The Before-Things

 Before we begin, it is important to note that the Before-Things do not exist. They aren't imaginary, because something imagined is something that can be conceived of, can be described to others, can even be given a physical form, if you're a decent artist. Before-Things aren't like that. They are real, in the sense that they can physically alter the world around them, but regardless of that fact, they do not exist.

Maybe it'll make more sense if I explain exactly what Before-Things are.

Before-Things are the remnants of everything that has ever been retroactively removed from reality. Obviously, no one knows what the things which have been removed are, because if anyone knew what had been removed, than it clearly hasn't been properly removed. More than likely, even the beings which caused the removal aren't even aware that they did it. All that they'd remember is performing a ritual in order to destroy something that already does not, never has, and cannot possibly ever exist. This is, for obvious reasons, impossible. 

So, then, what are Before-Things? If a concept really is so utterly erased, how is it possible that remnants are left behind?

It's probably best if I explain with an example. Imagine for a moment that the color orange is retroactively annihilated. This doesn't mean that everything orange disappears, or that people start seeing different colors where orange once was, or that everyone stops considering orange to be a color distinct from red, it's just that orange, as a physical thing and as an idea, just stops. It stops ever having existed in the first place.  It stops having ever not existed, because the non-existence of something necessarily implies that opposite is possible as well. Orange stops being  conceivable. Not individuals, not by a cultural zeitgeist, not by the zapping of neurons, not even in the inexpressible way by which reality perceives itself. It is just fucking gone.

In this situation, what happens to foxes?
Foxes are orange, but they aren't only orange.  There is more to fox-dom than just the fact that they are orange. Foxes have other colors on them. They have claws, and fur, and eyes, and many things within them that are not the color orange.  

To be clear, when I say that foxes have things that aren't orange, I don't mean that they have things that aren't colored orange. They do, but that's beside the point. When I say that foxes have things that aren't orange, I mean they have things that aren't orange in the same way that a flag, even a flag that is entirely colored orange, is still a flag, and not a color. Back to foxes.

As I was saying, orange may be gone, but there's still plenty of fox left over. The problem is that foxes don't just changes colors, once orange disappears. Foxes do not suddenly become blue. Instead, the color of a fox is now something that doesn't exist, and that causes... Problems. 

This, in essence, is what the Before-Things are. They're objects with traits that no longer exist. They're stuck in a paradoxical state of simultaneous existence and non-existence, and non-existence is winning. Reality doesn't recognize them anymore, and so they're being erased. That's where it ends, for most of them. They quietly wink out of ever-having-been. Some of them, though, figure out the only way they can extend their lifespan - Being recognized. 

Sure, they can't get the universe to remember them, but they can get people to, and that's the next-best thing. How do they accomplish this? Doesn't matter! Most often, it's almost murdering someone. There are few times you're more focused on perceiving something than when you're fighting for your life, and trauma flashbacks will provide some sustenance for years to come.

It doesn't matter, though. They're fighting a losing battle. The question isn't whether or not they'll cease to exist, it's how long until they do. 

How do you use any of this shit?

Fuck if I know.

The Atlanteans

Depending on how things go, this may be the first post I'll be writing about an entirely new setting. There's also a chance I'll cannibalize it and reuse ideas on Egharl. Maybe it'll grow in the telling and end up becoming its own goddamn setting. Maybe I'll get bored and never write about this again. There is literally no way for anyone to predict what is about to happen. Fuck you, I'm horrid at this.

The Ocean is not a happy place. To be fair, most places in the world are not happy. The Oceans aren't an exception.

The Atlanteans, as they will be called until I get a better name for them than "Atlanteans", are one of the causes of this unhappiness. Scholars broadly divide them into four groups, who I will now vaguely gesture my way through. Hopefully, it'll make more sense once I'm out of the introduction.

They aren't humans. They're humanoid, but they look more like the Sahaugin than anything else I can easily describe.

The first group are generally known as "People of Basalt". They take their name from their place of origin, unsurprisingly known as the "Basalt City", which itself is built around, you fucking guessed it, the "Basalt Crystal".

