Lands of Mirhne: The Fiends of Mirhne

 There are various mythologies in our world which are replete with monsters of a particular nature: creatures which are akin to ogres or demons, monsters of myth and legend which yet appear to be creatures of flesh and blood. They are monsters, yes, bogeymen in the dark. However they are not abstract evil spirits born of nothing but rather descend from cursed humans or others of their kind. Even more troubling is that there are sometime stories where they have interbred with gods and/or mortals. Creatures such as the Fomorian or the Rakshasa come to mind.

Mirhne has its own breed of monsters of myth and legend, dreadful and unholy creatures which legendary heroes and villain either claim to have defeated or to descend from or, in some cases, may even have taken as brides. They are the inhuman monsters which walk a fine line between eldritch terror and all too human, what with their hubris and greed. They are the disowned children of the Gods, some claim, while others say they are the fallen races of men predating the Men of Mirhne. The Fiends of Mirhne fit a campaign role similar to the concept of Snake-Men in other Sword & Sorcery settings. They are the intelligent and decadent pre-human race with twisted sorcery whose wickedness was bred into a subset of humanity. They can also fill a niche similar to both the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones.

The Fiends of Mirhne are one of the few aspect of its lore which can be spoken of in more certain terms rather than vague rumours, as their existence is functionally optional to a Mirhne campaign beyond a few odd scattered ruins which exist as dungeons full of monsters, abandoned thralls and traps and all that with rewards which may very well be cursed. The full presence of a living, breathing Fiend able to interact with the player characters would be a major game-changer and signal a fundamental change to the Lands of Mirhne.

The Fiends of Mirhne

Art by Antonio J. Manzanedo

The true origins of the Fiends of Mirhne are lost to history, with only incoherent or conflicting mythology. What a surprise that is. Some of the southern folks of Mirhne speak of the Fiends as emerging from now sunken islands, underground tunnels or the swaps to reign for a few centuries before god-kings of old displaced them. Others claim they were the twisted, monstrous sons of kings of old who consorted with dark spirits and became monsters in flesh and mind. The Fiends are all over Mirhnian mythology but very little can be established with any coherency beyond the following: they are flesh and blood, they bred true with humans, their minds were human-like with a great ego and finally their form was monstrous beyond belief. They are driven by hunger, greed and lust and they supposedly left behind great tombs, dungeons and more where their cursed treasures lay.

Of course, no one today can claim to have seen a Fiend of Mirhne. They are the monsters of legend, from beasts which prey upon humans akin to Grendel to great demon lords who kidnap beautiful princess, either to keep as bride or to violently abuse depending how the story is told, as generally the version told to children is somewhat lower on the lurid details. Now how exactly that would work with Fiendish anatomy is up to the imagination. Perhaps it is better to not imagine, however, as Fiends are often described as having monstrous faces riddled with layers of teeth and tusks, multiple eyes and arms and flaccid skin in between layers or spiky chitin and bony outgrowths. Others are described as having the lower half of a beast, somewhere 'between a snake and a centipede' while others are described as corpulent and shapeless. Some had the limbs and pedipalps of arthropods erupting in odd places on their bodies while others were said to be truly shapeless but able to reform their bodies in a variety of useful shapes.

Despite their monstrous forms, many stories describe them as having a gilded panoply and magic weapons. Of course, no one has seen any of these in the current age and while some kings of Mirhne claim to have the weapons some great hero took from the corpse of a Fiend, most of these stories are fabrications. Perhaps it is that the real weapon has been destroyed or hidden due to its potentially corrupting nature and those which remain await some foolish mortal who would dare to claim it as its user. Should, somehow, someone find a weapon or armor built for the Fiends they would discover some truly baffling things, such as weapons of gold and silver which seemingly flow and reshape or ugly things made of twisted bone and metal with snapping tentacles digging down into their flesh to use with it. There are even stranger weapons still, such as something which someone from Earth would describe as a cross between an automatic weapon and an animal, its mouth opening to reveal complex organ structures shooting out thorns and bones.

Return of the Fiends?

Art by Veli Nyström

The Fiends have long left Mirhne, it seems. They have slithered back deep underground, under the sea or fallen through the cracks of the world into alien worlds under the beating heart of dead suns. Whatever dominion they might have had over Mirhne has faded away, leaving only some extremely rare and just as dangerous ruins and, perhaps, some leftover lineages of slave-hybrids who are compelled by their dark passions to continue the abandoned agenda of their masters. Their blood is thin, however and most are simply mad wretches.

The return of the Fiends, even of just a few individuals and their minions would be a catastrophic campaign-altering event. Much of their nature is unknown and shrouded in Mirhnian superstition. It could be that they are not magical beings but, rather, failed posthuman monsters and their 'magic' may simply be advanced super science. Perhaps their form is only alien to Mirhne's earthly environment and their monstrous form is simply the result of being reshaped for another form of environment: certainly, serpentine and/or crustacean forms are well suited to underground or aquatic environments. It is also possible they have never truly left and simply felt it better suited to build their civilization under the deep, back sea, away from the prying eyes of primitive apes which can only breathe air. Under this interpretation, the Fiends are ruled by the wicked Sea Witch, who has collected generations upon generations of drowned, deformed orphans. Perhaps these children were returned to life through her ancient magic/science and raised to despise the surface world which abandoned them. No one knows for certain.

Lands of Mirhne: The Dangers and Nature of Corruption and Mutation

 It has been established that monsters lurk within the blood of beasts and men alike in Mirhne. While not the full blown, demented mutations one could find in other settings where some forces of cosmic 'chaos' twist the bodies into monstrous shapes, such mutations do exist in Mirhne. Their nature, however, is subtle and insidious. Like a slow, creeping cancer and the advance of old age. The warping of mind and bodies is a slow, often barely noticeable concept that more often than not fail to reach full apotheosis within the limited lifespan of a human or beast, who are more likely to be claimed by violence and sickness. When it does, however, take hold of someone the transformation inevitably twist those it afflict into monsters.

