(if you put a number of strange pieces before me, I will likely start to make connections, however strange those might be. This is extremely broad-strokes idea of the setting which I did for fun of it, so Dracult instead of Dracula is intentional.)
Long time ago Immaculate Dracult had finally succeeded in his crusade against humanity and spurned Golden God, its divine defender, away from the earth, and then himself ascended to take the hold of vacant heavens. But as Dracult's new form, the Nightmare Sun, started to unfold, the poisoned loyalty of his second-in-commands lead to doubt, lead to treason, and, in the crucial moment, they staked his still-beating heart with aspen stake, halting the ascension.
The Dracult's torporic body fell back down, shattering the land like an eggshell, while his ascended form became half-formed, ever-eclipsed Nightmare Sun stuck in the zenith.
The land after the end of the old world
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| Symbolically, at least |
Today the rays of Nightmare Sun drain warmth from the land, causing a quasi-Ice Age. While the land isn't a frozen hell (thanks to the eclipse), it is cold, dim and arid, and places generous in warmth and bounty are rare and far between. The skies are ever-shadowed, twilit, scant in blues and rich in amber, coral and amethyst hues, punctured from time to time by diamond-bright cometfalls. Amidst the skies, exactly in zenith, the half-formed Nightmare Sun sits, bleeding light like a wound.
Sea levels dropped as glaciers rose, revealing old cities that had been drowned for millennia; many of these were tombs to dreadful things, long and rightfully forgotten even in Dracult's time. For now the thick layer of crystallized salt holds these tombs confined, but there are always those desperate or curious to breach the coverings.
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| Not literally chained to the sun |
The land is ruptured by abyss-deep chasms and plateaus haphazardly heaved on top of each other – the legacy of halted ascension; dry riverbeds and old roads leading nowhere cross it like scars. When Dracult stirs in torpor the land continues to fracture, slowly but steadily forming cracks, forming ravines, pushing and pulling apart. At some point the last sorcerers of old attempted to hold the lands together by massive chains, and connect them by hastily-build portals of metal, crystal and bone, but even those monumental efforts are not to last forever. Within the deep folds of earth the body of Dracult lies, staked into a heart, unable to fully die, or fully live, or fully ascend, dying and reviving into something less and less recognizable every time, growing into his own tomb, his own strata, becoming the underworld of itself, immeasurably vast, intricate, deific and monstrous.
Surviving plants and beasts adapted to the new ways of life, unlife, profane deification and everything in-between, some growing small and near insubstantial, some incorporating dense fur and spines, or able to shift between forms; they carry old names of 'wolves', of ''mint', of 'maples', of 'sparrows' but only a partial resemblance in shape or nature. Some sprang from Dracult's torpor, with roots so deep they drank from rivers of his slumber, and beasts that ate them grew the ability to dream and speak like people in their dreams. Some got exposed to wandering stars, and grew crystalline seeds and hearts, able to flow with winds like stars do, and eat each other shadows, like stars do. After the civilization somewhat recovered elefrin – a rose-looking flower with sharp, poisonous thorns but surprisingly nutritious petals – started to be cultivated as a crop, despite a persistent legend that it was seeded from the drops of Dracult's blood as he fell back to the earth from heavens. Even now, well-known and widely used elefrin occasionally induces bloodlust, although its most strange quality is to cause rose people to appear (of which see below). Another wide-spread new type of flora (?) are licherns, numerous kinds of moss-looking and quite edible grass (?) which have a nasty tendency to self-resurrect after being eaten to the disastrous effects to the eater, unless their initial heart-seedling (which is usually hidden some distance away from the main offshoot) is found and crushed.
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| Blue skies, take warning: in forecast is a good probability of hungry wind |
As there is no true sun to shield the realms from cosmic waves and currents, the flotsam stars and comets occasionally drop by, bringing with them the forms and judgments alien to the world. These Guests (as they are called) at best are ill-fitting to the world, and, at worst, bring horrors of open cosmos rivaling the Nightmare Sun: the whole west of the continent once vitrified into a beautiful chromatic glass, as one of the Guests passed by. While Guests' presence is rare and fragmentary so far, the longer the realm stays sunless the bigger the threat.
Dracult, staked and half-ascended as he is, exits in the perpetual cycle of dying and self-resurrecting and dying again; the slow spasmic beating of his vast heart moves the underground rivers and his profane vitality spurts the blooms above. Passing-by Guests and their alien novelties bring changes into world's twilight air as different as weathers of the old. Together this creates a resemblance of seasons and weather changes, despite the otherwise fully static skies.
