#its so fun creating lore for the infinite realms | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

akisata-moved · 4 years ago

Text

a little bit of divine worldbuilding 🕊️

hi everyone! i said i would make a post about my angel worldbuilding and the lore surrounding it, so here we are. let's get into this!

(as a forewarning: this got really long really fast. sorry lol)

i. at the beginning of the universe: what's the deal with god, heaven, and hell?

you know... this guy. ...or, guys? i use they pronouns for god, not because they're nonbinary rep or anything but because the classic collection uses they pronouns for god because they are literally plural. so, multiple guys.

a. the universe's first inhabitants 🌟

we can't have angels (or anything, really) without god. so... what is god?

to put it simply, "god" is a small collective of beings that hail from a primordial race of creatures called aeons. contrary to popular belief, "god" did not create the universe as a whole.

that being said, they WERE the first beings to exist in the universe; gifted with near-immortality and the power of creation, they were essentially burdened the cosmic purpose of bringing the universe to life. think of them as... like, demiurges, really. despite being the first beings in the universe, they didn't really start popping up until ~370,000 years into the universe existing.

(whether or not there is a "supreme" being above them isn't something i've given TOO much thought to. my working idea is that the universe is quite literally a supreme being in itself.)

so, our "god" is not the only ones of their kind. there isn't a large amount of them, but considering the size of the universe and how it's ever-expanding... there's enough of them to go around, you know.

as the early stages of the universe progress, they start to become aware of the existence of each other. it's difficult to be what is essentially a god and be unaware of the presences that surround you.

the attitudes that they held towards each other varied from aeon to aeon. some of them worked in tandem, others remained solitary. some of them competed with others, and others dedicated themselves to watching over their corner of the universe and making it a home.

there weren't many "overstepped boundaries" in the infinitely expanding stretch of space they had at their disposal. in the early stages of the universe, there was no need for that kind of thing. they all mostly stayed in their own lanes.

during the early epochs, they mostly just spent their time experimenting, growing and changing, and learning the ins and outs of their little cosmic playground.

due to the nature and scope of their abilities, and their immortality, they were mostly aware that their exploits were relatively infinitesimal. they had a very acute awareness that every planet and galaxy they created would eventually crumble.

similarly to their attitudes towards each other, the attitudes they held towards their creations varied. some liked to stay disconnected, and hopped from creation to creation, moving on as soon as they finished working on their little project. others were more involved.

in regards to their abilities, they aren't omnipotent. in fact i wouldn't even really call them omnificent. if there was a way to describe what they were able to do, it would be... transmute? the universe provided all the materials for creation, and so it was their job to use their divine power to... make something with it, really. they can't create something out of absolutely nothing. there has to be something for them to make stuff.

they also don't really have any kind of set moral compass. so none of them are inherently evil, good, bad, whatever.

of course, given the fact that they mostly reside in space (we'll get to what exactly "heaven" is in a little), they aren't necessarily bound to one physical shape or form. we love shapeshifters.

b. the devilman "god", and the prison of light 🕯️

the devilman "god" is a trio of aeons who bonded over a certainty and awareness of what they wanted from the universe. they strove to create something perfect— something beautiful. better than every other creation out there. other aeons' work was... sloppy, imperfect, and quite ugly.

as stated before, the aeons aren't necessarily physical beings. that makes it really easy for them to fuse with each other, as they aren't really bound to any kind of physics or laws governing their consciousnesses and bodies.

"so are they a hivemind" not necessarily? they're all just... fused together. the pros of fusing together like that means that one single entity now has the power of three aeons, which lets them do a lot more than if they were all separate, and on a larger scale. god is a throuple

they probably aren't the only aeon group to do this, honestly.

fun note: the devilman "god" never refers to themselves as another aeon. they always refer to themselves as a "god", and it's mainly just because they think they're better than the rest of the aeons lol. i'll be referring to them as god from here on out just because it's easier.

so, then what? god decides that they need a place for themselves. a pocket of space only for them (+ eventually, the angels). they needed a home base of sorts, a place that represented their vision as they imagined it. and so, they created heaven.

so what even is heaven? it's essentially a sub-universe, or a pocket of the universe that god hid away just for themselves.... and for the angels, which were created afterwards.

once again, i doubt heaven is the only realm of its kind. i doubt that god is the only aeon who had the idea for a "home base" of sorts.

heaven started out as a home just for god, but as angelic society grew, it eventually turned into a whole kingdom. that being said, god still has a palace Just For Them at the very top layer of it!

people don't go to heaven. nope. that doesn't happen. mainly because it's not an "afterlife".

after god created heaven and the angels, heaven because a home for all of them. heaven was created to be perfect (in the eyes of its creator), or as close to perfect as god could manage while also having a species with (sort of) free will residing within it.

heaven is almost like a hidden galaxy, except a LOTTT smaller.

heaven is mostly made up of clouds and solid energy. there are actually five layers of heaven; one for each sphere of the angelic choir, one for the Archangels, and one for god.

that isn't to say that the angels are confined to one layer. they can freely travel about, it's just that they'll usually spend time in the layer dedicated to their sphere, unless they're stationed to work elsewhere.

the need for more and more angels became more important as time went on. god became more... power hungry, and they fell harder into the belief that they alone were the ones worthy of the universe. they eventually gained a very hostile attitude towards other aeons and cosmic societies. this wasn't unheard of, really, but considering how most of them stayed in their own lanes, having god be all... aggressive was a little bit of a shock. needless to say, this resulted in the formation of enemies... and other forms of cosmic politics.

heaven and angelic culture has a lot of emphasis on architecture! ...although, not in a way you would expect. the best way i can explain it is that it's very... suess-like.

lots of staircases, lots of columns, lots of... that kind of thing...

while we're on the topic of sub-universes, we can talk a little about hell, too.

hell was actually created by the universe itself, not by the aeons or god or anything. it has always existed, and is sort of a universal collection all life and souls. sorta like the universe's garbage can for all dead things.

it’s less of an eternal resting place and more of an intermediary location you go while the universe works to basically recycle your soul and convert it back to its original state.

ii. what is an angel?: a little on angelic society

a. the angelic choir at a glance📜

angelic society as a whole is referred to as the angelic choir.

the main thing about angelic society is that it's split into different spheres based on how much power an angel has/the specific task they were made to do.

why do angels exist in the first place? they were made to be servants of god, and basically do everything that they do... for them. so, deliver messages, be soldiers, do tasks and chores and watch over the things god makes... all that kind of thing.

angels have free will, but were created with an ingrained sense of duty that usually outweighs said free will. or perhaps it influences their free will. hard to tell. that being said, most angels will not do anything if it directly contradicts their purpose.

also, angels are not inherently “good” aligned. like I said, they have free will, which means they have choices. angels can be shitty people! whether or not an angel “falls” has nothing to do with what their character is like, and everything to do with whether or not they are defiant to God.

not a lot of angels do defy god, either. an angel being kicked out of heaven is pretty rare.

anyways, back to the angelic choir... there are three spheres of angel, each with three types of angel in them. the highest ranking angels are the first order of the first sphere, and the lowest ranking are the third order of the third sphere. yeah.

in the first sphere you have the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones. the first sphere angels are the only angels that tend directly to god.

the second sphere is made up of the dominations, the virtues, and the powers.

the third sphere consists of the principalities, the arches, and the angels (generic term).

Archangels are above the first sphere in rank. they're the most powerful angels, and there aren't very many of them.

b. archangels and the angels of the first sphere🔥

Archangels, as stated before, are the most powerful angels and the ones with the most important duties. they're mostly angelic supervisors that manage angels with different specialties. who are the archangels? before lucifer's fall, there were eight different archangels.

jophiel (archangel of wisdom and inspiration), chamuel (archangel of divine justice), gabriel (archangel of revalation), raphael (archangel of healing), uriel (archangel of truth and light), zadkiel (archangel of healing), and, of course, michael (archangel of strength and courage) and lucifer (archangel of love and empathy).

the first sphere angels are the angels that are closest to god, and the only ones that can interact where with them directly. they're the least... replaceable angels, except for the archangels. that's why they don't really leave heaven.

the seraphim are the bodyguards of the throne, and those who directly guard and protect both god's palace and the different layers of heaven itself. they're stationed just about everywhere on the fifth layer of heaven, and then scattered about in the other layers just to keep an eye on everything. they're also stationed at the entrances and exits.

they're busy a LOT of the time. they take their jobs very seriously.

the seraphim are the angels that interact the most with god. the cherubim and the thrones do, too, but not as frequently.

the tradition when interacting with god is to cover their faces and bodies with their wings when interacting directly with them. it's a sort of humbling thing, to show that they regard themselves as lesser than them. just out of respect.

the cherubim are the celestial recordkeepers of heaven, and the ones that really hold the knowledge of god and heaven.

they're known for their wisdom, and they keep records of everything that happens in their part of the universe. nothing goes undocumented, really. heaven's historians are also cherubim.

along with keeping records of events, they also keep track of all of the angels that are created, and those that come in and out of heaven. and those who go out and dont come back. yeah.

jophiel is the archangel who supervises the cherubim.

the thrones are some of the most intellectual angels and have wonderful minds. they serve as both teachers, guides, and counselors for the lower ranks of the angels.

they're the ones in charge of receiving orders from god and dishing out duties to the lower ranks (dominations, mostly) and explaining them. celestial teachers, really. they're very engaged with the rest of angelic society, and are always willing to offer an explanation or a helping hand to other angels.

they're also the head order that deals with cosmic laws and making sure everything that god makes works the way it's supposed to. god doesn't really have time to keep everything in check themselves, so it's up to the thrones and the virtues to make sure their creation... functions like it should.

lucifer was supposed to the archangelic supervisor of the thrones...? but, uh... that didn't exactly.... uh.... work out....

after lucifer was cast out, jophiel was put in charge of both the thrones and the cherubim. it's a lot of work for one angel, really, but she doesn't mind.

c. angels of the second and third spheres☄️

the first order of the second sphere is the dominations. think of these guys as... well, management.

they're in charge of managing the angelic kingdoms, and of regulating the second sphere angels in lower orders.

they help keep everyone organized. there's a lot of things to keep track of.

the dominions get their orders from the thrones (who receive orders from god), and pass along orders to the principalities in the third sphere along with the virtues and powers. it's just a big chain.

zadkiel is the archangel in charge of the dominations rank. he also deals with some of the stuff that the principalities handles, but mostly sticks to dominations.

the second order of the second sphere is the virtues. if seraphim are the guards and watchers of heaven itself, then the virtues are the watchers of the universe (well, god's part of the universe, anyways).

they watch over everything god creates, from planets, galaxies, luminaries, and other celestial bodies to make sure the cosmos are in order. and that nothing is going wrong.

they work closely with certain thrones angels for this reason.

it's actually very important to make sure shit isn't going wrong. especially considering how their god's... hostile attitude... attracts some not so friendly faces.

uriel is the archangel in charge of the virtues, and because of the close ties between the virtues and the thrones, he quickly became good friends with lucifer.

the powers are the third order of the third sphere, and they make up the angelic army.

can basically be split into two groups— soldiers and healers. the soldiers were originally led by chamuel, but the job was pretty much taken over by michael once he showed up, and chamuel instead switched gears to deal more with strategizing after that. raphael supervises those more geared towards healing.

running an army is hard work, turns out. there's a lot that goes into it.

the third sphere is the most populous sphere; they're like worker bees. they're very easy to replace, and are very expendable.

third sphere angels actually leave heaven a lot. they deal with intergalactic relationships.

in the first sphere, the principalities are the main managers of the lower-ranking arches and angels. they're very similar to the dominations in that regard, and they actually get their orders from them. like i said before... it's a big chain.

they're the ones that are stuck dealing the most with cosmic politics.

arches are celestial envoys, while your everyday angels work as messengers, running back and forth between heaven and other places in space. angel postal service!

the angels and arches are also assigned most of the mundane tasks not given to any higher ranks.

usually the angels go out in groups, because there's safety in numbers, and space is REALLY big. at least one arch will accompany an angel group, and on occasion, a principality will come too, depending on how important things are.

that being said, there have been many, many instances where angels don't come back. sometimes they get lost. this happens more often than it should.

gabriel is the head messenger archangel. he's the postmaster. angel. guy.

d. okay i'll bite. what are angels made of. aka, angel physiology 🌠

angels are special. lol.

they're made of photon energy (in the case of most angels) and thermal energy (in the case of seraphim).

(lucifer is an Archangel, so he is... as stated above, made of photons.)

as stated before, god can't create something out of nothing. the energy needed to create angels actually is specific to the energy emitted from dying stars. every angel comes from the death of a star.

so, this means a couple of things. first of all, as angels are created, not born, they don't actually have a functional reproductive system. because they weren't created with the intention of reproduction. the genitalia is decorative essentially tbh. also, every angel looks like this. it's definitely not a reproductive thing. it's entirely aesthetic.

"romance" is essentially nonexistent in angel culture. uh, they all see each other as some kind of equivalent of siblings, considering they were all made directly by the same creator. they all refer to god as their parents, and so they all see each other as siblings.

(that being said, it's not like they're incapable of love or anything. ryosatanlucifer retains his feelings for akira even after he turns back into an angel, so it's not like he can't feel love or anything like that. i mean, that should be obvious, but i felt the need to specify anyways)

the second thing this: angels lack all forms of physical sensation. their bodies are... kind of numb to all sense of touch, taste, smell, etc. they are, in some circumstances, intangible. what does that mean? well...

sorry for having so much stuff from go nagai world.... we never got to see satan in the actual ovas </3

they can float through stuff sometimes. their tangibility (on earth) is actually up to them. so, for example, if they wanted to, they could float through a door. or they could open a door by turning the doorknob. though, they wouldn't be able to experience the sensation of actually touching the doorknob.

anywho. there are actual a few variations of angelic appearance depending on what rank of angel they are! i have... erm... drawn a few examples of some of the angels, but not a whole lot? ahh.... there they are anyways. some of the descriptions are a little outdated bc i've changed into since then but YEAH!!

