PEACH Creation Campaign Setting [Archive] - Wizards Community

PEACH Creation Campaign Setting [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Janusunaj
03-03-08, 11:05 PM The Creation Campaign Setting is home to thousands of NPCs with something equal to divine rank, yet there are no "deities", except for God. Like Europe centuries ago, they had discovered a new world. Creation assumes that the players are one of many warriors that seek to explore and travel throughout the universe, like Star Trek. Evangelization and political assimilation of all moralities of the nine alignments are present throughout the many worlds of Creation.

Methods of Travel:
Portals are the main source of travel through space in Creation. One may also assume the role of Captain of a star ship, but for a world to sponsor such ships, they would require high resources.

The Six Pantheons:

The Grey Dark : Chaos
Chaos, Destruction, Will. According to the Chaos Masters, only through the three Grey Dark's Magics can all demons and devils be put to rest. Chaos, argues Grey Dark Lords..... is not necessarily confusion.... Chaos is merely a source of magic that pervades all of existence on these centered Planes of reality that makes sure that everything stays together. While Chaos is seen frequently to be a source of eternal imbalance, its more something like stabbing a tooth pick through pieces of meat so you could eat them one by one.

The Grey Light : Order
Order, Creation, and Dreams are estates that belong to Order. Order is a Pantheon that arranges itself in ideologies. They sincerely believe that only through the powers of Creation, Dreams, and the unyielding Laws of the universe can Creation(all that was made) be made pure and be restored towards the Forces of Good permanently.

The Celestial Beuracracies : Natural elements
Celestial Beuracracies are lead by Celestials that are focused on maintaining their estates of a certain aspect of Nature, like Fire, or Plants, Animals, or even narrowly focused elements like Lightning.

The Shadow Source :
The Shadow Emperors are known as Erebus, Death, and Phantasm. Phantasm is a mystical creature of extreme power that is in charge of the metaphysical aspects of the Shadow Source, which is to say, a mysterious, enigmatic energy source that is infinite and throughout Creation, with isolated areas where there is no Shadow Source. Ascended Wizards that tap into the Shadow Source often go mad, and the Shadow Source is an extreme mystery to even Wizards.

The Virtues:
Virtues are angelic, pristine and pure beings of enlightenment and goodness. They are usually Elder Beings of extreme age, even for immortals. They are Powers of Wisdom, Fate, Life, Love, Heaven, and Virtue itself.

The Wizards :
All Ascended mortals are called Wizards. Wizards are not merely the PC class of "wizard", they have become integral to the Universe and are of extreme importance, like a Marvel Cosmic being, a Lord of the Rings Valar, and so on. The PC class has become "Magus". Magic from Wizards always are of extreme scope and focus, beyond the strength and capabilities of mortal magicians by leaps and bounds. Do not be deceived, a Wizard could have been a barbarian warrior before Ascension.

Levels of PCs and NPCs =

From 1st level to 27th level. I decided to cap this multi-planed Campaign setting at level 27 because of Mordenkainen. All mortals are capped at level 27. The fact that Golden Great Wyrms are so powerful but out of reach for non-epic characters in many circumstances was also a strong motivator.

In order to climb to higher character levels they have a set of options =

1. Soul Selling.... Not an option for good characters.
2. Arbitration.... Divine Arbitration, is when God (capital G) allows the PCs to attend. They must quest in order to Ascend. Any party member that survives the quest wins Arbitration for all party members, and receives one extra experience level. In addition to this, all party members that have not received levels on their quest receive them all at Arbitration.
3. Appointment.... Ascension.... This effectively, is an extreme test or ritual performed by the player that wants to become a Wizard. Wizard's must choose their Estate (Portfolio). After success, a Wizard receives a minimum of 6 power level ranks(divine ranks). These Tests could either be a brand new invention of the player by the DM's discretion, or something required by another Wizard.
Grimgrin
03-05-08, 01:12 PM So the alignment breakdown for each religious sect is:

Dark Grey: CG, CN, CE

Grey Light: LG, LN, LE

Celestial Beuracracies: LN, N, CN

Shadow Source: LE, NE, CE

The Virtues: LG, NG, CG

The Wizards: True Neutral

About spacecraft:
Are spacecraft created using d20 Future/Star Wars, are they magical constructs like solar wind sail boats (Starjammer), or are they Steampunk/Flash Gordon rocket ships.
Janusunaj
03-05-08, 06:29 PM Actually alignment is =

Dark Grey: CG, CN, CE, N

Grey Light: LG, LN, LE, N

Celestial Beuracracies: Any alignment at all

Shadow Source: Any alignment at all

The Virtues: LG, NG, CG

The Wizards: Any alignment at all

About spacecraft:
SpaceCraft are ships anywhere from Babylon 5, to 31st century Federation starships....

