Preview: Realms Charted and Terrible
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Nov 02, 2023 at 06:49:15 AM
Genrik doesn’t know where we are, but the ground is soft, the earth above our heads is more clay than rock, and torches are placed along this passage.
That’s right, torches!
I can’t see any sunflies and the lichen here is sparing. Could we be skyward? I’ve heard tell of the people of Mud Town and Tark, and how they produce their own sources of illumination… But I found a discarded, damaged tower hammer beneath one of them. Why would a weapon from Fortress be all the way up here?
Don’t be mistaken, I should be ashamed. If my theory is correct, we’re in exactly the wrong place. But if the Union has a guildhouse in the next settlement we find, what kind of reward might await us for finding a Kaos portal leading here?
The World Below may seem largely civilized, but this misapprehension is one cultivated through context. When you rely on written and spoken accounts of a vast, populated world, you develop the idea that help is never far away, that sanctuary exists just at the end of this tunnel, that the bottomless chasm can’t truly be bottomless, as you fall and keep falling. Traversing the World Below is a little like walking off the mapped tracks of a deep forest hike; you may well be close to other people just like you, but if they can’t see you or hear you, and if you don’t know which way leads back to safety and which way leads to deeper wilderness, you’re as hopeless at 500 meters from the road as you are from 500 kilometers.
The World Below is dangerous. It’s no small wonder that most people within it cling to their habitats like drowning sailors to floating debris, even as it slips from their fingers. Just because a cave, a trail of crystals, or signs of life indicate safety, doesn’t mean you’re ever truly free from danger.
The World Below is flexible. While numerous settlements — from the seemingly protective to the threateningly bizarre — are presented for the Storyguide and players to create their character Dawns and to use as the rest stops or end points of campaigns, their placement, accessibility, and permanency are for the Storyguide to decide. A subterranean city you reached a month ago may have been sealed off in the last Kalm, requiring fresh tunnels to access, or may have even shifted strata or wards. One of the most terrifying things is when the World Below convulses again, opening an old passage to a place long believed lost. How will that place have changed in the intervening years? Will its people be the same as they were before, perfectly preserved, or will dreadful changes have occurred during their isolation or movement through the World Below?
The Dawn communities and settlements from Chapter Two: Paths into the World Below are provided further elaboration, with some delving into the realms’ secrets and others receiving only hints of depth, allowing players and Storyguides to come up with the details themselves. Additionally, lost and forbidding places are given profile, as not every settlement is a welcome retreat from Kaos.
Agosby (pronounced “Ahg-oss-bee”)
“My vines are frayed, but soon they’ll grow again, and be stronger than ever!”
Identifiers: Agosbyr (common), Precarious (internal — lower class), Frayed (internal — at risk), New (internal — new settlers and merchants), Solid (internal — settlement mainstays, upper class), Chasmites (derogatory)
Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:
Agosbyr enjoy idioms referring to drops, falls, and disappearances, as all are common to these people. They’re naturally suspicious of new arrivals in their settlement, as resources are low. Agosbyr names are often soft on the ear to begin, and uniformly end with “r’Agosbyr.”
“That one’s destined to drop.” (“They’re pushing herself too hard.” / “They’re going to get in a fight they can’t win.”)
“Would that I could fall as far as gold, at least.” (Common phrase when things are going bad and you’re looking for the upside.)
“Chasm beckons.” (“Time for work.” / “Death is near.”)
Agosbyr are a daredevil people, simply due to the placement of their settlement. One cannot dwell in the walls of a chasm without developing an affinity for deep drops and the risk of death. It’s a common ritual among Agosbyr to “let the young fall” via vines. The idea isn’t to kill or injure them, but to “drive the screams from their bodies.” The Agosbyr theory is, if you fall enough times, you’ll cease to fear the drop. Resultantly, Agosbyr chase increasingly dangerous experiences, producing many adventurers with short lifespans.