Archangels, at the very top of the angelic choir, are beautiful with 12 large snow-white wings— two on the head, two from the shoulderblades, two on the middle back, two on the lower back, on on each arm and one on each ankle. they’re all nearly identical- though, most of the angels within each order looks nearly identical. they’re identical in the way that cats of the same coat color and breed are identical. michael and lucifer are actually identical, though, because they’re like real life twins, and are born from the same star. yeah!

seraphim are made from condensed thermal energy rather than light energy. they’re super hot. Lol. they have 10 wings (head, shoulders, lower back, arms, and ankles) unlike the Archangel’s 12. They’re warmer in color scheme than the Archangels, which are usually a sort of yellow-white color? they glow. seraphim are more red-orange because they’re… heat. They also have the ability to manifest flames out of their body, though it’s kind of just for show considering how it can't really do anything.

the cherubim are covered in eyes. or, their wings are covered in eyes- they have 8 of them! wings, I mean (head, shoulders, lower back, and ankles). they have way more than eight eyes. Also, they can open eyes up on their bodies when they get really stressed or angry! it’s a fun neat cherubim trait. all the cherubim are so tired. let them go home please.

the thrones are the third order in the first sphere of the Angelic choir, and these are our ringy-boys. they're the angels with the most emphasis on halos- they can make them spin really fast and manifest more rings around them whenever they feel strongly or honestly just when they want to. they’re usually surrounded by them, just as a sort of status thing. they typically serve as messenger angels (delivering orders to the second sphere) and bodyguards for the cherubim. they have 6 pairs of wings (head, shoulders, and lower back).

from there on out appearance is mostly dictated by sphere— second sphere angels (dominations, virtues, and powers) have two sets of wings (on the head and the shoulders), while first sphere angels (principalities, arches, and angels) have only one set of wings on their shoulders, and look pretty similar to the standard depiction of angels.

e. some more about angel culture in general

i just wanted to share some more fun little details about angel culture, because there IS stuff beyond work for these guys lol

society is really easy to be sustained when there's no need for "hard labor", and when everyone is created with a sense of purpose. and the fact that they don't really need to eat or anything.

since there isn't much of a need for extra work outside of everyone's Assigned Jobs, when there is free time, it's mostly dedicated to the arts. there's actually a LOT of focus on art in angelic culture!

though, it's a lot less... genuine? than "human art". the idea of "perfection" is heavily exalted in angelic society, mainly because that's what god wishes for, and god is the One Real Authority in their society. a lot of angelic art tries to reflect this idea of perfect beauty that they've had drilled into their heads from the beginning of their existence.

of course, perfection is unachievable for the angels. so sad.

art that depicts any kind of "flaw" is entirely unheard of. angels are the ultimate perfectionists.

since none of the angels actually LOOK at god (the archangels and first spheres cover their eyes with their wings when they come in direct contact with them), a lot of art is actually of god. it's always sort of a contest to see how perfectly and beautiful they can depict god. it's a form of worship, really.

they do have a written language. but "novels" aren't really a thing. they aren't super big on fiction. what's the point of that?

instead, they use written language to keep historical accounts, archive events, and write PSALMS. so so many psalms. they really love to write music dedicated to praising their god.

"music" in quotes, because it's... not exactly comparable to human music. it's angel music, guys. cmon.

they also like writing poetry a lot.

because of the way they worship perfection in art/writing, things end up feeling a little bit... sterile? yeah.

obviously, since they are in space, they don't use any kind of timescale similar to days/hours/weeks/etc. there's a sort of "day" equivalent in which things are a lot... brighter? but that's really it.

angels don't age, either. they have no concept of age.

they do have another consistent method of keeping time, though, and it's based on how long it takes for angels (third rank of the third sphere) to be created. lower rank angels are really being produced at a constant rate, to make up for losses, so it's easy to divide time this way. the time it takes to make one angel = one angelic "day".

they don't really have any equivalent of years, instead naming longer periods of time (ages) after whatever archangel was created last. so, the age of gabriel, or the age of uriel.

when michael and lucifer were made At the same Time, the cherubim got into a lot of arguments over who to name the age after. it wasn't like there was any way to choose between the two.

so they just decided on both eventually. lol. they called it the age of lucifer and michael.

after lucifer well, a new Age started. so the age of lucifer and michael and the age of michael are two separate time periods.

michael is sooooooooooooo cocky about that, too. what a bitch.

anyways, like stated before, the idea of perfection is super important to angels. to them, god represents the ULTIMATE perfection.

and on that same note, talking bad about god, and going against god's will, is a very big NO!!!!!!. they REALLY do not do that.

.......okay!!!!!!!! whew!

that was a LOT, but if you read all the way through... mwah! thank you so much for listening to my thoughts!!!! i might make a separate post about lucifer's history/his relationships with the other angels/his fall later on. but for now.... here's just some basic stuff about angels and how they work!!! yeah!!!!!

#devilman #hi i made this post because i ... erm... saw some other posts that just horrified me today<3 #how is everyone else doing.#me pulling info from three different word docs i have up rn #tbh... i dont expect anyone to read this. this more of a personal post for myself #LONG POST BTWWW #angel stuff #<- new TAG

31 notes · View notes

kagrenacs · 4 years ago

Text

Explaining the Iceberg #6

*Some things aren’t covered, namely things i’ve already discussed or content that I don’t feel is appropriate. And not everything is covered in depth

Tatterdemalion Moon Colonies: A since deleted forum post from MK, discussing the moon colonies of Reman that would later appear in c0da

Tamriel is the Far Shores: Orgnum is the immortal King of the Maormer, also said to be the Serpent God of the Sakatal’ indicating some connection to the Yokudan God of everything, Sakatal. Orgnum’s goal is to conquer Tamriel, this theory states that he may have mantled the Yokudan God and is confusing Tamriel for the Far Shores.

Water is Memory: One of the more difficult concepts to really pin down in these kind of theories, so bear with me. This topic has been brought up a few times in older lore discussions, and once again in ESO quite recently. First there should be clarification that I mean water both metaphorically and literally, just like the towers, there is no distinction between real and fake because this is a video game world. Second thing to note: There’s a lot of conflicting theories and ideas on this, i’m only providing the way I can conceptualize this all. If I provided every theory i’d surely hit some sort of character limit. Do you remember the metaphor about every soul in existence being a singular drop in an ocean? This is looking at the ocean itself, it’s the collective consciousness and memories of everyone out there, past, present and future. But this isn’t a synonym for souls and energy, this is a whole separate process. Sometimes souls are shown to be able to live without their memories (the soul carin), sometimes reflections of people's memories get stuck to places like ghosts (memory stones) When someone dies, their soul/energy and their memories may stick together and go to an Aedra or Daedra, or they might get split apart (like a Vestige) and end up in the Dreamsleeve to get recycled and in the Drowned Lamp which is a name for where all knowledge lost to history goes. This concept can be seen with the Daedra too, when discussing the ‘waters of oblivion’ when they get banished their essence heads back to this beginning place to spring back up. Water is memory also gets brought up quite often talking about Sotha Sil, who Vivec says is the selfishness of the sea, and whose ‘daughter’ is Mnemoli/Memory.

Crassius Curio, Time traveller: Another variant on the Crassius Curio plagiarism theory, accounting for why the lusty argonian maid is in ESO.

The Republic of Hahd: Mentioned in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, a group of people who claimed they lived off the coast of summerset, in an underwater civilization called Hahd. The only point in history that they became relevant was when they received tariffs for the transport of ‘mnemolite’ from the people of Hahd to the people of Nahd, and nearly sparked war between the Empire and the Altmer as they tried to figure out what was going on. Hahd and Nahd were both made up, thought to be by a group of psjjic students, as the island of Artaeum disappeared in that same year again.

Leaper Demons: Another name for Mehrunes Dagon, before he was cursed to become Dagon. Named this because of his ability to jump from Kalpa to Kalpa

Zero Stone: This is related to the towers, it’s the ‘heart’ of the tower, the piece that keeps it stable and functioning, essentially like a cornerstone. For the Red Tower and Walk-Brass this was a literal heart (the Heart of Lorkhan), but sometimes it’s other things like a fruit, or a person.

Tiber Septim Awoke Dagoth Ur: In the same short time as the Tiber Wars, where Tiber Septim was attempting to conquer all of Tamriel, Dagoth Ur awoken in Morrowind, which eventually forced ALMSIVI’s hand in signing the Armistice that would make Morrowind a part of the empire, hand over the Numidium, but allow Morrowind to largely keep it’s sovereignty. This theory suggests that Tiber Septim purposefully awoke Dagoth Ur as a long-term strategy, rather than trying to defeat ALMSIVI in wars. If not done purposefully, Dagoth ur may have been awakened by the presence of Tiber Septim (whose thu’um seemed to have came from Wulfharth, a survivor of the battle of Red Mountain and associate of Dagoth Ur)

Akatosh’s Shadow: MK mentioned Peryite as Akatosh’s shadow. Akatosh/Auriel largely introduced stability into the chaos of the Dawn Era as the God of time. Peryite has a similar function, that being natural order, where he micromanages Oblivion and Nirn. There’s more to this theory that i haven’t included due to sake of brevity https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/4zct3i/the_shadow_of_aka_peryite/

The people of Et’Ada: Mentioned in the books The Light and Dark and Sithis, the people of et’ada are the descendants of the clash between Anu and Padomay, the original spirits that would give up their forms to become mortal

The Dwemer became their creations: A thought that instead of the commonly accepted Numidium Skin Theory, the Dwemer souls are the ones powering their automatons.

Lefthanded Maomer: An in-universe theory that the Lefthanded elves and the Maomer are related. Evidence for this may exist in Orgunm being ‘Sakatal’

Skyrim getting Colder: A theory that says Skyrim is entering the ice age because of the recent snowfalls and the presence of Sabertooth cats and mammoths.

Anti-Magik Zones: Probably taken from D&D, areas where magic doesn’t work for some reason or other.

The Greedy Man: Another name for Lorkhan due to him ‘stealing’ the divinity of his fellow Et’Ada

Vvardenfell Lesbian Anomaly: The prescence of a large amount of wlw npcs in ESO and the presence of Tel Mora, an island full of women and Mistress Dratha who says she hates men. While the ESO one i’d argue that there’s a fairly equal spread of same sex couples, and Tel Mora is certainly the original developers adding in something ‘strange’ by having an entirely female island, various Lgbt fans of the games have made their own theories on this. @boethiah has proposed that Tel Mora was established as a safe place for lesbians, and Telmoran is the in-universe equivalent to ‘lesbian’

Prism Textract: A reference to a book from the mod Legacy of the Dragonborn

Ruptga: The chief god of the Yokudan Pantheon, people debate on whether he’s equivalent to Akatosh or Magnus, if he’s even equivalent to any god. He was the first god to figure out the Walkabout, and taught the other gods how to survive Sakatal (God of everything) shedding its skin.

The Elder Council world control: References a theory that the Elder Council is an incredibly powerful political entity that controls the entire world. (looking at how things were handled in Oblivion, doubtful.)

Tiber Septim Shapeshifting dragon: Ingame theories that Tiber Septim was a shapeshifting dragon based on the empire’s affiliation with them. (source seems to originate from GT Noonan, pre-Oblivion and Skyrim) Could be an early idea for Dragonborns, or perhaps just a wild conspiracy theory.

Insane Time-God: Another MK text, et’Ada Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer. States Aka has gone insane due to how many names he has

The Staff of Unity and Chaos: The object you need to assemble in tes Arena. Is able to open gateways to other realms, near instantly kill people. In some of the early drafts of the main quest of ESO, a similar relic was proposed called the Staff of Towers, and would have been similar to the main quest of Arena.

Dracocrysalis: Mentioned in the Nu-Mantia, it’s largely unknown what this means apart from ‘it keeps elder magic bound so it can’t change into something lesser’ based off wording it probably means something akin to changing into a dragon.

Telescopic Aurbis: Refers to a quote from MK A single Wheel? More like a Telescope that stretches all the way back to the Eye of the Anui-El, with Padomaics innumerable along its infinite walls. Essentially this refers to the cycle of Kalpas, all wheels lined up with one another would make a telescope-like shape. The focal point of the telescope would be Mundus, ascending upwards you hit oblivion, then Aetherius surrounding that, and then lesser, more chaotic realms beyond that. This is also mentioned in the Murkmire book ‘Lost tales of the Famed Explorer.’

Gaenor is Sai: Gaenor is said to be one of the hardest bosses of Morrowind, in the Tribunal expansion you can give him gold and allow him to become an incredibly strong warrior. He has incredibly high luck (770 points) making him difficult to hit. This theory states that he is either Sai, the god of luck himself, or a champion of his.

Haskill is the Actual Mad God: This might be a couple different theories. 1st: The events of the Shivering Isles is a trick played on the player character by Haskill/Sheogorath, and the Sheo you see and interact with is just a projection. 2nd: From a loremaster interview from ESO, Haskill states he’s the ‘vestige’ of Sheogorath, the mortal remnants of the person who mantled the mad god in the last greymarch.

Moraelyn=Nerevar: Moraelyn of the King Edward books was likely an early draft for Nerevar. Both have association with roses, both are from House Mora and are considered a champion of the Dunmer. He probably participated in the War with the Nords, being described in the 36 Lessons.

Tsaesci Vampire Language eaters: From MK’s And we ate it to become it and another interview. https://www.imperial-library.info/content/fireside-chats Tsaesci feed on language, he doesn’t state if this is metaphorical, or literal (if that even matters in these games)

Scarab’s transformation: Refers to Scarab that Transforms into the New Man, or Amaranth. The Scarab is a metaphor for godhood. (Scarabs are symbols of divinity in Ancient Egypt) and the New Man is a person achieving Amaranth and creating a new dream/universe.

Trinimalarky: A fun name for Malarky.

King Dead Wolf-Deer: A Bosmer transformed by the Wild Hunt. Lived from the first era until the beginning of the third.