And as if all of this was not enough, from the nightmares of those capable of dreaming Nightmare Sun spawns demonic creatures to roam the lands and make everything even worse.
But! towering so much that it is seen from almost everywhere in the lands there is the gargantuan golden aspen, The Spirit Tree, which grew from the stake in Dracult's ever-beating heart. Over the centuries the aspen spawned multiple offshoots (some almost as big as The Spirit Tree herself) and the roots of this colossal tree colony somewhat holds the land together. The Trees are enduring remnants of the old world, resisting both nocturnal sun, the creeping underworld and alien stars, and are the only places of bounty, of warmth and peace.
The people after the end of the old world
After Dracult's fall the power struggle between his lieutenants led to brief, but utterly murderous wars, decimating what was left of civilization and half of their number. Some said that the lieutenants vied for power, but just as many legends exist about wars for Dracult's sword-key to heavens, or his eyes capable to perceive higher reality, or Dracult's Blood Bible (his book of secrets, where he recorded all steps and invocations needed to make one into a god) or other such legendary treasure. Some legends go as far as claim that several lieutenants regretted their treachery, and had to be put down before the liberated Dracult would have destroyed everybody in his ascended rage.
All seven surviving lieutenants (The Sanguine, The Wolfmother, The Songwraith, The Entombed Serpent, The Ironclad, The Dollface and The Apothecary) formed a mutual seven-oath-bound pact to prevent Dracult's awakening by all means possible: this pact was signed with their souls, sealed by spells of old and kept at core of The Spirit Tree where none of them or their servants can go. Beyond this mutual oath the former lieutenants have no great love lost between them, and, establishing their domains as Night Lords they rule as gods themselves.
The humanity as we know it went extinct. Perhaps somewhere there is a lone hero locked in a crystal tomb for last millenia or so but when speaking about regular people, the humanity of the world bear only a partial resemblance to humanity of yesterday.
Arid and cold Freelands are mostly inhabited by clans of hirsute Prima-Tes, who claim the direct heritage of true humanity and its unbendable character. Prima-Tes adapted to the harsh climate and broken terrains by assuming more durable and agile forms. Capable hunters, herders, warriors and explorers (and rarely also psychic mystics), most of them live semi-nomadically, but permanent villages and towns, do dot the land as well. The biggest places in Freelands are Kei Republic and self-proclaimed Empire of Mon; the places protected by clever defenses jury-rigged from whatever comes at hand, and are centers for industry and learning among Prima-Tes, even if comparatively to the cities of old all of this is rather simple and tiny.
Sacred aspen trees, from the oldest Spirit Tree to her most recent offshoots, are all ringed with Garden Cities and inhabited by dreamless folk, who keep the most physical resemblance to old humanity but inherit none of its fire. These docile Hume-Tes are afraid to step an inch away from the protection of the garden walls, and not capable of surviving outside without a lot of babysitting. Only rarely among them somebody appears brave enough to venture forth and capable enough to train themselves to do so. Most of these rare spirited Hume-Tes are deemed troublesome by their peers, and either obliged to become Descendants, or politely exiled for the betterment of the community. Those few who chose to remain, assume the roles of respected sages to maintain the ancient automatic defenses, observe the rituals and agreements with Descendants, and strengthen the Sacred trees.
The Garden Cities, located as they are on top of Dracult's body (the fact forgotten by majority of Hume-Tes) attract nightmare grotesqueries as flies to honey; even mindless as he is in his torpor, Dracult instinctively wishes to destroy stake in his heart and finally ascend. Ancient defenses alone are not enough to withstand all that Nightmare Sun spawns, therefore all Garden Cities have a shaky agreement of mutual benefit with a certain clan of Descendants, the nightkin stemming from Dracult's former lieutenants. Descendants fight off the nightmares and ward off unwanted Guests influences, while replenishing their numbers (and occasionally appetites) from Hume-Tes stock in a complicated system of law-binding procedures, lotteries, dramas, tallies and oaths.
