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+---
+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.