Arga discussion thread.

[Ghostman]

Oh this leads to another interesting question: how do they tell other machines apart from the Dura, and would they recognize difference between Dura and other living beings?

They must have been built with some kind of friend vs foe detection system to be able to serve their original purpose, that's just logical. But if they are completely mindless now, won't they just attack each other at random and reduce their own numbers? How did they come to possess intelligence to begin with? With artificial brains? Or captive spirits bound to their shells? By unknown magics long forgotten?

[O Senhor Leetz]

Oh this leads to another interesting question: how do they tell other machines apart from the Dura, and would they recognize difference between Dura and other living beings?

They must have been built with some kind of friend vs foe detection system to be able to serve their original purpose, that's just logical. But if they are completely mindless now, won't they just attack each other at random and reduce their own numbers? How did they come to possess intelligence to begin with? With artificial brains? Or captive spirits bound to their shells? By unknown magics long forgotten?

haha, well, I haven't thought that far, and frankly it's not really of key importance to the setting, so I'm just going with the answer: "Just Because." Personally, I like to leave things unexplained, as I feel it adds mystery to the setting that a scholarly explanation doesn't.

what is known though, is that the Machines are not unlike golems. They were created with the magic of Thaerma (one of the 4 magics of Arga).

[Drizztrocks]

This sounds so awesome. You did a really good job with making a dwarf like race unique. I wonder though, how do the Dura even move without any sleep? Its just not realistic.

[O Senhor Leetz]

[ic=The Seven Wonders of Arga]
The Vault - At the northernmost end of the world sits the Vault. Build by the 3rd Age warlock Kelos, the Vault is both tomb and prison, archive and dungeon. It is the proving ground and tomb for many would-be adventurers and explorers. Those that emerge from the labyrinthine halls, vast chambers, and foul traps of the tomb come laden with treasures and trinkets. Those that do not emerge are never seen again.

The Giant of Agralax - A towering colossus of tarnished bronze and copper, the Giant of Agralax looms over the Savage Sea from it's high island post. The Giant is roughly humanoid, four arms sprout from it's torso. No one is sure who, or what, built the Giant, or even when it was erected. Many speculate is from the ancient 2nd Age, and was forged by the hands of the Half-Gods themselves. Other claim it was built by a long dead race, lost to the ravages of time. There are rumors whispered that one can actually enter inside the Giant, but no one sees to able to find a way in.

The Giant of Agralax

The Watcher - Where the waters from the Red-Stained and the Narrow Seas meet sits the Watcher. A great stone statue of a winged beast, the Watcher is said to be the petrified remains of a great sea-beast that would judge the worth of mortals upon the waves. Even today, sailors take the longer route around the Watcher, as they believe that to look upon it is to bring terrible and bad luck upon oneself and ship. Recently, a small village has grown around the foot of the statue, with the inhabitants worshiping it as their deity.

The Watcher

Ugo's Beacon - The famed warrior-king Ugo the Ironheart built this great lighthouse during his 5th Age reign of the then-young city of Tezzeret. Visible from twenty milas in all directions, the ever-burning lamp atop the Beacon has kept the Sigil Straights safe for the better of two full Ages.

Hydrath's Prison - At the height of the 2nd Age, when the half-gods ruled the lands of Arga, the foul and terrible sea-wyrm Hydrath ruled the waters of Arga with bloodlust and cruelty. With the aid of magics long-forgotten, the half-gods and mortals built a vast, ever-changing prison of tunnels and corridors in which they captured the sea-wyrm, where he has been imprisoned ever since. The water-filled tunnels are large enough to allow six ships to sail abreast, and it is not unheard of for adventurers or cultists of Hydrath to enter the maze in search for treasure, power, or worse.

Hydrath's Prison

Raza's Tomb - Perhaps the most ancient of all the Wonder, the tomb of the half-god Raza sits precariously on cliffs that have not weathered the passing of time as well as his tomb. The tomb is sealed by a giant door of strange metal that seems to open in random increments. At one point for a decade it opened every summer solstice, and for the entire 5th Age it never opened at all. Legends say that Raza's Tomb holds richest and artifacts greater than that of the Vault, which is enough to bring explorers from across Arga, all seeking a way insinde.

