The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ooc]I added a brief overview of the three major racial types (quick, grave-spawn, and inhumans), further differentiating oneiroi and demons. Hopefully this clears up any confusion surrounding the quick/grave-spawn.

I also have edited the Suppuration and Fecundity in light of Acrimone's review.[/ooc]

Do I lose all my brownie points if I call Lucius and Tormbolge "Fearfrhd and the Grey Monstrouser?"

Sorry.  Couldn't help myself.

(And I'm not implying anything about your writing process either... you may have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Characters:

This is easily my favourite section so far, though I still think that the sections on the Fecundity and the Suppuration probably tell the most about what your world is like.

The strength of this section (and I know I'm repeating myself) lies in the details of what these ghoulish, macabre personalities do on a day to day basis.  From my reading this is what has been missing from the account of this world so far.  The impression has largely been one of "There's no downtime for you because everything is always trying to kill you."  But the section on the characters describes them gambling, drinking, researching, etc.  These sections are so good that I'm going to shamelessly copy the technique, and put a "Characters" section (I've got hundreds of NPCs written up here and there) in the Calisenthe wiki.  

I have no criticism of this section at all (notwithstanding my previous jest about F&GM).  It is, for your purposes I believe, absolutely perfect.

Witchcraft: Love the name already.  It makes me want to read.

Eldritch Theory:  OK, I get this.  And I like it -- at least this kind of magic is a synthesis of some formal extension such as a rune or tatoo, and the infusion of intangible psychic power.  The sense I'm getting from this is that there is going to be something in the design of the rune/tatoo/etc. that makes it "fit" to receive the power, so that you can't put the psychic power for what would be a Rune of Ichorial Vomiting into the formal extended markings of what would be a Tatoo of Putrescent Ascension: the extension (physical form) has to match the psychic energy being used; meaning that while an unpowered rune is powerless (as you point out), it is not entirely superfluous: no other rune would do for the purpose.  If this isn't the impression you intended to convey, you should clarify things.

Now, you wrote something interesting -- I add emphasis to a few phrases:

Quote from: #ff3300of the collective unconscious[/color], a kind of aether-realm from which all images emerge. The more complex the spell, the deeper the witch must penetrate this mindscape, and such sojourns are not without difficulties and hazards. Only those with strong psychic potential who have trained their minds to withstand the whirling entropy of the aether can draw on it to cast the more powerful or intricate spells; those who attempt to channel eldritch energy into a sigil or phrase who lack the proper control or have taxed their abilities too vigorously may succumb to the nightmarish intoxications of the aether and lose their individual coherency. These wretched souls become mad, dangerous things, channeling raw numina haphazardly.

"of the collective unconscious"[/i] - Whose collective unconscious?  Is it just the landscape of consciousness, inhabited (or even created) by the sum total of all universal consciousness, big or small, short or tall, strong or weak?

"from which all images emerge" - Images of what?  The first time I read this I had this notion that everything real and tangible was in fact some sort of extended projection from the mindscape of the collective unconscious; in other words, that I here at my desk might be an "image" of the universal mindscape.  Then on second reading, I was thinking that maybe you were talking about ideas or concepts: all of our mental images emerge from this realm.  But the fact is, I'm not sure what you mean by this.  (But it certainly sounds interesting!)

I realize that this is nitpicking in the extreme, but that's what happens when you take the time to write something complex enough to actually be nitpicked.  

Nectar:  OK, things are starting to click into place about this world.  The reason this world is so fucked up, if you'll excuse my expression, is that it is, quite literally, a Nightmare world.  It is a world shaped (not created, but shaped) by people's (plural) nightmares (on a macro scale, not a micro manifestation scale), yes?  If that's the case, then saying that more explicitly (and sooner) would be an excellent idea.  You also say that getting lost in the aether causes madness.  I'm wondering two things about that.  First, does exposure to the aether of a certain degree always cause madness?  Or is that simply a reflection of the person in question's being weak (or insufficiently strong)?  In other words, can someone "hang out" in the aether (through nectar use or otherwise) but yet retain their sanity if they are strong enough in the will?  Which leads to my second question: is there something about nectar itself which erodes at the will, or at least erodes at one's ability to resist the madness of the aether?  In other words, one could theoretically resist the madness of the aether, but the amount of nectar one would need to take to test such resolve would ensure failure.  It really depends on what it means to "wear down the distinctions" between one's mind and the aether: does the granting of access to the aether by itself start eroding individuality?  Or is the eroding of individuality what grants access to the aether?

