Setting (Difinia)
From AdamWiki
Difinia is the capital city of the Difinian Empire, which is part of a large world like Earth, but with magic and a different cosmology. There are many gods and goddesses but they cannot interfere directly with worldly concerns.
Contents |
Geography
The world, Selveyele, is much like Earth though the continents and oceans are very different. It has one moon, which is blood red, and a sea of stars that form constellations familiar to Selveyelians. The largest political entities are the Difinian Empire, Elerdi, and Soun Velermo.
The Empire
The Difinian Empire is a sprawl over a massive continent. An ocean and several large mountain ranges form its boundaries. Beyond those ranges are untamed lands and other countries. The Empire is held together by the government of local magistrates put into power by the Empress. Fast communication and travel via lightships ensures that the Empire can snuff out hot spots of trouble quickly.
Difinia
Difinia sits in the middle of the Empire's coastline on a protected harbor on the mouth of a wide river that runs deep into the heart of the land. It is the largest city on the continent. It sprawls over several islands and a portion of the mainland and is riddled with canals, like a fantasy Venice.
The buildings are tallest at the core of the city. These are enormous stone structures that reach as many as twenty stories into the air. In general, though, buildings tend to be 2-3 stories tall. Outside the city, architecture tends towards a one-story villa plan for the well-off and squalid huts of mud and straw for the poor.
Most of the land of the Empire is wilderness with pockets of civilization spotted across the continent in the form of small cities and towns. Large forests blanket most of the world, but the center of the continent is a vast, grassy plain. Lightwood trees - from which flying "lightships" are built - grow in several of the larger forests. These trees tower to over three hundred feet in height.
Elerdi
Elerdi is a monarchy at war with the Difinian Empire. Decades ago, Difinia tried to annex the country and got more than they expected. The Elerdians proved to be dangerous warriors.
Soun Valermo
(to be done)
Cosmology
Difinian religious doctrine states in the time before history, the world was created by Ounil, the primeval goddess of order. Her brother Charas, the primeval god of disorder, instantly set about trying to destroy it. He created races of demons, gave them destructive powers, and set them to the task of annihilating the earth. Ounil responded by creating races of angels to stop them and put things back in place.
The demons and angels warred for thousands of years in a stalemate. To gain the upper hand, Ounil created the race of men and women, but it was too late. Charas' demons managed to destroy Ounil and their own creator Charas, too, because they wanted to rule the universe on their own. In the end, however, humankind saved the world from destruction, for men and women were able to tap the power of Ounil and Charas that was scattered across the world by their destruction. It took many years before mankind had mastered sorcery, but the universe seemed to bar angel and demon alike from any manipulation of magic so the humans had a great advantage.
With magical aid, the angels and humans turned back the tide against the demons. A few men and women gained such power that they were able to ascend to a kind of divinity, though nothing approaching what Ounil and Charas had been. These new deities sealed off the earth from the heavens and made a pact that kept deities, demons, and angels away from the earth. Besides, while in the divine planes, the deities have greatest power, but they are weakened and mortal on earth.
Because the gods and goddesses have human emotions, they are also susceptible to human failings. Greed and ambition overcame some of them and war began anew. Eventually, they split the divine plane into three separate worlds. The Upper House, as the Difinians call it, is the original plane that held the deities true to the early celestial ideals. The Lower House is the home of deities who split off, tempted by the dark ideals that the demons served. Eventually, a group of neutral deities formed a Middle House.
Difinians honor the entire pantheon, even the "evil" deities. After all, it is not a good idea to upset a powerful evil goddess. The largest temples pay homage to each deity with many stations and statues. Sometimes the Difinian people do dedicate a temple solely to one god or goddess - even the "evil" deities. Most of the deities of the Lower House have useful functions in the cosmology. For example, Endidera, the goddess of death, leads the souls of the dead out of their bodies to the divine plane, where the pantheon argues over who will get each soul. A temple to Endidera is usually dedicated to raising the recently deceased back to life.
