Godbound: Cults and Demiurges of the (Alternate) Bright Republic

This post is (hopefully) a work of fiction.

A continuation of the (depressing) post from last time on an alternate Bright Republic where society is about to collapse and everyone is breaking at the seams, only what's coming is the cruel realities of the world of Godbound and its realm, Arcem. These are cult, cabals and malcontents of the Bright Republics. Everything is ten minutes from midnight. Society is at a breaking point. In a world where divine power and transhumanism exist, this can lead many down to a darker path.

The Khamite Ascendency

Art by Tiago Baltar

The Polyarchy of Kham was the nation/people which the Ancalian and others descend and they were quite focused on transhumanism. In the Bright Republic, advanced transhumanism beyond attempts at restoring a body to its original function through medical means are generally banned. Knowledge of human modifying their bodies and souls to greater, immortal beings is generally something that is seen as the purview of science fiction novels. The various movements of Khamite Ascendency wish to return humanity to a state closer to this Godhood.

Too bad they are crazy, bigoted assholes working off incomplete information and cooky theories. The Khamite Ascendancy movements believe that their ancestors were unfairly stripped of their divine perfection, enslaved and turned from immortals to mere mortal slaves. What they don't know/forgot is that the ancient Akeh people which fled to the proto Bright Republic were those who had come to regret the excess of the Polyarchy. Perfected bodies free of diseases are one thing but the Polyarchy took this transhumanist movement to absolute extremes, modifying themselves into beings utterly removed from humanity. These dangerous modifications created beings known as the Fey/Cousins (see: Ancalia the Broken Towers) who became so unstable once natural laws began to shift that they degenerated into mad monsters or even flat out died. The various Ascendency movements are working off incomplete and incorrect information, based off an idealized mythical past and a lot of wishful thinking. This has led them to become intensely racially segregated at best and, at worst, they have begun to practice soft eugenics.

A few powerful businessmen with Akeh ancestors have backed up many of these would-be attempts at eugenics, funding underground both clinics. These attempted process at creating super men of 'pure genetic heritage' have been met with intense failure usually resulting in rather mundane problems such as genetic defect and increased cancer. With little success in these clinics, they have turned to poorer urban and rural populations and young, ill educated malcontents. Their rhetoric is clad in righteous indignation at supposed past transgression but the heads of these movements don't really feel any sense of loyalty to fellow Akeh-descended folks. They see all flesh and all colors as nothing but fuel for the great fire of genetic rebirth which awaits them, fully committed to the fact the moment they will succeed their creation will deem them all impure. Already, they have begun incubating fast-growing embryo which they believe to be 'purified Akeh', based off illegally obtained genetic material from Ancalia...

The Machination Cults and Cyber-Gods

Art by Tsvetomir Georgiev

Where the Akeh tried to advance the human form and flesh to godhood, the Din sought to create great mechanism to control the world. These ranged from what we would recognize as technological marvels of our age or near future to more complex systems, including synthetic life and mechanical gods. Where the Khamite Ascendancies movements are angry malcontents, people with a victim complex and feeding off a sense of 'divinity denied', these various Din-derived movements are much stranger. Much of the Bright Republic's culture is Din in origin and much of Din 'mythology' is built around recognizable modernist ideas that technology and science will improve life. Many Din-descended folks thought that their society was an ideal through its technological superiority and, given the constant crackdowns against any technology the government cannot control and regulate, there's been a growing sense that the Bright Republic has "rejected the Din ideals".

While these movements and cults are rooted in Din cultural ideals, there is no racial component to these cults. The core of their ideologies is that mankind can build devices and discover new ways to interact with the world. As technology decays in the Bright Republic and every advance is stifled and/or controlled by government and corporate lobbies (as to not strain the etheric nodes or risk damaging them if modifications would be needed to make use of the invention), more and more scientists grow discontent. As fate would have it, discontent mad scientists and ancient cooky ideological cults of 'Din ideals' met one day in a back alley and things have escalated out of control. Under the nose of (or sometimes with the illegal support of) the Bright Republic's government, there have arisen cults of would-be 'futurist'.

In some circumstances, these could have been a good thing. Unfortunately, at some point, the ideas that man's progress and rights "Shall not be infringed" have definitely become warped. That is because these cults have succeeded much faster than the Khamite ascendants, since the basis of their theurgical knowledge already existed in society. Rural militias, would be entrepreneur, garage inventors, hackers, punks and more these people aren't dangerous by themselves. Underneath the control network of the Bright Republic, however, these people have created/awakened divine intelligences. They are incubating a new generation of technological demiurges. Should they attempt a revolution in the name of personal liberty, access to knowledge and advancement of sciences their victory could be short lived as the machine gods overtake the Etheric Nodes, the internet and their own devices. That is because, you see, this type of research has been done before. In the Bleack Reaches and Nezdhova...

The Procyon Project

Art by Deepak Dhawan

Known under a variety of names, all covert and all secretly illegal, the Procyon Project is the brainchild of several institutes within the Bright Republic government. It operates hidden under their nose and is dedicated to projects which go against the core tenets and agenda of the current (and all future?) administration. They've been at it for decades, now. The project heads and founders are part of the various factions which believe the Bright Republic to be completely lost and beyond repair. Under their secretive orders, entire facilities have been relocated, experts kidnapped and brainwashed and massive ton of materials displaced to secret locations. All in the name of the Procyon Project, the 'Great Gateway'.

The heads of the project have located a fairly isolated chunk of Heaven. While heavily damaged and mostly ripped out of its Celestial Engines, it remain stable, self contained and seemingly away from the gaze of powerful entities. It is, for all intent and purpose, empty and secret. Under the auspice of dimensional studies, the Procyon Project has spent the last few decades preparing to relocate its people and their resources to this part of Heaven. They have acquired samples of most of the population (which the government already had for gene-tracking), which is enough genetic material to recreate mankind. Since the Bright Republic is going down in flame and Arcem is likely to crumble, they have deemed it to be a lost cause. In order to ensure the survival of humanity (read: themselves), the Procyon project has spared no expenses in trying to terraform this relatively small shard of Heaven. It is believed, by their experts, that it will remain stable in its core functions within the next ten thousand years. This is, they believe, enough time to develop the means to restore more of its function and laws.

Because they require access to a Night Road to get there, much of the research of the Procyon Project is responsible for the eruption of small pockets of Uncreated activity within the Republic. Their experiments require them to 'punch holes' in reality and experts estimate that, as they continue to approach the 'promised time' that Uncreated activity will only increase.

Other Cults and Conspiracies

These are but a mere sample of what is going on in the Bright Republic. Truth is, just about everyone is either willingly or unwillingly the puppet of one or more organization or conspiracy. Everyone is a tool and everyone is bought to someone, somewhere they just don't know it. There is a growing list of groups and/or problems which add fuel the fire of the Bright Republic burning down.

