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"Azarr Kul's Ambition" - homebrew adaptation of Slaughtergarde & RHoD (Gaia's Dream)
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<blockquote data-quote="Stormtower" data-source="post: 3516662" data-attributes="member: 43631"><p><strong>More milieu background for Gaia's Dream - Cosmology</strong></p><p></p><p>From the Gaia's Dream Campaign Gazetteer:</p><p></p><p><strong>A Brief History of Gaian Cosmology</strong></p><p></p><p>The story of Gaia’s Three Sisters – the first deities that awakened in the distant past, eons before the rise of the dragons – has been told countless times since the birth of language and civilization. The legend says that the Planet Gaia slumbered peacefully in the void, and in the moment it first glimpsed the Sun, both the Planet and the Sun saw one another reflected in each other’s vision. In a moment of sublime divine revelation, both Sisters (Arinna the Sun goddess and Shandae the Earth goddess) awakened and glimpsed each other’s beauty… but in so doing, they forgot the dark Void in which they both floated – the third Sister, Irindix. Angered by their ignorance, the goddess Irindix departed for the realms of the Underlands beneath the surface of the Planet, content to seethe quietly in darkness.</p><p>In the early Darastrae Epoch – the Draconic Era – the Three Sisters nurtured the Planet’s life force, each in their own way. Shandae and Arinna cooperated with one another, using the heat of Arinna’s Sun and the supple life energy of Shandae’s Earth to create new life. Irindix worked from her cold and hollow caves in the Underlands, quietly birthing and amassing a collection of squirming life which thrived under her dark tutelage and learned to think of the surface world as Other. The greatest of the prime races was the dragons, who at first looked only to the Sisters for guidance, but quickly grew intelligent enough to seek out other forms of divinity in the aether flows of the multiverse. </p><p></p><p>Over time, other deities sought out the Planet Gaia as a source of divine energy: Zor the Aetherweaver, and Mirael the Fatespinner. The origins of Mirael and Zor are cloaked in mystery, but theologians agree that the two deities arrived with open arms and peaceful intentions, and so were welcomed by the Sisters and grudgingly accepted by Irindix. Mirael manifested as Gaia’s solitary moon, a small satellite devoid of life or breathable atmosphere but clearly visible as a silvery-white orb in the night sky. Zor took no physical form just as his inscrutable nature has always dicated, but worked diligently to weave the wild aether of the Planet Gaia into a vast and complex network of ley lines and fractal spiraling currents and patterns. Thus the possibility of arcane magic born was into the world. </p><p></p><p>The five deities labored for millennia until a great rising of life force began with the birth of two new races – the elves and the dreamkin. The appearance of these two fey races signified the end of the Darastrae Epoch and the start of the Verisae Epoch. Significantly smaller in stature and shorter lived than the dragons, and also mammalian in nature, the two races were practically identical in physical nature. However, the elves maintained a vital and inseparable connection to the divine life force of Gaia while also mastering the arcane arts, whereas the dreamkin chose to focus exclusively on arcane pursuits, forsaking the gods and worshipping the Five Elements of Fundament – Air, Earth, Dream, Fire, and Water, and seeking knowledge in the exploration of the newly discovered Dreaming realm. Around the year 48800CD a schism occurred between the elves and dreamkin, with the elves remaining on the four largest continents of Gaia (Saradhassa, Malo, Talirae and Asarya) and the dreamkin departing forever to the plane of the Dreaming.</p><p></p><p>A legendary pair of distantly related siblings –Valis from the dreamkin bloodline of d’Mirathos, and Anilmathien from the elvish bloodline Ceriendór – rose to global prominence around the year 48290CD. The two powerful fey princes discovered the arcane secrets of prolonged mortal life and walked the Planet for over 3,700 years, each following his own path to greatness with passion, diligence and fortitude. In the year 52000CD, the elf lord Anilmathien achieved divinity and was uplifted by the other deities to join the celestial pantheon. At that time he assumed the name Jenoic, and notably became the first native Gaian deity to manifest as a male. So uplifted, He began to labor intimately with Shandae and Arinna to seed the Planet with what would become known as the venal races – humans, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and many others. By this time, Irindix had fully withdrawn into herself and needed no male to spawn forth her creations; the shadows of Irindix’s Underlands writhed with her innumerable legions of dark hunting creatures.