Stormonu
NeoGrognard
I'm working on a new campaign world (haven't decided rule system, probably Savage Worlds), and I'm trying to think of a way to make it "come alive" in the write-up.
I don't want it to be a dry, encylopediac set of entries describing the world and the races, I want the descriptions to be engaging; something other folks (not necessarily players, but other GMs
Campaign worlds like L5R's 1st edition, 7th sea, Vampire: The Masquerade and the way Deadlands was written all hooked me, but it's hard for me to focus on what it is about those books that engaged me so. Any advice or insight on what others find interesting when they sit down to read about a game world that "hooks them in" I would greatly appreciate.
For those interested, the opening overview of the world, somewhat long:
[sblock]
I am Am’Al-a-Quna, the thirty-third scribe of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor August Macatheriel Hameru the twenty-third. As instructed by his lordship, I today set pen to parchment to record the state of the lands within and without the empire as they exist in this age, as of the year 1337 of the Imperial year, on the 13th day of the month of Skateros.
I shall, like my predecessors, begin my survey with the history of the Empire to the current age. Unfortunately for I and my predecessors, our knowledge of the world before the formation of the Crimson Empire is riddled with holes, which the enemies of our Lord all too gladly attempt to fill with lies and other falsehoods for their own agendas.
We do know, unfortunately, that the Empire once spanned an area far larger than it does now. The lands of Axathium, now a haven of pirates and corsairs, were once exotic ports in the northern realm of Eth’Authurum. So too did once the lands held by the Norcast belong to our great Empire. We still weep for the loss of Savathuram, once a botanical wonder and now the blasted home to the restless dead that once gave life to our empire. Our greatest woe is perhaps the loss of the great palace at Thyventhos, where many of the imperial linage were cut down in their prime. Thyventhos still stands, but it no longer answers to the empire at large.
But I get ahead of myself. For at the dawn of the Empire, when such a thing was a new wonder to behold, these lands were wild and untamed. The empire sat in a fertile basin, a realm now known as the Blasted Wastes. The capital of that young empire was the golden city of Asul – great has been it fall!
An Age Undreamed Of
We know not where our ancestors came from, but we know that Hameru was the first to stride upon the lands of Aurtheim, and in short order he established a home in that city we called Asul. In those early days of the empire, the lands beyond the civilized walls of Eth-Authurum were the playgrounds of the fair fey. In those days, the fey were as feral as the beasts they kept, and only when these vicious spirits began to take notice of us did they begin to develop sentience to understand our civilized ways.
These untamed lands writhed with the glamour of the fey races and the mingling presence of mortal men and spirit fey brought sentience to the animals of the wild. These first races were known to us as the Savage Tribes, for though they walked and could talk like men, they were still savage animals on the inside.
The First Empire
For over a thousand years, Eth’Authurum grew across the land with Hameru at its head, pushing back the wilderness as it settled the lands to house and feed the ever-growing race of man. As mankind grew more abundant, Hameru gave leave to each of his twelve children to establish a city of their own for their own children, though each city still answered to him alone.
However, Hameru was a stern and demanding father, and as the ages past, his children grew resentful of his rule. Hameru’s wife, Hek’Tesa saw her children being kept under Hameru’s iron thumb, and in secret she plotted with her children to allow them to break free of their father’s grip.
The Emperors War
At a celebration of the one thousandth year of rule under Hameru, his family gathered in Asul to celebrate the occasion. Each of the twelve children brought a suitable entourage with them and a parade of gifts for their father.
The celebration however, was nothing more than a ruse. At the feast, their father’s food was poisoned, and the caravans the children had brought with them each held an army to overpower those loyal to Hameru.
But god-like that he was, the poison failed to kill Hameru. Quickly realizing the treachery of his children, he was able to escape the clutches of his murderous children and fortify himself and most loyal servitors in the bowels of his palace, to which his children laid siege, against the urgings of their mother, who begged her children to rule themselves and not seek an emperorship over their siblings. Hameru, seeing what he believed to be the full treachery of his wife, denounced his wife Hek’Tesa and banished her to the city that holds her name to this day.
