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(TFT) Magical planes & Angels
With all the talk of Demons and Angels and planes several months ago, I have
decided to throw in a Universe Concept that I have developed for a future
novel. Many ideas came from White Wolf, ShadowRun, D&D, Twilight Zone &
religious sources. This is being posted to give the group some ideas, and
does not necessarily follow the world of CIDRI.
This world is sandwiched between interdimensional planes that are milimeters
apart. These planes can be accessed by people (this is rare) for travel or
energy.
Here is a graphic look at the dimensions:
____________Moliation___________________________________________
____________Rads________________________________________________
____________Demon Plane_______________(Magical beings)__________
____________1 mil plane (infrared)____Magic_____________________
____________EARTH_______________________________________________
____________1 mil plane (ultraviolet)_Spirit____________________
____________Dead Plane________________(Spiritual beings)________
____________Mana________________________________________________
____________Oblivion____________________________________________
The Rad Plane radiates magical energy into the Demon Plane. Beings and
things in the Demon Plane are therefore inherently magical. Some of the rad
gets through the seperation of the Infrared 1 mil plane. The Infrared Plane
is a high rad/low mana plane. It is a no-mans land as one has to put effort
into staying there or slip out of the plane. Many elementals and magical
creatures escape to here. Earth is a normal rad plane with many pockets of
low rad and some high rad.
Earth is also a normal mana plane with many pockets of low mana and some
high mana sites. The Ultraviolet Plane is a very low rad plane; it is also
a high mana plane. Many spirits and souls escape death here. Beings and
things in the Dead Plane are inherently soulful and incorporate as the mana
from Mana Plane radiates out (eliminates) almost all magic.
The 1 Mil Planes most often look exactly like Earth. Same walls, storms,
hills, etc. Often times a closed door cannot be opened here. Sometimes you
can walk through walls. Sometimes you get stuck in the wall if you try to
go through. Its a wierd mix of cans and can'ts that the GM arbitrates as he
goes along. <These rules have not been fully created yet.>
The Infrared (everything has a red tint to it) 1 mil plane is a great place
to study magic and spy on things. Mages often come to this plane to do
their studies. Magic auras show up easily here. Beware of magical beasts
that love eating souls. Magic done here rarely affects Earth unless its
very powerful. Anything of that power will likely bring "spectators".
[High rad areas on earth are like the "mana" areas of GURPS Fantasy. These
high rad areas should benefit learning of spells, spellcasting or recouping
fatigue.]
The Ultraviolet (everything has a violet tint to it) 1 mil plane is the
place where some recently departed souls become oriented to death before
their harvesting by the Gods of Death or whatever. This is also a haven for
those who have escaped the Death Camps. Spiritualists talk to the dead
here. Shamans walk the dead through here to "heaven". This is a good place
to track down that vampire or be hounded by that wraith. [High Mana areas
on Earth should benefit communication with the gods or spirits and aid in
healing.]
-----
AURA
All living things have an aura: an energy field that radiates from them and
usually about an inch surrounding them. Each sentient soul has the ability
to do psionics if it recognized that it could. Almost no-one recognizes
this though. The larger the aura, the more power it has.
Magical beings have no spirits or souls: Once they cease living, they
de-exist. Magical beings do posses an aura (in a sense, thats all they are.
Most of them have huge auras.)
Souls posses an aura. If you strip one's aura away, they will still exist.
They may not be able to do anything until they recreate their aura over
time, but they don't non-exist. Even soul-suckers don't non-exist souls,
they just leach the aura dry.
Here is the concept of aura: *=soul ( )=aura
* stripped of aura
(*) little power
( * ) some power
( * ) lots of power
-----
WIZARDS
There are a few who would do magic. This is a degraded form of psionics
using formulas as vias. This uses the power of your aura to tap into the
rad plane and use that energy to break the rules of physics. The standard
magician uses his aura (personal energy) to open a path to the Rad Plane.
There he can tap into (grab) some rad and bring it through to him using the
formulas he has learned. This rad is so powerful it fatigues the magic
user.
A few magicians are powerful enough (auras are larger) that they do not use
as much rad and so are less fatigued. [This follows a GURPS MAGIC concept.]
There are rare mages who have discovered how to tap into rad without using
aura and these magicians do not fatigue at all. [This follows the D&D
concept.] Those rare magicians who use strictly rad accrue "paradox".
