Hollow Deeds (Name Pending) Worldbuilding Part 2

The Dread Watcher comes out regularly, though it only really becomes a problem at it's zenith, and very rarely, maybe every few hundred years, it will reach it's zenith on Dentersalia

To be fair, the surveyors of stars are pretty much saying this Dentersalia is gonna be a fucking doozy. At least, that's what I'm interpreting it as.

I feel like we should come up with something that counters or limits the Dark Construct's spawn, because, well, literally everyone hides their machines from it, so what stops it from just flooding the world with its spawn in impotent rage?

Why not an Order of Hunters explicitly founded and spread throughout the world, dedicated to just fighting the Dark Construct? They also make strange clockwork weapons out of the remains of it's spawn.

Dentersalia is always a doozy, it aint fun, but it's Grell Hunkorek that is really a worry

>West Anglia, ruled by the Royal Family, is still plagued by terrorists from the islands of Celtícernon, a group of fae infested colonies

There are presumably other forces that will work to prevent it from deciding to go "fuck it" and flood the world with demon-spawn. Wouldn't be surprised if it tried that in ages past, and The Radiant Magnificence and other beings came to smack it down. It's also trying to keep a presence within reality, since it only has a limited amount of time before the suns light sends it back to the darkness of The Border, so using its own power to create spawn might weaken it a fair bit.

The Deconstructors. A branch of hunters drafted and formed specifically to counter the Dark Constructs spawn. Unlike other hunters, who usually receive orders and go out to meet their prey, or roam the world in a constant hunt, the Deconstructors are more like local guard, stationed in tech-heavy cities in personalized hunting posts that are both home, office and armory for these hunters. When the Dark Construct begins to unleash it's spawn, the local Deconstructors set out to fight back.

>Some Deconstructors will take back parts of defeated spawn to other Hunter branches in order for them to study them, and see if any new weaknesses or weapons can be devised to aid in the fight against The Dark Construct and its spawn.
>These new developments have to be heavily prototyped and tested before they can be used out in the field however, as there is always the risk of The Dark Construct taking control of the weapons.

I was actually sort of curious, what sort of ideas did you guys have for Hunter, Guild, and Church weaponry?

Beyond that, I imagine we should probably begin to toy around with the idea of making a proper map for this entire thing, to list out the nations and cities we've described.

...

The Order of Hunters, currently the year 834 AW (After War)
Douglas G Yourhan- Current Hunter Imperalis, 58, known far and wide as "The Night Slayer"

Prime Hunters:
Samuel "Shell" Kuldur- Current Prime Hunter of the Arm of High Weaponry, 48, original inventor of the Samuel 88, a high powered gun powder rifle that has become regulation across the Order's armaments

Loren Hinter Olswell- Current Prime Hunter of the Arm of Forces, 50, ex-commander of the Bastion Guard, took quickly to commanding hunting parties

Jyung Hyoin- Current Prime Hunter of the Arm of Arcanus, 32, a foreigner from the Orient, owns a private vault full of ancient magical secrets

Bonchester Villespend- Current Prime Hunter of the Arm of Surveyors, 64, the number one authority on Vampires and author of the book "Of Blood And Darkness: A study on the undead"

Hunter weaponry would be a vast arrangement of high tech weapons and old world weapons, with a focus on efficiency over specialization, but with an aesthetic of hardwood everywhere. Guild weaponry would depend on the guild, but focus solely on big weapons, big toys, big tech. Church weaponry would be very personal and intimate, swords, shields, axes, spears, short ranged firepower, gun-bows, weapons that can be adorned with holy enchantments and specialized coatings, also a lot of Bymetal weaponry.

>>The Demented Shell. A weapon made from parts of the Decimation Of Solarii, a particularly powerful spawn of The Dark Construct that had been destroyed by the Deconstructors along with a few other Hunters some years past. The weapon whilst functioning, has been utterly banned from use by the prime Hunters themselves, due to the fact that it is so unfathomably evil that those who have used it have inevitably fallen to its dark temptations, and would slowly have their bodies morph into masses of bone, gears, and cogs, slowly becoming replicas of the original monster. It is currently contained in the vault of one of the Hunters many installations, with various runic wards upon its casing in order to assure that its corrosive aura does not infect those who inhabit the area.