Multiple Underkings: Another statement by MK, general consensus seems to be this refers to the existence of the Underking as two people, Wulfharth a nordic general from the 1st era who held the title. Zurin Arctus, who may have taken up the title after the 2nd Era, when Tiber Septim turned him into an undead being. Or both of them sharing the same body known as the ‘Underking’

Thot-Box: https://www.c0da.es/thotbox/7b10359a40bba7d2e654bc10226f694a68009f15 the worlds worst choose your own adventure. From what I understand of KIMMUNE, a thot-box is some sort of AI

Baar Dau is Shit: Pretty well known at this point. One myth states that Malacath got into a disagreement with Vivec and pooped on Vivec City..

Nu-Hatta: In reference to the person, they’re an ancestor cult member. Otherwise this is used to refer to the Nu-Hatta Intercept written by MK. The text in question seems to be a list of the various ways mortals have achieved divinity.

Talos brought back dragons: Not sure about this one, there’s too many results to filter through to find what this is specifically about

Lyg’s Numidium: The thought here is that if Lyg is the parallel to Tamriel, then it should also have a Numidium that reinforces time and makes events a reality.

Dawn Era Ideological warfare: From UESP, Quote: The Dawn Era was a period during which time followed an incomprehensible nonlinear path and the very laws of nature remained unset, making a timeline an artificial fabrication. A conflict was simultaneously a mere ideological difference of opinion and a manifest war. What this means in simple terms, all possible outcomes in the Dawn era were simultaneous. This might also refer to the Ehlnofey wars where the wandering ehlnofey (ancestor of men) and the old ehlnofey (ancestor of mer) differed in opinion about the existence of Mundus and went to war.

Vivec destroyed Yokuda: A reference to the 17th lesson of Vivec, where Vivec states For a year they studied under their sword saints and then for another Vivec taught them the virtue of the little reward. Vivec chose a king for a wife and made another race of monsters which ended up destroying the west completely. In a literal sense (not that this means much in context of the lessons), this seems to indicate that Vivec created the sword saints, who ultimately ended up sinking Yokuda with the Pankratosword technique. Vivec also said malewife rights.

Ayrenn KIMMUNE: Another MK text. This one states Queen Ayrenn is actually a 9th era cyborg from the future. This was written after MK read an early draft for the Dominion quests and wanted to make it cooler. The writers of ESO have stated they don’t consider this canon.

Tiger Guars: A bit of old morrowind lore, Imperials would mistakenly call Guars, ‘tigers’

Hermaeus Mora is a failed Elder Scroll: Two theories here: 1st: The Black Books are Mora’s failed attempts to create Elder Scrolls (The first pages reference concepts such as the Dreamer and CHIM, Elder scrolls are fragments of creation) 2nd: Hermaeus Mora himself is a failed Elder Scroll. The Census of Daedric Princes describes him as ‘born of thrown-away ideas used during the creation of Mundus’

SITHISIT: the Ehlnofex word for Sithis

Khajiit Tattoo theft: Rajhin the thief god was said to steal a tattoo off Empress Kintyra’s neck as she slept.

Mythopoeia: irl, it’s essentially a term for ‘world-building’ In the context of the elder scrolls, it means the ability to affect reality using belief or the will to change (similar to CHIM) In morrowind Yagrum uses it to describe the enchantments Kagrenac placed upon the tools.

Dragons Biological Time-Machines: In the early drafts for dragons, MK described them as Biological Time-Machines. While this isn’t entirely reflective of what they are now, some truth holds. Being shards of Aka, dragons inherently have some ability to alter time itself.

Argonian Tits: I can’t keep doing this.

The Elven Lie: From what I gather, it seems to relate to the idea that the gods are infallible, when in fact they have weaknesses and flaws.

#tes iceberg #The Elder Scrolls #long post #i have about two more posts of this and then it's done

55 notes · View notes

fairygal11 · 5 years ago

Text

(Short Story) Guardians of Harmonia: Night at the Enchanted Library

It was an illuminating afternoon at Guardian Academy, an elite school that educated Harmonia’s best and greatest students to become tomorrow’s protectors to ensure the safety and well-being of their realm. At this moment, three guardian apprentices: Kaira Starlight, Minty Peppermint, and Giovanni Linguini were traversing the courtyard as a shortcut to the library. As part of their studies, their required to join an after school club to choose from a wide variety of activities: Monster Hunting, History and Lore, Botany Lovers Club, the list kept going. Suggested by Headmistress, Mikami, that the Library Society Club was the best choice for Kaira and her friends to join. It was a great facility to build teamwork, learn organizational skills and discover the wonder of reading. Kaira found this suggestion to be highly effective, she loved books with all her heart--being in a library full of books reminded her of the library her mother managed back home in Honey Meadows. Her friends, Giovanni and Minty though, they’d see them as material to make forts or have a stacking contest. They’ll change their minds if she showed them how amazing books can be whilst working in the library.

They soon arrived at Magica Library that’s stationed on the west side on academy grounds. The library was ginormous in size that one would mistake it for a manor, if were it not for the unusual orb-shaped architectures that branched out on the sides of the building and suspended in midair. Kaira, parting a few strands of her silver hair that glistened in the sunlight, out of her face to gaze with eyes that were blue as the sky itself at the mystifying library’s exterior. Minty and Giovanni didn’t have the same enthusiasm and sparkle in their eyes like their friend, although Minty saw the orb domes as giant bubble gum balls. The three approached the giant oak double door, Kaira pushed all the way for her and her friends to step inside. When she raised her head to take in the interior, her face lit up like a sparkler, hands placed on her face in excitement at what she was seeing before her eyes. It was as whimsical as its exterior! Levels upon levels that filled to the brim with books, rolling library ladders to glide across the shelves to find what book you sought. In Magica’s case, sometimes the books would come straight to you if your willing to catch the right one during their flight through the library for any student to catch and study upon. Nestled right in the center of the building was a grand Kapok tree that stood in the center, tiny orbs of colorful lights floated throughout it.

Underneath the base of the tree, there was the Librarian’s Desk where Jim, Librarian Apprentice/Library Page, was sitting at his station in the meantime going through the clipped papers on his clipboard at the agenda that awaited him. He’s assigned to showing the newest members the ropes as to how the library operated. He rose his head upon taking in the fresh faces in the library, standing up from his desk and coming out from behind to welcome them. He assumed that they were the candidates that were to become part of the Library Society under Headmistress Solaria’s request. He began to give them a tour of the library, giving a brief history of the facility before explaining and demonstrating different tasks they were to do whilst partaking in the club. Along with maintenance, there was discussion of book genres, authors, what inspired one to get involved into reading. This made Giovanni and Minty groaned at the talk of books and chores, but to Kaira was happier than a kid in a candy store.

Under Jim’s supervision, the gang began their duties by dusting the shelves to ensure the books are in peak condition. Next, came checking in items from the sorting room and placing designated items in their respected bins.Giovanni caught glimpse of a book that told about Swords and Weaponry on one of the stacks. Upon opening its spine when all of a sudden a sword was pointed directly at him a few inches from his neon pink eyes! He closed the book and threw it right back into the pile with the books being ready to sort in. By early evening, they held giant butterfly nets in order to scoop up the flying books and put them to bed. Winged books need their beauty sleep too, but some of them refused to go back on their respected shelves. Though it was a huge library and catching them all wasn’t gonna be easy, Jim picked a book off the shelf on “Aero Magic Dynamics”, opening it up as he placed his palm onto a page to summon forth a flying carpet for each of them; He assumed they took their class about using aerodynamical mystical vehicles like brooms, magic carpets, etc. They each hopped onto a carpet and flew off after the Winged Books, Minty was having a blast racing around the library and scooping up a few in the process. She egged Giovanni on to make their chore a game entitled “Book Hunt” that rose his motivation to turn a boring task into a fun book snatching contest. The two swirled around the archways, flew down a couple of the aisles making sure not to bump into any to cause them to fall over and flew up a spiral staircase toward one of the Observation Orbs. A book of Fairy Tales was ajar when it sprinkled star dust that floated down like snow on a peaceful winter morning, Minty caught one on her tongue and commented that it tasted like Sparkling Pop Rocks.

Once they gathered the Winged Books and shelved back to their respected categories-Kaira and her friends along with Jim took a break from tasks to catch a breather. They were enjoying themselves until their free time was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering and the tiny orbs flashed like police lights and made a ringing noise-Someone has broken into the library!. Immediately, they sprung forth toward the west end to come face to face with the intruder. Standing before them was a snarky-looking man dressed in a midnight robe that made him blend into the shadows without detection. Yet he was careless to let himself be known now when he shattered one of the windows using a brick.

“Well, well, well~Seems to me that I’ve gained myself an audience.” The thief said as he was surprised that there were people working the late shift. It would appear he miscalculated when he formulated his plan to seek out the Guardians Grimoire that was said to be locked away in the academy’s library, but now a monkey wrench was tossed into his plan.

“And we didn’t expect to have some noisy thief disrupt our break time! It’s the only time we can enjoy some goodie treats and we were in the middle of chowing down on the Swirl Berry Muffins I brought along!” The peppermint-haired Minty said as she shook her fist to him, aggravated that this thief had the nerve to disrupt break time.

“Listen pal, I don’t know who you think you are, but you picked the wrong place to rob from. I mean seriously-WHAT kind of thief would want to break into a library?” Giovanni said as he was confounded upon the thief’s objective to what business he had at a “magical library”.

“I’ve come seeking the Guardians’ Grimoire so I may use its power to become the greatest Sorcerer in the whole world!” He boasted as he rose his hands up in the air, letting out a fiendish laugh.

“Seriously? You want a dusty grimoire that’ll grant you the powers of a god? Total cliche, bro.” Giovanni stared blankly at the loon.

“It isn’t a dusty grimoire!”, He stomped his right foot down on the ground like he was trying to kill a bug, “It is a book of infinite wisdom and magic!”

“The Guardians’ Grimoire is one of Harmonia’s most ancient and precious artifacts, kept hidden deep away from public eye and sealed away with

“We won’t allow you to take the Guardians’ Grimoire!” Kaira stepped forth, positioning herself into a fighting stance.

“The Guardians’ Grimoire will never fall into the hands of a Charlatan like you!” Jim proclaimed as he glared angrily at the thief.

“We’ll just see about that, now will we?” The thief rose his hand as a dark ball of energy began to form and unleashed a powerful dark lightning bolt at them!

Kaira created a light shield to deflect the dark lightning bolt from striking at them, but it was a diversion to allow the thief a head start toward the back of the library. The Forbidden Archives is said to be located somewhere around the west end of the building. Earlier, Jim told them that the archives was off limits to students and accessed by the library staff. If the thief found a way to access the room, he’d not only steal the grimoire, but other valuable books he could sell in the black market or worse.....burn them!

“We can’t let him get to the archives and get that book!, Jim shouted to his associates.

“And how are we supposed to find him, Poindexter? He sprinted and serpentined after that little lightning blast he fired at us! He could be halfway there by now with his ninja-like reflexes!” Giovanni protested, raising his hands up in the air in frustration.

While they tried to figure out a course of action as quick as they could, Kaira stared around the shelves around them and from the corner of her eye she spotted a book on “Monsters, Mystics and Marvels”. Wanting to confirm her precision, she took a few steps closer to the book and saw it was a 398 number-They were in the 398s aisle that cataloged Harmonia’s myths, legends and fairy tales! Her face lit up like the light bulb in her head, she quickly swiped the book from the shelf before rushing back to her friends.

“We can use this to get the thief!” She waved the book up in the air for her friends to see like she was waving a bulky flag.

“I don’t think reading at a time like this will solve our dilemma, Kai.” Giovanni scoffed when his hope dimmed and rolled his eyes slowly.

“No, Kaira is right. BOOKS are exactly what we need to help us handle this thief!,” Jim said as he figured out right away what Kaira was up to with that book, “As you three should of known already, the books in this library can be beneficial to your brain, but to your training as guardians. They’d at times would borrow some of our books to use on their travels, but it requires mana to draw out the magical energy to manifest the creatures and materials within their pages.”

“In english, please.” Minty replied for she didn’t seem to grasp Jim’s explanation.

“Sighhh~You visualize, focus and unleash their magical force on your opponents and can benefit in travels like summoning a Gryphon.” He simplified it down so Minty can grasp the concept.

“We saw first hand when we were working today. When Jim summoned the flying carpets to help us capture the Winged Books easier then running around in circles. And Minty, you and Giovanni were having fun during the time.”

“And Gio nearly got his eyes poked out by a sword that poked out of the Weaponry book he was looking at in the sorting room.” Minty said as she pointed her thumb at him.

“It was scary, but kinda cool to be honest-but it nearly poked my eye out.” Giovanni sheepishly admitted, rubbing the back of his head.

“Books aren’t always scary and boring like you might claim them to be, Giovanni. They can be fun, exciting full of interesting information and tales that want to be heard and seen by human eyes. The reason a sword almost harmed you because you found weaponry fascinating-you even tied a dagger to your bat to make it into a “Dagger Bat”.” Kaira said with a heartful smile on her face.

“Soul Slammer.” He corrected her on his weapon’s name.

“Soul Slammer, of course, but the point is that right now the power of these books can help us stop the thief from reaching the archive and protect the library from his carelessness. With the power of these books and our skills combined, we can take this thief down, so who’s with me!?” Kaira proclaimed as she rose her fist in the air.

Minty and Giovanni stared at one another for a moment, but then puffed up their chest and put on their most awesome game faces. They weren’t gonna let some petty thief get the better of them, they’re future Guardians after all and as a guardian-they help the weak and innocent. In this case though, its protecting the library and the paper bound “residents” that reside within its walls. They rose their fists in the air to show they were ready to stand and fight with Kaira to defend the library and keep the grimoire safe from the thief’s hands. For her and her love of reading’s sake, they’d do anything to help Kaira because she was their friend who had a big heart just like her book shelf back in the dorm. Jim showed the group to the nearest aisles and categories that would help them in catching the thief: Geology, Astrology, Mythology, Magical Aerodynamics and of course to Minty’s wonder-Cooking! She grabbed a mess of dessert cook books to have on hand.

