Arx
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All I hear is I’m going to fuck around with alchemy and find out by a demon eating me because I can never leave well enough alone.
I’m in.
Unless SOME PEOPLE try to give me visions of the violent death of my soul less teddy bear again.
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@Apos Halfway through this turned into a Bloodborne narration in my head and I am buzzing.
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@Apos You keep saying Durance and all I think of is the amazing character from Pillars of Eternity 1. It’s going to keep throwing me.
But this is a good stuff. Took a break from MUing since Arx 1 finished to be ready for Arx 2: Electric Boogaloo
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The Umbral Empire
“One stands before us in Durance. Speak thy name and testament.”
There are several folktales taught to children that are unique to the Umbral Empire. The first is a type of tale where an individual is offered countless dangerous opportunities, and thinking themselves prudent and wise, decline to run reckless risks. These tales always end with the utter destruction of the individual and all they hold dear, chastising them for their foolish failure to be bold and gain what was necessary to prevent disaster. Similarly, other children’s tales emphasize the importance of never mocking another’s failure if what they tried was daring enough, or how shameful it can be to gain great success without ever running risks.
It comes as little surprise to outsiders that there is no greater cultural insult than to call a peer of Umbros a coward. It does, however, come as a significant surprise that the insult is almost unheard of, because gloryhound risk taking is so deeply ingrained, that if a peer is failing to act on something opportune but dangerous, it is just assumed that they are restraining their natural inclinations to try regardless of consequence and forcing themselves to wait for slightly better odds.
There is a constant tension in Umbros that is never truly reconciled. Deep responsibility to Houses whose continued survival very much depends upon their protectors continuing to draw breath, versus the constant need to run greater and greater risks to gain glory and strength to guarantee the success of those same Houses. To any that would bemoan that, there is a common saying in the Empire that if one finds the crown heavy, another would happily bear it.
“Dare Greatly.”
Modesty, as a notion, is not overly prized as a virtue inside the Empire. If one has a strength in any arena and in any form, it should be flaunted. This combined with an intensely daredevil culture can result in extremely predictable conflicts, and some cultural traditions have arose to slow the constant churn and bloodletting between the best and brightest of Umbros’ rising talent. Duels are more restricted than most would expect. While all take place in magical rituals to restrict the degree of collateral damage, it is an immense loss of face for a challenge to take place except between peers. And ‘peers’ have a more restrictive meaning in the Umbral Empire than in the peerages of the other realms: it is not noble blood alone. One is considered a peer of the Empire if, and only if, they are a blooded member of a noble family and have magical talent. The latter is considered far more important, and is a strict requirement in voting for the Tannistry. It is customary for the Gifted visiting Umbros to be given courtesy noble titles in address.
The need to cultivate the relationships between Peers and their houses finds an emphasis on social events that those outside of Umbros often find excessive and frankly exhausting. Masquerades serve a particular role in Umbros, where it is understood that many can recognize precisely whom they are interacting with, that those under exile are tolerated with a polite fiction of anonymity, but one can spend a pleasant evening with those whose situations would be materially improved by marrying them, murdering them, or frequently both.
Those perplexing social events serve an important function in that it is given to the Peers to cultivate as many allies as reasonably possible among other Gifted, as it is commonly accepted that one trying to go about their Durance alone is nothing more than a particularly self-indulgent way of committing suicide.
“Return puissant.”
More peers of Umbros are invited to Shroudwatch Academy than any other group, a source of not inconsiderable pride in the Empire, but the reason is not necessarily indicative of overwhelming natural ability. It is understood, of course, that it is far more likely to be Gifted if one’s maternal bloodline has magical talent. But the likelihood of one manifesting magical talent is tied inseparably to moments of great personal risk, intense danger, and all too often trauma.
It is expressly forbidden to have children in arms, strenuously enforced by all the realms of Catenys after some infamous and rarely-spoken incidents. But Umbral noble houses tend to not be overly concerned with the safety of their scions, and increasingly hope that life-threatening situations awakens ability in them. Betrothals between noble houses are generally of a shorter duration, as one would neither guarantee that a noble still be among them in the following years, nor would they imply that they would ever do the self-defeating notion of attempting to keep them out of harm’s way. Longer betrothals, in the rare cases they happen, are taken as a sign of immense confidence in the capabilities of those involved to not die despite whatever reckless behavior they chase.
Safety, it is said, is a price they are unwilling to pay.
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I thought the premise was that it was a small (ish) population in a sealed city that was just opened up to the post-apoc world. In-city empires? Nations?
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I thought the premise was that it was a small (ish) population in a sealed city that was just opened up to the post-apoc world. In-city empires? Nations?
Thank you, let me explain a bit. So what I’m doing now is posting lore introductions for different starting areas, from the angle of an unreliable narrator for different areas.
Mechanically, a new player making an OC character would select a region, and from there they can select a different Beginning from the different cultural groups available, and some of these could have very dramatically different starting stories (like playing a member of an oppressed group within a culture).
Arx as a city has been cut off for a thousand years (from their perspective), and now the world is open for them to explore.
The other starting areas are different realms that have risen up since the most recent apocalypse. There is Luxen, Umbros detailed above, and then we have three others: Inferna, Ariwn, and Aythirmok. Past that, there’s several neighboring powers that won’t have CG available initially, but will open up later- Blighton, Jadairal, and the Southern Compact.
One significant mechanical difference from Arx will be a replacement for clues in our Codex system, which largely has all the IC knowledge that a character has. So if someone has specific cultural knowledge to their starting area, they would start with that in their Codex, and something shareable to other characters, and something they could research further as they delve into histories.