The siege of Hameru’s palace lasted a ten years before Hameru finally relented and sued for peace. At the end, he handed over power collectively to his children, but told them that only one of them could be strong enough to rule in his place.
This offering sparked a bitter struggle between several of the siblings, who fell upon each other and even those who did not seek the emperorship for not supporting them. For a hundred years the battle over the throne raged, until the children, tired of the struggle, again came before the father to seek his blessing in choosing one as the emperor. Instead, Hameru cursed them, saying none of them would ever become emperor. By this curse, Hameru hoped to seize back the throne for himself.
The Emprire Reformed
Hek-Tesa learned of the ebbing war and summoned her children to her city. There, she offered to her children a way around the curse. Though her children could not take the throne because of their father’s curse, her children’s children had no such limitation upon them. With their mortal lifespans, the emperorship could pass from one child to another, so that no one emperor would rule over all forever. Hek’Tesa children praised their mother for her insight, and at her request each brought their firstborn before her so that she could choose the new emperor. And, as Hek’Tesa brought their firstborn forward for her blessing, it was Hek’Tesa who chose Hakeem Oidos to be the first emperor of the new empire.
For the next three hundred years, the empire rebuilt itself and struggled to heal the wounds caused by the Emperor Wars. After a time, even Hameru himself came back to the empire to live among his sons and daughters, free of the burden of ruling.
A Savage Time
For many ages, the fey races of Aurthium simply went about their carefree ways, curious of man’s culture but never able to long endure it. As the empire civilized and domesticated the lands, the fey ambled on and back into wilder areas. Only a few fey spirits could tolerate taking mortal form and surviving in civilized lands and our initial encounters with them were always guarded and afraid.
But as Eth’Authurum pushed farther and farther, the fey – and their children, the Savage tribes, began to push back. As the entire continent of Aurtheum was devoured by the empire, the land itself began to strike back.
The Elf War
The first to strike a blow against Eth’Authurum were the fey of Far Zabas. Within the deep woods of the Zapathos Forest, the spirit-formed fey used their magic to bring to life a race of mortal warriors to do battle with the Eth’Authurum. From the very trees of the woods, the fey created the first elves. The elves fell upon Eth’Authurum with a vengeance, but the warriors of the empire managed to fight them to a standstill – but only just.
The Creation of the Dwarves
The wizards of our empire studied the magic of the fey and used their magic to fashion the stony dwarves to aid their plight. With the strength of stone behind them, they battered back the wooden army of elves until both men and fey tired of the destruction. An accord of peace was established between the men of the empire and the fey-elves and the first of the great wars ended in a stalemate.
The dwarves – too well-made for war – revolted against his majesty and betrayed us by founding their own empire and retreated to the stone of the Grimjaw and Hellstorm mountains to fashion their own lands.
The Rise of Durathast
Even as the Empire engaged in war against the fey and elves, a new threat to the Empire began to grow in the north. The Savage Tribes, long nothing more than feral tribes of near-human animals began to organize themselves into a growing kingdom of their own.
It was only later that we learned that our brother, Uretheon was behind this in a plot to overthrow his siblings and seize the empire for himself.
In secret, Uretheon set up the five kings of the new realm of Durathast and filled them with bile against the great Empire. As the wars with the elves began to wane, in our sickness of war we looked away as Durathast ate at our borders. So weary were we from the war with the elves that we did not consider to beat back Durathast as she expanded into lands we formerly claimed as our own.
It was not until Emperor Husayen Thyventhos Hameru the Decadent passed from the throne and Dul’Fiqar Ceranthium Hameru the Crusader took his place that we finally turned our spears at Durathast’s throat.
The Great Devastation
At the peak of the war against Durathast, Emperor Dul’Fiqar Ceran Hameru turned to the wizards of the realm to find a final solution to destroy Durathast forever. But Ceran’s call became known to Urea, and a great betrayal was plotted by the blighted son of Hameru.
