World Building

This is a project I started working on spontaneously.

When we think of roleplaying games, especially fantasy RPGs, there are some itmes that come to mind, and are commonly used.

So, I racked my brain to think of something and was, as a matter of fact, quite overwhelmed by the amount of items.

Hence, I thought of tackling them one topic after another.

Grunt Combat Items

Fantasy RPGs are filled with combat, and there are a lot of 'stock' characters that are quite disposable from perspective of players. They are adorned with the most basic gear.

I finished illustrating knife, short sword, basic shield, a simple helmet, and a water pouch for the soldier/grunt who has it handy on missions where travel is invovled.

I would be making them available as free cliparts at KalaaLog.com once I put some finishing touches. I am also thinking of making some illustrations of complex items for a fee - I have started work on these too.

This should turn out to be an interesting project.:)

I had written quite a bit on a realm - Chaos And Order which was developed by a friend, a cousin and me. And there were some more writeups I did for last years NaNoWriMo participation.I have edited few of them a bit and uploaded here - it may get used in some other projects.

Created out of the same existence, all the races including the Firmans seemed to develop similar set of skills that were grouped into similar categories by all of them. It was a different issue as to how each of the race took to these skills and how it was taken by the society.

The skill sets are broadly classified into Jantara, Mantara and Tantara.

Jantara skills are the ones that are attained by virtue of ones occupation, and can also be attained by undergoing specialized training. It takes the Jantara skills of blacksmith to forge weapons out of metals. It takes Jantara skills of a carpenter to create furniture and minor buildings and hovels. It takes Jantara skills of both of them to become a gadgeteer. Any particular physical task that a person may take at hand requires the use of one or many of the Jantara skills. The skills of using swords, axes and knives in battle come under this category.

Jantara skills are common among all the races, but the Giants seem to be the ones who seemed to have many masters in it. The skills that the Orcs possess in the destructive category of Jantara skill owe to their battle skills. The Elfs though tend to resort to Mantara for most of the non-trivial tasks, and usually take assistance of the services from the Giant or Human builders and gadgeteers for most of the works that require Jantara skill.

The Mantara skills on the other hand acts on a plane that seems to be present through out the planes of existence. It involves the ability of a sentient being to tap into his or her mana reserve and use will to form spells and cast them. Wizards and mages have known to create intricate spells using their imagination that would affect the reality in many different ways. The amount of will and skill it takes to use the Mantara skills reduce the numbers who purse the higher level.

Many of the basic Mantara spells can be attained by all the sentient but the ones who actually know how to use them are lesser than the total populace. Some of the basic Mantara spells are the ones that assist the people in their daily activity. One of the spell, the Light spell is used by many when they do not have a torch at their disposal. The duration of the spell though is limited by the mana reserve a person has.

Some warriors too are known to wield some of the offensive Mantara spells like Shock and a little advanced Fire-throw. These skills become complementary to their Jantara skills of fighting and are used in both melee and ranged combat. Another overlap of Mantara and Jantara spell can be found among the Healers. These have taken the path to help others regain from wounds and diseases that could be as small as irritating to as profound as fatal. The Healers too learn some of the skills of Potion-making which is a Jantara skill along with healing spells – Mantara skills. The healing spells can range from minor to major that varies in the level of effect it has on the patient or the subject. There are even some healing spells that are at higher levels – which are intricate enough to heal the subject of a particular disease or ailment. The healers though usually resort to antidote potions when they need to deal with poisoning. The Elf Healers deep in the province of Liraken are known to possess high level spells that can heal poisoning effects.

The Mantara skills are usually sought after by the Elfs due to their inherent nature to be disciplined and have a flair for finer aesthetics. It is not that the Elfs do not use the Jantara skills – in fact they happen to have good archer warriors among their ranks – but it is just that they have more affiliation towards the Mantara arts. The Orc on the other hand, do not seem to go by the purist rules of separation of the physical from the magical until the application of the spell, and hence seek to gain the Tantara spells.

The Tantara spells, are often thought wrongly to be a combination of Jantara and Mantara spells – even though similarities do exist. The Tantara spells too - like the Mantara spells - rely on the mana reserve of a person. But the lack of higher tuning to the magical plane is compensated by the knowledge that results in the heavy use of physical objects like fluids, powders, flames, stones, rocks and metals. The physical objects are used from the beginning of the incantation, and the mana is channeled through these objects. A skillful user may find different uses for Tantara spells.

