Tellus (Dark Fantasy Setting)

 Been working on a heinously crunchy ruleset and also on automating the actually frustrating math components so that neither I (the GM) or players have to worry about things like "Square roots" and "calculating percentages".

Anyways the system is for a dark fantasy setting of sorts. Vaguely inspired by the Fear and Hunger games, sort of alternate-historical not!Earth setting with very 1:1 cultural stuff BUT still juuuust odd enough that nobody is quite like their historical groups.

Major Places

Note these names are generally the Evrosian common names for them. Some places dont have endonyms because they're fucking enormous or they have too many to list.

Also as a note, all of these places are intended to be as detailed as each other. I just, sadly, have limited time and sort of need to figure out if my typical way of making names for places is alright.

(Several of these are taken from either historical names for their real world equivalent, or then have their phonetics exchanged for sounds that are produced by similar shapes of the mouth. I think this is alright but I do want to run some of these by some folks)

• Evrosia: Europe-analog. Initial setting. Roughly a thousand years from the collapse of the Remulan Empire that conquered most of it. Most developed as this is initially from an Evrosian (Remulan) perspective.
  
• Iberia: A pinensula largely under the control of the Nightborn Confederation
  
• Gaullia: Western-continental Evrosian region. Heart of the Nightborn Confederation.
  
• Germania: Central continental Evrosian cultural region. Largely controlled by the Nightborn.
  
• Remula: Pinensula into the Centelluric sea. Seat of the Remulan empire.
  
• Borea: Northern continental Evrosia. Separated by a small sea. Home of the old Vykr (raider) that a few short centuries ago devastated large regions of Evrosia. Minimal nightborn political presence.
  
• Baltia: Isolated evrosian cultural center. Largely pastoralist and farming tribes. Small nightborn political presence.
  
• Albion: Island tightly controlled by the Nightborn. Cultural variation exists, despite this.
  
• Eirie: Archonites, Devotees of the Old Gods and so on. Never had Remulan occupation or significant nightborn presence.
  
• Panaustralis: Africa-analog. Fucking enormous. There's more nations here than people you've met, so the saying goes. Generalizations will fail in reference to anything here, but it has been identified as the birthplace of humanity far earlier than in the real world.
• Akssonia: Most well known nation in Panaustralis to the Evrosians. Rich, powerful, first major nation to adopt the Demiurgic Church as its principle religion. Ethiopia/Axum analog.
• Berla: A large western Panaustralic empire. Has truly tremendous wealth and political clout. Currently ruled by Musha-Marruk, "King Marruk", the single richest human being on the planet. Mali analog.
  
• Alharia: Asia-analog. Also enormous. Derives from an Aurishik term that basically means "The silk place", in reference to the vital trade routes (both on land and sea). Difficult to summarize, but includes analogs to most broad cultures you may be familiar with.
• Parradat: India-analog. Part of Alharia to an extent but exists on its own subcontinent. Parradati cultures are broad but semi-unified by a handful of historical and cultural factors. Local nations form a large council of mutual defense and support. Local governance varies.
  
• Aurishia: Broad cultural region analogous to the Muslim cultural regions. Alharian, Evrosian and Panaustralic regions are included in this. The "golden age" has led into an extended proto-industrial society. They have indoor plumbing in cities. Largely independant of each other, split into innumerable "Houses", quasi-royal families that are more akin to trade unions or local governments. Broadly have a somewhat static class system, but that still does vary.
  
• Mu: Australia analog. Mostly unknown to non Muric folk, due to the environment being extraordinarily hostile if you don't know what you're doing.
• Amphimu: Technically part of the Muric continent, but culturally distinct. A series of very large islands many kilometers off the eastern coasts of Mu. Notably explorers from here have reached Antipodus. They did not stay long.
  
• Lemuria: What if Madagascar was really big? Largely analogous to Madagascan cultures but with a bit more variation simply due to increased scale.
• Vesperland: North america analog. Endonyms for it exist but are different across various cultures. Coastal cities, advanced broad scale farming methods, and so on.
• Mekhaxi: Mexica-analog. Has all the expected ethical variation of a large empire, though are somewhat more justified in the eyes of their enemies by their opposition to the Setak.
  
• Meryin: Maya analog. Extremely old. Have had cycles of inhabiting and abandoning cities for a time, seemingly due to circumstantial means. Has colored the culture a bit.
• Setak: Xenophobic and inbred "Wodewose" and "Giant" folk of Vesperland. Not intrinsically evil or anything but... Culturally pretty shitty. A threat a lot of nations have been unifying against.
  
• Apiyata: South american analog. Name derives from a specific cultures term for their lands, but has been adopted broadly. Largely unknown to Evrosians, but consists of many cultures just as its northern cousins.
  
• Imtchi: Inca analog. A huge mountain based empire, politically and economically powerful. Very good surgery and horticulture. Birthplace of the "knot-writing", the Apiyatan and Vesperian analog to paper and its associated writing, which in this world has been adopted much more broadly due to coincidental factors.
• Nisia: Broad name for islander cultures that are only extremely distantly related to each other. "Oceana" for this world. Derives from a Graeic word for "Island". As expected, generally are highly advanced in sailing and fishing technologies.
• Euborea: The arctic circle. Largely mirrors its irl equivalent by being hostile to almost all life and home to people who are very good at making that seem untrue. No broad-scale urbanized societies or even nomadic ones, but that serves the folk there just fine.
  
• Antipodus: Antarctica analog. Bleak, barren and blighted. Dotted with ancient inhuman ruins. Not for humans.
• Onyx City: An enormous city carved from dark rock. Active. Possible human inhabitants.
  
• Thalassia: The sunken continent. Verdent and living. Has living cities and cultures. Not for humans.
•  Atalati: Largest settlement. Home to Thalassids. Consists of mostly aquatic areas, but with some air-exposed caves and buildings for metalworking.
  
• Laputa: The flying continent. Legendary. Unseen. All facts speculative. Not for humans. Only rumors. 

Peoples 

Affinity just refers to what things they double (or more). Almost always just doubling. 

• Humans: 99.99% of the population, with a few notable exceptions. This is a historical fantasy, until it isn't. Affinity for focus and stamina. Gain some extra exp too.
  
• Thalassids: Thalassia-folk. Deep ones. Breath air and water and have some resistance to toxins.
• Wodewose: Hairy, tailed, often horned and sometimes hooved wild-folk. Tough, and have more protected heads. Live in isolated communities in deep forests.
  
• Giants: Big people. Size and degree of affinity depends on how big/"pure" they are. Look like mildly to moderately deformed humans. Healthy. Vitality, Strength and HP affinity. Armor generally isn't made with them in mind.
  
• Morlocks: Underground people with ape-like and bat-like features. Blind but can navigate via smell and hearing. Thus immune to most blinding conditions but defeated by different things. Perception and Speed affinity.
• Eloi: Other underground people. Batlike features makes them seem elfish instead. Can see infrared (basically can use warm bodies as torches and see further with torches and lanterns). Affinity for Charisma and Agility.
• Cynocephalics: Dog folk. Not just the head despite the name. Claws, teeth, and affinity for a lot of things. Basically really fucking tough and hard hitting but have a lot of trouble interacting with society.

Probably more later.

Other Shit

• "Nightborn" are vampires. You can play them. They're not a race, they're more a thing that happens to people. Nightborn society is split into three estates with internal rankings. Nightborn, Duskborn and Dayborn.
• Dayborn: Humans. Serfs. Livestock.
• Duskborn: A kind of intentionally vague category. Supposed to refer to altered humans or partial humans, but technically means "Anyone a Nightborn has bestowed the title of duskborn."
• Nightborn: Vampires. Immortal rulers of nations large and small.
• Religiously they revere "Mother Night" or simply "Night" as a God. Not clear if this is an actual entity puttering around, but it works as a religion.
  
• Magic involves rituals and is mostly dealing with otherworldly entities. In some cases its commanding them. Other times its replicating their power and infusing into yourself or other stuff. It uses my Arcana philosophy with vibes that hopefully lie somewhere on the spectrum of Fear and Hunger, The Bartimaeus Sequence and the SCP foundation. Ive been watching the Owl House so that might rub off some too. Who can say?
  
• There might be more lost or undiscovered continents. Its a globe but... Maybe not just a globe.
• Counter-Earth (Counter-Tellus?) could be a thing.
• Archonites are "Christian" analogs that revere Ialdaboath, the ascended form of a (maybe) once-mortal. I haven't decided if this setting ties into my previous ideas of divinity or not.
• Aurishi is the Islam analog. The reason they're technologically advanced was I thought "what if the golden age didn't stop and kinda started to push into some later stuff that happened irl". Vibes wise its a bit different. A lot more "pneumatic" tech than the irl industrial revolution. Honestly this isn't that impossible. There's a world out there where something like this happened.
• They pulled a bit more religious inspiration from the "Henosis" concept in this reality than Islam did irl. Also not super unrealistic. Theres a lot of fans of neoplatonism among muslim philosophers.
  