Agosby is ruled over by the Council of Bridges, a group of architects who claim membership in the Company of Artificers. Their primary focus is the stability of their settlement, as they’re fully aware an earth tremor could send the whole town collapsing to the bottom of the chasm. The question of moving on is never broached, however, because of the Vanyth Chasm’s rare properties. Namely, the darkness within the chasm is manipulable and can be harvested by experts who lacquer their body and equipment in its qualities, making shadow, deep stone, and Abyssal blades and armor. Some theorize the bottom of the Vanyth Chasm is a gateway between the Dark and the Abyss, making the shadows tangible in this way.
Story Hook: The Fall
The Council of Bridges is a meritocratic syndicate, and in theory, its membership holds no hereditary benefits. The theory’s called into question when this season’s council refuse to let their young drop into the Vanyth Chasm. They make claims such as “it’ll distract us from our work” and “it’s an antiquated, risky practice,” but it sounds to the majority of Agosbyr like “our children are more valuable than yours.”
For the first time since its establishment, the Council of Bridges is at risk of removal, and several replacements have reared their heads, including the Temple of the Benevolent Earth, who believe they can reinforce Agosby through faith and purging the unworthy elements (starting with the council) and a commune order of other guilds, where every Agosbyr receives representation other than artificer guilders.
Bura (pronounced “B-yer-ah”)
“Our wants are simple. We have no high ambition beyond survival and enriching ourselves during the short time we have available.”
Identifiers: Bura (common), Buranese (formal), Raiders (informal), Burald Buckets (derogatory)
Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:
Bura have a habit of mixing up or dropping their words when intoxicated with burald and take poorly to having these errors pointed out. Therefore, an intoxicated Bura might say “Cave for us to get the time” instead of “It’s time for us to get to the cave.” Such language is confusing to anyone not familiar with Bura culture. Bura names are often hard sounding, leaning on hard a’s and i’s.
“Dunk my head.” (“I need an intoxicating dose of burald.”)
“They have spines of gold and lead.” (“These people are cowards.”)
“Magma burns, blades cut.” (“You’re stating the obvious.” / “We’re in a bad situation.”)
The Bura are friends to few but are tight with their own. The Bura live and die for each other. It’s suspected their loyalty is reinforced through a form of addiction: they all ingest a toxic mixture of ground emeralds, zinc, and Kaos rocks, the result of which is the highly potent burald drug (from where they get their name), which doubles up as an intense combat stimulant (which applies the Insensate Status Effect when imbibed, and certain Theses can improve to create other effects). Ignia — the Buranese War Queen — crafts batches of this intoxicant via her moving brewery, and her personal guard can’t help but enslave themselves to its properties.
Buranese raids and their destabilization of other communities unintentionally serves to strengthen the Well Liches, though Ignia may be more aware of this than her people. She’s effectively a magma Elemental at this point, physically altered and seeping along tunnels as a flow of hot, melted stone before taking humanoid form to scorch or incinerate anyone who dares oppose her people, as well as concoct potions.
Bura only share with others when a threat from outside is dire. This is typically a danger in the form of a monstrous raid or army, or a colossal ptera carving its way through the rock toward a settlement. While they’re content to scavenge the remains of a destroyed habitat, they’d rather be seen as heroes and paid for their efforts in saving others. And then, when the habitat is weakened but grateful, the Bura hold them up for even more.
Story Hook: Withdrawal
The emeralds are running low on the Bura’s current stratum. A temple to Fortuna employed a mining expedition to gouge out every emerald they could find and retrieve them for a holy ceremony and the crafting of gem flails, resulting in a vital ingredient for burald running dry.
Without a drug to sate their addiction, the Bura are even more aggressive than normal. A canny adventuring party would avoid them, but it’s not long before the raiders assault the temple or attack traders and messengers in the vain hope of finding the gems they seek. Assisting the Bura would no doubt win long-term allies in the roving community.
The Crystal City
“It is a time to swallow pride and venture forth for aid.”
Identifiers: Glitters (common), Regals (respectful), Unpolished (derogatory), False Gems (derogatory)
Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:
Glitters possess a superiority complex when addressing those from other settlements, leading to common accusations of snootiness and arrogance. Glitters often remark on something good as “as a diamond” (or another precious mineral) and something bad as “like mud.” Glitter names always invoke precious stones, such as “of the Ruby” or “made-of-Jet.”
