Since no one new seems to be posting in Scions yet exept Grismath, I'll use this space for the new "Scions Workshop Thread". Isn't it exciting?
Anyway, this is the lasts stuff about the world from Highemp. This all of this can be changed, if you want to change something, but it looks good to me:
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One: Races of the world.
-ALTRIEL (pronounced Awlt-rel) - the star elves, who live almost exclusively in
the sky cities and who built Stratopolis, the "perfect blend" of magic and
technology; pearly skin and golden eyes. They are proud to the point of
snobbishness over their mastery of the three arts of the archmagi
-DONRIEL (pronounced Dun-rel) - the deep elves, who live almost exclusively in
the Lower Realm, usually nestled into caves, coves, and valleys. Not snobbish
like their Altriel cousins, the Donriel greedily absorb every last bit of magic,
technology, and divinity that they can, regardless of its source, attempting to
make themselves strong enough to take over the Upper Realm someday.
-BLOODED - these are extremely rare humanoids, golden-skinned and powerful.
They can be found anywhere, though there is rumored to be a lost city of the
Blooded in Shagoth Ul, beyond the cliffs of the Black Face in the far north
(which is where my character Elwan hails from). The Blooded are naturally
gifted with the three Arts of the Archmagi (magick, technology, and spirit), and
can also wield necromancy with some potence as well.
-HUMANS - duh.
-MEDJAN - these are draconian humanoids, the distant descendants of dragons
themselves. Though they tend to be large, they usually aren't more than 7 feet
in height, and some are as short as 5 feet. They are highly resistant to
magick, poison, disease, and the elements due to their heritage, and a rare few
even have a breath weapon.
-WOOD TROLLS - a trollish people who make beautiful cities out of the living
wood of trees. They are strong but lithe, and skilled in outdoorsmanship.
-ORC TROLLS - orcish trolls who are big, lumbering brutes skilled in
armscrafting and armorsmithing. Their weapons are the most efficient and
powerful made anywhere, whether mundane or magical.
-TIGRIS - these are furred cat people who are equally comfortable on two legs or
on all fours. They exist as tribes of nomads wandering the Lower Realm, though
many can be found in the Upper Realm as well.
-MYRTHRNIIR (pronounced Mirth-ri-neer) - the Myrthrniir are eyeless and
four-armed.
-REDFELL - short, hardy, and redskinned, these are the Scions of Light
equivalent of dwarves, only they don't HAVE to have beards.
Feel free to add your own races and/or to add on to these races here. Comments
welcomed.
Two: Key Locations of the World
THE BLACK FACE - this range of blackstone cliffs is a barrier to the far north
preventing most, if not all, travel beyond that. The main Rift to the Dark
Realm is beyond the Black Face.
STRATOPOLIS - the home of Eomas the Immortal Prophet, this consists of one
hovering city-state that stretches a hundred miles in diameter and ten miles in
height connected to three dozen smaller cities by sky-rails and bridges in one
massive floating megalopolis. This is the seat of Altriel government, whose
decisions command most of the Upper Realm and influence everything in the Lower
Realm as well.
TEMPLE OF SHADUST - nestled into the northwest of the Lower Realm, just below
the Black Face, this ancient cathedral was the site of a massacre of the god
Shadust's followers 800,000 years ago. Since then, the title of Shaman and
Keeper of the Magicks of Myth has been passed down from generation to
generation, and Elwan is the current officeholder.
THE DARK REALM - mysterious and elusive, the Dark Realm mirrors our own in dark
and sinister ways, ruled by lich overlords and undead and daemons.
Feel free to add your own locations and/or add on to these. Comments welcomed.
Three: Key Events and Personnel in the Great War
-VOSCIS - the general hero-wizard who led the Sages against the Dark Realm's
incursion over 500 years ago. A strategic genius who was killed by Gondar's
storm of mystic lightning when Gondar betrayed his fellow Sages. Famous for his
alchemical experiments as well.
-NOCTURNE - His true identity unknown to all, he (she?) was the one who opened
the rift to the Dark Realm from our world and led its forces against the Sages.
Destroyed at Zero Hour.
-GONDAR BENEDICT - His title is "benedict", meaning traitor or turncoat. He was
a master of enchantment, and his wand was further strengthened by his fellow
Sages in order that he might strike down Nocturne... but instead he struck down
his kinsmen... Killed shortly thereafter
-ELDOORIVEN - A Last Sage; Elwan's ancestor; a brigadier officer who surfaced
after Nocturne's destruction and led the Last Sages to victory against the last
remnants of Nocturne's army.
-SHAER - A Last Sage; Yashobi's ancestor (Noble, you should add more info to
this guy, please)
-BRITE - A Last Sage; Tsusaka's ancestor (CM, you should add more info to this
guy, please)
-THIRD BATTLE OF RIEL - the third battle to take place at the twin forks of the
river Riel in the Great War, where Gondar betrayed his fellow Sages, killing
many of them with a single stroke, with most of the rest perishing in battle
after that.
-THE RECKONING - the one-sided battle where Gondar was cornered by the Last
Sages and abandoned by his master Nocturne, in the icy wastes to the south.
Gondar refused to surrender, prolonging a siege until he starved to death, at
which point the remaining Separatist Sages surrendered unconditionally.
-ZERO HOUR - the battle where Nocturne was destroyed by the combined forces of
all creation at what became known as Ground Zero.