Urea had secretly traveled to the far north, where he had learned of the strange magic of the elementals and dragons. Such magic was powerful but difficult to control and in secret he taught it’s precepts to the wizards of Ceran, but not the methods to properly control the magic.
As the war with Durathast rose to a peak, the wizards drew upon their magic to invoke a great blow to the enemy’s invading army. But with Urea at the helm of the opposing force, he easily unhinged the wizard’s control and turned the magic upon them.
In an instant, the magic turned to a terrible storm that devastated most of the empire of Eth’Authurum. As the storm descended across the empire, the children of Hameru realized the danger they were in. With their own sheer force of will, the children of Hameru expended their own life force to protect their own children within the cities of their namesake. Only the great city of Asul, without the presence of wandering Hameru to protect it, did not survive the coming storm.
Outside the great cities though, the unleashed spell-turned-storm swept violently across the land. Verdant plains were turned to sand and ash. Villages and smaller towns were scoured to their foundations. Citizens of the empire outside of the protective magic of the great cities were stripped of life and left to rot in the unrelenting rays of the sun. Waters evaporated never to be seen again. In an instant, the vast empire was returned to twelve cities struggling to survive.
The Sundering of the Empire
With the fertile lands of the empire turned to dust, and the entire imperial lineage slain with a single spell, chaos erupted across the empire as the remaining sons and daughters of Hameru’s children each struggled to bring the Empire under their control.
Overnight, the empire shattered into a dozen kingdoms vying for control of what was left. Some, such as our own illustrious emperor’s forefathers, claimed legitimate lineage back to a child of Hameru, while others like the peasant-born corsairs of Ax’thos simply sought to enforce their will on what land they could.
For the next hundred years, the children of Hameru struggled to rebuild their world, even as the new races moved in to fill the voids left behind.
The Coming of Norcast
Exactly one hundred and one years after the Great Devastation, a new breed of man invaded the shores of Aurthurium. Pale-skinned, with red-rimmed eyes and worshipping a god they made bloody sacrifice to, the raiders of Nuass fell upon the continent and seized a section of forgotten wasteland on the far side of the Grimjaw mountains.
To the amazement of all but the Norcast themselves, their bloody sacrifices brought new life – and many converts – to the once barren lands. Raiders who might have been quickly repelled by the fleet of Eth’Authurium became entrenched as saviors of their small realm. Within a scant fifty years, Norcast had established three vast cities and the worship of the Kraken was growing at a nigh-unstoppable rate.
Norcast may had grown without bounds had it not been for its ill-planned war against Carathium. Though Norcast’s initial raids devastated two of Corathium’s cities, it navy escaped to take the fight to Norcast itself. Aided by our own forces of the rebuilt empire, we put an end to Norcast’s dreams of expansive conquest. Now the realm of the Kraken holds fast to its own lands and can no longer threaten to expand, and it is slowly devouring itself with its butchery of its own bloody religion.
The Rediscovery of Savathuram
During the rise of the worship of the Kraken, it came to our attention that far Savathuram, thought lost in the Great Devastation, had seemingly survived. Delegates from that far realm came to the Empire to seek to reopen trade and return to the Empire – or so we thought.
Who knows how many of our people were tricked into traveling to far Savathuram before the awful truth was revealed – the blasted realm of Savathuram was a blasted wasteland filled with the undead who hungered for the lives of the living.
Though we have done much since the Caliph of Hek’Tesa revealed their deception, there are still many who either are unaware of this threat or who refuse to believe in its dangers.
The Return to Glory
Eth’Authuram stands on the precipice of returning to the Empire that once spanned Aurtheum and beyond. Though confronted on all sides by the enemies of our unity, unlike only a few centuries past, we know much about our scattered brethren and already have engaged them in returning under the glory of the empire. When the enlightened sons and daughters of Hameru see the wisdom of unity, we can only be guaranteed that we shall unite to crush our inhuman enemies and bring about an empire far larger and stronger than any in our past.