Hexes: If I'm reading this right, Hexes are just like runes or tatoos, but they use words.  (See Eldritch Theory comments, above.)  Because of the transitory nature of words, however, they are unsuitable for containing long-term energies.  Does this sound right?  (Sometimes it's best just for the reader to try to repeat back to you what he or she thinks your work says, so you can see if you're giving the wrong notion.  So I will be doing some of this.)

Glyphs: Uh, so anywhere I said "Runes" up above, we can substitute in "glyphs", right?

Demons and the Membrane Wars: Oh my.  First, I like this section.  A lot.  It's probably my third favorite section so far (though a lot of that probably has to do with my wondering for seven pages what the Membrane Wars were).  So now I'm coming to the conclusion that this world isn't JUST a "NIghtmare World" -- though it is that.  It's also quite literally Hell on Earth.

I'm suddenly getting an idea of what the big picture might look like.  I'm speculating here, and leaving the implications of your text entirely.  So please don't feel alarmed if I'm totally ass-wrong.  So someone fucks up, and Hell comes to Earth.  Bad stuff.  Now we have Hell on Earth.  It's so bad, in fact, that people (unconsciously) turn to their nightmares to save them.  So that doesn't go so well... the demons are brought under some degree of control, or are finally cordoned off to the swamps and seas, etc.  But now instead we have this problem emanating from the Aether, which I suspect is linked tot he Fecundity in some way.  (I'm coming around to the idea that the Fecundity is the Earth's actual response to the Membrane Wars -- instead of the collective consciousness of we unstable, unpredictable people putting forth something to challenge the demons, you have the INCREDIBLY stable consciousness of the planet just putting forth its "idea" of a cure, one yardacre at a time.)  

OK, enough speculation.  THat's not actually very useful for you.  Back to the review.

Languages:
This is nice and solid.  I was wondering if the Lilix were able to speak to other humans.

Final Thoughts for Now:
OK, so now I'm on to cities.  I'll post some more detailed thoughts on these in a bit.  I'm going to finish up this posting though, with this thought:  it seems that when you're painting "the big picture" you tend to (understandably) focus on the things that are bizarre and different.  Then when you get into the details, you are more forthcoming with the mundane and familiar.  The problem as I see it is that your descriptions of what is bizarre and different misrepresent the degree to which this world is bizarre and different.  In other words, you might want to consider a small bit of text such as the following, right up front:

"Most (or a plurality?) of the inhabitants of this world are simple people, working and living in an environment that is sometimes hostile, and often alien to what their genetic plain-hunting inheritance tells them life should be like.  But many others have been warped and shaped by the otherworldly forces that have, over the years, turned the world into a thinly-veiled, sometimes completely explicit, nightmare."

I offer this only by way of suggestion.  It's not particularly well-written, but I think it accomplishes what I'm talking about: some sense that "life goes on" even in the Cadaverous Earth.

[ooc]Characters: Thanks!  I'm glad they hit home... I want human characters in a grotesque, difficult world.  And Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were probably my foremost influence on Lucius and Tomrbolge, so your reference is perfect (and made me chuckle).

Witchcraft: Pretty much everything you said is bang on.  The idea of the Aether is still a little vague, but basically what I'm thinking could be explained through the following analogy.  Numina flows out of the aether, or "collective unconscious", shared by all thinking beings currently on the Cadaverous Earth (so, not demons in Hell, but everything else capable of dreaming... images are sort of meant to suggest the imagination, a kind of psuedo-Platonic world of forms, kinda maybe sorta; probably needs more work).  Imagine the numina like water and the aether like a vast sea.  Normally, to infuse (invoke) a hex/glyph with numina, the caster has to open his mind to the aether.  Trouble is, that's difficult.  Most only have a small "siphon" of puissance with which to pump numina from the aether/ocean.  Nectar expands your pipe, lets in more numina.  Unfortunately, more flow carries a greater risk of madness.  Imagine someone sucking on the siphon: it's OK if the pipe is small, but if its gets to big, you'll drown.  Hence, horrible horrible madness.  Your sanity/willpower plays a part, in terms of how much you can handle, and you'd probably build up a sort of mental tolerance after awhile, but overdose is frequent, so nectar use, while widespread, is risky.

