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diff --git a/src/apocrypha/anintroductiontoapocrypha.md b/src/apocrypha/anintroductiontoapocrypha.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a850552 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/apocrypha/anintroductiontoapocrypha.md @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +--- +title: "An Introduction to Apocrypha" +updated: "2017-12-25 Mon 14:22" +categories: AP +--- + +Apocrypha is a world of mystery and forgotten history, built from +first principles and the realization that even simple truths have +consequences. + +My goal with building the world of Apocrypha is to create a generic +fantasy world which is both suitable for books and for use with TRPGs, +and is designed somewhere on the coherency spectrum between the +Forgotten Realms and Discworld. + +Though it is being designed to function with the 5th edition of <a +href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons">Dungeons & +Dragons</a> in mind, I am also haphazardly designing a TRPG of my own +which may be abandoned along the way, but draws inspiration from +Apocrypha as well as breathing life back into it. Over the last 2 +months, I've found that working on one usually generates ideas that +are applicable to the other, and overall energy for both projects +benefits from this dynamic. + +Occasionally Asked Questions + +1. From a Forgotten Realms standpoint, "does the Weave still matter?" + +There is no Weave, nor are gods' domains delineated in the same way as FR. + +3. "Why in a D&D 5e-esque world have the elves and spellcasters not + taken over despite the advanced age of the former and the quadratic + power curve of the latter?" + +My previous answer to this was chopped up and dumped in several +dumpsters in several different states, so I'll expand below. + +Creatures don't have DNA. Alchemy is not chemistry because there are +no chemicals. Plutonium isn't an element: fire is. + +All creatures share a common ancestry. From the primal elementals, to +the mischievous fey, to the inscrutable nim, all are born by the +spontaneous generation of the physical from an immortal and unchanging +essence. I'm working on how they are all related, but their forms are +determined by their essential natures. + +The "planes" are just reality through a broken prism (in that they +started out with a common starting place for the condition of the +world, but since each has slightly different properties, due to the +absence of certain things (like say, gravity) or their distortion +(like the duration of magical effects lingering twice as long), they +each have developed differently (and different kinds of creatures have +been born there). + +Magic comes in as many forms as creatures do. + +Since creatures and magic and the elements and planes all have the +same ancestry in the grand scheme of things. + +Wizardry, specifically, is the capturing of a specific magical essence in the form of a spell. + +This 'bottling' allows you to take magic with you from place to +place. and release it. But the power of most non-wizardry magic ebbs +and flows based on large geographical region (which I'm still working +out, since I don't have most of the other magic systems worked out +yet). For example, druids can produce effects much more powerful than +those of a wizard if they are within their grove. So high level +wizards trying to take over an area and being repulsed by the locals +is a fairly common trope. + +As is practitioners of various regional magics attempting t extend +their influence by changing the lands around them. The Song of +Conquest is a kind of regional magic (or more like ancestral magic, +because it comes from the people, not the land), that has spread quite +far and is the power behind the empire (in addition to them +discovering wizardry and having a big army and the largest navy). + +So, the reason that elves/wizards haven't taken over the Empire is +because of the Song of Conquest (which only +humans/halflings/faunus/orcs have access to) and the nation state +(because it's a #human empire which isn't racist towards elves per se, +but you know). + +Also, "there's always a bigger fish." There are dragons and nim and +patrons and icons that are more powerful than wizards, and gods above +those. |