Ascendance Beyond Mortality

Art of Caleb Jasper

The mortal form of the Men of Mirhne has many, many limitations. A human's body is unable to live for more than five or six decades for those lucky individuals who make it into old age, as infirmity and disease take most at that age. Those who survive as decrepit old folks can live a few decades more but no true, unspoiled mortal in Mirhne has ever exceeded nine decades. In addition to this, most individuals find there are limits to how far they can take their abilities, be they physical or mental. Many myths speak of mortals as born limited by nature of the Gods and whatever creation myth a local people believe (and Mirhne has too many for any to be truly dominant). To be born mortal is to have limitations, with perhaps only legendary heroes and kings of old descended from the Gods being able to somewhat surpass these limits.

There is some truth to this, should a dark theory be true.

Mirhne has very little written records. Yet there are writing by four generations of scribes from the reclusive Bertelith family, who have researched intensively the past history of Mirhne, which speak of this mortal nature. They claim the God-Kings of Mirhne, the flesh and blood great colossus who strode the world and from which many noble lineages (most extinct) descend were not only real beings but the product of some ancient creation by an even older order of Deities, primordial beings whose names are not spoken. They crafted men and beasts to be their servants, born of earthly matter and inscribed inside their flesh were limitations. Mortality, sanity and indeed the very nature of human are but byproduct of this foul genesis, which shackled mankind's ancestor to be nothing but dredge and servants to the Gods Before Time. Under this theory, the Giants are simply the varied descendants of the crossbreeds of Men and Gods, with the God-Kings of old having been not simply 'great men' but flat out giant themselves; their cyclopean statues and temples not mere hubris but a reflection of their greater stature. Yet the scrolls and stone tablets of the Bertelith Family also tell the tale that the colossal God-Kings of old turned on the Gods Before Time, since they and they alone existed between Gods and Men. The second half of the tale speak of a second or a third generation of god-blooded beings, who rose from the masses of unwashed beasts to help the gods slay the progenitors.

Under the disturbing theories of the dead Bertelith clan, humans are able to become akin to the Gods should their potential be awakened. Such a process, however, is said to paradoxically destroy one's 'humanity' as it is mortality, fear and what we call sanity that makes us human and the Bertelith have many heretical claims that the God-Kings were not glorious founders of kingdoms and revered ancestors but rather ghoulish ogres who proceeded to immediately re-enslave the other humans and that only selective memory, propaganda and heavy denial has hidden the truth.

• The simple act of 'leveling up' under the system of an OSR-derived system is, in itself, a way for this 'natural corruption' to seep in. Most individuals in Mirhne in the modern age lack abilities beyond that of a 3rd level Warrior or Expert. Past a certain point an individual slowly become less and less limited by mortal frailty and closer to the realm of Demi-Gods albeit rather fragile ones. Still, a Warrior of 10th level is able to shrug off wounds that would kill lesser men several time over, in utter defiance to biology. Still, it is overall a fairly minor and benign form of corruption.
• Mirhne is home to rumors of old, mad men and wicked crones who have extended their lives. If these stories are true, then these are individuals who somehow have extended their lives by tapping into some darker power and potential hidden in human flesh. Their increase in mental stats (INT, WIS and CHA) as they age should not be seen as wholly beneficial however, as it invariably come at the cost of sanity. As these folks bodies wither and their minds shift and grow heavy with age they begin to think in ways no mortal ever could, able to see and sense things in the world and people nobody else can.
• In the past, Mirhne was home to many extinct warrior traditions such as odd warrior cults and lodges comparable to the bear and wolf warriors of Norse tradition. In truth, many of those were depraved and alien traditions which became more and more shunned for a reason. The few scrolls written on the subject speak of barbaric flesh-eating rituals which would imbue warriors with a mad urge to kill, rend and tear all in their path. While usually temporary, there were those whose trance never ended and whose form became twisted as their unhinged minds.

The Touch of the Unknown

Art by Didier Nguyen

Not every monstrosity born of men and beast is innate. Sometimes, outside forces will influence something and slowly claim it, twisting it into a monster. These include stories such as: the call of the dreaded Sea-Witch, the tainted waters of the Bogs of Exile, the mind diseases of the Low Men or the curses of the Sorcerers. All these stories and more speak of some power external to the body of men and beasts. The touch of magic, of course, can also bear many curses but True Magic in Mirhne is exceedingly rare. That is the magic of what Silent Legions call the Spells of the Gray Path. These are very, very rare and most of them are hidden in the dark corners of Mirhne.

While the men of Mirhne lack our understanding of viruses and bacteria, they at the very least understand that what is inserted and infects a body from the outside is generally not a beneficial thing. There are many secrets craft which have fallen into disuse which, for example understand that certain sickness can enter through wounds and whose effect can be combated by applying or ingesting special mixtures. Yet many of these now mostly-lost arts warn that outside, or even alien influence is dangerous and can steal a man's body and soul or at the very least drive him irrevocably mad. For such infections, the only relief would be death.

• True Magic, while exceedingly rare, is often a source of foreign corruption as draws upon unearthly powers never meant to be wielded by mortals. Even those rare spells of the Gray Path, should one ever even remotely manage to assemble its component parts and learn it would exert an immense toll upon the body. In the modern age of Mirhne few, if any, can claim to have met someone with true world-defying magic and perhaps the reason is that its cost is simply too great. Indeed, perhaps using such magic (if it truly exist) will immediately take away the would be-sorcerer's identity and make him a pawn to gods-know-what.
• Becoming twisted and repurposed by the alien whims of the Sorcerers is a good vector for corrupt from the great unknown, assuming these beings are indeed real they would have access to spells which surpass those of the Gray Path both in power and toll.
• 'The Flesh Remembers' as the adage goes and many people in Mirhne have superstitions related to scarring and old wounds. The wounds inflicted by something suitably unnatural could very well be cursed. Outward physical transformation need no happen any time after infection. however. Rather, most symptoms of such a curse are mental.
• There are worlds beyond Mirhne, even if no one can truly claim to have walked back from them. They can be glimpsed in the murky water's shape, your reflection in the mirror, the sunset and of course dreams. If the current age of Mirhne slowly turn and the unnatural grow in power their connection to the Lands of Mirhne can grow. Perhaps some people are imposter whose bodies have been hollowed out and replaced things from another world?

Urban Fantasy: The Demon Lords (and do they even exist?)

Ahriman by Pouya Zarif.

