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.
  

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.)

Some Spirits

 System agnostic and/or FKR. Your pick. Even if I was making them for OSE, I wouldn't give them stats. Spirits aren't mortal, and you aren't going to be able to hit them hard enough to do anything permanent to them. You don't get that luxury.

(That isn't to say you can't physically punch a spirit. It might be possible, especially with those who have very material manifestations, but its not going to do much more than buy some time.)

CW for the "Skindog" entry. Body horror, mutilation, (both specifically around skin and eyes), desecration of the dead, and a fucked up fantasy disease (like hypothermia on sterioids).

The others are nicer I promise.

Great River Spirit

It is the spirit of the river that fuels all life at its banks, and the savannahs beyond it. A serpent covered in green fur, or perhaps river-algae, nine paces wide and of a length that cannot be estimated. Some say it winds forever, slithering through both the material and immaterial worlds.

Around its head, the "fur" forms a great mane, like that of a lions, though green as the rest. It has the face of a human, androgynous and breathtakingly beautiful, though its ears are pointed, furred and swivel like those of a deer. A bulls horns sprout from its head, a crown one is truly born with. It opens its mouth and there are great fangs as long as scimitars, rows and rows and rows that seem to open to eternity. Its eyes are like great black pearls set into its face, with rings of glowing gold set in as irises.

Though its manifestation is great, it is not a showy spirit. It manifests infrequently, more often as a mere premonition. Ripples in the river that go against its flow, impossibly. A glimpse of its fur, the glint of gold in the silt. These glimpses are held by the wise ones to be signs of its favor, or its displeasure. Though most often it alternates between passive disinterest and cautious curiosity.

It is a spirit that comes and goes as it pleases. Only the truly mighty and skilled could ever hope to summon, bind or exorcise it. And even then, it likely would not stick...

To channel a fraction of its power grants one a measure of control over the currents and flooding of its river, and a degree of influence over any river one may encounter, as their spirits would instinctively recognize the favor of their kin.

It is said to be able to teach one the arts of the serpents, to strike empty handed and yet leave venom in your foes blood, to twist and flex in impossible ways, and to take upon the very form of a serpent, but if so it has not shared this secret in generations.

Mushwisps

They dwell beneath the soil of forests of many kinds, though they favor those that grow the sacred mushrooms. They are spirits of connection, of mutualism and symbiosis, and so it is kindness and aid that can bring their favor.

Their appearance is preceded by the sprouting of sacred mushrooms, typically in circular, spiraled or networked patterns. This is a gift they give willingly and freely, as the mushrooms would have to sprout regardless.

They do not often manifest, but one can see them if they partake of the sacred substances. They look like glimmering cobwebs, dancing on winds that do not exist. The "cobwebs" flicker and glow with different colors, dancing between them all at once. Other sorts of spirits, unique or common, may dance among them, as they are an easy companion to make.

They often congregate in great numbers, for individually they are little more than a flicker of power. They are never alone, even when they are not congregating, and they will favor those that seek companionship and help, as well as those who give it, drawing them together.

All spirits are difficult to channel, but these ones require little in the way of convincing. However one cannot channel only one of them, and it is very difficult to convince only a few of them to, for they are reluctant to part individually.

If one succeeds, they find that they grow luckier in opportunities for mutualistic relationships, in forming relationships, and if they are learned in the Arts they will find that sympathetic magic gleefully springs to their fingertips. However, the host will come to find that perishables that remain in their presence for more than a day are prone to sprouting mushrooms. These will often be common ones, but occasionally rarer ones may emerge...

Lunar Owls

They are meddlers, and prefer to manifest, rather than simply observe. They are preceded by the sight of blood diffusing in waters that are illuminated by a full moon. This is a major component of rituals to summon them, which must be conducted under the full moon.

They sometimes simply take the form of an owl, albiet one in impossible shades and sizes. Like the owl, they fly silently and hunt with absolute precision, but this is not why they are summoned.

More often, they take a theriocephalic form. They appear as nude figures, of any gender or combination, albeit lacking genitalia and nipples. They have an owls head with eyes like the full moon, dextrous birds-feet with great talons for feet and hands, and either great wings with a wingspan of six times their considerable height, or a cloak of owl-feathers.

Their skin is extraordinarily smooth, like that of a baby, or like silk, and so pale as to almost be luminescent under the moonlight. This gives them their most common euphemism, "Ghost-Owls."

They deal in memories, blood and secrets, and they will exchange these with a subject. They are not hunters, despite their skill, they "partners" and "patrons." They will exchange much for blood, and when it is agreed to be given their beaks will open, and a long spiny tongue will emerge to swiftly swipe away their payment.