“I’m as keen as a diamond.” (“I’m very intelligent.” / “I’m enthusiastic.” / Sarcastically, “I don’t care.”)
“The most precious gems are the most delicate.” (“Protect the weak among you.”)
“Lapis!” (Common curse word.)
The Crystal City of today is a broken settlement built on bluffs atop alkaline falls. Many still live there, eking out an existence among the gems, but their spirit following an anarchist uprising that — while justified in tackling the long-embedded nobility’s corruption — left the settlement vulnerable to a mass darkling onslaught. The darklings abducted dozens of families, including the remnants of the ruling Jetta family. The Crystal City has always been a firmly familial place, with three ruling dynasties. With the Jetta family removed and politics unstable, the others can scarcely fill the void.
Many feel sure the Crystal City will soon collapse, for saviors are few and far between this far fadeward. Some adherents of the Well venture to the Crystal City, with the intention of revitalizing it as a massive cathedral to the source of all Kaotic power. Meanwhile, many of the Crystal City’s other noble houses have decided to migrate to the Obscura permanently, deciding that such temporal pursuits as rule over a ruined settlement are no longer worthy of their time or attention.
It’s a sad time for one of the World Below’s most opulent jewels.
Story Hook: Restoration Project
To restore the Crystal City to its former greatness would require scouring the darklings from all neighboring cave complexes (and those sundruds can hide well), recovering the abducted families, and installing a new government. Some have proposed that now’s the time for a more democratic form of rule, but the truth is, the Crystal City has only known autocracy and can barely survive a political revolution.
Though the Crystal City has its share of heroes, they look outside for a strong pack willing to preserve them. For all their dire need, they’re too afraid of losing what little they have to defend it themselves. No doubt they would reward any help with armfuls of jewels, were the settlement to stand tall once more.
Mud Town
“Weary feet shall wear no longer. Come, rest a while.”
Identifiers: Noroi (formal and archaic), Survivors (common and informal), Mud Towner (common), the Multitude (formal), Scum (derogatory)
Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:
Noroi are an incredibly diverse bunch prone to all manner of linguistic and manneristic traits, but one thing holds true: solidarity among them is paramount. Terms such as “brother,” “sister,” “bratan,” and “kin” are common even where blood relations are absent, and any long-term inhabitant of Mud Town is welcome inside the home of another. Sanctuary comes first, even when hostilities between people exist. Noroi names are richly diverse, but they try to encourage ease of pronunciation.
“My kin, we greet a new day!” (Daily celebration of survival.)
“You are my sister, from now until forever.” (“I will die for you.”)
“A locked door is a cursed door.” (A common phrase indicating that sanctuary should always be given to those who need it.)
Mud Town is, to many of the World Below’s inhabitants, the most cosmopolitan, interesting, and welcoming settlements in the realm, sat amid bridged swamps and bubbling murky pools. To others, it’s the dirtiest, most overpopulated, and thief-riddled slum. Opinion is therefore split on Mud Town’s merits, but what it is, is a settlement where anyone can get lost, much arcana from Kaos portals can be found, and where quests are easy to acquire. Mud Town hospitality is no joke, as despite the cramped quarters in the Mud Town caves, it’s in the law that everyone is owed a bed, a meal, and friendship when needed. If a bed can’t be found on the ground, why, you could make one in the roots of the vast plant poking its tendrils through the ceiling.
Mud Town’s caves have remained solid for a long time, meaning people set up on top of each other, with huts stacked as high as the cave allows, and berths pressed into every tight corner of the confined area. The camaraderie that comes with it is sufficient to offset discomfort for most of the settlement’s people. The constantly blossoming flowers growing from the roots above Mud Town convey a sweet odor to the otherwise sticky air.
Companies of explorers commonly set forth from here, as it acts as a neutral waystation between the truly dangerous surface-approximate settlements and the more unknown realms below or further darkward, and has links to the Ferrous Road and Manyways Dark. Doing so requires avoiding ptera races in the tunnels surrounding Mud Town. Jockeying a ptera to championship is a feat many a Noroi aspires to, though the constant charging of colossal bugs results in a persistent rumble-to-drone-to-rumble sound throughout Mud Town’s environs.