</p><p></p><p>Valis d’Mirathos chose a different path and remained a mortal being, albeit an astonishingly powerful and long-lived mortal. Rumors persist even today in 23CR that Valis lives on as a baelnorn – an undead fey lich – and many claim that he was seen briefly at the Battle of the Wall in Hathorae during the initial waves of the Convergence.</p><p></p><p>The legends say that as the first deity to manifest with primarily male aspects, Jenoic coupled repeatedly with the Sisters, and his seed blossomed in the fertile womb of Shandae as the fires of the two were stoked by the loving warmth of Arinna. From this union, the vernal races came to populate the Planet and were carefully guided by the intervention of the six Gaian deities (at the start of the Vernal Epoch, these were Arinna, Shandae, Irindix, Mirael, Zor and Jenoic). As legendary heroes and heroines of the vernal races arose and caught the gods’ attentions, the greatest of them were welcomed into the pantheon to serve the Planet alongside their progenitors. These were Elaera the Sky Maiden, Faeridian the Traveler, Gwardo the Dissident, Ijruk One-Eye of the orcs, Laedré Meadowheart of the halflings, Merin Jewelshine of the gnomes, and Thiannon Forgefather of the dwarves. This era of unprecedented uplifting became known as the Vernal Rising, and theologians place the era between 62500CD and 65000CD. The gods foresaw dark times ahead, when the Planet would need the efforts of many stalwart defenders to protect it from the corrupting incursions of the Hierarchy of Souls.</p><p></p><p>At the time of the Vernal Rising, a disturbing trend asserted itself against the benevolent machinations of the Gaian deities: the rise of the Elder Banes. The epic 300-year long Banespawn War began when evil and debased mortals began to glean the secrets of divinity and rise to demigod status of their own accord; Irindix was widely blamed for this phenomenon, as she had adopted a separatist stance in relation to the other deities. The first of these upstart Elder Banes was Ethoar the Soul Burner, Lord of Agony – he stole the secrets of fire-making from Arinna and built a cult of worshippers devoted to his dark molten flame. Soon after, two more Elder Banes arose: Yshunor the Plagueherald and Tyraudon the Warscourge. Theologians agree that the goddess Irindix was reclassified as an Elder Bane during this era, due to her alleged role in sharing the secrets of divine ascendancy with mortals unfit for the responsibility. The ascendancy of the Elder Banes and the formal schism between Irindix and the other deities heralded an unprecedented new era of competition and strife throughout Gaia.</p><p></p><p>The legitimate Gaian deities competed openly with Irindix and the other Elder Banes throughout the late Vernal Epoch and during the years recorded by the Calendar of Gaia; even the arrival of the Hierarchy of Souls led by Khyraundros did not convince them to join forces – throughout all three post-Vernal Hierarch incursions (the first on Sardhassa, and the next two on Talirae), the deities fought amongst themselves even as the Hierarchy preyed on their faithful. It was left to the mortals to follow their deities’ instructions or the calling of their own hearts as best they could and drive back the extraplanar invasion of the Hierarchy. During the 5th Hierarch incursion in 5309CG, a human girl named Judith Lonvarke of Urgorae – a paladin of Elaera – was martyred in a successful crusade against the forces of Khyraundros, and was uplifted by the Sky Maiden to become the newest and youngest of the Gaian deities.</p><p></p><p>The Convergence may have fundamentally changed the relationship of the Gaian deities to the Planet and its collective peoples forever. The rampant speculation among theologians that the deities took on aspects of flesh during the Convergence, and are walking the Planet alongside their worshippers, has now been confirmed. The goddess Arinna is known to have appeared outside the capital city of Nashwamidha in Saradhassa and walked many miles into the desert, finally stopping and singing a great sandstone city into being from nothing but the grains of sand in the desert. This new city, which exists in the shape of a mighty ziggurat with 13 levels, is known as Asahn-aliya. Several scattered instances of a tall and pale “veiled lady” clad in black who appears with portents of the future have also been reported; this may be the goddess Mirael. The Goldor dwarves north of Rachspire have reportedly been in direct contact with Thiannon the Forgefather, and may be harboring him somewhere deep under their mountain strongholds.