Sorry for double post but I compiled info.
1.The world is split from pole to pole by a vast chasm, more than three thousand kilometers from rim to rim at the widest point, and incredibly deep.
2.Magic exists, but is only useable via several varieties of elemental spirits, barring certain special cases.
3.At night there is a vast ring/streak across the night sky in which no stars are visible that can be seen from around the world. It is static in placement and parallel to the chasm
4.On the east side of the chasm there exists a tall mountain with a long stair-city spiralling up its side counter-clockwise.
5.There are large (couple of miles) pieces of land where magic is completely unusable, and cannot reach into, scattered across both sides of the chasm.
6.Necromantic magic is common, and in several cultures death is merely an inconvenience.
7.The planet orbits around a gas giant, which in turn revolves around a blue giant star.
8.In those cultures where necromantic magic is shunned, the elamental spirits appear more numerous and active, leading to speculation that they are some remnant of the dead. Others, though, say that they are simply scared off at the prospect of being seized by accident and placed into a body, or that they consume ghosts and that necromancy is the only way to prevent your ancestors from being eaten.
9.Hidden deep within the walls of the chasm lies an ancient cave system where elemental spirits dwell.
10.Along the walls of the chasm lives a race of feathered reptilian humanoids, who were once more widespread but retreated to the chasm ages ago due to an unknown catastrophe. The dig into the walls and build houses anchored to the cliffside.
At one place it the chasm is a great spider, whose web spans across the walls. It keeps a great wealth of knowledge in its web, written on silken pods hanging from the threads in a language only it knows. It will share secrets with those who ask, but only in exchange for other secrets.
11.Elemental spirits can bond to a material sapient being as a sort of symbiosis. The material being can manipulate the element the spirit is made of (Power dependent on the strength of the spirit), and the spirit grows some measure of power and intelligence. (Not drained.) This practice is extremely common, and it is considered a little odd to not have a spirit bonded to oneself in high society.
12.Due to a slow rotation, one side of the planet is often much hotter than the other.
13.It is said that there are huge, abandoned city complexes deep under the earth, containing huge and strange mechanical devices of unknown purpose, created by a people who seems to have been digging ever deeper for thousands of years as if searching for something. A few of the higher-level cities have been moved into by surface dwellers, but generally only bold explorers venture beyond the point where vertical shafts can reliably bring sunlight.
14.There is a blue comet that comes once every 173 years, and when it passes near mysterious spirits come to mingle with the elementals. They vanish when the comet leaves, though, and the elemental spirits do not speak with mortals about what they speak of with the comet spirits.
15.Deep within the earth lies various deposits of a mysterious yellow slime.
16.Known elemental spirits fall into eight widely recognized categories, being Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Lightning, Metal, Ice/Cold, and Life. Various subtypes can be found under these categories, like embers to fire, granite under earth, copper under metal, or death under life.
There are rumors that for each category, one 'Primordial' elemental exists, the first ones created at the dawn of existence and magnitudes more powerful beyond their ken.
17.Elemental spirits who grow extremely strong without a host can manifest physically as a golem of their element. The golems can merge together, making one personality with the powers of both elementals. The larger golems commonly live in the deep-cities.
18.Elemental energy is tied to a shifting set of eight aurae, one for each element, which appear to move in relation to the cosmos. These aurae heavily influence the effect magic has.
19.The elementals do not like to speak much of their origins, or of how many varieties of them there truly are, but will talk readily of the recent past, and of the present. Some believe that the spirits, being in constant flux, have short memories, and so cannot remember themselves where they came from or other details, but this, too, the spirits neither confirm nor deny.
20.There exists in the world material creatures who have evolved to consume elemental spirits and steal their power, termed 'Manavores'. These creatures are extroardinarily few and far between, but when they appear, they create vast swathes of magic-less wasteland in their wake, and cause untold destruction. It is theorized that a tamed Manavore could be taught to minimize their hazards and siphon mana passively instead of actively, but no one has had the opportunity or is willing to try. A more common, if the term can be applied, form of manavore is termed a 'Titan spider', an arachnid that grows without limits. There has not yet been any recorded case of a sapient Manavore.
21.It is possible to make materials with amazing properties from the "flesh" of golems, but hunting them is extremely impractical, so occasionally bands of people venture into the underground cities trying to work for the golems in return for bits of golem-stuff. This is not very effective, as elementals rarely actually want anything - and when they do it is more likely to be some piece of art than an adventurer's services.
22.In reaction to the destruction caused by Manavores, there is a order known as the Knights Alfriendi, a noble band of monster hunters with the mission of finding and slaying Manavores and other threats to life whenever they appear.