Story Hook: Soft Drop
The central issue Mud Town faces is the soft earth surrounding it. It’s a boon in that it’s easy to gouge out chunks to form new habitats, but it’s a hindrance in that vermi burrow through the clay and chalk as if it were nothing. Therefore, when several huts and lodges collapse into drops that suddenly open beneath them, panic runs through Mud Town, followed by the solidarity for which it’s known, as packs of rescuers retrieve everyone who fell.
What’s curious, is the pits didn’t open up due to vermi tunneling. The graybeards of Mud Town are stupefied, as the ground seems to be giving way at irregular intervals, as if something is sucking the town downward, but no nesting or burrowing creatures have been discovered below. Worryingly, the descents are continuing, and though a plunge isn’t imminent, 200 meters darkward of Mud Town is an immense cave containing rivers of magma (the heat from which keeps Mud Town pleasantly temperate at most times).
Tekelau (pronounced “Tech-kel-law”)
Baeromyn Galandard, Oracastrian Explorer for Hire, discusses this wretched place.
Far to the darkward, yet not so far as Skullcrag, there’s a great natural cavern, a rift a day’s hard travel long, but twice that top to bottom. So, a great drop. It’s called the Scar for its looks, or the Wailing Place, for the eerie, echoing calls sometimes heard there, and magnified by the rift to travel far out through the caverns and passages of the surrounding Dark.
At about its midpoint, so far as any explorer can determine, the Scar is crossed by a rough but slender natural stone bridge. On one side of this crossing is a ledge that many passages of the wild Dark open out onto. On the other is but one tunnel, leading on from the Scar into a labyrinth of carved, smoothly cut passages and chambers that some have termed a “dungeon” but most now think is a long-abandoned city. Who or what dwelled there is forgotten, but there were a lot of them, and the passages and rooms argue that they were large.
Beyond the city is a lone large, straight corridor that runs on into the Dark a considerable way before opening out into its sole destination: Tekelau.
Very few have ever seen Tekelau and survived, but it is much discussed among the guilders, where most consider it the temple of a mysterious god venerated by the creatures known as tekeli-li and others. It’s said that some who’ve explored it have joined the ranks of these celebrants, but I am not one of them.
I have seen Tekelau, every corner and cranny, and returned repulsed and with no desire to return. I confess myself unsettled by the thought of others who returned to walk among us and may have been inwardly changed by their visit — a change that may one day manifest horribly. Watch your back.
So what can be found in Tekelau?
Large caverns, natural but smoothed by tool-work to have soften-roughed walls, ceilings, and floors that are neither smooth nor flat. Most of these chambers have an overall ovoid shape. They were sculpted to converge on a vast innermost cavern with a back wall that glows with natural radiances in the stone, an eerie mint-green-to-white endless subtle flickering or pulsing, a hue I’ve not seen elsewhere. This backlights the only features within the cavern, through which an endless gentle, cool breeze blows, of fresh air that comes from no visible source, but seemingly from the — solid, I checked — ceiling at one end of the chamber.
These features are three pairs: a row of thick, not-identical natural stone pillars, the smallest as thick across as six or seven large adult humans standing shoulder to shoulder at its narrowest point, each having a hollowed-out basin in the bedrock before it, basins stained dark with what I believe — and many others believe, too — is old, spilled-on-many-occasions blood.
On my visit, there were no creatures in the temple other than myself and my five companions; none of us knew the deity this holy place — for we could feel that it was such; there was an air of vast and silent brooding power, watching us at every moment, so strong that we spoke in hushed tones and moved with respect and care — and none of us were aware of what rituals were enacted here, let alone how to conduct one.
We saw only rock pillars and stained basins sculpted out of the solid stone floor before them, and no more.
Yet I have collected accounts from others who saw more, and although strong burald was used to loosen some tongues, and the others were of differing ages, backgrounds, and motivations, there was a remarkable degree of similarity among them.
They all described that sacrifices — living creatures slaughtered on the spot, sentient beings rather than pack or food animals or bugs — were made in the basins, and a chanting call was uttered as these beings died, and this caused the deity to manifest.