Poor naming scheme aside, it isn't inaccurate. To those with enough time to pursue magic, the Basalt Crystal is everything. To everyone else, the city that depends on those people is. Magical power is derived from the Basalt Crystal, mystical visions are divined from the Basalt Crystal, and perhaps most importantly, the Basalt Crystal allows for a sort of mass production that would otherwise be impossible underwater. There are real, working forges in the Basalt City - Hell, they work better than most forges on the surface do. They can't really be used to make metal weapons, but they can be combined with an obscure magical process to create, you guessed it, basalt weapons.

For whatever reason, this power has not been used to create an empire. Instead, the Basalt City was created, and then expanded, and eventually it became a hellish network of identical tubes for anyone who isn't a native. In general, the People of the Basalt are remarkably isolationist. Still engaged in an eternal war with the rest of the world, but who isn't?

The "People of  Waves" are the most widespread of the bunch. I struggle to describe specifics because I don't have any especially distinctive traits to build around, so I'll talk about hierarchy for a minute.

Atlanteans never stop growing. By the time they're considered adults, they're slightly shorter than the average man. Hundred years after that, and they're about the size of an ogre. Should they manage to survive to somewhere around their 250s, they'll rival most giants for size. They're also organized into a very strict age-based hierarchy. In effect, the bigger you are, the higher up on the ladder you are.

That being said, very few make it to their 250s. As a Person of the Waves, your life is going to go one of four ways. Either you show the aptitude to become either a mage or a priest, and are probably killed in line of duty and/or murdered by rivals, you become skilled enough at your chosen trade that you're allowed to hang around as a teacher, or you don't manage to do any of that and you're shipped off to war once you hit middle-age. Besides the very real need for troops to fuel an unending, omni-directional war in the sea, this also helps make sure that no one gets powerful enough to threaten the order of things. This system exists to some degree in every group of Atlanteans, but it's most obvious and most strict among the People of the Waves.

Above the seas, they do a brisk trade in coal, mostly with the Vampire Barons, in exchange for the mass-produced products that coal makes possible. It's a mutually beneficial agreement, all things considered.

The Vampire Barons will definitely get their own post, later down the line. They're the thing that inspired this whole as-yet-unnamed setting.

Next up, "People of Ice". It's speculated that they were originally a group of one of the other types, who were forced into Arctic regions by the Pelagics, another group of fish-people who may eventually get their own post. Whatever the case, they've managed to endure the cold weather and, through whatever means, stumbled upon the rare art of Ice-Crafting. Occasionally, they send trading expeditions South. These expeditions are huge, sailing on broken-off chunks of glacier, maintained by hundreds of Atlanteans and at least two mages - One to steer the ship and one to keep it frozen. They aren't afraid of the ship sinking, but they're pretty damn easy to board. These voyages are incredibly hectic.

They're also necromancers. Not the kind where you go through elaborate rituals to reanimate a corpse under some external power, because that kind of extremely expensive and generally inefficient. The kind where you make a corpse really easy for a spirit to inhabit, set up a few wards, and then pray to whatever deities you hold that it does what you want it to and doesn't go fucking berserk. 

Finally, we have the "People of Coral". They live in coral. They make their tools out of coral. Generally, they're thought to be a bunch of disconnected and uncivilized tribes who mostly occupy themselves with raiding passers-by, both under and above the water.

Rumors of a singular Ur-Coral which links every reef in the world are, as of yet, unsubstantiated.

OCEANS

 OCEANS.

THEY'RE FUCKING STUPID. I'M GOING TO FIGHT THE WAVES.

The Major Powers, Summarized

So, I can't actually give you a summary.

Egharl isn't a finished world. By this point, that much should be clear. It's also an unfinished world in a lot of obvious ways. 

I cannot accurately outline for you the governmental structures of most civilizations. What I can do is give you a few details, a general vibe, and talk about where I'm drawing my inspiration from.

So, for the benefit of my players, untoth we go.