Spirits exist and the greatest among them are considered to be 'Gods', be they cosmic entities tied into greater concepts of the universe and/or archetypal beings drawn from human myths both real and remembered or imaginary and forgotten. But then Demons also exist so, logically, there must exist out there demonic beings of immense power: these would be the big name demons people hear pop up in popular culture, right? Belzebuub, Satan, Moloch and other things. The scary names people use in Heavy Metal music to frighten moral guardians in the '70 and '80.

Except there's a few problems.

For one thing, there is a lot which remain unknown about Demons because Demons constantly lie. Should someone gather the personal journal of a thousand people who have extensively delved into fighting monsters and sorcerers they would find multiple references to names drawn from Judeo Christian apocrypha as well as 'Pagan' religions. Demons who have used names like Zagan, Valefor, Mephisto and Azrael. Demons who have claimed to have been there at the dawn of time, when Lucifer turned nearly half of God's host of Angels against Heaven. Except none of that shit lines up at all. Most demons encountered in the past few centuries were dangerous creatures but not so dangerous and powerful as to be some god-like entity from the dawn of time. There are also massive inconsistencies in their powers, appearance, personalities and more. Basically, Demons appear to be passing around identities and mantles all the time to the point whatever name and face they show is always at least a partial lie. None of these bastards are who they claim to be.

The 'Demon Lords' of 'Hell'

So, do the Demon Lords exist? Are there 'evil Gods' out there, beings which have the pure malevolence and embodiment of suffering and imperfections of the world of common Demons, but possess the archetypal scope of a God? Probably. One issue here is that many Demons of pseudo canonical sources are Pagan Gods redressed and re-contextualized into 'Demons'. If someone out there use ancient Greek magic to draw power and favors from Pan the Greek God, is Pan a Demon because of his later associations? Obviously not. So what the hell is going on here, anyway?

Demon Lords are powerful, archetypal mantle. They are beings which are too vast to fully manifest into our world. Very few individuals ever truly meet them: at best they encounter some aspect or proxy of them, itself a lesser Demon lacking a true will of its own. Each of them is less of an individual and more of an archetypal embodiment of a certain vice or corruption which is reflected across the multiverse in the form of lesser Demons. None of them truly birth those demons or 'sins' but instead they exist as a manifestation of our own evils and can be drawn to the service of these arch-demons. Demon Lords exist in alternate dimension of pure suffering and horror. That place can be called Hell but it is not the Judeo-Christian Hell. Indeed, it is not a specific Hell or even an afterlife but rather a three (or more) dimensional place in which the spiritual essence of these Demon Lords exist in the form of vast domains where the soul(?) of those which have sold themselves to their power are tormented and extracted of whatever it is which sustain Demons.

The ranks of the Demon Lords are speculated to include, but aren't limited to:

• Mammon, Lord of Greed: In many ways Mammon is the least directly dangerous of the Demon Lords. As Lord of Greed and corruption he has very little to gain in destroying worlds across the multiverse and is merely interested in collecting the soul of those who are driven by greed and the power of money. From his point of view he already own the world so why break it? On the flipside this makes him a possible ally as Mammon is lazy. It is worth noting that contrary to popular belief, Mammon is not simply a byproduct of the modern world. Greed is universal.
• Moloch, Lord of Sacrifice: Second to Mammon when it come being the Demon Lord to which powerful individuals answer to, yet Moloch has a twist to him. As those with all the power, wealth and fame get more they paradoxically have less to offer to Moloch. As a creature of evil and suffering he only care for the act of sacrifice and unlike Mammon has little to gain in keeping on the top those he helped placed there. As such Moloch plays all sides at the same time and is just as likely to help the boot as he is to help the face. All that matters to him is what people suffer when sacrifice things to him. When the 'resistance' wins the day and declare the tyrant dead and ignore the mountain of corpses they create and will create, Moloch laughs and prepare to offer his help to the counter side which now has nothing to lose...
• Baphomet, The Occult Lie: Legends say Baphomet was born of misunderstanding as the Muslims cried the name of their prophet which was misheard as 'Baphomet'. It might be that the archetype which would become Baphomet took its name from the story and given how much Demons lie, such a misunderstanding seems perfect breeding ground for a demonic name. Baphomet is a Demon Lord of taboo, the occult and the perverse and a powerful patron of sorcerers who give deliberately perverted/altered knowledge of spells and rituals. He is utterly unrelated to any actual religious figures but rather represent deliberate perversion of them.
• Beelzebub, Lord of Lies: If there is any connection with Beelzebub and the Philistine God, then it is likely the demonic archetype stole the name and, obviously, lied about it. He and his minions rarely go by that name, meaning they lie even more than other Demons which is no easy feat by itself. Their goals, if any, are unknown and it is likely that as demons they simply scheme, lie and manipulate for the sake of it.
• Leviathan, the Beast of the Depths: Leviathan is an odd one and difficult to define, sometimes going by the name of Rahab. He is less of a Demon Lord and more akin to some primordial, almost Lovecraftian being and may not have begun its existence as a Demon. Leviathan draws power from the depth, madness, antediluvian powers and the like and spread suffering through its eldritch influence. As he is associated with Envy, some believe Leviathan spread its unholy influence to try to make the mortal world more like his antediluvian depths so he may emerge in this world.

Much of what is understood (which isn't much) of Demon Lords is heavily tinged with Western folklore and occult and it might be what could cause the misunderstanding, as these beings are more accurate to be compared with the the Dev of Zoroastrianism than the Fallen Angel demons of Judeo Christian or Islamic folklore. Demon Lords are more akin to an embodiment of a concept which makes the world a place where suffering, lies and imperfections exist.

Tellus: On break, but not dead

Tellus is on a long overdue break. It's not dead and the setting concept is still one which appeals to me but right now my 'headspace' just isn't in an attempt to recapture fun, whimsy and the bizarre nature and charm of mostly 16-bit era JRPG. The world has become a very, very dreary place in 2020. Now to be frank I'm not part of the people most suffering from the insanity rollercoaster that 2020 has been but it has severely impacted by mood, which is why my two recent setting ideas have been the much more depressing and bleak Slay The Ascended! and Lands of Mirhne, which marinate in a morass of darker themes and ideas. This just doesn't seem to be a time conductive to bright and colorful worlds but rather one which is bleak, violent, hypocritical and/or a representation of a doomed humanity and its worst nature.

Yeah, its depressing but that's where I am right now.