All hail to the glory of our Emperor, this 13th day of Skateros, in the 1337 year of our reborn empire.
[/sblock]
I don't want it to be a dry, encylopediac set of entries describing the world and the races, I want the descriptions to be engaging; something other folks (not necessarily players, but other GMs
Campaign worlds like L5R's 1st edition, 7th sea, Vampire: The Masquerade and the way Deadlands was written all hooked me, but it's hard for me to focus on what it is about those books that engaged me so. Any advice or insight on what others find interesting when they sit down to read about a game world that "hooks them in" I would greatly appreciate.
For those interested, the opening overview of the world, somewhat long:
[sblock]
I am Am’Al-a-Quna, the thirty-third scribe of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor August Macatheriel Hameru the twenty-third. As instructed by his lordship, I today set pen to parchment to record the state of the lands within and without the empire as they exist in this age, as of the year 1337 of the Imperial year, on the 13th day of the month of Skateros.
I shall, like my predecessors, begin my survey with the history of the Empire to the current age. Unfortunately for I and my predecessors, our knowledge of the world before the formation of the Crimson Empire is riddled with holes, which the enemies of our Lord all too gladly attempt to fill with lies and other falsehoods for their own agendas.
We do know, unfortunately, that the Empire once spanned an area far larger than it does now. The lands of Axathium, now a haven of pirates and corsairs, were once exotic ports in the northern realm of Eth’Authurum. So too did once the lands held by the Norcast belong to our great Empire. We still weep for the loss of Savathuram, once a botanical wonder and now the blasted home to the restless dead that once gave life to our empire. Our greatest woe is perhaps the loss of the great palace at Thyventhos, where many of the imperial linage were cut down in their prime. Thyventhos still stands, but it no longer answers to the empire at large.
But I get ahead of myself. For at the dawn of the Empire, when such a thing was a new wonder to behold, these lands were wild and untamed. The empire sat in a fertile basin, a realm now known as the Blasted Wastes. The capital of that young empire was the golden city of Asul – great has been it fall!
An Age Undreamed Of
We know not where our ancestors came from, but we know that Hameru was the first to stride upon the lands of Aurtheim, and in short order he established a home in that city we called Asul. In those early days of the empire, the lands beyond the civilized walls of Eth-Authurum were the playgrounds of the fair fey. In those days, the fey were as feral as the beasts they kept, and only when these vicious spirits began to take notice of us did they begin to develop sentience to understand our civilized ways.
These untamed lands writhed with the glamour of the fey races and the mingling presence of mortal men and spirit fey brought sentience to the animals of the wild. These first races were known to us as the Savage Tribes, for though they walked and could talk like men, they were still savage animals on the inside.
The First Empire
For over a thousand years, Eth’Authurum grew across the land with Hameru at its head, pushing back the wilderness as it settled the lands to house and feed the ever-growing race of man. As mankind grew more abundant, Hameru gave leave to each of his twelve children to establish a city of their own for their own children, though each city still answered to him alone.
However, Hameru was a stern and demanding father, and as the ages past, his children grew resentful of his rule. Hameru’s wife, Hek’Tesa saw her children being kept under Hameru’s iron thumb, and in secret she plotted with her children to allow them to break free of their father’s grip.
The Emperors War
At a celebration of the one thousandth year of rule under Hameru, his family gathered in Asul to celebrate the occasion. Each of the twelve children brought a suitable entourage with them and a parade of gifts for their father.
The celebration however, was nothing more than a ruse. At the feast, their father’s food was poisoned, and the caravans the children had brought with them each held an army to overpower those loyal to Hameru.
But god-like that he was, the poison failed to kill Hameru. Quickly realizing the treachery of his children, he was able to escape the clutches of his murderous children and fortify himself and most loyal servitors in the bowels of his palace, to which his children laid siege, against the urgings of their mother, who begged her children to rule themselves and not seek an emperorship over their siblings. Hameru, seeing what he believed to be the full treachery of his wife, denounced his wife Hek’Tesa and banished her to the city that holds her name to this day.