The Church of Harithke

Full honesty: Virtually everything to do with the Church has been stolen from Goblin Punch, because they're a far better writer than I am, and their ideas are great, and so I stole them all. In the future, I'm going to do the best to make the Church of Harithke more distinct from the Church of Heseya, but at the moment there's hardly anything.

The biggest change I've made is the Church's prominence, and this itself was just inspired by a different one of Arnold K's posts. Centerra's Church is a monolith. It has the power to make the literal Winds behave. But in the words of the man himself, "What does an evil empire look like before it's ripe?"

That's not to say the Church is evil. I try my best to keep the idea of "Evil" away from my worldbuilding. In the real world, morality tends to be pretty clear-cut. Landlords are bad. Charity is good. Imperialism is bad. Multi-culturalism is good. This can certainly make for good stories, but it also doesn't make for interesting choices. 

Also, I don't want to talk about politics. I know full well that any political conversation I'm involved in ends horribly, because even other leftists struggle to tolerate my views. If I start worrying about morality, my DMing will turn into an pacifistic screed, and that'll be really fucking dull for everyone involved. 

This is a whole tangent, and I know that I'm writing it largely because I know my players read this blog, but to summarize:
Please keep modern politics out of my game, at the very least for my sake as a DM. I can't run that shit. I can't distance myself from my sense of morality just enough so that I can run a fantasy early-Renaissance game where a group of seven people can establish a leftist society by beating Feudalism to death with a large stick. Give your characters political viewpoints. Give them radical political viewpoints. Have them rebel. Just please, don't give them your political viewpoints.

This is what happens when a post is fueled by ADHD medication and hypomania. I'm going to try and get back on track.

The Church of Harithke, but For Real.

They aren't a nation, they're a religion. Coramont is a city-state, comparable to the Vatican. The Patriarch of the Church is also the Lord of Coramont. The city has a standing army, albeit a small one. The Church doesn't technically have a standing army, but they do employ a whole lot of paladins, and when you assemble a few legions of paladins together, they start to look a hell of a lot like an army.

In theory, the Church can call those loyal to it to war, and they will respond. In practice, it's a bit of a tossup. Not everyone is eager to go marching off to war, especially the ones further away from Coramont. 

The Patriarch is in charge of worldly concerns. He can call holy wars, issue bans on commerce, excommunicate people who fuck around. The Archpriest of Coramont is his successor, appointed by the Patriarch and charged with the spiritual needs of the city, until such a time in which he ascends to become the new Patriarch.

The Prophetess is kept isolated from the world, so that she might not be stained by corruption. She is expected to know the answer to every theological question by heart, and spend her time thinking up more of them. Really, she lives more like a hermit than any religious authority.

The City of Coramont itself is a city on a lake. It is said to be impenetrable, but in practice, no one has actually put it to the test for three hundred-odd years.

The Bronze Cliffs

Their homeland is a group of islands, off the West coast. Home to Dwarves, Tabaxi, Bullywugs, and Grung. Run by a pair of Twin Kings - One to govern the Isles, one to govern everything outside. They need to agree on foreign policy. Almost everyone is part of a Clan, and most local governments are set up by individual Clans. If you break the rules in another Clan's territory, they'll beat you up and cart you off back home, where you'll either be congratulated on a good fight, shamed for your disorderly conduct, or belittled for getting caught. Laws are lax, but punishments are harsh. 

Have a general pantheon, but the specifics differ from place to place, especially in colonies. The only thing everyone can agree upon is Mora-Adin, Twin Gods of Home and Horizon. The Twin Kings are made in their image.

Despite the name, the Twin Kings have no gender requirement. The only thing required is that they contrast - One male and one female, or one Dwarf and one Tabaxi, or one beareded and one bald. 

Much of their leadership is genuinely good-meaning, but the nation as a whole is hopelessly caught up colonial fever. Ports that owe their loyalty to the Bronze Cliffs are everywhere, and they've even got a few proper colonies.

Politically, they've no relation to the Dueregar of the Near-Deadlands. The similarity between Dwarf and Dueregar seems to be mere coincidence.

