The Cadaverous Earth

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Cool idea!  I'll definitely expand on the mazeborn in the Crepuscle post itself (when I get around to it).  But I love the vocal cord thing.

"Some" is meant to emphasize the age (near-forgottenness) of the language.  You may be right that it undermines the dread, but I want it to be vague rather than precise, as all old things tend to be in the setting - poorly understood and remembered piecemeal, if at all.  There are plenty of other dreadful moments, so I'm not too worried about sacrificing one to advance part of the atmosphere that isn't explicitly tied to the pervasive doom and gloom.

Hope is tricky to pin down.  People live and might attain a measure of happiness; but the world itself is bleak and often dreadful, greatly taxing those who remain optimistic.  Part of the idea is that the world is more repulsive to us than it is to those within it - they don't think twice about undead shuffling through the streets, for example.

The setting definitely does channel Mieville a lot, and I'm trying to avoid outright nihilism.  I want to potentially even hint at an "out of the ashes" arc to the world, though I haven't done much with that yet.

Thanks very much for the review, Light Dragon, and welcome to the boards!  I'm digesting your (fascinating) setting already...

Have a review badge, if you like: .[/ooc]

[LD]

Ok. Good luck. I'm looking forward to the expansion of the ideas.
 
I miswrote one thing in my past Reply; "I may not adventure in this world, but I would be tempted to read a story set within it." and with that comment being said, I have just completed reading several of your tales.

The opening tale is remarkably executed, because it reads like your table of contents. It moves first though the cities, and the countries, the introduces the classes and the races and the monsters in a flavorful fashion.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=SP]Melmoth the Wanderer

Patron god of travelers, vagabonds, peddlers and other merchants, sailors, aeronauts, and kindred wanderers of every stripe, Melmoth has few formal temples apart from small roadside altars and shrines at the gates of the Twilight Cities. Nonetheless he is a popular deity amongst those who spend any time traveling the vast and lawless wastes of the Cadaverous Earth. Melmoth is a solitary and melancholy figure usually depicted as a robed man whose face is obscured by a cowl. He is sometimes conflated with Kain, a legendary murderer marked by some long-forgotten elder power to forever wander the earth, though this connection is extremely archaic. Some iconography of the deity depict him with two faces or with an oroborus ring.

Melmoth counts roads, winds, waves, doorways, circularity, stories, journeys, error, order and chaos-in-order, gnosis, eternity, rebirth, and the ecstatic sensation of pure wanderlust as part of his portfolio. Those who believe in the Wanderer mutter prayers to him before setting out on a journey or when they arrive at a destination, leave coins at wayside shrines, and thank the deity if they evade trouble on the road. He is invoked by those who are lost or unsure, who are physically or metaphysically confused. Melmoth is opposed to concepts of mortality, finality, eschatology, or true purpose.

Particularly devout worshipers of Melmoth often claim to have met the god passing down the roadside. They report an enigmatic encounter in which all feelings of burden are lightened and their sense of worry is resolved. The see the purity of the road, an expression of a sublimely meaningless existential pattern, a grand cycle in which birth and death are mere punctuation marks, illusory moments of end or beginning on an unending series of paths.[/blockquote]
I get the feeling that the priesthood is also nomadic and unsettled, and that their spellcraft and holy texts might reflect this bent.
I can also see Melmoth as being more a need-based, polytheistic worship, as opposed to a jealous 'worship me above all others' type.  Though the bits of philosophy strengthen it a bit, as does the large-scale chaos and finding chaos in order.  

[Steerpike]

[ooc]That would make a lot of sense.  I should ass some more about priesthoods... thanks, Vreeg![/ooc]

[LD]

Hmm.. I was reading over
Baranauskas, specificially this part

Red sandstone is a common material for these older buildings, and many bear the remnants of frescoes or murals, now chipped and mutilated. A layer of dust and grime adheres to the walls and the winding stone streets.

Also in Barrow Scrub is an entrance to the subterranean city of Riqius-Erebu, requiring the would-be scavenger to navigate a maze of caves and hewn corridors in the bowels of the Chelicerae Mountains before reaching the chthonic maze that was once the capitol of the cestoid Imperium.[/quote] Seem to come the closest to the idea of "dungeons."

Best,
~LD

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Quite far down in the thread are some adventure outlines, some of which include dungeons (a cavern system, a ruin, an ancient necropolis...).  But I will definitely come up with more.  Any ideas?[/ooc]

[LD]

Yes! I read the first adventure (well the first 1-4) and I enjoyed it greatly. But as another commentator stated, while those are very exciting, it might be nice to also have a few short "adventure hooks."

