Level Up (A5E) Sins of the Scorpion Age, Sword and Sorcery Campaign Setting

[Tales and Chronicles]

While bingewatching some shows, I thought about a fun and quirky element for the setting:

The importance of hats. While watching the show Kingdom on Netflix, I discovered that Korean had a whole class hierarchy represented by their hats. Each jobs and social class had some kind of hat.

In a setting, where sun is prevalent for half the year and the other half is typhoon-like rain, having a good hat is important. Nobles could be identified by the special shape of their hats and the material they use, while the peasant use straw or reed hats of basic shapes.

japanese straw hat - Google Search

 

[Tonguez]

Minotaurs - Merrow
Humans - Kuo Toa
Stormborn - Sahuagin

Seem reasonable?

In my Island setting Merrow = Aquatic Ogre Magi, who pose as minor gods and would demand tribute from the local human tribes. Some of these Merrow Overlords were benevolent, others were cruel despots.

I’d have the Myri tribes dependent of sail, harrassed by Sahuagin and paying tribute to Merrow.

 

[Steampunkette]

In my Island setting Merrow = Aquatic Ogre Magi, who pose as minor gods and would demand tribute from the local human tribes. Some of these Merrow Overlords were benevolent, others were cruel despots.

I’d have the Myri tribes dependent of sail, harrassed by Sahuagin and paying tribute to Merrow.

Ohh... I -do- like that.

Subject to monsters beneath the waves who try to keep their existence hidden from outsiders... Providing worked metal and stone because there's no Fire underwater. Yeah, I know, Ocean Vented Volcanoes, but that's more high fantasy than I'd hope to aim.

It would also make the Myri a -strange- people when viewed from the mainland. Not enough mountain/metal on the islands to sustain their smithies and forges...

 

[Steampunkette]

Current plan:

Myr used to be an advanced region, gifted with great power by their gods. Strange sciences, strong magics, big awesome warrior-mage kingdom. Sort of a High Fantasy age feel for their place. Those who could make the journey -would- because Myr was a place of great plenty and ease.

But during the War of Transgression, the gods of Myr were on the wrong side. The land sank beneath the waves, with only high mountain peaks left behind.

The many gods of the Myri offered some measure of succor to the people, even as they were twisted and drowned into monstrous forms, themselves. And changed those who went down with them into fishmen and merrow and the like. Life beneath is not plentiful. It is not easy. The aquatic myri war against each other and fend off attacks from deep sea life and monsters pretty routinely. It's like a world where every animal is a flying one, and all the predators fly, too.

Much of what they had was lost. And their gods have been twisted and driven mad by the collapse into the sea. But there is one god, a hidden -true- god, the Kraken, who largely controls the aquatic Myri, now. (CR 23 puts him on even terms with the Eight Divines!). How he survived the War of Transgression is anyone's guess... But it is to him that worship turns.

Even the landbound Myri offer secret worship to the Kraken, and tributes are often cast into the sea so that their fishing boats return, laden with a catch, rather than disappear into the Dweller's Depths.

 

[Steampunkette]

Hmm... Myr as Acheron? It's an interesting idea, since it also plays into Lemuria.

Make it have formerly been this big technomagic evil kingdom that initiated a war of Conquest to "Spread Peace" across the lands. Uprisings occur during the conquest and various gods and peoples are killed, Myri buildings spring up around the world where the Sorcerer-King's stuff is going down to sprinkle a different type of ruin across the lands that is easily recognized...

And the uprising eventually succeeds in turning the Myri Conquest into the War of Transgression, and bring about the curses of the Gods. During the Transgression the gods smite Myr into the ocean and do all kinds of devastation in the process (Qesh wasn't a Seaside settlement before)...

Could definitely work.

 

[Steampunkette]

Rather than make the Myr into villains, I think I'll just stretch the oppression backwards a bit in time.

Ancais (Ahn-Kai) will be the former evil kingdom distaff Acheron, while the Myr were oppressed people in the kingdom, now -mostly- set free by it's destruction, but some of them are still paying tribute to the Ancais people under the waves.

 

[GuyBoy]

Good idea. It allows for moral greyness of Myr people paying tributes (perhaps the player characters) to evil beings, but only doing it to save themselves.

 

[Steampunkette]

Ancais (Ank-eye) once dominated much of the world. Their fortresses and towers, terrible edifices of black stone and archaic writing, still stand in many cities and in the wildlands of the world, largely ruined by time, disuse and vandalism. At the height of the Empire it stretched from Ellenici to the lands beyond what is now Myr, Grisia to Imba. Only Ngo stood uncontrolled by the Sorcerer-Kings of old. But their war of conquest came at terrible costs, and as the great city-states and nations of the world retaliated, it became the War of Transgression.

The gods who survived, in their wrath, punished the world with curses. But none more highly than Ancais, which sank beneath the tides overnight. Those who lived in the highest mountains, the Myri who had been enslaved and oppressed, are all who are known to have survived.

What ruins of the Empire stand beyond the walls of cities are spider-haunted ruins plagued by the unquiet dead and whatever horrors the Ancais Kings left in them. Many an expedition from Arat Shi has sought such a tomb, never to return.

What lies within? Who can say... At their height, the Empire held magics and strange sciences far beyond any rival. They had mapped the stars and found the intent of the gods within them... Who can say? None who yet live. Perhaps not even the gods themselves know. Else they would have smote those dark edifices an age ago...
-The Chronicler-

 

[Steampunkette]

Something I've been saying in other threads around the boards that I should formalize:

Outsiders are Unaligned for the Project Chronicle setting. They either ascribe to a moral identity that is outside of mortal experience or understanding, like Lovecraftian monsters that tend to treat mortals as little more than animals, or they're incapable of having a moral identity of their own and exist with perfect loyalty to a greater being into whom they invest their morality.

The difference to a mortal perspective in the setting is essentially nil. All outsiders are inscrutable wild cards that cannot be successfully predicted, only guessed at, with a similar level of success. They're also not likely to explain themselves to mortals for the same reason Einstein didn't explain Relativity to Puppies. As cute and tiny as they might be, they'll never be able to truly comprehend what you're telling them.

Imagine telling someone that you have to kill them for the greater good. They'll try to fight back, beg for their life, or escape, wasting everyone's time. So much easier to -just- kill them and then leave.

 

[Steampunkette]

Decided to compile everything except classes into a single document. Wound up with 11 solid pages of text with no formatting or imagery...

Kind of put into perspective how little I've actually written since this starts. Though, granted, the Classes are a further 19.5 pages of text without imagery or formatting.

I need to set out a format for the Deities and city-states, as well as nearby city-states under them. Alliances and all. It clearly helped me do up a -ton- of work on the Classes in fairly short order, comparatively.

Who would have thought that focusing your efforts would result in getting things done?