The Fourth Sphere - A Collaborative Fantasy 'verse

[Czernobog]

Just a map of the area I'm working on:

THEFOURTHSPHERE2.png (67.55 KiB) Viewed 6535 times

[speaker-to-trolls]

It's very 40k-ish, not actually close enough to be plagiarism but certainly very similar to the glowy baroque pseudobyzantine aspects of the Imperium, I'd work on making them a bit more distinctive.
Potentially very interesting though since it would seem like some kind of immunity agency has given the Emperor powers, and could possibly be the source of their crystal technology? This, if true, would make the Rhomaion basically a tool of the immune system to fight something, I'd guess the undead in Avernus what with your mention of their symbols warding off dark Avernian magic. Of course the Emperor, being human, would immediately think "of course, God wants me to go and kill the Turks and take back the lands my ancestors lost to them! Thank you Lord!" And as long as the Hayuk weren't themselves agents of immunity this wouldn't be a problem as long as the Rhomaion then get down to the business of destroying the undead.

[speaker-to-trolls]

I have a new post! It is as you must expect, huge, badly written and unwieldy, but here we are, an introduction to the Three Cities of the Lagoon of the Distant Eye. I need to come up with shorter names. I've had the ideas for months but I had a few hours free to write them down, so why not.

Shazam!

The Lagoon of the Distant Eye, which is said to have grown out of the eye of Serep when it was hurled far from his body, can be found on the northernmost shores of the Grey Ocean, in the lands that are known as Sea’s Treaty. It is almost wholly circular, measuring almost fifty leagues from its opening to its north-west shore and from north-east to south-west at its widest point. The entrance to the Lagoon of the Distant Eye is composed of two sandbanks, surrounded both in front and behind by reefs of coral of a particular type cultivated by the people of the Three Cities, of which I will write more later. In the centre of the two sandbanks, each of which is eight leagues in length, is a rocky island three leagues at its widest point, upon which stands the fortress City of the Lens. This is the first of the Three cities and the most basic and martial in character, and is so called because it is where the reports of all the Three Cities’ scouts are collated and organised to give reports to their whole civilisation on the state of the Grey Ocean. The scouts of the Lens mostly do not fly from the city itself, but from the two groups of islands which can both be found between thirty and sixty leagues south of the Lagoon itself, these are known as the Gleaming Isles and the Screaming Isles.

To the southwest of the western sandbank there are a series of high cliffs which run for some farther thirty leagues before one comes upon the gentle shores of the Tear-Lands, of which more I have written elsewhere. Upon these cliffs, toward the northeast and thus closer to the opening of the Eye, sits the City of the Lid, which is so called because of its traditional duty in coordinating the defence of the Opening against the attack of storms directed from the Thirteen Holy Islands, and also its position. I have been told that this city is of a less martial and a more sophisticated aspect than is the City of the Lens, despite its allegedly more warlike purpose. Here there is also to be found a greater variety of peoples than are found in the City of the Lens, which has remained inhabited mostly by Storm Giants since it was first created. The reason for both of these may be that the City of the Lid receives more traffic from the Eye’s tributary nations and from other people’s beyond their reach, much of which is brought up to the city, so it is said, by an ingenious system of levers and pullies which line the cliffs.

Within the Lagoon itself there are upwards of thirty large islands of various shapes and sizes, many containing upon them all manner of institutions of various sorts. In particular there are many farms and fisheries, for storm giants of all kinds have generally prodigious appetites, and in particular desire the use of certain kinds of flower, which, so I have heard it said, are able to enhance their natural powers over the air. There are also many factories for the making of weapons and tools for the people of the three cities, as well as areas for the practice of their various kinds of magic, of which I am not greatly knowledgeable. There are also, or so have been described to me, islands for the breeding of humans and other creatures which the Typhoon Giants call ‘breathless’, for their use in labour and as servants.

The Lagoon is also home to a large number of islands grown out of what is called ‘Knosor’s Coral’, a particular species of the coral which is found in the Sea of Dust, which was first tamed and brought to the city by the illustrious Knosor some eight hundred years ago, and has ever since been used to great effect in their management of the lagoon. Knosor’s Coral takes many colours, though most often it is black as befits its irrepressible growth, and is notable for both the speed of its growth and the fine control which can be exercised over the nature of its form by those who know the correct spells. Its power to direct the flow of water is not as great as that of some other coral species found in the Sea of Dust, but this shortcoming is made up for by the people of the Eye through the cunning growth of the coral into tubes, pipes, banks and other forms. It is because of the use of this coral that the lagoon is as large as it is today.

