Loretober: A Fantasy Worldbuilding Challenge for October!

[jaybirdthings]

# 13. Weapons
Subject: Place
Canvas: Global

THE GREAT FORGE AT WINFIR

Where once the massive Helltree stood as a guardian for the hobgoblins now sits the mightiest forge in all of Verra. The fire giants felled Winfir, and built a massive forge over the roaring hellfire that seeps forever out of Winfir’s roots. The forge is one that many fire giant Master Smiths dedicate that lives to, honing their craft to one day make the Magnum Opus at the forge. It is a bittersweet tradition, as the forge is known to kill many of the smiths who seek to use it.

 

[jaybirdthings]

# 14. War
Subject: Item
Canvas: Regional

THE SHIELD OF KNOVA

Long before the days of the Admasian Empire, Midval was a continent whose surface was verdant and untouched by civilization. The land was occupied, however, by the Commonwealth of Knova, the Dwarven nation that existed entirely beneath the ground, comprised of a vast network of tunnels between clusters of carved rooms called dohns. When the humans arrived on Knova, settling on top of the Commonwealth, many of the human leaders sought to push the dwarves out from under their castles, fearing an invasion from below. This exile was kept at bay by Nivik, a representative of the Commonwealth who sat on the council of Midval with the other nations. Peace lasted 50 years until Nivik passed, and shortly after all human nations came to agreement. They declared war on the Commonwealth, and began raiding their dohns to migrate the dwarves to the rocky spirelands to the southeast of Midval. This small region became New Knova, a shattered and poor nation squeezed out of its own homeland by Admasian and Niaman forces.

The dwarves of Knova are few, and many fled the continent to join their seafaring cousins in Yormanthir. However, those who remain search frantically for the Shield of Knova. It was Nivik’s prized possession, and it is said to give the bearer a heightened force of respect, leadership, and honor. Whoever take the shield up next, in the dwarves’ eyes, is destined to form the Second Commonwealth and unite Midval in peace.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Loretober 15: History

       Year        Event
         1         The Golden Ones officially finished creating the world  
    c. 1 - 2,500   The Crystal Age
c. 2,500 - 4,300   The Electrum Age
    c. 3,030       Arrival of first humans and lizardmen from the 
                     otherworld of Colony Adobe
       3,969       The Pyramid of the Sun completed, near Ylide
c. 4,300 - 5,710   The Iron Age
       5,711       The traditional/official year of the Founding of
                     Great Amphora
       5,850       The year the city was first referred to as Great Amphora
                     instead of Little Amphora
       6,580       The fall of the Amphorian Empire (Great Amphora becomes
                     Broken Amphora)
       6,880       Tim of Atland (“The Mad Wizard”) arrives in the world
       6,892       Founding of the Furfoot Counties
       6,935       Tim of Atland settles near Nalanque, in the Kingdom
                     of Vinland, remaining there for the next 355 years
       7,009       Founding of Ovalmere Faire
       7,564       First edition of the Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics
                     published by the Conjurors’ Research Council, a branch
                     of the old Wizards’ Guild.
    c. 7,600       The old Wizards’ Guild fades away, with the
                     Conjurors’ Research Council being its only
                     surviving remnant today.
       8,165       Master Seztrim arrives in the world, settles in Ylide
  8,282 - 8,284    War of the Eyebrows
       8,321       Cold chocolate soup first served by Gaelvar Claude
                     in La Vache Brune
       8,524       Year this timeline was written

 

[jaybirdthings]

# 15. History
Subject: Person
Canvas: Global

THE GREY WITCH

“Fraud?!? She’s the single greatest writer in recorded history!” A man in the crowd shouted as a group joined him in uproar against the young crier. The woman being surrounded was orcish, her long tusks covering her tight lip as she scowled at the townsfolk who rejected her claims.

“Writer, explorer…tyrant! She’s made a name for herself in all three fields! Seriously, has the Unbound neglected the fine people of Orfana? SHE MURDERED A NATION!!!” Anori barked back at the crowd around her.

“She’s saving them! Mass plague, I heard it!” Someone from the mob shouts.

“She gifted them eternal life! Grey skin is a small price to pay for that if you ask me!” Another calls.

“If Andoca Isotalo did it, there HAS to be a good reason!” A third voice yells.

“How do you all know? You’ve never met her, only read her writing, vicariously lived the life she claims to have led!” Anori’s veins began to glow beneath the sleeves of her coat, causing the crowd to quiet slightly and back off from her. After a brief pause, a figure steps through the crowd to face the town crier.

“…I’ve met her, my lady.” A hollow voice echoes out from the dead man, slowly walking up to Anori. “I was there, you see, when Vashti was reborn.”

Anori looked in horror at the undead figure approaching her. Even the crowd she had so easily angered began to thin out at the sight of the Vashtian, the skin of his brow flapping against his cheek with each step, a large winding grey branch jutting out of his chest causing his performatory breaths to be ragged and sputtering.

“A-and you’re not upset? I-I mean…what about your life? What about your purpose? Who do you have left to live for?” Anori asked with an uncontrollable quiver in her voice, the revenant’s eerie presence causing her firey veins to dim.

“Her, ma’am.” The revenant placed a cold, boney hand on Anori’s shoulder, looking into her face with a blank stare. “I live for her.”

 

[Bohandas]

8.) Myths and Legends

God the Bro and Death the Narc

[crappy edda-knockoff frame story]
King Lofte traveled and sought the wisdom of ages. He came to a campus so large he could not find the end of it, and stopped in a house so tall he could not see the top and covered in runes all about. In the house there were three sofas and in each sat a man. He asked what the names of these were. The name of the first was Highest, the name of the second was Just-As-High, and the name of the third was Baked.