The Supuration is a big 'ol leak in the pipe, spraying water everywhere, chaotically.

Your cosmology is close to what I'm imagining.  You've got Hell on earth (I want to sort of suggest that "Hell" is just what people call the other worlds - the "demons" have nothing to do with absolute evil, they're just really powerful alien beings); people turn to another force (in actual fact, elemental deities, think like the Titans or the Tarrasque, as well as the Great Old Ones) and do a big ritual to wake them up.  Unfortunately, though the Chained Ones kill and scatter the demons, they also keep on purifying, and humanity's next on the hit list.  So you torch the Hecatomb Cities and utter a spell of unspeakable power that somehow capitalizes on the Sacrifice, seal the elemental (not "evil") gods back in the earth, put them to sleep.  Unfortunately one gets out at some point (Hirud) and almost destroys the world (the Pallid Decimation).  There's a huge battle, and after a big arcane/military effort Hirud gets petrified at the center of Etiolation (he's the one responsible for the blanchphage, literally sucking the life and even colour out of the world).  Meanwhile at other points in history you've got some "terraformers" or somesuch who look at the world and decide it needs a new start, a reboot, back to the Gadren of Eden, the prehistoric Paradise.  Though they realize they won't be around to see it, they begin seeding the clouds of the world to cause the Red Ravishment and later the Red Rains.  This produces the Fecundity and the fetch, recreating the world in a Rousseau-esque state of nature (or that's the plan). However all this arcane tinkering isn't doing wonders for the aether, and SPPPLLLIIIIT yep there's the Suppuration!

Hope you enjoy the cities!

By the way, you've earned a review badge and then some! [/ooc]

Quote from: SteerpikeI want human characters in a grotesque, difficult world.  And Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were probably my foremost influence on Lucius and Tomrbolge

I didn't think of it at the time, but Lankhmar with its aura of corruption and nastiness lurking under the surface (both figuratively and literally, if you consider the rat population) seems to match the motif you've established in CE pretty well, doesn't it? Horrors like the Gods of Lankhmar certainly wouldn't be out of place either. The difference being, of course, Lankhmar seems to be more "typically medieval" (if cast in a slightly different light) where the urban blight spread by rampant industrialization, in some form or other, at least, seems to figure into the Cadaverous Earth.

[ooc]Lophius is meant to channel Lankhmar to some degree.  The carven idols of the Driftwood District mimic the Street of the Gods in Lankhmar, while the "nameless demons of the swamp" are the Gods of Lankhmar, and the "informal kleptocracy" or brutocracy of Lophius is sort of a slightly more anarchic version of Lankhmar or Scott Lynch's Camorr (Mieville's Armada was the other big influence on the city's factionalization).  Lophius is also less industrialized than the other Twilight Cities, with only one major industrial district (the Foundries on Lophius) but a lot of small marketplaces, pleasure districts, artisan's quarters like the glassblowers, gambler's districts, docklands, etc - a big den of vice, certainly, but not a desiccated industrial waste like Somnambulon or parts of Moroi (or Skein), nor an alien-hive.  It's meant to be quite exotic in places, with the numerous hagmen and leechkin, a bit carnival, Venetian, rowdy and boisterous and yes sometimes incredibly cruel and violent, but colourful and lively nonetheless (except for the grave-spawn ghettoes and Hunger Rock).  I think Lophuis may be the next city to get adventure treatment, to emphasize some of its vibrancy.[/ooc]

I am loving the feel of the fecundity alot, it does truly give a huge heap of extra depth to the lands beyond the cities. On that note, I want to see more about the earth outside of the city area. The way things are talked about I take it that the cities are all in one area (correct me if I am wrong). Thus there could be other people struggling to survive on the other side of the festering planet. Both groups being completely unaware of one and other (and developing in different ways). So then, are there other realms beyond the cities? Other places of strange wilderness perhaps? I am just curious to learn about what might be beyond the current locale.

[ooc]The cities aren't exactly clumped but they occupy roughly the same east/west space (longtitude) but vary quite a bit in latitude, so Somnambulon and Dolmen are quite cold, whereas a Lophius or Baranauskas summer would be very hot at times.  There are going to be more "wilderness" areas - the Slouching-devil Mountains are one of them, but others that I plan to eventually flesh out more include the Tallow Plains near Moroi, the Firesong Marshes near Crepuscle, the Chelicerae Mountains near Dolmen, the southern swamps, the Bluebottle Archipelago, the Midnight Isles, the Razor Chain (also islands), and the Serrated Coast.  I'm also planning on incoporating an almost Tolkienian exodus via ship to the far west, where a few hope to find a less ravaged land, but any details of such a far-off continent would be very deliberately left vague and unrealized, so that while the emigrants might be going off to a better place, they might also all starve to death or get destroyed by storms on the Fevered Ocean a few months out.