At the very centre of the Lagoon of the Distant Eye is the Isle of the Pupil, a crescent shape with a bulging centre not less than ten leagues across and with two curved arms extending not less than five leagues each to the north. The City of the Pupil sits on the northern shore of the island, between the arms, and is, so I have been told, far larger than either of its guardian cities, and betters most of the cities of our own continent. I have been told by reliable people that the city is a masterpiece of design, made up of gigantic buildings which function as places for storm giants to launch or land, all cunningly arrayed so that the air currents they generate for their flight interact harmoniously. The city extends far along the coast and incorporates islands grown out of coral which also play a part in directing the City’s voluminous sea traffic.

It is a source of searing regret to me that, due to my unwitting association with a rebellious daughter of this city, I am forever forbidden from entering the Lagoon of the Distant Eye. I can only make apologies to my readers that this prevents me from describing it with the art it is due.

The City of the Pupil is the centre of government for the entire Empire of the Eye, their form of government being a kind of grand council in which all citizens participate toward the taking of decisions, though some are listened to at greater length, being wiser and more skilled. In order to explain this fully it is necessary to describe the classes of being which make up the society of the Empire.

The first order of beings, who are granted citizenship without reservation, are those known as True-Breathing Storm Born, which is to say storm giants capable of changing their shape, speaking with the Truth of Breath and commanding the winds. All True Breathers are counted as citizens of the Three Cities provided that they swear to a council of their countrymen every so often, though I do not know the exact times specified, that they are loyal to the principles and health of the cities, they must also do this before the beginning of each summit. I have heard it said that they must all serve a set time at the various garrison islands, to watch for and protect against the coming of attacks from the Thirteen Islands or the Monsoon Giants, but I have not heard this from storm giants, and am thus unsure of it.

Beneath these in the scheme of things are those beings known as the Wind Dumb, who are able to speak the Truth of Breath and change their shape but are, for some reason, unable to control the winds. These beings are much less manoeuvrable than the first rank of True Breathers, and cannot therefore take place in the councils in the sky over the Lagoon of the Distant Eye unless they have a sponsor to give favourable winds for them. I do not know whether the laws of their society prohibit them from doing as much as their fellows, though I have been told they are barred from great privileges such as, to give an easily understandable association, might be bestowed on one of our sisterhood, or a great administrator or general. They are in any case greatly disadvantaged by their station, and so I am told are most often not treated with the same respect as their fellows. The same is true of those called the Fixed, who are for some reason unable to change their form, and doubly so for those few unfortunate storm giants bereft of either their polymorphism or their control of the wind.

Beneath these, who are accepted as citizens by the laws of their people but forbidden citizenship by their nature, there are those who cannot speak with the Truth of Breath, who can never be considered citizens. The first among these are the Breathless-Breath-Born, those born of storm giants but lacking their mothers’ airy spirits and thus the ability to speak the Truth of Breath. They are given more rights than their fellows because of the nature of their parentage, which can be smelt by most storm giants, and because there have been occasions where such people have developed the spirit of a storm giants. The more in common a Breathless-Breath-Born has with most storm giants, the more she is respected, and a number of the giants of the Eye whom I met told me that they held our sisterhood in as much esteem as any human born of storm giants for the fact we approach their own nature in speaking with the winds.

Beneath these beings there are the Breathless-Born, these being humans and other creatures lacking the Truth of Breath by nature, including, as I was surprised to discover, a number of tribes of Liars with origins in the great lakes of the Tear-Lands. These beings have few rights, and those living in the Lagoon of the Distant Eye and the Three Cities are, so I have been told, utterly enslaved by the storm giants. There are, however, many gradations of slave, such that those of particular skill are more valued than those without, so those who can change shape are considered in a higher class than ordinary humans.

There is one class of beings whom the people of the Three Cities class beneath these and will destroy whenever they are able to do so, these they know as Poison-Breathers, and they are of two types. The first is of the Liars reviled throughout the Grey Ocean, those who speak falsehoods in the Truth of Breath, and are most often drowned or burned for their crime. The people of the Three Cities are, however, unusual in that they do not maintain the guilt of Liars onto their subsequent generations with the same severity. The other kind is those who make use of the magic of the Monsoon Giants to manipulate and compel other beings with the Truth of Breath, which is sometimes called the Imperative Tense. Those found doing so are often dealt with in a similar fashion to Liars.