The siege of Hameru’s palace lasted a ten years before Hameru finally relented and sued for peace. At the end, he handed over power collectively to his children, but told them that only one of them could be strong enough to rule in his place.
This offering sparked a bitter struggle between several of the siblings, who fell upon each other and even those who did not seek the emperorship for not supporting them. For a hundred years the battle over the throne raged, until the children, tired of the struggle, again came before the father to seek his blessing in choosing one as the emperor. Instead, Hameru cursed them, saying none of them would ever become emperor. By this curse, Hameru hoped to seize back the throne for himself.
The Emprire Reformed
Hek-Tesa learned of the ebbing war and summoned her children to her city. There, she offered to her children a way around the curse. Though her children could not take the throne because of their father’s curse, her children’s children had no such limitation upon them. With their mortal lifespans, the emperorship could pass from one child to another, so that no one emperor would rule over all forever. Hek’Tesa children praised their mother for her insight, and at her request each brought their firstborn before her so that she could choose the new emperor. And, as Hek’Tesa brought their firstborn forward for her blessing, it was Hek’Tesa who chose Hakeem Oidos to be the first emperor of the new empire.
For the next three hundred years, the empire rebuilt itself and struggled to heal the wounds caused by the Emperor Wars. After a time, even Hameru himself came back to the empire to live among his sons and daughters, free of the burden of ruling.
A Savage Time
For many ages, the fey races of Aurthium simply went about their carefree ways, curious of man’s culture but never able to long endure it. As the empire civilized and domesticated the lands, the fey ambled on and back into wilder areas. Only a few fey spirits could tolerate taking mortal form and surviving in civilized lands and our initial encounters with them were always guarded and afraid.
But as Eth’Authurum pushed farther and farther, the fey – and their children, the Savage tribes, began to push back. As the entire continent of Aurtheum was devoured by the empire, the land itself began to strike back.
The Elf War
The first to strike a blow against Eth’Authurum were the fey of Far Zabas. Within the deep woods of the Zapathos Forest, the spirit-formed fey used their magic to bring to life a race of mortal warriors to do battle with the Eth’Authurum. From the very trees of the woods, the fey created the first elves. The elves fell upon Eth’Authurum with a vengeance, but the warriors of the empire managed to fight them to a standstill – but only just.
The Creation of the Dwarves
The wizards of our empire studied the magic of the fey and used their magic to fashion the stony dwarves to aid their plight. With the strength of stone behind them, they battered back the wooden army of elves until both men and fey tired of the destruction. An accord of peace was established between the men of the empire and the fey-elves and the first of the great wars ended in a stalemate.
The dwarves – too well-made for war – revolted against his majesty and betrayed us by founding their own empire and retreated to the stone of the Grimjaw and Hellstorm mountains to fashion their own lands.
The Rise of Durathast
Even as the Empire engaged in war against the fey and elves, a new threat to the Empire began to grow in the north. The Savage Tribes, long nothing more than feral tribes of near-human animals began to organize themselves into a growing kingdom of their own.
It was only later that we learned that our brother, Uretheon was behind this in a plot to overthrow his siblings and seize the empire for himself.
In secret, Uretheon set up the five kings of the new realm of Durathast and filled them with bile against the great Empire. As the wars with the elves began to wane, in our sickness of war we looked away as Durathast ate at our borders. So weary were we from the war with the elves that we did not consider to beat back Durathast as she expanded into lands we formerly claimed as our own.
It was not until Emperor Husayen Thyventhos Hameru the Decadent passed from the throne and Dul’Fiqar Ceranthium Hameru the Crusader took his place that we finally turned our spears at Durathast’s throat.
The Great Devastation
At the peak of the war against Durathast, Emperor Dul’Fiqar Ceran Hameru turned to the wizards of the realm to find a final solution to destroy Durathast forever. But Ceran’s call became known to Urea, and a great betrayal was plotted by the blighted son of Hameru.
