planning The World of Shyviel (a fairly large work in progress)

[Evilshy 5,091]

So I've been creating this universe for quite a long time. The majority of it I've been making in the past few months, but some parts are from ideas I came up with years ago but never really did anything with.

 

 

 

THIS IS NOT FINISHED YET. IT MIGHT NOT EVER BE, BECAUSE IT'S THAT DAMN BIG.

You can RP with it now if you want, but it'd be cool if you waited until I finished more of it's aspects. Mainly, the various countries of the World, and their major cities, as well as some general lore.

 

 

 

Once I get more of the locations fleshed out, I'll open it up to the RP World and let whoever wants to RP in it do whatever the hell they want, mainly just to see how people use my ideas and settings and where they take things.

 

So, that being said, here we go. Warning; nested spoilers.

 

The World

 

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Overview (not finished)

 

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Shyviel has only 3 continents. Besides a multitude of small islands, the rest of the world is a huge ocean. All 3 continents are on one side; no one is quite sure why, but there are rumors of a highly advanced civilization living deep underwater on the opposite side, and that they try to keep land dwellers as far away as possible.

 

Continents

Liizan - The main continent of Shyviel. Azaern lies at its center, bordered by Norn on the west and Ragand on the east.

 

Iselea - connected to Liizan by a narrow land bridge. It is smaller and has only 2 countries; Vanthek and Belian. Vanthek controls the land bridge, cutting Belian off from Liizan, except via treacherous sea passages.

 

Dorrun - a harsh continent to the south east of Liizan, it is characterized by vast volcanic badlands, swamps bubbling with toxic fumes, and some extremely rugged inhabitants.

 

Countries -

Vanthek - a country based on gothic horror, vampires, zombies, etc. Most humans have fled to neighboring Belian.

 

Belian - run by the church, Belian has a strained truce with Vanthek. The two countries hate each other, but after decades of warfare, the tension has cooled somewhat.

 

Azaern - an advanced country made primarily of mages. It is the biggest and most powerful known country in the world

 

Ragand - one of the more primitive areas. Not actually a country, but an unclaimed territory occupied by various tribes, who have an uneasy alliance to repel outsiders. Many tribes will sell their prisoners to liches and vampires in the bordering Vanthek, thus earning the ire of Belian.

 

Norn - a country where biological magics and strange, hybrid creatures overshadow all others.

 

 

Ancient History, Creation Story, etc.

 

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To understand the following, a brief explanation of the Afterlife and related subjects is needed.

In ancient times, there was but one Afterlife, known as the Void. Souls of the dead would go to the Void, and the power contained in the Void would increase. Some highly skilled mages would occasionally draw power from the Void to cast spells that would normally be beyond them. In order to do this, the mage would have to be in equilibrium between Good and Evil; the greater the balance, the better their ability to use the Void as a power source.

If a person ever achieves perfect balance between Good and Evil, they become Voidtouched. During highly stressful and traumatic times, such as a battle for ones life, a Voidtouched can Awaken, causing a shard of the Void to grow inside their body. Awakened Touched are also able to utilize their power of their own Voids at anytime without being in equilibrium. Whenever a person dies near an Awakened Touched, their soul will instead be absorbed into that Voidtouched's shard, increasing the power of their personal Void power.

During a great war, long before the current day, a man named Shyviel who had become Voidtouched early in life Awoke. With the war raging across the land, his Void shard grew in power quickly. He began to realize just how powerful he could become, and decided to take it into his own hands. Using his power to travel from battle to battle at inhuman speeds, and then winning them single-handedly caused him to gain even more power. The war ended, hastened by his arrival, but Shyviel was not satisfied. He attacked the former Capital of one of the losing nations, using his immense power to slaughter the entire population and absorb all of their souls. He went from city to city doing this, until the rest of the world decided he needed to be stopped.

They were, however, too late. Even the combined power of all the remaining nations could not stand against a man who was not only more powerful than anything the world had seen before, but gained power every time they sent an army towards him. After a year or so of fighting, the few remaining people surrendered.

Shyviel, coming to his sense, realized that he had nearly killed an entire world for the sake of power, and fell into a deep depression. He eventually decided that it was his duty to not only rebuild the world he had come so close to destroying, but to prevent anyone from ever gaining that kind of power again.

He rebuilt cities, healed all the wounded brought to him, and helped to dispel conflicts between rival groups of people. Many of the major cities in the world were built by him.