Slay The Ascended: Full Premise

This is a rework, rewording and expansion of my Slay The Ascended! post which, hopefully, better outline the ideas and concepts since that original post was an old draft I one day decided to just overhaul a bit and finish just because it was the mood for the day, not knowing it would become one of my most viewed posts. The original ideas, outlined less formally, can be found in that post and its recommended to read it first.

The Time of Ending

On some fundamental level, Mankind always understood there would come a time where our species would end. It could be a species-wide fear of the inevitability of Death as every civilization out there, every culture, speak of the end of time: be it a permanent end or a great cataclysmic era which will usher in a new era. From the Mayan Calendar to the Book of Revelation to the cycles of the Kalpa to Ragnarok. On some level we always knew it was coming. Or maybe its just species-wide neurosis and fear of death and change or, perhaps, we knew that whatever great unknown would follow would cause is great distress and reveal to use new fears beyond our imagination.

Art by Mario Alberti.

The Ages turned. Around 2030, it just seemed humanity was falling apart: pandemics were in increase even after the somewhat hysterical (at times) response to the 2020 pandemic. The first superbugs arose in the following years and made a Chinese flu look like a complete joke. Entire species of animals and plants died in a mere year or two. Those were the easier times. As the world seemed on the verge of collapse, political and social tensions of all stripes just seemed to unravel at an ever escalating pace, with every continent erupting in either war and/or civil disorder and millions died. More died from the superbugs. The rest? It was merely the start of a new nightmare in a depleted world. The voices started. There were spikes in mental cases which many attributed to the decade of chaos but as time progress, it seemed as if some deeper madness was gripping humanity as mental breakdowns escalated and turned people into monsters: cannibalism, cults and the likes arose in this period which only fueled the chaos.

By 2040, the brief Age of Monsters had begun. Unexplained freak mutations had dramatically increased in the past decade but by the 2040 it had reached a boiling point as nature itself seemed to unravel in ways which past science could not explain. Cancerous growths of unexplained fleshy matter, parasitical worms with mind control and farm animals reverting to an almost primal state, such as chicken growing teeth and a taste for flesh. As mad dreams and visions kept increasing, the humans changed as well, only further driving humanity in a frenzy. Entire new religious branches were born then, only to fuel the fires of war, as entire population began accusing each others of devil worship or similar concepts. Others blamed the government mandate vaccines of the 2030 which had prove ineffective at best or dangerous at worst. It seemed humanity would never catch a break. The wheel of the Ages was turning. There was a new reality boiling on the surface of the world which seemed ever stretched. Night kept growing darker. Madness kept running deeper. Stars burnt out in the sky. Freak or still births peaked to three quarter of all births in a single year. It rained blood. Entire populations shuffled into the wilderness, naked and screaming the names of what could be alien gods. The end of days had come.

The Ascended

No one knows for sure when exactly the first of the Ascended arrived. Perhaps they had always been among us, even if this seems unlikely or, more likely, they are the byproduct of those times of ending when the ages of the world turned. When they appeared it didn't take long for people to take notice and, within days of their appearance, small towns and outpost had fully surrendered to their new master without a single weapon being fired. There was something so fundamentally perfect about the Ascended which, combined with their innate gifts, just made them natural leaders. Some were gurus and philosophers while others presented themselves more akin to warrior-gods who would help their faithful reclaim their lands from raving bands of lunatics or particularly dangerous bandits and traffickers. One by one, the various remaining pockets of human civilization bent the knee to their new masters, the new rulers of mankind and our species direct successors: the Ascended. Their reign had come.

Ascended Culture and their Thralls

Art by Anthony Jones

The Ascended are called that way because they are above and beyond the mere humanity they emerged from. They do not hide that they were once human, because much of their perfection is an improvement upon humanity. Ascended have a language of their own and their own word to describe themselves but this language cannot be spoken by human or even understood by our puny, primitive minds. They communicate in a language with concepts utterly beyond our understanding but beyond that little is truly understood of their emergent culture. Ascended see themselves as above and beyond human failings and the natural leaders of our species from here on out. They have emerged across all human cultures and all creeds and claim to be beyond and above petty distinctions of mankind, even if many speculate they must have their own cliques, philosophies and beliefs but we would not be able to understand them.

An Ascended is the master of any settlement, with the largest settlements on Earth hosting a population of Ascended in a certain hierarchy which vary depending on the local culture. Different Ascended groups, called either pantheons or cabals have different societal organization depending on the ruling Ascended's specific plans for humanity, as they organize mankind and tend to them much like in a way we would tend a garden. Some Ascended have created military-like places, ruled with an iron (but just?) fist, with a meritocratic system rewarding skill and loyalty for the human soldiers as to encourage them to see themselves as mankind's defenders. In other places, they create almost anarchist commune of pot-smoking pseudo hippies which encourage free love while in others they could create religious cults or even hyper traditionalist places with the goal of ensuring a steady breeding of new humans for generations to come. War between different pantheons and their thralls should be seen as non-existent, even if in reality it is more complex.

Those who serve the Ascended are wholly devoted to their new masters. After all, are they not perfect? All Ascended have an innate charisma and magnetism which borders on mind control and they are able to draw strong emotions from entire human populations. This is not pure mind domination, however: very few Ascended (if any) can truly order a human like a full puppet. Rather, they built their devotion through the years by engineering a culture where the Ascended are not only seen as infallible gods but also by ensuring people have a reason to believe it. Ascended-ran settlement are the most prosperous, stable and safe of all the world's remaining human cities. Any mutated monster in the area is slain in glorious combat by the local Ascended, their heads display on pike or their skins turned into coats and capes. The Ascended cultivate an image of heroism and godhood which help reinforce the belief system they have created. Slowly but surely, humanity has slowly changed and simply accepted that they must defer to the superior Ascended, much like how a child defer to their parent because their parent knows more. To be a second class citizen and chattel to the Ascended is a gift and a privilege, for who would not want to be loved by living Gods? Some are driven by love, by faith or even by lust as many Ascended have such a perfected physique and raw animal magnetism that entire crop of humans willingly surrender to become their sexual slaves and perhaps one day hope to help them birth Ascended children.

