|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:20 am
ɳєws
July 29: Dead God and Ardent are successful. Dead God is looking for more players.
vєяєɳҡȯʀ
What's more fun than crafting your own roleplay setting? Why, crafting it with your good ol' pals, of course! Verenkor is a small but growing roleplay setting which, due to its background (read below) is able to both encompass any genre and can continue to grow...and grow...and grow. But right now? Verenkor's just a wee little thing. She's got a big general background, and is filled out in some spots of history/location (and even ready to play in one). I hope with the help of viewers like you your mom any interested guild members that I can turn this into both a fun project for us to work on as well as a resource for the guild.
At the moment there's very little lore information posted up. That's because I'm trying to figure out how to present and organize it. It'd help if I had a subforum if there were enough interested folks COUGH COUGH.
ά ϯαsтє
What's different about Verenkor? Verenkor is first and foremost a mashup of fantasy and science fiction. You've got magic, elves, wizards, you know the deal. But Verenkor has it's own twist on these common fantasy elements. You'll have to read Verenkor's (heavily summarized) history to find out, but here's a taste of the setting:
•A secretive and powerful group of men who call themselves the Wizards pull the strings and control much of Verenkor, using the remnants of the knowledge and technology of the scientists of the old universe.
•Elves were created by the Wizards, two subraces for two purposes: to please, and to kill.
•Conscious thought has influence in Verenkor, giving living and thinking beings power over their world. Wherever multiple people are, reality tends to be extremely stable, sometimes stagnant. But alone, even a common villager has some power over his or her environment, for good or bad: nightmares or dreams can sometimes come to life when wandering the woods alone.
•One group besides the Wizards has more power than usual over reality, the Innates. A long-abandoned, failed experiment of a few young Wizards hoping to make powerful soldiers, Innates are born with an exceptionally powerful will that gives their thoughts some power over reality even when in the presence of other conscious beings. Although powerful, they are rare, as many parts of the world hunt them down and kill them before they reach the height of their power.
•Unlike most fantasy settings, gods do not exist in Verenkor. Numerous false gods, however, do, and with enough faith in these imaginary gods, the conscious thoughts of their followers do cause miracles.
Excerpts
Quote: When it was the seventh furthest from the Source, our universe was stable enough to sustain life for thousands upon thousands of years. Humans conquered a lonely universe, empty all but for them, and their greatest minds watched with worry as the life and warmth of the universe seemed to bleed out and fade. Their suns died, resources ran out, and their once great empire began to follow suit.
Quote: The cost in human life and freedom was great, but within centuries the grand city of Toriving had been carved out. Massive tunnels and advanced, for the time, pipes provided water from the snowy peaks of the north to the city. A great artificial river ran through the city, under bridges and buildings carved of stone several stories high.
Quote: The heretics have somehow learned of the pipelines and have begun raiding the countryside temples and destroying the furnaces. Until now, church officials have treated the heretics as a minor threat. But as the city-state to the north prepares to invade and their pipelines begin failing them, the priests have begun to worry and whisper if their old king will fail them.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:08 am
ђιsтȯяɣ
•Verenkor is one of twelve universes which, something like a solar system, exist in rings around a strange thing, what scientists called the Source. This “Source” is difficult to understand, but to put it simply it is all possibility, pure chaos. As universes get closer to the Source, their reality becomes more chaotic, more instable. •When it was the seventh furthest from the Source, our universe was stable enough to sustain life for thousands upon thousands of years. Humans conquered a lonely universe, empty all but for them, and their greatest minds watched with worry as the life and warmth of the universe seemed to bleed out and fade. Their suns died, resources ran out, and their once great empire began to follow suit. •Desperate to save their species and life in the universe itself, the great and brilliant scientists toiled away, doing their best to devise a way to manipulate their universe itself. Miraculously, they succeeded in their goal: moving their universe one closer to the Source. •But their victory had unintended consequences: their universe simply fell apart, barely enough consciousness left to sustain whole planets and galaxies. While they had known about the source for over a century, the scientists of our world knew little of the effects of conscious thought on reality itself. What was left of humanity was mostly unable to comprehend or understand the nature of their reality, the planets on which they lived on. Most of the universe simply fell apart. •The scientists, however, the ones whose mental abilities surpassed the wildest dreams of previous generations, understood every aspect of their ships, themselves, the air they breathed and more. •They survived, and after some time became able to comprehend more of how the source worked--that conscious thought had real power, both stabilizing and creative power and with minds like theirs, they could rebuild the world. •And they did.
