Over in my discord channel ( https://discord.gg/NDrtRKs ), I floated the idea of running something using the methods outlined in this post. We didn't end up "matrix adventuring" per se but instead collaboratively putting together an adventure game setting.
From this:
"Maybe do even something completely different and use some version of the methods in the post the cooperatively make a setting then play in it"
Myself and a few of the other discord members, put together an interesting little setting that we are currently "arguing" the history of in to being (not quite playing in it as individual sentient actors as yet).
I shall now present: "The Deific Earth" for your perusal! Note, this is not all my work, but a collaborative effort of about 5 individuals on the discord channel! I have included some of the "suggested schedules" I provided as a general method for approaching the activity.
Fundament: Each player writes a sentence outlining an important aspect of this world, its defining matrix if you will, other players can disagree and remove aspects if they provide reasons... Even this can be questioned!
- The gods were forging a sword to do battle against a great evil with, when the blade was quenched in our world molten life dripped off of it and formed the first archipelago and our lands
- The sword is still there, the evil is still there, the Gods are gone!
- In this world, numbers are outlawed.
- The gods bodies remain, they form a land bridge between the planets when they line up
- They float in orbit around SOMETHING, they align rarely
- When they do align alien things move between the planets on the god bridge
- In the great battle; spurts of the primordial, radiant fluid of the dying gods, and the great evil, tore through the clouds, forming new lands.
- These lands are more bountiful and lush than the original ones... but also follow the aspects of the gods/evil they came from more closely than any others
- And so the most sentient beings formed here, and their civilisations. Spreading out from the fortress at the terminus.
- The living things of our world are inevitably influenced, suffused, by the essence of god-lands they live on, from the food and waters that grow and run upon them.
- A things essential being is defined by its god vapour. Some part demon, some part angel, combination there of. Demon and angel are relative, and poorly defined terms.
- Some people perverted and twisted by the great evil, they now live on the gods bodies
- Those planet dwellers fear their awe inspiring invasions, when the astral bodies align!
- Cults arise: Most various heresies who argue about the best method to prevent the invasions, with their own champions and hierarchies; others still secretly covet the god-eaters, and work to manifest The Alignment
- The planet with the sword of the gods is the last of the planets not overrun by those perverted God feasters! The great fortress where the the sword cuts the earth is the final defence for the uncorrupted against a God alignment crossing. The sword reaches to the foul heavens
- The humours of the gods can be consumed to do magic
- Blood, puss, piss, tumour, bile, and many more can be digested for expulsions of extra terrestrial magical vapour! Many, many more, all can corrupt ultimately with too much consumption. A correct amount of consumption, a wafer of fallen mana, allows magic.
- Those of the vapours, gods and the evils but not corrupted by over consumption
- The meekest are driven from the finest lands, far from the enriching embrace of the Fruits of Deific Earth; not bold enough to grow strong and strange from Correct Consumption
- My heart sinks to think these may be forced, through jealousy, to betray those of the fortress, to help let the corrupted into the uncorrupted lands beyond the fortress at terminus. Oh I weep.
- Yea! Woe to the Betrayers!
- It is there, we doubt not, that the Heresies of Alignment emerged!
- No True Follower of the Vapours would could think such evil thoughts!
- Like Great Hapsut, we are beckoned and, through integrity alone, compelled, to forge tools to maintain the welfare and safety of the Envapoured Ones, Truest Followers of the Ways of the Sword!
- Go forth, intrepid, valiant believers; lest the Heresies of Alignment take hold among the Vapourless and thus hasten the fateful Day of Bridges!
- The inquisition of Hasput protects against the jealous conspiracies of the weak as they seek succour in the heresies of alignment! Praise be the inquisition for keeping the weak in line!
- The bridge! Most corrupted of alignment! Ever seek correct equilibrium of your vapours, but avoid the bridge of alignment!
- The evil, the cause of the forging of the sword, was the alien, from demiurge. Evil/Alien = Numbers, Stars, Science, Plasma, Asteroids, Meteorites, Black Holes, Nebulae, Physics, etc.
- Scholars and philosophers known as Elementalists preach of the many elements that make the world.