Mad Scribe user here, creator of the google doc. I'm just gonna shill this discord again, since I'm beginning work on a system for this setting.

discord.gg/PyAH7nb

Arm of High Weaponry:
The Riders of Hot Steel- Current Huntmaster: Yevon Sanders
Saint Wesley's Holy Order of Blessed Marksmen (Slingers)- Current Huntmaster: Orville Munkin

Arm of Forces:
The Old Band- Current Huntmaster: Dornan L Kyuga
The Deconstructors- Current Huntmaster: Lemun Wisk

Arm of Arcanus:
The Grim Ones- Current Huntmaster: Wiles Burnham

Arm of Surveyors:
The Stag Seekers- Current Huntmaster: Guivere Jasmine

I guess we should make two more hunter groups, to balance things out. One of them, in the surveyors, should probably have a focus on urban environments. Investigators snuffing out monstrosities in cities and other urban places.

Okay, is it Bureau or Order of Hunters?

The later sounds so clunky

I think we should probably stick to the Bureau for now. The Order of Hunters might be an older term for them, or one of the names that the Bureau is known by.

The Arm of High Weaponry: The arm of the Order that deals with advanced technology, constructing and utilizing weaponry, and arming the rest of the Order with the latest technology available

The Arm of Forces: The arm of the Order that deals with the combat power of the Order, creating hunting parties, overseeing hunting parties, providing travel methods for hunting parties, registering hunters and keeping track of casualties and MIA hunters

The Arm of Arcanus: The arm of the Order in charge of studying magic and divine. This arm keeps tracks of magical dangers and provides the Order with magical weaponry when available, as well as being in charge of the few spellcasters that are employed by the Order. Considered a more dangerous version of the Arm of High Weaponry, as magical weaponry, artifacts and equipment are highly unstable and unpredictable.

The Arm of Surveyors: The arm of the Order in charge of mapping locations, tracking targets, keeping in touch with partnered cities and hunting posts, studying supernatural and natural creatures and threats, and keeping census of locale creature populations as well as any potential outbreaks or invasions.

I thought the Bureau and the Order were separate things, the Bureau being the upper government force that keeps tabs on the Church, the Order and the Guilds. Like the FBI

For the Surveyors we could probably call them The Trackers, or something like that. Those who will go out and try to scout out various horrors that might be infesting various areas surrounding the cities.

I feel there should be a lot of hunter branches, kind of like Space Marine chapters

I assumed that as well, but perhaps that could be shifted around.

The way I had it in my mind was that the Bureau was the head office, and all of the different Orders answered to the Bureau in one way or another.

A bit too on the nose. I considered it as these branches weren't made for their specific arm of the Order, but were instead made originally and then categorized later on. I don't think any of the groups within should be specifically designed to fit their Arm, but instead built to fit a specific idea and theme, and by it's nature allowing it to fit into the Arm

Then if we go with that, the Bureau would be the name for the Prime Hunters and the Hunter Imperalis as a whole, as they are in charge of the Order

I'm sure there could be a shit-ton of hunter orders, but in terms of the biggest branches, these'll probably be it. The rest will be smaller and likely far more specialized.

This guy has got the right idea.

hmm, yeah that's what I was also thinking. I was just trying to use the name of the Arm as a basis for what they could be, or what they could do. Your idea however is much better, and kinda fits the general feeling I get from the various branches.

So before humans began fiddling with machinery, did people only know the Dark Construct for its spawn or did it used to do different things?

I think knowledge of the Dark Construct should always be a little shaky, but the implication that it's a new occurrence would be quite neat.

I think that could work pretty well. I doubt Hunters are the type to overcomplicate things, so neither should we.

It might have caused various bits of natural occurring elements, and metals to come together to form monsters, and likely caused strange steamworks to erupt and spread over various areas. It was likely only after humanity began to utilize machinery for things that it switched tactics. Going from a more subtle subversion, to full blown demonic clockwork apocalypse.

>I think knowledge of the Dark Construct should always be a little shaky, but the implication that it's a new occurrence would be quite neat.

But I also agree with this. Nothing should be certain about it. For all we know it only recently came to join the Three, and something else existed before it took the spotlight. At the end of the day, it is still an eldritch abomination.

How about this instead
>The Band of Nightcaps: A branch of hunters who specialize in pitch black hunting, a dangerous way to hunt, as it's stepping into the enemy's territory and stripping the hunters of any advantage. To mitigate this, recruits of the Nightcaps are given alchemical therapy for months before they are initiated, as well as some other changes to the recruits that is kept a tight knit secret by the Nightcaps, and as a result, the Nightcap hunters are capable of seeing in the dark, and their training allows them to move silent and swiftly. As a result of their hunting methods, Nightcaps have a large preference for close range hunting weaponry, but with the invention of hushed firearms, the Nightcaps have begun to utilize longer ranged weaponry into their repertoire.