• I didn't mention it but the Judaism analog exists. Yeshrim/Yeshrimi. They're a notable subpopulation in Evrosia, northern Panaustralis and Alharia and as diverse as expected.
• Apparently Yeshrim is close to the title of an actual text written by a Rabbi. Hopefully this doesn't become confusing.
  
• Traveller cultures in general exist in Evrosia and other places. They tend to avoid the Nightborn Confederation and similar places.
  
• My technique for making names is usually grabbing historical ones and/or taking real names and scramling their phonetics to get names that feel kinda similar. Sometimes it is just vibes based though. I try to avoid that because that way lies issues and poorly-thought-out names.
  
• All of this is subject to change lol.
  

Generations (and kinds) of Gods

 All gods, upon ascension or birth, are subject to the law of Entropy. They age, wither and decay, though "death" is perhaps inapplicable in the traditional sense. Gods will grow in power for a significant amount of time, before they inevitably begin to wither away.

The full lifespan of a god can range from ten thousand years, to nearly a hundred thousand after ascension. This is reliant on various factors such as how hard their immortal life is, parasitism by otherworldy life, and so on. Thus, generations of gods can overlap.

It is possible for gods to find ways to reject the law of entropy. This presents new issues.

Pantheons are simply collections of gods, akin to tribes, clans, families, royal houses and so on.

I imagine this setting like Planescape but bigger, darker and a bit grittier.

(general cw for incest/inbreeding in the elder ones section, though its mentioned in the Great Ones section as well)

Great Ones

The current generation of gods, with new ideas and new power. They lack the established tradition and infrastructure of the preceding generations. They do have a certain degree of willful resilience and diversity of thought that has them split into five well known pantheons. Most great ones have a desire to avoid making the mistakes of their precursors, and so have methods to specifically avoid the inbreeding that crippled the Elder Ones. The eldest among them are scarcely a few thousand years old, while the youngest are only just approaching a century.

The Celestial Council: A pantheon that seeks to establish a new cosmic order, focused on a meritocratic collectivist ideology. They primarily propagate via fostering ascension, a difficult process that many gods struggle to understand even if they accomplished it. In this way they ensure their pantheon always gains an influx of new ideas.

The Inheritors: A pantheon that sees itself as the true inheritors of the Elder Ones, recreating their mistakes. They are yet to be crippled by their inbreeding and age. Revanchist authoritarian Neo-nobility seeking to viciously maintain their power and legacy. No less intelligent or perceptive than others, but blinded by their fervent ego-driven auto-zealotry.

The Terrestrial Clans: A pantheon that rejects the notion of living above and separate from mortals. They primarily seek to expand their numbers by having demigod offspring, who through skillfully created alchemical medicines can burnish and rejuvenate the mortal blood to the point of being nigh-indistinguishable from ascended or pure-blooded gods. With each generation a sliver of power is lost however, even with careful planning to preserve divine blood without inbreeding.

The Infernal Alliance: A pantheon that seeks to preserve personal power, rather than generational power. For this, they turn to the secrets of the Elder Ones and, very carefully, the Old Ones. They are consumed by an Individualistic and Antinomian ideology, and like all who reject the structures of society vary considerably in temperament and approach. Some are vicious tyrants who serve only themselves, some are simple hedonists and some are genuinely magnanimous.

The Wyrding Network: A pantheon that has turned to the surviving Old Ones as a solution to the issues the Elder Ones faced. If inbreeding crippled the Elder Ones, Hybridization may be the perfect way to avoid it. Thus they are practiced in the arts of divine linguistics and hold a tenuous alliance with some of the Old Ones, sustained via marriages and something akin to mutual defense pacts.

Elder Ones

The previous tens to hundreds of generations of gods. Old human gods with old ideas, crippled by the weight of innumerable ages and systemic generational inbreeding. Their pantheons have shattered, their councils have broken and withered and their final generation is little more than sterile husks of their ancestors, doomed by the actions of those they were meant to inherit. Those few that have warded against entropy are static beings, rendered either unchanging, or simply withering so slowly as to be imperceptible to even their minds.

Their inbreeding did successfully concentrate and preserve their divine power across generations, but it caused as many issues as would be expected.

The Protoplast: A "dead" god, the old monarch of the first pantheon of the Elder Ones. The corpse is a holy site for the few Elder Ones remaining, the corpse possessing still some small fragments of divine power and will, though the mind has long quieted. Few remember their true name. Tales that hold true information of their life say that they were wise, kind and had hope for the future. They could not know what was to come.

The Prophetess: First called "The prophetess" or "The guide", now known to the surviving Elder Ones as "The blind one" or "The traitor" if uncharitable. If she saw the fate that would befall the elder ones, she remained quiet. Perhaps she was a social sacrificial effigy of sorts, one they could blame for failure and thank for success, though less so the later.

Old Ones

Pre-human generations of gods, tens of thousands of them. The survivors are the ones that have learned to ward against entropy and even invert it, or the descendants of the pantheons that have passed. Their issues are the opposite of those that the Elder Ones suffered from. Due to the loss of their pantheons and slow march of the ages, they have had to survive by hybridizing with other species of gods in their generations. Thus, Old Ones are the ancestors of most known monsters that do not have origins in mortal (or immortal) hubris.

Those that persist individually, rather than their descendant divinities, are immune to entropy. And, in fact, grow with the ages. With time, they develop instability and must cast off some of their power to survive. This is done either through reproduction (sexual infusion or asexual fission), terrible events where they cast off their excess power to some consequence, or a continual radiation of their excess power into the world.

Mentally, they are inhuman. Intelligent and wise, perhaps more so than many human gods, but animalistic in temperament and basic mental structure. Thus, those human gods that do learn to speak with them must also learn to understand their inhuman perspectives. Though some also attempt to understand the human perspective, when they are not dismissive of these frail, blind and foolish newcomers.

They are the most common form of divine life, from the perspective of the Great and Elder Ones. Their pantheons are networked, porous social structures that may persist for epochs, momentary convenient associations, or anything in-between.

Tiaphodam "True Inheritor": One of the hybrid offspring of the Old Ones that emerged from the ancient saurian gods and various mammalian gods. The mother of the so-called "dragons", and rightful empress of a hundred worlds. She has learned from her ancestors how to ward entropy, and so she rests in her luxurious palace-world, her mere presence slowly fostering the growth and birth of draconic life in her image. The cosmos is lucky she much prefers to sleep and slowly accrue incomprehensible wealth in ways that affect the average mortal very little.

Baheomaz "The Landwalker": The most titanic of known Old Ones, a surviving quasi-mammalian quasi-reptilian hybrid that has grown incomparably potent with age. Somehow, he has not been known to attain any form of instability with age, his power simply flowing into his ever greater scale and size. His epithet refers not to his habitat (he is comfortable with swimming, and passable at flight), but refers to the experience of seeing him move. Mountain ranges reach what would be his "shins", thus the impression is that the land itself has somehow learned to walk.

Primordial Ones

The eldritch precursors to divine life in the cosmos. They are not individuals, so much as abstract presences and aggregates of fragmented divine mind and will. Rather than a monolithic being with great power (and a few avatars) they are more akin to strains or species, genera, phyla and so on. They all circumvent the laws of entropy, the issues of stagnancy and the flaws of instability by not being individuals at all. No single "mote" of divine power needs to survive for longer than it takes to proliferate a few more "motes" after all.

They dwell not in physical reality, but in the strata of existence that is foundational to the cosmos. As such, their presence in reality shapes the overall "character" or "laws" of whatever realm ("plane" in older cosmological texts) they infest. Many realms (such as the mortal realm) are balanced between numberless Primordial Ones, while many others are dominated by but a few.

These realms are oft reshaped over time as the presence of the primordial one grows and proliferates through the existential bedrock of the realm, the realm itself warping around its new predominant quasi-consciousness. In some cases, however, large concentrations of Primordial presence can accrue into a metaphysical-material "avatar" of sorts. Other times, Old Ones, Elder Ones or Great Ones may deepen some connection to these forces, allowing them to symbiotically infest their bodies, minds and spirits to maintain themselves or gain other benefits.

Very few realms are bereft of Primordial interference. Those that are, unnervingly, lack much in the way of anything at all. Matter, energy and even space and time can be bereft from such places.

Sh'zug-Aborath "The Great Old One": A rather unique Primordial, this "variety" seems to be the ancestral stock from which the first Old Ones congealed in the most ancient times. When it gestates an avatar, they are a horrific amalgam of seemingly all possible arrangements of animal anatomy, including some that seemingly have never existed (or are yet to exist independently). Its power grows from the presence of all previously mentioned generations, as some of their divine power is attributed to symbiotic infestations of this Primordial.