- There are two schools of thought:
- The Alien elements, made not from gods, rather from what they sought to destroy, some examples are: Numbers, Stars, Science, Plasma, Lasers, etc…
- The divine elements, made from the dead gods, some examples are: Vapour, meat, bone, wax, gray matter, acid, etc…
- The study of the alien elements is forbidden in many places
The Gods: Suggested schedule for Gods: "God Name: a sentence or dot points outlining its aspect"
- Great Hapsut! Thrice Praise his Glorious Name! The Forger; The Fighter; Bringer of the Deific Blood; Arbiter of Order through Sharpened Justice!
- The Whispering God
- Astral and Aurum
- The Gilded Guide: Its love was the journey and the joke; the joy and the jewels
- Gloug, the consumer: ever so so hungry
- Kepet: vengeance, revenge, pride, that's mine not yours give it here for ever, mine is life yours is death
- Passing, lord of ephemeral: Knows this is not the end. Nothing is ever the end…
- Genogox, bringer of mass and solidity.
- Swarmbog, the grower. Fertile beyond reason.
- Hylalei, The Florist: Makes everything beautiful at the expense of everything else. Abhors pragmatism and efficacy. The soft light of filtered suns wrapped warmly around a gentle arrangement of flowers and fine silver ornaments.
- Toypoyos, the confuser: The in-between dweller, the divider!
- Great Worm, the stitcher. Bringer together of flesh and tears and all rentings. The extruder of tissue.
- Posados, the Twice-Betrayer, the God of Iron, the Green Sin Betrayed the gods to aid the evil... Betrayed the evil to nurture mortals. Only half of him remained.
The Lands: Suggested schedule for Lands: "Land name: A sentence or some dot points regarding the environment, population and/or special features of the land".
- The Bleeding Land: which still leaks Deific Fluid
- The Haptic Jungles: where branch and vine voraciously grasp, seeking unspeakable sensations. Rumoured location of the Ichor Stream, an endless flow of forbidden Number.
- The Golem's Banquet: where stones blossom newly-made from the fertile earth! Blessed by Genogox, bringer of sturdiness!
- The Great Yawp: a vast fissure of unplumbable depths which splits the continent in twain! Generally understood to be the result of the final blow struck in the battle between the Aliens and the Gods: though sources differ on who struck the blow!
- The Sword: a great white plane, running perpendicular from the earth, endlessly into the dark of the corrupted heavens. It has a metallic sheen, and is covered in sharp geometric growths like living blades. Small and measly tribes of the corrupted are feebly scattered across, kept at bay by those of the fortress at terminus. Though forbidden by the inquisition, adventurous strong sometimes explore this place of demons and metal.
- The Land of The Strong: The realm of both the Convocation and the Inquisitions. Here all is extreme, the weather, the landscape, the pain, the disease, the glory, the grandeur. The vapour is overwhelming. Everything is technicolored brightly. It is a land of living myth and legend. Things meek and grey and faltering are slain on sight! It rings the Fortress at the Terminus.
- The Land of the Meek: A sparse and faltering land, dribbling out endlessly beyond the grand and majestic mountain ranges of the Land of The Strong. Grey, sand, dunes, craters, holes, caves, sludge. Those cast out by the Convocation and the Inquisitions dwell here: The Meek (and also the dreaded Moonlight ones). Many things fall from the heavens here!
- The Fortress at Terminus (Also called just Terminus): The metallic, military, temple city that rings where the sword pierces the earth. Endless gonging and marching and drills and paranoia about the alignment and invasion. The haunt of many adventuring Envapoured Ones, ruled by the The Theocracy of the Inquisitions of Hapsut and Hasput, controlled by The Convocation of the Forge. Many here are secret worshippers of Toypoyos, the confuser, stitching the ways between the opposing inquisitions for spiritual and material gain. The cult of Toypoyos is of course outlawed by both inquisitions. Magic and metal!
- The Yellow Caverns and their Gray Lakes: Cranial remnants of the gods, not a place but a biome, located in most godrealms. Covered in divine wax and other divine fluids.
The Peoples: Suggested schedule for Peoples: "Peoples Name: a sentence or dot points outlining their aspect, abilities, culture, where they dwell, etc and such forth!
- The Convocation of the Forge: highly respected as the children of Hapsut. Such things they forge are presented to leaders in great ceremonies, who interpret these demi-divine creations as guidance for their decisions and governance.
- The Inquisitions of Hapsut and Hasput: The ruler theocracy of The Fortress at the Terminus. Protectors against the corrupted, the heresy of alignment and the constant conspiracies of the meek. Worshipers of blood and blood and truth!
