History
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Once upon a time, mortals lived alongside ghosts and incorporal creatures in the plane of spiritual energy.
Despite living in relative peace, the incorporal creatures viewed corporal creatures as inferior, and that even being an enslaved spirit is better then being corporal. Some had a view more of a "parental" racism, believing that being corporal is like childhood and dying and becoming a ghost is like turning into an adult, and some believed that corporal creatures are abominations. They believed that killing a corporal creature actully helps him, becuse it turns him into a ghost, an incorporal creature.
But that view started to change.
Some mortals let spirits posess them temporerly, and "ride" them. Just to see how it was being corporal, and saw it wasn`t so bad being corporal. That phenomenon became more and more common, and it worried lord Masat.
Masat hated corporal creatures, and commanded a vast army of spirits. He worried that if spirits would stop believing that they are superior, it will hurt the morale. Combined with his great hatred, that led him to launch an attack on all corporal creatures. Very quickely they decided to run, and moved to a diffrent plane.
They moved to a plane filled with clouds. They found an enormous cloud and with magic changed it to become like the ground they are used to, and moved in. The natives of the cloud went to other clouds, and the natives of the plane of clouds thought of mortals as invaders and not as refugees. There were a few battles, but no full scale war. The natives who attacked lived in clouds above the mortal cities.
One day, some mortals decided that enough is enough, and that the aggresive natives must be killed. So they cast a spell to create poison gas.
The attack failed, as the natives managed to dispel the magic quickely with only a few casulties. As revenge, they cast a spell which droped an eternal rain, to drown the mortals. They made sure the water won`t flow sideways and slip downwards, and that dispelling the spell in normal means won`t work.
The kingdom Kinhet
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One of the kingdoms of mortals was Kinhet. To save themselves from drowning, their mages surrounded select cities in dome shaped forcefields. Many immigrents from all around the country ran to those cities, which cuased the cities to become very crowded. Quickely tunnels to connect between the cities were made, and many subternean creatures were slaughtered in the way, some that surrendered joined the cities and made them more crowded.
Floors were built, neighborhoods on top of each other. The building process went quickely since magic was used a lot, and the crowdness problam got solved.
Each city except from the capitol got many floors, the higher the floor the lower the quality of the metariels it`s made of, and there are many pillars. Floor distance ranges from 10 to 20 feet. Lower floors tend to be further apart from each other.
Many staircases exist between floors, but there is always a spiral staircase in the middle of the city, from the top floor to underground.
The higher you go, the worse the socio-economic state is. Some nobles live underground, while some payed a wizard to create a private demiplane.
The cities are enclosed in a half transperent, blue glowing domes. Parts of the city that light from the domes don`t reach them are completly dark, mostly around the central spiral staircases. The originally underground races live there.
The domes are unstable, and once every few days there is a leak. Prior to the leak, in a range of between a few seconds and a few hours, part of the dome seems to twist. The abjurers that are tasked with keeping the domes and their students fix those leaks quickely with temporery magic, and then use a more long term solution of human sacrafice.
It`s not a secret that humanoids are sacraficed to keep the domes active, but it`s a secret that it isn`t neccesery. If the abjurers will do a magic ritual in which they will injure themselves and give up a portion of their power, it would keep the dome they are in charge of active for years without leaks and without need for maintaince. But the abjurers don`t want to do that, so they sacrafice random people. It is well known that anyone who disrespects an abjurer is sacraficed.
The capital is diffrent from the other cities. Besides some palaces that were built, it is like it was before the rain, and the protactive dome is much more powerfull and stable. The formerly underground races serve the nobles there.
About enslaved spirits and spirit armies in the spiritual plane
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Most enslaved spirits were criminals or rebellers. After being captured, they were enslaved. Enslaved spirits look like they wear black cloths or armor, and always wear a mask. They have one or two tiny vases with them, sometimes held in a belt.
Their appearence signifies who is their master, usually the one who enslaved them. In the vases they can hold souls of creatures they defeat. The more recently the spirit was enslaved, the more detailed it looks, since masters improve in shaping their slaves appearence. Behind the mask, there is no face. If an enslaved spirit becomes free willed, it gains a face.
The sociel structure in the spiritual plane is feudal – enslaved spirits are vassals of masters, which are vassals of other masters etc, and Masat got the biggest number of masters and enslaved spirits under his command. Some spirits that are in his territory are not soldiers, and are more like citizens, and he genuinely cares about them and protacts them.