Antuda-Nraha "The Whirling Maelstrom": A primordial of incandescent energies, discharges and diffusing radiations. It favors those realms and gods prone to lashing out with bolts of divine fury, as such discharges seem to be what "feeds" this being, which blooms in these places as a lingering "charge" left behind. Those realities dominated by it contain no solid concrete place to stand, merely swirling "movement" bereft of physical vessel and charged with directionless energies.

Eternal Ones

Transcendental meta-cosmic systems, rather than entities as traditionally understood. These beings lack time, space, mass, energy, direction, action, thought and desire... At least, those that are infrequently "observed" in some abstract way.

Unliving inciting forces of the theogenesis that birthed the primordial ones, they exist external to the systems of the cosmos (and, presumably, other cosmoses). In fact, it is difficult to say that they exist in any "real" capacity. Those that are known are unchanging static hypostases, concepts reflective of the base nature of reality, though not strictly this reality, if some are to be believed.

Little more can be said for certain, as anything beyond the observed features is speculative. Are they simple or complex? Multitudinous or Grand Singularities? Mindless or Supra-Conscious? Nothing is certain, and these may have multiple answers.

The Vacuous Maw: Essential concept that precedes "entropy" and "decay" as forces. A kind of statistical tendency, which paradoxically seems to be the determinant for the direction the ineffable arrow of time flows. The force which all divine life seems to wish to overcome, though the Primordials seem unconcerned.

Below-All: While the above is perhaps described as a "hungry void" this is perhaps described as a "placid void". A kind of endless nothing that is yet pregnant with pure potential. Quite possibly one of the Eternal Ones directly responsible for the existence of divine life altogether, as a kind of "source concept" from which the initial ideas of life could be drawn.

Other Ones

What of the next generations of gods, once the Great Ones have inevitably been driven in their numberless directions?

Are there some metemperical modalities that galvanized the formation of the Eternal Ones?

Are there the equivalent of the Old Ones, yet for the other grand kingdoms of life? Or would they be the purview of some Primordials?

Some entities certainly blur the boundaries of these categories. Nothing is truly an isolated "box" existentially. What are they like?

Free will and change imply that the Eternal Ones are not all powerful, or at least that they somehow have a more dynamic "counterweight"... Their existence is inferred but not observed. Why?

Can one know the shape of the alien gods that dwell in distant corners of the cosmos, or in altogether alien cosmoi?

Is the cosmos itself a divinity? Are all cosmoi simply facets of one grand cosmos? Or are they separated by some meta-cosmic void? A kind of fundamental Lack on the level of the Eternal Ones?

Such questions are yet unknown to the divine and their scholarship. Should you join them, perhaps you may indulge the same questions, assuming you do not repeat the mistakes of your predecessors.

Maybe I'll turn this into a full setting.

Whats that? More spirits?

I wrote a good chunk of these when the AC at my home broke and the house started to heat up. It was 91 degrees Fahrenheit (32-33 degrees Celsius) outside, which seemed to induce a feverish episode of creativity in me.

Hilariously, the least comprehensible of these was made after that issue got fixed. You'll know which one it is.

Content Warnings are: Discussions of hunting, very brief and indirect allusions to abuse in one entry, references to vocal dysphoria in that same entry, discussions of dissociation, and of course general discussions of cognitive disruption and drug use in ritual/magical contexts.

(Please do inform me if this requires any more warnings)

 

Great Hunters

Simple yet generally impressive spirits of both the natural world and the experiences of the Kith and Kin. They look as young adults dressed in little garb, painted in camouflage, though even a passing but close glance reveals the "paint" to be seemingly a natural part of their "flesh" and "hair".

They have aspects that combine various animalistic traits. Their eyes call to mind the slitted pupils of wildcats, the great gaze of owls and the all-encompassing eyes of dragonflies paradoxically all at once. Talon-claws spring from their fingertips. Their teeth are much like that of a cats, and their wings tend to either the insectoid or owl-like. Their noses are more akin to that of a dogs, though mystics and sorcerers both claim they can track better than the most perceptive of dog breeds. 

Regardless they dance through the wilderness in near-complete silence and near-complete invisibility. 

What they do is hunt. 

They stalk their game for a short time, and then, all at once they go for the kill. 

They are as efficient and quick as possible. Their prey suffers only for an instant. 

To the wild creatures, they extract nourishment and butcher them properly, keeping a small keepsake if the prey is truly mighty, notable or simply if they are sentimental.

They do hunt kith and kin, though rarely. If they do so, they do much the same as with wild creatures, but extract very little nourishment, and instead perform the proper death-rites for the individual.
The prey suffers very little, after all.

Many sorcerers would like to summon them, but are defeated by the requirements. One must hunt and butcher an animal in total silence, a notable one in some regard. Mighty or unusual.

A token must then be taken, and an offering must be made, and even then it is not guaranteed to succeed. If successful the Hunter will come to the conjuror, share a meal and inspect the token. If they are impressed they will allow themselves to be called via the token, for aid, companionship or invocation.

If invoked they offer either aid or the animal aspects and great skill with hunting, essentially allowing for the invoker to become a symphony of predatory perfection in much the same way as the Hunters themselves.

Other rituals made for conjuring or binding may be used, but the Hunters are wily and deft, and slip through bindings and weave around summoning like a wet fish slips from ones grasp. Great skill and precision is required to pin their essence and draw it to the mortal world, and even this may prove impossible for a skilled sorcerer.

Finally one may encounter them in moderate numbers in the rare great hunts they engage in, scattered among the seething throng of spirits that cavorts and revels through the long dark nights of the great hunt, dancing untouched at the epicenters of spiritual vortexes of the dead and death-dealing.

They stalk both the great wilderness-beyond-sight, the Deathly Lands and the twilit realms of cold rationality, though they favor the mortal world most of all.

It is possible that some of them were once Kith or Kin, but only murmurings and rumors of this are heard. Noting definite

 

Mountain Chief

A specific spirit, heavily associated with a specific mountain in a range. To the local tribes, it represents both life and death. Mercy and wrath.

It resembles, to those who see it, an enormous goat-creature. It possesses four great horns, two which twist upwards at a ninety degree angle to each other, and equidistant from the very top of its head, and two which are at ninety degree angles to the top ones, yet oriented downwards. Its beard, ears and "mane" create four more points between the four horns, generating a strange "octogram" star shape with its head.

This is emphasized by the shimmering thread that connects the horns. A strange thread that almost resembles the webs of spiders... Or elegant silken secretions of a particular form of worm. At each "groove" in the horns, the threading is affixed, so each pair of "adjacent" horns is connected by four threads.

Its fur is stone-grey, and it stands a full nine strides tall. More than four times the height of even rather tall Kin. Its face is a golden skull of a goat. Its eyes are burning spheres, like white-hot embers smoothed into pristine orbs. Its tail is, strangely, akin to that of an aurochs, a "flyswatter" tail with a long tuft of fur at the end for whipping at irritations. Irritations the spirit is exempt from by its nature.

Bizarrely the feet of the spirit are not the cloven hooves of a goat, but strange three-toed hooves. This detail, to those who are wise, betrays the ancientness of this spirit.

It is a celestial being. Its mountaintop is considered sacred, one of a few bridges between the worlds. A stand-in for the Axis Mundi. And so it is quite a potent spirit. It may choose to walk and not disturb the snow it stands on, or it may choose to prance on the very winds themselves, which are its own to command.

Invocations must be done at the mountain, preferably the very peak where the snows begin to fall. Noon or midnight is preferable, and equinoxes or solstices are ideal. Traditionally, a wooden bowl of offerings is placed in a makeshift altar of stones piled in such a way that the bowl may rest comfortably in the center.

The spirit may manifest if the offerings are great enough. If not it may still answer the invocation. In the later case, a sudden stillness of the air, followed by an impossible upwards gust of wind which carries the offerings into the air. The offerings then seem to vanish, like the spots in ones eyes after gazing at the sun.

The spirit is passive and much prefers to get mortals to act in its stead, rather than acting on its own. However it does have a tendency to fall into fascination (and, if rumors are to be believed, love) with particular mortals, whom it may show cryptically high favor. This is easy to lose, however, if one serves a spirit it particularly dislikes.

The spirit is said to offer a degree of authority over the wind, skills with weaving and textiles, a gaze that may stare into the deeper nature of things, skill with rearing particular worms and insects as livestock and the capacity to stride on wind alone. As with all spirits, other gifts may be possible.

Not all at once, of course. Not unless you are favored, or your offerings are particularly, shockingly, flattering.

