This is another post previously on my other blog! At the time, I'd thought I would tip-tap some ideas down about one of the 7 worlds in my little RPG realm-hub. I had added Orbis to the other realms, all of which are in various states of completion. Tellas, my main campaign world, is very well defined, at least on the western and central portions of the map. Filios, where my recent Swords & Wizardry game was set, is currently a small region in the midst of a pretty solid world. Confluence at the "apex" of the 7 spheres is an area that I have a ton of generative content to use. Lots of lore and things to explore scattered about. The Fields of Fallen Petals, also known as Plains of Endless War, at the other end of the configuration is very ill-defined. But who wants to visit the Infernals and their war-mongery ways? They're gonna be the ones to win in the end I bet. I don't have any idea what's happening down there, other than warrior souls getting their war on to stay sharp for some sort of an armageddon. Um, Panglossia has some continents and some countries named. Cowboys and pirates and something something Empires. And, there's the vague idea for a sword-and-planet thing cause that's neat.
I guess that's not seven, though it's too late to bother to count on my fingers, and besides, Tellas has another iteration 3000 years later (Gloom City which will probably have to be renamed grr!), and the whole shebang has, at the supposed end of the Universe, the last place, Terminus. (Hey, actually, my Mothership galactic slice doesn't go with any of this dorfy stuff, so that's a relief, I guess.)
[Addendum: Since all of this, Terminus has been given many more details, and something of a defined structure (it's weird, surprise!). And Filios has been made a region on Orbis connecting to the Bright Spans through the big deserty wastelands to the east, AND over the tundra and glaciers to the north.]
Alright, but Orbis. Some sort of long ago, some sorcerer dudes, the most accurate diviners (a reputation of the ages!), predicted that the World would be torn asunder! At a particular time of the year, deep in a specific season! By a noble probably! A young lady of princessish background would definitely do it, since changing the world is what they do (when not being rescued, presumably). And they're the perfect conduit for world-shattering, since it is well known that slaying a fair young lady, or harming a maid of the gentle eventide, or generally mistreating princesses is bad lucking cursedry of the highest order.
At any rate, at some point the ancient scrolls got spilled on, a few were misplaced, others were white-outed in that ancient style of scraping (palimpsestery by a presumably well-meaning but bumbling clerk in a far-off monastery I'm sure; the sit-com nearly writes itself). So, the actual prophesy got muddled as these things are wont to do, and the specific season and circumstances were loooost to tiiiiiime.
This made the Elves unhappy, and eventually some of them had the realization that the time was drawing nearer. The oldest Elves had been alive around the time of the Grrreat Olde Sages, when those glorious worthies were looking at the stars, and throwing bones at each other, and sniffing toad powder, and whatnot. Some of them Elves had even been there to hear the bad news personally. But because they're elves, they couldn't be bothered to actually talk to the Tallmen, except when hooking up some toad powder for like mushrooms or something. They, too, didn't have the exact details.
So, the elvish solution? Kidnap princesses and lock them away in towers. Permanent sleep-spells. Bramble-thorns, lots of bramble-thorns. More Enchantments of Peaceful Repose type magics. Somehow convince dragons to also kidnap princesses, and get people to offer up princesses to dragons as festival sacrifices and all that. (And other monsters only dragon-adjacent most likely. Townsfolk don't know the difference, and crops is crops, after all.) Poison apples, too; those things grow all over the frickin' place.
Well, while castles were being mightily enchanted and filled with fair maids and all sorts of nice things, those sorcerers and sortiledgers were boning up on formulaic magics, exact, duplicable incantationaries, and the copying and codifying of otherworldly forces. In short they were evolving into "capital W" Wizards. Wizards who certainly weren't going stand by and let any old group of horrible (and likely snooty) Elves take (the glory of saving the world) those princesses and lock them up! Why no, siree, they'd cast Great Magicks and Workes 'pon the land and change the veeerry course of the wooorld if need-be! And the top guy, the name that is passed down to us from this time as the fulcrum point of the Great Rectification, stabilizing the very future of the world Orbis, and saving all, is the wizard Balthazar of Azhonagh. He's the guy to blame, probably, for all that came next.
Okee! A bit more coming soon I hope. Something on the lands, something on the remaining history. Something else I'm sure, gabbling about this or that. There's some question as to the relative states of "souls" in the general groups of fae and their descendants and related types, especially elves, gobbos, and *gasp* orcs. Questions about what's going on more recently; it was, after all, called "Defeat All Wizards" in my initial notes. Lots of info on factions and countries and whatnot. The Saints and the Gods. Why I have too many megadungeons for any one person to ever even try to use! Hah. Really, I don't know if anyone likes world-buildy stuff, but, either way it'll be hanging out here.
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