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1) Or maybe the bard will leave Oorstemoth…generally something fleeing prison are wont to do.
2) :-k
3) Not exactly…for more clues take a look at the map, go north from Freehold.Well, as far as games vs books in distorting reality. Counter Example books/stories: Xanth, Anything that has been told by Disney, Robert Asprin’s MythAdventures, Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, etc.
However, in the sense that I was writing the book and developing a game at the same time…there is a basis to your argument about a game. The book came first, then when a friend and I started developing our own RPG, I used Astlan as the world and codified the rules of the book into the game. So that’s more of a game based on a book than vice versa, and now that the game is defunct, there is less of a tie in.
But, yes, overall the world is supposed to be a combination of fantasy books, fantasy RPG, and Video Games. So WoW, or table or online D&D, or Skyrim as well as movies Dragon Slayer (excellent classic fantasy btw—first movie from 1981), A Knight’s Tale, etc are all influences
The world is my interpretation of a Fantasy Zeitgeist world.
Actually, in Astlan, there are official bardic tradtions, which are sort of like schools or unions, and to be licensed by them you would need to be able to read.
Obviously in some places there may be some self taught bards, but if you are ‘licensed’ or in a guild, you can read to some extent. This was less true a thousand years ago. Many bards can read multiple languages, and sing songs in them, even if they can’t necessarily have a conversation in them.You are correct, I am like an impenetrable vault when it comes to keeping secrets!
For example, no one knows that I grow my pipe stuffing in a secret chamber in my cave! Got all sorts of grow lamps and such.
But I am the only person that knows that!
Oh, I forgot to answer the Rupert question. Rupert is his common name; he also has a family name, i.e. last name, which if his parents were not married, is his mother’s last name. He also, more than likely, has a true name, which may contain Rupert in it, but will be far more complex.
Somewhere in book 1 discussions on this forum there is a long discussion on true names and how one discovers them.
Well, that’s a very good question!
If I knew, I would be one. Unfortunately it’s a tightly guarded secret.
Well, sort of, it’s really more like if you can hold your own against the other princes, they pretty much call you a prince. It’s power, pure power (or brains and a good facade).
Sammael and Lillith are probably the exceptions, if you believe the story that Antefalken tells about the jilted bride.
Now, I’ve heard other versions than the one he’s told, but they’re all similar and there are (were) only 4 people that know the truth.
In that story you had a a primordial quartet, a strand of sentient reality that split into four parts, 2 pairs of male and female.
Adam and Lillith
Sammael and EveAnd they lived contently on a really nice outer plane, nice garden lots of plants and they basically had lots of fun and joy and orgies.
The problem was there was this tree in the garden that was sort of the focal point, it kept the garden together; it wasn’t really a tree, it just appeared as a tree, but was really the power source for the outer plane and a gateway to the rest of the multiverse.
Eve somehow got in her head to tinker with the tree and in doing so, she realized that an entire multiverse existed outside their outer plane.
In fact she discovered the Planes of Man, the material planes. The material planes were a lot more solid, they were in fact real. See, outer planes are rather immaterial and wishy washy, they reflect the thoughts and desires of the residents, or at least the most powerful residents, so they are rather dream like. (Or nightmarish as the case may be)
Eve shared all this information with the others, and Lillith and Sammael were not particularly moved. For one thing, there was no such thing as true immortality on the Planes of Man. You go there you live and you die. You are ‘mortal’ even the longest lived elves eventually die.
But what you could do is reincarnate, with some help, some power etc.
So long story short, Adam and Eve ditched the outer plane and went to the Planes of Man where they incarnated as mortals and had a crap load of babies. Now, because their bloodline was primordial/divine, their initial children and grandchildren etc lived for a very long time, much like elves. Some of them could also plane hop, and basically, or so the story goes, they populated the Planes of Man.
Now obviously there are some serious logistical questions here, and to be honest it’s seems pretty naive. But that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
Anyway, Adam and Eve eventually died, went out of the picture. They were mortal.
Lillith and Sammael were still around, but without the other two, they didn’t have enough energy to maintain the outer plane, and they didn’t want to go to the Planes of Man as previously discussed.
So they ended up in the Abyss and lived miserably and spitefully ever after.
The end.
Yeah, well, that’s the myth. Again, I have no idea if this or similar versions are true, it’s just the basic plot storyline that seems to have gone viral throughout several planes.
Well, Estrebrius was scared of being ripped into by a super powered greater demon.
I know Boggy, I and Antefalken come off as cuddly, huggable and lovable, but many demons aren’t as pleasant as we are. Particularly the really powerful ones. Exador is a good example; as for that matter the same is true of Lillith. She can be cranky if you barge in on her.
I think that’s what he was expecting/fearing when he met Tom.