Tap-Bugs

Though they may resemble insects prone to swarming, they are often conjured alone, or in small groups in uncommon cases.

They resemble great insects, as large as an adolescent if it were to stand up high and stretch out fully. However that is all that can be said of their resemblance to these animals.

They seem to be composed of metal, stone or natural glass, as if their sections were carved individually and they were somehow "assembled" into the animal form itself.

These are not drab greys or whites. The colors of the apparent materials they are made of are quite variable. Reds and yellows, greens and blues. Stones and gemstones and metals and glasses from numberless corners of the world, assembled into an articulate almost delicate insectoid beauty.

Visually they are quite stunning. Akin to a sculpture. Audibly, they are unusual indeed.

Their name is taken from their sounds. A series of constant sounds that overlap but line up in a bizarre fashion.

The quickest is a very delicate "tip tapping", like a delicate needle of metal against another needle. Every second it taps thrice. On every third tap, a deeper "dokk" of stone against metal occurs, simultaneously with the delicate tap. On every ninth tap and third "dokk" a deep "tong", deep enough to just barely feel in ones teeth is heard.

The sounds are, blessedly, not loud. Barely above a whisper. But they are constant.

They are, understandably, unpopular to conjure for long.

However, their invocations are very useful indeed.

Conjuring them requires one construct a vessel of several kinds of stone. It does not require impossible skill to carve, merely an honest effort to gather and use a wide variety of visually distinct materials. Assemblage is often done via drilling small holes in the sections, segments and limbs, and using threading to create the "joints."

The vessel, which should at least resemble an insect of some kind (beetles are popular due to the ease of construction, but others may work better due to the prevalence of beetle-vessels) must then be placed in an environment that has been rendered ritually sterile. A stone surface, swept of all detritus and repeatedly sterilized with various medicinal herbs is common, but it must be done carefully to avoid the accumulation of pungent aromas.

The tap-bugs will then inhabit the vessel, which will seem to deconstruct itself, pulling more material from behind and between the sections. These will click together, carve each other and then finally, assemble into the form itself, which will begin the constant sound.

They offer an incomparable sense of rhythm, an acute sense of measurement and geometry in both space and time, skills with sculpting and the capacity to harden ones flesh against blows, while retaining its pliability and flexibility. The last of which is often why they are summoned, but it is the gift they consider the most crude and least impressive.

They are much more likely to favor you if you seem highly cooperative with others, or conversely if you seem alienated by your ambitions and curiosity. This is the extent of their ethics, though they themselves are non-violent.

Oh cool the AC is fixed.

Echo-Masques

 These spirits are extremely closely associated with specific physical objects. To each spirit, a particular Mask, to each Mask, a particular spirit.

It begins with a sorcerer, or perhaps an artisan with such skill as to be near identical to sorcery. Regardless, they must weave the mask themself.

It must be woven of a material of extremely high quality, and so to must its structure derive from something exquisite. Flax and wood will not suffice. These are vain spirits and so must be coerced with fineries not easily accessible to forager cultures.

The mask must have structure and yet it must be flexible. It must be soft to wear. It must look exquisite. Gemstones and metal threading, ivory to hold its structure, glittering glass in the eyes.

At the crux of the conjuring, the mask must be given a voice. This is a difficult but deceptively simple sorcery to perform. All that is required is that one must truly give their voice to it. Fully, psychologically, abandon their voice and speech and give it to the thing being made.

One can learn to speak once again. Understanding has not been taken. Merely the habits and complexes that create a voice. They will never be able to speak with that voice again, but they can learn a new one.

Alternatively, it is possible to take a voice, via torments and cruelties that lead one to simply abandon it. This would suffice for the ritual, but there are ways for knowledge of such actions to spread voicelessly.

Regardless of the method, the result is the same. A Mask with a voice that has been given to it. It speaks as if from within the mask, and it quickly learns to understand what the words it now has mean.

The mask cannot at this point do much. It can talk, think and conspire, but little else.

It can be given more voices.

It can also learn to invent voices. It can learn to "throw" its voice, such that it seems to come from elsewhere. It can even, eventually, learn to take control of a dead, mindless or (if truly developed) living body.

With time they can even learn certain forms of purely vocal/verbal sorcery.

The purpose of such a thing is often a kind of ostentatious servant or entertainer. Singing comes naturally to them, of course, and they can learn to mimic all manner of sounds.

Rarely one is created as a scapegoat for someone who truly does not want their voice. In some cases, these individuals may form a partnership of sorts with the mask. A kind of mutualistic exchange of ideas and services. It would not be accurate to describe this in fully human terms, as the Masks are not and never were human, but a parallel can be drawn to the concept of "fondness".

Understandably, many of these masks go on to become notorious artifacts. There are a handful of such masks scattered around the world, though what auditory sorcery they have learned and the weight of ages may have... Changed them.

Formless Inquiry 

The name is somewhat inaccurate. The spirit does not merely lack form, it lacks true location and a significant amount of independent definition. Most of its essence lies outside of the range of perception and experience that defines the cosmology of Kith and Kin.

It is difficult to conjure such a being intentionally. They are more often encountered in an abstract sort of way, during a hallucinogenic trip that brings one to another realm. Rarely, such trips will bring one far, far outside of coherent experiences they understand. This is akin to a sort of dissociation from ones sensory environment, kinesthetic sense and even ones own thoughts and self.

Such an experience is unlike any of the psychedelic realms folded into the Mortal World as we understand them. They lie between these perceptions, or perhaps outside or underlying them.

It is "in" such perceptual not-spaces-nor-times that formless spirits dwell.

The Formless Inquiry is a particular kind of these spirits. Perhaps there is only one, or perhaps they are all completely distinct and it is more a pattern of behavior some of them follow. It is not certain to anyone which of these is true, but I find the later option to be the most convincing.

When a mind that has existed almost completely in a world of sharp sensation and perception touches these modalities, sometimes a resident... Thing develops something that might resemble curiosity.

And so it latches on, and follows the intrepid spirit-wanderer back.

The Inquiry does not resemble an entity in the traditional sense. Its more a complex of psycho-spiritual phenomena and processes. It may have elements that translate to sensation, perception, will, intention, compulsion or any other cognitive phenomena, but these express only the part of its nature that overlaps with the experiential reality that the spirit-wanderer understands.

It has elements that cannot be understood, that only exist to us by their wake-effects on those they latch to.

The Inquiry will then, from its lofty vantage point of a hapless spirit-wanderers cognition, begin to subtly twist and color their perceptions and experiences.

They cannot, or refuse to, overwhelm the will of the host. For whatever reason, they seem to avoid "touching" the awareness and will itself. Though the host will likely become aware that Something Analogous To Curious has slipped into their perception, via the "gaps" in their perception.

They are not malicious. This particular pattern of "behavior" is consistent in that regard. They are more like curious scientists or mystics, attempting to glean a world they can just barely catch the slightest glimpses of, via the aspects that they happen to share.

To most sorcerers, they are little more than a frustratingly persistent nuisance. They complicate trips to other realms, as they twist the experience and perception of the realms subtly, which is equivalent to a persistent side-wind blowing a ship just barely off course (or, sometimes, sending them so far afield that its hard to find ones way back) metaphorically speaking.

To a rare few however, they represent a possible mutuality. We are equally incomprehensible to these spirits. We are to them, incomprehensible spirits of things they cannot fathom, just as they are to us. An interplay can form, whereby one expresses an intention and the Inquiry responds in some way. In this way one can (excruciatingly slowly) learn to work with such a thing, to shape ones perception around some incomprehensible modality, and slowly understand what can be understood of it via its cognitive "wake."

And so a rare few mystics have a "partner" of sorts that is more akin to a condition, a cognitive disruption or a cluster of phenomenal processes. These are often the wisest, and possibly least coherent, mystics. Or at least the most curious of that which genuinely cannot be experienced or understood.

These mystics do seem to be the most skilled with simply... Entering a trip by will alone. Perhaps there is a connection, or perhaps some other sorcery is to blame.

 

(Next post is planned to be an actual rundown of the metaphysics and cosmology of Kith and Kin. Maybe that will make the above entry make sense. Probably not.)

Kith and Kin: Character Creation (And Basic Mechanics)

 Hard, unbending mechanics are not the system I feel Kith and Kin should be represented in. Fully freeform isn't my favorite way to run a game, but FKR fits a certain level of comfortable flexibility for me.

 

Cueva De Las Manos, "Cave of the Hands" in Argentina.

 

Core Mechanic

If a player character or other acting thing within the world attempts something, consider whether it will automatically succeed or fail. I default to these to keep the game going. Sometimes I'll instead have the referee (so, me) roll for certain results, if they rely on things outside the players control.