In any of the pillars that a sacrifice was made before, staring eyes of various sizes, and needle-fanged jaws, also of varying sizes, appeared, seeming to bulge forth from hiding deeper in the bedrock, and then “swim” around the surface of the stone, cruising about. The boldest explorers say they dared to touch the pillars and felt that they were temporarily elastic and yielding where such features were, and were moving toward, while remaining of normal hardness everywhere else.
As the chant went on, more and more eyes and jaws appeared, until the stone columns bulged irregularly and resembled gigantic pickles in shape, festooned with a random array of clustered eyes and jaws, all intermixed, of different sizes, and drifting around, the mouths biting hungrily at the air and even jutting out momentarily on snakelike “necks.”
The celebrants cried out praise and desires — calling out wants and needs they wanted the god to grant, interspersed with frequent supplications of “Be with me!” — for a time, as the pillars of solid rock writhed like things alive.
Until eventually and “inevitably” (that is, this happens every time the god manifests, according to several witnesses who saw this multiple times, though I must caution that these were the same informants whose sanity I doubted the most) one of these hungrily working mouths accidentally bites an eye. When this occurs, a shrill ululation of surprised and disgusted pain echoes about the cavern, all the pillar-eyes close, all of the roving-in-stone jaws will “chatter-clatter” and then snap shut, and then all of these features sink back into the stone and vanish utterly. For a time.
So far as I can tell from the confused and contradictory accounts of what follows manifestations, supplicants adulating in the temple then give of their own blood in rituals involving the basins and sacrificed creatures (and of eating organs raw from those creatures, and even carrying off severed fingers and toes, eyes and tongues for later private devotional uses).
And then they depart, but go forth infected in some manner. When strong hatred or the desire to kill or destroy rise within them thereafter, they can temporarily transform into the tentacled oozes known as tekeli-li, retaining their own skills, strengths, and hardiness but gaining the Antitheses of a tekeli-li.
I strongly suspect that tekeli-li worship at the temple often, but go off into the labyrinthine city and hide at the approach of non-tekeli-li, as if under orders to do so, in order that such intruders may reach the temple unimpeded. Some accounts shared with me even suggest they may lure or herd non-tekel-li to the holy inner cavern. They devour or otherwise remove sacrifices after non-tekeli-li depart, restoring the temple to readiness.
And for all I know — though this is mere unsupported conjecture on my part — they may breed, or bring forth eggs or young, or split apart to produce more tekeli-li (however such oozes produce new oozes of their kind; I know not) in or near the temple. They certainly receive guidance — direct orders? — from the god manifested in the pillars of the temple.
Story Hook: New Blood Needed
In strata well above Tekelau, motley adventurer-mercenaries conduct a rash of kidnapping raids on many caravans and settlements, assembling long, chained-together lines of captives. Which they lead deeper, heading for Tekelau and fighting off hungry predators along the way. Wandering merchants, miners, and explorers are all pounced on, out in the wild Dark, and added to the lengthening coffles of captives. Some sort of grand ritual is planned. Will it result in an eventual army of tekeli-li issuing forth to attack other settlements, high and low? Or will so many sacrifices be used in rituals that call on Kaos to “bring in” the god of the temple, or strange and unfamiliar monsters, from elsewhere, to raid the World Below at will?
Zilenz (pronounced “Z-eye-lens”)
“Ice is the purest of things. It can be melted, mined, consumed, worn, weaponized.”
Identifiers: Zilenzian (common), Silence (inaccurate), Ztoics (formal), Killjoys (derogatory)
Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:
Zilenzians tend to be monks, and with that, possess a stoic bearing, exuding a quiet confidence in most of their actions. However, in private, the Zilenzians are a rowdy, entertaining bunch. No people are as prone to telling meandering, exciting stories of explorers and adventurers past than Zilenzians, perhaps as they store so many records in their monastery. Sadly, few get to see this side of them. Zilenzian names heavily incorporate the letter z in place of s.
“My fists fears nothing.” (“I will kill this creature.” / “My fists may fear nothing, but I sure as the Abyss do.”)
