Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
So, I started working on this this weekend, and I'm actually sort of pleased and wondering what the Playground thought. The basic idea is that the world was conquered by hell and the players are now struggling to reclaim it for humanity.
The Salvation War:
When a demon, specter, or one of the fallen is summoned, the gates of hell are weakened. One day, not past living memory, the gates of hell broke open. The world became both abattoir and tomb. The end had come. Only a small remanent of humanity survived, hidden in sacred groves, cyclopean temples, and sprawling monasteries where the demons would not tread. Hell was victorious. It seemed humanity would perish under siege, an ignoble end to all that had ever been good in the world.
Two things turned back this tide. Victorious, the forces of hell turned their attentions away from humanity and towards one another. War broke out, vicious cycles of reprisals began, and the war between the armies of hell grew even greater than the war they had waged against the race of man. Isolated in the ancient groves and temples, humanity saw things as they truly were. They would stand together and perhaps perish together, or they would perish regardless. The ancient familial bonds of humanity flourished and grew strong. Slipping out amidst the chaos, elite bands scavenged from the knowledge of the greatest saints and sage the keys to resealing the Gates of Hell. They launched decapitation strikes on the rulers of the individual legions and sealed the gates of hell simultaneously.
Now, the last remnants of humanity struggle to reclaim the world, foraging outward, facing their foes with sword and spell. Not only do the surviving legions continue to survive, even divided and incapable of cooperating, but ancient magical forces like the jinn, dragons, and the fey have returned and dominated broad sections of the world that lack for hellish or human governance.
The Sanctuaries:
Core to life on Achys as it stands now are the sanctuaries - Holy places of sufficient size to serve as makeshift cities. Far too densely packed, uncomfortable, and protected from riots only by the manifest fact that this is is the best they can do, these cities are the last shining beacons in a world that has gone incredibly dark. There are perhaps two dozen, but here are four opening examples relatively near one another.
The Isle of Refuge: In the southern gulf, measuring about four square miles, the Isle of Refuge is a holy site of Anankeans, where their founders fled before the foundation of the Necessitian Empire. Prior to the apocalypse, it was a fortress-monastery of a Necessitian order of militant nuns. The nuns welcomed refugees to the Isle and they remain immensely popular, if only because they hold the place by extremely loose reins. The place still has the look of a castle, though new housing is squeezed up against the walls and spaces so much that there’s hardly any space. Only the great chapel remains mostly untouched, but even it is converted to and from a sleeping and worship center every day.
The Tree of Simuri: To the east of the Necessitian empire, in the shattered jaw mountains, the Tree of Simuri blooms year round with golden blossoms (and they are actually made of gold). Reportedly where the sage Simuri achieved enlightenment, it had been a place of worship for centuries. Now, great tent cities fill the plateau and the rock below is constantly being carved out to expand space for new refugees. The monks are a contemplative order and not fond of the noise, but what is there to do? They have effectively given up on ever having their monastery back to a peaceful state, so they mostly default to the population’s preferences.
The Temple of the Gods: This great adamantine hall is sized far too large for human beings, measuring almost a mile long and seventy feet high. Persistent since time immemorial, there are murals of ancient and forgotten deities on all its walls, carved from the black metal that men don’t know how to forge. It lay abandon during the Necessitian Empire’s golden age, but a group of intellectuals re-claimed it during the twilight before the Apocalypse as a center of learning. They still reside there, but they haven’t held onto control. A group of refugees forced their way in, and opened the gates to others. Now, people sleep among large sacks of suspended books, ink and paper, and the roof of the temple is cultivated as garden. The place is nearly unbearably hot during the summer, but there are not a lot of other options.
The Unstoppered Oasis: Not technically holy land, but holy water, the unstoppered oasis is a lake in the middle of a desert. It is fresh, clean water and it never runs dry. Once, a whole community lived around the oasis, but most of its members perished during the first breakthrough of the legions. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, an intricate stilt city has sprouted over the oasis, relying on its holy nature to protect them from demonic attack.