Most worlds only have a few dozen of these, because materials for ships built are rare.

However, high technology can produce lesser quality ships more regularily.

The most powerful empires possess ships with only a moderate numerical advantage, but a very very high quality ship to ship combat ratio.

Other great empires contain an extremely large civilizations with barely much of a fleet per planet.

Lost civilizations of legendary proportions that could somehow process powerful ships of hundreds or even tens of thousands per planet, across super clusters once existed, but to discover something of these lost nations is to find an artifact.
Giradius
03-08-08, 08:17 PM there are no "deities", except for God.

you have 6 pantheons, where is the religion of God option?
also what are the powers of this "God".

Am I right in thinking the premise of this game is "Demi gods belonging to one of 6 factions in spaceships exploring the universe"?

It has a slightly mormon sound to it with regard to everyone being a low ranking deity or having the ability to become a deity.
Janusunaj
03-10-08, 03:38 PM O.k.. I should have mentioned religion. Well you see, there is one Omnipotent God... Meant to be the Christian God.

The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state. Evil seeks, of course, to enslave it, but I didn't include the evil pantheons because I don't allow players to be of evil alignment.
Giradius
03-10-08, 08:08 PM O.k.. I should have mentioned religion. Well you see, there is one Omnipotent God... Meant to be the Christian God.

The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state. Evil seeks, of course, to enslave it, but I didn't include the evil pantheons because I don't allow players to be of evil alignment.

Thats an even more scary setting than Ravenloft!

You have this Omnipotent god, "the christian god" who allows the evil pantheon to rage through the universe destroying and killing at will...have you heard of the riddle of Epicurus?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Also every time someone uses arcane magic or non christian divine magic they will be punished, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" Exodus 22:18, also "thou shalt have no other gods before me" Exodus 20:3, and remember the egyptians when the clerics of the Egyptian pantheon turned their staves to snakes, the end of that story does not bode well for the egyptians.

I would be deeply loathe to play a game set in a christian universe, not nessesarily through any religious reasons you understand (I would play in a setting with norse gods or Greek gods), its purely a practical one, a setting whose prime deity was Jehovah would be so limited in what you could do, no mages, no druids, no rangers, no bards, no clerics, or any other magic user be they arcane or divine.

and anyway doesnt...
The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state.

interfere with the christian gods plan and invalidate free will?
if these beings go around slaying evil doers, as Nietzsche said "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.", if they dont slay evil doers then as Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

I think the concept is unworkable, if you say that the omnipotent god is just a spectator and does not interfere, then that is not the christian god, the Bible is one huge record of god interfering.
Janusunaj
03-11-08, 12:51 AM This "Christian God' is workable in this setting for the same reason that C.S Lewis'es is workable. Its Fantasy "magic" in which the spells cast, the incantations, etcetera, are not even occult in nature.

Likewise, the Wizards being abhuman is taken straight from Tolkien.
Giradius
03-11-08, 08:49 AM This "Christian God' is workable in this setting for the same reason that C.S Lewis'es is workable.

the christian god is not part of Narnia, the books contain allegory and christian elements and themes (Aslan is distinctly christlike) and the auther was christian, but that does not make any of the Narnia books "christian", I somehow cannot visualise Aslan flooding Narnia and killing everything because he doesnt like the way they behave, and additionally there is just as much pagan myth in the books as christian.

Its Fantasy "magic" in which the spells cast, the incantations, etcetera, are not even occult in nature.

do you know what the definition of occult is?
Hidden
comes from the latin Occultus meaning "knowledge of the hidden", my point is that any magic is occult, it uses unseen laws and powers to change the universe in accordance to the will or desire of the wizard, therefore attempting to control a part of the created world (whic is only something god is supposed to do),I suspect the logic behind the ban on magic is because those who claimed magic powers had just as much chance of being lucky and some event making it look like they did have them as a priest (or other holy person) did of when making claims to divine power, I suspect this is why it was considered a blasphemy.
Have you read the WOTC product "tome of magic"?
large chunks of that are taken straight out of the Lemegeton better known as the Key of Solomon, a notorious occult grimoire of the middle ages.
You make the link between magic and what you call occult (which I suspect you take to mean satanic or some other malignant force, but this does not take into account the fact that at least half of the worlds occult traditions are NON christian as they are derived from Pagan faiths and dont even acknowledge the existance of external evil or the devil)

Too summarise I go back to my original point, a christian god who does not interfere in the affair of mankind, punish magic users or cast out demons and evil doers is NOT the christian god, CS Lewis was a christian and his books have christian THEMES and ELEMENTS but are not directly christian, at no point does Aslan acknowledge or mention christ, it is therefore wrong to assume that the christian god is present in Narnia, an omnipotent god may well be, but not specifically the christian god, (allah is an omnipotent god, jehovah is also omnipotent, however the first is the muslim god and the second is also worshipped by jews).