Jim summoned the magic carpets and they took off to the top of the book shelves. Scanning the area for any sign of the thief before Giovanni saw him heading passed the Chimera statue near the library’s StarPaws where students mostly got their coffee. The thief neared the statue as he studied the base carefully, trying to figure out where the secret switch was to accessing the archive that was said to lie deep underneath. Yet his concentration was broken when splat! A black forest cake splatted him on the head, frosting dripped down his face before turning around. He gazed up at the four as they floated in mid air on their fabric transports, shaking off the cake with some bits sticking to his hair.

“That’s all you got to stop me? A cake? How pathe-Ah!”, He was cut off when a banana crème pie smacked him right in the face!

“I got a whole dessert buffet on stand by to slow you down with its creaminess!,” Minty held the book of “Harmona’s Best Desserts” in her arms, smirking teasingly at him.

“But it would appear you need a knife for that pie, here let me lend you one-or ten!” Giovanni laughed before opening the weaponry book that shined softly before a wave of swords came flying out!

The thief screeched as he dove right out of the way when the swords clanked against the statue, scattering to the ground. Luckily he slide under of the nearby tables, yet one of the blades ricochet from the statue and stabbed the center of the table- two inches from his nose!

“Hey! Be careful! You almost gave me a nose job!”, The thief shouted back at them.

Suddenly the ground beneath the thief rumbled, the floor board began to spit out seeds which caused him confusion. Yet confusion turned to panic when they sprouted at an alarming rate and intertwined into an oak tree that launched the thief and the table he was under right into the air! The table fell onto the tree top with him crashing down on the surface base, he felt one of his ribs crackle and bruise. He got up slowly, brushing his legs from his fall before having to balance on the table. He was about to find himself flailing about when his eyes grew to saucer plates when tiny asteroids were flying his way. He moved his body like he was belly dancing or performing a weird ceremonial dance, but he didn’t see the large asteroid crash into him that knocked him off the table and face planted right onto the floor!

The thief groaned at the hits he took as he got up slowly, but to come face to face with a celestial Star Bear that was an inch from his face. It let out a mighty roar that made him scream like a girl and turned heel to go around the statue to find himself caught in a miniature tornado Jim summoned forth, then launched into the air yet again. Giovanni dove straight toward him with his Soul Slammer and struck him right in the kisser, he knocked out a few of his teeth due to the impact of his strike. The thief was sent flying the opposite direction, only to be snatched out of the air by Tangle Vines that wrapped around him like a snake coils its prey. When he tried flicking his fingers to conjure fire to burn the roots, a giant vat of heavy whipped cream fell on him to ensure that if he broke free, the sweet goo would slow him down.

“I gotta admit-Books are really fun, especially if they can take out a thief.” Giovanni declared to his friends.

“It wasn’t just the books, but it was all of us working together in order to catch the thief.” Kaira said with a smile on her face.

“And Harmona’s Best Desserts did a “wallop cream” him in his place.”, Minty chuckled at her terrible pun.

“That made no sense at all,” Jim said in annoyance to Minty’s horrid pun.

Jim called campus police to escort the thief off the property and taken to jail whilst they clean up the mess they made in order to catch him. It took them until 3am from fixing up the window, returning the books to their shelves and making sure there wasn’t any other intruders that might have snuck in during the chaos. Giovanni and Minty created a book fort for them to sleep in for the night, everyone placed their sleeping bags down on the ground. The tiny orbs provided light for comfort and protection from the dark. It had been an eventful and colorful day, but what made better was that Kaira was proud that her friends found a newfound love for reading. It taught them how powerful books can be when their knowledge comes in handy when wanting to learn about weaponry, how to make the ideal macaroon or using the magic within its pages to stop a thief.

11 notes · View notes

scots-dragon · 6 years ago

Text

The Big Fucking D&D 4E Rant

Or, ‘That Time Wizards of the Coast Fucked Up D&D’s Lore’

At the risk of raising the spectre of edition war again, I feel like it’s worth going back and exploring that time that Wizards of the Coast fucked over basically all of their lore to chase a trend that wasn’t there. Admittedly this comes with the (begrudged) acknowledgement that quite a bit of of this is likely to be out of date now that fifth edition has been out for a good several years now, but that edition has its own problems and while I’m not really going to touch upon it now, my problems with it are many and numerous.

It should be noted from the outset that this is going to talk about fourth edition in a negative and critical context, but I’m not going to be talking about the rules of the actual game as a game. This is entirely centred on story, worldbuilding and lore, and how those were handled in fourth edition as compared to what came before. That being said, if you like fourth edition, and especially if you like its lore, I would not suggest reading further.

I’m going to go far beyond being critical in this; I’m going to get outright mean.

A shout out must go to Susanna McKenzie (@cydonian-mystery) for input and feedback on this.

I suppose the most important place to start is, in many ways, the beginning, by which I mean my own introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. Mostly because it’s directly linked to the main reasons why I consider the lore to have been ruined, but before I even start off with that, I’m going to have to tell you where the lore was before I can really adequately explain its downfall.

In Realms Forgotten...

Like many people of my generation, I got into Dungeons & Dragons first through the computer based role-playing games. Specifically I started off with various titles by Black Isle and BioWare in the late-90s and early-00s, with stand-outs including Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, and their sequels. What all of these had in common beyond being Dungeons & Dragons adaptations is the fact that they took place in the Forgotten Realms, one of the more famous settings thereof, and the lore of that world intrigued me far more than the rules alone.

This might not sound like much, of course, to a newer fan for whom the Forgotten Realms, and its central setting of Faerûn, likely feels just like that generic world that D&D just happens to take place in nowadays. But back in the day, it was far more than that.

At the time I was getting into it, local libraries and bookstores carried bestselling novels set in the worlds in question, so I could pick up a novel based around various characters who appeared in the games, like the drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden or the powerful wizard Elminster. There was also this huge encyclopedic book of geography and deities and the history of the world, with a big fold-out map which is still stuck up on my bedroom wall even after moving house three times. It was perfect fodder for my young nerdy fangirl self to develop full-on special interests in this stuff.

And the level of detail and lore and nuance in the world and its peoples was immense, with even the tiny and obscure bits of the setting earning massive amounts of unique lore. The result was a world that felt like it was alive, vibrant, and lived-in. Like real people could live there, with colourful heroes and villains to encounter.

This, I think, was the unwitting downfall of the Forgotten Realms, but I’m getting ahead of myself because this is really only step one, and Realms are really only one part of it. There are in total three of them, and I’ll be going through the baselines of each of them before we move on.

Out to Planescape

If you’ve read through the core books for fifth edition, there’s a chance you already have some degree of knowledge of Planescape and what it is. Or more precisely you know about the core structure of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse; the Great Wheel. A series of elemental inner planes and transitive planes, with a ring of sixteen aligned outer planes representing various combinations derived from the axes of law versus chaos, and good versus evil, centred around a neutrally-aligned central plane.

At the centre of this central plane is an infinitely tall spire, atop which lies the famous torus-shaped city of Sigil, the city at the centre of the multiverse. There are a few more bits to it than that, and there are actually differences between how it once was and how it now is. For instance back in the day, there was no such thing as the Feywild or Shadowfell, and neither one was present in the original structure as laid out in 1987’s Manual of the Planes for AD&D.

Once again, to say that this is barely scratching the surface of the planar cosmology and its general meaning to Dungeons & Dragons lore would be a gross understatement. It wasn’t long after the publication of the above book that there was a new campaign setting created called Planescape, which would centre entirely upon this cosmology and build it into the lore. This is where the city of Sigil was introduced, a place of weird concordance where demons, angels, and creatures far, far stranger than either rubbed shoulders in the street, and only the watchful eye of the mysterious and powerful Lady of Pain kept things from erupting into all-out war.

It was a world of disputes, where a myriad of factions representing various philosophical concepts went toe-to-toe with one another. All wrapped up in a tone not unlike a strange mix of China Miéville and Charles Dickens, with the local dialect and thieves cant giving a unique flavour that no major campaign world outside of Planescape can really manage.

Perhaps the most famous and lasting contribution that this setting has was the tieflings, aasimar, and genasi, referred to collectively as the planetouched. These were born from a mix of planar interaction with human bloodlines, in particular through the very old fashioned way that any hybrid is created, which is perhaps why tieflings were the more common. They carried the blood of fiends, and most commonly demons by way of ancestors who reproduced with succubi and incubi, though no two tieflings looked especially alike, with variable and strange features.

I’ll be getting back to these later, but suffice it to say that Planescape was an interesting outlier setting, far stranger and more creative than almost anything else in anyone’s catalogue. And it forms the second part of our list of ruined lore.

And back down to Greyhawk

There’s a very good chance that your knowledge of Greyhawk is pretty limited, because while one could make good arguments for the above only just being ruined when fourth edition came around, there’s a lot to be said about how Greyhawk’s been the forgotten cousin for a while now, though to the credit of the current staff at Wizards of the Coast, they did just release a full-on Greyhawk adventure with Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Introduced in the late seventies and early eighties, the World of Greyhawk, taking place on the fictional planet of Oerth and in particular on the subcontinent of the Flanaess, was the personally created campaign setting of Gary Gygax himself. While not as detailed as the Forgotten Realms, nor as interestingly out-there as Planescape, it is nonetheless a pretty cool world overall with a fun pulpy atmosphere that gives it its own sense of weight and nuance.

However, after Gary Gygax left TSR back in the 1980s, some later creators took it upon themselves to more or less mock his legacy overall. Nonetheless it remains a popular location for fans and creators, and towards the late third edition there was a lot of good work done in reviving it, such as with a series of adventure paths published in Dungeon Magazine in the form of Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide, and following that a big adventure module in the form of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk.

Since it’s the most basic element, let’s start with how they treated Greyhawk...

Strip-Mining the Free City

To say that Wizards of the Coast ruined Greyhawk would actually be inaccurate because, to a degree, they didn’t actually use Greyhawk. At least, not fully.

What they did instead was create a ‘new’ campaign setting, sometimes called the Nentir Vale, that used a few scavenged and cherry-picked Greyhawk deities and also a whole selection of adventures and locations previously specific to Greyhawk. Notable examples of such on the larger worldmap seen in the boardgame Conquest of Nerath included the Tomb of Horrors, the Vault of the Drow, and the Temple of Elemental Evil.

The resulting setting wasn’t Greyhawk, but had enough pieces that it felt like an insult to it. Often having those elements be modified in such a way that they felt like mockeries rather than the original concepts. A big part of why that felt like mockery is of course that Nentir Vale, or the Points of Light setting as it was sometimes referred to as, didn’t really exist as its own fully-fledged world. There wasn’t really a campaign setting book, or much detail on anything outside of a few small locations.

This is a relatively small part of what Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition did wrong, but it’s a small taste of what’s to come. However as seen with the Greyhawk conversion guidelines for many adventures, and even the release of the recent Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Greyhawk itself seems to have survived while the Nentir Vale remains almost entirely forgotten except for mentions of the Dawn War pantheon on one page of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

It seems like Wizards of the Coast realised it was a bad idea.

‘The Great Wheel is Dead!’

As we go back out to Planescape, we notice that — much like Greyhawk — it also isn’t there, as the entire cosmology and its thematic importance has been replaced with something so radically different that it’s practically a complete replacement. Just about the only part of Planescape that was kept was Sigil itself, but as shown repeatedly in the fourth edition version of Manual of the Planes, they obviously didn’t understand either Sigil or the Great Wheel in any real way.

I’m not going to talk about the World Axis much in direct terms, but instead more the mindset that was taken with regards to Planescape’s Great Wheel. Now this requires something of a diversion into an old pre-fourth edition preview document, and how it handled the Great Wheel and old materials.

The Great Wheel is dead.

One of my mantras throughout the design of 4th Edition has been, “Down with needless symmetry!” The cosmology that has defined the planes of the D&D multiverse for thirty years is a good example of symmetry that ultimately creates more problems than it solves. Not only is there a plane for every alignment, there’s a plane between each alignment — seventeen Outer Planes that are supposed to reflect the characteristics of fine shades of alignment. There’s not only a plane for each of the four classic elements, there’s a Positive Energy Plane, a Negative Energy Plane, and a plane where each other plane meets — an unfortunate circumstance that has resulted in creatures such as ooze mephits.

The planes were there, so we had to invent creatures to fill them. Worse than the needless symmetry of it all, though, is the fact that many of those planes are virtually impossible to adventure in. Traversing a plane that’s supposed to be an infinite three-dimensional space completely filled with elemental fire takes a lot of magical protection and fundamentally just doesn’t sound fun. How do you reconcile that with the idea of the City of Brass, legendary home of the efreet? Why is there air in that city?

So our goals in defining a new cosmology were pretty straightforward.

• Don’t bow to needless symmetry!

• Make the planes fun for adventure!

The ‘impossible to adventure in’ mindset towards the Great Wheel is entirely bullshit, which I think is best highlighted in the passage on the City of Brass. How can a plane of pure unchanging fire without variation also have a city-state? Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t without variation and they’re making shit up to justify their own nonsense.

The arrogance here is nothing short of infuriating. It typifies everything about the approach that Wizards of the Coast was taking towards Dungeons & Dragons at the time, and can only really be described as destructive.

There was nothing but an arrogance and often gleeful disdain for previous editions. Along with declarations of how it was so much better now, with the old version being bad for some reason despite that version having generated a huge fanbase, and a critically beloved computer role-playing game in the form of Planescape: Torment. And as with Greyhawk, they’ve done what they can to reverse that. The only elements of the new cosmology that remain are the Elemental Chaos as an in-between for the Elemental Planes, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell.

Wizards of the Coast once again seemed to realise where they were going wrong, and this is basically a recurring element of fifth edition.

Unfortunately, the World Axis and Nentir Vale aren’t really where the majority of my frustrations lie.

The Shattered Realms

To summarise the degree to which they basically destroyed the Forgotten Realms is going to take a while, simply because they were thorough. And it’s this that ultimately puts me into a position where I’m always going to be negatively predisposed towards Wizards of the Coast and their handling of Dungeons & Dragons.