Urea had secretly traveled to the far north, where he had learned of the strange magic of the elementals and dragons. Such magic was powerful but difficult to control and in secret he taught it’s precepts to the wizards of Ceran, but not the methods to properly control the magic.
As the war with Durathast rose to a peak, the wizards drew upon their magic to invoke a great blow to the enemy’s invading army. But with Urea at the helm of the opposing force, he easily unhinged the wizard’s control and turned the magic upon them.
In an instant, the magic turned to a terrible storm that devastated most of the empire of Eth’Authurum. As the storm descended across the empire, the children of Hameru realized the danger they were in. With their own sheer force of will, the children of Hameru expended their own life force to protect their own children within the cities of their namesake. Only the great city of Asul, without the presence of wandering Hameru to protect it, did not survive the coming storm.
Outside the great cities though, the unleashed spell-turned-storm swept violently across the land. Verdant plains were turned to sand and ash. Villages and smaller towns were scoured to their foundations. Citizens of the empire outside of the protective magic of the great cities were stripped of life and left to rot in the unrelenting rays of the sun. Waters evaporated never to be seen again. In an instant, the vast empire was returned to twelve cities struggling to survive.
The Sundering of the Empire
With the fertile lands of the empire turned to dust, and the entire imperial lineage slain with a single spell, chaos erupted across the empire as the remaining sons and daughters of Hameru’s children each struggled to bring the Empire under their control.
Overnight, the empire shattered into a dozen kingdoms vying for control of what was left. Some, such as our own illustrious emperor’s forefathers, claimed legitimate lineage back to a child of Hameru, while others like the peasant-born corsairs of Ax’thos simply sought to enforce their will on what land they could.
For the next hundred years, the children of Hameru struggled to rebuild their world, even as the new races moved in to fill the voids left behind.
The Coming of Norcast
Exactly one hundred and one years after the Great Devastation, a new breed of man invaded the shores of Aurthurium. Pale-skinned, with red-rimmed eyes and worshipping a god they made bloody sacrifice to, the raiders of Nuass fell upon the continent and seized a section of forgotten wasteland on the far side of the Grimjaw mountains.
To the amazement of all but the Norcast themselves, their bloody sacrifices brought new life – and many converts – to the once barren lands. Raiders who might have been quickly repelled by the fleet of Eth’Authurium became entrenched as saviors of their small realm. Within a scant fifty years, Norcast had established three vast cities and the worship of the Kraken was growing at a nigh-unstoppable rate.
Norcast may had grown without bounds had it not been for its ill-planned war against Carathium. Though Norcast’s initial raids devastated two of Corathium’s cities, it navy escaped to take the fight to Norcast itself. Aided by our own forces of the rebuilt empire, we put an end to Norcast’s dreams of expansive conquest. Now the realm of the Kraken holds fast to its own lands and can no longer threaten to expand, and it is slowly devouring itself with its butchery of its own bloody religion.
The Rediscovery of Savathuram
During the rise of the worship of the Kraken, it came to our attention that far Savathuram, thought lost in the Great Devastation, had seemingly survived. Delegates from that far realm came to the Empire to seek to reopen trade and return to the Empire – or so we thought.
Who knows how many of our people were tricked into traveling to far Savathuram before the awful truth was revealed – the blasted realm of Savathuram was a blasted wasteland filled with the undead who hungered for the lives of the living.
Though we have done much since the Caliph of Hek’Tesa revealed their deception, there are still many who either are unaware of this threat or who refuse to believe in its dangers.
The Return to Glory
Eth’Authuram stands on the precipice of returning to the Empire that once spanned Aurtheum and beyond. Though confronted on all sides by the enemies of our unity, unlike only a few centuries past, we know much about our scattered brethren and already have engaged them in returning under the glory of the empire. When the enlightened sons and daughters of Hameru see the wisdom of unity, we can only be guaranteed that we shall unite to crush our inhuman enemies and bring about an empire far larger and stronger than any in our past.
All hail to the glory of our Emperor, this 13th day of Skateros, in the 1337 year of our reborn empire.
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