Said Heita, "How came the world into existence, or how did it rise?"

Made answer to him Highest, "It is said:

[main text]
In the beginning God the Bro was alone and had no one to party with, so he created the first man [and other sentient beings as appropriate to setting]. And the first man said "dude, that was cool, you'be gotta show me how you did that". And so God the Bro created the beasts and animals. And the first man toked and drank with God the Bro for many years until finally they had run out of weed and beer. And so God the Bro created the plants and foliage and every kind of mushroom so that there might be more weed and beer and the party could go on.

All still was not perfect however. "Hey this party's a sausagefest" said the first man" and so God the Bro created women. And for ages all was chill.

However, all of the partying and animals and sentient beings angered God the Bro's downstairs neighbor, the Lord of Gloom, the Gloomy King of the Underworld, and he schemed to bring the partying to an end, and sought to entrap the first man.

The King of the Gloomy Underworld, the Lord of Gloom, he invited the first man [and other sapient beings; season to taste] to dine with him at a formal function in the Underworld. He ordered his flunky, the Lord of Flunkies, the King of Flunkies, to prepare a seven course meal. Five coirses of a seven course meal were served. Not knowing the rules of the dead, the first man partook of the first five courses.

Sudeenly God the Bro burst in warning "Dude! Bro! Dude! He's trying to trick you! Don't finish that meal or he shall own you forever"

"It is too late" replied the lord of the underworld, "he has already consumed the food of the underworld, so in the underworld he must stay."

"But two sevenths remain uneaten, so you may only hold him five sevenths of the time"

And so from then on mankind has had to work for five days out of every seven, their bodies and minds toiling while their spirits descend to the underworld.

But the Lord of Gloom still schemed to entrap mankind as they multiplied, by making up new rules that all would have to follow.

One day, as the first man was drinking vodka, the Lord of Gloom came to take him away.
God the Bro protested "Hey, where are you taking my bro!?"
"He has transgressed the unwritten law: No drinking more than half a kilogram of ethanol in one sitting. For this he will be imprisoned in the underworld for all time. From now on there will be order"

And so the Lord of Gloom, The Gloomy King of the Underworld, added more and more rules.

He took people for eating too much, so they stopped eating. Then he took people for not eating at all. He took people for colliding with things too quickly, and for not getting out of the way of other things. And finally he started taking people just for being around too long. Thus death came into the world.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Loretober 16: Premonition
A true premonition, according to the scholars of the arcane, is an untrained and unintentional act of prophesying or scrying, while a false premonition is simply a matter of self-deception or wishful thinking. An important aspect of the study of formal scrying spells, or of the training of a natural talent, is to recognize true premonitions and reject false ones. Without this aspect, the visions of the future may be clear, compelling, and completely fictitious.

Or as the wizard-bard Lokman of Copperthorpe once put it, "How do you tell good prophecy from, say, bad fish?" (Note that Maestro Lokman was quick to add that he was quoting an earlier sage.)

 

[jaybirdthings]

# 16. Premonition
Subject: Person
Canvas: Local

VISIONS IN THE MIST

Father Vicente Alonso of the Church of the Loving Haze is widely revered by his fellow acolytes of Sifa the Pure. His ability to see visions in the mists is unmatched, though his apprentice Reshana Mistfall is quickly learning his ways. He uses a large bowl of water with infused oils, praying over the bowl to cause it to evaporate into the air around him, clouding his vision but granting him powerful foresight in return.

 

[Bohandas]

17.) Time

Assume that time travel is possible but that paradoxes are impossible. The timeline must be self-consistent. In order for the timeline to be self-consistent the timeline must be unchanged by time travelers. It follows that the timeline must not contain anything that time travelers would be both willing and able to change. Therefore all time travelers will be some combination of lucky, ineffectual, and/or apathetic.

Here's what it gets strange and difficult to explain. If a tine traveler can ignore the ineffectuality and push themself past the apathy they will become lucky. Ignoring the ineffectuality is important. They must attempt to change anthing they don't like, even though the immutable nature of time means that it logically must be a thing that they cannot change. This willingness to try to change things means that anything they could change becomes inconsistent, and thus never hapoens in the first place

17.) Time

In the city at the end of time all times and places have been spliced together by a network of stable wormholes. Going to the past, the future, or another planet is as easy as driving across town, and indeed rhe past and future are seen there as just more places.

It is traditional in the city at the end of time for people who are terminally ill to travel to a time before they were born to expire. The end of life is less frightening knowing that the beginning of life will follow soon thereafter.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Loretober 17: Time
The division of each day into two periods of twelve hours each is now a long-settled convention, with the growth in popularity of dwarf-clocks being the factor that finally established it: The dwarven clockmakers refused to craft clocks that struck thirteen. A small number of hold-outs for numbering the day's hours from one to twenty-four still exists, mostly among lizardmen.

Then, of course, there was the clock-reform proposal of the Mad Wizard Tim. In his writings, he argued for a day of twenty hours, with each hour divided into sixty-four minutes and each minute into sixty-four seconds.

 

[jaybirdthings]

# 17. Time
Subject: Item
Canvas: Global

THE HEART OF TIME

The heart of the Inexorable Time is the source of the knights great power over the temporal flow. Their form was constructed to best harness this artifact as a protector of the Prime Reality while minimizing the damage of its interferences upon the worlds. In the hands of another, however, Time is caustic, ever-changing. Everything Civilization used it to oppose. This can prove beneficial to the Syndicate of Order or become an omen of the End of Time itself, depending on its wielder.

"This manifold now loses the Warden of Chronology to the Warden of Expiration, also lost. The mantle passed, Wayfinder the End Scribe now possesses temporal mastery. This Truth remains certain: Even in the Death's Grey Gaze, Time is Inexorable."