The Campaign Builder's Guild

Restarting my world. I'm using my almanac program with the BB Code converter to edit this, so if you see oddities, it is probably a bug.

Cosmology
The universe of Axa is a dualistic one. Broadly speaking, things in this universe can be divided into Essence and Spirit The two aspects of reality are distinct but not independent. Spirit has will and consciousness, and can use this to control and direct material things; yet spirit is dependent in some manner on the essence for perception and support. Essence without spirit makes simple, dumb objects; spirit without essence is impotent and insensate.

Essence tends to aggregate together, so universe of Axa consists primarily of loose clumps of essence material scattered in the vast aetherial void. One might call each clump of essence a 'plane of existence' akin to those of standard D&D cosmoloogy, but these planes do not intersect or coexist at all. To travel from plane to plane would require projecting oneself across the great void. Powerful spirits and deities might be able to project themselves spiritually at the speed of thought; simple magic available to human-scale spirits would just not be up to the task.

Axa itself is a spherical world of earth, surrounded by smaller subplanes that are loosely joined. These subplanes are known by various names, but for convenience we might call them by the names Helios, Lunaxa, and Lunacho. That is, the sun and the two moons of Axa. Theoretically, people might physically travel to the local subplanes. But Helios appears to be a plane of unrelenting fire; Lunaxa a world of austere icy beauty; and Lunacho insubstantial silvery light. There are a few other objects visible in Axa's sky, but they are small, remote, and inconstant. They may or may not represent more distant planes.

Axa is a world of exploration and mystery. Although civilization reigns in pockets across all the contintents of the world, wide areas remain unsettled, and travel across the world is still difficult and uncertain. For the inhabitants of Axa, distant places are the subject of legends and rumors.

People
The people of Axa show wide variation in physical appearance. They range from bald to furry, from short and squat to lanky, from pale to dark or even piebald. Despite the surface differences, all the races seem to derive from a common stock. Due to the nature of the world, the environment works changes over time that lead to broad diversity.

In addition to the human races of Axa, explorers often encounter sports and hybrids, where some quirk of nature has twisted the fabric of humanity in nearly unrecognizable ways. Most of the time, such monstrosities are unique and short-lived—but on occasion the mutations will breed true to create nonhuman races.

Magic
The cosmology of Axa is dualistic. The fabric of existence is woven of two main elements: Essence and Spirit. Essence is matter - the stuff of the physical world. Spirit is will and consicousness. The exist in a strange kind of symbiosis. In Spirit seems to require essence; yet the will is capable of affecting and directing matter.

By manipulating essence patterns, a spell caster can change its manifestations. Such physical magic is fairly common, although few have the strength of will to master more than simple and weak effects. Most casters concentrate on just one or two well-defined patterns and techniques, although more dedicated sages and practitioners may eventually broaden their knowledge beyond this.

Spirit magic works by a caster imposing her own will on another spirit. This technique is powerful and spirit magic is greatly feared. The effects can be subtle and hard to detect, especially for the untrained. Whereas it is pretty easy to see what a fire mage is capable of, the powers of a witch or shaman are generally misunderstood and over-estimated in the common imagination.

In addition to human-controlled magic, there are other spirits in the world that show their influence through natural magic. Some spiritual entities have great will but limited awareness or consciousness, or perhaps their awareness manifests itself in ways that humans simply do not understand. The magic created by such spirits is often strange and incomprehensible. Superstition and local cults surrounding these strange effects are common.

Since magic is always an effect of will, there are not common magic items. Magic makes its effect felt through the enhancement of technology, but not through the creation of self-powered devices. Some forms of magic items can be created by binding a spirit to an item and bending its will; but such items are difficult and sometimes dangerous to create.

Technology
Civilizations across Axa vary quite a bit in their technological ability. The highest developments are similar to early Roman technology, but enhanced in various ways with minor magic. Generally, spell casters capable of powerful essence magic are rare enough that they don't waste their talents on mere industry, but in some cultures magical knowledge is widespread enough to ensure that the top workshops have some magical enhancements.

Some cultures have limited development of technology, often due to the stultifying effects of natural magic in their lands. In such cases, spirit magic may be especially highly prized, particularly in a religious setting.

Looks interesting so far. I like magic being strange and misunderstood. Non-human races originating from mutated humans could be a nice twist, but it would have to be a known fact to really matter. Are the people of Axa aware of it? Just how far from human norms can they be changed? Do animal species produce similar offshoots to create "monsters"?

Some more learned folks might be aware, but of course the common folk won't be. Animal species most definitely do suffer the same kind of effects, which can range from giantism or dwarfism, to strange hybrids, or simply twisted versions of normal animals.