In cases of ambiguity, such as combat or other contests where participants and circumstances lead to difficult to predict outcomes, I prefer a 3d6 roll. It has almost the range of a d20 roll, with a rather nice bell curve that makes even small bonuses useful.

Thank you Anydice.

This roll is either attempting to meet or exceed a target number, or is against an opposed roll. I prefer the later, personally, it makes things more difficult to predict in these circumstances.

Modifications to this core mechanic are easy and possible. Tiny bonuses are okay, but I prefer biasing the rolls in other ways.

Specifically, advantageous traits and circumstances can allow you to roll additional dice in the pool, and drop the lowest number of dice equal to the additional ones. You can do the other way too, with disadvantages, just dropping the higher dice instead. This is described as giving one or more "dice" of advantage or disadvantage.

Advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out, to an extent, unless there's a reason for one of them to simply not apply. Then its not really an advantage or disadvantage.

This is used in character creation in other games sometimes. It pushes up the probability spread a bit. I like it, its rather basic and still leaves room for error (though unlikely the more dice you add).

For combat, I just take how much the attacker succeeded by, and whatever weapon they're using, and sort of eyeball how badly they hurt their target. Wounds are narrative, but can work as disadvantages too.

I also use "clocks" with "ticks" for things like bleeding out, disease, certain curses, etc. Smarter folks than I have explained those before. Again these aren't hard mechanics, more shorthands for my convenience than anything else.

This core mechanic is my default system for FKR games. Of course, if it gets to the point where you think someone would just succeed, or just fail, then just go with that and don't even roll.

 

By Ettore Mazza

Character Creation

First, select a people. This will provide some one dice advantages and disadvantages based on the group you select.

Some possibilities are

• Youngfolk: Can use projectile weapons without a spear-thrower or sling thanks to having a waist. Higher self-control. Can switch rolls or skills faster than others. Look young. Tallest. Frail for their size.
  
• Broadfolk: Tough and strong. Resist cold easier, more neutral on heat. Better visual perception. Require more food.
• Smallfolk: Smaller. Require less food and drink. Can work together and get along with others easier. Weaker and more fragile.
• Treefolk: Smaller, but less so than smallfolk. Can climb much easier. Using tools is a bit more difficult unless built by them (hands work a bit differently).
• Elderfolk: Hodge-podge of benefits from other "Kin" groups depending on the Elderfolk. Either less specialized or hyper-specialized.
• Wildfolk: Hard time speaking, but have fur. This makes you tougher, able to survive cold easier, but less endurance in heat. Easier time climbing. The more wild, the more primate-like, the harder it is for you to relate to the tools and behaviors of the Kin, the better "natural" traits you have.
• Underkin: (Not done yet. I swear I'll make a post on them eventually. They deserve their own.)

 

Neanderthals with Modern Humans (By the Kennis Brothers)

Next, select what role your character played in their former society. This will provide some skills and potentially even some other advantages. Skills usually allow you to simply do things that others might have to roll for, and lets you roll in circumstances others might just fail. Other times they might provide a dice of advantage. Some possibilities are...

• Craftsperson (provides skills in a handful of crafting disciplines. Can include cooking.)
• Forager (everyone can forage, you're just really good at it. Includes fishing if bodies of water were in the area. Probably line or net fishing.)
• Hunter (combat and tracking. Also includes fishing, though probably more spear-fishing.)
• Wise-one (herbalism and spiritualism. An initiatory secret...)
• Entertainer (song and dance, storytelling, Performance)
• Leader (Keeping people calm and/or effective, Being heard, Making sense)
• Farmer (Farmwork. Ideal conditions for plants and animals. Selective breeding. Less useful as a nomad.)
  

Others are possible. The bits in the parenthesis are meant to be skills you can have, and are more of a rough guide than anything concrete. Bit of a theme this post, it seems.

Some can be from more settled cultures, but will provide less useful advantages to surviving in the wild.

 

Looks-wise, these are somewhat-kin-adjacent Wildfolk. Behavior-wise,
it varies. Some are nice, some are not. Just like people. (From Primal, the show)

Next, select one (or more, depending on the ref. I'd require more disadvantages to take more than one) secondary quality to add some depth. This is like the role you had, but is less categorical. Some possibilities include...

• Physically fit (Overall more athletic than your fellows.)
• Iron Guts (Hard to poison or get drunk/inebriated. Resist venom.)
• Ascetic (Need half as much food, drink and comfort. Just not as affected by their absence.)
• Spiritual Affinity (Can more easily slip into altered states of consciousness. Useful for sorcery, spiritualism and mysticism. Might accidentally slip into them sometimes, especially if something is trying to catch your attention.)
• Learned (More likely to just know things. Biased towards the culture you are from.)

Again, others can be possible. Work with your ref.

 

"Gabillou Sorcerer", I'm unsure how accurate
this interpretation is. Its cool regardless.

Finally, determine why you were exiled from your former culture. These are mixed advantages and disadvantages. Some possibilities include (but are not limited to)...

• You made trouble. For whatever reason you simply were not compatible with the culture or authority of your former tribe. Sadly, you're prone to making trouble in other large groups too, but you're definitely good at stirring up peoples animosity towards leadership...
• Sacrificial treatment. You were either selected for a sacrifice, or your banishment was the sacrifice. Either way, this weighs on you in some way. It might lead to preferential treatment by some unusual things though.
• You were taken, not banished. In a raid or war, you were taken as a prisoner. You escaped. Fortunately, your old tribe would welcome you if you found them again. Unfortunately your former captors would also welcome you back if they found you again.
• Endling. Your tribe was obliterated, somehow. This is unlikely to be your fault, but that might not be entirely the case, depending on the situation.
• Forbidden Sorcery. Gain an initiatory Secret. If you were a Wise one, you may choose to gain another or deepen your understanding of your selected initiatory secret, or gain the favor of a forbidden spirit. The more powerful, the less attention and differential treatment you'd get. You might owe something.
• Mutant. Some physical difference sets you apart from others. Real-world disability and disorders probably don't fit here, since there are entire tribes in which these differences are just a natural facet of that culture. Its probably something clearly unnatural. How did you get it? What is it?
• Cursed. Highly variable. Perhaps you are a therianthrope, haunted by a spirit, or worse. Work with your Ref to determine how this works out.

Lastly, select one or two items/objects for each section up above. Food and drink for a few days as well as some tools are recommended. The groups should have at least a few weapons as well.

Your goals are survival... And whatever goals you make for yourselves, or develop naturally from your interactions with the environment and peoples.

 

Kith and Kin: (Not) Extinct Animals and Domesticates

 For the blog carnival.

The themes anthropology and archeology, so why am I talking about animals?

Well... Animals feature in the cultures of people, because of course they do. Domestication and the like are all part of cultural body of knowledge.

Additionally non-domestic animals feature as elements of mythology and culture. This isn't always just "sacred animal" ideas, its sometimes quite complicated.

And in a world with things like animal spirits and other strangeness, there's gonna be ways that bleeds into the cultures. I mean, these already feature in real world cultures.

Anywho-

(i may update this with pictures later)

Archaic Humans

The most obvious, and most mentioned, extinct animals that are not extinct in Kith and Kin are people. You get to play these.

Summarizing them is difficult, after all the majority of people in the setting are archaic humans, and there's very little in the way of consistencies even within a species of people. However some notable things are...

• Broadfolk tend to be less social than Youngfolk (homo sapiens). While Youngfolk have networked relations between bands and tribes, its even more severe with Broadfolk, since their groups are actually quite a bit lower (a few dozen at most). Of course, this can and does absolutely change based on environment. This trend tends to result in cultural deviation occurring more frequently.
  
• This is actually realistic for them as people. Neanderthals and Denisovans seem to have lived in much smaller groups than Homo sapiens.
• Smallfolk, conversely, are far more social than Youngfolk. Starting as islanders, but slowly spreading from there to coasts and more inland regions, Smallfolk learned to survive by emphasizing social bonds and collective identity. An individual Smallfolk is more at home with a group at the larger end of a Youngfolk group, and this would be considered moderate to small. Due to this, Smallfolk are among the first to have developed quasi-urban societies, and tend to vary less in terms of social drift from each other, but as always exceptions are common.
  
• Treefolk, Wildfolk and the Kith are harder to summarize. The former two tend to lie between Broadfolk and Youngfolk, and the Kith cannot be summarized in any easy way.

Domesticates

Many forms of technology are much older in Kith and Kin than in the real world, while others are far off or regularly lost. Much domestication occurred in the real world between twelve thousand years ago, to just a few thousand years. The earliest firmly domesticated animals are dogs, roughly 13,000 years ago, but prior to that there is evidence of cohabitation.

Of course, this becomes a bit weirder in Kith and Kin. Though there is a common trend that animals with existing social structures will often be the ones to be domesticated.