There might be something beyond the Suppuration to the extreme east of the setting, but I haven't decided what yet, if anything.  Very few people make it that far and most would run into the Suppuration, which can't be easily navigated.  Perhaps once the Twilight Cities have been fully fleshed out along with the Slaughter-lands and wilderness areas I'll turn to the far east.  Any brilliant ideas (or random ones) as to what might lie beyond the Suppuration are welcome.

The setting does need a map at some point...[/ooc]

I just stumbled onto this site and this is the first thread I click on. All I can say is excellent. Brilliant.

I haven't read most of your work yet but the first point of criticism raised already resonates with me (and is the only critique I can think of). The world could use a little more contrast, a clove of the sublime to enhance the taste of filth. I personally think, however, that paladins in shining armor would not fit at all in this setting. The sublime spice I mean is just something pure, innocent and optimistic. An idea just off the top of my head: beauty as ancient artifacts. Surviving relics from when the world was a kinder and gentler place. A sonata radiating warmth and suggesting spring. A marble sculpture, overgrown with entrails, capturing the beauty of the human form. An endearing little music box. A lush grove hidden deep in the darkest mountains. Some factions want to destroy these glimmers of hope, others to research them and tap their power. A few might even be overpowered by the curious feelings they invoke.

Do you have any ideas/concepts as to how you would like things laid out. Perhaps a rough sketch of a map. I love map making and I would greatly enjoy sketching you up something if you would permit me the honor.

The mass exodus sounds interesting. I didn't see the things about the fevered ocean (perhaps I just missed them in my reading). What exactly is it? As to what's beyond I always viewed this as a whole world thing myself. Perhaps there are pockets of wholesome earth, but different areas just give themselves to different apocalyptic wounds. Perhaps the far west is one of the larger wholesome places. Perhaps it's just a myth and the survivors who made it have somehow scrounged out a living in an equally bleak but very different land.

[ooc]Some of the opulent buildings of the cities (once you read further down) are meant to suggest that, as is the Elder Tree, but you're absolutely right (and this seems to be the general opinion) that there needs to be some kind of greater contrast established.  Past/present and "Civilized"/Wild are the major dichotomies of the setting, so the idea of ancient beauty, now despoiled, could probably use greater emphasis.

I do very much want to stress that at least to me, beauty and grotesquerie aren't antithetical.  The "beautiful horrors" of the magisters of Skein, their homunculi, for example, are meant to evoke this - the vignette at the start of the Skein post gives some examples, such as a pudgy imp like a baby with compound eyes and scintillating emereld wings, a kind of insectiod cherub.  Horrifying?  Yes.  Grotesque?  Hell yes.  But maybe kinda beautiful too?  I hope so, at least from some angles.

Pringles/Nomadic, I may sketch up a rough map soon, and I'd feel honoured to have you make one for me.  Right now ithe geography's in my head mostly: the Serrated Coast to the west, ending in the swamps to the south and the mountainous regions of the north, with the Slouching-devil Mountains as more "westerly" and the Chelicerae Mountains a bit further northwards and to the east.  The Tallow Plains and the Firesong Marches (a big desert not part of the Slaughter-lands) are evident near the western part of the map; to the east are the Slaughter-land regions, roughly subdivided by Etiolation and framed in the extreme east by the Suppuration.  But I'll sketch something up soonish to give a better idea of where everything's located.

I've only made one reference to the Fevered Ocean.  It's the big western sea and the largest body of water mentioned so far, though I haven't talked too much about it.  It'll be inhabited by the "beast-gods of salt and nacre," and perhaps some Lovecraftian underwater civilizations but wouldn't figure too prominently except in a pirate-style campaign.

Oh and have a review badge if you'd like one, Dwarven Pringles! [/ooc]

Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?56772[/url][/ooc]

I shall wear it with pride (is it good for anything perhaps, like free dwarven ale?).