</p><p></p><p>There have been no reported sightings as yet of Shandae, Jenoic, Zor, Elaera, Gwardo or any of the other racial deities, nor of Irindix and the other Elder Banes. However, worshippers of all the divines are operating under the assumption that their god or goddess has already physically manifested in a flesh body and will make him- or herself known when the time is right. This change in the nature of the gods and their unprecedented direct intervention in mortal affairs will likely have ripple effects throughout the new age of post-Convergence Gaia.</p><p> <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Aspects and Domains</strong></p><p></p><p>Each Gaian deity and/or Elder Bane may manifest in multiple aspects, and many of their domains overlap. For the sake of clarity, domains are the areas of divine influence which deities have some control over, and aspects are the potential physical manifestions of the deities themselves. For example, the deities Jenoic and Elaera both govern the domains of Craft, so a cleric may choose those domains if s/he is a worshipper of either deity. Alternately, a cleric who wants access to the Summoner domain might choose to worship the goddess Shandae, for example. Were Jenoic to physically manifest before His cleric for whatever reason, he might take on the aspect of The Walker Beside, Great Brother, or even Anilmathien (his elvish aspect). Likewise, Shandae might appear as the Mother of All, or even Hathor the Cow Goddess or some heretofore unknown aspect. </p><p>Per the standard rules in the Player’s Handbook, clerics of a particular deity may select any two domains to which their deity provides access. Clerics worshipping different aspects or domains of the same deity are not necessarily members of different religions. Many of the aspects have various respectful surnames (for example, the Fate & Oracles aspects of the goddess Mirael are sometimes called The Veiled Lady), but all aspects are recognized as parts of the whole deity. All clerics worship the whole of the deity first, and their chosen aspect second.</p><p></p><p>Gaian deities are transcendent beings of immense power, and may manifest in different physical forms or aspects to different races and ethnic groups, as they desire. A dwarven priest of the god Jenoic might likely see a dwarf if Jenoic appeared before him physically or in a divine vision; likewise, a human priest would probably see a human – and most likely, a human with physical traits of that priest’s ethnic group.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Stormtower, post: 3516662, member: 43631"] [b]More milieu background for Gaia's Dream - Cosmology[/b] From the Gaia's Dream Campaign Gazetteer: [B]A Brief History of Gaian Cosmology[/B] The story of Gaia’s Three Sisters – the first deities that awakened in the distant past, eons before the rise of the dragons – has been told countless times since the birth of language and civilization. The legend says that the Planet Gaia slumbered peacefully in the void, and in the moment it first glimpsed the Sun, both the Planet and the Sun saw one another reflected in each other’s vision. In a moment of sublime divine revelation, both Sisters (Arinna the Sun goddess and Shandae the Earth goddess) awakened and glimpsed each other’s beauty… but in so doing, they forgot the dark Void in which they both floated – the third Sister, Irindix. Angered by their ignorance, the goddess Irindix departed for the realms of the Underlands beneath the surface of the Planet, content to seethe quietly in darkness. In the early Darastrae Epoch – the Draconic Era – the Three Sisters nurtured the Planet’s life force, each in their own way. Shandae and Arinna cooperated with one another, using the heat of Arinna’s Sun and the supple life energy of Shandae’s Earth to create new life. Irindix worked from her cold and hollow caves in the Underlands, quietly birthing and amassing a collection of squirming life which thrived under her dark tutelage and learned to think of the surface world as Other. The greatest of the prime races was the dragons, who at first looked only to the Sisters for guidance, but quickly grew intelligent enough to seek out other forms of divinity in the aether flows of the multiverse. Over time, other deities sought out the Planet Gaia as a source of divine energy: Zor the Aetherweaver, and Mirael the Fatespinner. The origins of Mirael and Zor are cloaked in mystery, but theologians agree that the two deities arrived with open arms and peaceful intentions, and so were welcomed by the Sisters and grudgingly accepted by Irindix. Mirael manifested as Gaia’s solitary moon, a small satellite devoid of life or breathable