The Empire of Iudra

The Empire is divided up into provinces, each of which is given relative autonomy. An old kingdom, though no one is quite sure exactly how old. Their history is muddled by more than a few collapses, revolutions, and resuscitations. This isn't the most powerful they've ever been, but at the moment, it seems stable. 

Provinces of note include Chalea, generally considered to be the birthplace of modern Rangers, which produces some of the best hunters in the world, and Sine, a pioneer in technology and the arts. 

In Iudra, the bureaucracy and the military are the same thing. Rank-and-file soldiers are also trained as clerks, while generals pull double duty as politicians and legislators. In times of conflict, politicians are expected to prove themselves in open warfare. In times of peace, this means that everyone gets really into board games. 

If you don't like a politician, you can pretend to assassinate them. Faux-assassinations are common, most often preformed with wooden knives, or occasionally pointless arrows. Getting assasinated is shameful - If that's the kind of care you take for your own security, how can you be trusted with the security of an empire? To be fair, it's less shameful the cleverer the assassination is. To be fair again, the cleverer the assassination, the better your opponents, which can make people hesitant to align with you. It's a whole thing.

Those outside the city of Iudra are often confused by the needless complexity of their political system, while the inhabitants of the city pride themselves on it. The oldest Iudran provinces have learned to quietly sigh, shake their heads, and carry on with whatever they were doing before the capital's latest scheme came to fruition.

The Dominion of Nehtar

Ostensibly, Nehtar is a monarchy. In practice, the kings of Nehtar serve almost entirely as religious leaders. 

They are ruled by a Council of Eight, staffed by representatives of various organizations. 

I'm skipping over them for now, because it's late, I want to get this post out by tonight, and I'm trying to get a decent sleep schedule. 

Maybe I'll update it tomorrow. Maybe I'll give Nehtar its own fucking post. 

Dunno.

The Map is Back

 Oh God, it's so hideous and blank.

Variations of Vampires

 What is a vampire?

It's a topic of academic controversy. Sure, everyone can agree that the pasty fellow who can't come out in sunlight and needs to drink blood is a vampire, but what is it in those traits that makes them a vampire?

Sabre-toothed cats have fangs, but they aren't vampires. Lampreys feed primarily on blood, but they aren't vampires. Spectres lose their power in sunlight, and they even have a life-draining attack, but they aren't vampires.
(Unless they are)

Like most things, it's a matter of academic debate. The Church holds that vampire is any being which both drains the blood of victims, and is harmed by sunlight. Other variations may still be demons, but not specifically vampires. To the primarily cave-dwelling Dueregar, sensitivity to sunlight loses most of its meaning, and most people will agree that something is a vampire as long as its some sort of undead that feeds on blood. To the people of Illearth, drinking blood is an extreme blasphemy, and they don't really care what you are, because most things die just fine when you burn them at the stake. 

The academics will probably never stop fighting about this. That's just the way they are. Good for them, but not for the rest of us. Most of us have a vague idea of what a vampire is, and nailing down the exact specifics isn't high on our priority list. So, here's a bunch of vampires or vampire-like monsters for you to argue over the status of, you academic bastards.

Carnivorous Water:

You remember this from my last article? The one I published literally last night?
I think this was the strongest idea on it, and now I'm developing it more.

"Carnivorous Water" is just the common name, but its a fairly accurate one. The substance inside isn't technically water, but it acts like water, and they are carnivorous.

Carnivorous Water is an sort of psuedo-ooze, because unlike true oozes, it is not acidic, nor is it a single-celled organism. Instead, Carnivorous Water corresponds closer to an undead, in that it is normally non-living material that is held together and animated by magic. When you smack Carnivorous Water with a hammer, it responds like a really strong water balloon. It'll ripple and move, even bend inwards, but you won't break the surface. This is the magic which holds it together. Once that magical energy runs out, it loses all cohesion, and with that cohesion, its life. 