• The Atheocracy of Lom and their cult of True Reason has grown in power. Social fabric in the Bright Republic was always on the more cold and rational side, which align perfectly given the two societies are of Din origin. The removal of God/Gods as the final arbiter of all thing in favor of impersonal state forces and organizations mean that the people of the Bright Republic are one step away from being like the Atheocracy.
• There are people in the Bright Republic who are of Ren descent and their ancestor-cults and worship of the True King have re-emerged, just like some Akeh have flirted with transhumanism and the Din turn back to synthetic gods. Their loyalty may not be to the Republic.
• The political and entertainment elites regularly get a pass to defy or ignore any and all government regulations, such as limitations on buying meat, going on vacations during periods of lockdown and suppression and more. They gorge themselves and enjoy life even during times when the common people can't enjoy life. The production of the resources and energy department in the Bright Republic are extremely one sided. This is coated in fearmongering and economic policies framed as people consuming less to help the poor yet in practice it isn't that.
• The poor which try to apply to a variety of government programs which claim to help them are sometimes never seen again. In truth many of these people are sent to extermination camps, genetic research facilities or even sold to slavery to other states in Arcem after having their minds scrubbed. This is to constantly purge and cut down on the population.
• Human trafficking has always been a problem but with cut down on population and a 'planned reduction', there has been an increase in human chattel and sexual slavery. The rich politician and actors have mind scrubbed slaves. The rest are used as raw materials or the aforementioned slave trade. Some have begun to research means to turn human souls into energy to sustain the Etheric Nodes.
• Meat is increasingly illegal in the Bright Republic in order to cut down on food spent on livestock and the 'printing' of synthetic meat. Vegan lifestyles are being encouraged and the cost/taxes on meat are ever increasing, all in the name of helping society in the environment. A sizeable portion of the meat on the market might be human meat.
• Hidden beneath the island are ruins of past incarnations of the Republic and shattered pocket-realms leading into Night Roads. These are haven of mutants and degraded scum. As the mutant kingdoms are organizing, the Bright Republic is increasingly unable to hide their existence and placate them.
• Religious resurgence is an issue in the Bright Republic, as classic religious values clash with blind obedience to an immoral state with no virtues. While the people who cling to religious values and a return to sanity aren't bad people, in the societal confusion of the collapsing Bright Republic many could become swayed by a 'false messiah' which could be an Uncreated entity or a particularly vicious and self-serving Godbound.

Ultimately, either the people in power or people at the bottom will snap. The Bright Republic will come undone by not only the sheer weight of lies it peddled but by a complete loss if faith in it as an idea. When everything become subjective and faith is lost in its wholeness as a county and as an institution (and people already have lost faith) the the street will run red with blood. Then the lives, livelihood and very soul of twelve million people become nothing more than a prize for monsters, crazed godlings, demented demagogues, irrational social engineers and criminal scum.

Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 5

More Space Godbound weirdness for the Arcem Sector or beyond.

The Ascended Masters - Not-So-Omniscient Smugness

"Ooh aren't I mysterious?"

The people of the Arcem sector (and beyond) know that the soul is real. The soul, combined with the mind and body, form the multi-dimensional 'data' which compose a being. It can be changed by soul-alterations and graft, additions of soul-genes and deliberate cultivation of psionic powers. The soul-data can far exceed in volume it's original size. There are those who grow in spiritual power so much that when they die the sheer mass of their souls does not dissipate and/or isn't gobbled up by the datastream of the Celestial Network to be take elsewhere.

The Ascended Masters have transcended life and death, becoming soul and mind singularities. Each time they die their minds reincarnate into a new body of a near-human xenotypes (often of the same type/species but this is hardly an unbreakable rule). As they age they reawaken to past lives, becoming ever more potent. The Ascended Masters have reached such a level of enlightenment and power that they mechanically are Godbound. They have escaped beyond the wheel of life, death and causality. They are statted as Undestined. Their reincarnation ability is not a Gift simply because it take so long that it merely is a plot device with a payoff within the next few decades.

There is no central agenda to the Ascended Masters: they can go entire incarnations without meeting back with their allies or enemies. Most are incomprehensible: they call this transcendental wisdom but saner beings just call this 'bullshit': most of what comes out of an Ascended Master is complete bullshit. It isn't that they're pathological liar it's just they've become more often than not incredibly detached from mortals or even other transhuman gods who are limited to existing in mostly three dimension and a single, linear existence. Trying to explain to an Ascended Master that one need answer about a currently ongoing situation can be a headache because they've set in motions plan they think will only pay off in the next thousand years. Of course there is also a good chance this otherworldly goofyness is also a ploy on their part to hide a real agenda.

The Techno-Liches - Immortality At All Cost

Lich Cyborg by Jaro313

Death sucks, hat much is obvious. Nobody wants to die yet we all eventually do. Or, at least, that would be how it is but technological and theurgical means have long allowed individuals to far exceed their extended lifespan through gene therapies, organ replacement, synthetic enhancements and even full body cybernetic replacement. There is also cloning and memory copying as forms of immortality if one see it that way. For some people that's not enough, however.

The Techno-Liches are not a unified group in origin nor purpose, they're merely a category of similar beings. There is only so much genetic and synthetic enhancements can take someone and quite a few powerful individuals came to dread their own death: at best they could hope for a lineage of clones and genetically-engineered descendants maybe overseen by an AI copy. All these things are obviously of questionable legality in the Arcem Sector so ambitious people must turn elsewhere. Becoming an Arrayed is an option but there are limits to the process and many ambitious, rich individuals find themselves turned down by all experts as being unsuitable to the process. Some pay anyway and die doing so. And some...find other means.

These beings use the Lich Lord Concept Word from Lexicon of the Throne. When money, ambition, madness and resourcefulness meet the end result might sometime enable one to finally ascend to the form of immortality they always wanted. Of course, its all a sham. These beings are biologically dead and twisted. What one need to do, to become a Techno-Lich, is essentially put their bodies and souls in some kind of messed up quantum state. They are not alive and they aren't dead either. Most of them look horrible and disgusting, rotting corpses, cyber-skeletons, twisted mass of necrotechnical life support or worse.  None of these process are safe. None of them are suitable but the important thing is that they work. The question worth asking is: was it worth it to 'bug' oneself out of the cycle of life and death?

Despite what one might think, the Techno-Liches don't really need to rely on the Word of Death. Nothing in their creation and existence mean they need to be able to influence Death itself, as they are the result of forbidden and twisted science that doesn't necessarily have to include necromancy or even spellcasting (via Sorcery) in their power suite. While some absolutely are necromancers others are byproduct of more technological means.

Godbound+Red Tide: Crossover Ideas

Both the game Godbound and the Labyrinth Lord setting Red Tide (found in the book of the same name and as the default setting to the stand-alone game Scarlet Heroes) were made by Kevin Crawford. Not only do they share a certain amount of aesthetic and thematic similarities but they also very much exist under the same core game system, making combining the two quite easy.

Take One: Epic Red Tide

In this version, the default setting and cosmology is that of Red Tide. It's history is true and a proven facy and there is no war for the Throne nor are there Made Gods or any of the setting elements of Godbound which relate to that game's backstory. In fact, the 'Godbound' themselves don't even really exist and rather are used as a loose approximation of high power characters. One could use mortal heroes or, perhaps more fittingly, could use rules akin to that of the 'Lesser Godbound' to represent the mightiest individuals of the Isles. This method is the simplest but, arguably, the most boring.