Magic:
Understanding the present condition of humanity requires understanding the ways in which magic has long shaped culture on Achys. Of course, people in setting do not refer to it as magic - They simply view it as a part of physics. There are five substantial disciplines which would be classified as magic by us:
1) Summoning:
Summoning, the art of contacting entities from beyond our world, is primarily used to summon ghosts. The Grey Lands, whence these beings come, are a sort of temporary housing location for souls as they pass through this life to the next one. Ghosts report that it is very cold, that there is very little light there, and that they pulled away from the material realm. Strong preferences to remain, rooted in concern for kin or anger over wrongs, can hold ghosts in the Grey Lands for a time - But ultimately, all ghosts pass on, usually within a generation of their initial passage. Some religions encourage souls to settle affairs and move on quickly (as the Anankeans do), some encourage them to stay for a long time. Regardless, the ability to summon the souls of the dead and legitimately consult with them has had radical implications, ensuring that less knowledge is lost from generation to generation and also gives much peace of mind to those who lose their loved ones in sudden accidents.
The other usage of summoning is summoning from beyond the gates of hell. There are three kinds of residents - the suffering-fueled natives (demons), the damned (especially vile souls from Achys), called specters when summoned), and what appear to be the damned of higher realms of existence (called the fallen). This is called “diabolism”, regardless of which category of being is summoned. Though summoning the literal dregs of creation is unwise, they seem to be the only beings beyond the Grey Lands that actually respond - And they’re able to manifest physically, unlike ghosts, and perform tasks. They also amplify summoners in ways that seem impossible for humanity. All that summoned demons ask in return is the chance to inflict pain and the damned and fallen might as nothing at all, though all diabolist summons need to be kept under a close watch lest they betray the conditions of their summoning.
For a long time, religious prohibitions held back diabolism to a reasonable level and strict punishments prevented the practice from spiraling out of control. But a massive surge in urban population and the printing press combined to expand the ranks of potential summoners and their ambitions as nation-states began to use diabolists within their military and state structure. This weakened the wall from hell to Achys, precipitating the apocalypse.
2) The Flow (Blasting Magic)
The flow is the general term for martial arts that draw on ambient magic power to create blasts of force or fire. The principle is functionally the same for either, requiring specific motions and intentions from the users, aided by certain physical amplifiers in the form of inks and metals formed in specific ways. In terms of raw damage, the Flow is not particularly impressive - It might have the damage dealing potential of a crossbow bolt or sledge hammer, and its fiery form can be diffused by a variety of natural substances incorporated into armor and shields since time immemorial. But it is not deeply rooted in the physical health of its practitioner, at least no more so than (say) firearms.
While this doesn’t do much to help the peasantry, who didn’t have the time to practice the martial art and generally stick to crossbows or spears, it has made a very significant historical difference in the status of women. Partially as a result of this equality of force, although men still have a status advantage in Achys, it has never crested to the heights that were commonly achieved in our world - Combined with healing magics that made childbirth less dangerous and more effective natural contraceptives, pre-Salvation War Achys was more in line with the early 20th century than the late medieval view of women.
In the post-war period, as humanity is squished into the tight parameters of the sanctuaries the use of the Flow has multiple new primary applications. Restorative magic has made it possible to produce crops basically without limit, but the Flow is now taught en masse in order to provide for desalination and waste elimination. Consequently, the typical limit on growth within the sanctuaries is simply space.
3) Exorcism
Exorcism is a difficult and delicate art and would, once, have been a much less useful day to day skill. Few towns had more than one exorcist and they were generally viewed with suspicion because the skill was a necessary requisite to effective diabolism and otherwise basically only useful for killing ghosts. The power of exorcism is the power to reject and defy non-material entities, to banish them back into their place of origin, to uproot a soul from the Gray Lands without its permission, and even to bar spiritual entities from crossing boundaries.
Since the Apocalypse, exorcism skills have become in great demand and most people know the basics of the process, much like sowing or cooking (though acquiring the basic proficiency was much more difficult). This has enabled some limited outward expansion from the sanctuaries, simply because the demons find that battles of attrition with humans are generally undesirable in light of their more strictly controlled numbers supply.