23.Many orders of adventurers and warriors exist throughout the world dedicated to preventing Manavore attacks, but in recent times the Knights Alfriendi have begun contacting and organizing the smaller groups in nearby regions to form a greater coalition. Their motto is (roughly translated) "We Stand United Against the Death of Magic". History indicates that Manavores tend to either emerge from the Ground, or the Sky, without much warning beforehand.
24.Within the chasm there exist pirates, who travel along the chasm in airships and raid the bridge checkpoints and border settlements. They delve far deeper into the chasm than any others dare to do, and it is said that there is a hidden pirate capitol, a floating city in the lower regions of the chasm containing untold riches from across the ages.
25.The planet has thirteen moons.
26.The oldest creation myth existing was buried in the darkest depths of the gorge. Paraphrased, it describes how, in the beginning, there was Void, and from Void was born the beast Order. Order became restless and split into Chaos. Realizing it's mistake, Order sought to consume Chaos and restore the universe to it's rightful state. In their battle, Order birthed Earth, water, *Unreadable*, Steel and Ice, while Chaos birthed Fire, Air, Lightning, *eroded*, and Life. The elements grew tired of fighting the eternal war. Luring them both to an isolated place, they rose up in a battle that scarred the world and, unwilling to kill their mindless progenitors, cast them into cages, and hid the keys. The rest is worn down by time, but warns of 'Twin Harbingers', a 'Great Conflict' and 'Empty Judgement'.
27.Some accuse the dwellers of the chasm walls of harboring the pirates, and the "Wallers" (as detractors call them) do form a disproportionate fraction of pirate crews. In some areas, there is mutual distrust between the Wallers and the topsiders, but in others they give no quarter to pirates, seeking to trade with the topsiders. In general, the wallers, or Maraxi as they call themselves, are a somewhat insular people, though are known to be flamboyant and adventurous on occasion.
28.Of course, when they're not fighting Manavores, adventurers are kept plenty busy keeping down the numbers of many other monsters that dwell in the wilds as well as the occasional wild elementals that have decided to attack sapient races for whatever reason. They also raid the abandoned city complexes below the earth and other places full of unclaimed treasure, and generally just perform any sort of dangerous task that needs to be done for which there is substantial reward to be gained.
Throughout the world, many adventuring companies and guilds are scattered about, some in overlapping territory. Most are only regional affairs, but there are a few far reaching organizations, such as the Fire Panther Company, who operate mostly throughout the western hemisphere but have some dealings in the eastern side and are distinguished by their Fire Panther mounts, which hail from the Midnight Jungle in which the Company's headquarters is located.
29.Of all the adventurer coalitions, the Panther Company is the largest by membership, though not every chapter or affiliate group has access to the Panthers themselves. The Knights of Alfriendi operate in the East, and while they operate over a large territory it is comparatively quite small (and restricted to the North of that region). A much looser confederation, commonly called the Hakimatem, exists more southward and further towards the Chasm than the Alfriendi, but in some places their members act more like bandits than protectors. Their inner circle spends much time hunting down such rogue groups.
30.There exist eight great cities outside of the gorge. Each city is associated with one of the eight great elements. Strong elementals of that type appear more frequently in those areas.
There is a walking manastorm traveling on the opposite side of the planet of the chasm. It weaves from location to location, leaving twisted landscapes filled with odd animals, plants and ruins in it's wake. People who have grown close enough to see it without becoming affected claim to see a humanlike figure shrouded in the center. According to a crazed adventurer, the figure could be the host of some kind of Time Elemental gone mad, trapped by his brothers and kept in immortal solitude by the very spirit seeking to escape. Elementals become elusive when the subject is brought up.
In the capital city of the chasm, there lives a tiny, blind sorceror who is only known to the Ruler and few else. She can walk anywhere and see everything. The Spirit of Space is quiet.
31.Some suspect that the diversity of races and life is partly due to the twisting effect that some things have on the world. There may once have been far fewer kinds of mortal, physical life, but through magical mutation a great diversity of material life was created. Humans are counted among the oldest verifiable races, but some races are suspected to have been twisted from animals, and some animals to have been twisted from sentient races, and some races to have been twisted from others. There is no great certainty as to which is which, though.
32.This is one of such cities, known as Thaefar. Actually, the city at the top which the stair-city leads to is the City of Thaefar, whereas the stair-city itself is called Tolgrin, though the two combined are sometimes referred to as Thaefar (somewhat like London and the City of London). ((I'm not yet sure on what element it should be. I'll go for air unless someone has a better idea for an air city, in which case it could become an ice or lightning city.))
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Topic: Let's create a setting: Lighter and Happier (Read 11733 times)