This ability is selective. The barrier naturally strengthens in response to being struck, exerting just enough energy to stop the strike from breaching the surface, but it can also be selectively weakened in order to absorb objects. What is it absorbing?Well, that's where the carnivorous part comes in. Carnivorous Water isn't a summoned creature, so it can't rely on a constant flow of energy from its creator to keep it alive. As it turns out, blood holds quite a bit of energy, and in comparison to magical artifacts, blood is abundant. But how does it get the blood? It could scavenge, but that's inefficient and overly luck based. Instead, Carnivorous Water absorbs sharp objects. Any sharp object will do. Pointed rocks, rusty nails, discarded teeth, an entire fucking sword, as long as it can draw blood, it's useful. It hunts by ambush, hiding sitting somewhere inconspicuous until some prey comes along, then bursting out and attempting to engulf the prey. If this succeeds, the Water will then swirl around its insides and let all the debris it's managed to collect carve up the unfortunate victim. Once the Water is satisfied with its meal, it just slithers off to convert the collected blood into energy. This is when they're at their most vulnerable - Hunting takes energy, and the splashes of red destroy any sort of natural camouflage the Water might enjoy.
The Water is an animal, and isn't averse to fleeing if it feels like sticking around isn't worth the risk, there's an easier source of food nearby, or even if it just feels full. If you're carrying around a bucket of blood, simply splash any Water that seems to threaten you, and the beast will just sit still and digest its meal. No need for a difficult hunt when food is being quite literally thrown at it.
Elephants often keep Carnivorous Waters, either as pets or to use them as war-beasts against humanoids. You can stab an elephant with a knife, and your knife will just embed harmlessly into the skin. Rusty nails hardly pose any sort of threat to them.

If you use these, please come up with a better name for them than "Carnivorous Water", and then please tell me that name, because "Carnivorous Water" is a terrible name. I will 100% edit the article to include that name.

Amentique Vampires:

Ay, things that everyone can recognize as vampires!
For the most part, Amentique Vampires fit the basic concept of a vampire. They're pale, ethereal creatures that feed on blood and have weird powers. They can't turn into wolves or bats or anything of that sort, but they can transform into mist, and they're the sort of vampire you might expect to see sailing upon a moonbeam.
Unlike the traditional vampire, they tend to be a bit off in the head. Amentique Vampires are often seen hanging around fey, and it has been speculated that the bloodline was originated by some fey meddling. They're nomadic, travelling just as often in small groups as they do alone. Many prefer to interact with people before feeding on them. To an Amentique Vampire, feeding shouldn't be a calculated act of predation, but instead the culmination of a wondrous night of dance and revelry. Comics, poets, musicians, dancers, casanovas - Whatever and Amentique does, they'll do it so well that you'll barely care when they bite you. 
You shouldn't mistake revelry for genuine affection, but neither should you always assume that genuine affection does not exist. In Afary, a common folk tale is that of a abused girl, visited by an Amentique. So moved is the Amentique by both her tragic tale and grace in revelry that he rescues her away her family, and takes her as his bride. On the other side of the world, in Chalea, another tale speaks of a young man, scorned by his community for perceived femininity. After being visited by an Amentique of noble standing, the young man awakens to find a sword forged of moonlight left behind as a parting gift. This story is often used in Chalea to explain why homophobia is stupid and wrong, because Chalea is the gay capital of the world. Heterosexuality is seen as distasteful, and childbearing is seen as an ugly yet necessary practice. Chalea has a fair few stories like this, but this one, often called "The Amentique Stranger", is one of the most popular. As a consequence, the people of Chalea have very positive feelings about the Amentique.

Aesthetically speaking, the Amentique aren't really Gothic. They love moonlight, and their clothing is often primarily white. If you want an example of someone who is aesthetically Amentique, check out David Bowie during the Thin White Duke era. Hell, the Thin White Duke as a whole might make a good basis for an evil Amentique, and it gives you an excuse to look at David Bowie, a thing which I will never turn down.
The Amentique are some of the best moon-smiths in the world. If you want someone to weave you a cloak out of moonlight, the Amentique would be top candidates. The only issues are finding the Amentique, and then finding something that they'd actually accept as payment.
In some parts of the world, people will say that someone feeling especially sluggish and tired was "Danced with an Amentique", the same way we might say someone "Got up on the wrong side of the bed." Like, "Ay, don't worry about Doracas, e' was just visited by an Amentique. I'm sure e'll be better in no time."