4) Divination
Divination, the art of seeing the future, is an important part of Achys’ history. Although there are many understandings, from an outsider’s perspective divination discerns an individual’s future probabilistically - Which is to say, you need to have an individual present who is being divined for and the results of your divination only apply to that person. You cannot (theoretically) ask macro scale questions, such as the fate of the world or the destiny of nations. And since it works probabilistically, it cannot guarantee answers to be correct. It is also a difficult and subtle art, liable to be misunderstood by all but its greatest adherents.
But humans have had access to divination to some degree from the beginning of Achys’ history, and most of these limits are largely theoretical. It is perfectly possible to divine whether or not an individual king is liable to break a truce within the next year or so, because the answer will flicker very close to one hundred percent as opposed to in the low ten percents if the king is acting in bad faith. It is also possible to discern ambushes by using divination on soldiers or scouts. Discerning the actual course of a battle is difficult if not impossible to divine, because accident and misfortune come upon all people. It also makes an excellent fertility diagnosis and paternity test, if you can afford many castings. The process is difficult and it is not fast.
The history of Achys has been a less fraught and turbulent one, thanks to divination, though war and grief have frequently come upon the world regardless. However, it did cause a mass panic in advance of the apocalypse which was in the process of destroying several nations by the time the legions of hell broke forth upon the world. So there are benefits and drawbacks.
5) Healing
Healing magic mostly won’t effect an adventure very much - It is seldom miraculous, and the process of healing still takes time. It reduced disease, increased populations and reduced child mortality, and was a popular art for as long as it has been in existence. We already know the broad benefits of these effects, because we ourselves have lived with them. But the real historical difference that healing magic made was not in healing people but in healing land. About a hundred and seventy years before the apocalypse, the process for healing land was discovered in the Necessitian Empire. This more than doubled the food supply in the Necessitian Empire, who promptly rolled over most of their neighbors in a few decades. The expansion of the Necessitian Empire and its’ long golden age seemed to be coming to an end about forty years before when, in a distant corner of the southern continent, the weed warbler bird was discovered. Hated in that land because it ruined crops by overdrawing the soil to grow random seeds, it was possible to use flocks of them in conjunction with carefully cultivated greenhouses to grow a year’s worth of crops in a single day.
This started the process of urbanization that was still in process and hurling the Necessitan Empire into civil war right up until the heralding of the apocalypse.
Re: Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
Huh, now this is an interesting concept to explore. It raises a few questions though...
1. What were the levels of technology in the world before the Salvation war?
2. No other races are mentioned, but the existence of dragons and fey raise the question, have any humans been transformed into new races, or is it solely humanity vs demons?
3. Demons and holy forces are mentioned but there's no explicit mention of angels or divine forces overtly confronting them, do they exist at all?
Re: Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Clockwork333
Huh, now this is an interesting concept to explore. It raises a few questions though...
I thought so
Quote:
1. What were the levels of technology in the world before the Salvation war?
The short answer is all over the place. I'd sorted out that food production equals or surpasses modern food production, the printing press was in widespread use, the ship technology is probably early 18th century, military armor and weaponry is late medieval (gotta keep up that classic fantasy vibe), and gunpowder was not widespread (though the formula probably existed). Culturally, it was in the middle of an absolutely massive reconfiguration of society in the aftermath of the food (and therefore population) explosion that could be compared to a double whammy of the World Wars and the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars. Lots of war, lots of bloodshed, lots of benefit to be had through demon summoning.
Quote:
2. No other races are mentioned, but the existence of dragons and fey raise the question, have any humans been transformed into new races, or is it solely humanity vs demons?
There aren't any fully separate races of demihumans, as written. There might be genetic variations that we don't have in our own world, ala the Valyrians of ASOIAF, but no Totally Different Races in my mind. Though that's just personal preference due to the fact that history is probably short in Achys, like 1.5 thousand years since the cradle civilizations. Too many magical advantages not to give the edge.
Quote:
3. Demons and holy forces are mentioned but there's no explicit mention of angels or divine forces overtly confronting them, do they exist at all?