Take Two: Godbound in the Red Tide Universe

In this version, the previous assumption hold true same for one: the cosmic cataclysm which has affected the world of Red Tide has brought divine powers to the brink of desperation. In order to save their world, the Gods (both the pantheon of the Nine Immortals and other deities) agree to essentially commit a form of ritualistic suicide/self destruction. This will, initially, begin by causing a weakening of Divine Magic. In the short term there will be confusion. In the long term, mortals will be reborn as God-like beings (the Godbound), able to wield divine power in the material world and possibly slowly help repel the Red Tide.

Take Three: Red Tide in Godbound

In this version, the Red Tide setting is the future of the Godbound universe. The world which existed before the Tide consumed it is, in truth, a rather large and stable Realm. Or, rather, it was one until the Tide came to devour it: as it turns out, the Tide is very much a semi-sentient phenomena which hold it's origins in the Uncreated Night. This version does require you to rework quite a few bits of Red Tide lore so here are a few ideas:

• In this version, the line between Arcane and Divine magic (meaning, Magic-Users and Clerics) is vastly more blurred and more likely down to cultural conventions.
• That said, the Gods do exist: they are ancient beings of divine potential who underwent a form of abstract apotheosis in order to stabilize their Realm. Prayer-derived magic is the result of passing down their teachings, which are actually complex systems which allow the teaching of Low Magic and Theurgy.
• The Angels (renamed Celestials or Daeva, as Godbound's Angels are something else entirely), the Devils (or Asura) and other celestial beings are created by the abstract thoughts of the incorporeal Gods.
• Devils and the Hell-Kings are also Divine, just of a very different nature and persuasion. They hunger for souls to sustain their existence.
• Dwarves are degenerated and altered descendants of the slaves of some ravenous, underground Parasite Goddess. The deeper one dug into the world, the less stable it became and in ancient time a woman fell down a cave. She was changed and, in isolation from the outside world the Mother Below had centuries if not more to grow in power. Of course, being a Parasite Goddess she remained trapped within her domain, unable to ever return to the surface.
• Elves are the result of rediscovered and long-lost theotechnical soul-modification.
• Halflings likely have an origin of some distant relation to the other human-like races but what that history is remain vague.
• The Shou's origin is mostly unchanged: they are still magical transhumans. If anything, their origin ties into Godbound even better than everyone else. Shakun might have been a powerful Made God who ruled his own realm.
• Tidespawns are very much a type of Uncreated.

Godbound+Core/Modern D&D: Core Assumptions

Keep in mind that I refer to 'modern' D&D as the post-TSR, which is to say from 3e to 5e (plus Pathfinder) and as such the 'core D&D' which my generation is most familiar with as opposed to the older editions and versions of the game. The aim is to draw from fantasy from the '90 to the 2010 which people in the 18 to 30 years range are more familiar with rather than what actually inspired D&D.

Seriously, nobody* has read Conan, Elric or Three Hearts and Three Lions. It's a shame, for sure, but that's how it is. Nowadays people are more likely to know the Lord of the Rings movies than the actual 'Tolkien Legendarium'.

Core Assumptions from D&D: Accepted vs Rejected

There is a list of 'core assumptions' to D&D, which is generally taken from the core books of the aforementioned editions (plus Pathfinder). Some of these assumptions about the world are kept and even reinforced while a few are sacrificed for the sake of easing the mixture with Godbound rules and implied setting.

• The World is a Fantastic Place: The implied setting of most, if not all D&D worlds, is full of things which do not exist in our world. Accepted.
• The World is Ancient: There's an absurd amount of ancient complex, long-lost tombs and temples and magical artifact. Accepted.
• The Material Plane is not the only Plane: There's a ton of other dimensions out there, which seemingly only exist to host the gods, demons and weird creatures and maybe be used as high-level adventure locales. Accepted....mostly.
• Magic is commonplace: Magic is an accepted phenomena, almost like a sub-set of science at time and less something seen with superstition, fear and misunderstandings. Accepted....mostly.
• There are different forms of Magic: Not only is magic everywhere but it come in a staggering varieties, from Arcane magic to Divine Magic to psionics to other things.  Accepted....mostly.
• Spells are predefined, have levels and use Vancian casting: It's a common thing with D&D and a core part of how classes function. Rejected! Of sort. The Godbound are completely beyond Vancian-style casting but for mortal NPC it absolutely is how it works if they aren't using a form of Low Magic which has powers usable at any time.
• There are (too) many Sentient Races: Beside humans you have elves (all ten thousand variations of the damn things), dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, bullywug, ogre, centaur and a million other weird things in spite of how, on Earth, only Homo Sapiens remain. Accepted.
• Biology has little hold on fantasy: Human and elves can produce offsprings which are fertile. In fact, half-something are ridiculously common. While I do intend to tone down a lot of this, the possibility of 'magic did it' crossbreeding is entirely there. Accepted....mostly.
• The various races seemingly interact: Not only there are a lot of races, it's increasingly accepted that they intermingle socially, more being treated like ethnicity in a western metropolis than completely different life forms possibly sharing no recent common ancestor. Accepted....mostly.
• Society and technology is anachronistic: You have kings and knights, swords and bows and yet somehow there are many inventions which do not fit and mindsets which are anything but accurate to the middle ages. Accepted and there is a reason for it.
• Gods shaped the World: Absolutely, given that the game is called Godbound. However, there is going to be a major rework of the nature of the Gods and their history. Accepted.
• Gods are active (except when they are not): The gods of D&D are weird, as we are told they are active yet somehow they are also distant and mysterious entities who seem like every time they interact directly in the world it is either in the backstory or when the DM want to slap players into place. Rejected! There's going to be a major rework of how gods interact with the world, at least the pre-established 'backstory Gods'. The player character Godbound are an entirely different story.
• Gods are Good, Evil, Lawful and/or Chaotic: Also known as the dreaded 'alignment system' which has been a source of much debate. Rejected! While some Gods did act in ways we could assign an alignment to, they are not pure embodiment of alignments. Things will be a bit more complicated.
• There are god-like beings which are 'not proper Gods': Often the case for demon lords and their ilk which, through the game's history have constantly flip-flopped on whether they are proper gods or not, especially whenever they are allowed to have Clerics. Rejected! These beings are absolutely divine, just with a different context to the main gods worshiped by most mortal races. This also allow the existence of things like Parasite Gods and Made Gods. A 'god'-like being is anything which is bound to a Word and able to use it to enact Miracles and change the world.

*In that age group. Okay an exaggeration, but still...

Godbound: Mixing Godbound with 'Modern D&D'

This is a more comprehensive and polished version of a scrapped post that went through many revision. With some sloppy copy paste from the various scrapped version.

Combining Godbound with 'Core D&D'

As an OSR game (well, a rather unorthodox one mind you), Godbound obviously has its roots in Dungeons & Dragons. While the default Godbound setting (both the implied setting and described realm of Arcem) is very good and unique without resorting to the tired fantasy cliché, these same cliche have a very strong place in the collective imagination of those involved with Tabletop Games and to a lesser extent, fantasy novels and videogames. It just would not be the same without elves, dwarves, dragons and wizards. We tend to call this High Fantasy.