•Understanding the power they now held, these men of science turned to recreating a new world, their vision of a perfect reality. Memories of the old universe seeped into their creation, and long-extinct forests and ecosystems were reborn in this new world. •They named it Verenkor, after the laboratory ship they had worked on. They settled down as the races of humanity were reborn, and began to think themselves wizards, or gods, although for all their will and great intellect they could not yet manipulate life itself. Humanity was young, barely human, and far from the humans of their once great empire. But they were old and weary, and the first of them passed into death all too soon. •After her death, the remaining scientist turned a lonely eye to the new world of his creation, and decided he would teach others, who were wise and intelligent like the scientists of the old universe, how to bend his creation to their will. He searched for many years for any humans who displayed superior intelligence. •He finally found a young man whose ability to comprehend the world around him surprised him, and the old scientist took the young one under his wing. He taught him the secrets of the world, the laws by which it worked, but more importantly the methods scientists had used for thousands of years to learn these things. The young man became an excellent student, and the old scientist passed away with confidence that the world had been reborn. •But the scientist could not understand the nature of these new humans, and his youthful student began a long and dark reign of men who called themselves sometimes wizards, sometimes gods, who were too eager to bend reality to their will. And so began a new, secretive reign of these wizards: men who created new lifeforms out of the old scientist's tales of fantasy from his childhood, men who learned to manipulate even other universes, men who hoarded the secrets of immortality and used it selfishly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:14 am
cʊяʀеȵт
How you can help:
•Just be interested! Post your interest. It helps!
•Use the setting in your own roleplay.
•Give feedback.
•Submit your own ideas in writing.
•Illustrate your own ideas, or ideas presented here.
•Get people interested.
Here's what's being worked on:
•Nothing. Oh s**t!
Here's what's been started and filled out even just a little.
•End of an Empire: A highly advanced but divided, hostile and dying empire of humanity rules the universe and is seeing its final days. Barely filled out.
•Dead God: A city-state in a war-torn land in Verenkor's early years is ruled by an oppressive and manipulative cult of a false sun god, Loegir.
•Ardent: The Steam Revolution is in full swing and the age of Wizards has ended.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:16 am
Timeline
Note: AR means After Rebirth, meaning after the rebirth of the universe. It is not a term used in game, only to make things clearer for players.
1 AD
Human empire begins to rise
2500 AD
Human empire begins to explore space and colonize other planets
3000 AD
Human empire breaks apart, each planet ruling itself
4000 AD
Interplanetary wars begin, half of entire human population wiped out
4500 AD
Universe moved closer to the Source, entire human civilization destroyed
1 AR
Humans across the planet join as tribes
10 AR
Beginning of the Wizards, period of relative powerlessness
100 AR
Tribes begin to develop their own physical and cultural features
200 AR
Cities begin to spring up
Trade begins between cities
500 AR
Wizards begin developing new races, Innates, maintain grip of power
The northern and eastern continent begins to unite into small kingdoms
A deadly disease slows progress in the west
Bursian city-states rise and vie for power
700 AR
Wizards maintain powerful grip on most of the world
Northern kingdoms unite as they are conquered one by one
Tribes are long gone, most areas are either kingdoms or city-states
Mass genocide of nomadic gypsies in the north, refugees flee to Bursia
1000 AR
Bursian city Athlas develops first navy useable for war, begins use
Cult of Loegir rises in Bursian city Seboet
1100 AR
Heretics in Seboet begin to gain power
1110 AR
Revolution in Seboet, cult overthrown and heretics set up as new leaders
Cult leaders flee to the north
Bursia united under a new Seboet
Naval warfare spreads, piracy becomes a major problem
1120 AR
Fall of the Wizards
Superstition, religion banished in the name of science
Steam Revolution begins
1150 AR
Steam Revolution in full swing
The gun is developed by Au scientists, used to conquer Bursia
Airships are developed and become widespread
1300 AR
Last of the elves dies
1400 AR
Mass exodus of refugees from Cann after water shortage
Tyrisian power weakens in the world
Kerria experiences its Cultural Revolution
1410 AR
Innates experience boom in population
Kerria rises to become world power
1500 AR
Innate-fueled engine technology developed
Great Plague
Geography
Verenkor is a small planet compared to its predecessor, Earth. Much of it has been shaped by the historical and fictional books of Earth the two scientists who created it used to read. The shapes are all wrong, the cultures changed in odd ways, and it has a red moon--but it’s similar. Call it Earth, Mk. II if you will.