As a bitof a preamble, fourth edition brought with it several substantial changes to the way a lot of the ruleset worked. And not just on a mechanical level, but on a lore level as it related to certain in-universe elements.. Basic concepts about magic and how it worked were altered at the baseline level, and in order to explain these differences it was decided by the higher-ups at Wizards of the Coast to implement a big huge event to explain the edition differences. This was something they called the Spellplague.

This is not the first time they’ve done that; they previously had the Time of Troubles, which worked to explain the relatively minor differences in magic between the first and second edition versions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, killed off or replaced a few gods, and ultimately shook things up a little bit. This was not really met with widespread acclaim at the time, and many complained about it but ultimately it’s a series of events which were later picked up by BioWare for Baldur’s Gate so it’s hard to really complain too harshly.

And indeed, they did it again with the change-over from fourth edition to fifth edition, with the Second Sundering bringing radical changes that all coincidentally left things looking like the pre-fourth edition version of the Forgotten Realms. Like with Planescape and Greyhawk, Wizards of the Coast knew they’d fucked up. But unlike with those, there were more than a few scars that haven’t really been all that fixable.

And to show you what I mean, I suppose we can start with the map, as that’s one of the clearest indications, when put in comparison, as to just how much was changed.

If you scroll back up and compare with the original map, you can kind of see just how much they absolutely fucked the Forgotten Realms.

The basic idea behind the Spellplague was that the goddess Mystra was murdered, and in her death throes the entirety of magic went haywire. Blue fire erupted across the world, and left entire nations and segments of the landscape scarred and destroyed. Often, conveniently, hitting worst those places that would traditionally, in-setting, be inhabited for the most part by various peoples of colour. Going into exhaustive detail would be extremely difficult, but keep in mind that the most heavily-devastated looking locations tend to be those that are inhabited by non-white people.

At least one of the nations destroyed, Halruaa, was actually the homeland of a long-running half-elf wizard character of mine at the time.

Most major magic-user characters suffered extreme maladies to their spellcasting, either killing them off or rendering them powerless.

In a series of unrelated but contemporary events, the entire elven and dwarven pantheons were radically altered. Most elven deities who weren’t Corellon Larethian were revealed to be aspects of non-elven deities, and around half of the elves themselves wound up being renamed to ‘eladrin’ to match the bullshit new elf subrace from the fourth edition books.

The drow pantheon was similarly culled until only Lolth remained, and as part of that they slew the goddess of good drow, Eilistraee. What happened to her followers is probably a good example of how there was a good deal of racism involved. Basically, the drow who followed her were ‘cleansed of the taint’ that had turned them into drow to begin with.

Including lightening their skin.

This is an event that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t really broadcast much after their reintroduction of Eilistraee, and it’s really not hard to see why they’ve minimised it.

The human gods didn’t fare much better. The entire Mulhorandi Pantheon was removed, because apparently having real-world Egyptian mythological gods around was a little too much for them. They also did the same with Tyr, who was originally from Norse mythology, though left Silvanus, Oghma, and Mielikki. Possibly because barely anyone pays attention to Celtic pantheon deities, and the latter Finnish deity was the patron goddess of a specifically popular character from the novels.

And between destroying half of the map, eliminating half of the pantheon full of various fan favourite gods, and killing off a lot of major magic-user characters, you’d think that would be considered a bad enough result.

But then there’s the timeskip.

Wizards of the Coast advanced the timeline by approximately one hundred and five years, therefore killing off literally every major human character who didn’t have some kind of magical way of extending their lifespan. And in addition to the effects of the Spellplague, brought in a variety of huge geopolitical changes that replaced major governments and kingdoms with new and nearly-unrecognisable versions that might have shared a name.

I’m not going to go into much more detail on various other changes, but keep in mind that this is only barely scratching the surface. There wasn’t a single region of the Forgotten Realms left unaltered or unmarred by this event, and it ultimately can’t be seen as anything other than an act of vandalism. It’s not even getting into the fact that, for instance, entire sections of the landscape of Toril were replaced by segments of another world entirely so they could justify the introduction of dragonborn as a core race.

Which is incidentally why I dislike the dragonborn.

The events of the fifth edition changeover worked to mitigate a lot of this, but the sheer extent of damage done is so much that the modern Forgotten Realms is still only a pale echo of its former self. All because they wanted to chase the audience of fucking World of Warcraft of all things.

Seriously, fuck Wizards of the Coast.

#4e negative #D&D 4e #the spellplague #we all get drafted into the edition war #wizards of the coast critical #wotc critical #forgotten realms #an old rant that's been a long time in the making

57 notes · View notes

nadziejastar · 6 years ago

Text

One of the Master's disciples who receives a copy of the Book of Prophecies. He is a reliable Keyblade Master and leader of the Union Unicornis. The Master often makes fun of his serious nature. His role is to become the new leader of the foretellers after the Master vanishes.

Good question. I honestly have no idea. It’s certainly possible. And Ira’s name is derived from the Latin word for “wrath,” which fits the theme of Saïx’s berserk state. But I still feel like we don’t even know that much about the Foretellers. Did they even have descendants? The only connection I can clearly see is between Terra and Aced, due to their Keyblades looking very similar. And Aced was upset that The MoM chose Ira over him, which was kinda similar to Eraqus choosing Aqua to be his successor over Terra. So, I always felt like there might have been a connection between Ira and Aqua. But not necessarily a bloodline connection. Maybe they’re like spiritual successors. Though maybe the connections are not even supposed to be that direct.

Datascapes

Artificial simulations based on real-world data. Inside a datascape, time can be made to loop infinitely, and the impossible becomes possible. The alternate Twilight Town that Roxas shared with Hayner, Pence, and Olette is one such world.

The other connection I strongly see with Ira is the Haunted Mansion in Twilight Town. It’s pretty likely that the mansion will be retconned to be associated with the Unicornis Union, since it has unicorns all over the place. It’s a pretty mysterious place. That mansion is the portal to the data Twilight Town.

While beings born of darkness and those lacking hearts may find them convenient, it is dangerous for others to make much use of the corridors of darkness. Darkness erodes the heart. In search of a place to proceed with my research and planning away from prying eyes, I found myself in "Twilight Town." It is a quiet village, forgotten in the chasm between light and darkness. I situated myself in the basement of an abandoned mansion standing beyond the woods. My underground research resulted in one new discovery after another.

It is also where DiZ located his research after escaping the Realm of Darkness. Subject X is associated with this mansion as well. But I have no idea what extent Isa would have been if he had stayed Subject X. But ASoD acted like he already knew all about this mansion in KH3, so it would not surprise me at all if the apprentices or Isa had some connection to it as well. Twilight Town seems like an important place to Axel for more reasons than just the ones we know of. I kinda got the impression that it was important to him because of his past.

As a start, I have built a device that artificially creates Heartless. By recreating the conditions that spawn the Heartless naturally, I should be able to produce them artificially. This device is the culmination of all my research thus far. The machine's test run successfully created a Heartless. This may be a step toward creating a heart from nothing.

Then there’s Datascapes. Xehanort was trying to create a heart from nothing. And in KH3D, the apprentices were using the computer that was the gateway to Tron’s world, which is also a Datascape.

Can you please tell us a little more about the series-first KH game for PC browser? Nomura: This is not a title with an emphasis on story, but we are working premises in. That said, for the first time in the series you can enjoy the content completely separately from the main series, so even beginners to the series might be able to be at ease playing it. The battling is different again from KH Re:CoM, and we are aiming for something with simple controls and flashy movements. I think customizing is important to this type of game, so we are filling it with new elements in that area.

KHUX is the game I am least knowledgeable about, since I just couldn’t get into the gameplay. I watched the cutscenes online, but I still feel like I am not that well-versed in its story/lore. Maybe the novel will help when it’s released. When KHUX was first announced (back when it was known as KHX) Nomura suggested that the game was not supposed to have an emphasis on story, and it was also supposed to be completely separate from the main series. So, I kinda ignored it, thinking the Back Cover movie would suffice. The way KHUX got so much emphasis in KH3 really caught me off-guard. It still feels like it was decided upon at the last minute.

KHX’s story was going to be connected to KH3 of course, but it sounds like playing it was not supposed to be crucial or anything. Skuld wasn’t even in the Back Cover movie, even though Ephemer was. You’d think she would be if she was supposed to be the mysterious girl everyone was looking for. From what I’ve seen its story is also very confusing. The Book of Prophecies is capable of transcribing and conjuring future events, as well as creating entire worlds filled with beings and powers that have yet to exist. Which...sounds like the Datascape. Maleficent was searching for a connection between the Book of Prophecies and the Datascape, and she wondered if the Book of Prophecies was also connected to Jiminy's Journal.

Maleficent: Yes, he shared everything with me--how to go about winning a heart over to the darkness, and, most gloriously, about the seven hearts of pure light--the ones that would grant me the power I need to conquer all worlds. However, the worlds were too complex, too much for even me to contain. It seemed I had miscalculated. Then it came to me--of course! I could go about conquering other worlds in my own manner. You do have the "data" for all the worlds, do you not? And now you will hand it over to me.

The whole concept of Datascapes feels like it was supposed to be massively important in KH3 (and probably KH0.5). Re:Coded revolves around this idea.

“There’s a road for the taking if you end our world’s aching.”

The message in Jiminy’s Journal implied that the world inside the Datascape was the world that was aching (I think?). And the glossary in KH3 mentions that in Datascapes, time can be made to loop infinitely. But none of this ever went anywhere. All of this might have been deemed way too complex by the higher-ups and it was changed at the last minute.

Maleficent: I now know that what I seek lies within these walls. Trust that I will eliminate you in good time.

In KH3, Maleficent just started randomly looking for a black box that she had no idea the location of. But in KH3D she was supposed to be looking for the data for all the worlds, and she said she knew what she wanted was specifically inside of Disney Castle. So...is the Book of Prophecies in Disney Castle? Sounds kinda like it might be. Is that why Disney Castle has the Cornerstone of Light? To protect a copy of the Book of Prophecies? And Jiminy did start off at Disney Castle when he became the royal chronicler. Disney Castle was where the portal to the Lingering Will is located. And it also had that door that led to the Timeless River. The whole plot in the Timeless River seems similar to a Datascape. Pete conjured the door to Timeless River when he wished to go back in time. Maybe Disney Castle, Radiant Garden, and Twilight Town were where a copy of the Book of Prophecies was kept. They all have Datascapes located next to a library.

#kh ira #kh isa

13 notes · View notes

therobotfrom94 · 7 years ago

Text

Elder Scrolls Lore is Confusing...

(Full disclosure, i stole this from Reddit.)

Feel free to add to this;

>The fact that Altmer used impossible math, belief, mirrors, temporal manipulation, sunlight, and possibly a giant bird to travel the Void of Oblivion.

>Or that the Imperials genetically engineered giant moths with ziggurats on top to fly through the infinite space of Oblivion to colonize one of the moons. Or the fact that the Imperials also use moths to tap into the vibrations of the universe and read enigmatic texts that may or may not be: the scales of the snake shaped god/primordial personified force of space-time, the literal blueprints of the universe, uncountable magical fortune cookie notes, or the Magic/Light God's dead kids.

>Also the whole Annuad is kinda weird when you think about it

>Plus some bonuses: A bunch of sentient trees that worship the embodiment of change and/or nothingness from a destroyed world that fell to this one bio-engineered some lizards to protect them and they made them shaped like other beings that survived a different world destruction, possibly to protect their creations from wholesale genocide or to store their sap in their creations' scaly bosoms. They once got scared so they called most of their lizards back to their lands to pump them full of so much crazy sap that the lizards charged into Hell and made the demons so scared that they stopped their invasion and closed the portals to Treeland.

>One race can be born as a short guy with pointy ears or a 14 foot tall tiger that cats of a bunch or other shapes, sizes, and degrees of catness ride into battle. Also most of them get literally high off sugar. Sometimes part of religious rituals, sometimes to keep track of time when it gets broken, sometimes for fun.

>Some other people can scream or sing or dance to change the universe. Sometimes they split atoms and destroy a continent and are forced to flee into a future/alternate timeline. Sometimes they watch god-ghosts fight each other and learn how to shake a big dragon with their shouts. This reverses the aging process because dragons are just giant sapient time machines. Also that dancing thing was because this monkey guy was pissed off at some elves (for using magic to mutilate humans to make them living torture art) so his followers tried to erase all elf-ness from one of the shards of a big, dead dragon god-planet and they ended up breaking linear time for 1008 years.

>Once a guy and his friends murdered their other friend and he felt so bad that he looked into the eyes of the God that dreamed up the universe and told Him that he exists. This resulted in the guy tricking the universe into believing he didn't kill his friend, even though a good portion of his people know he did. One of the other guys that committed that murder became a recluse and made cyborgs all day and also tried to fix the half finished planet that everyone lives on... until the third murderer killed him because she went crazy. It's okay though, because the reincarnation of the murdered guy killed her back. Also they were all gods that sucked up god-juice from the still beating heart of the god that tricked/convinced some other gods into losing their immortality to create the world.

>One god either went crazy or got corrupted by another god and split himself or shat himself out to make a new god.

>Some crazy (literal) bastard started worshiping the godemon of Destruction and used a razor shaped part of it to change his soul do he could be a proto-elf with knowledge of the magic they used back when everyone was an immortal concept spirit instead of the kind of elf that can't eat plants, has leaders that literally change with the whims of their people, talk to trees to learn stories from the future, and turn into eldritch monsters when they get really upset. Anyway, another (literal) bastard whose dad was killed by the elf got some guy to get artifacts of immense power to open a portal to kill the elf. He then went on to smash the combined blood of the space and time gods (who normally hate each other, but gave their blood to this slave leader that had a gay genocidal cyborg from the future (allegedly) and her winged minotaur god boyfriend to exterminate her captors) to reinforce the barrier between hellvoidspace and the mortal realm.