I'm not sure this fits exactly (I may be mixing a few of your themes), but here's an idea:

Named for the huge ivory obelisk at its center in the district of Per-Bashti, the Talon is a medium-sized island noted for its glassworks and its flea-bitten residential district of Skullford. The obelisk was probably once the tusk or claw of a great beast, though the rest of the creature is absent; carved into its white bulk are numerous winding corridors and chambers.

Adventure Hooks
- The Deadman is awakening. Long ago, a being of malevolent hate was imprisoned within the obelisk. But recently, scratching and digging by countless Hagmen crawlers, looters, indigents, and squatters have disturbed the Hexmagic that kept the Deadman imprisoned. Day by day, parts of the deadman detach from where they had been sealed within the Obelisk, causing the structure to shake.

Mages of the city have tried to bind the Obelisk together with curative spells; Engineers have tried to support the building, but every day it leans more and more. Calls have gone out to evacuate the building, but there are many who will not leave.

Will you discover the horrid secret of the Obelisk's leaning before the Deadman escapes and destroys the city? You may find hints scrawled on the Obelisk's ivory walls, written in long-dead languages; you may hear children sing of the old fairy-tales, or encounter a drunken seer with the foresight. Once the dread is discovered, the Deadman must be stopped. Will a ritual end his emergence, or will the cicada-sleeping Deadman burst forth and bring with him nightmare.

---
Shoot. Ideally that would have been only one paragraph. Maybe you get the idea though?

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Sweeeet![/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

The Shatters

... The huge automata called the Behemoths slumber in the Shatters, their limbs broken, immensely prolix clockwork brains inert. ... Generations of scavengers have picked several clean, leaving only huge steel skeletons; others are more intact....

Might just be me, but these would make for some cool alternative dungeons as well. And then of course there is Gloam-Tor which at least fills the loot criteria (if you can find it).

EDIT: question, btw, what races are considered available to players?

[Superfluous Crow]

In addition to my previous questions, i have two more:
1) Is the Suppuration directly inspired by the Scar from the novel of the same name?
2) Have you thought about expanding the world beyond the borders set on your map? Or is the world just completely broken aside from the Twilight Cities?

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I would leave the races available up to the GM's personal preferences.  If a player thought he could do justice to a cestoid or a leechkin and make that character individual and unique then I'd say go for it.

I was generally envisioning humans, ghilan, shades, hagmen, lilix, jatayi, naghini, mantids, and zerda as the central "playable" races.  High-powered campaigns might have gorgon, zerher, and demonic PCs, and particularly dark, mature games of a certain sort might have eidolon PCs.

The Suppuration is definitely inspired largely from the Scar, but also the Hellmouth in Buffy and the "Thinnies" of The Dark Tower.

There could be a world beyond the Twilight Cities, but its largely unknown.  Some despairing individuals have been known to set out in great ships across the Fevered Ocean in hopes of finding a better world.  Few if any have ventured beyond the Suppuration - I haven't thought much about that region much.  Perhaps an incredibly alien civilization, non-human and incomprehensible... the focus is definitely on the seven last cities.

Have a review badge, if you'd like one, by the way, if I haven't offered you one already: [/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

You haven't so thank you :)
Does the map and the detailed locations stretch largely from pole to pole since you only comment on the western and eastern possibilites of an expanded universe? And although you obviously have planes are any of them traversable (in theory)? The tone of the setting would probably be better off if you can't travel planes, but have you thought about it?
And Naghini as playable??

[LD]

...I'm certain I speak for all when I request that we're eagerly awaiting another installment! :)

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Naghini would, I think, be really fun to play.  Challenging, but fascinating... almost like playing two characters, or a character with multiple personalities.

Planar travel would be super hazardous. The "planes" of CE, at least thusfar explored, are the "Hell-dimensions."  These other dimensions are not Hellish in the same way that Christian cosmology has a Hell, or even the DnD cosmology; they are simply other planes that the inhabitants have branded Hells (and their inhabitants demons, which is just a different word for "otherworlder" or "extraplanar creature" in this setting).   That said, it might be possible to breach the membranes between worlds in a two-way fashion and explore some of a Hell-dimension - it just wouldn't be advisable, and would probably be quite difficult.

The northern reaches of the setting have yet to be detailed but there are going to be arctic-themed creatures, barbarians, and an eldritch aurora (the Skyscar).  The southern portions are mostly oceans and include the Bluebottle Archipelago where the naghini hail from.  Perhaps I'll think up some other large islands/small continents for these southern reaches.

It's term paper season so updates are slowish.  I'm currently 2000 words into the Skein adventure outlines, though, and have some unfinished material on Crepuscle and Somnambulon... hopefully I'll find time to do at least a mid-sized update soon.  Good to know people aren't tired of the setting![/ooc]

[LordVreeg]

Not tiring.  Very much enjoying it.

I have a similar situation with the inhabitants of Celtricia calling any outside a demon,