Stats and Doing Things.:
Stats will remain, until such time as I see fit, a simple affair detailing only in relative terms your military and economic might. The focus of this NES will be overarching cultural themes and affairs rather than the nitty-gritty numbers involved in what happens. As Lord of Elves put it in The Noisome Silence:
Stats will look something like this:
Culture Name: (Thurandal Nunehi/Thomas.berubeg)
Economic Strength: (5) - Relative strength of your economy to that of the world
Economic Description: (hunting and herding, occasional fishing from coastal groups) - Simple description of your economy
Military Strength: (5) - Relative strength of your military to that of the world
Military Description: (light cavalry with minor spirit support) - Simple description of your military
Cultural influence: Decaying, Susceptible to outside influences - How influential you are to your neighbors
Cities: (Nurn Torgis, Nurn Alban, Nurn Ghottan) - Important cities
When sending orders, please remember that the initial turns of the NES will span centuries, if not more. Your orders should outline the direction you envision your culture moving. Realistically, most, if not all cultures, won’t survive beyond a few turns, but their descendants and legacy most certainly will.
Magic
Magic in the context of the sending orders is pretty vague. Most magic, aside for necromancy, is performed through the intermediary of Spirits, who agree to perform tasks for individuals or stats they feel a bond or duty to. In that light, almost anything is doable, so long as you can find and convince and appropriately powerful spirit, or one of the right domain, to act for you. This is very much a faustian bargain, though, as many spirits require some form of payment or promise to act in the mortal world.
Spirits:
Spirits exist in many different shapes and forms, but can be classified to a certain degree. While many may cross into reality from the Spirit World or back, only spirits with considerable power can do so at will.
The weakest of spirits are called sparks, very simple entities generated by a concept or object in the physical world. When manifest, they tend to appear as motes of light of a color reminiscent of their origin: As such, fire sparks tend to appear as glowing motes, while a Joy spirit may appear as a multicolored flashes of light. These spirits are generally not intelligent, and dissipate with the end of their creative force. These spirits can only gain in power and intelligence by joining with, or consuming, like sparks (Or spark within the same family – A fire spirit can consume or join with a lightning spirit or love spirit, but can NOT absorb a water spirit. Sparks who manage to break this rule become very dangerous entities.) Sparks cannot travel into reality without being called by a Shaman.
The entities known simply as spirits are generally associated with locations or concepts. Spirits tend to come into being by sparks congregating in great number becoming a single entity. These spirits run the gamut of consciousness and power from barely greater than a spark to immensely powerful. However, no matter how powerful these spirits are, they are unable to break the bonds that bind them. As such, no pain spirit can give up the opportunity to cause pain, nor can a hunger spirit resist consuming. As a rule, these spirits have individual names, have agendas, and can be bargained with or befriended. These spirits tend to look in some way like what they represent: An animate flame, a woodland animal, a shrouded figure. Spirits may generally cross into reality at will, but this requires much effort which most are only willing to expend under dire need or when a great anger spurs them.
The highest class of spirits are known as Marids. These are spirits that have grown far beyond their purview. While there a limits to how they can use their power, these boundaries are usually infinitesimal compared to the power they wield, as most are so powerful and intelligent they can find all kinds of loopholes in their bans. Marids may cross boundaries in reality at will.
All spirits belong to a spirit family, each with specific common attributes, though by no means common ideals or personalities. These families are associated with an element, and, after the waking, an aspect of Essence.
- Afrit: Spirits of fire and intellect
- Undine: Spirits of water and relations (charisma)
- Djinn: Spirits of air and agility
- Huaca: Spirits of Earth and strength
- Aether: Spirits of essence, long since banished and their domain split between the other families.
Mankind and the Spiritkin
Humanity was dragged wholesale into The Waking without truly comprehending the enormity of the event. Nevertheless, many of the spirit families took populations of humans, either to protect them or to use them as soldiers in the war. Those human populations in close proximity to a spirit family were changed at a fundamental level by the spirits, and have since come to collectively be called Spiritkin, though they see themselves as different from each other as from common humans.
Races:
- Humans are still the most numerous of the known races.
- Devas were used by Afrits and so are generally more intelligent but also more volatile than humans. Their skin varies from a light copper to a deep bronze or even red, depending on the area.
- Huldras were humans taken in by Djinn, and thus are longer lived and are more agile than humans.
- Nunnehi were patronized by Huacas and as such are stronger and squatter than baseline humans.
- Loreley were humans who lived closely with undine. Generally very affable, Loreley tend towards lifestyles that favor nomadic traders and merchants. Their skin tends to blueish, with softly colored hair.
- Dey were stolen by Aether spirits to use against the subjects of the other families. They appear insubstantial, as if a strong breeze could knock them over, but display a great strength. Generally hated and reviled for the sins of their fathers, Dey live in isolated communities in the far reaches of the earth, but sometimes the art of being swells their blood veins and the only way they can let the energy out is by doing something that is greater than anything else. Those who travel far tend to become wandering musicians, artists, thieves, and advisors to the highest kings.
These are by no means the only races, but simply the more common ones: However, no known Non-human race has emerged from any spiritual contact but that during the nightmare.
Within these racial boundaries (and often times spanning many) there are myriads of peoples, languages, cultures, and appearances. Not all will be stronger than humans, nor all Devas more intelligent.
Souls and Death:
There is an immense difference between the Soul of a mortal being and a spirit. A spirit is born of and grows from the environment around it, while a soul is a unique and special thing that only a mortal carries.
In death, all souls flow through the great river to the Sea of Dreams, which is found between the spirit world and the mortal world. The Sea of Dreams is the ocean in which the worlds float, and made of the stuff of souls. It is pure and incorruptible.
The great river has five cataracts, waterfalls that wash away aspects of mortality from the dead.
The first cataract is Being, which washes away all the memories of the dead. Beyond that point, the souls of the dead will not recall anything from their life, though their personalities are intact.
The Second is Water, and beyond it, souls lose the abilities to assert their will.
The third is Air, and beyond it, souls, if brought back to Earth, must wear an artificial body of clay, dirt, and flesh.
The Fourth Cataract is Fire, and passing through it strips a soul of the reasonings of mankind. Souls that have passed beyond Fire and brought back to earth are immensely powerful, immensely malevolent beings that can be bound to the will of a powerful mage, as they have little ability to reason.
The fifth and final cataract is Earth, and it strips the soul of the strength that bound it to earth, and beyond it souls are pure and wash into the Sea of Dreams where they are eventually reborn.
Entire aspects of magic revolve around speaking to and enslaving the souls of the dead before they reach the sea of dreams, but practitioners of necromancy are reviled and hated throughout most of the world. Some argue, however, that the essence of a person is not washed away, but rather carried somewhere different, and that with enough power, or will, or luck, one can contact the dead long after the soul has drifted beyond recognition.