Finished with his first task, he turned to the infinitely more difficult one of figuring out a way to alter reality and reduce the power of the Void. He decided to split the Void into multiple parts, Heaven, Hell, and the Void. Heaven and Hell would be reserved for good and evil people, respectively, with the Void being the final resting place of the souls of those in between. He created creatures that lived in each of his artificial realms, and restricted them from interacting with mortals, other than to attempt to persuade them into commuting acts of good or evil, resulting in more souls going to these realms instead of the Void. He also changed the nature of the Void's connection to the mortal world, increasing the difficulty of being in sufficient equilibrium to use the Void's power. It should be noted that while Angels are Good and Demons are Evil, Heaven is not a place of paradise, and Hell is not a place of torture; to the souls in each realm, it is the same as the Void. The Angels and Demons have one major priority, and that is to influence as many souls as possible into their realms.

However, even for one of his power, it was far more difficult than he anticipated, and the majority of his power was exhausted before he could finish. Heaven and Hell only took the souls of the truly Good or truly Evil, leaving the overwhelming majority of souls to the Void, and doing very little to limit it's power. Also, he failed to restrict Voidtouched in any way.

In his weakened state, feeling that he had failed in his duty to the world, he fell into a deep depression and eventually killed himself.

After his death, people began to realize that he had truly had a change of heart, and praised him for not only rebuilding the world, but attempting to lessen the chances of anything similar every happening again. They took the remade world as a way to begin again, renaming the world Shyviel, after the godlike man, and even changing their dating system, using the end of the Shyviel War as year 0, and referring to years before and after as BST and AST; Before and After Shyviel's Turn.

 

Several religions have sprung up surrounding the Angel and Demons of Heaven and Hell. The Church of Belian, centered around the Angels, is the biggest religion in the world, with several small cults of demon worshipers. (more on religion later)

 

 

 

Countries:

Vanthek (finished, but I'll probably edit/add to it)

 

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Inhabitants-

The most common creature in Vanthek is the common ghoul or zombie. A simple, reanimated human, controlled by the Lich who created it. These serve as foot soldiers for the Liches, attacking mindlessly, overwhelming opponents through numbers rather than tactics or skill. They have limited regeneration, and are stronger than normal humans. However, they are slower and can't think for themselves.

Liches are a higher form of reanimated human. The precise conditions for a human to become a lich rather than a zombie is unknown, but magical power as a human seems to be a requirement. Liches have powerful magic, which lets them manipulate life force, accelerate the rotting process, and other things, as well as magnifying magical power the lich had as a human. Liches have incredible regenerative powers, and are nearly impossible to kill without specialized magic or weapons.

Liches and zombies live on living flesh. The creature that the flesh came from doesn't matter, as long as it was alive. If a Lich is deprived of flesh, it's brain tissue will begin to deteriorate, which causes them to lose their magic and intelligence, ultimately becoming a common zombie.

 

Vampires are part humans who survive by drinking human blood. They can be born after intercourse between two vampires, or created when a human's blood is drained and immediately replace by vampire blood while certain spells are spoken over the body.

Vampires have regeneration more powerful than that of a lich. They have the ability to manipulate blood, controlling its movement, its fluidity, and can even solidify it. The most basic application is for a vampire to make weapons from its own blood (although many carry normal weapons, so they don't waste blood). The amount of blood and the degree to which it can be controlled varies from vampire to vampire. Skilled vampires can manipulate blood other than their own, using blood spilled in battle instead so they can preserve their own. True masters can manipulate blood while it is still inside a being, controlling their movements, or even just tearing it out of their body to drink from a distance.

Vampire families are rigidly structured, and noble families carry a lot of sway. Each family is led by a patriarch and matriarch, who are generally the oldest in the family. They remain in power until death, or until they decide to pass the title to the next in line. The vast majority are fiercely loyal to their leaders and family; insurrection is rare, and generally short lived, as are it's perpetrators.

 

There are still small groups of humans, almost all of whom are living as food slaves to vampires and liches. They are generally kept healthy so their blood is of higher quality and replenishes faster, but they have very little freedom. Most are kept in line by fear of what would happen if they refused to keep eating, but some have embraced this lifestyle as the natural way of things and see it as a privilege to be the food of a prestigious vampire or lich. They are generally shunned by other humans, but are obviously well liked by their owners. Some are even used as house servants or entertainers, if they are devoted enough to their vampire or lich.