They will be doing stuff, Vaselle is going to be critical for helping Tom establish connections and get things up. Remember his specialties are Rune Magic and Conjury, so he’s going to be the go to guy for making new magic items. Not only cooling necklaces, but portals and things.
The big problem Tom has at this moment is that he brought most all of his link buddies to the Abyss; and thus he had no easy way to return them to their homeworlds/cities. That will have to change; he will need more independent mechanisms to travel the planes.
Hmm, that uncleanable corruption thing is nice. Maybe figure out how to embed a deep dark aura on him that anyone with *sight can see, but that can’t be cleaned. It doesn’t do anything just glows a malevolent black color and freaks people out.
Tom is hemming and hawing on what to do. He doesn’t like any of my suggestions, which is very odd since they were all quite reasonable.
I tend to think of Indigo as somewhere between the two paint palette and the optical palette.
I think the color Talarius meant was something a bit more dark blue than the brilliant Indigo powder…but it’s hard to know without having seen what the mirror showed. Pretty confident he is not good with swatches of color etc.
In fact, I’m surprised he was even able to see any colors, from my experience with him, I thought he saw everything in Black and White.
Hmm,
Let me think, well he is indirectly torturing a number of people who he continues to freak out with his actions.
I have to say it appears Lilith is starting to flip her lid as is another party that must remain nameless.
His actions last book have sort of sent the expected tidal waves of over reaction and panic among those militia’s you’d expect to get upset, causing them to take seriously stupid actions that will be revealed in book ii and carried out in book iii.
Oh, and he’s also been enslav…I mean befriending numerous individuals and persuading them to join his cause. Although he is not quite sure what that is yet….
He is causing Talarius all sorts of indigestion, anxiety and unwanted self reflection.
However, while he has killed quite a number of non-people he hasn’t killed any of what you or I might call people, yet…(and yes by people, I obviously mean demons…)
Tizzy
Festivus is the only universal holiday that I can think of.
I personally look forward to the airing of the grievances.
Followers of certain demon lords celebrate special events in their overlords history (conquests etc)
I recently discovered that D’Orcs had been observing “The Day” as a very solemn festival, that was the day of “The Incident”
However, this year it was celebrated as “Oath Day” it may end up being followed by “Victory Day” which is the day after when the KoC and Lilith’s army were defeated.
Yes, that’s what I’ve been thinking. Although to be fair, I’ve never had a lot of luck making friends for some reason.
Boggy, Tom, Gastrope’, Antefalken and Rupert are about the only friends I have. OK, Maelen said he was a friend, and Jenn said so too outside Freehold, but I am not certain she meant it. And I do get along OK with Darg-nargoloth, but sometimes I get the feeling he’s only interested in a business relationship rather than friendship.
I’m going to continue using “it” because I can’t determine gender under its leathery hide. In fact, while I don’t want to try poking at its privates, I’m not 100% sure where they would be located.
Well, I don’t know what people might get out of belief, but what I can say is that the Concordenax does not depend on you believing in it. It just is. Of course, gods sort of exist without belief, but they aren’t super-powered without belief.
And, OK, technically, yes, the Concordenax is tied to all demons, and in a round about way is involved in their creation; but then so are wizards and the demons themselves.
But regardless, the creative function is feminine in most mythologies, so if something is birthing demons, should it not be female? Of course, I’ve never seen any baby demons popping out of its privates—again, if I knew where to look for them.
Of course, I admit that people and demons do refer to the Concordenax as a “he” I just sort of thought this was patrimonial confusion. But maybe they know more than I do.
I should think you could have both faux ruins and real ones.
It’s really a mixed bag, to be honest:
In reality, there are true ruins that are most likely because there was a fight or battle in that building and it was damaged/brought to ruin and no one has gotten around to clearing them ore rebuilding them. I would not assume destitute, perhaps they are just lazy, but they may very well be broke.
for example say you are a mid level demon who toils for centuries to make enough money/favors to buy a house, a store or a condo and it gets destroyed, we don’t have insurance (or rather we do–but it’s more mafia style insurance) so it could take you another couple centuries to work up the money to rebuild your house or your store or whatever it was.
In some cases the owner might actually live in the ruins because they have no where else to go or to protect their land. And this, for me is a very sad and depressing situation. I have some friends like this. They are squatters in their own ruins because they got in huge fight with their neighbors and well…things came crashing down.
Now on the other hand, because there are styles, there are some buildings that are built to look like ruins, (or illusioned to) particularly during post apocalypse phases (.e.g. Mad Max Decor) in which case you will find bars and such that look ruined but are more like functional set pieces in a movie.
I take the fifth.
Actually, I’ll also take “a fifth” as in “a fifth” of Denubian Choco-Coffee (TM).
Ahh the days of sitting around the kitchen table with the neighbors smoking DW and drinking DC-Coffee (TM) gossiping and trashing the other neighbors who weren’t there that day…