So IMO your setting can have an omnipotent god as its overdeity but making this the christian god is a mistake, as no other work of fiction (except the bible :D) has done so and if you read the bible you will find that a setting where this deity exists would be no fun to roleplay in for the reasons I have mentioned.

I take your points and agree with you about the wizards, but I never had a problem with them (or the tolkienesq idea behind them) and so dont know why you mentioned them in answer to my post.
Janusunaj
03-11-08, 06:33 PM I just won't argue. I just simply stand behind my well made points. :):P
Giradius
03-11-08, 07:11 PM I just won't argue. I just simply stand behind my well made points.

:D this kind of issue crops up whenever real world religions are translated (or going to be translated) into an RPG, I know people who would argue until blue in the face about Tyr in forgotten realms, he would quote all manner of things at you from the Norse saga's to the poetic and prose Edda's and who knows what else (translated runestones from somewhere in Norway no doubt).
Its probably because religion is such an evocative issue that everyone has an opinion on it, and because everyone has an opinion there will be disagreements, Whether or not to include Mindflayers or only allow Paladins of Freedom in a setting doesnt get the same level of response as whether a setting is ruled by a real world deity.

I understand why WOTC discourage it on the forums!
but then again this kind of thing interests me.

but back to your setting!

I assume it some form of Science fantasy , how far are going with monstrous humanoids and abberations, Mindflayers seem to have property of being a universal feature to a setting.
I would like to create a space opera type setting after my current project and I will make Illithids big players in the universe.
what about Dragons? have always liked the image of great fleets of fighter craft dogfghting a collossal red dragon.
Janusunaj
03-11-08, 10:52 PM Dragons, well, I assume they need to breathe in my setting. I think anyway.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Janusunaj 03-03-08, 11:05 PM	The Creation Campaign Setting is home to thousands of NPCs with something equal to divine rank, yet there are no "deities", except for God. Like Europe centuries ago, they had discovered a new world. Creation assumes that the players are one of many warriors that seek to explore and travel throughout the universe, like Star Trek. Evangelization and political assimilation of all moralities of the nine alignments are present throughout the many worlds of Creation. Methods of Travel: Portals are the main source of travel through space in Creation. One may also assume the role of Captain of a star ship, but for a world to sponsor such ships, they would require high resources. The Six Pantheons: The Grey Dark : Chaos Chaos, Destruction, Will. According to the Chaos Masters, only through the three Grey Dark's Magics can all demons and devils be put to rest. Chaos, argues Grey Dark Lords..... is not necessarily confusion.... Chaos is merely a source of magic that pervades all of existence on these centered Planes of reality that makes sure that everything stays together. While Chaos is seen frequently to be a source of eternal imbalance, its more something like stabbing a tooth pick through pieces of meat so you could eat them one by one. The Grey Light : Order Order, Creation, and Dreams are estates that belong to Order. Order is a Pantheon that arranges itself in ideologies. They sincerely believe that only through the powers of Creation, Dreams, and the unyielding Laws of the universe can Creation(all that was made) be made pure and be restored towards the Forces of Good permanently. The Celestial Beuracracies : Natural elements Celestial Beuracracies are lead by Celestials that are focused on maintaining their estates of a certain aspect of Nature, like Fire, or Plants, Animals, or even narrowly focused elements like Lightning. The Shadow Source : The Shadow Emperors are known as Erebus, Death, and Phantasm. Phantasm is a mystical creature of extreme power that is in charge of the metaphysical aspects of the Shadow Source, which is to say, a mysterious, enigmatic energy source that is infinite and throughout Creation, with isolated areas where there is no Shadow Source. Ascended Wizards that tap into the Shadow Source often go mad, and the Shadow Source is an extreme mystery to even Wizards. The Virtues: Virtues are angelic, pristine and pure beings of enlightenment and goodness. They are usually Elder Beings of extreme age, even for immortals. They are Powers of Wisdom, Fate, Life, Love, Heaven, and Virtue itself. The Wizards : All Ascended mortals are called Wizards. Wizards are not merely the PC class of "wizard", they have become integral to the Universe and are of extreme importance, like a Marvel Cosmic being, a Lord of the Rings Valar, and so on. The PC class has become "Magus". Magic from Wizards always are of extreme scope and focus, beyond the strength and capabilities of mortal magicians by leaps and bounds. Do not be deceived, a Wizard could have been a barbarian warrior before Ascension. Levels of PCs and NPCs = From 1st level to 27th level. I decided to cap this multi-planed Campaign setting at level 27 because of Mordenkainen. All mortals are capped at level 27. The fact that Golden Great Wyrms are so powerful but out of reach for non-epic characters in many circumstances was also a strong motivator. In order to climb to higher character levels they have a set of options = 1. Soul Selling.... Not an option for good characters. 