Well, almost everyone thinks that angels or divine beings exist in some form. But they haven't appeared to bail humanity out of its problems en masse (though there are certainly Touched by an Angel kind of stories floating around for every religion) and they can't be summoned. Anankean are classical theists, the religious culture of the Necessitian Empire was what you'd expect if the Enlightenment hit 8th century Arabia. The Anankeans had control where they were and were a slight majority, but the Tree of Simuri is the location of a non-revelatory philosophy-religion that focuses on escaping the wheel of reincarnation and the Temple of the Gods is an old religious site for an intricately connected spiritually kingdom organization from the first gods to the lowliest of tree spirits.
The factuality of all the specific religions is up for debate, but there is broadly agreed to be some sort of positive afterlife or higher realms of existence.
Re: Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
I haven't ever seen someone approach an After The End fantasy world following a demonic invasion, and the way you've implemented the concept is quite interesting. If you don't mind my asking, how many humans are still subjugated by the invading forces, and how are tieflings, (if they exist) viewed?
Re: Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tube Wizard
I haven't ever seen someone approach an After The End fantasy world following a demonic invasion, and the way you've implemented the concept is quite interesting. If you don't mind my asking, how many humans are still subjugated by the invading forces, and how are tieflings, (if they exist) viewed?
Probably ten times the population of the Sanctuaries are scattered across the continent in subjugated population, but the population loss is quite rapid.
Tieflings don't exist in a traditional sense, but if you wanted to include a bloodline particularly touched by Hell's influence, I suppose it would depend on which end of things you're asking about. The Sanctuaries would likely view such people highly suspiciously and the pre-war cultures might also have prohibitions punishing tieflings.
Re: Achys: The World That Hell Conquered
Quote:
Originally Posted by
White Blade
The Sanctuaries:
Core to life on Achys as it stands now are the sanctuaries - Holy places of sufficient size to serve as makeshift cities. Far too densely packed, uncomfortable, and protected from riots only by the manifest fact that this is is the best they can do, these cities are the last shining beacons in a world that has gone incredibly dark. There are perhaps two dozen, but here are four opening examples relatively near one another.
The Isle of Refuge: In the southern gulf, measuring about four square miles, the Isle of Refuge is a holy site of Anankeans, where their founders fled before the foundation of the Necessitian Empire. Prior to the apocalypse, it was a fortress-monastery of a Necessitian order of militant nuns. The nuns welcomed refugees to the Isle and they remain immensely popular, if only because they hold the place by extremely loose reins. The place still has the look of a castle, though new housing is squeezed up against the walls and spaces so much that there’s hardly any space. Only the great chapel remains mostly untouched, but even it is converted to and from a sleeping and worship center every day.
The Tree of Simuri: To the east of the Necessitian empire, in the shattered jaw mountains, the Tree of Simuri blooms year round with golden blossoms (and they are actually made of gold). Reportedly where the sage Simuri achieved enlightenment, it had been a place of worship for centuries. Now, great tent cities fill the plateau and the rock below is constantly being carved out to expand space for new refugees. The monks are a contemplative order and not fond of the noise, but what is there to do? They have effectively given up on ever having their monastery back to a peaceful state, so they mostly default to the population’s preferences.
The Temple of the Gods: This great adamantine hall is sized far too large for human beings, measuring almost a mile long and seventy feet high. Persistent since time immemorial, there are murals of ancient and forgotten deities on all its walls, carved from the black metal that men don’t know how to forge. It lay abandon during the Necessitian Empire’s golden age, but a group of intellectuals re-claimed it during the twilight before the Apocalypse as a center of learning. They still reside there, but they haven’t held onto control. A group of refugees forced their way in, and opened the gates to others. Now, people sleep among large sacks of suspended books, ink and paper, and the roof of the temple is cultivated as garden. The place is nearly unbearably hot during the summer, but there are not a lot of other options.
The Unstoppered Oasis: Not technically holy land, but holy water, the unstoppered oasis is a lake in the middle of a desert. It is fresh, clean water and it never runs dry. Once, a whole community lived around the oasis, but most of its members perished during the first breakthrough of the legions. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, an intricate stilt city has sprouted over the oasis, relying on its holy nature to protect them from demonic attack.
Only a few paragraphs, and yet bursting with flavour. I imagine an entire sourcebook could be spun out from this - kudos!