• Canines have been domesticated for a vast amount of time in Kith and Kin, given the pushed up timeline. I say canines rather than dogs or wolves because the extended timeline means that other social canines have long been domesticated too. This lends itself to a much greater variety in "dog breeds." The wild counterparts to these animals still exist, of course, but as a short list...
• Wolves, the classic, lead to domestic canines as we understand them, which are effectively a subspecies of the Gray Wolf.
• African Wild Dogs, as social canines that support the weaker members, already had an existing social structure Kith and Kin could interact with. Canines from this grouping are thus often more protective of their young, and of the young of others. There are, of course, morphological differences between them and canines familiar to us
  
• Jackals, Coyotes, Dholes and other "Less social" canines are not fully domesticated, but uneasy truces are easier to form and maintain with them. They are at least, mostly, tame in regards to their behavior towards the Kith and Kin, but are not fully cooperative.
  
• All of the above is mediated by the Dogpact, an ancient spiritual bond between the Kith and Kin and the Canine spirits whom act as the collective representatives of the Canines. This will be detailed later in this post.
  
• Goats, Pigs, Sheep and Cattle are all potentially on their way to domestication, but maintain a degree of wildness that makes mass farming them impractical at best. They are hunted, fearfully avoided and rarely, worked with.
  
• Felines as a whole maintain their aloof and predatory nature, but some smaller kinds have taken interest in the Kith and Kin. This cannot be said of some of the larger kinds. Its not wise to rely on the tameness of asocial predators. Its fortunate that for the most part they are more considered with actually filling meals.
  
• Lions are not asocial, quite the opposite, but are not tamed nor domesticated. Most Kith and Kin would give them a wide berth, and vice versa.
  
• Some plants have been selectively bred to provide nutrition, but mass scale agriculture is still rare, though not rare enough that most Kith and Kin have not at least heard of a "City." The eldest city is fed by the vastest collection of these domesticates.
  
• Beyond this, mild and limited progress exists towards domestication of other animals and plants. Some corvids and other birds, however, have shown enough intellect to form a very different kind of relationship with the Kith and Kin. A diplomatic kind.

 

Beasts of Old

Extinct animals and plants yet live in the world of Kith and Kin. Some of these existed at the rough time that Kith and Kin is "set." However, the setting is intentionally anachronistic and so animals that never co-existed do so in this setting.

Think less "flintstones" and more "Avatar: The Last Airbender" but stone age and extinct animals occupy the role the hybrids do. Or perhaps "Primal." I cannot list all extinct beings that are in this setting, but a small taste is possible.

Note that when I say "Extinct" I mean extinct in our real world. Generally assume any extinct animal is somewhere in Kith and Kin.

• Mammoths and Mastodons still walk the planet. Respected and revered by the cultures that rely on their meat for survival. There are spirits that resemble them, and their vitality and strength are revered.
• Other Extinct Afrotherians cannot be summarized easily. Breaking tone for a moment, currently not extinct afrotherians also can't be summarized easily and I am kind of losing my mind over it. What do you mean the closest extant relatives of elephants that are not elephants are fucking manatees and dugongs? What do you mean the golden mole is more related to elephants than other moles?
• Apologies. Additional Afrotherians in Kith and Kin include wolf-sized shrew-like predators, hippo-like trollish beings, bizarre relatives of elephants and giant manatees. I doubt that extant people would recognize their relation, but its certainly possible...
• If so, then the Afrotherians might be seen as some sort of strange vast family of creatures. Canines and Felines all somewhat resemble each other, but the Afrotherians? Each is its own being. Seems like a fitting mythologization.
  
• Extinct canines were bigger and less social. Borophagine, Amphicyon and more exist, and fill a niche somewhat akin to bears. Similarly, they are feared as bears are. Though these are, perhaps, a little bit faster.
• Woolly Rhinos are revered similarly to Mammoths, with an additional "warlike" quality thanks to their aggression and near-blindness.
  
• Cave Bears and other giant bears are revered as something between demons and petty gods in the northern regions they inhabit. Fortunately they're not extremely prone to hunting Kith or Kin, they're often much too small for that, but its unwise to trust a bear to not eat whats available to it.
• Sivatherium, Paraceratherium and other mammalian giants are often revered similarly. In the places were Paraceratherium inhabits, its seen somewhat similarly to Mammoths or Elephants. Its names in these places often mean "Noble Giant" of some kind.

A small break before the next section. Non-Avian dinosaurs do exist in Kith and Kin, though they are rare in the regions I have focused on thus far. But, I would hesitate to call them rare overall. Kith and Kin is not a world limited by earthly geography, after all.

Reasonably, its hard to imagine what the perception of non-avian dinosaurs would be in the paleolithic world. But given the awe that is reasonably regularly afforded to existing giant animals, and the fear that existing, much smaller, predators are given...

Needless to say, the Kith and Kin find an odd sort of kinship with the mice and rats when these beasts make themselves known.

• Raptors, even the smaller kind, are seen in a way that would remind one of big cats and avian raptors, perhaps being named for them even. The largest of them, Utahraptors and their kin, might have a degree of the cleverness that pop culture grants them, though not as extreme as might be thought. A feather from their tail would be seen as a noble trophy, certainly.
• Ceratopsids might be seen as something similar in mind to a rhinoceros. Less blind, but perhaps no less aggressive. Less prone to intra-group conflict, perhaps.
• Ankylosauria would resemble turtles, for a moment, before the crushing tail and superior size and speed are noticed. Still, a worthy hunt and a grand meal. But quite dangerous.
  
• Stegosaurians have similar defenses, being closely related, but the spikes and plates would certainly be given significance as trophies or other objects of reverence.
• Sauropods grew to sizes that, recent analysis suggests, might have rivaled the blue whales in weight. Hunting the largest of them is a non-option. They are groups of organisms vast enough to be landscapes. They might be revered, scavenged and followed perhaps, but not hunted.
• Tyrannosaurids dwarfed all currently extant (and paleolithic) land predators. They were also likely not a "rushdown" group, more like tigers or sabre-tooth-cats. Fortunately they would probably ignore Kith and Kin alike, unless they threaten their brood. Humans could, theoretically, out-run them, but not by much and not forever.
  

 

A Magic System: Arcana (Secrets With Power)

I don't even know how you'd define this magic system. Its not quite freeform but its not quite limited either. Maybe "Diegetic Magic"? It definitely is a magic system that works with FKR games thats for sure.

The origins of this magic system lie in my enjoyment of the game "Noita" and its magic system. Its spells have properties that you can learn and exploit to ridiculous effect. The game is kinda about that.

However, while generic spells and modifiers work for Noita, Tabletop games require a bit more work. And so, after some time, this "Arcana" system was born.

The idea is to incentivize exploration and experimentation, and to make magic feel like something truly embedded in how the world works, rather than a game abstraction.

Making a potion can be easy, but it can also be like if chemistry really wanted to eat your soul. (Source)

Arcana

Arcana is anything that knowing about can grant some form of supernatural advantage. That isn't to say that knowledge of it is inherently powerful (conversely, thats not to say that knowledge of it isn't inherently powerful either), rather knowing about it opens up the capacity to interact with it or make use of it in some way.

Arcana can be anything, but as a list of examples they can be supernatural skills, languages, esoteric energies, otherworldly forces, groups of entities, anomalous mathematical principles, systems of logic, beliefs, states of consciousness, other realities, subtle aspects of this reality, gods, concepts, substances, processes, properties of otherwise natural things, psychological complexes, a series of specific actions, anomalies in how the world works, natural laws taken in bizarre directions and basically anything else you can imagine.

Arcana aren't spells. They're not rituals. They're not magic items. They're not (strictly) powers and they're definitely not a "class feature." They're meant to be the building blocks of these things, however (except for class features, maybe). Think about how during a ritual the magician calls upon various entities, draws magical circles, and more. Arcana are like these things rather than the ritual itself.

Whats important is that Arcana have properties and that these properties can potentially interact under the right circumstances. This doesn't mean you need to have a huge list of how different arcana interact, just that there needs to be at least consistency. If one arcana is an altered state that involves extreme self-awareness, and another is a psychic parasite, these can probably be used together in some fashion (perhaps as a way to control the parasite? It depends on how the two work exactly).

There's no hard categories of Arcana. Some are more broadly applicable, some are more useful in specific contexts, some are quite dangerous, some are relatively benign. The point is they can be theoretically anything that has supernatural properties that can be learned and made use of.

Some actual examples of Arcana might be

• A species of psychic parasite, existing on a "Psychic" or perhaps "astral" layer of reality. They have specific things they feed on, byproducts, favorable environments and behaviors, all of which might be useful in some contexts.
• The Astral Plane (And Astral Projection in general) and how it interacts with the world. Things probably can't physically step into the astral plane, it probably requires specific mental states.
  