>Then a dragon in a mortal body killed another aspect of the big dragon god and also a vampire that tried to blot out the sun and the first dragon in a human body that conspired with the knowledge demon to dominate the world.

>And those trees I mentioned waaaay up there? They're gonna get into a space war with some girl dragons in the distant future, so there's that.

>Also a bunch of other stuff involving thinking yourself out of reality or becoming robot skin.

>The fact that if enough people believe something it becomes real, which is how every culture has very similar gods with similar names, which have basically been carved out of bigger versions of themselves.

>And how could I have forgotten about the Dreamsleeve, the state of being? plane of existence? series of tubes? where powerful people share ideas and where souls go if they don't get one of the (at least) 24 afterlives, so they can get the half of their soul that stores memories, emotions, and consciousness scrubbed so that they might be good enough to break out of the Dream of the universe that imprisons them.

>Also every rock, grain of sand, plant, the air, gravity, inertia, entropy, animals, the water cycle, physics and physical objects in general, you know, the world? All rotting carcasses of god-concept-spirits who were either too weak, scared to die, or generous to their fellows to leave when the world was being made!

Just re-read this and I feel the need to mention that the robot skin thing came about because a group of underground (again, literally) elves were just really upset about the world existing so they build a giant robot to tell God that the universe was his dream and therefore didn't exist, which is basically a big megazord that screams "NO" really loudly. Sometime during this they got into a big war that is pretty much the same big war that happens pretty frequently and the main guy who was working on it was serving a king (who, might I add, was possibly a servant of the aforementioned shat god, or maybe the god himself) and one or both of them decided it would be a cool idea to bonk the god heart with a hammer and then their whole race vanished/was turned into metal skin in the midst of battle. Also this happened in the fiery belly of Mount Doom(drum).

Basically that elf robot caused like a third of all the crazy shit to happen in the world, such as:

Three aspects of that world-creator heartless god turned into a single being by taking their own place back in the cosmos after one of them tried to make the big NObot work by shoving the soul of another into a big jewel. This was thought to be a good idea at the time because the latter was just basically a big flying ash cloud that shouted a lot. They later used this ash powered NObot to absolutely wreck some other elves to the point where time broke (which happens more than you'd think) and they surrendered in an hour but also didn't and are still fighting it millennia into the future.

Turned one guy into a moon but also himself like eight times. This also lead to the dissolution of a bunch of city states and consolidation of their power to 3 others, plus a kingdom of shit-god's followers who were, before this, pretty much considered murderous vermin (which, to be fair, many were at the time).

Anyway in one timeline this giant robot comes back in the future and has a sickass robot battle with its own copy, which was made by a dead but not dead guy who tried to use a weaponized disease to turn everyone into himself but got re-killed by the reincarnation of his best friend as prophesied by the goddess who made the cat people and turned that bioweapon guy's race blue-gray.

#elder scrolls #the elder scrolls #skyrim #morrowind #oblivion #i love how crazy all of this is

207 notes · View notes

rebelsofshield · 7 years ago

Text

Ranking Rebels: The Top Ten

It’s been several months now since Star Wars Rebels concluded and we learned the fates and futures of the surrogate family that lived in the halls of The Ghost. Rebellions were sparked. Sacrifices were made. There was a lot of critical theory about art. Fruit was stolen. Droids sang. Pufferpigs puffed. It made for a beautiful, if not always perfect, four year story that will become a cherished part of the Star Wars mythology.

With a new animated series on the horizon, what better time to take a look back at Rebels history. Not all episodes were created equal. For every, “World Between Worlds” there is a “Blood Sisters.” Just as I did for The Clone Wars, I plan to rank every episode of Star Wars Rebels from worst to best. As always, feedback and discussion is appreciated!

Previous Installments: 66-61, 60-51, 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11

10. Rebel Assault

youtube

The attack on the Empire’s factories on Lothal was an operation that had been building for seasons. With Hera finally receiving approval to lead a squadron of X-Wings to the grassy plains of Ezra’s homeworld, “Rebel Assault” opens up with a triumphant and brilliantly executed dogfight that Steward Lee directs to near perfection. Seeing classic Star Wars starfighters chase each other through blockades and high atmosphere is the stuff of dreams and Rebels delivers, before smartly transitioning into a tense and bleak second half. Hera’s attack fails and as a result she and Chopper are left to sneak through the locked down streets of Lothal’s capitol as Imperial forces close in around her. Lee dials back on the music and allows the episode to fall eerily quiet which does wonders in ratcheting up the unease and tension. It ends on a killer cliffhanger that opens up Rebels for an incredible final stretch of episodes and makes for a great midseason finale.

9. Fire Across the Galaxy

youtube

While it showed signs of confidence and maturity throughout its first season, it wasn’t until its first finale where Rebels finally felt like a show that had come into its own. Whether it’s the ensemble’s thrilling attempt at rescuing their friend and mentor from the clutches of The Empire, Kanan’s cathartic and wonderfully choreographed duel with The Grand Inquisitor, or the universe altering reveal of Ahsoka Tano at its conclusion, “Fire Across the Galaxy” is filled to the brim with excitement, adventure, and character. The fact that writer Simon Kinberg is able to fit as much content into a single twenty two minute episode is stunning and it is even more impressive that it comes across as wonderful as it does. By its conclusion, most of its central cast has grown and the series has taken its first step into a larger world and cemented itself as a Star Wars story that will be worth remembering.

8. The Siege of Lothal

youtube

Darth Vader was a specter that loomed over Rebels since its premiere. Kanan and Ezra could only go so long before attracting the attention of the galaxy’s most famous Sith Lord and with Ahsoka Tano now in play, the appearance of the Dark Lord seemed inevitable. Before Rogue One, Rebels brought Darth Vader back to the screen in menacing and iconic fashion. Whether its James Earl Jones’s effortless voice performance, Henry Gilroy’s script, or Bosco Ng and Brad Rau’s direction, Vader fills every frame he is a part of with a dark presence and in the process tests the Ghost Crew like never before. It makes for a stunning premiere that not only impacted the main cast but hinted at some of the iconic and emotional stories that were to come throughout Rebels’ second season.

7. The Honorable Ones

youtube

“The Honorable Ones” was a risk from the get-go. Even if it played off a familiar trope of two adversaries being forced to survive in dangerous conditions, Kevin Hopps’s script had the challenge of carrying a full episode that is essentially two conflicted men arguing and also providing a nuanced view of war without undermining Star Wars’ purposefully simplistic morality and condemnation of fascism. Hopps succeeds by making “The Honorable Ones” about Kallus the man rather than the organization he represents and in the process allows for two series best performances out of Steve Blum and David Oyelowo. In the process, both men are able to come to an understanding about each other as beings and about their own struggles even if they cannot reconcile the conflict they find themselves embroiled in. It makes for a powerful script and would set up one of the series’ best long term character arcs in Kallus’s eventual defection to the Rebellion.

6. Jedi Night

youtube

Until its conclusion, “Jedi Night” plays out like classic Rebels fun. The crew conducts a rescue of a team member and loved one the sorts of which have played out through the show dozens of times. Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy pepper the script with moments of action and levity and while the stakes are high, there is a sense of playfulness that echoes throughout. In actuality, “Jedi Night” is a sort of pre-emptive eulogy for the man it is about to sacrifice. Kanan Jarrus slowly sheds and reforms his appearance, his identity, and eventually his life to rescue those he loves and director Saul Ruiz does this through smart visual cues that play off well with both the script and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s incredible performance. “Jedi Night” feels like a collective breath before its act of tragedy and sacrifice and the result is gut-punching but also unforgettable.

5. Twin Suns

youtube

“Twin Suns” is an artful and beautifully directed closure of not only Ezra’s character in the third season of Rebels but also of one of the most winding and tortured character arcs in the franchise. After decades of turmoil, Maul’s life comes to a close. From its opening frames, director Dave Filoni creates a clear visual language that emphasizes open space, isolation, and character action and in the process prepares us for what is to come. It makes for one of the most creatively inventive installments the show attempted and this, of course, culminates in its incredible final moments. Stephen Stanton’s masterful recreation of Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi is jaw dropping and it makes his moments of wisdom passed onto Ezra feel genuine and his pity and remorse towards Maul oddly heartbreaking. Filoni’s decision to stage this final battle between the decades long adversaries as a Kirosawa-like samurai film represents one of his best directorial decisions to date and the result is unexpected but entirely appropriate and even poignant.

4. A Family Reunion-and Farewell

youtube

Rebels’ final episode could have stretched on for hours and fans would likely have lapped it up. Trying to conclude this four year story of family, resistance against tyranny, and maturity in adolescence in forty four minutes seemed like a near impossible challenge. The result is an episode that makes every second of that runtime count with an explosive final charge for Lothal’s independence that brings aboard a sprawling ensemble of the Ghost Crew and some of their most iconic allies. It is super charged with action and heroism, but it is ultimately the conclusion of Ezra Bridger’s emotional arc that makes “A Family Reunion-and Farewell” sing. Taylor Gray’s performance here is mature and emotionally resonant as Ezra finally comes to term with the loss of his family but also how best to honor those who are caught under tyranny and oppression. It marks a moment where Ezra not only becomes an adult but also a hero to which the galaxy can aspire to. Even then, this isn’t even taking into account the incredible series epilogue that not only provides a much needed conclusion to the series’ beloved characters but hinted at new adventures to come. It makes for a powerful and near perfect finale to a show with a legacy that will stretch on for years to come.

3. Trials of the Darksaber

youtube

Like “The Honorable Ones,” “Trials of the Darksaber” is one of the rare episodes of Rebels that slows down the action to focus entirely on character. However, this Sabine-centric episode foregoes any sort of plot oriented B-Story at all and instead bunkers down for an emotionally raw tale of a master and student. Directed by Steward Lee and written by Dave Filoni, “Trials of the Darksaber” begins with a visually dynamic lore-dump about the blade that passed hands from Pre Vizsla to Darth Maul and now rest in the hands of Sabine Wren. With the importance of this strange weapon now understood, Sabine now faces a responsibility that could change the tide of the war to their favor. Forced to not only conquer her own insecurities but also face the trauma of her past, Sabine undergoes a rigorous training under Kanan that culminates in an emotional outburst that lays all bare. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Tiya Sircar provide phenomenal voice performances that feel vulnerable and genuine and it makes for an episode that is quite unlike anything else in the series and one of the highpoints of Rebels as a whole.

2. A World Between Worlds

youtube

For decades one of the few story concepts that Star Wars never touched was time travel. In a universe where lightspeed travel was as simple as taking a bus and a magical energy force could lead to all manner of strange abilities, the power to traverse time and space was always off limits. That is until “A World Between Worlds.” Selling Star Wars fans on this concept would’ve been risky from the start, but it helps that this installment of Rebels is close to perfection. We knew from early on that there was something special about Lothal and the Jedi Temple that lay hidden at its center. With the Emperor’s interest and the mystical behavior of the Lothwolves adding onto this mystery, it slowly became apparent just what kind of realm was lying hidden beneath the coned walls of this strange building. The design and execution of the World between Worlds itself is one of Lucasfilm Animation’s best creations. With twisting and churning pathways that seem to stretch through space in infinite directions and populated by ethereal voices that connect throughout the Star Wars saga, this pathway into the stars feels like something ancient, unknowable, and mythic. The result is suitably awe inspiring and entrancing. Even better, writer and co-director Dave Filoni, alongside Steward Lee, ground this world in a key emotional arc for its characters. In addition to allowing fans to see Ahsoka Tano one more time before the close of the series and show a tease of what the next chapter of her story was, Filoni and Lee position this realm as a key emotional turning point in Ezra’s grieving over the death of Kanan. Ezra is given a taste of ultimate power in the hopes of saving those he loves, but is forced to realize that the past shouldn’t be changed and not everyone can be saved. It’s an emotional beat that is key to the final steps of his series long arc and rings true as the episode comes to a close.

1. Twilight of the Apprentice

youtube

How could it be anything else? The season two finale of Star Wars Rebels is not only the best of the series, it is arguably the best product that Lucasfilm Animation has released, and some of the most powerful material in the entirety of the franchise. “Twilight of the Apprentice” is an atmospheric, emotional, and suspenseful hour of television that is filled with betrayals, sacrifice, revelations, and character altering decisions. It leaves a trail of changed lives in its wake and the series would never be the same after. Written by Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg, and Steven Melching and directed by Dave Filoni, “Twilight of the Apprentice” would see the convergence of several generations of current and former students of the Force on the planet of Malachor. There Ezra’s frustrations with Kanan’s teachings combined with his own empathy for those in need would lead to his near seduction to the Dark Side by a reemerging Darth Maul. Kanan’s inability to trust fully in his student would be a partial catalyst in his blinding by the same former Sith Lord. And Ahsoka, poor Ahsoka, would come face to face with the man that used be her master. It makes for a dark and painful installment of television, but the incredible voicework by the full cast sells the experience and thrilling lightsaber duels abound. It is hard not to find yourself wrapped up in the saga that unfolds even before the final fifteen minutes elevate this installment into the realms of a classic. Ahsoka’s confrontation with Darth Vader was clearly a fascination of Filoni’s and the resulting product is as apocalyptic, tragic, and mythic as one could hope or dread for. Ashley Eckstein, James Earl Jones, and Matt Lanter sell the moment with heartbreak, anger, and disbelief, Kevin Kiner provides a beautiful musical score, and Filoni crafts a risk taking and iconic sequence. Like all great Star Wars, “Twilight of the Apprentice” ends with a wordless montage set to music. It’s a cinematic moment that feels earned and appropriate and may just be the best Star Wars that we have seen in years.

------------ So, there you have it. Rebels has been ranked. As always, feel free to reach out to tell me where you agree, disagree, or if you just want to chat about the show. I loved getting to critique this series and offer my thoughts as it crew into a truly great piece of television. I feel that I grew as a writer and a person with this show and getting to share my excitement, speculation, frustration, and adulation for it has been a highlight of my life for years now.

Thank you all for your readership and friendship.