It is said that there are very few of these spirits who descend to the earth regularly. They are prideful and find the mortal world to be beneath their interest. Those that do offer arcane and sorcerous secrets in exchange for blood, but the blood required to learn such things is far to much for just one to bare. This concerns them little.

They can be warded with certain herbal smokes and ritual chants, protective circles, as well as by the coming of the dawn, and by lunar eclipse.

To channel their power, one must regularly offer blood. The source is irelevant, but they enjoy variety. Do this, and they will grant you their ability to see through illusions and lies, to move silently, and to move through the air impossibly. Please them especially well, or provide genuinely enthralling entertainment, and they may offer arcane secrets for very little or even no blood. However, to host their spirit is to take upon their thirst, and while normal food and drink will sustain you, nothing with match the rush of fresh blood.

Skindogs

Conjured by sorcerers of a darker disposition, these spirits make a dangerous, though valuable, reperitore of servants. Native to the darker pits of the Lands of the Dead, these spirits coagulate from bloodshed, venom, defilement and hatred that persists beyond death.

Their unmanifest presence can be ascertained by the clotting of blood, the unforeseen worsening of the effects of venoms and poisons, and the nervousness of animal life, which will become quiet as they move through the world.

They are horrifying when manifested. Imagine a dog that can walk upright as a man, imagine it can hold tools and weave delicately with its hands, imagine it stripped of all its skin, with its eyes left as pitch black pits in its skeletal face. Imagine it may laugh a pitched laugh and descend upon its victims with claws and fangs dripping with dark malice. Imagine what act must be performed to bring such a thing into this world.

Their claws and fangs are not venomous in the way a snakebite is. They carry a dark curse, rather than a physical venom. Victims will find themselves with a horrific fever, that slowly gives way to a dark chill. Unlike freezing to death, there is not the mercy of an eventual warmth as your body ceases to be able to recognize the cold. This curse will force the chill to grow impossibly deeper.

In the terminal stages, visions assail the victim. They can glimpse the world of the dead. Far more unfortunately, the Skindog will be able to track the victim so long as the curse exists in their veins.

Those unfortunate who fall victim to them will perish, but the Skindog may yet inhabit their corpse, driving it to further horrors. The spirit will tend to mutilate the body ritually, stripping away skin and eyes.

They are summoned by a defiling blood rite. A corpse must be ritually prepared, for the spirit to emerge from, and a bowl of blood must be mixed with a toxic substance of some kind. The resulting mixture must be poured over the body and its eyes and lips (at the very least) must be removed. If successful, the creature will inhabit the corpse, and may yet emerge from it.

If channeled, they allow you to infuse your weapons, bites and magic with their accursed venom, though you will suffer from constant pain that you will never, never grow completely used to.

Binding it is a different matter. Exorcisms involve salts, healing herbs, spices and incense, all of which drive the spirit to a destructive fury, yet force that fury inward. Though not guaranteed to succeed (unless an impressive amount of each substance is used), the spirit will likely appear to tear itself apart from sheer rage. The spirit has in fact, died. However the spirit was already dead, and may yet be summoned again. Similar treatments can purge its curse from its victims, and must be done so before or after its death, for if the victim does die in the later stages the spirit can use them as a way back into the land of the living.

The Thing That Fell

Of all the spirits presented thus far, this one is most associated with a physical location.

As you approach it, the rainforest grows more and more tangled, and more and more active, until you are fighting against actively coiling vines and swaying trees to get through. They hold no malice, they do not even realize you are there. Cutting through will only cause them to grow more tangled, as they supernaturally burst with yet more vitality. Move with the plants, and you will find passing through a simple (though drawn out), process.

Eventually you will emerge from the tangle, into the crater itself. The plant life refuses to move or grow into the crater itself, forming a wall of sorts.

The crater is enormous. A kilometer wide and half a kilometer deep, and there at its heart, that which fell from the heavens.

Once you come within a quarter of a kilometer of the great thing, the sky will change. Regardless of the time, it will be lit as if it were twilight, and stars will be visible. Strange stars you have never seen, in colors that stars never are.

It will be like the night sky completely unblemished by light that would interfere with you seeing it, yet alien. No milky way, but spirals and networks and contorted globular formations. All alien. All beautiful.

Reading this sky may reveal many things, but this is beyond the scope of this post.

The object at its heart is impossible. A glossy black geometric object of uncountable and ever-shifting sides and vertices, etched with constantly shifting glyphs and sigils. It is ten meters wide, and when coming within tens of meters of it, reality will seem to become more fluid. You will find inconsistencies in how you percieve the earth beneath you, the rainforest beyond and even the dimensions of space and time. The sky will remain unchanged, and the fallen things position and properties will be unchanged. All else will seem inconsistent.