• An "otherworldly sense" that doesn't correspond to any of the major or minor senses known by science, but might be interpreted as "feeling" at a distance. It can probably be honed and trained to provide more information, and training synesthesia into it might have some interesting effects.
• Clearly unnatural mathematics.
• Any of these things really.
• A set of beliefs that, when reinforced through ritual repetition of important aspects of the beliefs, can be treated as true by participants and temporarily enforced via certain methods.
• Languages that let you speak to things that normally cannot understand or act.
• A method of lucid dreaming that allows one to escape the confines of their dream and access others. Perhaps it can let you access a collective experience shaped by all dreamers, or perhaps things stranger even than this.

This could continue forever, but you get the idea. A true list would have more details and useful information, though some Arcana might be deceptively simple in their presentation.

Ideally as well this allows for competing or otherwise paradoxical magic systems to exist without rendering a setting completely incoherent. Entire perpendicular or parallel cosmologies could exist, separated only by the relative ignorance of those who have yet to discover a way the relevant Arcana bridge the gap.

Generally speaking the user of an Arcana should not know everything about it, and if a new one is discovered they should know just about nothing about it. The idea is to incentivize experimentation and discovery, after all.

 

God damn it I forgot to account for microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence. (Source)

Applying Arcana

By this system, "Magic" isn't just one thing. Its not a single "energy" or "force" but rather the application of (typically multiple) Arcana to achieve an effect.

Lets run through a few examples of how this might go.

Taevalis, a practitioner of the Arts, prepares a silver pentacle engraved with specific sigils. They then place the pentacle in the center of a ritual chamber and begin to chant prayers and exaltation to the great one Vo-te-na-shu, a deific consciousness native to a realm of pure mind and logic (of which it itself is the primary component, akin to "space-time" for our own reality). Taevalis expertly enters an altered state of consciousness that allows their mind to cross the boundaries of realities, allowing the great one to use their mind as a channel of influence to our reality.

The sigils on the pentacle serve to communicate to the channeled aspect of Vo-te-na-shu that it is to reinforce the pentacle with its own psychic might, allowing it to serve as a protective object for the duration of the ritual. This works because Taevalis knows that the great one can understand the meaning of the sigils by way of its access to Taevalis' own mind and that Vo-te-na-shu is a perpetually curious being, which Taevalis is exploiting to orchestrate its willing participation in the ritual.

Taevalis then shifts their mental state slightly, and directs a degree of channeled entropic energy against the boundaries between their reality and one they have been studying for some time. The pentacle, due to geometric properties, the double-meaning of several of the sigils engraved on it and how silver interacts with the forces of the accessed reality, serves as a magnetic "net" for a being composed of illusion, flame and roaring sound from this reality. The ritual is successful, though there is a moment of uncertainty as the being strains against its bindings. Taevalis concludes the ritual by "imprinting" Vo-te-na-shu's power into the pentacle, exploiting how psychometry works to allow an "echo" of the power to remain without constantly channeling the great one.

At the conclusion of the ritual, Taevalis has successfully bound an otherworldly being to the object. Now they just have to figure out how to get it to do what they want, when they want it.

In the above example, the Arcana involved are Vo-te-na-shu, the state of consciousness that allows Taevalis to access other realties, the entropic energies utilized to break down the barriers between other realities (this might count as two, the entropic energies themselves and the barriers themselves), the other reality with its various inhabitants and the properties of Psychometric imprints left on objects.

The pentacle itself is a mundane tool. Its only by how this mundane tool interacts with the distinctly not-mundane elements that it gains its mystical importance. Without any of the Arcana involved, it would be a pretty trinket perhaps, but little more than that.

Modern doctor strange stuff has some cool (weird) stuff in it. Can't remember the exact issue this is from.

A second example, set somewhere (and when) very different.

Thalia and Zoe are two magicians who have been wanting to cooperate on a project for some time, but utilize very different sets of Arcana to accomplish things. However they have discovered a way to work together to further both of their knowledge of Arcana.

Thalia knows a specific method of lucid dreaming that allows her to wander metaphorical realms, and even into other realities via their more dream-aligned aspects, such as by entering the dreams of its inhabitants. Unfortunately she's not particularly capable of determining how dangerous it might be to access a given realm.

Zoe has a variety of psychic powers, developed through specific practices and disciplines geared towards developing such things. Most important to their goals are Telepathic and Extrasensory capabilities.

Thalia falls asleep while Zoe remains awake, using Telepathy to scan for when Thalia begins lucid dreaming. When she does so, Zoe telepathically weaves herself into the dream, effectively linking their minds and falling asleep as she does so, while remaining lucid.

Together they explore a variety of metaphorical landscapes over the night, using Zoes extrasensory abilities to determine if they should steer clear of a given location, experience, realm, mental construct and so forth. This is aided by Zoes moderate specialization into specifically "danger sense" ESP.

When they awake they quickly write down what they remember that they consider worthy of further investigation and experimentation. These include realms, locations, mindstates, entities, experiences and far more abstract things.

In this example, there's only two main arcana that are being used. The lucid dreaming method, and the psychic powers, but together they allow the two magicians to accomplish far more than they could individually.

 

Not every magical working is capable of succeeding, however. Which the next examples should demonstrate.

Nathan has downloaded a number of PDFs that, unfortunately for him, do contain genuine occult and Arcane information. He wants to perform a ritual to summon one of the Eye-Theives of Ovolomithia, a relatively small faction of otherworldly humanoids composed of layers upon layers of leathery tissue. They are known for stealing eyes, but also giving strange other eyes if they feel generous.

Unfortunately, Nathan has no knowledge of the Arcana that the writer of the PDF assumes the reader is familiar with, and is unable to truly perform the more abstract mental exercises involved in the ritual as a result, as well as having no ability to truly gather or shape the necessary energies involved. Nathan attempts to perform the ritual, and gets only a fascinatingly bizarre experience with psychoactive substances as a result.

The exact ritual isn't important in this context, just that the lack of understanding of the Arcana involved means that the ritual is, mystically speaking, not really doing anything. Granted such rituals might have a more mundane but profound effect on the participants, and there's always the vague chance that despite lacking knowledge one might accidentally tap into something real, but these are very distant possibilities. Akin to a one-in-billion chance.

However, knowledge of Arcana but an incomplete understanding of them can be far, far more disastrous than simply a ritual not working. Lets revisit Nathan at a later date...

Nathan now has a more genuine understanding of the Arcana involved in mystical practices, though he's not really done much to experiment with their limitations and interactions yet. This is unfortunate as he attempts to perform a ritual granting him passage through the All-Hallways, a bizarre realm consisting of hallways, backrooms, linked rooms and various other building interiors, all seemingly growing off of each other. The realm technically can lead anywhere, and this is an enticing possibility to Nathan.

The All-Halls is, unfortunately, fairly easy to access. Nathan prepares a closet door appropriately, by engraving the statement "To All Places" or its equivalent in several dozen languages, setting a resin that has been ritually prepared with energies associated with movement, otherworldly passage, space and time, and exploits an associative property of these energies to easily open a doorway to the All-Halls. Nathan has underestimated the All-Hallways, however, and does not realize just how confusing and disorienting of a realm it is.

Nathan enters the now-open passage to the realm and attempts to find his way to a door that leads into a hotel, somewhere, but the shifting halls and rooms over the next half-hour unsettle him. He attempts to find his way back to his entrance, but the pathways have closed off. Panicking, he tries to find a doorway that might lead somewhere familiar and accidentally falls down a flight of stairs, spraining his ankle.

He decides to leave through the closest doorway he can find, and emerges from an closet in an abandoned home, on the other side of the city he calls home. Thankfully, the All-Halls have some small measure of co-spatiality with reality, meaning that you're not likely to find yourself across the planet or in completely alien worlds with just a short stroll through it. Nathan, thankfully, did not encounter any other visitors of the All-Hallways, nor any of the deeper anomalies of the place.

In the above example, Nathan clearly understands the useful mechanisms of the various energies he treats the resin with, and demonstrates a creative use of their properties and associations between the phrase he engraved and the result he desired and how to exploit that to achieve it, but he did not have sufficient knowledge of the All-Hallways to usefully exploit them as a travel medium. He didn't know how to use what he got.

This is still an optimistic failure. If Nathan were to learn magical ways of finding directions to a goal, or found some way to influence or predict the nature of the shifting paths in the All-Halls, he could very easily render them into a useful medium.

Of course, not every failure is this much of a teaching moment. Some simply reach too far too soon, and find themselves at the mercy of forces they wished they understood better.