Ascended Biology

Art by Nyctoinc Illustrations

Each Ascended began its life as a mortal human and was transformed into another Ascended through infusion of genetic material. The process is dangerous and unstable as well as excruciatingly painful as well as utterly destructive to a human sense of self and identity. After days of agonizing with a body riddled with ever creeping cancerous, alien growth the flesh will slowly dissolve and the body will seemingly melt and then harden into a crystalline cocoon, at which point transformation into an Ascended can begin. Nothing of the original body remain unchanged and the individual is changed at a cellular or even molecular level. The trauma and confusion of Ascension leaves the individual original humanity behind no matter what. There are no 'friendly neighborhood Ascended' who secretly retain their old personalities. While they can retain their memory of past lives, most willingly discard them as their newly born body continues to mature.

Ascended appear, at least initially, as physically perfected humans even if this can somewhat vary. They are tall (most start at six feet and a half and can grow to eight feet tall), clean limbed and perfectly symmetrical. Some appear eternally youthful while others have a completely cosmetic age, appearing as well formed and well preserved older individuals: these tend to radiate more a sense of wisdom, kindness, paternal love or intellect. Yet even the 'old' looking Ascended have a supernatural, nay, unnatural beauty and perfect to them. Their skin tone and hair color can vary and can include all human permutations and even colors or traits which do not exist in humans, such as green hair, pure white skin or even blue skin. Their eyes tend to almost shine in the darkness, with some even having flat out glowing eyes. Some are elfin, with a thin and tall wispy beauties while others are brawny, with a perfectly sculpted physique no human could ever hope to match. Different strains of Ascended have different styles or even fashion to their biology, such as those who prefer a more divine or even almost 'demonic' appearance, with horns and fangs or even growing an extra pair of arms. One must keep in mind that the subtle mind warping of Ascended ensure that human thralls are not bothered: indeed, should a particularly popular Ascended decide to reorganize their biology on a whim, expect sycophants to self mutilate to emulate their master or mistress. To some extent, Ascended biology is just as much sculpted and engineered as it is part of their biology, as each represent an idealized form of perfection to their old human selves. Several Ascended are also hermaphrodites or, in some odd cases, utterly lacking in sexual organs if such was the perfect the individual desired.

This, however, is a lie.

Art by Marcus Siergiejew

The idealized human form of an Ascended is not their true form. Their 'godly' form is a coping mechanism of the newly reborn Ascended, as their real form is utterly alien and disgusting. While there is an eldritch, unnatural and alien mindset inside every Ascended they retain enough of their humanity for vanity. Indeed, such vanity is generally enhanced to an absurd degree. The true form of an Ascended is always unique and always alien and disgusting to look upon, with some even lacking a human form at all are nothing but a head and snapping, razor-tipped tentacles or stretched multi limbed bug-forms with ephemeral wings or floating piles of organs held aloft by gaseous excretion. The Ascended never show these forms to their followers and most, if not all, are unaware of them.

Ascended are eldritch monstrosities, with an unnatural physiology. They are by default stronger, faster and smarter than the average human and able to heal extremely quickly without any lasting consequences, even if healing larger wounds require consumption of human biomass. As one would expect given the thematic, the Ascended are vampiric creatures and they sustain themselves off of humans. Actual consumption of flesh and blood is rare, usually every few months and rather they live off the mental energies and devotion of their human thralls. Through a mixture of pheromones and psychic abilities, the Ascended inspire the blind devotion in humans they crave so much and in turn slowly feed the mental energy this generate as human minds are slowly warped and sucked of their sanity. The full abilities of the Ascended are unclear and it is likely even they are not aware of their full potential and limitations.

Despite their clear advantages, however, Ascended are not immortal (even if its likely they do not age). They are still flesh and blood, even if said flesh and blood can sometimes appear to bend the rules of reality a bit. When not surrounded by their entourage of thralls and servants, an Ascended can be cornered and killed with human weapons. Blowing their brains out and then setting the twitching remains on fire usually works, as does hacking or blowing them apart. According to their own propaganda they are true immortals but this is false: around the world, some have already been killed in gruesome manners. They are not Gods. They are creatures of flesh. They can be killed.

The 'Slay the Ascended!' Sandbox

Art by Lina Porras

A 'Slay the Ascended!' campaign is very well suited to a sandbox and a lot of it can overlap with typical fantasy setting sandbox, even if it is set in the near, post apocalyptic future. There are ruins to explore (the lost cities, full of mutations, madness or cults) and there are monsters roaming around, namely the remaining mutations from the Age of Monsters. The key difference, however, is that player characters plays the part of the 'Rogue Humans', which are these human populations which have either not submitted to the Ascended or composed of people who have slowly broken away from the brainwashing and fled their fellow thralls. The key locations in a Slay the Ascended campaign are the various settlements under Ascended control, which own the most resources be it food, water and/or guns. Functionally, this mean players are either going to be functionally bandits and raiders or they will be saboteur, spies and 'fifth columnist' inside the Ascended-ruled settlements.  The more characters attack Ascended stronghold the more they will be hunted. This can be a good chance to take down an Ascended for good, should they be goaded to attack themselves.

One issue they will need to deal with is that most of their enemies are humans too. A life freed from the Ascended is not an easy life nor is it a good life. It requires, more often than not, to kill and steal from fellow humans and to uproot their way of life and ruin their day. The world of 'Slay the Ascended' is a bleak place and doesn't shy away from the realities that a resistance group can be a particularly violent and dangerous group that often cause more harm than good. To oppose the Ascended may be morally right in terms of human freedom but it requires one to actively harm other humans which is a difficult moral choice to make. Rogue humans are seen, by the thralls, much in the same way we see dangerous fringe groups and/or insane preppers who amass guns in their bunkers for the 'coming race war' or similar concept. From the POV of a Thrall civilian, a 'Rogue Human' is a dangerous, narrow minded, bigoted and irrational unbeliever at the best of times and an absolute monster at worst. Even those few in the Thralls who know the Ascended brainwash (and sometimes eat them), the life of a Rogue Human seems dangerous or even destructive: after all, modern society of the 21st century generally required us to accept that sometimes, things are rather imperfect and that we sometimes work for bad people doing morally dubious things. To those folks, serving a flesh-eating alien man-god isn't really much different from their parents who worked for a soulless global mega corporation which exploited uncertain child labor laws in foreign countries while pretending to be virtuous. At the end of the day, its meet the new boss same as the old boss, right?

Who is really in the right here, anyway?

