The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Llum... magic ... is intrinsically linked to a persons soul.

So is anybody capable of becoming a mage? or does it require some sort of special soul?

Quote from: LlumAdopted early on by a ibis-headed deity, Suria, the tribe continued to live calmly.[/blockquote]
 This sounds like a great story.  Does this happen often?  

Quote from: Llum... magic ... is intrinsically linked to a persons soul.

Any sentient living being can use magic. Sentience is the only thing required.

Are the gods known universally or are some particular to regions or tribes?

Quote from: TybaltAre the gods known universally or are some particular to regions or tribes?

Gods tend to be known regionally, unless they're worshipped by someone of great reknown or infamy. So a village would know its God, most likely a lot of the local gods that are worshipped by close villages, maybe a God or two from large towns or crossroads nearby.

The most famous god is probably Dominii, due to the huge debacle that was his attempt at conquering the world a few hundred years ago, he also has a tribe and sprawling temple complex named after him.

The main thing to remember is that there are a lot of Gods, they seem to be comming out of the woodwork. They all pick up a local group of sentients and try to get them to conquer the world, this is somewhat successful sometimes, but more often then not it isn't.

Westhold

Westhold is set in the western entrance of the largest mountain pass on the continent. The city is set into the cliffside of a wide gorge with smaller buildings being built up the walls to meet the higher buildings. The most out of place aspect of Westhold is its population, it is the largest, of only three, fully multi-racial cities.

Many humans live in Westhold, it was founded by a small clan of traders as a resting stop in the east-west caravan route. The Rex send missionaries to convert the citizens, the Zwei send young men to seek their manhood and the infamous giant-eaters are sometimes seen passing through.

Exiled Neanderthals from nearly all the clans and groups can be found gathering in Westhold, they offer services as hunters, trackers and guides in the mountains. All that is left of the Frest Coparl keep Westhold as their main base of operation and traders from all the other Coparl groups can be found passing through.

Easthold

Smaller and seedier then its western sister-city, Easthold is the same as Westhold but built into the east end of the mountain pass. Full of marshfolk looking for a better life, crime is rampant in the shanty towns and south-face. Only the north-face, full of merchant houses, inns and constabulary are relatively crime free.

Due to the proximity of the marsh, many aquatic humans and neanderthals can be found nearby, offering to service as guides, shamans, prophets and soothsayers to those entering the marsh.

Sunken Shade

A massive basalt temple, built in a roughly tier pyramid can be found in the darkest heart of the swamps. Over the last 500 years the temple has slowly been sinking into the watery ground, now the only entrance is the former roof dais that formerly towered above the tree tops.

Sparsely inhabited, Sunken Shade is said to be home to the elusive Sanban, forgotten demi-god of black flames and wielder of Somber an  ensorceled obsidian great sword. For those willing to risk life and limb the temple is home to great caches of magical items that were created by a forgotten empire. Shatter proof obsidian weapons, cursed fetishes, shadow-bending cloth and much more are hidden away in the temple, under the watchful eye of an aging shadow cult and things that stalk the shadows.

Obsidian weapons are often found in the marsh, scattered all over the eastern half of the continent, some say they are the remains of an impossibly large battle, or many smaller battles. The weapons are all incredibly sharp, shatter proof and ensorceled.

I am definitely enjoying the imagery brought forth by this setting. I think it would be a great place for low-level gaming, and I would expect to see animals and "dire animals" (as in big prehistoric varieties) being the most populous monsters. Something I foresee as a great first adventure would be a party having to kill a large animal to help feed their tribe through the winter.

I would like to know if you intend to use this setting for gaming or for story telling. If you want to use it for gaming, what system are you looking at? Also, if it is going to be for gaming, I think you need more racial options.

Now, that doesn't mean you need to make more races, but I do think each of the tribes could have different statistics to allow for player variety. "Legend of the Five Rings" has different stats for each of the 7 clans, so even though everyone is human there are effectively 7 races. That's just an example.

As for your deities, are they all physical, or are they spiritual?

Quote from: Kapn XeviatI would like to know if you intend to use this setting for gaming or for story telling. If you want to use it for gaming, what system are you looking at? Also, if it is going to be for gaming, I think you need more racial options.

Now, that doesn't mean you need to make more races, but I do think each of the tribes could have different statistics to allow for player variety. "Legend of the Five Rings" has different stats for each of the 7 clans, so even though everyone is human there are effectively 7 races. That's just an example.

