Showing posts with label Space Fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space Fantasy. Show all posts

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Lannit, the Dreaming Deep

Impossible to source thanks to Pinterest >:(

 Lannit is the only gas giant in my Planetary Romance setting. It is one of the three worlds which commonly house dreaming bodies, along with its moon Bazran and comet-like Amethyst Court. However, it is unique among these: called the Mutable Dream, within its impenetrable wall of wind and pressure is a foggy, wondrous world that shapes itself according to the whims of its inhabitants. And by heaven, do those whims change, for the Dreaming Deep is changes both the perception of time and the minds of its inhabitants. For this reason is it the most dangerous, and most seductive, of all the worlds which hold dreams.

When a person dreams on Lannit, most of the time it is easily forgotten. The mind that dwells most often in their waking bodies need not fear the dangers of that place. But for those whose mind wanders more often than not, the dangers are acute. Artists, Addicts, and the Bright and Good wander through the Dreaming Deep, becoming enamored with its impossibilities and its potential. Eventually they never wake, and they dream forever in an endless irrational dance of becoming and glory. One moment a poet, the next a shoemaker, the next an interdimensional death god, the next a long lost princess, the next a forlorn button popped off a boot.

Perhaps some seventy years hence, they might find a shape amenable to once again dream. They then wake on a different world, in the real solar system, feeling dazed and incomprehensibly solid. But they are no longer the person they were, not even physically, the only thread connecting them to their old lives a continuity continually broken. All of living is new and old to them. A simple piece of toast is foreign, maybe boring, maybe exciting; but all the grandeur of the Emperor is equally as foreign, equally as boring, equally as exciting.

Despite/because of the danger, there is a proliferation of drugs that cause dreams there. The most potent is the actual outer atmosphere of Lannit, but the most common is a cactus that grows on Bazran called Lernira, which picks up some diffuse particles. Such drugs are magically potent, and help sorcerers to power their art (of course at great risk). But many users are simply self-destructive and/or hedonistic. Societies that overuse such substances gain great power at the cost of being by nature ephemeral. Still, some societies of that sort leave behind ruins, which suit well adventuring types.


Friday, February 12, 2021

Locheil's setting questions for my Space Fantasy

 


Which specific NPC do I want to piss off the least?  

You probably don't want to piss off the Amethyst Emperor. His palace assassins will mess you up, and could probably follow you to any planet in the system. He's pretty hard to piss off though, since you'd need to actually be in his court (an erratic and incredibly fast space station) to do so.

Which god should I want to piss off the most? 

If you are anything like a cross-section of the OSR community (that is, a no-gods no-kings heathen), you probably want to piss of the Cult of the Golden Nimbus, the resident theocracy of the greenhouse-prarie planet Akron.

What's the worst thing I could meet at a crossroads? 

A Salipish Gravatic-Sorcerer, because that probably means your crossroads are about to erupt into space *or* that your crossroads are the property of a Salipish floating-warlord.

What's the nearest thing that can utterly destroy me to your starting town? Or starting town equivalent? 

Depends a great deal on what planet you are on. Oredonian sea monsters (and undersea ruin-reactors) for Oredon; the crushing pressure of the dream barrier for Lannit and its moons; Roche-limit asteroids, boiling tidal geysers, and crashing sky-fortesses for Salip; Falling into a predatory plant on Akron; and the aforementioned Assassins in the Amethyst Court.

Is apotheosis open to my character? If not, why not? 

Probably not open because there isn't ostensibly any gods. You might be able to do something godlike with the tech in Oredon's ruins, or the ruins in the Reverie Belt, and you could probably get a cult as a dreamer in Lannit, as a warlord on Salip or Kazran, and the Amethyst Court is basically heaven.

Do people in your world have souls? Why? 

People have dreaming bodies, and sometimes reincarnate, but there's nothing really seperating the soul from the body and mind. Reincarnation is just people sometimes coming back from the dead with a new body, nothing about your essence inhabiting a different body.

Does jazz exist in your setting yet? Can I invent it and not be stoned to death? 

The people of Akron can do some wild things with a bugle and not!cello, but pianos and saxaphones haven't been invented. Really depends on who's the possible stone-thrower.

What's the weirdest country/polity/region/area on your map? 

Akron is weirdest in terms of ecosystem (thermosynthetic and carnivorous plants) but is basically a medieval world, Lannit is weirdest in terms of geology (a hollow gas-giant with an internal dream world), Bazran and the Amethyst court are weirdest in terms of diversity of magic and races.

Do guns exist yet? If they do, is there anything making them weird/different?
guns exist but are basically gravititional or magnetic crossbows, flinging sharp bits of metal with no combustion.

Is there a divide between mundane/magical animals?