[This is a White Wolf concept.] If enough "paradox" accrues on a magician,
a wraith will come and collect the "paradox", which is a horrible event for
the magician.
Those superpowerful mages who go that one step beyond often disappear from
the world as they obtain a godlike state and transcend. Their aura has
expanded so much that it made a quantum leap to the level of demi-god and
the body discorporates.
-----
HOLY MEN & Gods
Humanoids can call upon the gods. Sometimes these gods listen. Rarely they
will even respond. Responses are from a little luck to a miracle to an
angel appearance to (god forbid) Direct Divine Intervention. Holy Men seem
to have the ability to flow the divine's miracle through them. Whether the
God and religion have organized these miracles into a set of prayers and
responses or they are some vague coincidents of a plea is up to the
GameMaster. (I have a bumper sticker that says: Carpe DM - Sieze the
DungeonMaster!)
The Gods themselves seem to be only dabbling with the Earth. I kind of see
it like American Baseball. These gods are in the minor leagues waiting to
be discovered, then they go play in the major (universe) leagues or
something like that. Thats why there is such a turnover and so many gods.
And they have rules to play by that we can't fathom. But some of these
rules seem to be: Don't add to much spice to Earth or it will ruin what's
boiling in the kettle. Don't make a mess with the other gods, but if you
do, return it to the way it was. AND DON'T make any of the MAJOR leaguers
come down and straighten this out or everyone gets canned. So there isn't a
lot of Direct Intervention or even wars between the gods. Let the Earthers
play their game and let the god be the talent scout to raise a demi-god or
two.
The Gods of the Dead seem to be out of the loop for promotion (perhaps they
are coaches?), so sometimes they fester and rampage through the Earth.
Maybe Gods of the Dead are union, so the Major Leagues can't do much about
it? Unfortunately, the Death Camps are not part of this system at all.
They would like nothing more than to start a league of their own.
-----
"Magical" beasts are not of the Earth plane. They come from other
dimensions on the mana side (Unicorns) or the rads side (Salamandars).
Summoned creatures are mostly pulling mana into a physical creature shape
and having Mother Nature imbue it with an aura; except for demons and
elementals which really are summoned from the Demon Plane.
NATURE
Mother Nature {by whatever name you give it} is primordial. It is not a god
or a spirit, but is a bubbling potential of life and creativity bound into
this mudball of earth. It is almost an energy, almost a spirit, almost a
sustenance.
(Mother Nature deals with quasi-souls: Spirits. A spirit is a sentient or
semi-sentient entity that goes back to an energy pool when it "dies". It is
not an independent entity.)
Mother Nature would be here in hibernation (lowest ebb of energy) if the
world was a cinder, but the more the world lives, the bigger is NATURE's
potential. Thus a rich, thriving, living environment fosters Mother Nature.
However, Mother Nature has spawned "children." These are archetype spirits
that nurse off Mother Nature. They wish to keep the earth the way it was
before humanoids (they came into being before humanoids and there is not a
humanoid totem.) The archetype totems feed off of those who "worship" them.
Totem "spirit guides" are actually souls of dead shaman raised to "Guide
Level." Totems often 'work' together to keep the status quo of the world,
even if they nip and each other now and then.
Shamans are humanoids who use or worship "Mother Nature". They often align
with a Totem. Totems hate magic (They use Mother Nature energy, which is
quite spiritual, to produce effects). Totems hate demons.
-----
DEMONS
Demons are beings from the Demon Plane. This vast area is heavily
irradiated from the Rads Plane. This means that magic is the stuff of life
to these beings. This dimension can be anyway you picture it. Demons can
be any way you picture them.
I would probably set it up as several nations competing for land & power (I
liked the DragonQuest Demon Feudal system), but also trying not to demolish
their plane. There are demons who are chaotic and cruel or organized and
lazy or inquisitive and nice. A few are so powerful they don't have to
affiliate with nations at all. Some come to the Infrared 1 mil plane to
escape enemies, or to relax.
Demons actually use Souls as a form of money. They have a process where
they strip away the aura and compress the soul into a coin (like carbon is
to diamonds). The tortured soul is next to non-existed and it is the worst
thing that can be done to it. There is lots of this kind of cash in the
demon lands.