The Spires - Rising like an ebon crown from the pale wastes of the Dustlands, the Spires are thirteen obsidian pillars that rise more than six-hundred feet into the dry sky. The Spires seem to be immune to the ravages of the desert, and the absolutely hum with eldritch and bizarre magical energies. Many mages, sages, and sorcerers attempt to cross the deadly Dustlands to study the Spires, but few ever make it there, let alone survive the wastes.
[/ic]

[O Senhor Leetz]

This sounds so awesome. You did a really good job with making a dwarf like race unique. I wonder though, how do the Dura even move without any sleep? Its just not realistic.

haha, well elves don't sleep in DnD. but they also survive be eating salt and minerals only (the Dura, not DnD Elves) so... No one knows why they don't need sleep, but they don't. it could be physiological or it could be magical. the Dura had the same questions as to why humans waste a third of their day doing nothing when they first encountered mankind ;)

and thanks for the compliments, I really liked how the Dura turned out.

[Superfluous Crow]

I'm not sure I like the name Hydrath; too close to Hydra. Then again it was probably what you were going for, but I don't think it suits the tone. But that's just my opinion.
I like the random door on Raza's tomb.
the very last sentence of the Spires entry doesn't make a lot of sense: "but few ever make it there, let alone survive the wastes." You'd think dying before you get there and dying in the wastes would be two sides of the same coin.
I'm not sure I like the Giant of Agralax; it seems incongrous with the rest of the setting visual. You yourself went away from the duran crystaltech, and here we have something metal with glowing orbs yet again. Also the floating effect of the orb seems a bit out of reach when conpared to other magical phenomena in your setting.
But having [insert number] Wonders is definitely a good approach to emphasizing some of the elements of your setting.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I'm not sure I like the name Hydrath; too close to Hydra. Then again it was probably what you were going for, but I don't think it suits the tone. But that's just my opinion.
I like the random door on Raza's tomb.
the very last sentence of the Spires entry doesn't make a lot of sense: "but few ever make it there, let alone survive the wastes." You'd think dying before you get there and dying in the wastes would be two sides of the same coin.
I'm not sure I like the Giant of Agralax; it seems incongruous with the rest of the setting visual. You yourself went away from the duran crystaltech, and here we have something metal with glowing orbs yet again. Also the floating effect of the orb seems a bit out of reach when conpared to other magical phenomena in your setting.
But having [insert number] Wonders is definitely a good approach to emphasizing some of the elements of your setting.

Hydra-Hydrath was the target, as was an allusion to water. I thought the Greekpunk would make it somewhat logical to actually use Greek/Latin roots to a slightly higher extent.

yeah, the Giant could change, i just had that doodle I did a month or two again. it does kind of stand out (Something akin to the Colossus of Rhodes as what I was aiming for.) I'll look over that.

also, how would you describe "magical phenomena" in Arga (just to make sure I'm on the same page with others)

[Superfluous Crow]

Your magic is not subtle, it can be flashy, but neither is it very large in extent nor especially easy to control. You can wield pure destruction but can't always choose what to destroy, and you can wield pure creation but have no control over the life you create (think Duran machines).
Like the Greek Gods magic is fickle.
This in turn is not in tune with the Giant: the magic is keyed to no specific force (it is merely "magical", as in unexplainable) and it is stable enough to last millenia.
i know that it was a past civilization which were probably better at controlling magic, and an artifact here or there wouldn't be out of place, but the Giant is a big fixture of the setting, one of the 7 wonders you've chosen to put emphasis on, and as such it should be in tune with the tone.
Notice that the tomb of Raza automatically qualifies for the "fickle" requirement :D
I don't know about what I just said; it was just an attempt at a spontaneous analysis.
oh, and you should still fix the Spires entry.
Also, the Watcher is pretty collossus-like if you are modelling them directly on the 7 Wonders; in which case I'd like to know what wonders correspond to real-life wonders? Are the Spires = pyramids?

[Ghostman]

Straight out calling it Hydra would to me seem less troubling than a construct like "Hydrath". The allusion is going to be obvious anyway, so you might as well use the original name.

As for the giant, the thing that to me makes it seem a bit over the top is the glowing and the moving orbs. If it were just one orb, floating still and not glowing, it would give a much subtler, perhaps more mysterious impression - still obviously supernatural, but with less bells and whistles if you get what I mean.

[O Senhor Leetz]

ok fixed the Giant (did away with the floating orbs. now it's just a bronze statue.)

right now I'm trying to figure out the four magics of Arga, thus far I have:

Aethra: magic that deals with the Void, nothingness, and nonexistence.

Thaerma: The Making-Magic. magic that in one way or another, alters or changes things.

Phaen: Pure energy. Easy to use, but impossible to control.

For the last one I still need a name: This magic deals with dreams, nightmares, and soothsaying.

so those are the four "elements" of magic (elements as in parts of a whole, not as in earth, fire, etc.)