The Tantara user is shunned by the general society of Firmans. After the effect of Chaos, many Tantara users turned evil and many lives were lost in attempt to gain the control back from maniacal Tantara users. The Orc society embraces it as though it were a way of life. The other races do not bother much about the Tantara skills, and just judge a Tantara user by the acts he or she performs and also the intention behind the action.

We can briefly look at the occurrences in history in the main continents occupied by the four races, Humans, Elfs, Giants and Orcs.

Long back, many Warsa back, when the Races were created they set out from their place of origin in Pipurim. The Orcs traveled east, and started populating the continent of Katag. The Elf traveled south and occupied the continent of Firapen. Some traveled past the spreading Human continent of Kurser and created their own domain of Liraken. The Giants remained were they were, content in their small continent, they called Gajadwipa.

No much conflict existed between the races as there was enough land to expand. There were occasional skirmishes between the Human and Elf over the boundary of Liraken, but soon the Orc had expanded further east to the continent of Rapar and traveled the seas, emerging from the west to threaten both Kurser and Liraken, the tension shifted between the three races. Sea wars were fought between Kurser and Katag in the northern part. Rapar would siege on the ports of Liraken. Kurser and Liraken had border tension between them.

Around three hundred Warsa back, an alliance was forged between the Human and Elf, and that year was called as the Warsa of Wipale Dum - the year of Great Deed. This was because, united, the Elf and Human could hold back the threat of Orc. The Human were not united in their alliance with Elf though. It was only the southern Kurser that felt the need.

It was during such times, that Giants started paying for their neutrality. About two hundred Warsa back, the Orc raided the north of Gajadwipa and laid the foundation of their strong hold, Jamapuri. The Elf of Firapen, who had been immune from constant war that Liraken faced, was not unresponsive. With their intelligence in Liraken, they knew, that Orc were not among the ones to be stopped. They sailed their newly built ships about a year after the Orc had made a stronghold in Gajadwipa and called it Sirwa.

About fifty Warsa back, the Human entrepreneurs saw the opportunity of trade brewing in Gajadwipa and set their merchant ships on a bearing to the small continent, and established a port. They soon had the area under their control, and that area began to be called Kasargod.

Among the many planets in the Universe held between Chaos and Order, then one that had sentient species created by Order was Pipurim.

Though the Firmans did not keep exact calendars, it would be helpful as to how the other races kept the time in terms of realizing the effect of heavenly bodies on the planet, Pipurim.

The sun, Pinros shines the light on to the Pipurim, the earth. The earth revolves around the sun every two hundred days. The two moons, Rimupka and Wimupka revolve around the Pipurim. Rimupka is very fast and does so every week, while the Wimupka, the larger and the slower one, does so every month.

This resulted in a unique calendar system among the races descended from the Naras. Kala - time is divided thus. The Warsa, the time it takes for Pipurim to go around Pinros is divided into ten Masa. Masa is the time it takes for Wimupka to go around Pipurim. And each of these Masa have four Kapta, because Rimupka is four times faster than Wimupka to go around Pipurim. The Pipurim itself revolves around itself, by that time and thus, a Kapta has five Dinas.

Kapta Dina are Onlasdina, Dolasdina, Telasdina, Polasdina and Pilasdina.

The Masa in a Warsa are Onlasmasa, Dolasmasa, Telasmasa, Polasmasa, Pilasmasa, Silasmasa, Selasmasa, Enlasmasa, Nilasmasa, Onkasmasa.

As can be seen the names are in direct derivation from the language Pasen, and it would one day even be used among the Firmans if they venture out and contact others. This particular calendar system would be logical and would help historians record the lore.

The origin of the sentient races remains shrouded in mystery and the Gods too are unable to answer their disciples clearly as how it had all begun. Many Gods though had an ever growing sensation of the presence of greater forces in action, and they called them, the Elder Gods.

Two such Elder Gods were Order and Chaos. The lesser Gods who had spheres of influences all over Pipurim, theorized that Order created the universe out of the essence of existence in the void. Many priests had learned from some Gods that universes had been created many times before only to be destroyed by Chaos.

Excerpt from the texts written by an Elf priest is given here to give an idea of the how the four races thought of the origin of universe.

“It all began when there was only Void and Existence came to be. One cannot place in time exactly when that happened, because Time did not exist before that; it came to exist along with matter and energy.

“The Existence was made of number of layers - number of planes. And in the beginning, it was all filled with Chaos. The will for a timeless chaotic movement of matter and energy by the Existence called forth Order. It had its origin in the lowest of the planes of Existence.