Making contact with the object will allow you to channel its power if you possess the necessary skill, otherwise you will fall into a trance and find yourself outside of the crater, having lost several hours of time. If you succeed it will grant you some strange property or ability which defies the rules of creation. What you gain is not consistent. Perhaps you can find faster ways between two places than a straight line, or perhaps you can impose a bit of its destabilizing nature on the world around you, or perhaps you learn the secret to some strange new form of sorcery.

When you dream, you will dream of the Fallen Thing and the alien sky. You will dream of strange places that you've never been. You will dream of other skies as well, all alien, many with objects you do not have names for. When your mind wanders, the sky will seem to warp into these alien skies.

Perhaps there are spirits you will find in these dreams, in these alien lands and skies.

If the Fallen Thing can act, it never does. If it can think, it shows no signs.

Awakening: Modern Occult Horror

 It is time.

Gravity falls is a huge inspiration to me.

History

For nearly all of human history and prehistory, the mystic and the occult have existed alongside us. Those who understand and utilize mystical forces have been called many names, and inhuman entities always have and always will exist alongside our "mundane" reality.

In the past, this was open and blatant. However, as the Church grew in power, and as those in power grew suspicious of those with preternatural capabilities, repression and secrecy have been the norm for the last few centuries. Enlightenment era philosophy and strict control over society have forced the occult even further into the backdrop.

However, such things cannot last.

With the advent of computer networking and global communication networks, it was inevitable that something would happen that would finally shatter the dam of unbelief.

In 2005, something awoke. A series of protoplasmic lifeforms from the depths of an undercity emerged and wreaked havoc on the local population of continental Europe. Significant firepower, and occult bindings, were deployed to finally quell the menace, but not before several buildings, hundreds of lives and thousands of livelihoods were ruined.

That was sort of the final nail in the coffin of the "masquerade." Global communications weren't too advanced but they were good enough to finally burn that thin veil down.

Its believed the previous event is one of the main causes for the 2008 market crash, and other less mundane disasters.

It is now 2025. A mere 2 decades after the occult was fully revealed. This is where we are now.

Imagine if a sword and sorcery weird/dark fantasy world progressed to the modern age, and the enlightenment resulted in a repression of inhumans, occult practices etc. Then the internet (and weird Lovecraftian slimes) busted open that façade. That's the setting.

Scp Foundation too. Souce: "Sunny Clockworks"

Tone and Themes

The idea is to not be overly pessimistic about the innate evils of humanity, while also going full throttle into the horrors humanity can be.

"Humans are the real monsters" is boring, but some humans are certainly monstrous. So players will encounter some fucking evil people, but most people don't want to murder them in their sleep.

Most.

Magic isn't unilaterally 100% evil. It is, however, dangerous. The mechanics reflect this.

You can play as inhuman beings, but there are things much worse than you out there. There always will be.

Basically, its horror but its not judgmental about humanity as a whole. Just those with too much power, hatred or lack of care for other lives. Monstrous things still exist though so you're not off the hook.

B.P.R.D. too. Ogdru-Hem and Ogdru-Jahad are awesome.

The World

I'm sort of "Arkhamizing" the world. Cities and towns exist basically in the same areas, but renamed and shuffled a bit, culturally, due to differences caused by the weirdness.

Deep time is as real life, but weirder things are woven into the fabric of it.

The world is being generated with Silent Legions and Esoteric Enterprises methods. They're good books for that.

Other realities sort of exist "alongside" our own. These range from a room that shouldn't be able to fit into a house, to an earth sized (or larger) realm with its own rules and laws of physics. These are collectively referred to as earths "Shoals" (singular, Shoal) due to them not being full universes. At least not obviously, some definitely have things in the sky that imply there's more to them, but that's neither here nor there.

Otherwise the specifics of the world are up in the air. Different games can and should result in different plots and cults being uncovered, different threats and different gods.

My personal setting is going to take place in the deep south of the United States. Urban, Suburban, Rural and Wilderness shits all throughout there so it should be fun and variable. No reason characters can't go to places outside, but that's the "setting" for my personal game.

Trevor Hendersons old found footage art too. Gods this is cool.

The Mechanics

Heavily modified from Esoteric Enterprises, mixed with a number of mechanics found around the web. I'll link inspirations or direct sources for certain mechanics if I can remember them. A post for character creation will be up soon, and then magic.

I'll make a masterpost of all the rules at some point, for players and people wanting to run with the system.

Anyways, thats it for now. Just needed to get this out so I can move on to working on the nitty gritty of the system.