2. Arbitration.... Divine Arbitration, is when God (capital G) allows the PCs to attend. They must quest in order to Ascend. Any party member that survives the quest wins Arbitration for all party members, and receives one extra experience level. In addition to this, all party members that have not received levels on their quest receive them all at Arbitration. 3. Appointment.... Ascension.... This effectively, is an extreme test or ritual performed by the player that wants to become a Wizard. Wizard's must choose their Estate (Portfolio). After success, a Wizard receives a minimum of 6 power level ranks(divine ranks). These Tests could either be a brand new invention of the player by the DM's discretion, or something required by another Wizard.
Grimgrin 03-05-08, 01:12 PM	So the alignment breakdown for each religious sect is: Dark Grey: CG, CN, CE Grey Light: LG, LN, LE Celestial Beuracracies: LN, N, CN Shadow Source: LE, NE, CE The Virtues: LG, NG, CG The Wizards: True Neutral About spacecraft: Are spacecraft created using d20 Future/Star Wars, are they magical constructs like solar wind sail boats (Starjammer), or are they Steampunk/Flash Gordon rocket ships.
Janusunaj 03-05-08, 06:29 PM	Actually alignment is = Dark Grey: CG, CN, CE, N Grey Light: LG, LN, LE, N Celestial Beuracracies: Any alignment at all Shadow Source: Any alignment at all The Virtues: LG, NG, CG The Wizards: Any alignment at all About spacecraft: SpaceCraft are ships anywhere from Babylon 5, to 31st century Federation starships.... Most worlds only have a few dozen of these, because materials for ships built are rare. However, high technology can produce lesser quality ships more regularily. The most powerful empires possess ships with only a moderate numerical advantage, but a very very high quality ship to ship combat ratio. Other great empires contain an extremely large civilizations with barely much of a fleet per planet. Lost civilizations of legendary proportions that could somehow process powerful ships of hundreds or even tens of thousands per planet, across super clusters once existed, but to discover something of these lost nations is to find an artifact.
Giradius 03-08-08, 08:17 PM	there are no "deities", except for God. you have 6 pantheons, where is the religion of God option? also what are the powers of this "God". Am I right in thinking the premise of this game is "Demi gods belonging to one of 6 factions in spaceships exploring the universe"? It has a slightly mormon sound to it with regard to everyone being a low ranking deity or having the ability to become a deity.
Janusunaj 03-10-08, 03:38 PM	O.k.. I should have mentioned religion. Well you see, there is one Omnipotent God... Meant to be the Christian God. The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state. Evil seeks, of course, to enslave it, but I didn't include the evil pantheons because I don't allow players to be of evil alignment.
Giradius 03-10-08, 08:08 PM	O.k.. I should have mentioned religion. Well you see, there is one Omnipotent God... Meant to be the Christian God. The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state. Evil seeks, of course, to enslave it, but I didn't include the evil pantheons because I don't allow players to be of evil alignment. Thats an even more scary setting than Ravenloft! You have this Omnipotent god, "the christian god" who allows the evil pantheon to rage through the universe destroying and killing at will...have you heard of the riddle of Epicurus? Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Also every time someone uses arcane magic or non christian divine magic they will be punished, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" Exodus 22:18, also "thou shalt have no other gods before me" Exodus 20:3, and remember the egyptians when the clerics of the Egyptian pantheon turned their staves to snakes, the end of that story does not bode well for the egyptians. I would be deeply loathe to play a game set in a christian universe, not nessesarily through any religious reasons you understand (I would play in a setting with norse gods or Greek gods), its purely a practical one, a setting whose prime deity was Jehovah would be so limited in what you could do, no mages, no druids, no rangers, no bards, no clerics, or any other magic user be they arcane or divine. and anyway doesnt... The Wizards, and the spirits belonging to the Pantheons are creatures with divine ranks that seek to bring the universe back to a pristine, good aligned state. interfere with the christian gods plan and invalidate free will? if these beings go around slaying evil doers, as Nietzsche said "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.", if they dont slay evil doers then as Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." I think the concept is unworkable, if you say that the omnipotent god is just a spectator and does not interfere, then that is not the christian god, the Bible is one huge record of god interfering.