“Order created the galaxies, stars and planets and many celestial bodies from the Existence’s matter and energy. Chaos soon got enraged and jealous and would take over to reclaim the matter and energy. Numerous such universes were created and destroyed by the struggle between Chaos And Order.

“Every time, Order created a Universe, eventually Chaos would take over it. But as time passed, and Order seemed to get more skillful in the craft of Universe creation, the Universe started expanding to more planes with in the Existence. Chaos would destroy it like all the earlier ones, but Order would create the next one with more rigors. The Universes started to stay for longer times than their predecessors.

“Eventually, one such Universe, it stayed long enough to create life. The life created was nothing spectacular. It just grew on one planet out of the whole Universe, crawling around underwater. The effect of Chaos still remained in the life created, and they soon were extinct before the whole Universe was consumed by Chaos again.

“Then, time came to pass, when Order got as skillful Chaos and created a magnificent Universe that awed the rest. There were similar low life forms in numerous planets, but on one planet, there was something new. There grew numerous sentinels who interacted with each other and their environment, and shaped their destiny, no matter how short lived they were.

“As Void and Existence watched the work of Order, Chaos too watched it with a nasty streak of jealousy and greed.”

It was the first time that sentience had taken form on the universe created by Order, and thus Chaos had attempted to corrupt the universe in a different manner than he had done lot many times. The resulting power struggle created the four races – Humans, Elfs, Giants and Orcs from the ancient humanoid race of Naras.

Order though, had been a bit deceptive in her own way. She had started of creating the sentient races at two different places on the planet, Pipurim. The Naras, she purposefully made them grand and there by they attracted Chaos. The other group of sentient she created roamed the northern hemisphere during the ages when there was only ice and soon as the ice melted they got restricted to a northern continent. These sentient called themselves Naras and their features told that Order had taken inspiration from the other feline creation she had done several times – the Fikalats.

It took several Warsa for Chaos to roll his eyes over to the northern hemisphere of Pipurim. Though, the same was the case with Order and she was not able to give much of her attention to the Firmans once the struggle over the Nara descendants started against Order. As a result of this, the Firmans are less corrupted by Chaos, but also are less developed with their overall skills.

The realm is under constant strain due to the struggle between the Elder Gods, Chaos and Order, has developed complex interweaving fabric of existence.

The major stage of the universe where the drama of existence takes place is the plane of mortals. The sentient and other life forms are drawn out of the chaotic existence outside this and other planes, and are born into the mortal plane. They gain experience and knowledge in their own scale and when they die, they go back to the chaotic existence.

Even with in the chaotic existence these beings that were once born into mortal plane are able to hold on to a semblance of entity and this is the payback the Order gives to Chaos for causing disruption in her creations. These entities though are not able to maintain their full form and are reduced to suggestive beings that can easily be poured into another life form and be born again. These suggestive entities have varied level of intricacies and varied level of coherence – which is directly dependent on their skill levels they had attained in their previous lives in the mortal plane. And as they are born again, they inherit some of the skills that they had learned in their previous lives. But these skills would latent until properly harnessed. Thus was the cycle of entities as they moved between the orderly mortal plane and the chaotic netherworlds.

But the mortal plane was not the only plane of existence that Order had created. There were other higher planes of existence. As Warsa passed, few among the many, transcended beyond the mortal plane. They moved on to the next higher plane of existence where the time seemed to slower and existence seemed to shrink as Order had lesser control over them. The beings grew in power and would make appearances in the mortal plane. They were soon regarded as the Gods. These Gods were just mere entities for the Elder Gods, but they did have direct influence over the mortals.

As time passed, though slowly in the planes of Gods, some Gods perished. It was not clear as to where they went, but after ages, there were instances of Gods being born. This made it clear to the Gods that they too could die but they went to a different netherworld than the others and they could reincarnate in the realm of the Gods. There a couple of instances in history when a God got reincarnated in the mortal plane. Such occurrences resulted in continent wide effects that left a lasting rule of that God.

Some Gods surpassed the power of other Gods and climbed higher in the planes of Gods. As such Gods were few; they were under direct influence of the Elder Gods, Order and Chaos. The sough allegiance between the two and this resulted in the constant struggle between the Gods for spheres of influences.

The whole system of the fabric of existence seemed to annoy Chaos, but as malicious he was, he was determined to gain the respect by playing it by the rules that seemed to be set between him and Order. He attempted to gain power and influence with in the system that Order had devised and aimed at bringing everything back to pure chaotic existence.

The tug of power between Chaos and Order was constant and prevailed unknown to the entities of mortals and lesser Gods, ironically on which they acted.