atmosphere but clearly visible as a silvery-white orb in the night sky. Zor took no physical form just as his inscrutable nature has always dicated, but worked diligently to weave the wild aether of the Planet Gaia into a vast and complex network of ley lines and fractal spiraling currents and patterns. Thus the possibility of arcane magic born was into the world. The five deities labored for millennia until a great rising of life force began with the birth of two new races – the elves and the dreamkin. The appearance of these two fey races signified the end of the Darastrae Epoch and the start of the Verisae Epoch. Significantly smaller in stature and shorter lived than the dragons, and also mammalian in nature, the two races were practically identical in physical nature. However, the elves maintained a vital and inseparable connection to the divine life force of Gaia while also mastering the arcane arts, whereas the dreamkin chose to focus exclusively on arcane pursuits, forsaking the gods and worshipping the Five Elements of Fundament – Air, Earth, Dream, Fire, and Water, and seeking knowledge in the exploration of the newly discovered Dreaming realm. Around the year 48800CD a schism occurred between the elves and dreamkin, with the elves remaining on the four largest continents of Gaia (Saradhassa, Malo, Talirae and Asarya) and the dreamkin departing forever to the plane of the Dreaming. A legendary pair of distantly related siblings –Valis from the dreamkin bloodline of d’Mirathos, and Anilmathien from the elvish bloodline Ceriendór – rose to global prominence around the year 48290CD. The two powerful fey princes discovered the arcane secrets of prolonged mortal life and walked the Planet for over 3,700 years, each following his own path to greatness with passion, diligence and fortitude. In the year 52000CD, the elf lord Anilmathien achieved divinity and was uplifted by the other deities to join the celestial pantheon. At that time he assumed the name Jenoic, and notably became the first native Gaian deity to manifest as a male. So uplifted, He began to labor intimately with Shandae and Arinna to seed the Planet with what would become known as the venal races – humans, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and many others. By this time, Irindix had fully withdrawn into herself and needed no male to spawn forth her creations; the shadows of Irindix’s Underlands writhed with her innumerable legions of dark hunting creatures. Valis d’Mirathos chose a different path and remained a mortal being, albeit an astonishingly powerful and long-lived mortal. Rumors persist even today in 23CR that Valis lives on as a baelnorn – an undead fey lich – and many claim that he was seen briefly at the Battle of the Wall in Hathorae during the initial waves of the Convergence. The legends say that as the first deity to manifest with primarily male aspects, Jenoic coupled repeatedly with the Sisters, and his seed blossomed in the fertile womb of Shandae as the fires of the two were stoked by the loving warmth of Arinna. From this union, the vernal races came to populate the Planet and were carefully guided by the intervention of the six Gaian deities (at the start of the Vernal Epoch, these were Arinna, Shandae, Irindix, Mirael, Zor and Jenoic). As legendary heroes and heroines of the vernal races arose and caught the gods’ attentions, the greatest of them were welcomed into the pantheon to serve the Planet alongside their progenitors. These were Elaera the Sky Maiden, Faeridian the Traveler, Gwardo the Dissident, Ijruk One-Eye of the orcs, Laedré Meadowheart of the halflings, Merin Jewelshine of the gnomes, and Thiannon Forgefather of the dwarves. This era of unprecedented uplifting became known as the Vernal Rising, and theologians place the era between 62500CD and 65000CD. The gods foresaw dark times ahead, when the Planet would need the efforts of many stalwart defenders to protect it from the corrupting incursions of the Hierarchy of Souls. At the time of the Vernal Rising, a disturbing trend asserted itself against the benevolent machinations of the Gaian deities: the rise of the Elder Banes. The epic 300-year long Banespawn War began when evil and debased mortals began to glean the secrets of divinity and rise to demigod status of their own accord; Irindix was widely blamed for this phenomenon, as she had adopted a separatist stance in relation to the other deities. The first of these upstart Elder Banes was Ethoar the Soul Burner, Lord of Agony – he stole the secrets of fire-making from Arinna and built a cult of worshippers devoted to his dark molten flame. Soon after, two more Elder Banes arose: Yshunor the Plagueherald and Tyraudon the Warscourge. Theologians agree that the goddess