As for your deities, are they all physical, or are they spiritual?
[/quote]

The deities are essentually spiritual (being made from magic), but they can take physical form if they want to.

Frest Coparl

The Frest are a sub-race of coparl that are nearly extinct. Physically they are much larger then the average coparl. Thicker musculature, longer arms, longer torso, thicker bones. The Frest are also as a rule more aggressive then normal coparl. As a group they were territorial and violent. However they weren't bloodthirsty, happy to leave once they had proven to be superior in their eyes, they had no need to kill, just win.

Culturally the Frest had three small tribes that migrated near the coast. The first tribe was wiped out by the Rex after several confrontations. The second tribe was reduced to a couple families of survivors. The third tribe was similarly devastated, with roughly a half dozen families surviving. After their destruction most Frest became nomadic wanderers and mercenaries, fighting for food sometimes turning to banditry.

The Frest who live today are usually half-blooded with normal coparl. These inherit the larger frest body plan but do not suffer from the agressive territorial drive of their pureblood relatives, most of the time.

Forge Gods and Forge Demi-gods
Forge Gods are a rare breed, amongst the sentient magics that hold titles of divinity few concern themselves with things other then metaphysical squabbles and the hoarding of souls. A scant few gain an interest in the material world, how it works, what drives it. These usually become Forge Gods, who's knowledge of the material world is immense.

Forge Demi-gods are people of unparalleled genius, determination and focus. They're blessed by the Forge Gods from birth to strive forever to advance their understanding of the cosmos. Technology has no secrets from them; in every leaf caught in the wind they see the laws of gravity, fluid dynamics and so much more.

Kedge's Last Laugh

Kedge was an obscure godling, a barely sentient floatsam of magical. By mortal standards it was mad, it wanted to rid the earth of life not understanding that magic is life. When the first sentient mortals awoke their effect on magic and the gods was too much. They broke what little there was of Kedge's sanity and he began to consume all the life. It was not long before the other gods began to oppose him, but bloated on the life he had absorbed they were only able to slow down his ravenous march across the world.

The Forge God had gathered and tried to create a non-magical way to defeat Kedge. They blessed thirteen mortals with their knowledge. Soon after was an explosion of technology where the newly minted Forge Demi-Gods began to wage war on Kedge. Their weapons were nearly as damaging as Kedge's hunger to the world. Eventually Kedge managed to trap or slay all but three of the demi-gods, but it was too late. Kedge had been mortally wounded, something none of the Gods had forseen and while he was still vital because of his consumed life force he knew he would eventually expire. Dealing lethal blows to two of the surviving Forge Demi-gods he set about his final act.

Bitter with defeat he reshaped the entire earth, creating a continent poor in raw materials so the Forge Gods and their chosen could never achieve their power he then move all the sentient life to this continent. To make his imposed exile last forever he finally sank to the bottom of the worlds ocean's and released all the life energy he had gathered.

Now the oceans are near-impassable due to the raw primal life-forms that hunt the waters, only those of incredible power and luck could escape to more resource rich continents. While not as perfect a prison as Kedge had envisioned, the rare demi-god has escaped it has largely suceeded. Technology is largely left untouched.

Love the Forge Gods, and where they have grown to.  The Forge Demi Gods are especially interesting, as your description reeks of an amorality, so I expect to see their brilliance running some interesting cultures.

Dolish Farmers

Deep in the south-west, a weeks journey south from the Forest, are the various holdings of the Dolish people. Essentially human the Dolish have adapted uniquely to their area with its myriad dangers.

Ork'acle and the Bond

Each Dolish community is headed by an Ork'acle, sometimes translated as gods-bond or kings-bond. To further explain this the Dolish Bond has to be explained as well. The Bond is a type of semi-ritual magic invented or given to the Dolish people, what it does is allow them to take on a "bond" wich invigorates certain traits while lessening others. While there are as many as a dozen different bonds, there are some that are more common then others. A final thing to note is not everyone takes on a "bond".

The farm-bond is the most common of the "bonds". This gives a person greater muscle mass, size, strength, stamina and a few other minor benefits. It comes at a cost, farm-bonds must sleep 10 hours a day, they tend to fall into a stupor every 14 or so hours of wakefullness. They think slower, they are no less intelligent, but their thoughts move as if in molassses.