Descendants, themselves incapable of approaching Garden Cities past certain threshold (said to be due the original aspen stake carrying Golden God's nail fragment and spite against Dracult and his ilk) take upper rungs of hierarchy in the domains of the Night Lords, or create their own petty realms where they rule as kings. All Descendants need Hume-Tes to create more of their numbers (none of the other variants of humanity work) so even those self-assured lords will think several times over before upsetting the delicate balance between Descendant Domains and Garden Cities, thus risking one of Night Lords' wrath. Occasional few of Descendants, for reasons known only to them, forsake the lives of luxury and go into Freelands, travelling alone, or offer their time-honed skills to various clans of Prima-Tes as hired help, always regarded with suspicion.
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| It has many forms |
In Descendant domains most common folk on lower rungs of hierarchy are beautiful Rosa-Tes, a new kind of people which at one point self-gestated from cultivated elefrin flowers. Despite having little of old humanity appearance except most basic form, and none of their history, Rosa-Tes appear to be carrying the dreams of humanity. While not as sturdy as Prima-Tes, Rosa-Tes are also much more capable to survive in changed world than their delicate appearance might suggest, but most of them are held in serfdom by various domains of Descendants and Night Lords. The nightkin rulers control the mature seeding fields where Rosa-Tes are capable to grow, and thus their families, yoking Rosa-Te to the roles of peasants, workers, common troops and servants. Hidden enclaves of escapees exist but obscured and mistrustful of all. A few settlements (such as Pilgrim's Rest, Old Hall, Vernhill, Snowhue) have Rosa-Tes taking more respectable positions in society as their Descendant rulers are either weak, kindhearted or careless; the city of Lacenbell even boasts the name of the free city, earning this distinction by favour of Dollface.
Within the chasms, and roots, and old sunken roads, there are Darklings who are each different from each other and the original humanity. Many of these bear Guests' alien gifts, or contaminated by emanations of Dracult's underworld body, or even marked by Nightmare Sun's cold embrace and thus barely resemble their ancestors. Darklings are of secretive nature and prefer to hide their settlements (if any do exist) deep enough that even most daring Prima-Te adventurers can't follow. Thus it is impossible to say if they are all as unique ss they seem to be, or there are kins and nations among them, as their forms and talents defy categories so far. Commonly used as both boogeymen and scapegoats even among nightkin, they are rumoured to be doing Dracult's bidding by gnawing on the roots of sacred trees to bring the complete end of the world. Those who dwell near the surface occasionally do trade for food or other necessities, bringing marvelous treasures of the deep, but also are not against taking their lot by chance, deceit or theft, and their dwellings seem to grow and vanish almost overnight. Given the highest lethality among Darklings from all humanity offshoots they are oddly the most vivacious, often upholding a sort of optimistic dark humour even in the face of insurmountable odds.
It is widely known that clothes made a man. The jokingly named Dressa-Tes are less a branch of humanity and more are rare cases of people lucky enough to find untouched wardrobes of the past so they can assume humanity's forms and spirits, regardless of their original form (as long as they wear those costumes). Alas, not many such treasures survived, and some are quite fragile, but occasionally a true-looking man does appear among the twilight lands, quite bewildered.
City of Tellai and the pains in the butt that dwell there
(honestly, the world would be about 50% more survivable if these pricks stopped and thought for a moment about the consequences of what they do)
Grand city of Tellai exist as a whole dispersed over the long distances, as its districts are built around those old sorcerious portals that connect the parts of the realm together. Here live Porta-Tes, a relatively small but highly troublesome offshoot of humanity. Initially created as helpers to the sorcerers of old to look after the magical highways as the sorcerers themselves were all but gone, with time Porta-Tes came to think of themselves as equal or even superior to their creators. Indeed, even alone, each Porta-Te is impressive as the knowledge of forgotten Arts and highly durable but light adamantine body makes them all by impervious to various dangers of the world. Animated by a magical amulet hosting human soul (these days the amulets are embedded deeply inside of the body for safety), and orbited by memory stones (the more of those the higher the rank of Porta-Te among their peers) they are nominally dedicated to the maintenance of the magical portals (and to lesser extend the giant chains), but ask for rather high dues to use the safest and quickest way of travel through the land over which they have a monopoly. Porta-Tes' aloof, stubborn and curious nature puts forward their claim as of true inheritors of old world's fearless spirit and pushes them to dabble in things better left alone.
