Welcome
Welcome.
Hello and welcome to my little project. It is to design a new role-playing world and system. I feel the world is ready for contributors and reviewers to help me flesh it out and make it something special. The system behind it is going to (at first) use Savage Worlds as the test of the system, but eventually I want to develop my own system (started that project it is not ready for review or testing at this time) that encompasses the art of dangerous, while not being swingy; streamlined, to replace fallen characters quickly; kind of in the old school vein, but with a little more to the characters. There will come a time when the RP system passes from design to testing, and at that point, I’ll ask the community for help.
Now on to a summary of the world.
Pillars of the World
The three pillars of the world of Xethos Lands are steel, spellcraft, and survival. Steel represents both the armament of sword and firearm, but also of cybernetics and DNA splicing, things that make you strong. Spellcraft is both the art of study and divine worship of power. Survival is the state of the world these days. The Shattered War is over, and the land has been cracked into two. Armies have time to consolidate power in regions of the world, and while everyone is putting the pieces of life back together, there is much ruin to explore.
The term “Shattered War” comes from the fact that the cults of the Bound divine powers (Death, Decay, and Disease) nearly broke their containment, forcing the Watchers (Life, Purity, Memory, Craft, Health, and Growth) of the Bound to send a shock wave through the Divine Wall that separates man from the divine. This shockwave had devastating effects on the world below, shattering the once large continent of Elythria into two separate bodies, where mountains had once stood, and now it is an inner sea.
The people, of whom there are 16 possible ancestries living and surviving together in this broken land, are a resilient people who have consolidated power into kingdoms around the new two continents of Thulmhu and Jotagoria. Even kingdoms not directly affected by the land's shattering felt the impact, and the once-global power grid was knocked out, forcing people to survive on nothing for years before engineers restored limited power to small sections of the grid. It is in these places that people flocked to live in the shelter of life they once knew. As the world is explored, the notes on the kingdoms will be updated. Right now, they list population numbers and primary capitals, and for the 5 empires that carried over from the old world, a few important cities that need to be fleshed out. We’ll dig into the background of the ancestries: they had 2,400 years to make peace before the Shattered War, and that has not been lost in this new age; it is within a community, not the whole world.
Closing
I’m going to let you explore the world's documentation at this time. There are 27 deities believed to have abandoned the world at one point, but are now back in the forefront of people's minds. There are 16 ancestries to choose from, and 28 kingdoms scattered around the world to explore and develop. Magic is alive both as a studied science and as a religious blessing. Cybernetics to DNA splicing still exists, though it is hard to duplicate, so it is in limited supply, just like ammunition for firearms. The world has not dropped back to medieval warfare; the high-tech stuff still exists, as it has only been 37 years since the land was shattered.
Please read and join the Discord to discuss with me about the world.