The ranger-bond is the most infamous of the bonds. The most common to be seen by outsiders (i.e the few coparl tribes that wander close enough, and the odd Dominii missionary) the ranger-bond are the hunters, trackers and law enforcement of the Dolish people. The bond gives them enhanced senses, greater agility, speed and removes their need to sleep. The cost however are a shortened life-span, every four score days in bond is like living a year and a half without the bond, as well as reduced resistence to disease and several dietary restrictions.

The Ork'acle, known as the gods-bond or kings-bond, is the leader of any particular Dolish community. The bond allows them to communicate with their Dol, their god, gives them the ability to read emotions and gives them uncanny intuition. The Ork'acle can communicate between themselves by telepathy over great distance.

The greatest danger facing the Dolish people is a small parasite. In part of its life-cycle it must live inside various creatures, and getting this to happen it has the ability to influence their behaviour once infected. Sometimes a large breed of honey-badger that lives on the plains become infected. When they do they enter a berzerk state that can only end on their death, the rampages by these beasts are legendary, so much so that Plainswalker coparl have legends about this area of the world and tend to avoid it. Another aspect is that the parasite can also infect humans, while it does not cause a berzerk state it is a slow poison.

In humans the parasite is very infectious, and if caught unaware can easily wipe out a while community with its wasting toxin.

Dolish horses are a rare breed, the only horses on the continent. Breed to be long of limb, fleet of foot and of great stamina. They are prized all across the west.

I've been meaning to get around to giving you some feedback for some time (as you know).  As the bronze age is especially interesting to me, why not start here?

Souls

I like the animism that's at the heart of your "soul system" - everything's got 'em, or at least everything that lives.  It goes well with the bronze-age theme, though I do wonder what souls "do" for things like plants and animals if they are useless without sentience (or are plants/fungi/etc. sentient on some basic level?).  Can plants and fungi choose where to go when they die?  If not, it's hard to see what purpose they serve, since you can't do anything with souls (as you say, they can't be influenced by magic).

In general, I like the framework you've constructed here - gods, the big creatures of magic competing over and gambling for little bits of magic (souls) - but I do question the "immutability of souls."  If souls can't be touched by magic (or anything else), can people be raised from the dead?  Are there ways to animate dead/golems/whatever, since souls can't be used for this?  What I'm getting at is basically utility to the players.  Insofar as this setting will actually be used (and I know not all settings are designed for that - my own included), you might want to make the nature of religion and magic more useful to characters.  As it stands, knowledge of how souls work and what they are is interesting but useless, because there's nothing you can do with them until you die and get to decide where yours goes.

That's another interesting question - if you don't remember anything when your soul is returned to a new body (assuming you make that choice), how does anyone know that you really can be reincarnated?  Have the gods told them?  If I were a god in the Bronze Setting, I might tell people that reincarnation is a bunch of lies just so they'd embrace my faith and give their soul to me (and who could contradict me, since nobody actually remembers being reincarnated).  Maybe occasionally, someone does return with some or all of their memories? (At least, that's something I've used before to justify why everyone is sure reincarnation is real.  But there are lots of other ways to approach the issue, I'm sure).

Gods

Let me first say that the idea of gods only recently taking interest in mortals is something I haven't seen very often, and I think it's a really great idea.  It makes sense that the fancies of the gods would only be tickled by actual thinking creatures (though presumably, a soul is a soul - were they gathering mortal souls before that point and just didn't care much about the beings those souls came from?).

This raises the tantalizing question of who created mortals, since the gods apparently didn't (at least, the gods we know about).  There is a definite evolutionary vibe here, so my assumption is that the gods created the universe but the evolution of man/neanderthal/coparl was an unexpected consequence, like when you notice something odd growing in your petri dish.  But presumably, mortals on this world wouldn't remember that far back - do they all know for a fact that the gods didn't create them?  What are their own tales and legends of their creation?

Or is this all something you're planning to leave as a mystery? :)

Rex Tribe

A mix of ancient Egypt and Imperial Rome seems to be the flavor here.  Personally, I really like the bear-warriors because they are evocative of norse berserkers (who sometimes were described as only wearing bear/wolf skins into battle and acquiring the strength or characteristics of those animals).  It does bring up the question of how influential gods can be in the world - they can't change the soul, but they can affect the body to a significant degree.

As a former politics student, I may be alone in this, but I want to hear about how exactly the leadership of the Rex Empire functions.  The priesthood leads, but do they lead through an emperor or other ruler (it's sort of implied that the House of Myr fills this post)?  "Theocracy" can take a lot of different forms, so I'm interested in seeing how it works here.