Irindix was reclassified as an Elder Bane during this era, due to her alleged role in sharing the secrets of divine ascendancy with mortals unfit for the responsibility. The ascendancy of the Elder Banes and the formal schism between Irindix and the other deities heralded an unprecedented new era of competition and strife throughout Gaia. The legitimate Gaian deities competed openly with Irindix and the other Elder Banes throughout the late Vernal Epoch and during the years recorded by the Calendar of Gaia; even the arrival of the Hierarchy of Souls led by Khyraundros did not convince them to join forces – throughout all three post-Vernal Hierarch incursions (the first on Sardhassa, and the next two on Talirae), the deities fought amongst themselves even as the Hierarchy preyed on their faithful. It was left to the mortals to follow their deities’ instructions or the calling of their own hearts as best they could and drive back the extraplanar invasion of the Hierarchy. During the 5th Hierarch incursion in 5309CG, a human girl named Judith Lonvarke of Urgorae – a paladin of Elaera – was martyred in a successful crusade against the forces of Khyraundros, and was uplifted by the Sky Maiden to become the newest and youngest of the Gaian deities. The Convergence may have fundamentally changed the relationship of the Gaian deities to the Planet and its collective peoples forever. The rampant speculation among theologians that the deities took on aspects of flesh during the Convergence, and are walking the Planet alongside their worshippers, has now been confirmed. The goddess Arinna is known to have appeared outside the capital city of Nashwamidha in Saradhassa and walked many miles into the desert, finally stopping and singing a great sandstone city into being from nothing but the grains of sand in the desert. This new city, which exists in the shape of a mighty ziggurat with 13 levels, is known as Asahn-aliya. Several scattered instances of a tall and pale “veiled lady” clad in black who appears with portents of the future have also been reported; this may be the goddess Mirael. The Goldor dwarves north of Rachspire have reportedly been in direct contact with Thiannon the Forgefather, and may be harboring him somewhere deep under their mountain strongholds. There have been no reported sightings as yet of Shandae, Jenoic, Zor, Elaera, Gwardo or any of the other racial deities, nor of Irindix and the other Elder Banes. However, worshippers of all the divines are operating under the assumption that their god or goddess has already physically manifested in a flesh body and will make him- or herself known when the time is right. This change in the nature of the gods and their unprecedented direct intervention in mortal affairs will likely have ripple effects throughout the new age of post-Convergence Gaia. [B] Aspects and Domains[/B] Each Gaian deity and/or Elder Bane may manifest in multiple aspects, and many of their domains overlap. For the sake of clarity, domains are the areas of divine influence which deities have some control over, and aspects are the potential physical manifestions of the deities themselves. For example, the deities Jenoic and Elaera both govern the domains of Craft, so a cleric may choose those domains if s/he is a worshipper of either deity. Alternately, a cleric who wants access to the Summoner domain might choose to worship the goddess Shandae, for example. Were Jenoic to physically manifest before His cleric for whatever reason, he might take on the aspect of The Walker Beside, Great Brother, or even Anilmathien (his elvish aspect). Likewise, Shandae might appear as the Mother of All, or even Hathor the Cow Goddess or some heretofore unknown aspect. Per the standard rules in the Player’s Handbook, clerics of a particular deity may select any two domains to which their deity provides access. Clerics worshipping different aspects or domains of the same deity are not necessarily members of different religions. Many of the aspects have various respectful surnames (for example, the Fate & Oracles aspects of the goddess Mirael are sometimes called The Veiled Lady), but all aspects are recognized as parts of the whole deity. All clerics worship the whole of the deity first, and their chosen aspect second. Gaian deities are transcendent beings of immense power, and may manifest in different physical forms or aspects to different races and ethnic groups, as they desire. A dwarven priest of the god Jenoic might likely see a dwarf if Jenoic appeared before him physically or in a divine vision; likewise, a human priest would probably see a human – and most likely, a human with physical traits of that priest’s ethnic group. [/QUOTE]
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