The Roleplay itself would be carried out on the continent of Maera, which itself is something similar to medieval Europe if there were land bridges connecting modern day Spain to Morocco, Italy to Libya, and Greece to Egypt, uniting it with Africa. Weather-wise, it's a bit different, with everything north of the Land Bridges, i.e. Maera proper, having a generally temperate, nearly idyllic climate. This area is populated almost exclusively by Humanity, with a small smattering of Elven communities tossed in for variation.
South of the land bridges are the Lands in Shade, spanning an area roughly the size of Africa, but with a climate much closer to that of the more northerly parts of Eastern Europe and Russia, cold, arid steppes at the best of times, frozen wastelands at the worst. Despite the surplus of land, the climate makes it extremely difficult to farm anything of use, and thus despite it's size, the Lands in Shade, when they can gather armies to raid up into the North, usually fields a force not much larger than that of the defenders. The Lands in Shade are populated somewhat more sparsely by what the Maerans call "The Darkling Races", races traditionally viewed as evil in Fantasy. Trolls, Goblins, Ogres, Gargoyles, Gnolls, Minataurs, Slimes, Giant Spiders, Sentient Insect Colonies, and more inhabit these lands, though in much smaller numbers by race than the Humans. Yes, even (sigh) Orcs and Dark Elves. But no Lycanthropes or Vampires. No Lycanthropy of any kind. Chimera, sure. Sphinxes? Why not? But no friggin' Were-anything and no friggin' Vampires.
To the East of Maera proper are the Godspine, an impassible mountain range populated and defended by the Dragons, who while sentient, tend to stay out of the wars between the other two groups out of a sense of unassailable superiority. To the East and West of the Lands in Shade is the Great Ocean, which is also West of the Maera Proper.
Religion in Maera is fairly elemental. The Humans and few Elves worship The Light, a pantheon of Good-Aligned Gods who, like most good Divine Characters tend be fairly human despite their Divinity, coming down on occasion to have a dalliance or two with the native mortal folk and producing offspring capable of superhuman feats. Those races of the Lands in Shade that are sentient worship the The Shadows, Dark Gods who are equal in power to The Light, yet are a bit less human in their Divinity. This isn't to say they aren't sentient, just a bit more...off than the good Gods. They don't often speak, and when they do it tends to be terse. They more often communicate mind to mind, which has caused the death or insanity of more than one Darkling. They too have been known to come down and have their way with a mortal or two.
Interestingly, each Dark God tends to mirror and Good One. For instance, Okkun is the Shadow of Irruk, God of Order and Master of the White Flame. Orkkun, for his part, is the Dark God of Order and Owner of the Black Flame. The differences between the two are hard to find in some places, a bit more obvious in others. Each is worshipped by Craftsman working with flame, so Smiths and Metalworkers are big fans, and each is often depicted with a hammer and anvil. Irruk represents Order through Courageous Leadership, and so favors rulers that care for their people and set a good example for them. Orrkun represents Order through Strength, Power, and Fear, so he tends to favor Leaders that enforce their rule with an iron fist and a will of steel.
Their flames are wildly different. The White Flame can only burn dried lumber from the Whitewood Tree, Irruk's chosen plant. It's smoke is a purifying agent, and can cleanse any ailment or disease. Only Craftsmen handpicked by the wisest Priests of Irruk are allowed to work with the White Flame. The products worked by these artisans are always pure white, regardless of the metals used. The White Flame is not hot to the touch, in fact anyone can touch the open flames and not be burned, although any wounds will close if held in the flame long enough. The Black Flames can burn anywhere there is fuel, so long as a spark can be struck, the Black Flames will burn. And they do burn. Only Ogres, the Chosen Race of Orkkun, can work the Black Flame, and their works are always misshapen-looking and black. Even Ogres dare not touch the Black Flame, though. If caught fire, any creature dies almost on contact, transformed instantly into a merrily burning blaze. The Black Flame does not corrupt, does not purify, does not heal, and does not wound outside of horrific burning death. It does, however, whisper. This is how Orkkun communicates to his followers, where Irruk's priests have to hold lengthy ceremonies to draw a few words from the purest oracles they can find.
The seat of the Light is the High Cathedral, massive temple complex built atop a mountain at the center of Maera Proper, so...if you were looking at a map of Europe maybe around Vienna or Prague. The Shadows were worshipped in a massive underground complex simply called The Cavern, the entrance of which is located once again at the foot of a mountain in the Eastern part of the Land of Shade. If you're looking at a map of Africa, it'd be around Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia.
The Kingdoms, Queendoms, Empires, Baronies and Duchies of Man, collectively known as the Holy Compact are at the time of the Roleplay just reaching the zenith of their power, having only a few generations back completed their greatest military triumph, the complete destruction of The Cavern, the Exile of the Shadows from Maera, and the destruction of the Union of Shadows, the grand council of the Lands in Shade. How did this happen when both groups are supposedly balanced? I'm glad you asked, here's how.
