Setting Details - Local Legends

Until next month!

For now, feast upon a couple of local legends, about the old city of the Ancients, Mahde (the site of excavation) and about the city you live in, Kopesh.

Mahde

The Haunt - According to local rumors, before the old city was uncovered, great obelisks stood tall out of the sand. These obelisks were destroyed when the city was uncovered, but before their obliteration, people used the area as a graveyard. They viewed the obelisks as a sign of some spiritual significance, and attributed the surrounding area's overgrowth of desert fauna as proof of such. Many people were buried here, but few found the eternal rest they had sought. Rumors of corpses visiting their families in the middle of the night, wrapped in reeds and cloth floated up and down the river Eryes, eventually causing most people to avoid the area entirely.
The Terror of Mahde - Upon the faces of the obelisks were engravings and reliefs that depicted an immense beast, in the shape of a hermit crap. Two great, bloodied claws and a mottled azure carapace were the most prevalent details that survived every story in local rumor. By the Ancients' canon of proportions, the creature must have stood 80 feet high. According to Efreeti texts, such creatures were fairly rare around the inner regions of the Wastes, ecnountered mostly around the coasts and on the Sand Dollar Isles. It wore a wyvern skull and was said to be a sea creature of great power and malice.
The Last Legend of Mahde - The only known myth that has survived the ages about Mahde from its glory days concerns the river it resides near. Long ago, the Wastes were not the arid lands they are today, they once were like the jungles to the north and east. During that time, the river would have been home to numerous creatures, one of which is the Spear Koi. This particular fish was revered, for it's sheer size and the durability of its scales after they were hardened. The people of Mahde were said to wear the scales of the Spear Koi into battle, which was believed to grant superior protection against the Manas of The Blissful Wind and The Torrential Water.

Kopesh

The Time to Stay Indoors - Around Kopesh, some strange things happen, albeit infrequently. Every full moon, the waters of the Eryes rise and widen. Often, this causes trouble for those next to the water, who now build their houses on stilts. However, that does little to protect them from the watery denizens that come to live in the deeper areas of the river during that time. About 3 times every year, from the end of the Last quarter to the end of the First quarter in the moon phase calendar, strange lizard-beasts nest in the reedy waters of the Eryes, unfortunately choosing spots in Kopesh more often than the city's citizens would like. Whenever the creatures choose to set up their "grounds" inside the city, groups of angry mobs try to shoo them away. Almost never works, unfortunately.
The Ghost Woman - A ghostly old woman, who, on her deathbed made a pact with the spirits of the Eryes to preserve her essence, is sometimes seen wandering the banks of the river, usually looking seaward, her visage covered in seaweed and dripping wet. The citizens prefer to avoid her, for it is said that anyone who tries to speak with her is drowned the next day.
The Moving Building - Once, about a decade ago, a merchant tried to sell a storehouse full of magical contraband to a friend. The friend, familiar with the merchant's tricks, let the Guildwatch know that something was up. Soon, however, it was discovered that the storehouse was not where it was supposed to be, much to the bewilderment of the merchant and the Guildwatch. Every now and then, a building will pop up in an area of the city where there isn't supposed to be one, such as in the middle of the river or in a public bath.

That's it for now. Figured I'd add some local flavor for the game. The doodle of the hieroglyph is on my doodle blog, ArtlessPeon.

Setting Details - Prologue

I'll be coming home next week to play games and, you know, do stuff. I've got a game to go to on Saturday around early-late evening until well after 1 o'clock, so if you guys want to do this thing on Friday, that's cool. After 6 would be most preferable.


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Agartha

I hate it. I hate the wars, I hate the desert, I hate the heat. I am so damn tired of all this, I just want it to end. I wonder if Tigris has a vacation plan...

Not soon after the 2nd Season started in 23 S.E., a war erupted in the south of Caldera. A few of the Elves that held some of the abandoned Efreeti city-states grew jealous of the Trade Guilds' hoarding and decadence. When they extended their reach into the Guilds' coffers, the lids snapped shut and daggers were drawn. Three city-states that stood isolated from the rest of the Elven portions of the Wastes, versus the Nine.
The Elves, with their fire-born magicks and sand-caked creatures of devious craft, and The Guilds, with their assassins and pilfered artifacts. Fighting started to erupt into the streets of Wasteland cities and towns, leaving nothing but ghosts in the wake of their destruction.