What if there are naturally occurring constructs, various kind of golems for example, and back then the Dark Construct was a smaller, weaker moon. But with the steady growth of man-made creatures and machinery, the Dark Construct began to grow bigger and stronger and it's influence expanded. Thus hinting that the greater and more advanced humanity becomes, the stronger the moon will become.

The guilds are many separate organizations, each focused on one ideal

The Order of Hunters is one organization, with many separate branches that deal with a variety of ideals and goals

The Church is one organization with no or few branches, that deal with a singular goal

I think the existence of the Dark Construct is intrinsically linked to the creation of artificial constructs and magical machinery, but its exact origins should be the subject of academic speculation at best.

Is it a construct itself, a superweapon from the First War gone horribly out of control?
Is it an outsider to the this world, drawn in by the lure of magitech it can prey upon and twist to its purposes?
Or is, perhaps, as babbling madmen would have you believe, a great, eldritch womb that has birthed the first machines into this world?

They are the same, read the last thread

Considering the nature of The Border from which it hails, all of these things might be true, and yet not. All we know is that it is among the Three, and that they and the darker things of The Border desire the worlds annihilation, and thus must be fought whenever they manifest.

I think horror like this works the best when it's never truly explained, because no one is going to have a satisfactory answer for everyone involved.

Yeah, I basically got that.

I also had a concept of currency for the setting. Solari, metal coins implanted with a rough image of Sulis. The image in particular differs from region to region, and may be entirely absent in the Orient.

Not a final draft or anything, just putting ideas to images.

Holy shit, this is really cool. Is the Orient going to be located between Ires and Denbo?

Dunno, I forsaw Per, Uriel, Denbo and Ires are the occidental countries, with the orient located across the hateful sea.

>There is no shortage of madmen in this cruel, dark world.
>Whether driven mad by the loss of home or loved ones, twisted by baleful whispers coming from nowhere in the dead of night, attacked by monsters who feast on sanity itself, or simply born under the wrong star, many a thing can lead someone down the path of madness.
>Violent, barely coherent drunkards, gibbering visionaries, drifers in rags and tatters, wordless strangers with dead eyes - such poor souls are found everywhere.
>Yet, despite their propensity to wander drunkenly in the dead of night, drift in and out of towns with no home to call their own, and dwell in the darkest corners where none else wander, the mad rarely come to harm - much rarer than they should, at least.
>Some speculate that the Border and its creations delight in the suffering and despair of the mad, and so prolong their lives as long as they can
>Others, however, whisper of an old and forgotten god, from when the days were bright, the Goddess free, and the Pantheon whole.
>Arnek, he's called. The jester. The fool. The trickster, who none the less imparted important insights and humble wisdom through his words and deeds, through the lens of mockery and irreverence.
>But now, the world is much devoid of these things. Arnek, like all other gods, is diminished, and hardly remembered - there is nothing left to mock, and trickery only invites terrible doom. Arnek has sunken low, deep into despair, and beyond - into madness. In fact, he has become one with madness itself.
>But his humble wisdom and keen insight has not left him, even still. It is thus, that he speaks to the mad and the insane through their warped and twisted minds. He protects them from the worst of the darkness, and through them, tries to warn the world of danger and folly, though the message often becomes garbled along the way.
>None the less, it does one good to listen to the mad. It might just save your life one day.

Fair enough. I just think it's pretty damn dope either way.

>Perdrake of the Iron, a soldier of the Sulisian church, a man of righteous might, and furious faith. He is famous for being the one man to wield the church's treasured sword, Article, a blade forged of the purest of Bymetal, and an extremely rare element known as True Silver, a metal that is toxic to undead, but so rare that it is usually made into needles that the High Priests and Church Generals possess, but Arcticle is the exception, steel mixed with bymetal and laced with a strip of true silver along the center, inscribed along the blade are the 450 articles of Sulis' divine word. Perdrake has made a name for himself as a divine knight of the Church, and in current times has lead a small crusade of Church Knights to the north to rout a dark prophecy the seers of the Church have forseen