No need to go for examples too far: just recently a group of Porta-Tes dared (through catpaws) to scrape the bark and cut the branch of one of the sacred trees (the second-oldest named Ronashen) to make something called 'paper' to power one of their terrible contraptions called 'a printing press', to print ten books that nobody except them (and maybe some older Descendants) can read. Such brash and sacrilegious act created quite an uproar, but, curiously, the Night Lords are unwilling to pursue this with force, instead assigning a bounty for a recovery of any of ten books reportedly printed from the stolen sacred bark, or of the 'printing press' itself. It is Porta-Tes who delve into the underworld, and go to the dry seas to look for drowned cities. It is even rumoured they captured one of the Guests. Seriously, these people!
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I kept thinking about it as "Elden Ring if Marika was Dracula."
The recent announcement of "Dark Sun" 're-imagining' (which, from what was shown, I think is misguided at best and completely missed the point of the original setting at worst) also pulled my thoughts toward making my own ecological post-apocalypse, but with vampires, and alien stars, and people made out of roses.
I do like Dracult as a name, even if it is a bit frivolous.
The stake is aspen because in Slavic folklore, curiously, the stake to kill a vampire or other unclean creature must be not simply a wooden stake but specifically aspen wood stake. And then I've read about the oldest tree colony in the world.
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The pieces used as the following:
– Dracula!: Dracult, obviously;
– Tree dungeon: any sacred tree has at least one but specifically the city of Sanctuary and The Spirit Tree;
– Deicide dungeon: Dracult's physical form;
– Fractals and intricacy: Dracult's strata which is also his body. I am not sure if it is possible to actually map an Australia-sized dungeon-underworld, so I presume it would operate on something like overly complicated recursion-like depthcrawl;
– Unusual crop: elefrin and Rosa-Tes, licherns;
– Perpetual notion: Dracult's cycle of dying and self-resurrecting as a mover of seasons, his heart as pump for rivers;
– Resurrection magic: Dracult's himself. Many things in these lands are touched by this strange vitality, so it is sort of in the air;
– Spells of the Evil King and Lost Spellbook that factions vie for: Dracult's Bible, and also Seven-Signed Oath as physical document because some of these lieutenants do have seconds thoughts about the whole betrayal event;
– System for a legal argument in a court of law: if to actually build one it would be for Descendant's claims over the Hume-Tes and the Garden Cities pact;
– Guest stars: taken literally, along with frightening anachronisms and non-Lovecraftian cosmic horror they bring. Each visiting celestial body is pretty much its own flying-by-and-occasionally-crashing SCP;
– Many qualities of night air: again stretching it a bit, but in concept it would be the world new "seasons" and "weathers", as most of the air is pretty much twilight air at any time;
– Water levels: new Ice Age, uncovered Really Ancient cities, salt;
– Primates: Prima-Tes;
– Magic amulets: Porta-Tes;
– Effects of in-world fashion or clothing in your elf-games: Dressup Humanity;
– Roadfreaks for places that aren't roads: Darklings and Porta-Tes;
– Frutility of categorization: Darklings, Guest Stars, whatever is going on with Dracult down below;
– Books as treasures: latest Porta-Tes shenanigans printed from a pulp of sacred tree. Also not many people in the world can read and paper doesn't really exist, so any book would be a treasure;
I didn't fit art movement (or poetic dungeon), but I imagine Rose-Tes to be art nouveau-ish and Hume-Tes' culture to be quite Biedermeier.
Mechanically, some ideas are difficult to fit into GloG, but:
– Short class that is neither fighter, wizard, thief or priest + classic monsters as a class: Descendants, which are basically classical Hammer Films monsters with some re-ornamentation and powerups serving as reluctant protectors of what remains of humanity; in world it would be rare Hume-Te with a spine and spirit rewarded/"rewarded" with being turned into one of the classic monsters. Could also be Prima-Tes (especially psionic ones), or even Rose-Tes;
– How megaclass looks like: Darklings. And it would look like Spook class from 'Esoteric Enterprises' by Emmy Allen, or 'Nightbane' where you can be a centaur-motorbike with crystals instead of hair, or any of the World of Darkness major lines (who also mirror old classic monsters but go way into clans/generations/disciplines/aspects/whathaveyou)
– Short class with all A-templates: Hume-Tes. I envision Hume-Tes to be somewhat uncanny in personality in the way "Legend of Zelda" NPCs often are, but because Hume-Tes are not really adventuring type and live in idyllic places, their class would be just A-templated through and through, never rising into greatness or anything interesting really.
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I did similar 'broad-strokes' settings for at least two previous Glaugusts/Glogtobers, but wasn't able to fit quite as many pieces as here.