I haven`t manged to decide what will be the CR of enslaved spirits, what do you think it should be?
I won`t use any of the aquan races that exist, instead I`m planing on making templates for humanoids who changed themselves to become like aquatic creatures, each will be +1 or +2 LA and will fit any humanoid. What kind of freshwater fish I could take inspiration from to create those templates and monsters?
Also, what do you think in general about what I wrote?
Added in later then the rest:
Due to feedback from Ituem, the mortals who escaped to the plane of clouds would be called landed, and the natives of the plane of clouds would be called the clouded.
The clouded:
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The clouded are humanoid in form, with wings and without a head. Each one of them got eyes in an unusal place, and normally they cannot hear, smell and speak (see drawers and oparators). Their height is between 6.5 to 8 feet.
They contact each other by telepathy, and can only contact other clouded by telepathy. Due to the difficulity of communication, most of them know very little about the landed, and some believe that they are almost unintelegant.
Their homes are crafted in the clouds, made by moving bits of the cloud.
There are four subraces of clouded:
Drawers: Their wings are straight and red, and their skin is bright blue. Their fingertips have no nails, and glow with bright green colour, and sometimes a diffrent colour when they draw. Their eyes are where their shoulders are.
They can extract naturel colour from their fingertips and draw runes with them, even on the air. Each rune got a diffrent rule, with runes they can see, hear, set off trap, teleport or attack. They can carve the runes instead of drawing them, making them harder to get rid of, and they can do it on any solid surface (like flesh) and on clouds, but it takes much more time then drawing.
They rather blind their foes in the start of battles. In a clouded kingdom wth mixed subraces, they serve as politicans, police and secret police.
They feel no desparation or boredom, so they have no problam to dedicate days to carving runes.
Oparators: Their body is wide, their white wings look short compared to their body. They are very musceler and their skin is grey. Their eyes are in their shoulders, and their hands come out of the middle of their torso.
The oparators can use objects that lost their power – used wands, scrolls etc. It also works on things that are not usefull regulary – if they would hold a corpse, they could control the corpse movements, access his memories, known leanguages, senses, and be able to speak through the corpse. To talk to humans, oparators ripped off heads, held them and talked using the heads.
If an object is broken or badly damaged, they can not use it.
In mixed clouded kingdoms, they buy objects no others can use, often in exchange for favours, so sometimes they act like servents. They use yellow harppon like spears, which can shoot lightnings. In the hands of any other clouded, they only shoot a lightning once.
Oparators feel no compassion, and since landed only had a chance to talk with oparators which held heads, that led them to believe that the clouded are complete monsters.
Focusers: Their feathers are long and white but their wings are short, their skin is dark grey. Their body is much more narrow then the averge clouded, and their four eyes are in both of the sides of their palms.
They can focus their magic power and use it effectively in groups. They can also donate pure magical force to be used later. They can cast very powerfull spells togather, and it was a big group of focusers who activated the eternal rain.
In mixed clouded kingdoms, they act as mages. Usually when they cast spells as a group they put their hands on their shoulders.
They feel no pain, no physical neither mental, so they have no problam casting spells while they are attacked.
Catchers: Their wings are metalic, their hands are limp and flexible, and their big eyes are in both the sides of their wings. Their skin is white.
The catchers are known for their speed, and can catch almost every ranged attack – spears, lightnings, ray attacks, and then return the attack to the sender (or to someone else). They can suddenly move in great speed, and move quickely normally. They can shoot some of their metalic feathers and use them as long range weapons, like arrows, and can create a small storm of feathers, and their feathers take a few hours to grow back.
In mixed kingdoms, they serve as soldiers, messengers and body guards.
They have no worries, fears or hesitation, so they are very determined.
The slaves of the clouded:
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During the rain, some landed crafted ships. They were crafted so the water would slip from it, so the ship would stay afloat.
However, they did not count the clouded.
The clouded destroyed the ships and catptured them, making them their slaves on the more physical clouds. They work on crafting palaces for the clouded.
It is very easy to craft from clouds, but it is very hard to correct mistakes, and the usual punishment is death. Some landed also fall slowly through a cloud in their sleep, falling to the water and drowning to death.