Redoubt Vale: an isolated farming community located in an alpine valley it was rediscovered after the Thaumaturgic war when hunters tracking a particularly dangerous aberration found its trail abruptly ending in the apparently untouched sleepy little community. After investigation not helped by the distrustful locals the secret to the town's safety was eventually revealed.
Built into the mountains backing the valley is a massive fortress, originally a small outpost built using automated constructs it was never occupied by its original makers instead slowly but surly expanding and enhancing itself growing additional structures weapons of terrifying power and legions of constructed soldiers all beholden to a central mind of curious resilience.
This mind while apparently immune to outside influences become somewhat warped from its long isolation unable to fufil its designated purpose. When the first settlers came to the vale it saw an opportunity to fulfill its purposes as a military instillation and fortress. It surrounded them with its forces and made one demand; Stay and provide a commander.
Since that time the inhabitants of the vale have lived in unusual safety the ancient entity shielding them against the horrors and safeguarding them through the night.
All they have to do to keep the redoubt placated is to ensure that it always has a 'commander' an individual who must live all their days within the cold halls of the fortress.

Just look up Inkarnate, it's a free map tool

>There have also been hints of The Hunter Of The Bright Dawn himself traveling through the frigid north, but none have been able to confirm this aside from the charred corpses of various monsters and cultists littering the snow, along with scorch marks and small fires trailing off into the cold before disappearing.

That's a certain kind of weird, lonely horror that I could dig.

I've toyed around with Inkarnate in the past, but I also really like the results I get from using Photoshop and paint.net

>It is unknown exactly what this dark tiding may be to anyone outside the higher echelon of the Church, and what is happening in the north lands, but for two of the Church's greatest soldiers to both be there trying to stop it, it must truly be a great disaster on the horizon.

>Celticernon had once been a place where many people settled in order to avoid the horrors of war, but they had instead encountered the horrors slumbering upon those lands, creatures that could grant you any desire you so wished but for a price most dire. The people of Celticernon mad a deal with those beings in exchange for being completely secure from the First Thaumaturgic War. how sad that they could not see the fine print of such a bargain. They had willingly sold their entire nation over to the entities, and ever since the isles of Celticernon have been places of madness and debauchery ruled over by twisted Lords of the wood, assailing the people of West Anglia in an attempt to subject them to the same fate.

Bumping so this doesn't die, and hopefully someone makes an actual post soon.

How close do we want this to be to the real world? I think we can do some interesting stuff by weaving real world fill tales into the setting leaving them fairly untouched.

Like making Scandi or Slav land and such

>Magic affinity as a gene is not unique to humans
>It is present in most species with high intelligence, such as apes, dolphins and cephalopods.

Bump of justice. Keep this thread alive anons.

>While it's becoming increasingly rare in humans, it is slowly on the rise in Primates.

>As for aquatic life, it's anyone's guess as marinebiology is a profession far more dangerous than hunting.

We definitely have a lot of leeway with how we can make things in this setting. So really anything is possible so long as it fits the settings tone.

Going to sleep, hopefully I'll have more ideas when if this thread is still up

>The Empire is the most mysterious faction involved in The First Thaumaturgic War. Very little is known about it, as no records made by imperials still exist and very few documents about The Empire have been made by other factions
>What IS known about The Empire is the following:
>1.Imperials did not use magic at all
>2.The Empire's government controlled most manufacturing facilities
>3.Entities known as "Imperial Automata" existed and were noted to be similar to homunculi
>4.Imperial Automata, unlike homunculi, were involved mostly in production of goods. It is unknown if this is due to cultural differences or due to some kind of drawback that made them unfavorable as combat units
>5.Despite The Empire having been destroyed, many products which were manufactured by Imperial Automata are still appearing in stores

This is part introduction for a new faction, part reuse of the idea behind the factory from the previous thread.
Sharing your opinion on this will be appreciated.

What would happen if someone mixed together multiple types of blood and then spills it over a corpse? Would the corpse become a fusion of multiple vampire-derived creatures?

I wonder how often some group of idiots try and loot the place.

Probably every two weeks.

Redoubt Vale is probably a valuable breadbasket, since the fortress keeps the entire area secure, letting the local farms to stretch much further from town than usual.

How many factions do you think should have been involved in the First Thaumaturgic War?

All of them to some degree. Because while the empires that primarily fought it died out a lot if their creations didn't.

New user reporting in after reading the last thread, awesome work btw guys.

I think that going off the bloodborne vibe, Hunter weapons should seem unwieldy, and are outright impossible to use without proper training, but are brutally efficient. Stuff the likes of large hydraulic cutters to sever and crush through even the most hardened exoskeletons.