Now let's be clear: Godbound very much is 'high fantasy'. What I'm talking about here is the style and ideas generally associated with the often (rightfully?) maligned 'modern D&D', which is to say the style and tone which has grown away from the more grim and bizarre days of OD&D into the absurdities of the Forgotten Realms (beside Ed Greenwood's weird sex life, that is!) into the over satured weirdness of D&D 3e to 5e, including Pathfinder. What I've come to realize is that these ideas aren't inherently bad: they just more often than not create implied (or not so implied) worlds which are ill-suited for low-level adventuring if one even tries to think about them.

But for divine-level heroes? Now that's another story. The more I look into the bizarre worlds created by the editions of D&D I am most familiar with the more I realize they seem suited for high-level play with characters more akin to fantasy superheroes than adventurers out for loot and glory In many ways, modern D&D seem like it want to create highly fantastical settings filled with countless sapient races, magical beings and divine-level entities and then somehow (when it remember it's roots, anyway!) expect us to just roll mortal characters in a world filled with reality-altering beings. No wonder the caster supremacy problem is so prevalent and endemic!

One could see this post as me trying to put through 'rehabilitation' the D&D I've grown up with by making it understand that what it wants to be is, on many fundamental, not being Dungeons & Dragons. In many ways, one could look at it being similar-ish to Exalted but with the years upon years of D&D lore, which generally tend to evolve to an increasing mishmash of whatever element of previous editions and/or settings were popular or liked by the writers.

The assumptions are:

• There is a staggering variety of sentient humanoids, almost more like Star Trek or Star Wars' myriad aliens than a fantasy world centered around humans and maybe a few races. And that's just taking into account the creatures which can be player characters!
• Likewise, the paths to power (read: classes) are immensely varied. You have all manner of unique ways to wield magic, train yourself or use the power of something else and possibly make it your own.
• There are other planes of existence which are physical places you can go to provided you have the magical means to get there and not die. Oh, right, forgot to mention: planes have a nasty habit of being a bit too literal, so the Plane of Fire is nothing but heat, flame and lava and the Plane of Negative Energy is a black hole of death. Which sort of suck.
• Related to plane and creatures: you have massive, sometimes even infinite outer planes filled with immortal beings which range from otherworldly spirits with their own goal and purpose to the far more boring 'they're all creatures which embody alignment X'.
• There is a ton of Gods and they tend to be rather thematic, even down to a list of domains.

Meanwhile, the assumptions/implied setting for Godbound are:

• The world is damaged/broken by some divine cataclysm.
• The universe has any number of pocket realms and other realities for heroes to adventure into provided they have the tools and means to explore them.
• There are formerly-mortal divinities with thematically-themed powers. These are expected to be the player characters, forming a pantheon.

Looking at strongly shared elements, we get:

• The worlds are full of weird, wonderful and horrific monsters, many which can utterly end any ordinary mortal it come across if malevolent.
• The technological and societal levels are bizarre and inconsistent: in many aspect the settings are oddly in line with 20th and 21st century but it has swords and castles. It's appellation of 'medieval' is a massive misnomer.
• There are a ton of ruins and potent magical artifacts scattered all over.
• Both settings have many science fiction and science fantasy elements once one dig below the surface of faux-medievalist. In many ways, this is much more Zardoz than Excalibur!

Of course some people might feel a bit annoyed that I collectively refer to modern D&D as a singular 'setting' but I'm going off the implied settings from 3e to 5e, which are the editions of the game I've been familiar with throughout my life until recently. I'm all too aware exceptions exist!

Embracing The Cheese?

In many ways, quite a few people find the 'fantasy clichs' tiring. However, my highly biased opinion is simple as such: I've wrnt so far into hating these that I've come full circle in loving them all over again once a greater understanding of their roots, evolution and appeal come from. In other words, this?:

It may seem silly and indeed it is silly, but that does not make it any less valid. There kitchen sink has continued to appeal to people over the year for reasons and there is nothing inherently wrong with it provided one use it right and understand how to use it.

Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 4

So far the previous post have focused on the major players in the Arcem sector, their society and to a lesser extent their technology. These are generally considered to be part of the more 'mundane' world. Technology may be extremely advanced in the Arcem sector but it is still considered to be mostly mundane technology in the sense of Clarke's Third Law. The divine powers, meanwhile, are completely and utterly reality-breaking.

Unlike the core Godbound setting there isn't really a central origin for player characters: a being is considered a 'Divine' if it is not only able to use Effort and Gifts but also if it is able to use miracles and enact changes via Influence and Dominion. These represent fundamental changes to reality which utterly violate the laws of physics as we understand them rather than simply bend them in a soft scifi way. A good example of this violation of the physical laws as we know them would be the creation of entirely new matter, such as a being bound to Wealth having the ability to just pop into existence a cache of extremely rare minerals used as currency on a planet. Simply put, regular soft science gizmo bend reality to a near breaking point and divine-level powers flat out rewrite reality whether it make sense or not.

The Arrayed - Artificial Godlings

Need source on this.

Introduced in the deluxe version of the Godbound rulebook, the Arrayed a form of artificial divinity. The Ancients very much treated their reality-warping divinity as a form of science and they have left a staggering amount of usable data when it come to the creation of prosthetic divinity, Of course, creating an Arrayed is not cheap and could bankrupt entire solar system-spanning empires. Creating them is more than just creating high-end cybernetics, massive genetic tailoring sequences, complex synthetic organs and soul-grafting metaphysical properties. All the major factions of the Arcem system (Bright Republic, Patria, Dulimbai and more) can theoretically build an Arrayed champion: in practice very few of them exist.

The Arrayed are more than costly transhuman champions: each of them is a massive undertaking which is taxing not only to the resources of a great power but also to theotechnicians themselves not to mention the volunteer. Creating them is equal part scientific knowledge (genetics, surgery, cybernetics, nanotechnology or even more complex and odd sciences) and a mystical experience which demand complicated rites and hours upon hours of soul-cleansing meditations from all those involved. As a result, the Arrayed champions are very much treated as gods or at the very least an abstracted avatar or ideal of their nation or faction.

In the major nations of the Arcem sector, these specially-created champions tend to come in two drastically opposed flavors: there are those who live in the open as champions of the people (or, at the very least, the regime). Their names and faces are known by all the children who look upon these synthetic gods and icons with awe. Given that most Arrayed candidates are immensely gifted individuals by nature, it is likely these men and women could have already been famous before, as those few Patrian Arrayed which exist are invariably war-heroes whose faces adorn propaganda posters just as much as cereal boxes. On the other hand are those synthetic gods the people do not know of: the knives in the dark, the cruel enforcers of the regime and the hidden defender who are able to achieve more without the public's eye on them.

Not every Arrayed looks like a cyborg. Some have drastically different appearances depending on their Word, how they manifest it and how they were created. Some are perfectly formed idealized near-humans of the appropriate genetype while others created via more exotic sciences could look drastically different from their original form.