May the Force Be With You

Nic

#Star Wars #Star Wars Rebels #review #reviews #swr #Rebels

16 notes · View notes

transgamerthoughts · 8 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy XV: Thoughts and Ramblings

I’ve just finished a more detailed playthrough of Final Fantasy XV. There’s plenty to talk about but today is strange and my mind is scattered so I thought it best to keep things loose. It worked for Infinite Warfare. My general takeaway is that I like Final Fantasy XV more than I should. It is a broken, shattered game but one that managed to win me over in spite of itself.

THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS POST

1. Let’s start positive here. FFXV has one of my favorite game worlds and settings in a long time. This is impressive given how surprisingly little of it we really explore in detail. There’s essentially two major cities in this game, with a handful of minor locations. Whereas other Final Fantasy games are globe trotting affairs, FFXV remains relatively local until the latter end of the game.

By this point, you’re no longer dealing with an open world design however. For all intents and purposes, FFXV’s largest gameplay chuck takes place within the nation of Lucis and its various regions. The map isn’t dense with things to do but strong art direction and environment design gives ever location an air of believability that most games do not manage. It isn’t on the same level as The Witcher 3 but FF XV is chasing after the great Western open worlds and does so admirably. The world is fun to be in and feels steeped in a larger history and lore that feels suitably epic and magical.

2. The core cast of characters are enjoyable and memorable as well. The four party members banter and have clearly developing relationships. It adds a lot to the experience. There are weak links in the chain; Gladio tends to be far less personable than we are meant to believe and Ignis’ traits remain fairly static until a major bit of action in the plot physically handicaps him. These are minor complaints considering how well the group dynamics flow. By the end of the game, the four protagonists feel like true brothers.

The secondary cast is pretty fun as well. Iris is a charming and likable character who honestly should have accompanied the party longer than she did. Aranea makes for a memorable rival turned frenemy, and while we don’t get to spend too much time with Cor Leonis, his gravitas served the initial parts of the game very well.

On top of this, we have one of the most memorable antagonists in the series history. Ardyn is charismatic, intelligent, watchable, and when the times demand it, he can become truly sinister. There are the subtle hints of true depth for this character; he feels complicated and worn. The plot fails to investigate his highly interesting history but he still manages to make an impression. I’ve not had this fun with a Final Fantasy villain in a long time.

3. A lot of these characters draw strength from strong vocal performances and animations. Ray Chase gives a shockingly good turn as Noctis, a character who starts petty and fairly unlikable grows into a commanding presence. Darin De Paul gives an outstanding turn as Ardyn, oozing charm while slipping into more sinister vocal ranges when needed.

One of the best performances in the game actually comes from Robbie Daymond as Prompto. He brings a wonderful energy to the chipper gunslinger but also imbues him with a raw sense of vulnerability. The voce work merges well with quality animations. In particular, there’s a moment where Luna tells Ardyn that redemption is in his reach if he were to choose it and the facial animation manages to communicate an astounding range of thoughts and emotions within around five seconds. It’s great and shows how important the interplay between multiple disciplines are when creating digital performances.

4. Combat can be frustrating but I found that there’s a nice sense of push and pull to the entire affair. It’s not as technique heavy as Episode Duscae implied. Instead, the challenge is finding times to maintain your offensive actions and your defensive dodging stance. With larger groups of enemies, you will get tossed around from time to time and it can be frustrating. But after a while, you’ll find yourself slipping through guards to deliver big hits, performing strong combination attacks with your bros, and warping around the battlefield to perform deadly, magical acrobatics.

5. The game starts with an amazingly interesting core conceit that I think gets squandered. The road trip angle is given a new weight when Cor makes it clear that for Noctis to succeed against the empire, he needs to reclaim the power of the past kings of Lucis. Awesome. That sounds like a neat quest set up. But the game only has Noctis recover a few of these relics during the plot, sometimes without intending to. This then gives way to communion with the various gods around the world.

It would have been a perfectly acceptable and desirable plot to have Noctis seek out the power of kings and gods with the Empire hounding him along the way only for Ardyn to betray everyone near the latter half. In fact, that structure seems fundamentally etched into the structure of the game as an open world experience. And yet, the game abandons the quest for the king’s power, makes it unclear why Noctis is even seeking the gods (or rather, if they are seeking him), and the game totally abandons the Empire.

The best example of this is Ravus. He’s the commander of Imperial forces, a skill swordsman, Luna’s brother, someone with a personal (if misplaced) grudge on the kingdom of Lucis, and all around bad dude. He was even in Kingsglaive. In FF XV, you encounter him once before he is blamed for the disastrous events in Altissia, turned into a daemon offscreen by Ardyn, and killed in one of the game’s most lack luster bossfights. This is frankly unacceptable from a series that managed to make me give a shit about villains as minor Scarlet and fuckin’ Heidegger but Ravus is basically Beatrix by way of Char Aznable and he’s completely misused. It’s downright sinful.

Similarly, the Emperor has a single scene. If the game took time to build him up, we might have had a betrayal as memorable as Kefka’s when Ardyn usurps power and tosses the realms into chaos. No such luck here. We also only see Minister Verstael for a single cutscene but this is the dude who runs the empire’s weapons program and manufactures MTs using knowledge gained from Ardyn. He’s also, technically, Prompto’s father. There’s loads of potential here that is also wasted because the game hits ludicrous speed after Altissia and never slows the fuck down. As the result, I feel like I’m missing a significant portion of the game.

6. In keeping with the botched story elements, we have the biggest missed opportunity when Ardyn basically creates and eternal night that lasts ten whole years. The world is plunged into chaos, daemons reign supreme, humanity is hiding in a few final bastions of resistance against the hordes. And yet, when we awake into the World of Ruin, we’re not given a new variation of the game map to explore. Instead, we get an expositional dump by Talcott before easily reuniting with out companions.

Yet, in the intervening ten years, a lot of stuff has happened. Ignis has become a badass blind warrior, Aranea has gone from Imperial mercenary to champion of the people with an entire army at her command, Iris, working alongside Cor, has become so awesome that she’s known as “Iris the Demonslayer,” and Talcott, the young boy we knew from years before, has become a veteran hunter in his own right.

Why do I not see the characters again? Imagine if I woke in the World of Ruin with only Gladio to greet me, ever faithful for years as guardian of the Crystal. Talcott joins us as a temporary guest character as we journey from settlement to settlement, helping restore order while also reuniting with our friends. We could help Cindy in a brief story sequence that reunites us with Prompto, we could encounter Aranea and Ignis as they search ancient ruins for information of how to defeat Ardyn, we could reinforce Cor and Iris at Gladio’s request in a battle against daemons attacking Lestallum.

The set up is right there in the background but instead, we get an exposition dump, no satisfying reunion scene with the gang, and we’re able to immediately head to Insomnia to fight Ardyn. If the first half of the game is missing the Empire, the latter half of the game is missing basically everything.

8. In spite of these obvious oversights and missteps, the ending made me cry. It’s well done. I even think it could have been more dramatic. As it stands, Noctis gives up his life for the people of the world and the fates of his best bros feel ambiguous. I think they should have doubled down even harder on the heartbreak here and showed their last stand. If this is a game about gradually assuming responsibility, that needs to extend to the other protagonists in order to be thematically complete.

I also think that while Ardyn should have died, there was no need to have the strange moment with him in the spirit realm. If we had someone gotten to understand Arydn’s past in more detail, perhaps during the time Noctis spends in the crystal, it would have been enough to land the final blow on him and wish him peace in the next life. The ending is good but I can’t help thinking it ought to have been great.

9. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think this game needed a codex. The world is full of amazingly interesting history that I’d gladly read about. Imagine walking into a dungeon and walking away with ancient lore you discovered on old tablets or spending time in Altissia with some type of tour guide and getting a beefier codex for it. As stated, the world is amazingly interesting. Lestallum is a city run by women, Titan is holding up a perpetually falling comet in the middle of Duscae, the Empire and Lucis had major wars, the tombs of old kings litter the land. This is interesting stuff I want to know more about

Say what you will about how FF XIII made the codex necessary to understanding I actually know the religion in that world and the cosmology. In FF XV, I still don’t quite understand what an Oracle is and that’s literally the profession of one of the (ostensibly) most important characters in the game.

10. Speaking of Luna, she suffers from the same issue as her brother; we don’t get to spend time with her. Occasionally, we see flashes to her life and her side journey but this is a powerful character. Instead, she is relegated largely to the sidelines until Altissia, where we reunite with her just long enough for Ardyn to kill her.

Luna is a prophet, mage, and priestess who can stare down literal gods and heal magical blight. FF XV could have easily given us moments where we play as here or structured itself such that we actually get worthwhile perspective cuts to what she was doing for much of the story. It would have made her death actually mean something.

11. This game has one of the best soundtracks of the series. It is a powerhouse and Yoko Shimomura nails just about every track. Shimomura has always done very well with strings and piano. Here, that strength aptly bridges the gap between the more realistic aspects of the setting with the fantasy. I don’t have an in depth analysis here. It’s just very good.

In general, the biggest issue with FFXV is that is is fractured. The open world is great, if lacking in variety. But I forgive that because of how enrapturing it is. The characters are wonderful but the plot misuses them or ignores them constantly. I genuinely like this game but I know that a better scenario designer could have gotten something much more coherent. That’s the biggest problem; this game just falls apart by the end and even if it manages to hit a strong emotional climax, you’re let with the overwhelming feeling that while it was a good time, it could have been genuinely great.

#Final Fantasy #final fantasy xv

17 notes · View notes

twitchesandstitches · 6 years ago

Note

4. What is their most embarrassing memory? 17. What are they like when they’re drunk? 20. Fears? 21. Favorite kind of weather? 22. Favorite color? 23. Do they collect anything? 61. When bored, how do they pass time? 78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy? For: Odina, Tamm, Wicke, Tionishia, Centorea, 18, 21 and Mama Defleni.

under read more because it got kinda long

4. most embarassing memory

Odina: Shit. Thisone time, uh. This one time, i was in the same room as one of thoseinfinite magic creating generators they dig up from time to time. Andyeah, me? And something with limitless magic? My ass got so huge itswelled up and got me stuck, right in a doorway. I was trapped therefor HOURS. Some shithead used me for furniture, they sat on my buttand slept there! God… so mortifiying.

Tamm: In my earlydays of learning to take on a bird form, I got lost in the body. Abody you take does have its own instincts and it can overwhelm yourmind; some take on a new form and it takes their mind, and theyforget who they are, becoming just another creature with faintmemories of someone who is gone now. Fortunately I didn’t go thatfar, but I did wind up eating carrion and little bugs. Theembarassing bit? A student saw me do it, and never let me forget…!

Wicke: OnceLusamine and I wore matching uniforms, along with our assistants, topresent the image of a united group to our backers, this being beforethe Aether Foundation became a distinct organization, mind you! Theproblem is, the tailors weren’t given my own… extreme…dimensions in mind and the hips were far too small! The skirt justshredded when i tried to walk; I had to spend all day trying to avoida wardrobe failure and I just know they noticed…!

Tionishia: I oncehad a human boyfriend and I greeted him with a hug so tight he… ah,had some back trouble. It was so embarassign! I learned the hard waythat humans are rather fragile, you know?

Centorea: As youknow, things around here tend to get more than a little odd with thetransformations. The first time I grew a few extra set of breasts onmy horse section, rather like an udder I suppose, I got… verymilky. And sensitive. And unfortunately I sat down on my speciallyadapted couch but didn’t realize someone was on it, and thatsomeone was Suu. There were complications but a long story short, aLOT of milk flooded everywhere and then right into her; she gotkaiju-sized and we had a DEVIL of a time calming her down…! Ugh.How dreadful.

Android 18: I gotsome energy absorbing relay coils installed and I dared Krillin totest them out with some ki projectile fastball. I caught ‘em, yeah.Not so good at the CONTROLLING the blasts thing. Accidentally losthold of the things and blew a huge hole in our house. Ugh, lookinglike a loser in front of your cute, tiny husband… awful.

Android 21: Ionce turned all of the planet Jupiter into a giant chocolate ball. Iwas AIMING for an asteroid, but, well, my aim isn’t always perfect!And of course, so much tasty sweetness got me hungry and I would haveeaten it all if I hadn’t been stopped…! As it is, well, now thereare more than one gaps in it.

Mama Defleini: Afriend hugged me from behind when I wasn’t expecting it and…well, I gushed ink EVERYWHERE. Milk ink, at that, over the entireauditorium. And since I was playing on a band at the time, there isphotographic evidence. Tends to come up when I am trying to beserious, which is not at all helpful!

17. What are theylike when they’re drunk?

Odina:Surprisingly mellow, a bit passive, but even more of a stone wallthan usual. Tends to just ignore everything.

Tamm: Very much abit of a chatterbox!

Wicke: Extremelysweet and affectionate, tries to be helpful and often just falls onyou.

Tionishia: Veryhuggy; this is both dangerous from her immense strength, and comfy,because at least her massive bust is soft!

Centorea: Becomesunexpectedly gloomy, but swings into happy mode for no apparentreason.

Android 18: Angrydrunk, MEAN drunk. She will fight you for looking in her generaldirection, or breathing near her and sucking up her air. She willfight you and it will hurt.

Android 21:Becomes very hungry and eats random stuff; will start chewing ontables and gets really sleepy, really fast.

Mama Defleini:Not really any change at all, but she becomes a bit more talkativethan normal.

20. Fears?

Odina: Shequietly dreads that, one day, she’ll turn on her magical powers andit won’t turn off; she’ll keep draining and growing without beingable to stop it. She’s also scared of getting caught up insomething that’ll go VERY badly for her, and get her killed orworse.

Tamm: Herdaughter killing her, again. Alternatively, she dreads the return ofthe loathsome True Fae from their mysterious realm, for when theycome, they will leave nothing behind.

Wicke: Beinghelpless to stop something truly evil and wretched, or worse, beingcomplicit in it. She dreads her own potential passivity.

Tionishia: Herimmense strength killing a human, or similar species. Just hug sohard, and then hear a horrible little snap. And then, blood onher arms, and a death on her hands.