One difference, of course, is that the Ascended are not human. Not anymore. They are creatures of an alien origin, even if they were derived from human stock initially. Many 'Rogue Humans' are individuals afflicted by some odd form of 'madness' which fills them with a revulsion for the Ascended. Perhaps this is akin to a species-wide immune response to a parasite having entered the body of collective humanity. The same alien dreams which drove people mad in 2030 and onward are still there. There is an unspoken fear that the Ascended are but the first step toward...something? Slowly the Ascended are changing humanity society, creating these assemblages of human civilization toward a certain goal they themselves perhaps don't understand. They have only ruled for a few decades, after all. Whose to say their existence is not the mere first step toward a horrific transformation for humanity, as we are turned into food, cattle or who knows what else for alien powers. After all, where did the First Ascended come from? Who created them? And why?

You can feel it gnawing at your brain. The wheel of the ages hasn't finished turning. You know it in your gut: this is just the start. The parasites must be removed from humanity before its too late, before they consume us and make us into something else.

Lands of Mihrne: The Low Men

This is a more in depth bestiary and monster entries for Lands of Mirhne, expanding the previously discussed ideas and concepts into something more concrete for a game. While there is much overlap between all Old School-derived games, these are primarily for the upcoming Worlds Without Numbers and similar Sine Nomine games.

Low Men

Frazetta's cavemen.

Called many things such as 'Low Men', the 'Wild Folks' or sometimes 'The Others' these are as close as Mihrne as to orcs and goblins in the traditional sense. These are wild, near-human beings closer to the pulp depiction of cavemen as beastial creatures than any accurate anthropological representation of early humans. However, despite their reputation as monsters they are not particularly vile creatures on their own. It is those hunters encountered in civilized lands, vicious and hungry or even maddened which are dangerous, hinting at some creeping madness or sickness in the Low Men. Bands of Low Men encountered in caves or ruins frequently construct blasphemous idols of skin, bone and stone and madly dance around them or even sacrifice humans to them. For those few scholars in the know, this is not normal behavior and hint at something more sinister.

Most 'Low Men' posses a level of cunning one would expect of cavemen-like beings and their Morale are particularly low as they know when to retreat to fight another day. Mad Ones, however, are afflicted by a variety of possible sickness (some of it almost otherworldly) which drives them to a level of fury and fearlessness which is beyond anything resembling rational thought. While capable of sneaking up as any other of their kind, once battle start they start to shake, scream, foam at the mouth or start jerking around like puppets. They fight with a ferocity and vitality which is contradictory of their often sickly and degraded physical state.

• Low Men use the stats for Thug/Militia (1HD) for common Low Men and Barbarian (also 1 HD) for stronger and more experienced specimen. A particularly dangerous Chieftain can reach up to 3-4 HD in strength but such individuals are rare, with no more than one per tribe. All Low Men have a Skill of +2 when it come to Exert, Survival or similar skills. They tend to have low Morale and will easily flee.
• Mad Ones on the other hand are something quite different. They use stats for the weakest Anakim. Their bodies are ravaged by diseases and madness and yet they thrive, their madness driving them ever onward in a berserk rage or obsessive desire to kill. They often carry one or more disease or parasites and those who fight them or are around them for an extended period of time need to start making Saving Throws or become affected with diseases which ravage their mind.

The diseases and parasites which afflict the Mad Ones can be extremely dangerous, more so than any wound these mad warriors can inflict. These diseases and parasites usually drain the mental stats, inflicting severe delirium and ravage the body. Common symptoms include shaking, nose bleed, brain swelling and a burning fever. While it begin as a physiological problem soon enough these effects will go beyond mere sickness and Sanity will start to decline. It is unclear if this is an effect of the diseases or simply the ravages inflicted upon the mind causing the human mind to start to see things. Long term treatment is general enough to help alleviate the symptoms but an adventurer wounded away from civilization might be in trouble if the diseases progress too quickly. Should it take them, they become frothing berserkers filled with irrational mood swings at best. At worst, they become consumed by inexplicable mania and start to hear 'The Call'. Of what? Who knows? At that point their humanity is lost.

• Low Men encounters fill a role similar to orcs and goblins. However, if they are not scared and the player is willing to spend time to carefully interact with them (and maybe offer food and drinks), there is a 50% chance that the tribe is actually fairly peaceful (albeit fearful of outsiders) and could offer a guide in the wilderness and warn of possible dangers which exist in a region. Those which are innately hostile are feared even by other Low Men, who see them as 'tainted'.
• A rare and exotic replacement player character option is to play one of the Wild Tribes. These are relatives to the Men of Mirhne but they live the furthest away from major civilization centers and interact more with the Wild Folks, to the point some tribes have mated with each others. Short, somewhat lumpy-looking, these folks are short and stocking hunters who combine the strength of their more wild forebear with the full intellect of the Men of Mirhne. Should they be washed and clothed in common clothing they would simply appear as slightly uglier and stockier than average. This would be a Demi-Human Foci.
• Tainted/Evil Low Men are irredeemable, as they are either Low Men which worship antediluvian terrors hidden inside the earth or they descend from former Men of Mirhne who have 'devolved' due to some terrible curse or an eldritch corruption. There are Wild Tribes (people who bridge the gap between Low Folks and Men) but they are vile people, cultures of raiders and barbarians who practice terrible rites of flesh eating and the likes. These are very much 'Orcs' through and through or comparable to the Picts from Howard's writing.
• There are tribes of Low Men which worship the Sorcerers. They make ideal minion when broken through fear and there are tribes of Low Men living in isolated places who carve crude effigies to their Sorcerer-Gods, raid villages and more in the name of their fearsome 'god'. Some believe that some of the odd or foreign-looking people who visit Mirhne may actually be Low Men which have been bred into slave race. They have human intellect but the animalistic sense of fear and awe for their 'god', which they love and fear. Of course this could just be xenophobic thinking from the Men of Mirhne who look dimly on foreigners. We must remember that Mirhne is very closed place and most of its people are poorly educated compared to modern humans of Earth.

Game Concept: Slay the Ascended

Edit: A more in depth description of the concept can be found here.