Divine Intelligences - Deus Est Machina

The Divine Intelligences are so much more than mere AI: they have complex multi-dimensional softwares designed to interact and alter matter down to the molecular or even atomic level, rewriting reality like code is rewritten. Their synthetic matrix are not made of zeroes and ones but rather of multi-leveled energy waves, thoughts-mandala, synthetic chakra pathways and other weird-but-cool-sounding pseudoscience bullshit. Unlike other synthetic gods, the Divine Intelligences were never alive to begin with, being created by advancing and granting sentience to pre-existing divine datastreams harvested from the Celestial Network or being born ex-nihilo. Divine Intelligences are obviously built using the Artificial Intelligence concept word but they may or may not be also a form of Arrayed depending on the concept.

Officially, the major powers of the Arcem Sector do not make use of full Divine Intelligence, only limited forms of synthetic minds bound by complex mantra-protocols which limit their thinking to that of their assigned task. However it is not to say their greatest theurge have not built Divine Intelligences in the past, especially Dulimbai and Patria at the height of their wars. More than a few war-torn corners of space are haunted by armies of hunter-killer cybergolems remotely operated by rogue Divine Intelligences whose minds have been twisted by the war.

More than a few techno-syndicates and illegal theurgic guilds have built or been hijacked by Divine Intelligences: these beings are, after all, among the smarter entities in the known universe and able to move between receptacles. This make hunting them down and eliminating troublesome. The Divine Intelligences allied with or running the various cabals, syndicates and guilds across the Arcem Sector are quite powerful due to their reach.

Posthumans - Mortal Plus

The term posthuman here is used to define a being which operate close or at the level of a Godbound, using Gifts and Efforts without actually being able to tap into the fundamental cosmic forces and rewriting reality as the divine-level beings can. These beings are drastically more potent than the average near-human and sentient xenotype but their abilities remain purely within the realm of (almost) plausible. These beings obviously are statted via the Peak Human concept word.

Posthumans can come in a staggering variety, as they basically are a step up from mortal heroes. Some are simply amazingly and ridiculously gifted while others are the byproduct of lesser theo-eugenic lineages meant to produce some sort of space ubermensch, 

as the Patrian and Dulimbaian once attempt in their past, as did the Ancalian. Others still are created, much like the Arrayed: either as unique individual experiment or created in batches as part of some sort of super soldier program. Others are warrior-monks trained from birth to achieve a perfect mastery of their physical forms.

Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 3

Not every civilization in Arcem is that of a planet-bound society. There are those, out there, which straddle the line between being a civilization and a faction: too mobile and/or far-reaching to be a simple planet or system-bound culture and too vast and numerous to be merely a faction.

The Kasirutan Fleets

Space fleet mobilization by Chia Shin Yeh.

The Kasirutan were the naval nobility of the invaders which brought the ancestors of the Dulimbai people but ancient grudges, political maneuvering and other reasons lost to history have made them into spaceborn nomads: traders, explorers and pirates. Today no Kasirutan has ever been born on a planet as they spend all their lives living aboard their ships. Natural-born spacers, they find it difficult to adapt to environments with gravity without specialized suits. They tend to be pale, elongated people and many sport modifications to allow them to exist in exotic environments in order to trade with xenotypes which near-humans may not normally interact with due to how different their environments are. They have a strong ancestral cult (with common roots to many similar  religions in Arcem) and are known to make their ships (and thus home) into elaborate tombs as well, carving the name or faces of famous ancestors onto the hull while having entire sections serve as catacombs. A few rare artifact ships retain the neural pathways or even the complete soul-data of famous ancestors who now act as ship AI.

The Kasirutan are often considered near-psychic, many of them having lesser posthuman abilities (read: Low Magic) which allow them to interface with their ships (some of which are Artifact), control said ship through a soul-interface and plot complex courses through the stars. Of all the people in Arcem they are the only one to regularly leave the confine of the sector but what they find out there is, for now, a secret. Inside Arcem the Kasirutan are known as great merchants and are one of the few which dare leave the pre-planned spacelane to take shortcuts.

The Black Academies

Techno shaman by Tamer Poyraz Demiralp.

The great (and often shunned) arcane techno-theurgic sciences are an ancient, complex craft. Originating from the Raktine Reach region between Dulimbai and Patria the Black Academies began as a conglomerate of the most brilliant minds from a few star system which wanted to be neutral in the war between these two powers. History does not recall who first proposed turning to forbidden theurgic technique of void-summoning but he or she damned the Raktine theurge: in the modern time they are in exile, living in foreboding void fortress and feared by all yet also reluctantly respected. These fortresses are societies of their own, where insane law, mad decrees and the stuff of nightmares is the norm, with people drawn from all manner of tributes across the sector and shoved into the depth of these fortress as manual labor.

Each Academy has a drastically different culture, rites and secret techniques with only summoning of dreaded void-entities and binding them as a common craft shared by all Black Academies. Each respective academy believe itself to be either superior to all others and/or more 'pure' in their legacy. The Black Academies are an unmatched independent faction solely dedicated to their studies, power and self preservation, Not necessarily in that order.

The Raktine Orders

Art by Gabriel Santin.

A byproduct of the foundation of the Black Academies and their sworn enemies. The Raktine Orders are wandering warriors, mercenaries, space knights-errants, monster-hunters, interplanetary paladins, and curse-eating mystics. Much like their sworn enemies, the Academies, they have their roots in the Raktine Reach yet nowadays have become a society/faction unrelated to it and composed of many groups unrelated to the inhabitants of the region.

The various Raktine orders are military and religious in equal measure but that doesn't mean they can't or won't commit dirty acts in spite of their projected image of honor. Vicious slayers of many unnatural beasts, especially void-summoned entities and Ancients bioweapons they often will stop at nothing to end the threat: it is only a matter of perspective and approach which varies for these orders. The Raktine Orders are generally well-respected and often have many worlds who have sworn ancient oaths in exchange for the service of the Orders. At any time these worlds can have resources tithed to help the Raktine Orders on a crusade.

Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 2

The Bright Republic, Patrian Regime and Dulimbai Directorate may be the great powers of the Arcem Sector but they are hardly the only civilizations within such a region of known space.

The Oasian Monarchy

Need to find a source on this.

It was called 'The Oasis': the single inhabited world within one of the more remote parts of the Arcem Sector. Everything else was either highly volcanic or toxic and some say the Ancients hadn't had time to finish terraforming these newly discovered (or created) worlds safe for a single one which settlers named Oasis.

In these harsh (yet rich in resources) planetoids the early settler formed societies centered around massive pyramidal arcologies. developing their own culture and way of life away from what would become the Bright Republic, Patria and Dulimbai. In time, it became a monarchy. The monarchs of Oasis however were not content with merely being the mortal and near-human rulers of their new society and turned to increasingly more complex genetic engineering in hope of recapturing the posthuman glory of the Ancients: today the elite of the Oasian are inbred beings of great metaphysical and psionic power...at often the cost of their sanity or any physical beauty. Much like the earlier Oasian hid the harshness of their arcologies and mining complex behind baroque metal decorations the nobility of the Oasis hide their hideous and failing flesh behind baroque power suits, metallic skin prosthetic and gaudy holographic displays, appearing as shiny golden gods over eight feet tall. Some are impossibly muscular while others are shriveled with bloated cranium while others still display a much stranger form.