“Euphoria is a reward.” (“Delay your celebrations, for we have hard work ahead.”)
“This reminds me of the story of… I’m sorry, I forget myself.” (Common example of the duality with which many Zilenzians live, being storytellers and stoic monks.)
Zilenzians dedicate their lives to pilgrimage, learning, collection, storytelling, and pacifying hostile creatures, though they rarely kill. This manifold lifestyle means Zilenzians are a complicated people, as though they’re ostensibly a clutch of monks without a permanent monastery (they abandoned it after potent elemental spirits tore the place apart and occupied it), they each have their own role on the spectrum of Zilenzian edicts. Most Zilenzians focus primarily on their strength of body and building resistance to disease and poison.
For all the monks of Zilens fear other settlements for risk of infection, they have a marvelous affinity for large bugs and using them as mounts. Even ascetics need to hunt and eat, and the tunnels in the ice caverns are spacious enough for them to saddle up a beetle and go riding. It’s quite a sight to see a Zilenzian throwing javelins at prey from up high.
Story Hook: Reclaim Our Home
Zilenzians possess a martial bent, though it’s far from their main dedication. They are too few to reclaim the monastery of Zilens themselves, and so it’s fallen upon a handful of Zilenzians to travel the World Below and recruit trustworthy mercenaries (if that isn’t an oxymoron) to do so for them.
The snags are that the monks of Zilens are unwilling to get too close to their hires, and they’re not sharing how these elemental spirits came to occupy their monastery. Only one — a Plutonic monk named Pariz Zhadow-Tainted — is eager to fulfil the role of storyteller, and in so doing revealed to a pack in Oracaster that the abbot of Zilens was an impressive, but risk-prone Kaosist who opened a portal in the monastery’s heart, and that same abbot never left the monastery. Whether he’s still alive or not is as great a mystery as how to close the portal.
Well, I've removed Tekelau from my vacation list!
As always, this is just a small preview - a brief tour - of some of the locations described in
The World Below. Backer will receive much more on Tuesday, when we share our next manuscript preview. As always, anyone who supports this project will be able to read the entire draft manuscript before any pledges are processed or payments collected.
We're currently in the quiet part of the campaign - the smaller spaces of The World Below, with quieter echoes - but we are drawing ever closer to the end of the campaign. Please continue to share this campaign with your gamer friends and on your social media. Let's see if we can't unlock one more Stretch Goal before we start our final week countdown next week!
#TheWorldBelow
Review: Thesis & Synthesis
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 08:34:10 AM
To have reached this place, your attunement to the World Below must be complete. You have formed a Dialectic, young one. Whether to gems, bugs, Kaos, the Abyss, fungi, or the elements, you are now a perfect synthesis of body, mind, spirit, and world. The World Below provides.
Hello Diggers,
Yesterday backers received another nice chunk of the draft manuscript!
The World Below provides!
Everyone supporting this campaign will continue to receive new sections from the manuscript over the next two weeks, until backers are able to read the entire current draft before any pledges are processed or payments collected!
Today I want to share some excerpts of the most recent manuscript section, taken from Chapter 6 which covers Thesis and Synthesis, two important aspects of defining your character. For those who are driving by and checking this out and haven't yet joined, this is only a small taste - join in and read the entire book along with us!
Life in the World Below is arduous, but those who survive do so via talents known as Theses and Syntheses. Not every inhabitant of the World Below has access to every kind of Thesis and Synthesis. Some remain in their settlements or guilds, but master their domain through Theses alone. Others wander, explore, and manifest Syntheses. Monstrous creatures, on the other hand, wield Antitheses.
Characters possess Theses and Syntheses as detailed in Character Creation. These can also be purchased through the expenditure of experience if the character meets the prerequisites, where they exist.
Theses and Syntheses provide abilities that are “always on” unless otherwise noted, with the typical alternative being “once per session.”
Thesis
Theses can be selected by anyone with dots granted during Dawn and Dialectic creation, or through Experience advancement in either Path. These are abilities designed to modify the use of selected Skills and Attributes, and improvements to things like wealth, contacts, crafts, and fortifications of settlements, along with more esoteric pursuits. Some Theses have prerequisites linked specifically to Dawn elements or Skill rating.
