Petrichor: First Thoughts

The Pitch

Like many referees before me, I am absolutely captivated by the world-building exemplified in the Dark Souls series of games. The lore is a convoluted, grim affair of names and figures and factions circling around a highly abstract, highly poetic concept: the death of the Age of Fire. Whatever that means.

I have seen this style of lore-delivery and world-building -- or at least how it can relate to role playing games -- framed in two ways by Skerples at Coins and Scrolls, and Daniel Davis of gg no re:  

1. Cycles. Something big, ostensibly beyond the control of the PCs or any NPCs in the world, is about to change. Something world-shaking, something that was foreseen. Investigation into the world and its ruins will reveal that this is something that has happened before. A focus on the cycle adds a certain timelessness to the game. (The flow of time is convoluted in Lordran...) Although the players as always have the ability to completely ignore the big thing, there is never any doubt that it is central to the world and runs through items, magic, and history.

2. Conflicts. As with cycle-centric worldbuilding, everything is defined by the big thing. However, this time lore is built by examining the different ways that people have tried to fix it. Great powers take action by creating artificial versions of the thing, attempting to extend the life of the thing, attempting to make people who don't need the thing--- whatever. In the process, they create factions, locations, and items that can be drawn upon by an enterprising referee designing adventures and attempting to engage players.

I like both of these. I think both of them are valuable. So for my next campaign, I am going to try to create a setting that is thoroughly interwoven with a central cycle and a history of conflicts.

Dark Souls did fire. What about water?

I think it's safe to say we need to cut down on the detail here. My players would acknowledge that I am prone to falling in love with complicated details and worlds, and many times my ideas are too complex for me to improvise the delivery. To me, the main engaging details here are: clouds, rivers (surface flow), rain, and the sun (evaporation). There might be something in percolation and infiltration-- after all, subterranean delves are eminently gameable, but they're not striking me at the moment, so I'll leave them for now.

Vladimir Mesheryakov

The Age of Sun

A time of desolation. The oceans are boiling, and the air is filled with blinding sunlight and thick steam as it rises into the heavens. Life is scattered sparingly throughout the world-- there are thick-shelled beasts living deep within the scalding oceans who can withstand it's heat, and fluttering flighty creatures who flit about among the geysers and gushing vapors. 

Humanity is almost certainly limited to isolated pockets of civilization living in caves or sheltering within those ruins that were not destroyed by the storms that preceded them. They are torn apart by scarcity, but have adapted somewhat to living within their chthonic environments. In any age, certainly, there are those who benefit. Rare mages and rarer engineers are able to harness the power of the steam to power great machines that support these few communities at the cost of worship and adulation.

John Constable - Flatford Lock

The Age of Clouds

A time of peace and plenty. The super-critical seas have boiled off enough to obscure the harsh light of the sun, tempering the heat and uncovering fertile grounds. The monsters that were developed enough to survive the conditions during the Age of Sun find themselves tougher and stronger than their emerging competing species, but unable to sustain their great forms without the constant influx of energy from the steam and the sun. The oceans and land teem with life aplenty, and humanity emerges from their caves to construct great cities and empires. 

Trade flourishes between competing city-states as caravans of trade goods pass back and forth. Luxury begets coveting, and coveting begets war as leaders convince their followers to seize what they believe they rightfully deserve.

Petrus van der Velden - Storm at Wellington Heads

The Age of Storms

A time of punishment. The clouds have thickened enough that the world is cool and wet. One day the rain starts and does not stop. Farmers and traders find it more and more difficult to do their work, until waterlogged fields and mud-slicked wagons are left for useless. Great lightning strikes and war-drum thunder echoes throughout the world, blasting the domes and towers of humanity into stony ruins. The coastline has receded greatly and forced people into tighter and tighter spaces, exacerbating existing conflicts and destroying resources that are needed to survive.

Piracy and opportunistic profiteering is rampant in the apocalypse. Civilization has been reduced to a fraction of its former self, and the distant descendants of those who manage to eke out a living form the seeds of the scattered tribes that will retreat deep beneath the earth when the power of the sun is no longer held back by rain-depleted clouds.

I think the most obvious place to start a party is in the waning years of the Age of Clouds. Tensions are growing and storms have started to get more frequent, and fears that the rains will never stop give PCs the chance to manipulate their environment and tell interesting stories. This was the picture I had in my mind when I started writing this post. However, looking back, I might be more intrigued by the transitory period between the Age of Steam and the Age of Clouds. Domain-level play is always a difficult thing for me to figure out, but I see really good opportunities for players to form expeditionary parties that go to the surface and form the fledgling kingdoms that will grow to powerful empires in the Age of Clouds. 

My current game in the Marrow Seas features naval travel and piracy quite heavily, so I think I will be steering clear of the Age of Storms for the foreseeable future.