As to the fevered ocean, I actually would like to hear more about it. Are there any prominent civilizations that interact with the "surface dwellers"? Does it have any value to make sailing it worth the risks (perhaps its the quickest route between two major areas). Most importantly, are there sea turtles?

[ooc] [blockquote=Dwarven Pringles]...is it good for anything perhaps, like free dwarven ale?[/blockquote]
Madwine coolers.

I'll think on the Fevered Ocean.  I doubt it'll have anything approaching, say, Dystopia's cephalopods, but there might be some strange stuff down in the deep.[/ooc]

Now I've gone back and taken a slower look at your initial city write-ups.  Note: I may give suggestions about how to use something, but that's just me adding to the totality of materials to choose from.

Somnambulon: One thing that strikes me about this name is that I can't quite figure out what it has to do with the city.  In fact Somnambulon seems the least of the cities to have an actual theme.  Are you planning to do more with this?  You know if you made your world an alternate plane to some other place The Sleepwalker's City suggests that maybe they get there in some sort of non-conscious way.  Maybe the reason the Unbound aren't so grim is that they're made of these people from the other world.

Crepuscle: Has a more defined character than Somnambulon, though it still lags somehow.  Does the variety of people there give it any unique cultures?

Skein: I wish I could give you a a good critique on this one, but I'm still kind of in awe of the mechanization and the Moth-Kings.  It keeps reminding me of something, but I can't think what.

Baranaukas: It's an Edge City, the gateway to adventure and the place where I'd think those people who have to live in hiding from the center of society come.  The trade in bodies give me the image of adventurers carrying back entire corpses instead of looting them, though dead bodies as treasure does make a kind of whacky sense when compared to mountains of gold.

Dolmen: I suppose this is what drow cities should have been like, complete with more interesting inhabitants.  The tiered structure reminds me of a parody of Minas Tirith and leads to this question: does refuse from one level get thrown on the lower?  What happens when it reaches the bottom?

Moroi: With the importance of psychoactive plants in religions I can believe that a god-tree would produce magic-giving sap.  Is there anything special living on the tree?  I'd think a giant tree would have giant tree parasites.

Lophius: Wow, your most religious place in the setting is like some bayou shantytown.  Maybe you should figure out how to work in chuuls so you can have crayfish-men.  I think they'd add to your lovely grotesquery.

[ooc]Thanks for the comments, Silvercat!

The Sleepwalking of Somnambulon is meant to connect with the idea that the zombies, shuffling and wide-eyed, are like sleepwalkers, especially once you realize that they might be conscious of their forced servitude, "trapped behind their own eyes" so to speak while their bodies rot and are reduced to mere tools (see the Zombies section of the Grave-spawn post for more detail).  Like the other cities Somnambulon will eventually recieve more treatment.

Crepuscle does kind of lag to me somehow, which is probably why I haven't epxanded it like some of the others yet, detailing its districts etc. I try to make every city have at least one "Big Thing" to keep it interesting: the Watchdogs and Skin Markets of Baranauskas, the Driftwood District of Lophius, the towers and automata of Skein, the lilix themselves in Dolmen, the zombies and palaces and Lords Revenant in Somnambulon.  The labyrinth in Crepuscle is sort of meant to fill that niche, but I think the city needs something more.  I'm slowly adding to a detailed writeup of Crepuscle that'll hopefully give it some more energy, though right at the moment I'm working on Lophius adventure seeds/outlines like those I wrote for Baranauskas...

Dolmen and the lilix do draw on the drow.  I like the idea of a "tiered sewer system," kind of like how in medieval cities refuse would just get tossed... when I write up the City of Spiders I'll remember this diea, thanks!

As for Moroi: wow, what a PERFECT idea with the parasites!  I need to think about this one and will probably add it soonish... I felt I needed something to make Ambery more interesting, and this could be it.  Later in the detailed description of Moroi I do expand on the Elder Trees.  There are three, but only one active; another is exhausted and petrified, and the third burnt down, and all of its remaining nectar boiled.  The resulting arcane reaction spawned a really twisted "haunted quatrer" of the city where only really reckless daredevil scavengers and the like enter.

With regards to Lophius and chuuls, I do think that the southern swamp will have various crustacean-y things.  Chuul are one of my favorite dnd monsters, and while I probably won't steal them whole, the idea of large, quasi-intelligent crustaceans is very appealing, and fits the setting well.  Possibly this will be one of the deep races that dwells in the Fevered Ocean.[/ooc]