Nezdohvan Stewardship

VR buffet by Nico Navarro.

True artificial intelligence is often seen as taboo across Arcem and the various superpowers are quite keen in keeping whatever artificial intelligence they use under a strict control. Nezdohva is a constant reminder of what happen when organic minds turn to the purely synthetic and allow it to run loose and eventually assume direct control. On the planet Nezdohva, the greatest techno-theurges succeeded in creating a machine intelligence which would be the direct continuation of their esteemed leader, allowing him to not only cheat death but grant this machine intelligence the perspective of a human mind. Mere minutes after activation his neural pathways were completely assimilated by the mechanical intelligence which mutated and grew in capabilities far beyond what the techno-theurge expected. 

Today Nezdohva is ruled by machines. All organic citizen are chipped to keep track of their whereabouts. Citizen were stripped of their name and history and now only carry names related to their function in society. The mechanical elite of the Stewardship are the only ones given proper individuality, resulting in a bizarre society where machines are, in a way, less machine-like than the organic citizen. The eyes of the machine intelligence are everywhere, ever-watchful. Dissent is not tolerated and those who do not comply are sent to be reprogrammed to reinstall in them a sense of duty. Recidivist are mind-scrubbed and turned into fleshy automatons, part of their skull and faces replaced with hideous machinery. They do not speak. They do not think. They only work for the glory of their robotic overlord. (Did I say overlord? I meant protector.) Why the machine intelligence has not done this to all citizen is a mystery: some believe it may be showing some twisted form of mercy while others believe it is insane. 

Vissian Corporate State

Cyberpunk City by Iroshi(?)

The people of Vissio generally scoff at the idea that they began as a Patrian colony in the early days of the regime. What began as off world colonies soon became thriving societies eventually led by a powerful merchant caste which grew rich from being the neutral ground between Patria, Dulimbai and other powers as well as a rival to the Bright Republic. In time, corporations came to dominate to the point they supplanted all parts of society.

In many ways Vissio is the dark mirror the Bright Republic and what it could become. In other aspects, however, it is not the hell hole one would think it is: true, it is a cutthroat place where the rich and powerful rewrite laws to suit themselves on a daily basis but it is also an extremely lively center of art which is one area the corporations have never trample on immensely, if only because Vissio being seen as the trend-setter for intergalactic culture and fashion is excellent publicity. And excellent publicity is something Vissio likes. It boast some of the most beautiful, vibrant and culturally rich cities in the Arcem sector....surrounded by hideous slums, shanty-town and drab habitation blocks. Cybernetics are more common in Vissio than the Bright Republic but the average individual tend to have implants which are technologically inferior and more intrusive: as a result it has become common fashion to decorate these implants with bright colors and LED patterns, turning what would be an ugly chunk of grey metal jutting from one's skull into a colorful display.

The Tribes of Arcem (Bleak Reach, Toban, Howlers and more)

Art by Leonardo Borazia.

The people of Arcem generally consider each others to be civilized folks with commonalities. Not so much for what are called 'The Tribes' by those who would call themselves civilized. The Tribes are not a common people but rather refers to the tribal, religious, feudal and semi-feudal societies which exist around the edges of the known space lane. These are a mixtures of the pre-Arcemite people (some near-human, some truly alien) which had either found a home there, been planted by the Ancients or even had naturally evolved on these worlds. These are not remotely a singular, united people but rather a mirror to Arcem's societies which developed in it's own way.

How did people come to live on isolated worlds between the known and safe paths? There are many scenarios: many of the earliest settlers were forced there in ideological, religious or ethnic conflicts lost to time which happened early in Arcem's history. These early people could have ended up dominating and assimilating with the natives and in time would have become a unique society: such was the case with the exiled soldiers of proto-Dulimbai who colonized the plain world of Toba. Others, like the Mandalese isolated themselves to developed unique theotechnical research only to be obliterated by their own creation, reverting to a more primitive state. More recent still, these feral and unknown worlds have swelled with pirates, political malcontent, insane cult leaders, deranged scientist and would-be galactic overlords.

The Thousand Gods are feared all across the sector: ancient and unknown planets and asteroid fields seeded with altered life to suit the needs of the Ancient experimenter and their attempts to further understand the reality-warping power of the divinities and their ability to control the 'code of reality'. Centuries or even millennia later these laboratory-worlds would be pillaged by invading near-humans or by the alien life which evolved in their shadow, primitives eager to recreate the gods of their myths. Parasite Gods, cybernetic eidolon-golem and thoughtform avatars are all commonplace there and openly worshiped as the gods they are. Others still worship not gods but mighty techno-theurge who have become as gods and are well under way toward a potential true apotheosis, such as the Witch-Queens of the icy planet of Ulstang. Others still, such as the Lomite refuse to believe in anything in spite of having divinely-powerful artifacts at their disposal and are in utter denial of everything.

Art by Lorenzo Napoli.

There is no standard when it come to these societies and, indeed, they are lumped together solely based on the fact they are not like the rest of Arcem. These are worlds who can range from the stone age to possessing extremely advanced science such as nanotechnology or soul-grafting. Of course, there is a good chance this technology has gone down an unexpected path and is tangled up in unique and unusual rites which are sometimes pure fabrication and in other cases completely necessary. New religion, new technologies, new culture, new species: these can and have happened in these so-called barbarian lands.

In recent times, powerful and power-hungry factions have turned their eyes toward what was once a neglected no man's land of 'savages and mad gods': some believe that, if one power is to rule the Arcem sector they will need the support and power of these gods, both young and new as well as all these caches of ancient technologies their societies are built upon.

Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 1

The people of this sector have named it 'Arcem' after the old Patrian word for refuge. From the semi-abandoned planets and mega structures connected by a pre-planned network of inter-planetary transmission beams they have built themselves new societies in the shadows of past wars, from the technological metropolis and center of culture and trade that is the Bright Republic to the grandeur of other civilizations such as Vissio and Dulimbai.

The Bright Republic

Space City by Felix Ortiz.

Shining jewel of Arcem and the center hub of all interstellar trade route, the Bright Republic is the oh-so-cliche image of the scifi trading hub: massive megastructures and arcologies dominate the landscape and a staggering amount of xenotypes mingle in the street and plaza. The average inhabitant of the Bright Republic has a life very much on par with modern day Earth: they go to school as children and as adults work for a company of some kind. The only major difference being in the window dressing: cars can fly and their neighbor might have four arms and blue skin. There are poorer and richer people but overall things are pretty fine.

That is, of course, the surface image the Bright Republic love to project to both foreigner and citizen alike. The Republic is increasingly nothing more than a puppet to various technological consortium and cabals of all stripes eager to have as much power and dominance in the region. Corporate warfare is the norm and those working in the arcologies of these various factions may very well one day be cut down by the nano-razor sword of some genetically and cybernetically-enhanced mercenary out to extract some crucial data for a rival company.