Some Arcana interact in clearly detrimental ways. If two classes of spirits hate each other, would you really want to invoke them in the same ritual? Probably only if you have some way to keep them from knowing about each other. What about mutually destructive energies? Forces which prohibit certain effects? Entities which you overestimated your capacity to bind and command?

Next post should be a list of more in-depth Arcana, and some more examples! Everyone loves examples, right?

Some More Spirits

 People seem to like spirits, so have some more. Only four this time though. More to come later.

Still for Kith and Kin, though they can be adapted for elsewhere. At some point I want to make a system/setting that has a more Bartimaeus Sequence style of spirits, but for now I'm content with... Whatever you would call these.

Old Man of the Deep

He is not a spirit often called upon, for his dominion lies far deeper than any since the First Wanderers have dived. The true Depths are his home, and he learns much from the alien things that dwell there, whispering wisdom of a realm not meant for us.

His complexion is a result of apparently being carved from basalt stone. Or at least his skin is textured and just as tough as such, though it flexes and deforms just as skin and flesh would. Blades appear incapable of piercing him.

Striding along the horizon, one would be forgiven for mistaking him for an oceanic stone tower-island, distorted by heatwaves, reflected sunlight and exhausted delirium. Perhaps it would be easier to believe he exists, if such things were not required to summon him. He stands so tall that even the mighty longboats made to traverse the oceans are just barely longer than his extended arm. His rages are known to toss such boats horizons off course, or send them careening into the cliffsides, reduced to naught but splinters.

He has no hair. Instead great suckered tentacles grow from his scalp and face, writhing with his movements. They give the impression of wild and unkempt hair, each tentacle only the width of a mans arm, that nevertheless remain untangled, flowing in wind that does not exist.

Such tentacles grow only from his head. On his body, it is the growth of algae and kelp that give the impression of either great masses of fur or hair, or green clothing of a strange variety. Like an immense wildman of the deep.

He is not alone.

The depths that he has claimed are his, and he must display his authority somehow. To this end he has forged a pact with an ancient being of the depths, which manifests as strange horns, or perhaps a crown, of coral growing from his scalp.

They are as alive as he. You can see the giant (eye-sized) pale polyps dart in and out of their exoskeleton. They taste the currents, the air, the ether. They whisper things to him. He has gained a reputation as a seer. He knows that they might wish to manipulate him, though they seem individually simple, together they form a spirit far older than he is.

Invocations to him are scarce, but if successful he offers the wisdom of the deep. Be wary, however. This wisdom comes from a world built for beings much more ancient and vast than those that dwell upon the surface. The mind may be poisoned by such truths.

Effigy Receptacles

They are people. All the spirits thus far have no origins among the mortal folk, at least none that can be truly said to relate to us. These are different. They have bodies. They have villages. They have children.

They are dead.

Sometimes one must not let death be the end of the transmission of wisdom, and so steps must be taken to ensure that knowledge otherwise lost can be retained. Or perhaps a people have need for folk who will never tire through mortal action, never want for food or drink, never fear death and who will need only to repair themselves before they can move again.

Alas, these folk have no such strengths. Though they need no food, drink or sleep, they were still mortal once. They still feel the cold eyes of The First To Die upon their backs. His hand upon their shoulder.

They must sleep. When they do they return to His land. It is by his will that they are allowed to exist in this state at all.

The ritual is intensive. Traditionally, the excarnated skeleton of the deceased is laid out, and used as a scaffold to build the new body. Skin is woven of fabrics, flesh of dead grasses or furs. Hair of threads, or ropes, or whatever else that they might find appropriate. The final piece, before the ritual, is a mask of some make. Ideally one that portrays the character of the one who is to be returned.

Eventually a body is completed, and The First To Die is invoked with but a whisper. Something must then die by sacrifice, often an animal captured for such, but sometimes some unlucky folk is taken and given instead.

The false body stirs.

At first their attachment to this new false life is tenuous. They must be allowed to slake their thirst and hunger with the sacrifice, letting the fading life be captured by their receptacle to fuel their new existence. If the returned is not willing to, then it is here were things may first go wrong.

Perhaps once they were allowed to live among the living, but it has long been known that such things invite envy. The Returned envies the life of those who still live, those who live envy the robustness of the returned. All manner of tragedies and abominations have been unleashed, the actions leading to such things stoked by such feelings.

And so they live separately. In sacred places, or villages carefully and lovingly made for and by them, where they may converse with others like them and exist in comfort. Where they may act as if they live. They may visit their living Kith and Kin, but must not live alongside them.

Yet perhaps they need not act. Upon and within their bodies life stirs. Upon the brows of some, within their chests, within their skulls. Seeds sprout, flowers blossom, and the flaws with their new existence seem to give way to entirely novel experiences. The First To Die begins to call them less and less, begins to treat them like the living guests, and not like the resident dead.

What they are to become, none can say for certain. Death begets Life, just as Life begets Death.

Hearth-Heads

An elderly humanoid, often seemingly woven from still living wood, with hair (and sometimes fur) of moss and standing anywhere from a hands breadth tall to a height that makes their heads scrape the ceiling. Their name comes from the statues carved for their inhabitation, a wooden head depicting the head of the particular spirit inhabiting the home.

They are newer spirits, relatively speaking. Still ancient beyond comprehension to the mortals, but they only emerged with the first cultures that drew a distinction between "Home" and "Wilderness." They exist along this boundary, dwelling within the Proximal Space of the Home, yet carrying the Distal nature of the Wilderness with them. They are only one of many spirits of their sort, of course, and most common in the western regions of the northern continent.

Manners are important to them, but they are understanding and will explain the rules with an often off-putting intensity. Like a child explaining their current obsession. Hospitality is their main dominion and so they will respect guests to the homes they reside in, and expect to be respected in turn. Offending them is easy, but they are often willing to explain the nature of the offense, and are quick to forgive if action is taken to remedy it.

Depending upon the local culture, ownership of the home falls either to the current residents or the attendant heart spirit. In the former case, the Hearth-Heads may seem more frustrated. They feel as if the home belongs to them, but are unwilling to go against the local customs. Like many (though not all) spirits, they are beings of rules, following the conventions of society more than the conventions of physics.

Summoning them is relatively easy, though more difficult outside of the lands they typically reside. Carve a representation of their head, allowing your instincts to guide the creation of the details of the object. The final touch is, of course, placing it in an appropriate spot of respect in a home. They may deny the invitation if they suspect trickery.

The benefits are more domestic than some may wish. As a guest, they will aid with the cleaning of the home, but only when none within the home may witness them doing so. They cannot always tell if someone is asleep, of course, so some may catch them by surprise.

Particularly respectful or kind homes may receive gifts, though they may seem like mere toys at a careless glance. These gifts often have spiritual properties, which may become apparent with time (or with sufficient insight into such matters). Discarding them is a grave offense, of course, but gifting them to another is far from such, and may even win greater favor from them.

The First To Die

He was born to rule the world.

It was his birthright, as the first being to be born. Alas, there was no world to rule, so he gave his life in sacrifice. From his body, the world and its inhabitants were forged.

As the first to die, he went where all who perish go. There. The Hereafter. Or perhaps it did not exist before he perished. Before him nothing had died, so perhaps he impressed his divine mind upon the fabric of the All and forged another world from his very spirit.

And so that world is his by deathright.

He stands thrice as tall as any observer, with great black vulture wings each thrice as long as he is tall. An immense Crown of Horns emerges from his crown and scalp. He wears nothing but a simple wrap-around skirt, or loincloth, for modesty. He is at once beautiful and horrifying. An Androgyne of unsurpassed beauty and vitality, and a ragged rotten corpse empty of all, and a mummified prince of the highest authority, and a sheer incomprehensible shadow over all of creation, and all the memories of all that have ever died and will ever die acting as one.

All at once. It is utterly maddening to be in his presence without some form of coping mechanism. He is no mere "greater spirit" but a fact of the world. A facet of the incomprehensible entity that is Everything. The stories presented thus far are merely one cultures understanding of what he is. He may manifest in other, stranger, or more familiar ways. Paradoxically all at once, oftentimes.

Those who die venture forth into his realm, his kingdom. Slowly they grow closer to him. Eventually, they are indistinguishable from him.

And then, they are reborn. He is no jailer. A King, certainly, but not a tyrant.

Those who remain in his kingdom longer than most are often those cursed beyond death, who escape to wander the living world at the first opportunity. Such beings are the origin of the Blood Drinkers, the Flesh Eaters, the Ghosts and more.

Not all who remain in his kingdom beyond death for long are cursed or afraid. Some remain to guide the next generations, staving off their rejuvenating metempsychosis for their sake.

The First To Die allows it, and so it may happen. It is unknown if he can truly be resisted, or if his factual nature is more akin to the flow of a river, that one can go against... Or perhaps sidestep completely?