[O Senhor Leetz]

[ic=Magics of Arga - Thuera]Just as the material world of Arga exists as the sea and the mountain, the storm and the flame, so to does the immaterial world of Arga - the world of the arcane and the unreal. Old and crumbling texts speak of the past Ages of Arga, how they were forged with the workings of magics long-lost and forgotten. Today, only four of these "elements" remain known to mortal minds. One such is called Thuera, the Magic of the Makers.

Thuera (thoo-ra) is a magic of creation. As mentioned, it was first used by the creator-gods in the forging of the world. Throughout the Ages, however, mortalkind's mastery of it has seemed to slowly wane. Great works of Thuera once common are now impossible to replicate. The creation of anything permanent is unknown to all but the most knowledgeable and powerful of Thuera-mages. Still, Thuera is a powerful thing. It can be used to temporarily breath life into inanimate objects, create something out of nothing, or something out of something else, if only for a short time. Objects can be manipulated - blades made sharper, torches made to burn longer, shoes to be softer.

Thuera is the most venerable and ancient of all magic, it is the scaffold upon which the creator-gods forged Arga. Thuera is strong and constant. The ley-lines of Thuera have crossed the same points and followed the same points along Arga's face since time immemorial. Many a fallen empire was built upon points of multiple ley-lines, the realm of Deep Durast the most recent as were many wonders lost to this Age constructed through the power inherent in Thuera.

The energies of Thuera run through specific and unchanging ley-lines. Though well-mapped, they are often in inconvenient or dangerous places. Also, the need to use Thuera may not always coincide with proximity to a ley-line. Because of these two reasons, items have been made and materials have been found that allow for the "storage" of Thuera away from the ley-lines.

The Ley-Lines of Thuera

The most common, and iconic, of these strange devices is the Censer. While they are made of any number of materials - from bronze to bone - and can be made in any shape - from globes to ornate works of art - all Censers have two basic things in common. Firstly, they all must be created on a ley-line of Thuera. Secondly, at their core they all must contain a pure iron cube, about the size of a man's hand, which is forged on the dawn of an equinox - Vernal or Autumnal - and quenched in a slurry of sea water, rain water, and dirt.

Aside from the Censer, rumors persist of Thuera-users that contain the magic in staves formed of powdered bone and Maeren tears, the gilded skulls of sea-monsters, and even their own hands, preserved in spiced vinegar all held in a blue-glass jar. Yet despite the exact construction of whatever tool one uses to control and store Thuera, there seems to be no way to know how much actual energy is stored in a particular item. While it seems that more experienced Thuera-users can both store and use greater amounts of Thuera, many incidents have occurred to counter that fact.

Thuera is generally accepted, as destruction and chaos are not in it's nature. The city of Tezzeret, Toma, and Ulara are well-known for their mastery and taste for Thuera. Also, several Wonders are built upon ley-lines of Thuera, such as Hydrath's Prison and Ugo's Beacon. Perhaps the only city where Thuera-users are fully despised is the sorcerer's city of Illix, due to their belief in the superiority of themselves and their own dark element of magic...
[/ic]

[Ghostman]

forged on the dawn of an equinox - Winter, Summer, Fall, or Spring

[nitpick]
There are only two equinoxes: vernal and autumnal. The midwinter and midsummer correspond to solstices. Of course, you could say that as a fictional world Arga may have four equinoxes in a year - though that would imply pretty bizzarre astrophysics.
[/nitpick]

[O Senhor Leetz]

oh no! hahaha, well I did not know that, and it is now fixed (Vernal and Autumnal only)

how did the rest of the article read?

[Ghostman]

Firstly, one doesn't learn what this magic actually does until the 3rd paragraph. That information might be more logically placed in the beginning of the text.

Secondly, the first line (about immaterial world) doesn't seem to be tied to the rest of the text in any way. Perhaps it was meant to bring attention to the geographical nature of magic (the leylines) but the way it's written is just confusing.

[O Senhor Leetz]

Firstly, one doesn't learn what this magic actually does until the 3rd paragraph. That information might be more logically placed in the beginning of the text.

Secondly, the first line (about immaterial world) doesn't seem to be tied to the rest of the text in any way. Perhaps it was meant to bring attention to the geographical nature of magic (the leylines) but the way it's written is just confusing.

ok, that paragraph has been moved.

the intro paragraph was my attempt to explain that magic, like the world, is split into many separate parts or elements. just as Arga is made of things like stone, trees, dirt, seas, storms, and stuff, so too is the magic world split into these different types/elements of magic, Thuera being one of them. (I'm using the word element as meaning "basic parts of a whole." Elements in the traditional DnD sense will not come into play at all in Arga. Earth/Water/Air/Fire, if you ask me, is one of the most overused, unoriginal, and boring conventions in RPG-style fantasy)