A to Z – Infernal Realms

One of the end results of the Gods War was a sealing off of the Sea of Stars from outside realms, some more so that others.  The higher, heavenly, and lower, infernal realms were deliberately and effectively cut off from the Sea of Stars while magic could pierce the barriers, it is difficult and the called beings find themselves drawn back to their native realm.

Naturally, the rulers of the infernal realms are not happy with this situation, they are certain that if they could gain unrestricted access to the mortal realms again they could, at the very least, reap a harvest of souls and, at best, conquer the world and and promote themselves to gods.  Unfortunately, the new nature of the world works against them in so many ways.

• Increasingly powerful magics are required to bring over more than the most minor being.  Once summoned, the magical membrane separating the realms moves to close and to eject any creature from the lower realms (or, to be fair, the higher realms as well) unless they are bound to a contract or a physical object or being in this one.  If the binding is broken, the process of ejection begins anew.
• The new morality of Dominae makes many of the sins that the lower beings feed on and leverage into corruption people into acceptable and even expected action.  How can a demon tempt you into what is expected or even encouraged?
• The dragons have no wish to see new rivals to their power and while a small number of dragons will make minor deals with the lower planes it is always from a position of strength and never for more than minor boons or servants.  Most dragons ruthlessly hunt down infernalists and dark cults with the same zeal they destroy zealots wishing to resurrect the gods.

This does not stop the infernal realms from seeking a foothold, or cults from seeking a new dark, god or infernalists seeking power, but it does make all of their paths much more difficult.  Thus demons and other infernal beings a known but rare danger in the Sea of Stars.

Notes: Just under the wire on this one.

Image of the Palace “Inferno. Hell.” by Luciano and of the grasping hands of hell, “A Depiction of Hell” by David Wiley both are licensed under CC BY 2.0.

 

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A to Z Metapost – Aims, and asking for your help

It is the start of April’s A to Z Blogging Challenge, which I have participated in on and off since its second year in 2011, today.  This post is a little about my aims for the A to Z Challenge, where one does twenty-six blog posts over April, one for each letter of the alphabet.

While this is an “A” post, it is not the actual post for today, that will come later and be on the theme of armor, this one is about my Aims for the challenge this year.  My aim is to fill in missing odds and ends in the background and structure of the Sea of Stars setting.

So, if you have any questions about the Sea of Stars, please, please ask!  While I will find things to fill the alphabet as the month goes on, I would much rather be providing things that are useful for you.

I look forward to hearing from you.

April begins unusually, March ends normally

April begins tomorrow with both day of tricks and misdirections, such deception not being my specialty do not expect anything clever from me, and Easter Sunday.  Should be a strange day and if you celebrate Easter, have a wonderful day in the faith.

The origin of the name of the Roman month Aprilis is unclear, it may refer to the opening (aperire) of buds and flowers as Spring arrives or in some way to the goddess Venus, to whom it is a sacred month, or something else.  We just do not know, which is actually rather fun.

I am again doing the the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for April, the theme will be “Odds and Ends of the Sea of Stars” so if you have questions about my setting, please ask.

March, 2018, saw the following posts here:

PinkCat: Running in the Shade “It’s a Concert, Tina” (A different sort of SR campaign report)

To understand what is going on here, you had best read the first PinkCat: Running in the Shade post, but short summary, this is a campaign report for our Shadowrun campaign set in NorCal through the filter of a cartoon made by one of the team members.

Episode Thirty-Five: It’s a Concert, Tina

Guest Starring: Clawz, DD, DoubleUp, Jove and Tora.  And introducing:

• Rani, a cardinal magician who keeps changing the color of her feather.  (A stand in for Renny, an elven magician played by K.)
  

DD has a concert scheduled and the people who were suppose to set it up, so she needs some help to get things set up.  Everyone pitches in, of course, things go wrong: the stage starts to sink, the generator will not start, things keep getting lost and misplaced.  Rani realizes that the concert ground is disturbing a nest of gremlins and once they are bought of with food and old technology to break, everything rules smoothly.  Episode ends with DD preforming a song about finding friends in odd places.