 

A Brief History of Vanthek

 

Vanthek is characterized by dreary moorlands and dense forests filled with near constant fog, and swamps inhabited by strange creatures. Dark clouds often block out the sun, and storms are common. Naturally, it has long been a haven for creatures of the night.

 

For many years, vampires, liches and other dark beings used the Vanthek region as a gathering place, where they would trade, rest, and coordinate their raids in nearby human settlements.

As a result, many humans left the surrounding area for the nearby country of Belian, where Angelic wards prevent the majority of intrusions.

Before long, the inevitable happened; the liches and vampires, as the two biggest powers in the region, began fighting over the few remaining humans.

Both sides immediately captured what humans they could; they were and are no more than a precious resource to them. The Liches quickly gained the upper hand with their overwhelming hordes of zombies, but suffered from one major problem: a lack of food.

A group of vampires can survive off a relatively small group of humans for an indefinite amount of time. As long as the humans are kept healthy, their bodies will replenish lost blood. The vampires in Vanthek are careful to keep their humans under careful guard, and never drink too much from any one human.

However, the liches were quickly running out of food, seeing as a human can't regrow flesh fast enough to be practical. The vampires went on the defensive, protecting their human stock and intending to starve the liches to death, when the liches devised a brilliant counter strategy.

As the vampires increased the numbers guarding their humans, groups of non-combatant vampires were left less protected. The liches captured many, dealing a harsh moral blow to the vampires. But that was not their only goal. The vampires were used as a source of food.

If a vampire were supplied with enough human blood, they would be able to continually regenerate when being eaten by a lich or zombie. That way, they would have enough food, and the only resource they were using up was human blood, which replenishes much more quickly than human flesh.

 

With this new food source, the liches and zombies regained their former power, and quickly began to overwhelm the vampires. Eventually, the vampires were defeated, with hundreds enslaved as food for the liches. There are small pockets of resistance, but they more of a nuisance than an actual threat. Many families have been broken up, but the vampires are loyal as ever to their new leaders.

 

After years of feeding on vampire flesh, some liches have begun to show new powers, such as limited blood control or increased regeneration.

 

 

Major landmarks and cities

 

Strallian- the capitol city. Once ruled by vampires, it is now controlled the the liches, who now live in the many extravagant mansions built by the vampiric nobility.

 

Solketh - a border city, and the first line of defense during skirmishes with Belian.

 

Naavelial - the biggest geographical feature, it is a solitary mountain near the center. It is an extinct volcano, filled with tunnels and caves, natural and artificial. Many surviving vampires reside here, taking advantage of the natural protection it offers. An artifact of immense power is rumored to exist deep within it.

 

 

Belian (almost finished)

 

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Inhabitants

Belian is almost exclusively human. Mostly composed of town folk and farmers, the general population is unconcerned with the happenings within the nearby country of Vanthek. There are an average number of magically attuned humans (about 1 in 20, most only with very minor power), but magic is strictly regulated, and only allowed to be practiced by those given permission by the Church.

Shyviel has one major religion, and Belian is the birthplace and center of it. The government and clergy are one and the same, with the church controlling everything in the country. Unlike many religions, there is actually very little corruption within the Church of Belian, due to semi-frequent appearance of the Angels they worship.

 

The Angels are the center of The Church of Belian. Originally created by Shyviel hiimself, the Angels teach Good in all things, attempting to maximize the amount of souls entering Heaven upon death. Although forbidden to directly interfere with mortal affairs, Angels do teach the clergy in a variety of subjects, from philosophy to Heavenly magic. The clergy pass these down to those deemed worthy by themselves or, in rare ocassions, when someone is specifically picked out by an Angel. The Church of Belian has spread across the entire known world, and is well respected in almost all corners of it. There are some small cults focused on Evil magic and demon worship, but at the command of the Angels, these are hunted down and eliminated with extreme prejiduce.

(more later. It's past 1am here, and I'm sick )

 

 

 

 

Magic in Shyviel (finished)

 

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The magic of Shyviel is mysterious and complicated. The scholars of Azaern have done a fairly good job of mapping out the general concepts, however.

 

 

 

All magic comes from combination of elements and/or universal forces. These are organized into pairs, which oppose each other. Traditional magic comes from either a single element, a combination of elements, or the combination of one or more elements and a single universal force. The Arcane Arts come from combinations of two or more universal forces, and are generally only practiced by masters.