One’s status among the True Storm Born is determined by her esteem among others of her kind, which is itself determined by her accomplishments and most particularly by her capacity for logic and reasoned argument. The People of the Eye pride themselves on their pursuit of reason in all things, and consider poor reasoning and stupidity to be ‘Lies told to the Self’. Their dialect of Truth of Breath is constructed to be understood clearly and they spurn what they regard as undue eloquence as ‘Doonian’, that is, similar to the speech of the Odoonids, which is their name for the Monsoon Giants.
-Allenyr of Garmie, Respected Sister of the Coven of Trembling Spiders, ETC

[Czernobog]

On the Angry Night

The Angry Night, or Oblivion, is a force unlike any other upon this world. It emerges in Dead Lands that have long festered or Malignant areas that devour themselves. It is essentially the local spirits giving in to utter despair, and deciding to inflict that despair and death upon the rest of the world. Areas touched by the Angry Night are not the deserts of Dead Lands, nor the havens of corrupted life that are Malignant areas. They are areas of dead life, petrified forests, frozen bogs, ever-wintry plains. The land itself is corrupted by the despair and agony of the spirits, which constantly scream their rage and hatred of all life.

The land is haunted by the walking dead, possessed by the angry spirits, and beings of darkness and shadow, their eyes glowing an evil green, that are the personifications of the land itself's desire to give the entire world the tranquility of death. Any animals living on Oblivion-touched land begin to steadily rot while still remaining alive, until they are transmogrified into undead versions of themselves, trapped in agony and rage from which there can be no release but total destruction.

The power and source of Oblivion is darkness, and in lands touched by it the sun does not shine, blocked by black snow-clouds from which snow falls ceaselessly, coating the land in a sheet of terrible whiteness. The land is unearthly cold, and even if crops could be grown without rotting the permanent frost makes it hard to do so.

Those in Oblivion-touched lands are struck by visions of darkness and whispers of despair and death that are given by the spirits. And sometimes, the source of Oblivion lies with men. For some men are so evil, their acts so abominable, that the land itself cannot help but remember them and their crimes. Forced to witness countless reenactments of acts so horrific, is it any wonder that unless these memories are removed, the land itself gives in to despair and rage, and Oblivion thus takes hold?

Being touched by Oblivion is usually a temporary phase for the land. Within a few thousand years, the spirits' despair and rage calms, and the land is liveable once more. Yet in some rare cases, the land is touched by Oblivion by tens to hundreds of thousands of years, as is the case with the abominable valley of Avernus near us.

- Your most Loyal Servant
Eliphas Konstantis
In Service to the Saint-Emperor, May he Live Forever

[speaker-to-trolls]

I quite like this idea, it fits pretty well with what we've established about the way spirits of the land work and are effected by what happens around them. I've thought about something like this before, but it was more along the lines of 'living dead' areas, but that didn't really work, this strikes me as better; not dead, not cancerous, but poisoned and defective.

Problems with execution... Maybe the zombies with glowing green eyes are a bit cliched, but that's about it, I think the main danger from places like this ought to be the sheer, elemental, existential hatred, the venom they exude into the world. Corrosive to the very soul. But they'd probably produce some kind of creatures that would produce that effect elsewhere, I can't think of anything better than the undead off the top of my head.

OK and while I am in this thread I'll make note of a few ideas Vic and I had some time ago:
Iceberg Ships: These would be a different kind of immune response to the usual magma men and crystal moons, they would work by luring in malignant elements and freezing them in ice. These malignancies would therefore, at least in some cases, still be potentially active if they were thawed out, a dark chest of wonders, deep in the ice. The ships might become home to all kinds of hitchikers, who ignorant locals might call the 'crew', but perhaps this is what the driving intelligence wants; a self replenishing supply of bait.
Sun Eaters: What are these? Who knows? All I know is that they are big, dark things, maybe they're moons which have been ground to dust, or spirits of the Earth or even the Storm that have found their way up the Fifth Sphere, and roam the skies occasionally blocking out the sun or the rings. Or maybe they're the same stuff as the anti-sun, I think we're leaving it vague as to what exactly that is.
Ring Generators: How are the rings in the fifth sphere created? I have two ideas, A) There are particular kinds of crystal moons which get up to the Fifth Sphere and then release all their energy in such a way as to add their fire to that of the rings. B) Their are huge volcano-like things that fire elemental flame up into the Fifth Sphere directly from the Fourth.
In any case there is definitely something going on up there beyond serene heavenly movements.
'Ogres': Is the only name I can think of at the moment for a kind of big Earth spirit creature that roams around looking for malignancy, when it finds some it, like a T-helper cell, will eat it and take what it finds back to some big central volcano and alert the Earth spirits in general to the threat. I need a better name for them than 'Ogres' though because that just comes from Warhammer and depends on the similarity to their ogres, does anyone know a name for aggressive spirits of the earth from mythology?

[Czernobog]

On The Witch-Queens of Angazar

The Witch-Queens of Angazar, or Angzari in their own tongue, are a powerful breed, living in the uttermost north, beyond the mountains of Asaheim. Angazar is a place of freezing cold and grinding ice, where snow falls heavy on the ruins of ancient cities.

