The Overture

[Seraph]

I loved the name The Urge. Very creative, and it seems almost like a non-creature.  The Urge sounds more like unbottled emotion and, well, urges.  Living thought.  The fact that this setting's gods are known as demiurges is fantastic.  From the Urge, the Demiurges.  I love it.
Like many others, I find the premise of 'Time began a year ago' very interesting.  Everything fits in, and the Thinkers being 'born' from the Urge's thoughts is a great concept.  The one thing I raised my eyebrow at was children being born in the first summer.  Unless children grow in the womb considerably more quickly than humans do, this doesn't work.  There's just no time for pregnancy.  
The fact that races are customizable sounds good because it's both incredibly simple and incredibly complex.  Since everyone is different it eliminates all notions of race, meaning less work for you, and that you do not fall into the habit that some DM's (myself included) do of creating a nation of this race and a nation of that.  There is no long boring list of races, everyone is different and thus 'Race' is a very concise entry.
 [blockquote=Nemeses]Whenever a Thinker is born or generated, its nemesis soon follows. Even the demiurges have nemeses. We do not know why. Perhaps it is a reflection of the imperfect nature of all thinkers before the lost purity of the Urge. Perhaps it is an aftereffect of the Urge's habit of debating with Itself.
A Thinker and its nemesis might emerge on entirely different continents, but they are connected as long as they both live. Even though they may never meet, each lives as a counterpoint to the other's argument. Nemeses are always of opposite alignments, and a change of alignment in one will be mirrored in the other. Nemeses always resemble each other, but if one has a gender, then the other will have the opposite gender. A male nemesis is called an animus, and a female nemesis is called an anima. As yet, no animus and anima have ever had a child together (This would most likely occur with two true neutral nemeses, though even in this case the personal obstacles would be nigh-insurmountable.)
[/blockquote]
I LOVE THIS!!! The implications of the word 'nemesis' already give you the flavor.  An unbeatable opponent.  What is more undefeatable to you than you?  I also love that they are the Thinker's complete opposite.  Like a mirror.  If I were you, I would make sure to continue the Mirror Motif.  I also love that the male is called the Animus and the female the Anima.  Very Jungian of you.  I love this.  This is probably my favorite part.  It makes me happy inside.  Wow.  I feel like a girl.  On this note though, you said that many Thinkers are androgynous.  Would a genderless Thinker engender a genderless Nemesis in the same way that an Anima and Animus would be assumed to yield two true neutral nemesis children?  Oh, and did I mention I love this?

[Stargate525]

This is a great setting. I mirror everything the previous two posters have said.

One question though, are all of the continents already formed, or do the thoughts and desires of the first Thinkers there determine the landscape?

[Bill Volk]

Thanks, guys! Your reviews have really pointed out the holes I've overlooked and given me some work to do. First, answers to the easier questions:

Sirius:
If this makes sense, the demiurges are pieces of the Urge's self, Its awareness and point of view, as opposed to the things It felt or thought about.
Source walls are made of real matter, and I'm going to devote a later post to them. They fit in with how wizards are going to work. Source wall shards are kind of like arcane writings that can be copied into a wizard's repertoire.
A Thinker doesn't take damage or die if its nemesis does the same. If a Thinker dies, its nemesis is simply freed. Aside from the mirroring of alignment, there are no game rules for the connection between nemeses.
The Monster class is the big thing I still have to work on. It's going to work like a base class, not like a race with a level adjustment. In other words, the Monster will have twenty levels, a BAB, base saves, and all that. Its perks will include a few extra race points to spend, as well as ability score bonuses and options for big, shiny things like wings at later levels.

Speaking of, does anyone know of a good template for posting base classes on this forum?

Seraphine_Harmonium:
I imagined that because the Thinkers have such varied anatomies, a few of them have super-fast gestation periods. I'm sure a few thinkers reproduce like flies, laying a ton of fast-growing eggs and moving on. Maybe there are some genderless Thinkers that reproduce through binary fission!
Yep, a genderless Thinker would have a genderless nemesis. And nobody in the setting knows what the children of an animus and his anima would be like. Maybe there'd be a set of true neutral twins, maybe the child would have no nemesis and embody the resolution of its parents' conflict of ideas, maybe it would be so at peace with the world that it would just sit there and do nothing forever, maybe it would get sucked to another plane and become its own Urge, or maybe something even stranger would happen. The whole idea is so trippy that I think I'd like to leave it to the DMs to judge on a case-by-case basis. That way the players are always surprised.

Stargate525:
In this setting, nothing is really "already formed." It's not even set in stone that Thinkers have to grow old and die yet. So, it follows that a continent can change its nature if its inhabitants do the same.

Once again, thanks for everything, and stay tuned for more!

[XXsiriusXX]

Thanks, guys! Your reviews have really pointed out the holes I've overlooked and given me some work to do. First, answers to the easier questions:

Sirius:
If this makes sense, the demiurges are pieces of the Urge's self, Its awareness and point of view, as opposed to the things It felt or thought about.
Source walls are made of real matter, and I'm going to devote a later post to them. They fit in with how wizards are going to work. Source wall shards are kind of like arcane writings that can be copied into a wizard's repertoire.
A Thinker doesn't take damage or die if its nemesis does the same. If a Thinker dies, its nemesis is simply freed. Aside from the mirroring of alignment, there are no game rules for the connection between nemeses.
The Monster class is the big thing I still have to work on. It's going to work like a base class, not like a race with a level adjustment. In other words, the Monster will have twenty levels, a BAB, base saves, and all that. Its perks will include a few extra race points to spend, as well as ability score bonuses and options for big, shiny things like wings at later levels.

I don't know if you have ever heard of it, but wizards released a book called savage species back for D&D 3.0. It is very similar to what you are talking about doing for you monster races and I think it might help you out.

[Bill Volk]

Ah, yes. I have Savage Species (and Libris Mortis,) and they've given me tips on power balance, but I don't like the way the "monster classes" dole out stuff like feats and hit dice so irregularly. Players can use these if they want, but I want to make a class that works like all the others and continues the "make your own race" vibe.