Sycarion Diversions

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Tag: Andras (Page 6 of 13)

False Prime Material Planes

October 6, 2011 /

Floating along the Astral Sea are many planes that seem to be very close, if not duplicates of the Prime Material Plane. These False Primes present locales very similar to ones on the Prime Material. It's even possible to run into a copy of yourself.

By dint of floating around the Astral Sea, however, there are three important differences between a False Prime and the real Prime Material Plane:

  1. False Primes do not have a real Sun, Moon(s) and stars.
  2. False Primes do not have Ghosts
  3. False Primes do not have other planets.

The skies of various False Primes ranges from a blank, starless sky to a very convincing duplicate of a real sky. It may take observers some time to notice oddities. The False Prime sky, for example, may have stars that do not twinkle and/or a lack of constellations. Astrologers really hate these places.

The lack of a sun also affects a few powerful spells. One such spell summons a bit of the Sun to generate fire and heat, since there is no Elemental Plane of Fire to get it from. Such spells do not work on planes in the Astral Sea.

Being located in the Astral Sea prevents Ghosts from appearing on a False Prime. A ghost is the spirit of a creature that never escapes the Ethereal Plane to reach the afterlife, usually an Outer Plane that lies outside the Astral Sea. In other words, the spirits that become ghosts never make it to the Astral Sea to be inhabitants of one of the numerous planes. When a creature dies on a False Prime, the spirit travels directly to an Outer Plane without having to transverse the Ethereal.

Having no planets has a smaller effect, in some ways. There are spells that summon moon material that are affected. Also, not every planet has creatures that have mastered interstellar travel. However, the biggest effect is the inability to invoke the planets to divine the future. As noted earlier, astrologers do not like planes in the Astral Sea due to the inability to divine information from the stars. This also affects Lesser Divination magicks that do not invoke deities or extraplanar powers directly.

Summoning Primordials from these False Primes is pretty straightforward as long as the summoner hasn't visited too many False Primes. The more False Primes visited (or studied for the purposes of summoning various primordials), the more difficult it is to summon them.

The advantage for a summoner to call creatures from a False Prime, is that he/she can potentially summon very powerful creatures. Next time, a False Prime that feature a very powerful creature as its primordial, the Follykin Skraa.

The Sandmen of Padasar

September 30, 2011 /

There's more that I want to add to this primordial, but I wanted to post it anyway. What I like so far is that the Sandmen serve as something close to the original elementals summoned by the summon elemental spell. The sandman will do its masters' bidding. It is strong and powerful. Being immune to fire and heat also comes in handy.

More than that, the plane is an attempt to be different. In a future post, I'll expand upon the plane and its other inhabitants. Enjoy!

The plane of Padasar is unique amongst all the known planes for three distinct features. The most disturbing is the presence of earthquakes. Due to the nature of planes in the Astral Sea, it was believed that earthquakes would not occur. Another distinctive feature is the Hashimi Column. The column is an extraordinarily tall mountain that purportedly marks the exact center of the plane. The last distinctive feature is the non-linear flow of time. Visitors to this plane may encounter the Column at only ten thousand feet high on the first visit and find it later at the height of ten to twenty miles.

The sandmen are semi-intelligent creatures that favor areas near hot springs and volcanoes. They lead solitary lives traveling over Padasar in search of food or taking shelter from the weather.

The life of a sandman is driven by two sensations, hunger and satiation. Their main diet is cinnabar ore. It some places it lies on the ground, but it can usually be found about three to four feet below the surface. The sandmen use a shovel-like tool to dig up the ore, using their tremendous strength to break larger ore deposits into pieces small enough for them to eat.

The sandmen have soft flesh and blood of mercury. Their skin produces a small amount of lime, thus serving as the origin of their name. This lime helps them to process their food to retain as much mercury as possible. Digesting cinnabar ore causes them to produce sulphur dioxide  as a by-product. Due to the intense heat generated by digestion, they suffer no ill effects from heat or fire. They stand almost eight feet tall with very broad shoulders and blank features. Two white eyes glow from their eye sockets. Their wide mouths provide the illusion that they are smiling all the time.