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@Apos Very interesting!
So is this to be considered a sequel to Arx 1, and would it be 1,000 years in the future (via perspective) from Arx 1? Or are we doing a kind of reboot of the overall Arx story?
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@real_mirage It’s canonically the same game world, if warped by the passage of ages and catastrophic events, though I am trying to write it so it should not require any knowledge of Arx 1.
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They sound like the descendants of the Oathlands and the Lyceum, respectively, or perhaps a reimagining. Hopefully each group has some nastiness to them so that we don’t have a reprise of Thrax getting dunked on morally for slavery.
I love seeing some Tannistry. It scratches that Crusader Kings itch.
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It’s canonically the same game world, if warped by the passage of ages and catastrophic events, though I am trying to write it so it should not require any knowledge of Arx 1.
Do the actions of any of the PCs in Arx 1 directly connect to said catastrophic events?
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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It’s canonically the same game world, if warped by the passage of ages and catastrophic events, though I am trying to write it so it should not require any knowledge of Arx 1.
Do the actions of any of the PCs in Arx 1 directly connect to said catastrophic events?
It’s all Dawn’s fault.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
It’s canonically the same game world, if warped by the passage of ages and catastrophic events, though I am trying to write it so it should not require any knowledge of Arx 1.
Do the actions of any of the PCs in Arx 1 directly connect to said catastrophic events?
It’s all Dawn’s fault.
Too soon.
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@Pavel The deep lore of Arx 1.
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@MisterBoring Yes, but not very directly.
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@Apos That’s cool. Are there going to be parts of the Arx 2 backstory that will cause devout Arx 1 players to squee?
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@Apos That’s cool. Are there going to be parts of the Arx 2 backstory that will cause devout Arx 1 players to squee?
Probably, though I hadn’t really thought about it too much, and I think if it happens it is more a consequence of my creative process versus other people. A lot of people like to really be focused on the current setting, and then work backwards from explanations, keeping things vague until it would be story significant and needs to be defined. And that’s valid and I think there’s a lot of arguments for doing it that way, and I think it’s really helpful to keep narrative room to maneuver.
My process tends to be the other way, where I tend to start at the furthest back point and then work forwards and think of all the different pivot points in a history and the different decisions on the way, and how this resulted in things being the way they are. It lets me get an easier grip around it, and in some ways that’s why the interest in Arx 1’s lore caught me off guard, because at its heart it was honestly more for me just so I could keep things consistent in my head than for anyone else. So Arx’s reboot is a lot of the same way, where because of how things happened, that leads to other things, which led to other things again, which in turn created these different states and all these dark secrets waiting to be uncovered, and some would point back to different decision points that PCs made or brushed up against.
It let me learn a bit from what I saw as my mistakes in the first iteration of Arx, in how I could keep things clearer- like for example, breaking up the different time periods into ages, so it’s much easier to see what was contemporary of what. Not really a spoiler to say that Arx 1 happened during the 6th age of the world, and the game starts at the beginning of the 10th.
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The Grand Principality of Inferna
“One stands before us in Durance. Speak thy name and testament.”
Any description of Inferna is rife with misconceptions, lies, and inaccuracies. You’ll hear Inferna described as an unbearably hot Island realm, its nobility comprised of Abyssal-blooded Infernal pirates who prey upon all those who dare to cross the Strait of Consequences. Tall tales of slaughtering all of their crews, seizing all of their riches, and malevolent agents of chaos slipping into other realms to sow dissent and corrupt the innocent. This is, of course, ridiculous.
The Isles of Inferna really aren’t that warm. Pretty mild, actually, depending on the season. Nice sea-breeze.
As for the rest, we would certainly take issue with the word ‘slaughter’. Most ships can pass unhindered, even! Not so much Luxen, who refuse to surrender lands that are rightfully ours, and will continue until the day Cinderus once again flies its rightful banners. But even then it isn’t as if we kill everyone, and many in our houses are talented individuals who cheerfully joined our ranks rather than staying with the stupid and dull. And while a few houses are noteworthy exceptions, we really as a rule don’t engage in wanton bloodletting. The least interesting crew members just are politely ushered off the side of the ship, and well, if you lack the water-breathing of the Sireni or the wings to fly like the Cinderi, you can scarcely blame us for what your gods refused to grant you. That’s a skill issue on their part, and feel free to take it up with them.
“Please, Envala, let this happen because it would be so fucking funny.”
Anyone traveling from Inferna gets quickly accustomed to being treated with distrust, and for native Infernals it is far worse. Not that most would ever call us anything but ‘imps’. And admittedly, a lot of our houses don’t exactly help matters. The dagger length claws of the Cinderi and certain houses insisting on handshakes has made for memorable incidents but much less than one might assume, with hardly ever any ambassadors losing a hand or two. And it isn’t as if we lack for treaties and agreements with most realms. We even had a perfectly good one with Luxen of all places, lasting right up until their revolution.
But if anyone else starts a conflict, we are most certainly going to end it, after we discover the most hilarious and delightful way to do so.
“Don’t marry the mark.”
Look, it’s nothing personal. There’s relatively few of us. We’ve already lost one kingdom, would rather not lose a second, and we have neighbors all too happy to expand. So we have to think of ourselves first, and every other realm isn’t making it easy to be overburdened with a generosity of spirit.
There comes a point when everyone treating you like a villain makes you decide to own it, after all.
Just treat us fairly, and we won’t have any problems. Trust us.
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The mention of vampires and lycans in a previous post and the description of beings with wings, long claws, and water breathing in the last one makes me think this a post-human setting like Arnold K’s Centerra.
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I want to play RIGHT NOW OKAY.
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