Creatures

I don't have a lot to say on this yet, since we only have glimpses of your wilflife, but I would like to hear more about your creatures - domesticated sloths, wolf-snakes (!), and jaeger-eels(!!).

Kedge

So there's an actual explanation for why this is a bronze setting - it's not that they don't have technological knowledge (presumably the forge gods and their chosen provide this), but they lack the resources to implement it fully.  One presumes, then, that technology would expand in other ways - do they have things like windmills, clocks, advanced architecture, and other technologies that don't require iron or special resources?  In other words, are we to take "bronze age" literally (i.e., they have no iron) or more figuratively (i.e., their level of technology and sophistication is roughly on par with Earth's bronze age societies)?  Previously it had seemed more of the latter, but your mention of the Forge demi-gods (and gravity, fluid dynamics, etc.) makes me think more of the former.

Dolish

How do people go about choosing these bonds - is it like a spell they cast, or magic they allow to be done to them by professionals, or something they pray for?

How are horses used?  To me, "bronze age" implies chariots, but maybe they know horseback riding by now?

Quote from: Polycarp!Dolish

How do people go about choosing these bonds - is it like a spell they cast, or magic they allow to be done to them by professionals, or something they pray for?

How are horses used? To me, "bronze age" implies chariots, but maybe they know horseback riding by now?

Ork'acle[/i] bond is usually taken in the last decade or so of life by an elder, the Farm bond are usually taken by younger people for a couple years, sometimes people stick to it for their whole lives.

The Ranger bond is different, it is usually hereditary and most don't take it until they've have at least two or three children. Two other common cases occur, people often take on a "tour of duty" as a ranger bond to serve as a form of pennance. Finally, those who've lost their families often take the ranger bond so they can enjoy the solitude and distance that comes with it.

Quote from: Polycarp!In general, I like the framework you've constructed here - gods, the big creatures of magic competing over and gambling for little bits of magic (souls) - but I do question the "immutability of souls." If souls can't be touched by magic (or anything else), can people be raised from the dead? Are there ways to animate dead/golems/whatever, since souls can't be used for this? What I'm getting at is basically utility to the players. Insofar as this setting will actually be used (and I know not all settings are designed for that - my own included), you might want to make the nature of religion and magic more useful to characters. As it stands, knowledge of how souls work and what they are is interesting but useless, because there's nothing you can do with them until you die and get to decide where yours goes.

Let me first say that the idea of gods only recently taking interest in mortals is something I haven't seen very often, and I think it's a really great idea. It makes sense that the fancies of the gods would only be tickled by actual thinking creatures (though presumably, a soul is a soul - were they gathering mortal souls before that point and just didn't care much about the beings those souls came from?).[/quote]
This raises the tantalizing question of who created mortals, since the gods apparently didn't (at least, the gods we know about). There is a definite evolutionary vibe here, so my assumption is that the gods created the universe but the evolution of man/neanderthal/coparl was an unexpected consequence, like when you notice something odd growing in your petri dish. But presumably, mortals on this world wouldn't remember that far back - do they all know for a fact that the gods didn't create them? What are their own tales and legends of their creation?

Or is this all something you're planning to leave as a mystery? [/quote]

Evolutionary vibe indeed ~~

But who says that the gods created the universe? Maybe they evolved from raw magic? Maybe they didn't? Who would know? (because if even the gods don't know... whats left?)

Now, creation legends vary quite a bit. Arcturus tells people they grew from a spike that he planted in the earth. Most coparl creation myths deal with some kind of fixed creature (shrubs usually, but in a couple cases trees and in once case a pond of algae). Neanderthals actually are kinda guessing they've evolved (because they're similarities with humand and the sub-species thing) as well as they're experience with breeding/domesticating animals.

Quote from: Polycarp!As a former politics student, I may be alone in this, but I want to hear about how exactly the leadership of the Rex Empire functions.  The priesthood leads, but do they lead through an emperor or other ruler (it's sort of implied that the House of Myr fills this post)?  "Theocracy" can take a lot of different forms, so I'm interested in seeing how it works here.

How are horses used?  To me, "bronze age" implies chariots, but maybe they know horseback riding by now?
[/quote]

Horses are used to pull chariots by the Rex Empire, and are sometimes ridden bareback. The Dolish use them as pack animals, but mainly trade them. The bonds replace the need for horses most of the time.