The idea of mankind now ruled by Vampires or vampire-like beings is hardly new. In fact, it's been done to death and then some. The same way that reimagining or expanding on the idea of 'utterly alien Fair Folks' elves with a superiority complex has also been done to death. That doesn't make the idea bad, however. If you twist it a little more you get something which, at least to me, is even more disturbing. Suppose the world was now indeed slowly but surely ruled by a race of super beings (albeit not that super compared to other settings) who are better than humans in every way. Suppose these beings were once human. Now suppose that their perfect, ethereal, godly image was born of their twisted, all too human ambitions? I mean, why else would such beings invoke beauty, awe or power and authority as humans understand them? There is a concept which I'm quite fond of, as bizarre as it seem, and that is to take a being which is 'eldritch' and make it all too human. What if you stared down the eldritch abomination and realized that, underneath that mask it's actually too human? What happen when human ego and abomination is given eldritch form and power?

We've seen this garbage plenty of times before in RPG, movies, literature and more. Now let's wrap it up into a bit more layers of horror. This is also me flipping on its head the general ideas I've often outlined for urban fantasy or Godbound.

The Ascended Arrive

They arrived as the world was falling apart, at the turning of the Ages where our reality slowly slipped into a period of greater cosmic connection. There was a brief period (a mere decade or two) of societal and environmental decay which simply exceeded any blame we could place on mankind. Seas churned, animals birthed abominable offspring and people became so haunted by visions they became mad. You know, the usual Lovecraft-lite slow apocalypse.

Then came our new masters, the Ascended. They call themselves something else, of course, in a perfect language only they can speak. Their form is human but better: stronger, faster, taller and able to regenerate from wounds much more easily and immune to all known sickness. They are smarter too, and more spiritually enlightened. In fact we should count ourselves lucky that, as the ages turned, a new race emerged. They ascended from the rank of humanity (for they admit as much), with no particular roots or ties to any specific ethnicity, country of origin, creed or religion. They formed the core of our new society and rule as just and merciful. They only demand our love, admiration and sometimes sacrifice but who would dare to say no? They are elfin creatures of myth reborn or towering demigods. Some are man, some are woman, some are something else. No two is alike but they all radiate perfection, awe, wisdom or virtue. We are all their lesser. They are the Ascended and each is a goddess, a warrior king, a rock star and guru rolled into one.

That's a bunch of horse shit, however.

The origins of these beings is unknown but we know they emerged when the wheel of the ages turned. Was it sorcery, suddenly unlocked by a new era of magic? Was it some sudden metaphysical mutation? Nobody know, but those of us in the know understand that the Ascended only appears to be so perfect out of their own hubris. Their 'human' form is but a veneer. Each one is unique but truly monstrous in form: tentacled monsters, gangly cicada monsters or towering hulks of bone and sinew. The worst part isn't that Ascended are transformed into monsters but rather than they retain their humanity, albeit in some twisted form. That perfected 'shell' they present to us? It's born of human ego and one's idealized self. Some people speculate it's a coping mechanism, because they hate their monstrous true form. Their minds are twisted and alien but not alien enough. Their entire society is a lie they tell not just the masses of humanity but themselves. Behind both faces (god and monster) is a human unshackled from their old limitations and experiencing the same old emotions and thoughts we humans experience every day but pushed to a new extreme. They still feel love, sadness, hate, rage, greed and jealousy and all that.

The Ascended are the 'smug dickass elves' who believe they have some omniscient morality but due to bad writing come off as aloof assholes. They are the smug aliens. They are the asshole vampires and fey and the abusive Gods of mythology. The Apostles from Berserk. The Scions and Exalted. They are things which, in another game, could almost be the player character option. This is not one of those games.

Ascended Nature

Its like Wreathu but without
the weird sexuality.

Each Ascended was once human but they've been transformed into another ascended through a ritual of implantation, which requires the flesh of one or more Ascended to be implanted inside their body. The process is messy, painful and maddening but those who survive will dissolve and reshape into a cocoon of flesh-crystal. After an extended period of time they will be mutated in body into something else entirely but retain all of their memory and personality. The fact the event is so traumatic helps with the mind screwing involved to ensure loyalty. Whatever emerges is no longer human. It has become both more and less. Over the next few weeks they will slowly awaken to whatever supernatural powers their might have, in addition to grow ever stronger, faster and smarter. Of course the reality is that these beings aren't quite as powerful as they believe themselves to be.

As previously explained, their external 'Godly' form is just as much a tool of predation as it is a coping mechanism. These creatures appear to be over six feet tall, with very little cosmetic flaws. The exact 'vibe' each gives varies depending on their nature: obviously those with more, shall we say, carnal desires exude sexuality but the Ascended aren't limited to forms like these. Those who radiate wisdom and authority can look quite old, for example: however they still are very dignified and statuesque and none of them suffer from the effects of old age. Think a very tall and buff old wizard guy or Zeus in a toga, with booming voice and glowing eyes.

The Ascended have an innate aura of near inexplicable 'magnetism' or 'charisma', which varies from individual to individual: sexual magnetism that transcend sexual orientation for those driven by carnal desires or a brainwashing religious aura which fills the mind with 'higher thoughts' and make individuals believe whatever crap the Ascended peddles. This is a key thing with the Ascended. No matter how insane their personal ideology and bullshit it is, they emit this aura (pheromones? psionics?) which slowly worm its way into human brains and make them believe it, filling human minds with a fundamental and innate understanding of their place in the world and that the Ascended are not only stronger, faster but also more moral no matter what they do.

Slay The Ascended!

The Ascended are assholes, that much is obvious. They have become the self-appointed master race. They are smug monsters who believe themselves to be beyond and above humanity but under that veneer they are nothing but parasitic monsters and predators. The obvious is coming: humans will rise up and start to fight back. Under their rule, the new unstable countries and demented religious cult they have created are ruining humanity. They see themselves as healing the perceived 'past wounds' of human nature: war, violence and more. However, it is worth remembering that Ascended are basically all insane and filled with hypocrisy. They still wage war, they still kill and they still take slaves, the only difference is that under their brainwashing humanity sees it as fair, just or 'better'. Some people are bound to see through their bullshit or innately resist it. The Ascended are powerful but they aren't invincible: they might heal without scarring and be able to take a serious beating but, cut one off from its minions and assemble a mob with torches and pitchfork and it will die. And if that doesn't work? Well, its fine: we invented explosives for a reason, right?

Art of Wuxia: Not Perfect, But I Like It

The book's cover.