I want to create the atmosphere of civilizations surrounded by the unknown, and you never know just what will be over the horizon. Monsters are true monstrosities - mostly one of a kind, or very localized in their extent. For example, in one area there is a serpent spirit called "the Medusa", and in her region there are strange human/snake hybrids, monstrous snakes, and so on.

"Normal" human races would include some things that are somewhat analagous to the usual races, just to keep things a little bit familiar. But there will be other races too. I don't really want race to be that big a factor in stats, so there won't be much adjustment for that, I don't think. Race should be as much about origins and culture, not so much about what will give you a nice bonus on your preferred character archetype.

First thing is that I liked the duality of the magic system. I thought it was fairly different, and I think Essence and Spirit are cool concepts. A couple questions.

It seems its possible to use essence magic to change/alter living creatures (well at least there physical form), so do powerful Essence Mages change there own bodies to be more capable? Of their servants/bodyguards? Would they be able to make monster-soldiers?

Another thing is automated objects. It seems that Golems would be very rare (that is if their objects animated by spirits like I'm guessing). Could an Essence mage transfer his spirit into another object? (similar to a Lichs phylactery). Could you find willing spirits to help you by animating objects? (mind you finding someone/thing who would want to be a magical sowing machine for all eternity might be hard...)

As for all the people, you said that they all come from the same stock. My question is are they all able to interbreed? If so I can imagine there must be some people with very mongrel-like bloodlines out there.

Yes, essence magic (using the Flesh pattern and Transform technique) could be used for enhancement or modification of living things. Making permanent modifications would be more challenging - this would require the highest levels of both the pattern and technique, and knowledge of appropriate rituals. Few casters indeed would reach that level; since most interest in the Flesh patterns concerns healing (that is, Restore technique) it would be a fairly rare specialization, even in those cultures who have attained that level of knowledge.

For the most part, constructs or automatons need to be continually controlled in order to do anything. You could do that, say, by constructing an automaton to perform a difficult or dangerous task, and controlling it from a distance. To have it continually automated, you'd have to bind and control a spirit to do that; the spirit might not be willing and might be difficult to control, so such a thing would be pretty rare.

Tranferring your spirit to another object is definitely possible. That requires specializations from the higher end of a particular spirit magic path, but there are lots of rumors of powerful mages who have done just that. Others claim that, once the link between body and spirit is severed, the mind begins a slow descent into madness.

On the last question, as far as the people of Axa have determined, human races can interbreed without limit. In many cases the races are so geographically disparate that there is no opportunity, and various cultural barriers do exist in other places. But wherever different races come across each other, it seems there will always be half-breeds and mongrels of various sorts.

Jumping ahead of myself a bit, but since the racial ideas have generated a couple of comments, I'll start to sketch out my ideas for some of the races. For reference, here's a link to my map. The map is work in progress - no forests have been added, just the jungle areas. But if you open that in a separate window, it might help make sense of the geographical information below. The image linked will be updated as I make progress on the map.

Short Folk
The short folk are probably the most widespread of the races of Axa. They are scattered across the northern part of the western continent. Generally the men and women of the short folk are physically similar, standing 135-150 cm in height (4ft6 - 5ft), and 60-70 kg in weight (130-150 lb). The overall appearance is of a broad, stocky build with slightly olive-toned skin and dark hair.

Mountain folk
This branch of the short folk have several nations in the high mountains of the north-central part of the western continent. Due to the constraints of their high valleys, the mountain folk have mastered the art of building into and along the terrain rather than simply on top of it. Their cities are generally built of stone, half excavated into the mountains, and half built up atop the excavations. This leads to vertically oriented cities, with many ramps, tunnels, and bridges required to get around. Lowland visitors find the cities difficult to navigate.

The valleys surrounding their cities are largely given over to small farms raising mostly tubers and goats. (Lots of goats.) During the winters, some of these farms are abandoned and the inhabitants move into temporary housing in the cities.

Western short folk
In the western grasslands of the continent, another branch of the short folk have widespread settlements. These short folk have a more agrarian culture, with a few small cities and many small villages surrounded by tilled fields.

Unlike the mountain folk, the western folk have a communal and collaborative political organization. Their villages are largely self-sufficient, except for some central structure that is responsible mostly for coinage and internal security. They generally do not have a standing army, and on the rare occasions that they do need force of arms, the constabulary serves as the organizing core for their militia.

Hill folk
Along the eastern extent of the continent, the terrain is rather hilly and largely forested. The short folk living in this area seem culturally more related to the mountain folk, but the different terrain leads to a vastly different lifestyle.

