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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Epic Meepo" data-source="post: 9613463" data-attributes="member: 57073">A random idea inspired by the Dark Sun campaign setting and by the works of H.P. Lovecraft:The Nighted Sun“[Darkness almost material] burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky...”- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of CthulhuBefore the children of bygone days lost their great cities to the Crawling Chaos, the world was a place bright and verdant. Today, clouds of dust obscure the sun, and noisome tides pollute the sea. In some wild places, primal nature yet rages against this doom. Elsewhere, more crops fail with every passing season. Sunset falls on a world of plenty, despite all efforts to turn the tide.Invoking secret knowledge older than humankind, witch cults revive species last seen in elder aeons. The same arcane forces which work these miracles draw nightmares down from the stars and awaken dreamscapes in sensitive minds. Somewhere in those worlds beyond matter, ethereal music lulls cruel and terrible gods to sleep, but the melody grow quieter by the day.Setting ThemesA dying planet orbits the Nighted Sun. Dark magic slows the world’s decline, even as that magic attracts the attention of alien beings. The following are some themes present in this setting:Ecological Collapse. Modern humans have damaged the world’s ecosystems. Cyclical cosmic forces have amplified this damage, triggering a global extinction event.Corrupting Magic. Witch cults preserve eldritch lore predating the dawn of humankind. They use their arcane knowledge to sustain the dying world, but their efforts come at a price.Intrusive Alien Realities. Mass extinctions are lullabies for terrible alien entities. Efforts to revive the dying world disturb the slumber of beings whose mere thoughts can warp reality.Psionic Dreamscapes. As the dying world collides with realities beyond, sensitive minds awaken to shared dreamscapes that extend into higher planes of existence.Character OriginsBeneath the Nighted Sun, efforts to restore life to the dying world have turned the story of a single humanoid species into a tale of many different peoples.Modern Humans. The human species evolved in recent aeons. For a time, humankind was the only sapient species active in the world. Humans now dwindle in number, their population supplemented in some areas by other humanoid peoples new to the modern age. Despite this demographic shift, humans remain one of the most populous humanoid species in the world, if not the most populous.Prehistoric Humanoids. In past aeons, other humanoids played the role of humankind. Each of these prehistoric peoples later went extinct. Using powerful but dangerous ritual magic, witch cults have revived several of these once-extinct species. These species include dwarves, halflings, and orcs. Each of these peoples was the world’s predominant humanoid species in a different bygone era.Metamorphoses. Humanoids with non-humanoid ancestors sometimes change species as they age, becoming more like their non-humanoid forebears. This process can produce species which wouldn’t otherwise exist, including: aasimar (of celestial ancestry); dragonborn (of dragon ancestry); elves and gnomes (of fey ancestry); goliaths (of giant ancestry); and tieflings (of fiendish ancestry).---Thoughts? Questions? Critiques?</blockquote>

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