One of the problems that Demons have is that somehow humanoids (& Humans in
particular) have found a way to summon demons to Earth and even Bind them to
do humanoid bidding. This is humiliation that is tough on the demon back
home. A demon can redeam some of his pride by trashing the locale he was
summoned to, but that is not always possible. Also, it physically and
mentally hurts a demon being on the plane of Earth. That is one reason we
are not overrun with those who have the knowledge to jump.
There does not have to be this antipathy between humanoids and demons. They
can actually work toward a common goal. It depends on the personalities
involved. However, if you want them all evil, they are. Demons hate Angels
because mana is dangerous to rads.
-----
ANGELS
Angels are powerful beings from the Dead Plane. Some are organinized by the
various gods, some are retired and have thier own agendas. They sometimes
like 'slumming on Earth' and occasionally "test" Earthers for the merit. An
angel might even "adopt" an Earther and become its "Guardian Angel", though
this may not be so good for the victim as he might think he is being
haunted. If you want angels to be evil, they are.
Angels hate Demons as they are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Rads are
actually dangerous to Spiritual Beings and Mana is dangerous to a Magical
Being.
----
RELIGION
Some religions have sanctifications that prevent magic or magical beings
{demons} from happening in the sanctified region. Note also that some
sanctifications also prevent certain souls or spirits from coming into that
space {Undead, Vampires}. But Sanctifications can always be polluted and
thus voided.
Also, religions usually are a mana based enterprise, but not always. A rad
based religion {or even Mother Nature} would be possible.
-----
NECROMANCER
Magicians whose purpose is to extend their physical lives - immortality via
knowledge of death and the control of soul (and spirits) usually through
magic.
This is sort of like a negative shaman: A shaman gets power from spirits
and a necromancer steals power from spirits.
Any zombie spell is sticking a spirit into a body. For a non-sentient
zombie, this would be some small animal spirit. For a zombie that can make
it's own decisions, this would be a humanoid soul (that is tortured and
'drugged' to follow the necromancer.)
Some examples of what Necros can control:
*Zombies, Skeletons, Ghouls
*Ghosts, Wights
*Wraiths (necromancer created)
*Vampires, Death Knights, Mummies, Liches
A necromancer may occasionally ally himself with a God of the Dead, but he
does not like the idea of being duty bound to them.
-----
GODS OF THE DEAD
There are several Gods of the Dead. They are weak on the Earth Plane unless
supported by necropriests. Certain creatures are the creation of Gods of
the Dead: Ghouls, Vampires....
but the gods have long since lost control of them.
Gods of the Dead are the ones most likely to raise a dead army (not just a
squad for bullying purposes.) Gods of the Dead don't need to maintain power
in their raised army. It is permanent.
Gods of the Dead in the Dead Plane are usually benign and house the soul
until it is ready (per some godly law) to be sent to Earth again. The type
of "Heaven or Hell" usually depends on the type of religion the soul
previously held. The length of time in the "Heaven or Hell" is usually
dictated by the soul's previous held beleif: short time for
"reincarnation", long time for those who belief in "one life", athiests time
could be short or long.
There also are Death Camps. These are domains set up by evil supersouls who
leach the aura off of poor unfortunate dead souls. They suck them dry for
so long that eventually the soul goes into oblivion. They tend to harvest
(hunt down) their prospects in the Ultraviolet 1 mil plane and carry them
back to their tortorous Death Camps. Even Gods of the Dead have trouble
with Death Camp Soldiers.
-----
SUMMARY & DISCLAIMER
So this is just one way to unify magicians with clerics, demons with angels,
summonings and spirits. It seems to make a nice frame from which to hang a
gameworld, though there are many others. This frame would allow for shamans
to walk the dead to "Heaven" as well as a way of clarifying whether that
summoned creature actually CAME from somewhere else or just exists for this
short time span. And none of this ever has to be known to the poor
earthling beating his head against the castle wall. But lo, the wizard who
just learns of the Infrared Plane; what possibilities lie in wait for him.
Or the haunted Duke who can now "walk" the Ultraviolet Plane and confront
his ghosts.
-----
QUESTIONS
Are there Souls in magical bodies? What would happen if a demon entered a
high mana area? -Would it pollute the area or destroy the demon? If a
Moliated Coin were to be taken into the dead plane, would the soul be able
to be rejuvinated? -What experience would this have on the soul?
Just some thoughts....
Hail Melee
John Paul
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