- Envapoured Ones: Truest Followers of the Ways of the Sword! Go forth, intrepid, valiant believers; lest the Heresies of Alignment take hold among the Vapourless and thus hasten the fateful Day of Bridges!
- The Meek — or, the Betrayers: driven from the finest lands, far from the enriching embrace of the Fruits of Deific Earth; not bold enough to grow strong and strange from Correct Consumption. Also known as the weak. Their vapours are, more often than not, malformed, leading to godly mutations! Corruption manifest!
- The Counters: people who are allowed to count and use numbers, a feared role but required for flourishing trade and commerce. They are only ever paid for their work in humours of the gods. In qabalistic nooks the Counters pore over meta-mathemagical texts, questing for the Ichor Stream's source
- Zealots of Chalcedony and Lime: a solitary and hermetic sect who rappel beyond the Great Yawp's lip, carving mysterious caverns of Meditation and Mystic Vision in the cliffsides therein. Who — or what — they worship is barely understood by the staid theosophers of Terminus!
- Moonlight Ones: Vampire-like creatures infected by alien curses, they devour words through singing and command platoons of mute thralls. The infections come from meteorites fallen to the deific earth. Foul alien evil infection! The Moonlight Ones are known to SING NUMBERS and practice SCIENCE! Any of the inquisition will slay a Moonlight one or their thralls with impunity and glee. They live in metal temples beneath the ground, served by their rotting thralls.
- Newlings: Monsters made manifest from mathematical equations, take the form of small, bulbous geometrical shapes, eyes and teeth like teratoma. Shoot laser beams from magical field surrounding them, fly aroud with stored, stolen vapous
- Independent Scholars and philosophers known as Elementalists preach of the many elements that make the world
- Knights of Cton: A crusade of knights adorned with armor and weapons taken and forged from the dead gods, they seek to exterminate all things that did not came from the gods (which they call aliens or the alien elements), common pretty much in all godrealms (the corpses) and most lands.
- Eaters of the Gods/The Corrupted: dwell on the gods' bodies. They feast on their immortal flesh which, though void of the gods' influence, will never decay, gorging themselves and so corrupting and changing their mortal forms.
- Shardstrider Tribes: Small tribes of moss-skinned humans who harvest bones and sell them as indestructible pottery, each tribe worships the god they inhabit and often have completely different morals, but follow a similar, class structure to their society, the best artisan and miner always being the two leaders.
- Minotaurs: Large sized monsters with soft, almost jelly-like meat, but covered in strong exoskeletons, born inside the corpse of the dead gods, brutish in culture and territorial in nature, they hunt the human and animal but they HATE the alien and heretic
- Trolls: Half-evil Half-good, Trolls are the energetic manifestation of dreams in living shape, born from the dreams of the living, sworn protectors of the eternal desert, the imagine realm where ideas flow and turn into grains of sand, where mortals go when they sleep.
Map:
Now, we are on to the "history" stage of world building. This is how we are currently playing at it:
Suggested schedule for history creation: Each demiurge is in control of a people. They must argue into being the best version of history for their representative people. History contested by other demiurges and history in conflict will be resolved through dice rolls dependant on argument strengths and contextual factors. Generally a third party demiurge will be the arbiter of such conflicts and contentions.
Additional suggested scheduling : we argue broad history into being until it gets so specific as to warrant control of specific sentient beings.
Suggested schedule for history creation, Part 2ish: State what happens and why/how - and be prepared for your version of reality to be argued against by the others!
The Deific Earth At the Start of Known History: The gods are not aligned! There is no current invasion, but the corrupted, and the corrupted planets, and the Dead Gods swirl above in the heavens. Beyond the Heavens...space and its evils and aliens. The sword links the heavens and the earth. The fortress at terminus is around that, controlled by the organisations of the strong. Then around the fortress is the lands of the strong, the key envapoured groups are here then - reaching out in all directions are the neutral lands, the weird lands and the lands of the meek. There is no alignment, but the alliance of the strong keeps the clawing meek and neutral and aliens at bay from the sword, ever trying to stave off heresy.
Demiurges, I implore you to fight tooth and nail for the histories of your peoples!
It's been fun, and I am looking forward to doing some adventuring in The Deific Earth!