It is divided into three continents, as well as an uninhabited polar continent.
The northern lands, known collectively as the Tyrisia, have a long and bloody history. It lies to the east of Kerria and is joined to the southern continent, Au, by Bursia. Covered in great forests, massive mountains and to the north perpetual snow, the Tyrisia and its people have long been united by one king or another.
While the city-states of Bursia to the south busied themselves slaughtering each other, the people of the Tyrisia lived difficult lives. Because of this, their route to survive was not through competition but through cooperation.
They built halls of stone and clay, careful to respect the nearby forests where the elven servants of the Wizards resided. Generations of experimentation and booming population growth led them to begin turning to the mountains themselves. At first, they tried to reside in the mountains, but few enjoyed this way of life and it proved difficult.
As population growth loomed, a visionary was named king. He scoffed at the idea of carving tunnels in the mountains and instead announced his plans to reshape the earth itself.
The work took centuries. In order to carve the mountains out to their whim, the people of the Tyrisia turned to the west. There lay a more primitive culture, one full of strong workers and rival tribes that they could play against each other. Unlike Bursia, however, the people to the west had never known war, only debate. They were defenseless.
The cost in human life and freedom was great, but within centuries the grand city of Toriving had been carved out. Massive tunnels and advanced, for the time, pipes provided water from the snowy peaks of the north to the city. A great artificial river ran through the city, under bridges and buildings carved of stone several stories high.
By the time the city was completed, nearly half the population of the west had been decimated, both by the war of the Tyrisians and by the diseases they brought. The Wizards had also just fallen, creating a power vacuum. The Tyrisians were happy to take their place.
Over the years they exerted an extreme but somewhat beneficial power. Their advanced technology and love of learning and science spread to every corner of Verenkor, and with the minds of other cultures a new age of technology began.
Nestled at the center of two great civilizations, Bursia has been at the heart of the most world-changing events in Verenkor history.
It was in this region where naval warfare began, and here where a new king brought the end of the Wizards. Nearly everything in the eastern lands passes through Bursia, and its politics have helped define the face of the world.
Most Verenkor scholars agree, correctly, that live originated in this small region. The area is dry for the most part, with rocky hills but bursting with some of the most resilient life in the world. At the most southern part of Bursia, sand clashes with beaches and plant life. Trees, grass, and sometimes old settlements break from the sand, refusing to die. To the north, solid rock and cold dry winds begin to replace the sand. Coasts are mostly rocky at both ends of Bursia, and at it's northmost lush, proud forests stand defiant to the winds.
Bursians are mildly dark skinned, exceptionally tall and hardy. Years of living in a place both brutal and bursting with life have made them a divided but proud people. Seven city-states, all at war with another, control the region.
Mos and Tetoep, the southern cities, pose a constant threat to eachother and their northern neighbor, Seboet. Once a united people, these three cities fight more viciously than all the rest, having been divided over the matter of gods. Seboet's monotheistic Sun God cult (which has left it's people slightly darker-skinned than its neighbors) rules with an iron fist, and the polytheistic gods of Tetoep and Mos are claimed to be the purpose of a 'holy war'.
To the east coast lies Athlas, a powerful coastal trading center and the first in the world to develop a navy capable of use in war. Since the advancement, the previously powerful city Hallr to its north has become nearly beaten into submission: barely able to defend Athlas invaders and no longer a threat.