Years after this fighting started, it ended with the last Elven leader's beheading (31 S.E). The Trade Guilds were down two houses, leaving the Seven to pick up the pieces. The renegade elven city states were put to the flame, and the only one left mostly in one piece is the southern city of Kardal, charred and blackened from fire, warped and cracked from wild magic.

The affected cities and Guilds are:

Elven cities
Kardal - A southern city-state. Left intact, but warped and broken.
Jeddah - City furthest east. Controlled one of the major Northern ports out of the Wastes. Is now a dead port, with wild magic and torrential sands ripping the stone walls and wooden docks down each passing day.
Sidys - City in the thickest of fighting, furthest south of the three. Blown apart in the war, few monuments are left standing. Perpetually shrouded in a purplish-haze, the very air is poison.

Guildcities (The main cities of the Nine)
Guided Hand - A guild based heavily in information-trade, this guildcity was burnt to the ground, and its constituents were assimilated into the Ashen Winds guild.
Fallen Palm - Dealt with timber and woodstuffs from all across the globe. Naturally, burnt to the ground. Folded into Prevailing Trades guild.
Ashen Winds - Dealt mostly with exports and travel out to Fyriss, Lemuria and Tigris. Small fleet of ships. Left alone, as it was furthest from the rest, and not technically in the Wastes.
Prevailing Trades - Dealt with imports from across the globe, even from the frozen continent Midgard. Guildcity was based on the Sand Dollar Isles, along with the Horn guild and Sand Dollar guild. The Isles were hit pretty heavily in the war, but have made great efforts for restoration.
Horn - Alarmists and prophets of doom. Dealt with precarious goods found in the Efreet and Ancient ruins, and had hopes to access the Floating Isles, but those plans were scrapped once the Wastewar started.
Sand Dollar - Moneymaking and various trade goods. Supporters of making a Gold standard, but their efforts were wasted when the Wastewar broke out, as most people traded for weapons, not money.
Wyvern and Wing - Expert weaponcrafters and explorers. Mapped out the entirety of the surface of the Wastes, and had hoped to uncover the Ancients' lost cities and ruins. Wastewar blah blah blah... Some excavation sites were destroyed, but new ones uncovered.
Saddle - Overland trade and information brokerage. Made out of the War with a lot of newly acquired wealth, as their services were employed heavily and at greatly inflated prices. Establishing a second headquarters on the Sand Dollar Isles, as it is highly coveted land and a mark of status.
Salt and Saw - Miners and builders. Primary owners of the major salt and limestone mines. Headquarters is situated along the Northern coast, away from the fighting. Making a lot of money helping others rebuild their homes, at inflated prices of course.


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You could have been in Upper Caldera, part of one of the Guilds/Renegades, a Calderan/Elf of the neutral city-states, or simply a bloke from nowhere in particular who got swept up in the chaos. You are beginning the adventure in one of the Guild-controlled cities along the Southernmost coast, which has been restored after the Wastewar.

Some folk want to leave Caldera in the wake of the Wastewar, and you might be one of them. Or, you're a profiteer looking to make a living selling spoils back to whoever owned them previously. Or, you're whatever you feel like being. Consider your character's age, and create a background accordingly. Keep in mind that the culture is very tropic, seeing as Caldera is within Agartha's tropic band. Craft your look after the jungles/tropics of Asia, Africa, Hawaii, South America, Mediterranean etc.


EDIT: I've uploaded your sheets again, this time with corrections and name changes. I didn't include the Description and possessions areas because the text would be too small to handle efficiently.

Messenger Information

So. Seeing as two of us are varying degrees of distance away from the Germantown area, the hub as it were, it seems only natural that we'd like to stay in touch through various web-based means. Such as it is, an instant messenger client is the most obvious and, depending on who you ask, one of the more efficient forms of online communication.

As most of you have probably never even considered the idea of IRC, I'll skip over it in favor of instant messengers. Yahoo, Windows Live/MSN, AOL (god forbid), just to name a few.

Get one, you sods. Or I swear to whatever cosmic entities there are, I will kill myself and haunt you all until you join me in the Ether, at which point I will continually kick you in your incorporeal balls. Over and over. And there'd be nothing you could do about it. The universe would see my cause just, and allow my actions to continue unabated.

My MSN account can be reached at epiclevel@yahoo.com. I have the handle Artless.