What really happened:

Of Tests and Terrors – A Petrichor Campaign Report

Having left our heroes on a cliffhanger as a voice announced “Prepare to be judged.”  From the back of the temple emerges a figure, a resplendent priest with staff and full beard.  Though it is obviously a construct of some sort and he is flanked by six robed figures who stay back in the shadows, the “priest” introduces himself as Ayyumma.  He states that the characters must under go four trails, one for each element, to prove they are worthy.  Lorrend happily accepts for the group.

First, the test of water, suddenly the room is overrun (overflowed?) by a mighty river and the characters are submerged.  Pedr is almost washed away buy Lorrend tosses him a rope and drags them both to the river bank, where Elsbeth is already waiting.

Ayyumma serves our heroes date wine, flat bread and fruits and asks about them, getting short biographies and a brief history of the world since the Sundering.

Then, the test of fire where they are asked to pull white hot iron rods out of a brazier.  Lorrend just grabs one, relying on his toughness as a smith.  Elsbeth trusts to her good dwarven gauntlets.  While Pedr uses chill touch to finesse the whole process.  The burns are painful, except for Pedr, but it was the willingness to make the grasp that was important and salve is provided.

Next, the test of air, which is three riddles, nicely each of the character (players) is able to answer one of them.

Lorrend than complains that he had hoped for something more physically challenging and is rewarded(?) with an earth elemental charging in and attacking them.  The fight was being fairly challenging until Pedr’s chromatic orb ended it with a crashing finality (critical hit with a thunder attack on a creature vulnerable to thunder damage, BOOM!).

Ayyumma reveals himself as a demon, and the robed figures as lesser demon, and they throw themselves at our heroes.  Between Elsbeth’s storm blessings, Pedr’s magic and Lorrend’s combat skills, the lesser demons are quickly dispatched.  Ayyumma proves a tougher foe and is pressing the characters heavily when a massive stone paw smashes it to the floor.   Erisham apologizes for being late and Lorrend complains that the tests were in vein.

Notes: It was decided to return to Petrichor after a mere two year hiatus. It was a short game as R was still recovering from sickness thus the deus ex machina at the end.  Not sure when we will get back to it again.

Image found on Wikimedia Commons and is in the Public Domain.

Review – Shadows in Focus: Morocco (Shadowrun)

Shadows in Focus – Morocco is a location sourcebook for Shadowrun and provides useful information on Morocco and its environs that would be useful to the sorts of people who are Shadowrunners. It is the sort of book you need if you are going to run a game set in or around Morocco.

Shadows in Focus – Morocco is a location sourcebook for the 5th edition of Shadowrun, this particular book covers the shadow nexus of smugglers, corporations and nationalism that exist in the Morocco of the Sixth World.

Morocco is a gateway to the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds so it serves as a nexus of trade, legal and illegal, as well as a gatekeeper of the Gibraltar straights. In the Sixth World, it suffered heavily during EuroWar II which saw it invaded by European forces driving back the Islamic forces which had used it as a stepping stone to invade Spain. Morocco has rebuilt with heavy corporate aid making many see the government as a puppet of megacorporate interests. The truth is more complex with the Morocco government, corporations, traditional social groups and other factions all vying for power.

Review – Shadowrun: Dark Terrors

Shadowrun: Dark Terrors is a sourcebook for Shadowrun and provides a lot of information, a lot of interesting information on the dark corners of the Sixth World but not a lot of advice on how to use or incorporate that information into a campaign, especially an ongoing campaign. I enjoyed the read but, for me, there is almost nothing I can or would use in my ongoing street level campaign. I am not sure who the target audience for this book is, it seems like it should be a GM’s book but there is just not enough here to hang campaigns on, in many cases there is barely enough to hang an adventure or two off of. Equally, players can read it and be scared of the horrible things out there but there are not any tools to help you fight the terrors. So, ultimately, I am not sure what this book is for beyond pushing the metaplot(s) forward (especially on CFD) a little.

Shadowrun: Dark Terrors, is a Plot Sourcebook for the 5th edition of Shadowrun, this particular book covers a variety of dangers, threats and evils, primarily magical in nature that exist in the Sixth World.

The book begins with one of the ubiquitous fiction sections,