In the depths of NoTime, the Merciful One framed her intention, and then she drew in a breath of Elemental Chaos. This chaos, she had created earlier, to prepare, and now she formed it, and the Universe began.
Some time later, humanoids walked the surface of a planet. They were tall, slim, and very beautiful. The gravity of the planet was .5 g as the planet was quite small. The lungs of the humanoids were consequently very well developed to deal with low pressure. They could run great distances, and leap canyons, but their overall strength and stamina were less than a human.
They were frail, willowy marathoners with enormous rib cages, and elegant faces.
They rebelled against the Merciful One, each and every one of them, and she mourned. Seeing no hope for it, she sent her Flameire, the Lords of the Flame, to curse the the Children of Mostok for such they were called as Mostok was the father of them all.
And it was thus that they moved from the Isle of the Blessed to the World Beyond, and the first generations lived nearly a millenium. And each couple had many children of each generation, and they had children. And it was thus that in 1500 years, the people of the World Beyond neared a population of two billion.
They had one language, and they had the ability to read each other's surface thoughts, and so they understood one another. With clarity, they found that greatness was in their grasp.
But the people had abandoned the teachings of the Flamiere, contending that the doctrine of flame spirits, was of no use to Men and Women of Cold Matter. They found other excuses as well, but the key point is they turned against their Creatress.
Their great power and talent was turned to only their own benefit. And with no trust from one man to another, it soon became the act of a fool to be open and honest. And thus the culture pushed the people further down the nightmarish path they had chosen.
They turned to war, and made great genocides one upon many others.
They forgot hospitality, honor, and honesty. They substituted murdering guests, shameful behavior, and exalted liars as the best men.
Few had children as such was a committment to another. And of those children...many had parents like the young woman who was watching a television show, and was disturbed by her baby's cry. So she murdered the babe, and went back to her television show. There were a few children who survived, but they tended to be wolves in human skin, nay, wolves have more honor and compassion. Creatures who could not understand good even if an angel explained it to them for they were appetite and rage and cunning.
And thus the population fell like a stone.
It had crossed one billion when it came to the attention of the residents that there were a few, a very few, say one in a hundred thousand, who held to the code of the Merciful One, and pled for salvation from the day's horror.
It was easy, indeed natural, for the wicked to hunt them all down, and slay them. In the space of a dozen years, no more but one family were left. And thus it was that the Merciful One, in her great desperation reached for a verser to save them.
She considered destroying the wicked, but she could not. They were her creation. She loved and had pity on them despite the utter wickedness of their way. Her Flamiere counsel her to burn the planet, send a comet, and shatter the planet, and let loose a flood of lava to cover the whole earth. She can't do it.
And so, not knowing what to do, she sends a verser to rescue the last family of decent people on the planet. But thousands of the wicked are coming from all over, hoping for the 'honor' of killing the last good person.
There is magic. It is magic of healing, and magic of mending, and helping an axe land right. Then there is a great power block extending for many levels until it is allowed for the Flamiere to manifest themselves. Thus, this world has 15@10 magic bias, but other than angels showing up on the doorstep, and sprained ankles being healed by a chanted charm, there is little magic.
There is enough psi to Read Surface Thoughts. There is no government as that concept is not yet known in this world.
There is steam engine technology, but without covenants of trust, large-scale operations is simply impossible. Building a railroad requires faith that a robber wouldn't steal the tracks the next day, and if you had such faith, in this world, it would be badly misplaced. In general, each inventor is on his own (except for what he can steal from others).
The Flamiere and even the Merciful One are quite open to being asked to talk, or to give counsel. They will manifest themsevles with ease.
However, the Merciful One is not respected. The humanoids know she won't strike them down. She might make them sleep for a few minutes, or overawe them with her presence.
If the decent people are killed, then the people in this world will reach another level in their moral degradation. The Merciful One will not shine her light into the world anymore, and the people will forget there is any thing such as good...which is what they want.
The Dark Sister, who is generally barred from interfering, in this world because the Merciful One imprisoned her, will be freed. This world will take the last few steps to become a suburb of the Abyss. And then its people will go forth when someone summons a demon from the Dark Sister's horde, and be as demons in other universes.
