Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lazywriter 07-09-07, 01:22 PM	Howdy. First time poster, long time lurker. I've been working on a homebrew for awhile now, and I'm coming here to see what people would think of what I've come up with at the moment. I'm just starting to build a new group in my home area (Northeastern MA / Southeastern NH, Newburyport area) and I was hoping to have the bugs, or at least some of the bugs, worked out of what I have so far so that I could run it for said group. --- The name of this homebrew is The Worlds. This is not in the interplanetary sense, but in an exploration sort of way. This was influenced not only by old colonial times (the 1800's of our world) but by video games like Metroid (Prime and Super M) and Warcraft, but the old campaign world of Spelljammer and Shadow of the Spidermoon. In fact, this was started as a rewrite of Spelljammer, updated with what I originally wanted to see in an update. Once, the elves and the humans thought that they were alone on the planet. They would remain thinking this until a fatal decision came back to bite them: the exile of an elvish noble house. When this house returned from across the harsh desert sands to the south of the Kingdom of Leaves, they brought with them change - and Taint. At first, the Fa'ael (betrayers in Elvish; other's call them Hell Elves) seemed benign; they'd brought back with them progress and learning and sought to find new worlds existing beyond the small world everyone thought they lived in. They conquered the old Kingdom of Leaves and replaced it with the Empire of Thorns and surged out across the ocean, discovering not only islands occupied by the Mani fisherfolk and the Totemi lizardfolk, but also - their fabled new world. In their urgency to seek out these new worlds however, the Fa'ael slipped up, revealing that the new spirit that they worshipped was a Demon Queen who called their souls her own. Their embrace of the foulness called Taint, a strange substance that gave great power but also lead to madness, mutation, and disease. The end of their reign came from themselves and their strange greed for knowledge. One of their generals, a man named Julius, discovered a tomb that looked very unlike any that had been seen before. Deep within this tomb lay what would later be called the Julius Fragment, a strange tablet that had writing in not only elvish, but a strange, older tongue as well. This knowledge spoke of a great god of the sun, who had wiped out creatures that resembled very muchly the Fa'ael of now. This tablet and the knowledge within it lead Julius and his second in command, a Nub named Muunsk, to turn to the worship of this Sun God, Akhen. Knowing now that what they followed was a foul evilness, they declared open war against the Empire. They raised an army and struck hard and fast, driving the Fa'ael back from the lands, using new magic against them. When the king of the old kingdom returned along with a returned Green Lady (the spiritual patron of the old kingdom) they were able to retake the Empire and drive the Fa'ael back, turning the Empire of Thorns into the Empire of the Rose. Now the Emperor must contend with new worlds, new people, new religions, and even, the knowledge that another world once existed here, a world older than the one they knew now. The noble Houses have moved from the seat of the old kingdom to the colonies of the New World, becoming heads of trade. Scholars and loreseekers comb over the sands of Saa'Akhen, the holy land of the followers of Julius and Muunsk, searching for knowledge of this older world. Pirates sail the seas between the worlds, gaining wealth from raided boats and patrols. And even still sit the Fa'ael, having emerged once again with their Queen, looking to not only regain their Empire, but follow some strange initiative that only they know of. (Sorry about the rushedness of this. I was typing it on my lunchbreak, which ended :()
chimpman 07-13-07, 11:28 PM	Hi Lazywriter, I really like this concept. Have you ever read Michael A Stackpole? He's got a series out now called Age of Discovery with some similar themes. If not, you may enjoy it. So, a few questions. How many races are there in the empire? You mention humans and elves (and I'm assuming that the Fa'ael - cool name by the way - are something like drow, though I could be wrong on that). However then you mention Julius' companion who is a Nub, but I'm not sure what that is. Also it's not clear what race Julius is (human, elf, or maybe even Fa'ael), I couldn't tell from your description of events. Anyway, I hope you write more about this setting. I'd love to hear about it.