Theses are always active unless specified otherwise in their descriptions.
Abyssal Craft (••)
Prerequisites: Guild: The Company of Artificers or Settlement: Oracaster; Artistry •
You’ve lived near the Abyss and know how to forge weapons of the void. You can take abysmal materials and craft deadly weapons from them. Gain +2 Enhancement to actions when repairing or crafting weapons with the Abyssal and Deep Stone tags.
Body of Kaos (•••)
When tethering Wild Kaos, your character can convert all hits made on a successful attempt to tether into healing, on a one for one basis. However, channeling Kaos through your body exhausts you and you receive the Dazed Status Effect.
Canary (• to ••)
• Whenever you enter an unknown area, you can send a small beast or bug you keep at your side on ahead. Your “canary” is a creature you can easily capture again. You can use your canary to determine if the air is unbreathable or poisonous in any way.
•• As above, except you can infer from your canary’s condition what kind of airborne threat exists in the area ahead.
Chitinous Cavalry (•••)
Prerequisites: Community: Zilenz or Guild: The Moths; Empathy •
Gain a chitinous steed with Blight level antagonist traits that can be used in combat and 1 Social Advantage to intimidate or impress others with your steed’s fearsome features. You also have all the equipment needed to ride it. If this mount dies during the story, you’ve bred or discovered a new one at the end of the next Kalm season.
Crude Map (•)
You’ve managed to create or find a crude map of your travels. This can be carved on a stone you carry, a tattoo on piece of stretched flesh or engraved on crystal or chitin. This Thesis grants +1 Enhancement to navigation in the form of familiar references and descriptions, but if used in the wrong area (such as a map for the iron stratum being used elsewhere) it grants a Major Complication. If not bought off, it turns the user around and sends them into a dangerous encounter.
Don’t Look in the Pot (••)
Prerequisites: Guild: The Kitchen; Survival •
You’ve figured out a way to make the most questionable ingredients edible. Once per session, you can harvest nourishing (but unappetizing) sustenance for one person from any environment with a reflexive Survival action. Your meals recover a whole Injury Level for the consumer, but they must make a Survival action with a Minor Complication. If they fail to buy off the Complication, they gain the Slow Acting Toxin Status Effect.
Kaos Spring (•••)
Kaos has seeped into your body, making you a magnet for Kaotic energies but weakening you physically. When tethering Wild Kaos, you gain a +3 Enhancement to your action, demonstrating your innate attunement and communication with Kaos. Upon purchasing this Thesis, you lose your Bloodied Injury Levels. No form of healing or intervention can bring you above the Wounded Injury Level. Armor worn functions normally, but once depleted, the next Injury you receive inflicts a Wounded Injury Level.
Mud Town Hospitality (•)
Prerequisites: Dogma: The Church of Golthon or Settlement: Mud Town; Empathy •
As a respected leader of your community, you’re known for your hospitality in all cases. The attitude of anyone you offer alms to always improves by a level, and any care they take under your supervision comes with +1 Enhancement.
Unbreathing (•••)
Prerequisites: Survival •
Once per session, you can go an entire scene without needing to breathe. Even when exposed to airborne toxins, where the difficulty to not breathe typically increases, you are unaffected, and you can continue to communicate. If you take any damage while holding your breath in this scene, you must make a reflexive Survival action (difficulty equal to the amount of damage taken), and on a failure the Thesis ends.
Synthesis
Denizens of the World Below have found their spirits closely attuned to the warring conditions in the World Below, from the negative pull of the Abyss, beautiful but deadly crystallization, and destructive elemental forces, to sustaining or deadly flora, chitinous and predatory fauna, and unbridled Kaos. Syntheses are innate abilities granted by one’s Dialectic Path reflecting how they’ve learned to utilize their attunements within their environment. Syntheses are linked to one’s Dialectic Path and are available to those who fulfill the prerequisites.