Once in their lifetime, a sandman will reproduce. In preparation, the sandman will eat as much food as it can. After falling into a deep sleep, the sandman will split into two. When both sandmen awake, they will travel in two different directions.

When they die, they return to the place of their birth, usually near the Column. Their bodies quickly decompose into mercury.

The Manus and Pria

September 28, 2011 /

In the vast Astral Sea are countless planes. Each one has distinctive qualities that make it different from any other plane. On each plane is a being that is composed of the plane's very essence - it is made up of those qualities that make the plane distinctive. These primordial beings or primordials take form in various ways. Many primordials take on the physical essence of a plane. Others, like the Pria, take on the spiritual essence of their home world.

Cerah is a place of vivid colors. Like the Prime Material Plane, there are brightly-colored flowers, but on Cerah the colors are richer, deeper and almost palpable. Regardless of the climate found on all three continents, there is abundant life and life forms. It is not necessarily idyllic as death is also a part of life, but the sensations to all five senses are richer and more intense.

Amongst the gods worshiped here, the most popular are  Kehindupan and his wife Kemashian. Throughout the three continents, any race with sentience has constructed temple-library complexes to honor them. The Temple-Library is also an institution of higher learning and students stream in to study the collected knowledge of Cerah.

Despite the universal love for Kehinupan and Kemashian, only the Manus and the Pria become priests for them. These two races have a special relationship to these gods. The Manus were the first-created on Cerah. They believe that they are created in form and spirit like gods of life and death. As a mark of their favor, the Manus were given a secret knowledge to create a soul. The use of this knowledge is not perceived as an abomination, but as a tribute to the powerful gods of life and death. Manusian priests spend years in study to learn the secret to making the Exilir of Souls and using it to create the Pria.

The first Pria created is the same gender as the priest. When created, the Pria is an adult, but the creating priest spends at least five years training their creation how to interact with society. Priests of Kehindupan are renown for authoring masterworks about etiquette and social graces. Using these books and other materials, a Pria learns about the world around them and how to interact in society like the Manus.

One to three years after creating the first Pria, the priest will create a second one of the opposite gender. A priest will never create more than two. The created Pria consider themselves siblings.

Most created Pria remain near the temple-libraries where they were created. Regardless of where they decide to live, the Pria are devout worshipers of Kehindupan and Kemashian. Usually they choose to be priests, paladins or mystic theurges with a tremendous talent for alchemy.

Prian marriages are arranged by the Manusian priests.  Siblings cannot marry each other. A few marriages are arranged to gain favor or position within church hierarchy, most, however, are arranged by a byzantine set of rules known as the Diyerni Zor. The purpose of the Diyerni Zor is to prevent health issues with the children of Pria. Pria couples are not limited to the number of children they may have. Large families are common.

Freeborn Pria are like a Manus in every respect. The only hint that points to their ancestry is  a lock of silver and red hair. Not all freeborn Pria  have this distinctive mark. Otherwise, Pria are physically a slightly idealized form of the Manus. Pria do not consider themselves superior in any way, but those outside of Cerah usually consider the Pria more beautiful. Both the Manusians and the Pria appear as humans approximately six feet tall. They have an elongated head and a very flat nose with a single nostril shaped like a horizontal slit. On their foreheads is a barely noticeable vestigial third eye. Their arms and fingers are proportionally longer than a human's. Both races prefer to dress in simple robes of white with a brightly-colored sash. The robes also conceal the fact that both races appear bowlegged. This is due to a limited hinge joint located half-way between the knee and the hip.

In game terms, I imagine the Priests of Kehindupan and Kemashian are similar to the Newhonian White Wizards featured at the Hill Cantons site. The post with the revised PDF is here. They also have the power to imbue a handful of spells to the Pria they created. (This ability is similar to the Psionic ability to imbue abilities.) The Pria doesn't pray to their Manusian creator, but mentions their creator in prayers to Kehindupan and Kemashian.

One specialty of the Manusian Priests is alchemy. Learning to create a Pria provides experience in making various potions and understand their effect on the body. The alchemy is also essential to create the Exilir of Souls, a substance that allows the Manusian to create a soul at all.

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