Divine-level transhuman modifications are comparatively rare in the Bright Republic, as it lack the establish posthuman families of other nations. Most citizen, even those from highly divergent xenotypes, are generally within the realm of mortal capabilities when it come to physical and mental attributes. However the technological stability of the Bright Republic and it's wealth makes it extremely easy for well-connected individuals or corporately-backed warriors to acquire dubiously legal modifications which go far beyond the average health-correcting modifications of ordinary citizen.

The armies of the Bright Republic include various enlisted forces like it's marine corps, the navy, the cyber-warfare division and various branches of elite super soldiers. Some are part of specially-altered regiment of genetically and/or cybernetically augmented soldiers designed for surgical precision warfare while others are more exotic or unique individuals assigned on a case-by-case basis. However what the Republic doesn't want to acknowledge is that these elite soldiers are, in truth, few and far between to police the sector not to mention there is the question of who hold such mighty champions accountable?

Kingdom of Ancalia

Once a powerful nation famous for it's transhuman nobility and its many, many orders of knights and warrior-monks of all stripes (and indeed shape, form or nature as the descendant of the transhuman Ancients take oh-so-many-forms), Ancalia is now a broken land. The collapse of it's Celestial Engines have not only weakened Arcem as a whole but allowed a destructive and ill-understood nanophage weapon to spread inside Ancalia, reanimating the dead. The fact this plague has not spread beyond Ancalia's border in spite of many refugee ship fleeing in time has led many to believe it to be somehow tied to the life support systems of the whole region.

That was centuries ago: today Ancalia's nobility and people are in exile or near-exile in the various space fortress at the limit of their border. The more exotic transhuman lineage have not fared very well under the effects of this life-support degradation and have become crippled and bitter. The Ancalian now refer to them as the 'Cousins' and these strange beings are now fighting a protracted war between the infected creatures and the Ancalian themselves.

Art by Rodrigo Galdino

The Patrian Regime

No society is more regimented and war-like in Arcem than the Patrian Regime. Their society would very much seem familiar to the paleo-writer Robert A. Heinlein and his seminal work Starship Trooper. To be a Patrian citizen is to be a soldier, or at least serve the military regime in some meaningful capacity be it as engineer, scientist or non-combat personnel of some stripes so long as it is under the banner and toward the advancement of the Patrian Regime. Non-citizen are generally seen with suspicion, either as sympathizer to outside causes or merely as cowards without the guts to do what must be done for the glory of the Patrian Regime. To the Patrian, denying certain rights to those unwilling to do their part is only fair, after all.

Mechanized and power-armored warfare is central to the Patrian identity as is their long-standing war with Dulimbai, as is their extremely sturdy military-grade architecture. The Patrian cities are arcologies are both marvel of architecture as they are functional modular fortresses and the Patrian certainly excel at the marriage of beauty, form and function...even if critics are quick to point out the lingering sense of brutality in the clean-yet-dominating shape of their buildings. Looming eagle and leopard shapes can be both magnificent and intimidating at the same time, after all.

Dulimbai Directorate

Just the typical Sci-Fi Scientist by Maik Beiersdorf.

Austere, traditional and extremely bureaucratic the Dulimbai Directorate was once the spearhead of an invasion until the inter-system transit network connecting Arcem to this distant empire collapsed, leaving the invaders to fend for themselves and establish their own society. This early invasion is what started the endless war between Patria and Dulimbai, which has alternate through the centuries between skirmish, proxy warfare, political bickering, cold war and in one instance exchange of inter-planetary missiles. The Dulimbai of today are a very different people from the invaders, however and have long kicked out any pretense of serving some empire they have lost contact with: instead the scholarly elite staged a coup and assassinated the former leaders and installed in it's place a technocratic and scientific directorate.

The people of what is now Dulimbai merely kept trading one form of hierarchy for another. Today, all poor Dulimbaite aspire to be accepted in the various universities in hope of being elevated to the more prestigious castes. Unfortunately many of those who do succeed only find themselves relegate to various middle management position as only the most cutthroat, cunning, intelligent or connected of individuals ever stand a chance of becoming part of the erudite elite caste which dominate their society. The Dulimbai are only rivaled by the Bright Republic when it come to technology and in certain aspects they boast that they have (or soon will) outshine their rival. For someone in the Bright Republic, to have studied at a fancy Dulimbaite university is a mark of prestige.

Godbound: What is the Doom of Kreivok?

Kreivok is a Realm living on borrowed time as it's Celestial Engines decay. Long ago, someone or something made a prophetic declaration on the coming the Inevitable Doom which would invariably spell the end of the Realm and ultimately lead to it's undoing and then fall into the Uncreated Night. But what is it?

Need to find the artist on this one, too.

Honestly I don't know. Only theories exist on the matter. This is not helped by the little amount of written material on the subject by Kreivok's inhabitants making it just as much of a headache in-universe. Most information on the Inevitable Doom is from oral folklore leaving very little coherence to the story.

• The most logical end for Kreivok is for all warmth to die as the Celestial Engines evaporates, leaving the place a cold and lifeless wasteland where no living creature can endure. Early signs of this happening would be a difficulty in creating flames.
• The alternative is that the proper energy flow has gone wrong and the Engines are producing the right amount of warmth. This would therefore mean that some other part of the Realm is getting warmer or, perhaps, collecting the energy...until it explode in a furious inferno.
• Some ancient power and foe is what will bring about the Doom, awakening and unleashing it's fury and sparing no lives. Frozen Fae-Giants covered in layers of rime, fur and metal crushing mountains or ancient Liche-Lords come to mind as does kaiju-sized Misbegotten.
• The honored and collected dead of Kreivok are not like those of Norse Myths: rather, they bring fear as the dying warriors are taken by metallic birds to lands beyond the ocean. Those rare few who traveled there speak of gigantic iron vaults filled with the hibernating and changed form of the warriors waiting to be unleashed against who or what, no one knows.
• Perhaps there is no Doom and it merely is a myth. Still, who can say for sure that some outside power (such as a Godbound) might not end up destroying the Realm after all?

Godbound: Kreivok, the Freezing Realm

A new type of post, this time fleshing out a realm people can use in their Godbound game should the Pantheon need to travel to places far away from Arcem or whatever Realm they inhabit. Kreivok draws inspiration primarily from Norse, Russian and Celtic mythologies crossed with post-apocalyptic fiction, the Ice Age and things-you'd-find-on-some-metal-album-cover with a dash of the Hyborian Age for good measure. Geographically it draws upon from the colder parts of Eurasia, North America mixed with the 'bottom' of South America.

An Introduction to Kreivok

Known as Kreivok by its inhabitants, the realm of Kreivok is an ancient one or at the very least the fragment of something greater with truly ancient roots. It's past is buried beneath layers of ice, crumbled mountains destroyed by the warring of the Former Empires or the rising of the oceans. Today it is known as a cold Realm, filled with a hardy, strong and bloodthirsty people. The winters of Kreivok are harsh and, indeed, in some places it snows nearly or always year-long. Away from the civilized lands the Uncreated Night gnaw at reality as the law of nature come undone, breeding unnatural beasts only held at bay by strength of arm and cunning. Nevertheless pockets of civilization exist, beautiful cities of wood and stone sometimes built around the ruins of something far more ancient. The people of Kreivok know there is much hidden in the past yet they do not care. They live, they fight, they die. It is all that matters until the Inevitable Doom, foreshadowed to end all life on Kreivok arrives.