A quick note: the Flamiere appear to be supernatural beings, not indigs; as such they (like the verser) are bound by the curve, not the level. If the point of having a 15@10 bias is to empower them, it's not needed--a 2@23 will will permit Flamiere and versers to do anything but limit indigs to a few blessing and healing skills. The significant difference would be the ease with which magic can be done--the bias bonus being +4 instead of +30 on all skills, no matter what the bias of the user. On the other hand, you can tweak this easily enough. It would be a bit odd to have power blocks on skills that are above the bias level, but given the mix of outsiders here it's not unreasonable.
Also, power blocks are supposed to be defined by kinds of skills, not by levels or intensities. That is, you have to be able to describe that which is forbidden in a way that does not reference game mechanics to create a power block.
--M. J. Young
Sounds like a fairly standard creation myth, and an interesting world scenario.
What becomes of the place if the Verser fails but isn't killed? Does the Merciful One have a plan for rebooting the world like her Flameire want?
MJ,
OK. I'll go with 2@23.
07,
Indeed, standard creation myth. This world is an answer to a question: How could God have destroyed the world in Noah's Flood? And the answer is, the humans of that world would have made themselves a hell on earth, and totally spoiled any chance for any chance for any decent human beings to arise from that world.
I'm still struggling with how to work this a bit.
But, the Merciful One does not reboot the world. She is too 'kindly' to take such action. This world becomes a haven of 'demons', actually humanoids of complete evil. Meanwhile the Merciful One wrings her hands in dismay, and refuses her Flamiere's suggestions.
If the verser fails, as is most likely, but is not killed, which is unlikely, then .....one could argue that the verser if devout is a mirror of good, and thus holds back Absolute Evil. Or one could argue, and I think I would, that the verser is not a native, and so he does not have that affect on the natives (unless he is a worshipper of the Merciful One himself). Thus the verser gets to watch the rapid spiral down from unspeakably disgusting to mind-shatteringly wicked behavior. Likely someone tries to cannibalize him while he's still alive, and he succumbs, and deprives them of their meal.
Ideally, I have a verser in one world see something aweful and awesome, and blame his deity. He lands, courtesy of his deity in the Merciful One's world and sees what happens when divine judgement is withheld, and then verses out to the next world where he is given the responsibility in a quest to ....oh...track down the Twilight Sword (courtesy of Marvel Comics and Thor comic) and draw the blade and end most of that world.
The Flamiere are the Merciful One's servants, messengers, and managers. They are practically angels, but instead of Jehovah's angels they are flame spirits, and instead of the angelic host with its great variety of types (seraphim, cherubim...), there is only one type, a ten foot tall, man-shaped, masculine form clothed in garments of fire and sheathed in flame who sometimes carry a sword of pure plasma.
Definitely supernatural.
One of the problems of making such a wicked world is that I as referee would not want to go into detail, or even outline on many of the things that happens there.
One solution is to pick a few things that are less disturbing...
...you see a man chewing on a thigh bone, it looks human...
...you see a man laughing hysterically surrounded by his dead relatives 'it worked, the poison worked, now I'm rich!'...
...you see a man being flogged to death with a whip...
And then suggest that you see other things even more disturbing, but instead of describing them, you're simply going to have the player roll a Difficult Willpower check to avoid running away and going catatonic for a few hours.
Rather like Call of Cthulu.
Of course, the true horror is...
...someone is stalking the bone chewer to eat him...
...the rest of the village doesn't care. instead, they are trying to get his loot before he gets it....
...you rescue the man being flogged, and when you turn your back, he takes out a knife to stab you and rob you....
Wow, I'm not sure how I (or my character) would react in this world. It would be interesting. I think he might try talking someone into giving him the baby they'd otherwise kill and try to raise it. Or to find young children and try to slowly, painfully influence them. (I'm reading a book called "Don't leave me as I am", which talks about working with people with a mental and/or physical disadvantage, such as the syndrome of down. They take the standpoint that everyone can change. It's a very interesting read!)
The discussions I'd have with the creator-lady would be interesting as I would have to go and try to define things where I'm still uncertain of how the balance is.