Hill folk tend to build in a mishmash of styles, including wood frame, wattle and daub, sod houses, and stone buildings that are half built into hillsides. They seem to put a lot of emphasis on blending their settlements into their natural surroundings, so hill folk villages are often rather dispersed and low density. Outsiders sometimes find the settlements hard to recognize for this reason.

I get feelings of dwarves and halflings when I read the descriptions of the various Short Folk, but not enough that I'd accuse them of being dwarves and halflings.  Are you trying to make that suggestion?

I like essence and spirit. Makes me think of Descartes's duality between res extensa and res cogitans (which this might be based on). Is essence actual matter? Or is an energy underlying matter? The mention of patterns and the like makes me think the latter might be the case.
The Hill folk did seem a little bland to me; didn't really invoke the sense of monstrousness i expected from the first post.

@SCMP: Yes, these are my replacements for halflings and dwarves, because what fantasy setting would be complete without them? But they aren't the same, and I wanted to avoid stereotyping their cultures. No ale and beards and massive underground caverns for the mountain folk - they have goat's cheese, and potatoes, and probably some kind of nasty stuff they ferment from one or both. The western folk are agrarian and generally peaceful, similar to halflings, but they aren't as small and would be much more dangerous in a fight, if they chose to be.

@Crippled Crow: The duality is pretty straight Cartesian duality, but I wanted to try and take it seriously as a basis for magic. The essence is the stuff that matter is made of, if you like. Arrange it in a given pattern - you get fire. A different pattern - crystal. Most real things are a mixture of patterns, and much of the training of a mage would be to understand and simplify those patterns to the point where they can be manipulated.

Hill folk are a bit underdeveloped right now - but of course these are just rough sketches. I haven't really got a hook for the hill folk yet - what makes them noticeably different from the mountain folk. I'm kind of aiming at the idea that you could be traveling through the middle of one of their towns, and hardly notice it if they didn't want you to.

Probably the so-called "beast men" will be next, when I have time to redo them.

Hmm, i like the idea of basic patterns. So while there is a specific symmetry/order to fire, ordinary fire would still be an impractical tangle of essence. Mages can then through study find the basic pattern of fire and create "simple" fire since they can easily do the basic shape (although the complicated shape of natural fire would be immensely difficult). I'm not sure whether this was what you really meant, but i like the idea.

[blockquote=SF]Civilizations across Axa vary quite a bit in their technological ability. The highest developments are similar to early Roman technology, but enhanced in various ways with minor magic. Generally, spell casters capable of powerful essence magic are rare enough that they don't waste their talents on mere industry, but in some cultures magical knowledge is widespread enough to ensure that the top workshops have some magical enhancements.

Some cultures have limited development of technology, often due to the stultifying effects of natural magic in their lands. In such cases, spirit magic may be especially highly prized, particularly in a religious setting. [/blockquote]

So is it correct that both magic and the more advanced technology are both held and understood by a very small part of the population?  It sounds like a few people in a decent sized town would be spell casters of even median ability, and that about the same amount of people would understand enough about physics to build a proper aqueduct...is that about right?

Who teaches these?  I get that greek feel that says that so few people know this stuff that onhe good library fire might casue the whole woprld to go a little darker.

@Crippled Crow: You've got it about right. One of the problems with magic is its impermanence: To make a pattern that is permanent, or even very long lasting, you need to create patterns that closely approximate natural ones. Otherwise, the natural order will tend to reassert itself over time.

@Vreeg: The ways that things are learned and taught vary quite a bit from place to place. In a lot of cultures, magic will be part of religious training, and only priests or monks will have much access to it. In others, it might be a guild affair, or a master/pupil type relationship. And there will usually be an assortment of hedge wizards and witches - they may have limited knowledge, but are also outside the local establishment so may also have more freedom.

I think, for example, that in the Hellenic-based area, the level of knowledge is currently at risk because the breakdown of imperial order is threatening the free interchange of ideas. Rival cities don't share as much, and the newly ascendant Oupun are not inclined to rarefied knowledge.

But the Omi is still a strong and organized culture, far around the world, (I'm thinking here of Tang dynasty a la Judge Dee). Here the elite have the opportunity and philosophic inclination to study all manner of arts and sciences. So they might be at less risk from that kind of burning catastrophe.

Okay, a new one. These races are grouped together even though they are separate and unrelated - mostly because the more "normal" races tend to view them all through the same light. Much of this was already discussed in my earlier work, but now I've decided that they should be fully human, albeit greatly modified.