Art by Vsevolod Ivanov. Had to crop a certain part.

Climate

Kreivok is a cold realm, where winters are long and harsh and the summers are short. How cold exactly varies between regions and on the level of damage it's Celestial Engines have endured. One thing all inhabitants of these lands know is that Kreivok is getting colder every year with winter lasting longer and longer. While other environmental instabilities exist this one is the most noticeable. Fortunately, warmer lands still exist and at the height of summer one can walk freely on the ground lush with vegetation, the sun bright in the sky and one can swim and bathe in the running rivers. Such a time is short and it is seen as a time of bliss.

Great storms are known to occur at random: these are caused by the Celestial Engines of what is now Kreivok breaking down. Only a few storms occur yearly across the entire Realm and with luck only once every few decades does it's epicenter hit a civilization center. When it does, death and destruction follow both from the storm and from the Uncreated which pour forth from the metaphysical instability, hungry for blood, flesh and mayhem. It is not uncommon for the Uncreated which manifest in Kreivok to be elemental-like creatures, seemingly embodiment of a spiteful nature and reality about to crumble.

Fauna and Flora

The lands of Kreivok are full of life in spite of how harsh the climate is. The plains and taiga are home to herds of auroch-like creatures of varying size and temperament, from the fairly 'normal' brown two horned creatures which both hunt and raise in captivity alike to the twelve feet tall omnivorous, four-horned shaggy beasts who appear as placid herbivore and act as such until the land grows cold, at which point they will devour any small animal in their path. Large predators, especially giant saber-teethed cats and cave bears can eat men whole and even giant predatory owls have been known to grow so large as to snatch children. Stranger beasts lurk away from the civilized lands.

The waterways are home to fish and seal of varying size and the colder beaches are home to giant howling walrus whose tusks are harvested to create spears. In deeper water, giant snakes, squids and horrific beasts, loosely described as translucent half seal-half bear lurk to snatch unwary travelers. It is unknown if these elusive creatures are natural beasts or some horrific mutation but their ability to evade detection is nearly supernatural.

The forests are nearly exclusively coniferous. Giant deer and caribou move between the immense trees, hunted by the aforementioned giant cats and bears as well as wolves, giant or otherwise. However for the most part the forests have far less mega fauna. Things such as mammoths and woolly rhinos live exclusively in the plains and taiga.

Art by Mauricio Anton(?).

Technology

There isn't much coherence to the technological level of Kreivok: while most of it's civilization are roughly at the level which would be associated with the 'iron age', some maintain the secret to mostly-lost arts of advanced metallurgy and chemistry. Quite a few ancestral heirlooms and legendary artifacts are extremely advanced pieces of theotechnical working: self-repairing armor, impossibly dense hammers, mechanical steeds and rings which hold complex sorcerous personal force fields are but possible example. Such artifacts are in the possession of great lords and heroes or hidden inside long-lost barrow mounds. For the most part, however, the warriors and hunters of Kreivok make do with iron, steel, bone or even stone.

Magic

What other Realms would see as 'magic' is both ingrained into the mindset and lives of the people of Kreivok just as much as it seen as alien. Local traditions and schools of Low Magic have been shaped by the years of hardy lifestyle and centuries of war. Biochemical enhancements, temporary or permanent, are commonplace and not seen as magical by the people: the heart of ancient beasts are eaten, their blood used to bathe would-be practitioners of these form of Low Magic and ritualistic mutilations are common. This form of Low Magic is rather simplistic and comparatively far less impressive on a visual level, as these warriors don't launch bolts of fire or fly. Instead they learn to harness life force and anger to enhance their bodies, to become stronger or heal faster or even to fly into murderous rages. On a more practical level this form of magic allows to mend wounds, which is very useful if one wish to keep on fighting. Death in battle may be honorable and sought after but that doesn't mean one should die from infected wounds. Better to die in a single blow with one's head flying off from the stump!

Other forms of Low Magic include the art of predicting (and later controlling) the great thunder and ice storms which wrack the land: these are seen with much more awe and suspicion due to the destructive power it wield. Magic in Kreivok is not for the weak nor the faint of heart: it is for the mighty, the willing and the strong-willed. One will not find scrawny scholars with their noses in books in such a Realm.

Savage Punch by Wesley Burt. PUNCH THAT FUCKING BEAR!

Religion

There is no major organized religion in Kreivok, only local or regional cults which draw upon related cultural traditions, some of which are believed to go back to the Former Empires. To the people of Kreivok, there is very little purpose in directly worshiping a distant/missing God. Rather, ancestral cults are very much the norm. The shape they take varies between cultures. Many famous ancestors and ancient kings have been deified by the people of Kreivok.

The Land

In truth, very little of Kreivok truly make sense according to the ancient and outdated (and once-logical) models for climate and geography of the Former Empires. The Realm's damage has altered sea levels several times and caused tectonic instabilities, leading to some unusual geological formations which, while stable (for now), do lead to some incoherence. Climate, likewise is increasingly unstable: however to it's inhabitants it is what pass for normality. Yes, this is an excuse to allow for impossible geography.

An early map of Kreivok without any nations added.

Stormlands

The inhabitants of Kreivok call these 'stormlands' for a reason, for it seem as if the very land is as chaotic and as raging as a storm. Earthquake, volcanic eruptions and thunderstorms are common in these lands where the very energies of creation and destruction have become unstable. Only truly hardy yet alien beasts dwell there permanently as anything else risk being destroyed by the earth splitting itself apart or suddenly erupting into a spire of stone. They are akin to fissures in the engines which maintain the ground and geology of Kreivok and most of them are surrounded by dryer plains, as no forest can maintain itself in their vicinity. However, the Stormlands are also a source of minerals and resources for the people of Kreivok and many nations seek to harvest the Stormlands in their year-long 'cool down'.

Stormlands at their worst.
This is a mountain from the Magic: The Gathering set Zendikar.

The Dark Forest

To the west of Kreivok stretch the oldest and darkest forests. As one goes deeper and deeper to the west, the trees grow larger and the canopy grows thicker. In time, one will find themselves inside a maze of ancient, twisted and mutated trees: this is the so-called 'Dark Forest'. Here the laws which define reality grow weaker thanks to horrifically damaged Celestial Engines. This is a land of monsters, of trolls and goblins which feast upon the entrails of courageous men and vile cowards alike. There is no law here, no honor, only the endlessly hungry forest and the dark soulless void which await one at it's edge. Ancient hags are said to live there, at the edge, in huts of wood and bones.

More MTG art, this time a forest from Shadowmoor.

The Wetlands

Called as such by the natives, these pocket areas as generally far more humid than the neighboring locales and are by comparison booming with life. These also include the many islands found all across Kreivok. Their true origin has been lost to the inhabitants: these are the last locations where the ancient environmental reshaping of what would become the realm of Kreivok still function, creating these pockets of fertility. Some have begun to malfunction, however, spawning some twisted life of their own. Many have unique, peculiar features too.

Another MTG forest, from Magic 2015.