortals, Immortals, and Those Between –The spark of creation flows through the veins of all creatures, but in some, it is stronger. Arga is a fledgling world, and as such, the ravages of time have had little chance to separate the wheat from the chaff – so to speak. That which divides the Mortal that walk the face of Arga and the cosmic immortals from whence they come is tenuous at best. Will the players be the great sorcerer-kings of future legends? A fountainhead of divinity? The Mortal who defied an Immortal? A usurper god?

The Mortal Kin of Arga are as young and fierce as the world itself. The Anthos, petty and inspired. The Vor, savage and spiritual. The Automach, orphaned and lost. The Nurn, furtive and inquisitive. The Myrmec, simple and noble. The Dura, obstinate and callous. The Ergos, shunned and aloof. There are myriad other races of varying sentience and number, such as the rare but intelligent Sphynx-cats, the numerous but dull Gul, the massive but sleepy Gants, the wise and venerable Acipense, or the cruel and violent Mur. 

Alongside, above, below, and within the Mortal Kin of Arga exist the immortals. Inscrutable, temperamental, and fey, the Immortals range from petty house-spirits to the ancient beings that forged Arga itself. The Immortals are the recipients of worship and scorn, veneration and vilification. To name and number the Immortals would be an exercise in madness and futility.   

In addition to the Mortals and Immortals are Those Between, the Others, the Strange. Too bizarre to define, the rules set forth at creation do not define Those Between. Believed to be the survivors of other times and planes of existence, they are unique beings in transition between inscrutable realms. Some of the Others who have made themselves knowable are the dreadful Moth-King, the entropic Moon-Mountain, and the deranging Chromatic.

General Themes

Exploration – The world is new and unknown, it is for the players to discover and, more importantly, to define.

Greek-punk – The thematic tone of Arga is what I like to call Greek-punk. It is a world of bronze and spears and ships. Tyrants rule over fiercely independent city-states. Wars are won and lost on the whims and predilections of heroic individuals. Innate magic is rare and decidedly subtle and subdued. The Immortals meddle and plot.

Yet there is room for anachronism and the curious. Crude crossbows, bombards, and hand-cannons are present in parts of Arga. The acamancers of the great cities debate and develop advanced pseudo-sciences and math-based thaumaturgy. Astromancers scribe the stars and the Five Moons. Aethemancers filter out from the world. Locks, canals, lighthouses, citadels, and other engineering marvels often define the city-states, built by the minds of engineer-savants and the dumb brawn of golems of brass and cogs. Tinkerers hawk baubles and trinkets made of tiny gears and well-crafted lies. Massive arks ply the seas, cities upon the deep.

The Urbane and the Wild – Arga is, at times, an empty and lonely world. While the great city-states of the Anthos bustle and hum, the spaces in between are vast and unknown. 

The Sea – The Thirteen Seas of Arga connect the world. Travel overland is slow and routes are close to non-existent. The seas are the lifeblood of the world. Trade ships ply the waves, shipping everything from dried fish to gold to cloth. Anglers plumb the depths for hauls of increasing size, and danger, to feed the multitude mouths of the great port-cities. Navies crash upon each other in storms of arrows and spears and splinters, seeking ownership of narrow straights and lucrative trade lanes.

Nevertheless, the seas are realms of danger as well. Raiders and corsairs strike from mist-shrouded islands, plundering coastlines and fat merchants. The slime-white Mur sack sleepy fishing villages, dragging the inhabitants to the depths for vile purposes. All manner of extraordinary sea creatures rise from the abyss, swallowing entire ships in fanciful gulps. Arga is the Sea, and the Sea is Arga.

It's good to see this setting making a comeback! Even though I can't not read that title as 'LGGL'...

Quote from: Ghostman
It's good to see this setting making a comeback! Even though I can't not read that title as 'LGGL'...

To me it looks like AFGA.

Sorry I don't have anything to add to the conversation, still reading through it. It's awesome though! I've had a hard time understanding the first iterations of Arga, but this summary actually makes me see what your trying to do.

Evidently, the theme is close to my heart. Bravo, I say, and good luck!

(Maybe we could merge Primeval with Arga and collaborate? Haha, just throwing the idea out there.)

EDIT: And, this post made me a Modron. Neat!