Beast Men
Like all the other races I am talking about here, the beast men races are fully human. They are just sufficiently different that other races see them as being "bestial" or "animalistic" in form. Of course, they don't see themselves that way; each race has its own identity and culture. The three so-called beast races are F'rigan, Kadaan, and Minaran.

F'rigans (fuh-REE-gun)
Long, lanky, and partially be-furred, they are the most human-looking of the beast men. Their males range 180-195 cm (six feet to six foot four inches) and around 100 kg (220 lb). Females tend to be about 5 cm taller but somewhat lighter in build. Their limbs are elongated - especially their feet, which often reach 40 cm (15 in) in length. They stand normally, appearing as a hairy and oddly-proportioned but otherwise normal human form; but when walking or running they rise up on to the front half of their ample feet, like running on tiptoes. There's no disguising this odd gait.

F'rigan's bodies are covered in fine gray fur. The fur is so fine and thin as to be unnoticed at a distance, except as a slightly odd hue to the skin. But their hair extends from the head down across the shoulders to their back and upper arms. Usually this longer hair is similar in color to the body hair, but it becomes grizzled with age. Typically their hair is neatly combed, and sometimes braided and dyed.

F'rigans are quite widespread in the plains and forests of the southwestern section of the eastern continent. (map) They tend to live in smallish but well-organized towns surrounded by farms and orchards. Their political structures tend to be rather small and simple, often organized in small principalities with only a handful of towns in each. In some cases, their towns lie within areas administered by the Mahals or other races.

Edit: I should add that the sobriquet "beast men" does not imply that they are uncivilized. F'rigans wear clothes, build houses, operate workshops, and even mint coinage. Except for a rather tall and narrow architectural style (as befits their own proportions) a F'rigan settlement is indistinguishable from any other comparable village. Although their level of sophistication is not great, it exceeds many other human races.

Sometimes I just can't help myself, and want to write something...

[ic=Report of Cailhan, a Captain of the Island Kingdoms]The squall blew us far south of our goal. To make matters worse, we started to take on water. Nothing to sink us. Just made us bail water constantly or we'd lose our cargo. The men were exhausted.

That's when we came upon a village of the fha Reegin. In those parts, the fha Reegin are respectful, but give no hospitality. I took the boat ashore with Shaermis and Caillan to negotiate some fresh provisions and some tar to repair the leaks. The custom of the fha Reegin is to deal with outsiders through their town leader, called the mai-yore. But instead of being met by a single dignitary, we were greeted by an enthusiastic bunch of children.

No, not the fha Reegin cubs. Actual children, or so they seemed at first. They chattered at us in some rude language that I could only understand one word in three. We waited there until the mai-yore arrived '" it's not smart to enter a fha Reegin village without an escort, and we needed their help. Finally, he (or she, I have a hard time telling them apart) arrived, and we negotiated a suitable trade. The mai-yore seemed more amused than annoyed at the children's antics.

Finally, Caillan told me, 'Cap, I think those urchins want us to go with them.' I asked him why, but he couldn't say. 'Their language is a strange mix of Islander and Mahalish, I can't get everything.' (Caillan thinks he knows things, but he's usually wrong.) I was curious, so we decided to see what the children wanted. With the mai-yore's permission, of course.

They led us down a track on the outskirts of town, singing a discordant song and dancing. The children were a motley group, and now that I was looking, they did seem to have some Mahalish traits. Half-breeds, then. No wonder they looked so odd. But I've seen stranger '" even fha Reegin half-breeds if you can believe it.

Finally we approached an odd house. It looked like a fha Reegin built house, but shorter and wider, like our own. And Mahalish signs festooned the whole front of the house. 'Prayers,' said Caillan, 'Mahalish prayers.' But that didn't make any sense. Who would paint prayers on their house? Maybe a Mahal would, at that. They do have strange customs. The children took us right to the house, then strangely backed off and sat cross-legged on the grass.

It really was a peculiar sight '" this raggle-taggle bunch of half-breed urchins perched in the grass, in front of a run-down fha Reegin hovel decorated like a Moghul's palace. Then he came out. He was ancient, and doddering, but he carried himself with unbent pride and his eyes were clear. Maybe the oldest Mahal I've ever seen. There was an Islander woman with him, nearly as old, and she invited us in to the house. Her manners were awkward, but you could tell she was Island born and true.

If anything, the house was more interesting inside. The floor of the small house was covered with dirty, ragged silk rugs of the Mahalish style. Thick curtains draped the walls, and along the back half a dozen brass items filled a small shelf. (Caillan says they are funeral urns with the remains of the Mahal's ancestors.) 'Are they all yours?' I asked, gesturing at the round dozen kids outside.

'They are,' answered the Mahal, in heavily accented Islander words.[/ic]