It is covered by an endless storm, of flashing lightning and terrible winds that strike the ground, powerful and cold enough, some say, to flay flesh from bone. The Witch-Queens once dwelt as tribal nomads on the ground, before creating great cities around the few lakes and rivers that were not frozen year-round - Dumazar, Herizoth, Angazan.

The greatest of these cities was Carcosa, the capital of the first Angzari Empire. It was set around a lake of air so cold as to behave like liquid, which was named Hali, after Hali'zhar, First Queen-Empress of all Angazar. However, after many years, Carcosa met its doom in one horrifying night, the land so accursed that it would never be liveable again, the entire population devoured by horrors of shadow and darkness, their green eyes still glowing in its ruins. Thereafter it was, and still is, known as Dim or Lost Carcosa.

The doom that came to Carcosa shattered the Empire, and for 500 years civil war and other strife raged, making this period known as the Days of Desolation. However, after this anarchy three major kingdoms emerged - Sarnath by the coast, N'kyan in the great mountains that cut Angazar in two, and Tak'zhahar in the great plains.

The three states eventually formed the Second and Last Empire - more of a federation, with a powerless figurehead Empress that did not prevent them warring with each other.

Then after 1500 years, came the Great Devastation. A great earthquake came, and the city of Sarnath and one-third of its dominion were swallowed up by the sea, which now came up to the mountains in some places. The three states of the Second Empire tore each other apart in religious terror and horrors long trapped by the earth and sea began to escape.

During this time, Queen Yvraeithe climbed the highest mountain of the Great Range, 17 miles high, and begged with Father Snow and Mother Storm for a way to escape the great horrors wreaked upon the land in the aftershocks of the Devastation. She took several thousand disciples, and using her magical gifts built a city in the sky, in a place where the endless storm was placid, where the clouds were free of lightning and ceaseless thunder. She named it New Sarnath, and before long the other Queens began to do so to, either ripping their cities off the ground or building new ones.

In a matter of years, the ground had been completely abandoned, save for a few cities and many outposts and towns too small to be lifted up.

But enough digression on history. Let us talk about the Witch-Queens as of present.

The Witch-Queens maintain a powerful force to the north of Asaheim. They may be divided, but they are unaminously opposed to Tyras Valhallen and regularly raid his outer defences. Each female of the Witch-Queens has at least some degree of aptitude in the mystic arts, while almost no males have any sort of mystical power. Aside from that, the Witch-Queens are purely human. Each City-Kingdom of the Witch-Queens is a matriarchy and a hereditary magocracy, ruled by the Witch who is both most powerful mystically and closest in line to the throne. Males are commonly used as front-line soldiers and manual labour (among with spirits and so forth).

The Witch-Queens worship the goddess Mother Storm, who they believe gives them their mystical power. They also worship Father Snow, and many others supposed to be the children of these two deities, such as Brother Lightning and Sister Flame.

The Witch-Queens also have a strong friendship with the Storm Dragons of Angazar, which greatly enhances their military might. They also bind spirits of lightning and ice and storm into their weapons - one of their most common weapons is a crossbow that shoots bolts imbued with the elemental properties of lightning. Combined with the fact that their homeland is desolate and their cities are hard to reach, they are difficult to defeat in a sustained campaign.

The primary magical discipline of the Witch-Queens is called Stormcrafting - with it they control the air and water and lightning, although they have many other disciplines that are somewhat more obscure than Stormcrafting.

The Witch-Queens are most definitely not something to be trifled with.
-
Karl Adlerssohn, Servant of Lohengramm

[speaker-to-trolls]

I did wonder what lived up in that northern bit of the continent, turns out it's flying witchy women in airborne cities, not bad. One thing though; why would you build a city around a lake of liquid oxygen? I like the image, but it doesn't sound like a hospitable place to live.

A question to the powers that be: How much and how regular should the traffic to this page be to justify it getting a forum of its own? I realise that none of us are really focussing on it at the moment, so it probably doesn't justify such action now, but just out of interest.

[speaker-to-trolls]

You know something about the geography of this world occured to me today: The north and south poles are the cold poles because the ring which rotates through the year is elliptical, at its narrowest over the east and west poles and at its widest over the north and south, yes? The east and west poles are hot because of this and the fact that they get the same amount of sunlight (the most in the world) every day without fail.

But it occurs to me, the midway points between the east and west poles all around the world would be under the same wide point in the year ring, right? Meaning that they would get the same low sunlight ratio, and the year ring wouldn't stay over any point on the sphere for longer than it would over the north and south pole, surely. So, this leads me to the conclusion there could be a ring of ice all the way around the world from north to south, neatly dividing the Fourth Sphere into eastern and western hemispheres.