Auctor Vampires:

Auctor Vampires are weird. They're one of the types that is nigh-universally recognized as vampires, but compared to most other variations, they're really quite weak. Generally thought to have originated an experimental attempt to achieve immortality, they are, in that regard, mostly a success. Their lifespans are most likely indefinite, and at the very least immensely extended. They are capable of entering a torpor state to remain inactive for large periods of time, but this is risky, as they can't wake up at will, and the exact length of a torpor is imprecise. The margin of error is around 5% more or less time than they originally intended to sleep for.
As for powers... They don't really have much. Any humanoid victim drained entirely as blood reanimates as a zombie in perpetuity, but the zombies are stupid, clumsy, and often make it much more difficult to hide in populated areas. On the bright side, they don't have many weaknesses, either. Sunlight is irritating, but not crippling. A stake through the heart or beheading will still kill them, but for the same reason those things can kill any humanoid. They have no exceptional defenses, methods of healing, powers of transformation, nothing. For many Auctor, vampirism can feel more like a crippling food allergy.
They can't even reproduce normally. The only Auctor capable of turning others are the "Progenitor" Auctor, of which very few exist. The only way to become a Progenitor is to kill an existing one and consume their blood.
This puts the Auctor in a very tricky situation. The number of Progenitors can never increase, but it is quite capable of decreasing. Every time a Progenitor is killed and no other Auctor manages to feed on their blood, there's simply one less Progenitor in the world. Unless someone discovers how to create new Progenitors from scratch, which seems very unlikely, the Auctor are a doomed race, simply counting down the time they have left before extinction.
DM Note: These are vampires as a PC race, largely based on the vampire race 5e gave us in "Plane Shift: Zendikar". I did my best to make them less setting-dependent and a bit more interesting, but at the core, this is the stat sheet you hand to a player that wants to play a vampire from 1st level.

Final Note:

Christ, I had a lot more to say than I expected. I'm far from out of ideas, but this post is already long enough. Just be aware that this is probably going to be a series, because vampires are interesting creatures to fuck around with.

I hope you're happy, Zoë.

I got high and ate a kitten

 fUCK you, I WILL EAT ANOTHER.

I'M NOT IMITATING SCRAP PRINCESS, THIS IS SIMPLY HOW I CREATE.

Also I need to make myself look morally righteous again so HERE ARE FIVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF HORRIBLE, KITTEN-EATING MONSTERS

Werewolf-wolf:

It's like a werewolf, but instead of being a guy, it's a wolf. On nights of the full moon it turns into a bigger, scarier wolf, and then kills a bunch of shit. The local town goes into panic because "Oh God there's a werewolf, he could be anyone" but it's just a regular wolf who gets really buff sometimes.

Hole:

It's a fucking hole, but it moves. You trip and fall in a hole and it eats your fucking leg. You're walking along and then a hole is moving towards you and you're really confused for a second and then BAM IT EATS YOUR FUCKING LEG.

You can't stab it, because it doesn't have a body, it's made up of negative space. You beat it by filling it up, probably with rocks.

Carnivorous Swan:

Literally exactly what it sounds like. It's a swan, but it's carnivorous. Technically, swans are already carnivorous sometimes, but this one wants to eat you in particular. Genuinely fucking terrifying, if you've ever been attacked by a swan. Those fuckers will slap you with their neck, and your arm will break before their neck will.

Carnivorous Water:

Water that eats you. It does this with teeth. It is water filled with teeth, and it wants to eat you, especially if you are a kitten.

Kitten-beast:

It looks like a kitten, from a distance. For all intents and purposes, you'd never know it's not a kitten, until it opens its mouth.

It's not a kitten, but when its mouth is closed, it looks basically kitten-like. Really, its mouth is at the end of a very long tentacle, and the full body lives beneath the ground. If you try to pet it, it will open in half and then fucking eat it.

Like a Wolf-In-Sheeps-Clothing, but bigger, and also a kitten.