Abyssal Communion (•••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Plutonic; Culture or Esoterica ••••
If in proximity to the Abyss, or a place where Abyssal creatures, artifacts, or weapons are present, you can commune with the Abyss as if it were a neutral attitude entity, once per session. It speaks directly into your mind and may offer advice as to threats ahead, a portal to another place in the Abyss or the Dark, demand sacrifice in exchange for a favor, or if aggravated, spit out a monster in your vicinity. You always come away from such communication with something, which could be as slight as a riddle or as impactful as a gateway to a hidden realm.
Cloud Sight (••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Elemental; Enigmas or Survival •
You can connect your senses to those of your chosen element. You can connect to other patches of darkness, know what lies in a deep body of water, or even listen through clouds of condensation in the colder strata. Once per session you can reach through your chosen element up to long range and gain a +2 Enhancement to Enigmas and Survival actions to perceive activities through that element. Some of this information might be muddled by other environmental concerns or disturbances within the element, such as magma super heating water or a small radius of firelight. This Synthesis cannot be combined with Keen Sense.
Detachable Limb (••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Myceli or Scarab; Medicine •••
Your body has adapted the defense mechanism of detaching an appendage to flee from the clutches of a hungry predator. Once per session, you can choose to detach a limb and take 1 Injury Level to flee, without taking any negative Status Effects for losing the limb. Your limb grows back by next session, unless regrown with a Sorcery beforehand. You can lure an enemy away with such tasty bait.
Emotional Vampire (•••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Qeobaca; Empathy ••
While you can nourish your body from conventional sources, you can also sate your hunger by consuming the emotions of those around you. Once per session, you can activate this ability to reduce the attitude of a crowd or person within short range from negative or positive to neutral, or neutral to negative, granting you 1 Injury box of health for each person affected and removing the Deprived or Exhausted Status Effects if you’re suffering from either.
Husk (•••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Adamas, Scarab, or Myceli; Medicine or Athletics ••••
Once per session, when you reach Near Death, you can shed your outer shell and returned to the Maimed Injury Level. This does not cause another Injury but makes it easier to harm you until your skin hardens once more. Gain a Moderate Complication to Defense (represented by your tender skin and open wounds) after shedding your husk until next session, when it returns to normal. If you do not buy off this Complication, you suffer the Agony Status Effect. Your skin awakens in the next session as a husk antagonist unless destroyed beforehand.
Light Eater (•)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Plutonic; Larceny •
You gain sustenance by consuming all sources of light within a short range band of you and extinguishing them. You remove the Deprived Status Effect but impose the Darkness Area Effect up to medium range. Performing this unsettling act of survival in the presence of those of neutral attitude adds a Minor Complication to social interactions, which if not bought off reduces the attitude to negative.
Self-Sealing (••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Myceli; Medicine •••
You have no fear of slime mold and know the nourishing benefits of covering your body in a thin sheen of it. One per session when you take the Bleeding Status Effect or reach the Bloodied Injury Level, you can obtain slime mold from your environment, which moves over the wound to staunch the blood loss. After three turns, if the wound is not exacerbated, the mold heals 2 Injury boxes and removes the Status Effect. If you suffer more damage, the mold’s seal breaks and you suffer from the Status Effect or Injury Level as before.
Tendrils (•••)
Prerequisites: Dialectic: Scarab, Myceli, Plutonic, or Qeobaca; Esoterica •••
Once per session, your Dialectic allows you to summon prehensile tendrils in the form of roots, webbing, wisps of living darkness, fleshy tentacles, or snakes of raw Kaos from the surrounding environment. You can use these like an additional set of hands, allowing you to do two things at once without following the rules for taking a mixed action. You gain +1 Enhancement to actions to intimidate or threaten, and a +2 Enhancement on attempts to use the Establish Grapple Trick. The tendrils use your traits for combat, perceiving danger, searching for clues, etc. though they’ll never leave short range of you. They have 3 Health total and 0 Defense and disappear at the end of the scene.
Again, this is just a small sampling. I tried to pull some of the more unusual bits- the kinds of things you won't find in other games - just to show some of the oddness that you can explore in
The World Below.
Please continue to share this campaign in your social circle and on your social media. We're officially in the balk-half of the campaign now, so let's continue to build our community and finish strong before our next Kalm season!
#TheWorldBelow