 

The pairs:

 

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Elemental pairs:

Fire and Water

Earth and Air

 

Universal pairs:

Life and Death

Body and Mind

Chaos and Order

 

 

How Good and Evil fit into this:

 

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Just as a mage in equilibrium can use the Void as a source of power, Heaven and Hell can be used by Good and Evil mages, and each, like the Void, has power proportional to the amount of souls residing in that realm. Heaven and Hell are generally pretty even, with Heaven usually having slightly more souls. Both are far outshadowed by the Void, however.

 

 

 

The elements are self explanatory. Their combinations are as follows:

 

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Fire + Water = Poison, disease, pathogens in general

Fire + Earth = Magma, volcanoes, etc.

Fire + Air = Lightning, electricity

Water + Earth = Plants, fungus

Water + Air = Weather

Earth + Air = quicksilver (will be explained later)

 

 

The combinations involving opposing elements (fire+water and earth+wind) are quite hard to control, the spells are often unstable, and can often lead to very unexpected results if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

 

The universal forces are a bit more abstract. There are countless combinations, so I will not try to list them all.

 

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Life and death are fairly easy to explain. Life refers to living things, and governs plants, animals, healing, and other things of that nature. Death is the exact opposite. It refers to dead, and less often, inorganic things. It harms, rots, and destroys things. The life draining powers natural to vampires are an Arcane Art composed of both Life and Death magic.

 

Body and Mind are perhaps the most abstract concepts. Body refers to the physical world, and mind to the ethereal, supernatural world. Most often, they are used to make spells specifically apply to one or the other, but can also be used in much more creative ways. For example, combining Fire with Mind could let you use magic to set a spirit on fire, or "burn away" somebodies ideas, causing them intense pain while they forget whatever they were thinking of. A disease spell combined with Mind could be made to spread through magical, rather than physical, contact. Likewise, Body could be used to give an enchantment a physical form, allowing even the most slow-minded brute to smash his way through a magical barrier.

 

The final two universal forces are Chaos and Order. Chaos is what it sounds like, unfettered passion, power that can't be contained by anything, unorganized and lacking a true form. Order embraces organization, patterns, and systematic actions. A man governed by Chaos will not hesitate to attack, simply going all out to win as quickly as possible, while a man governed by Order will often defend and then counter attack in an exact, organized manner. Order seeks to remove emotion from the decision making process, while Chaos is almost completely based on emotion and spur-of-the-moment choices. Adding Chaos to a spell will cause it to run wild, effecting a wide area and targeting friend and foe alike. Order will cause a spell to act in a precise way, targeting only certain objects or beings, passing over anything the caster doesn't want to effect with their magic.

 

 

 

 

Quicksilver

 

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Quicksilver is an interesting magical force. When Earth and Air are combined, the magic takes physical form on its own, independent of any spell or Body magic. Quicksilver resists any attempt to combine it with other elements or universal forces. In addition, it will resist most other spells and enchantments, enabling it to be used where other forms of magic would be suppressed. It can be changed from solid to gas and back at the will of it's creator, making it an ideal weapon for those skilled in its use. It is the weapon of choice of Mage Hunters, since it is easily concealed, extremely flexible in its use, and difficult to defend against with magic.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2012 by Evilshy and His Own Ego

[discorded 234]

So in this roleplay we can try and do anything we want right? And are there any rules that I should be aware of?

[Evilshy 5,091]

  On 2012-08-07 at 10:33 PM, 'giordano' said:

So in this roleplay we can try and do anything we want right? And are there any rules that I should be aware of?

 

No rules, at least not made by me. Feel free to start am RP in my world. Although it won't be canon, unless it's really cool and I like it a lot

Also, I probably won't join the RP, but feel free to ask me any questions about the world.

[Half-Note 273]

It would appear that when somebody wants to tap into the Void Order would be the ideal spell type to specialize in.

[Evilshy 5,091]

  On 2012-08-08 at 1:44 AM, 'Half-Note' said:

It would appear that when somebody wants to tap into the Void Order would be the ideal spell type to specialize in.

 

The Void doesn't care what type of magic you use, only that your thoughts and intentions are balanced between Good and Evil. I suppose one could sue some sort of Order/Mind spell on themselves to help facilitate this, but really, any sort of magic can be aligned with the Void. Absolute Chaos makes no distinction between morals, so that would be ideal for using the Void, as well.