Centorea: Failureto uphold her duties, so that her lord and her family dies on herwatch. More than that, she fears failing to uphold her oaths and thatshe may act in a dishonorable way, shaming herself irredeemably.

Android 18:Becoming destitute and homeless again, and worse, dooming her familyto the same fate. She would do anything rather than suffer such adoom, and it motivates her to some ruthless acts.

Android 21:Losing control of herself, and becoming a mindlessly gluttonous andcruel monster that would devour her own children, friends and alliesjust to slake the fiend she has become. She dreads the multiversebeing broken by her appetite.

Mama Defleini:She speaks little of her own fears. But in the depths, she has knownthat SOMETHING is coming, however distant, and she hears the echos ofsomething vast and indifferent to mortal suffering, and it is coming.She fears, more than anything, that the ages will come and destroyall that she has built… and worse, that she can do nothing to stopit.

21. Favorite kindof weather?

Odina: “I likeit rainy, a bit stormy. Feels good, you know?”

Tamm: “As longas it is wet, I enjoy it. Heavy rain is my preferred sort.”

Wicke: “I loveit sunny, more than anything! GIve me open sun and strong light!”

Tionishia:“Strong winds, and cool, dampness.”

Centorea: “Iprefer my days a bit cloudy, to be honest.”

Android 18:“Overcast. When it’s sunny, it’s too hot. Rain is not fun,either. Snow’s the worst. That shit can kill you.”

Android 21: “Idon’t have a preference, honestly! I like it cool, but that mayjust be my body; easier to hold myself together, and it’s not thatmuch of a fondness.”

Mama Defleini:“Mist and cool weathers please me the most.”

22. Favoritecolor?

Odina: “Red, Iguess?”

Tamm: “Purplesare lovely!”

Wicke: “I lovepink! It’s my favorite.”

Tionishia:“Yellows look cute and heroic!”

Centorea: “Ilean towards blues, I suppose!”

Android 18:“Black.”

Android 21: “Ido love greens.”

Mama Defleini:“Magenta, dear. Can’t you tell?” (Rubs her tentaclesaffectionately)

23. Do theycollect anything?

Odina: Collectsvideo games, preferably ones that are a bit more obscure or havegenres unknown in the modern day.

Tamm: Likes tocollect little knick-knacks and enchant them; her chambers andworkplaces resemble a witch’s cottage mixed with a magpie nest.

Wicke: Herfriends joke she gets younger boyfriends. She generally collectsplush toys of all sorts, ranging from obscure toylines to variationsof a given model, and takes pleasure in organizing them to the minutedetail.

Tionishia: Cuteaccesories and fancy hats!

Centorea:Collections of medieval books, old lore, and Arthurian legendry fromover the ages.

Android 18:Books. Until recently they were a luxury for her; they’reexpensive, difficult to carry on the go, and require careful keeping,so she was unable to have any until she and her brother came to theattention of the Red Ribbon army. Now she takes pride in being ableto get as many as she wants.

Android 21: Worksby influential figures she respects; also comic books and manga ofall kinds! She prefers lighthearted and jokey things instead of moregrim or serious material.

Mama Defleini:Apparently, ships. Not model ships or toys; ACTUAL ships. Presumablysome of these are relics from her time as the Kraken of legend, butshe’s diversified into spaceships in the here and now.

61. When bored,how do they pass the time?

Odina: “I liketo read. And enjoy the boredom; it don’t last long, usually.”

Tamm:“Birdwatching is usually a fine hobby to pass the time.”

Wicke: “I liketo take naps, dear! Or perhaps watch some television.”

Tionishia: “Iplay with the local pets; with the people we associate with, there’splenty to find!”

Centorea: “Iwork out! A knight must always refine her body, for it is her finesttool!”

Android 18:“Watch TV, I guess.”

Android 21: “Iread as well!”

Mama Defleini:“Painting, usually of visions I experience or of the unreal imageryI am heir to. It tends to give mortals headache to look at them, butI think they’re pretty.”

78. How do theyact when particularly happy?

Odina: Verymellow; tihs ia clue in itself, as she is normally very guarded andgrim. Any sign of happiness at all is a pretty damn big deal!

Tamm: Softsmiles, gentle asides, ocassionally some faint noises that sound abit like pleased chirps. She’s not too demonstrative of herfeelings.

Wicke:Ebulliently cheerful, almost radiant! She becomes a beacon ofemotional light!

Tionishia:Extremely huggy, to the point that her grasp over how much strongershe is becomes looser than usual, and spines are put to GREAT stresesfrom her hugs. From her arm strength, and her massive boobs; theymight be soft and milky but they’re also EXTREMELY heavy

Centorea: shetries to be tactiturn, in the image of the unflappable knight, butwhen super happy, she ironically acts more like the lady of a courtlyromance; flushng over small feelings, beaming brightly, and speakingin poetic phrase. It’s noticable since usually she IS somewhatstoic.

Android 18: whenhappy, she tends to loosen up a lot; she leans back, probably plopsinto a couch (possibly breaking it) and gets friends/family inaffectionate headlocks. Her happy tends to have a bit of the ‘flirtygirl bully’ vibe.

Android 21: Itcan honestly be difficult to tell, as she doesn’t act TOOdifferently from how she mght otherwise, but she acts a lot like herrobot son Android 16, whose core personality was her biological son;she gets a little more open, more expressive, and she doesn’t seemso closed off.

Mama Defleini: Ingeneral she affects an air of genteel cheeriness; there’s not a lotof interplay between her moods of ‘not super happy’ and‘genuinely super happy’. When she’s sincerely happy, though,she gets very warm and easy going, and parts of her body becoming abit more ink-goo than normal. She literally loosens up!

#anon replies #replies #ask meme replies #crossthicc!wicke #crossthicc!android 21 #crossthicc!android 18 #crossthicc!tamm #crossthicc!tionishia #crossthicc!centorea #my OCs #mama defleini #odina #Anonymous

0 notes

purplelizardman · 7 years ago

Text

GM's Easy Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) - World Creation Kit (make vivid worlds, quickly)

As a GM, one of the most fun and daunting tasks you can undertake is the creation of worlds.

New gods, myths, legends, artifacts, heroes, villains, history, kingdoms, cultures, religions… there’s infinite room for creativity and no shortage of fun to be had!

The problem is that there’s literally infinite room for creativity.

Knowing where to start can be tough and when rushing in head-first it’s not uncommon to find that you’ve wrote yourself into a corner. When this happens it’s easy to lose enthusiasm for the world you’re creating.

It’s a problem I’ve encountered many times during my 7+ years of GMing. For each campaign I would create a new world and eventually I developed a set of methods that makes the world creation process fast and fun while producing vivid, consistent, and imaginative worlds.

It all begins with the first step:

Choose the Gameplay

Worlds in RPGs (both tabletop and otherwise) are not stand-alone constructs: they are meant to be played in.

The first step to creating a vivid and interesting world is to decide what type of game you want played in that world.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What does the typical session look like?

Is it straight combat? Very little combat? A mix of puzzles, riddles, combat, and social encounters?

Are the players classical, good adventurers or are they mercenaries, space pirates, or planar pillagers, etc..?

Where do I see these encounters happening?

In dungeons? In cities? In spaceships? In temples built out of bones of decaying gods?

In locales that span a wide range of heavy metal album covers?

In all of the above?

How do I want to guide story progression?

Is the game entirely player driven or will NPCs and world events drive most of the plot?

Do the players exist within a command structure, fulfilling orders? If not, are they free agents on a mission, mercenaries for hire, or a rag-tag bunch of outcasts that gets into mischief?

Is the progression driven primarily by exploration, social encounters, or pre-determined events?

Choose Central Conflicts and Environments

Once you’ve answered the previous questions you should have an idea of how you see gameplay and plot unfolding in a typical session, in other words: the assumptions of your game.

Now that you have a clearer idea of the assumptions you’re working with it’s time to build a world around them.

Worlds are meant to be played in, so start with the environment: create a reason for the environment to be the way you envision. Give the players incentive to explore the environments that you’ve chosen.

This ties in closely with the central conflict or theme of your world: if it is a war time campaign, the environment should be blistered with the signs of battles, cities will be impoverished, nature will marred by weapons of war. If an eternal winter has spread across the continent, everything will be cold and harsh, but nature may yet struggle on.

If the primary method of story progression is exploration, define a few interesting locales with good backstories and a home base, for example:

The material plane has been shattered to thousands of pieces. The players begin on a shrinking shard of the plane (a single kingdom), drifting through a dark sea of stars, gradually breaking into smaller pieces. On their journey they will likely encounter the Volcanic Stronghold of the Fists of Hextor, the Sunken Kingdom of the Drowned God, The Impossible Tower of the Mad Mage, etc…

In 3 short sentences we have defined: a central conflict/theme (the material realm being shattered), provided the players motivation for exploring (their realm is literally falling to pieces), and formed an idea of 3 interesting places for the players to visit.

A second example:

The gods could never agree on how the world should be, so they made two worlds and separated them by a thin veil. Now the veil is weakening and new, bizarre cities, towns, and kingdoms are popping up everywhere along with dangerous monsters in unexpected places. If it’s not stopped the players will lose everything familiar to them and their entire world. The players will probably visit the Crag of the Crab King, the Industrious Imperium of the Formic Hive, and the Brain Bakery run by Granny and Grandpa M’Flayer.

We’ve outlined a central conflict/theme (two worlds colliding), provided player motivation (anything they know and love could be destroyed or swapped with something at any moment), and 3 interesting places.

Entire articles can (and will be) written on how to flesh out interesting locales and encounters. Once you feel you have enough interesting locales and a strong enough central theme to create new environments throughout the campaign, it’s time for the next step.

Create NPCs and Flesh out the Backstory

The environment implies the backstory of your world as your descriptions of the environment reveal the world illuminated in the light of the central theme. Yet it is the NPCs who will ultimately become the face or even the very personification of your world, it’s backstory, and its central theme.

When writing NPCs it is important to flesh out the backstory of your world. The central conflict of your world is going to have 3 main facets:

Cause – How did the conflict come to be? i.e. creation myths, political events, a wizard did it, etc…

Resolution – How is the conflict resolved (the ultimate goal)? Gather artifacts, dethrone a mad king, etc…

Factions – Who’s on what side of the conflict and why? Doomsday cultists, angry gods and their followers, bellicose Kings, devious dragons, the merchant guild, a rogue sect of angels, etc…

Define the factions you’d like to see in the world and the cause for their conflicts, then create the NPCs that will be agents and eventually faces of the faction.

Most important of all: make your NPCs interesting! Not every shopkeeper needs an important backstory or a quirk, but important NPCs do. Make the backstory related to the central conflict, but keep it personal so that your players will be motivated by it.

Define a few NPCs for each faction that the players will interact with early on. At a minimum you should define a leader, a high-ranking officer, and one or two low ranking people.

You can get by with a short description of a name, personality/mannerism, and a sentence or two describing them and how they act.

For example:

Iara Tsun, the unusually tall dwarf who owes a life-debt to the King. She is never seen outside of her formal armor and never uses a word when a nod will suffice.

Zorc the Mad, a half-elf mage with a dragon facial tatoo, obsessed with the summoning of demons. He wears a cocky expression to match his attitude and truly believes that summoning a powerful demon may allow him to free his son’s soul from hell.

Auren the Keeper of the Gate, an immortal former-human who is mostly made of glowing blue stone; his former knightly robes hang off him in tatters. He speaks in a loud booming voice that sounds like it comes from far away; he has guarded this portal for ages and will allow only the worthy to pass and receive the truth contained beyond.

Rog Horf the disgruntled half-orc cultist in charge of new recruits. He keeps his cultist robes pristine and is mindful of prejudice, choosing to annunciate each word carefully, but feels he is woefully underappreciated for his talent and intelligence.

The best part about using the short description method is that NPCs can be inserted into nearly any role we need on the fly: their role in the game is only set in stone once they make an appearance on the stage.

This saves prep time and makes the game flow smoother, giving you a pool of NPCs to work with for when your players do something unexpected.

After you’ve defined the key factions and some interesting NPCs, spend some time fleshing out the myths and lore: this will make your factions and NPCs more believable.

CAUTION!!!

A lot of GMs fall into a trap at this point and end up developing extensive lore, legends, religion, etc. While this is fun, you should finish out the “party facing” aspects of your world first i.e. develop the starting local, it’s NPCs, factions, and environment. The PCs will definitely see this part of your world, but there’s a chance they will never delve deep enough into the lore to learn the deeper and more obscure parts of your world backstory.

Focus on the parts the players will see first then, if you have time, feel free to circle back around to lore and flesh it out even more.

Finishing Up

At this point, you’ve identified your assumptions about the game, you’ve defined a central conflict, a motivation for players, the environment with several interesting locales, NPCs, and the backstory of your world.

All that’s left is the quests, plot hooks, and encounters.

By now these should flow very naturally, but if you’re having trouble just look back at your NPCs and factions and ask “How would they get the party to help them? What would they do that would harm/hinder the party?” For example:

Would Zorc the Mad use an alias to post a reward for the retrieval of a magical artifact from a dangerous dungeon?

Would Rog Horf send the PCs out on his personal errands where chance encounters will surely alter their fate?

Would Iara Tsun require the PCs to prove themselves against an encampment of orcs that suddenly appeared in the lower quarter of the city?

Start with at least 3 potential plot hooks and get a feel for which one you think will be most impactful to your group (which one they will like or at least remember best).

At this point: you’re done!

You’ve made a consistent world built around a central conflict, interesting locales, memorable NPCs, and enough plot hooks to start the adventure. Add more interesting NPCs, locations, plothooks, and factions as needed.

If you enjoyed this article you may also like Active Player Agency – A Crash Course or A GM’s Guide to Communication

GM’s Easy Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) – World Creation Kit (make vivid worlds, quickly) was originally published on Friendly Neighborhood Lizard Man

#5e #D&D #d&d5e #dnd #DnD5e #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeons&dragons #fantasy #finlam #PurpleLizardMan #sci-fi #ttrpg #world creation #writing

0 notes