Janusunaj 03-11-08, 12:51 AM	This "Christian God' is workable in this setting for the same reason that C.S Lewis'es is workable. Its Fantasy "magic" in which the spells cast, the incantations, etcetera, are not even occult in nature. Likewise, the Wizards being abhuman is taken straight from Tolkien.
Giradius 03-11-08, 08:49 AM	This "Christian God' is workable in this setting for the same reason that C.S Lewis'es is workable. the christian god is not part of Narnia, the books contain allegory and christian elements and themes (Aslan is distinctly christlike) and the auther was christian, but that does not make any of the Narnia books "christian", I somehow cannot visualise Aslan flooding Narnia and killing everything because he doesnt like the way they behave, and additionally there is just as much pagan myth in the books as christian. Its Fantasy "magic" in which the spells cast, the incantations, etcetera, are not even occult in nature. do you know what the definition of occult is? Hidden comes from the latin Occultus meaning "knowledge of the hidden", my point is that any magic is occult, it uses unseen laws and powers to change the universe in accordance to the will or desire of the wizard, therefore attempting to control a part of the created world (whic is only something god is supposed to do),I suspect the logic behind the ban on magic is because those who claimed magic powers had just as much chance of being lucky and some event making it look like they did have them as a priest (or other holy person) did of when making claims to divine power, I suspect this is why it was considered a blasphemy. Have you read the WOTC product "tome of magic"? large chunks of that are taken straight out of the Lemegeton better known as the Key of Solomon, a notorious occult grimoire of the middle ages. You make the link between magic and what you call occult (which I suspect you take to mean satanic or some other malignant force, but this does not take into account the fact that at least half of the worlds occult traditions are NON christian as they are derived from Pagan faiths and dont even acknowledge the existance of external evil or the devil) Too summarise I go back to my original point, a christian god who does not interfere in the affair of mankind, punish magic users or cast out demons and evil doers is NOT the christian god, CS Lewis was a christian and his books have christian THEMES and ELEMENTS but are not directly christian, at no point does Aslan acknowledge or mention christ, it is therefore wrong to assume that the christian god is present in Narnia, an omnipotent god may well be, but not specifically the christian god, (allah is an omnipotent god, jehovah is also omnipotent, however the first is the muslim god and the second is also worshipped by jews). So IMO your setting can have an omnipotent god as its overdeity but making this the christian god is a mistake, as no other work of fiction (except the bible :D) has done so and if you read the bible you will find that a setting where this deity exists would be no fun to roleplay in for the reasons I have mentioned. I take your points and agree with you about the wizards, but I never had a problem with them (or the tolkienesq idea behind them) and so dont know why you mentioned them in answer to my post.
Janusunaj 03-11-08, 06:33 PM	I just won't argue. I just simply stand behind my well made points. :):P
Giradius 03-11-08, 07:11 PM	I just won't argue. I just simply stand behind my well made points. :D this kind of issue crops up whenever real world religions are translated (or going to be translated) into an RPG, I know people who would argue until blue in the face about Tyr in forgotten realms, he would quote all manner of things at you from the Norse saga's to the poetic and prose Edda's and who knows what else (translated runestones from somewhere in Norway no doubt). Its probably because religion is such an evocative issue that everyone has an opinion on it, and because everyone has an opinion there will be disagreements, Whether or not to include Mindflayers or only allow Paladins of Freedom in a setting doesnt get the same level of response as whether a setting is ruled by a real world deity. I understand why WOTC discourage it on the forums! but then again this kind of thing interests me. but back to your setting! I assume it some form of Science fantasy , how far are going with monstrous humanoids and abberations, Mindflayers seem to have property of being a universal feature to a setting. I would like to create a space opera type setting after my current project and I will make Illithids big players in the universe. what about Dragons? have always liked the image of great fleets of fighter craft dogfghting a collossal red dragon.
Janusunaj 03-11-08, 10:52 PM	Dragons, well, I assume they need to breathe in my setting. I think anyway.