-TSA - the Sovereign Godhead of the cosmos, who perished in Zero Hour. His
order of faithful remain, called the Tsavi, though their powers have drastically
weakened since the Tsa's dissolution. (Those are Blooded AND are Tsavi are
called the Tsanguine.)
Feel free to add your own and/or add to these existing things. Comments
welcome.
Part 2:
Here's a little more background on SoL.
Note that this is only as I see it right now, and it's NOT SET IN STONE. It's
very FLEXIBLE, subject to the whim of us writers. But anyways, here it is.
The rift to the Dark Realm, beyond the Black Face, is in a volcano called
Shagoth Ul. Five Elder seals keep it from being breached. Currently, two of
them have been broken (or was it three? I forget; heh). However, huge ash
storms still blow from Shagoth Ul across the soot-covered wastelands, spreading
blight and plague, so fifty years after the placing of the seals and the ending
of the Great War, a great barrier was built around the mountain, called the
Ashwall, tp protect those living around Shagoth Ul (most barbarians, Redfell,
and Orc Trolls), with the only gateway being through a modest city called
Ashgate.
The arts powering the Ashwall, however, are reputedly beginning to fail, and the
ash storms are getting worse with each passing year. The lich overlords are
becoming restless, and the black spirit of Nocturne is stirring in the bowels of
creation, beneath the deepest hell of Cherocanth.
A quick cosmology (just some ideas)
There are ten planes of Elemenergy (element + energy):
1) Fire/heat
2) Ice/cold/frost
3) electricity/shock
4) acid
5) water
6) earth
7) air
8) sonic
9) chaos
10) order
There are also the 24 layers of Sol (the sun), which is the plane of positive
elemenergy and good-aligned, and the 12 layers of Nehdher, which is the plane of
negative elemenergy and evil-aligned. Basically, Sol is Heaven, and Nehdher is
Hell.
Nehdher is a giant pit in the center of the earth, with layers encircling the
pit. Some ideas for the layers of Nehdher (we can fill in these as we go):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11) Perhaps this can be the headquarters of the daemon Baeal, leader of the
largest faction of daemons in the Daemon War. The Daemon War divides the
countless trillions of daemons across time and space in endless, eternal battle,
which is a good thing, else they'd overrun all reality. Perhaps Baeal's HQ can
be a hollowed-out miles-long shard from Cherocanth. (see below)
12) This is called Cherocanth and is a sheet of a solid black substance that
feels like ice or metal to the touch, but which is actually evil incarnate.
Cherocanth shoots forth from itself shards of pure evil that can infect those it
touches with evil as a poison. Some of these shards are miles long, others only
millimeters, all deadly.
There is also a thirteenth hell, which few know of, which is the prison of
Nocturne's spirit, beneath the solid black sheet which comprises Cherocanth.
As for Sol, the top 24th layer is the Throne of Tsa, the Sovereign Godhead, who
perished in Zero Hour. Tsa was the supreme creator and master of everything
else before Nocturne vastly outstripped him in power. Again there is a hidden
layer, the 25th layer, which is the core of the sun. Here is Solarien, a
crystal powered with the very stuff of the Zero Forge (to be detailed in a
future post), which powers all Reality. Also, on some other layer (unknown
which one right now), is Valhalla, where the greatest hero-kings of all time
train in readiness for the Last Battle, the one in which Nocturne is prophesied
to return...
Each elemenergy plane has a god (less powerful than Tsa was, but more than
powerful enough to shape the very stuff of reality about them to their whim)
over it. Below these elemenergy gods are the rank-and-file pantheons of every
universe, thousands of cosmos upon cosmos.
ABOVE the elemenergy gods are the overdeities, which generally don't concern
themselves with mortal affairs, believing themselves too far above them and that
only other, lesser gods are worthy to worship them. Above the overdeities are
the sentient cosmos, the universes and multiverses that are so powerful as to
have a life force of their own. (As a matter of fact, it was the hundred most
powerful of these sentient "oververses" that perished in Zero Hour to defeat
Nocturne.)
Above the oververses was Tsa, until he died in Zero Hour. And above all these
was Nocturne, as it took all these together to defeat him.
It is here that I'd like to point out that our heroes are NOT confronting
Nocturne. Not yet, anyway. For now, Nocturne is safely ensconced within the
deepest layer of Hell, trapped. It is JUST the Dark Realm they are facing,
without their malevolent leader. Though at some point in the distant future,
they certainly should be powerful enough to confront Nocturne, being descendants
of the Last Sages, who organized the Zero Hour attack which pulverized
Nocturne's body.
It also bears mentioning that the Dark Realm is the "shadow" or evil version of
just the mortal world. Every plane and world in the SoL cosmology has a
shadow... Even the sun called, well, Sol. (Get it? SoL for Scions of Light,
and Sol for the sun? Hardy-har-har.)
![[http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif]](http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif "http://forums.massassi.net/html/wink.gif")
There is also the astral plane, which connects all the others, and pervades all
the others. It is the plane from which all Arts flow... whether they be magic,
technology, or divinity (except for Tsa's divinity, as he was the Creator of the
Astral Plane and everything else).
AGAIN, these are only MY IDEAS, and they are SUBJECT TO CHANGE, depending on
what we as the writers decide to write.
Thanks.
------------------
"No good can ever come from staying with normal people"
-Outlaw Star
"Some people play tennis. I erode the human soul"
-Tycho, Penny Arcade
"I'm a Cannabal-Vegitarian. I will BBQ an employee if there is no veggie option"
-DX:IW
A Knight's Tail
Exile: A Tale of Light in Dark
The Never Ending Story²[/i]