To the northeast lie Isht and Sa Las, rivals in both war and trade. Years of trying to outdo eachother in lumber exports have led to their lands being turned into wastelands, and they have forgotten war entirely against the other cities, instead beginning to invade the forests, home to the elves, to their north--a dangerous and would-be fatal endeavor had the Wizards not fallen soon after they began.
The cities compete to varying degrees of success with the three grand cities of Au to the south, eager to export goods of wine, salt, olives and slaves. Their northern neighbors in the Tyrisia are happy to play on their rivalries, and exports large amounts of mercenaries and stone to several of the cities, though the amounts could not compare to their shipments to the cities of Au.
Almost always forgotten by scholars are the nomads. Far from home, their roots lie far back in history as Kerrian slaves escaped from a massive revolt in the Tyrisia long ago. They fled to the forests, first, but only a few escaped slavery there as well. What was left of the Kerrian slaves eventually became dispersed across Bursia, beaten down and made outcasts, poor, slaves, or worse. Most of the cities forced them to live on the outside, left to live in tents against the walls. Small nomadic settlements eventually sprang up, but after the gypsyfolk as they had come to be called--a grave insult--began to exist in numbers large enough to sustain, some began traveling south once again.
What happened to them there, is the history of Au. The last continent of Verenkor to be settled, it was the nomads of Bursia fleeing persecution who found untold wealth and sparkling oases in his untouched land.
A vast and mostly unexplored desert and the largest continent, Au holds only three settlements, each massive cities, on its face: Sbe, Corruos, and New Kerria. Each of the cities rely purely on trade to survive and have remained the economic centers of Verenkor.
Wealth is power in Au, moreso than anywhere else. Mercenaries, gold and water are the most highly valued commodities and often treated as currency itself. All the luxuries of the world find their way here: intoxicating incense, diamonds, strange flowers, powerful drugs, exotic animals and even the rare but welcome rebellious elf.
While peace and prosperity rule in Au, concepts such as rights and law as anything more than what the wealthy buy themselves do not exist. Because of this, oppression by the wealthy, slave trades and worse flourish. Many come to Au seeking freedom, only to find their rights stripped away completely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:19 am
Open...let me know if anyone is interested and I'll put a bit more effort into this thread. XD
At the moment there's very little lore information posted up. That's because I'm trying to figure out how to present and organize it. It'd help if I had a subforum if there were enough interested folks COUGH COUGH.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:24 am
I....
have to read it all first.
XD
But I did glance over and it looks interesting.
I have to leave now but when I come back...!
[/dramatic pause]
I'll let you know<3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:32 am
I haven't even put up the actual lore yet...XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:32 am
I just looked and I haven't read anything yet. DAMN do I love the banner XD
Yeah, first thing to catch my eye is the banner. I am such a nerd!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:09 pm
BASH has something to say! Very cool. I'll help if you like~ That will be all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:14 pm
Sounds very interesting, I like it =)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:18 pm
Well...I'm still trying to figure out how to organize this. XD I've got a lot of information but not sure where to put it. It's all housed in a guild atm. >_>
Verenkor is set up in a way that you could strike off on your own and make a complete setting within it (for example, one of the other universes or another planet in this) or work on a certain point in time, location, etc. Though, atm my efforts are focused on this one planet.
Blah blah blah ramble. How is it you want to help? XD
And even just being interested helps a lot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:22 pm
BASH has something to say! I can do banners, I can do art, I can make characters, I can help with lore, I can RP, I can be interested. And I can sit here and be sexy. ^_^ That will be all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:35 pm
I'll help in whatever way I can, mostly that's RP'ing... could maybe help with some of the lore if you want though ^_^ and well of course being interested XP
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:36 pm
Hmm, that last one may be the most useful. ;P Well, really, it's up to you. If you like I can link you to the guild (no, I don't want anyone to join it, it just houses information) though even that isn't anywhere near updated enough to what I have written down... >_> So yea...whatever you want to do. ;P I'm thinking of restarting the only RP I've made out of this setting here...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:50 pm
BASH has something to say! I'll do anything you need. I should read all the info, though.
Ooh, new navigation bar~
It's pretty! That will be all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