Its a fact I've been on a serious Wuxia and Xianxia kick, even if Jeremy 'Deathblade' seriously trashed me and went into great details on why my assessment of Xianxia and D&D was somewhat inaccurate to put it mildly, as this post accidentally ended under his radar somehow with an in depth video response. This hasn't exactly completely knocked the wind out of my sail when it come to Wuxia and Xianxia but it has certainly made me want to further dig into the genre and better understand it at a deeper level. Granted initially I did say I would never write about Wuxia and tabletop RPG ever again. However since then I have gotten my hands on Art of Wuxia by DWD studio. This isn't a 'proper review' as I don't really do review. Just some thoughts on it:

• The Good: While there are much more flavorful and complex systems out there Art of Wuxia is a fairly approachable primarily d100 RPG. A lot if its clean, simple and easily refluffed or modified nature makes it very much in the same vein as the more modernized OSR games I like so much while at the same time the system isn't a clone of OD&D, which would be a poor fit for this. These are simple, easy to grasp rules which can be easily thought to players and explain. The lack of a rigid class system is also good as I think for Wuxia stuff this is a net positive.
• The Bad: There is a serious misunderstanding of Wuxia morality, which Deathblade explains further into these two video. Suffice to say, Art of Wuxia seem to prefer characters which fit more neatly into our definition of 'Good vs Evil' which doesn't accurately portray the dog-eat-dog world of Wuxia to its full, messy potential.
• The Subjective: The game's power level is, I'd argue, fairly low. A lot of it is fairly grounded and more to a level which western fantasy fans would recognize as closer to Sword & Sorcery than High Fantasy. Truly powerful and staple Wuxia abilities, such as intensive 'wire fu' or even floating around are things far beyond the reach of a starting character, who only have a few skills and a technique to start with. On the positive, this make the power level of the game easy to manage for a GM and, just as importantly, easy to grasp for a newcomer player. The lower levels of power aren't as high flying or fantastical but this isn't a bad thing by itself as it truly give a chance to meaningfully grow a character's power as they master martial arts.

That said, the game has been added to my 'must run' list and is set to likely become a staple of this blog nonetheless.

Lands of Mihrne: A History?

A Possible History?

Art by Calvin Chua

As with everything mentioned about Mirhne, all information must be taken with a grain of salt. The people of Mirhne are well known to tell stories among themselves, with travelling artist and priests alike telling many tales. Some are nothing but children fairy tales while others are morality plays whose true meaning have been lost to time and the change in culture, leaving only lurid tales of monsters and gruesome ends. Not only that but each region of Mirhne has its own gods, its own monsters and its own creation myths. Anyone trying to glean truth from these matters is bound to go insane even without a hint of some eldritch abomination in sight.

The Lands of Mirhne has many Gods, but few truly can be said to have name and faces worth remembering. One out of universe reason for this vagueness is not every player has an identical level of desire to invest in fictional beliefs and mythologies: indeed, some players actively avoid it due to being staunch atheists (even if that's a debate for another day one I'd rather have people leave at the fucking door). Trying to understand deeply rooted theme and ideas of culture is ultimately more work than its ever worth. As such, Mirhne's deities are fairly simple to grasp and understand, with the very important caveat that unlike other settings there is little to not proof of their existence and these myths tend to hide a more bloody or alien reality. Any detail in a myth which is true is likely to lead down a path of awful revelations. That said, the Gods of Mirhne are indeed 'real' in so much as belief in them can have real, tangible benefits to human society. Of course, faith offer diminishing return the more one digs into the awful truth. Praying at altars and participating in rituals (of the non eldritch kind) can help restore sanity and offer a buffer against madness and corruption. It still has its limits, of course.

Mirhne's current era is one of rebuilding after decay, war and pestilence. The last centuries have been relatively quiet, beyond the usual wars between petty kingdoms and tribes. While the Lands of Mirhne never had a massively urbanized or advanced civilization (to anyone's knowledge, anyway) there are many large ruin sites (by the standards of the land) which show that stone and wood cities did exist in lands which have been retaken by the wilderness. These are the usual and typical dungeons one expect to find in a sandbox environment but in Mirhne each is also a mystery. Some travelling storytellers speak of a great curse and creeping hubris of the ancient kings and warlords of Mirhne who sought to extend their power, prestige and understanding of the world far beyond the limitations of what is allowed for mere mortal men and were punished for it. Others speak simply of diseases from many generations ago which reduced the population drastically while others tell that these cities are haunted and cursed by the attempts of Priest-Kings to awaken dark powers and claim them for themselves. There are those who believe that some of the subhuman haunting the further lands are descendants of those cursed and broken people.

Ultimately, Mirhne's history is somewhat irrelevant to starting characters. The key elements of a OSR-derived sandbox and implied setting are there, minus demi-human and overt magic of classes like the Cleric and Magic-User. It is a somewhat more down to Earth take on these simple, tried and true concepts and expectations with the only difference being a stronger bent toward Swords & Sorcery and pulp elements

• The various creation myths and folklore of different regions of Mirhne form a backdrop to the game and make for easy, if mysterious, plot hooks in their own right. Trying to find out the truth about a legend can lead to some true insight (or madness and death).
• Playing a 'priest' is possible, but one need to understand these aren't D&D Clerics and don't come with spells. Rather, Priests are generally Experts who are gifted in esoteric matters as taught by their mentors, such as herbology, medicine or writing.
• Praying at a temple can help restore a character's sanity and/or even remove minor corruption (that aren't mutations) as the calm and centered mind can regain a small measure of control. This is less efficient the more corrupt an individual is.

Mirhne as a Kelipah

One very likely explanation for the nature of Mirhne is that it is some form of Kelipot as described in Silent Legion, a Sine Nomine game about eldritch horror and investigation from which Lands of Mirhne take its Sanity and magic system. Under this logic, Mirhne is an inherently unnatural place albeit one whose eldritch nature is quite subtle and not readily apparent. As a particularly stable and static Kelipah, Mirhne operates mostly under what we would recognize as natural laws and its people are biologically human or close enough. Even as a Static Kelipot there would be dark forces at work on Mirhne which fundamentally changes reality on a subtle level which may not be readily apparent. If Mirhne is indeed a Kelipah then it is one which may not have been visited by the 'real world' for eons.