Originally, the progenitors of the Light and Shadows, reluctant to see any of their creations dispossessed or destroyed, organized a system for the creation of demigods, lest one side grow too numerous and crush the other with an army of superbeings. This was the First Treaty. All Deities were prohibited from touching the world directly outside of creating the allowed amount of children, and each side was allowed an equal amount of demigods, a child for each Deity. Not to say that any of the Gods were that big on following the rules, which is why a pair of militant organizations were created to regulate the births of any new demigods. The Black Brotherhood scourged the North for prohibited births and executed any second child born to the Light they could find. The White Legion scoured the South in similar fashion, destroying any second children born to the Shadows. No mortal was happy with this arrangement, but Holy Decree protected each group, provided no innocent blood was spilled without reason. And this was the undoing of the First Treaty.
Surprisingly, it was the North that schemed it's way past the Treaty, probably because the Light tend to be a bit more forgiving than the Shadows when it comes to sinning against the Gods. Some decidedly unscrupulous Priests, no one is sure whose, decided to substitute an average mortal child, manufacturing the signs and portents required to mark the infant as a Child of the Light. The Black Brotherhood did it's duty and ended the child, thus providing an excuse for the members of the Holy Compact to begin an all out war against the regulatory body. Having been alerted to the situation, the various armies of the Compact were quick to find and crush the Black Brotherhood. Years passed as the Gods quarreled about the situation, years in which the Light was quick to birth it's army, even as the Union of Shadows was held at bay by the regular armies, though the fighting was fierce. The White Legion continued it's duties in the South, destroying any children they found, as the South was slow to attack, unsure of their Gods intentions while the arguments of the deities consumed most of their attention.
Twenty-five years after the breaking of the First Treaty, the Army of the Light swept down in the Lands in Shade, a whole host of demigods quickly slaughtering the remainders of the armies protecting the Land in Shade and striking deep into enemy territory in a lightning campaign to end the war. Almost before the Dark Gods could take notice, the entire Army of the Light was in the Cavern, slaughtering various priests and toppling individual temples with ease.
Nara, Dark Matron, Spirit of the Void before Existence, and Naru, the Holy Father, Spirit of the Spark of Creation, were horrified at what their children had wrought. Nara because of the injustice done to the children that took after her, The Shadows, and Naru because the Light had not taken steps to rectify the situation before it had gotten so far out of hand. As one, the two Progenitors reached out and collapsed the Cavern, sinking the mountain foot after foot into the ground until it was half as tall as it had been. The Army of Light was crushed. Across the world, demigods simply stopped living, falling to the ground as dead as if they had been murdered.
The Progenitors forbade the creation of any more demigods, and forbade any other excursions into the South for a century, hoping that would be enough time for the various races to repopulate, as neither wanted to see the extinction of a sentient race. The penalty for breaking this order, they said, would be the destruction of the Gods in question, as well as the world they had all made. If they could not obey the rules, the need for the rules would be removed.
And so the Gods went apart from the world, simply watching and occasionally offering advice, though even that became seldom, and then the Gods grew silent as they become involved in other pursuits. No one wanted to be the reason for the Death of the World. Eventually the Gods grew tired, and finally decided to sleep for a time, just to be on the safe side, millenia of creating children was tiring. Naru left to supervise the stars as they expanded ever outward, making sure thier light was cast evenly about in the darkness. Leaving Nara, the Void, watching the world.
Nara had a plan, though. When they had touched Maera, she had also touched the rulers of the Holy Compact, planting in them the seeds for new demigods, though not of the Light. Somewhere down the line, new Children would be born to the Shadows, but they would need guidance, and so she herself seeded a ruler, ensuring that her Child would be born first, then fashioned a bit of the void into living creatures, creating a handful of Void Wraiths to guide her future child to her destiny.
So...that's that's the world. The idea is that we'll roleplay said future children, though at the outset none will have any special abilities or powers. Each demigod needs to be baptized in the Temple of their Shadow by that Dark God's chosen race. So most of the story will be the characters traveling through various towns, away from the families of their birth and towards being reunited with their divine parents, at least in spirit. Each child is a disappointment to their human parents in some way, be it through physical deformity or some major character flaw related somehow to their Dark God.. For instance, Orkkun's child will be fairly weak physically, yet will be able to lift the heaviest hammer in the Forge with ease.
Baptism usually involves a ceremony involving the parent God's element. So Orkkun's son would be cast into the Black Flame. Which yes, would burn him, but only the human part of him. During the baptism each child will come into contact with their divine parent's sleeping mind, and since the Dark Gods tend to communicate through images, dreaming will allow them to communicate effectively.
What I don't have and need: The rest of the Pantheons. The names and borders of the nations of the Holy Compact and the Lands in Shade. Names of rulers. Genders of the rulers. Types of rulers. Specifics of each nation (dress, speech, general style). And most importantly, people to play the other Children.
I figure we can develop the plot more once we've worked out the aforementioned kinks.
So....who's interested?
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