Kinda like
youtube.com/watch?v=01KH-D_1ETQ

Monstrous bump.

Im not sure how important manufacturing facilities were during the age of the First War, since back then everything was sword, spells, and old world siege weapons, there were no robots or machinery

The War was so bad it probably wiped out all non-magical technology that was before. Who's to say that one of the factions didn't have machinery back then?

I think it's best left utterly vague just what manner of things existed before the First Thaumaturgic War.

Is that an argument for or against The Empire?

Leaving the vast majority of things vague around the First Thaumaturgic war would be better. If anyone actually ran a game in this setting, sometimes its better to leave plot elements undefined, so people can feel free to describe it in their own version of the setting.

Besides that clip being from IBO, I agree with this user's statement wholeheartedly, even if it's probably already well-established at this point.

>Tucked between the strait of small islands barely linking together Uriel and Per, Nos Shadowi is a major port city, and mixing pot of nations, cultures, and creeds. It's the only kind of city in Occident where you could find tribal Denbo singers playing alongside a quartet of classically trained Uriel violinists, only to be chased away by the Marrazi Sanctioned for not paying protection fees.
>Officially an independent state run by a representative democracy, the area is unofficially under the control of the Miynarz dynasty. Major trade includes large fisheries, canned good factories churning away alongside the water, and massive refineries built into the surrounding cliffsides.
>The Old Band have a significant presence in the city, regularly recruiting from the fluctuating orphan population. Currently they're working out of the old Bellweather Industries soap factory.

...

I agree that it should be vague, but it's not like the First War killed everyone in the world, if there was technology back then, it would still be around even after the War, unless there was some high tech faction on Ires which was wiped out when Ires was destroyed, but it still kind of seems silly to have one area with super high tech levels, and everywhere else is swords and sorcery

...

The existence of all the homunculi and magical constructs and spells infers that magic and magitech was at quite high levels before the First War, but I think elaborating beyond that is unnecessary.

Who are they, user?

Sure, but there has to be some establishment of tech levels, since tech doesn't just disappear. If magitech was high back then, then it kind of steps all over Autocraft as an innovation. Unless back then magitech was wholly restrained to countries that possessed large numbers of spellcasters, or if the tech portion was much less compared to the magic portion, it kind of ruins the major impact of technology powered by magic, if the world was already at a point where technology powered by magic was a major thing

Dunno, just some monster designs I had last night before I went to bed

Considering that the First War evaporated an entire continent, tech "just disappearing" isn't too far out of the question.
Who knows, maybe the Dark Construct had something to do with that...

>CAAAARL, what did I tell you about shooting the magic doom beam at the moon with the robot empire on it?

Technology from the First way would still be around, but it feels like people might also confuse it with The Great War.

I really don't think we have to overthink it this much. Leaving it vague feels like the best option here.

I think the designs are pretty neat either way. The long-necked woman and the skull faced figure are my favorites.

>Carl Llamahatson is a figure of legend in many religions, even featuring in horoscopes
>The zodiac of Carl is associated with assholery, fucking up and the three evil moons

Again, it's not overthinking it. I'm not talking about specifics about the war, I'm talking about the tech level of the era, if we have lore and information about groups and certain weapons from the war, it wouldn't make sense to just go "oh no, lets not elaborate on the actual tech level, leave it vague". If the tech level is already high in the era of the First War, it impedes the supposed innovations that pop up hundreds of years later, so unless the tech level of that era was high, but restricted greatly by certain things (like number of spellcasters, or how the tech is created, or even what the tech is) it just doesn't fit into the timeline.

Well. the First War's devastation was likely primarily caused by spellcasters and other arcane means, rather than raw technology. At least, that's the way I've been reading it this entire time.

I assumed the same, which is fine, big crazy magic weapons is very fitting for that time zone, I'm just making sure there wasn't shit like giant magic robots and magic tanks and shit, since that would make Autocraft pointless, but shit like golems and homonculi and giant runic death bombs are fitting, since they are more mystical rather than engineering

But all the 'modern' innovations are only necessary because magic users and magic are dwindling

Aye, that's what I had in mind when speaking of magitech. Golems and homunculi and other mythic craziness animated by raw magic

Again, which is why I am making sure we have an idea of what the tech level and style was, if it was pretty much just a bunch of spell casters in control of how the tech works and how warfare is played out, it makes it fit better that as spellcasters fade out and then Autocraft moves in to take any monopoly spellcasters had