A bit of 'heresy'

The Worlds of Aihrde (Erde), Inzae, their history, game play and more.
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Julian Grimm
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A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Julian Grimm »

As I have been rereading the material I have had a few ideas that I may pursue. They mostly revolve around Unklar. Just for fun I thought I would share them:

Unklar was a lie

While the empire did exist and did so for a long time; the story of Unklar was a pure fabrication. Part legend and part rallying cry for carving new nations out of a decaying empire; the leaders of the young kingdoms needed something to rally people to their cause. The leaders fabricated the whole story of Unklar to create a unifying reason to destroy the empire and carve out their new lands.

Atrocities were made up, stories grew in the telling and in the end the goal was met. The tale was used to establish divine right for new kings and new orders. New gods were created where they did not exist before. Later Unklar and his minions were used as a shadowy threat to justify wars and crusades across the lands.

Scholars who get too close to the truth tend to disappear and the tale has become so ingrained into society that anyone suggesting it is not true is persecuted and silenced.

Unklar was protecting Aihrde

The story of Nulak Kiz Din finding Unklar is partially true. What was not told that his manipulations of the Paths of Umbra began damaging the fabric of reality. Seeing that Aihrde was in danger of invasions from ancient beings and eldritch horrors, Unklar did the only thing he could do. He came to Aihrde and removed it from the main multiverse to protect it from the coming horrors. Unfortunately while he sought to do good, Unklar's nature created a hell on Aihrde.

When Unklar fell and Aihrde returned it opened the world to the horrors that he sought to protect the world from. Secretly, strange and horrid beings steal into the world to change it forever.

The Witch Queen is...

..Iggwilv. Iggwilv, Iuz, and Drelzna all exist on Aihrde and her plans are to carve out her own empire on the world. Secretly she betrayed Unklar to set her own plans in motion. Now she is ready to enact long laid plans and take Aufstrag for herself.


Finally...

Unklar was the All Father

Not a nightmare, not a dark reflection. Unlar was the All-Father. Somehow twisted and corrupted by and unknown evil he was cast into a dark prison to return to Aihrde to destroy his own creation. Who did this and why remains a mystery that must be solved.
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anvil242
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by anvil242 »

"Unklar was a lie" seems a little timely. I feel triggered :)

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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

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You know me, I'm not a HUGE fan of the thousand years of winter dark - no sunlight ice age. No plant or anima would ever survive that. Also, with the different societies (with different pantheons implied), so I'm all about changing the BtB setting/history.

However, I think Unklar is a lie goes a step to far. If you go down that route, (well by you I mean if I went down that route) I'd dial back the BtB history of it being Winter Dark to a semi-ice age increased winters, but not full up DARK, and dial down his power a notch or 3 (and yes let the history and stories be worse than it actually was).

Now, Unklar protecting Aihrde, interesting. He doesn't even have to be 'good' to fill that roll - I will be brutal to you foolish peoples, but it is for your own good … Now he has been overthrown, what comes next. Interesting in deed. I'm not a full up Catahoula fan, so I wouldn't go to the Deep Dark Old Ones, but still it could be interesting.

The Witch Queen is … Now I take the bait on that one ! Of the ideas I like that one the most ! I always like the Greek Dis, Norse Hel, etc and liked to include them in the game world as being more active and influential than may be the norm for average settings (going to have to be very careful to not indulge myself with that mind set running the games for my girls !) Plus, where good may tend toward sacrificing itself to help other good, evil tends to eat its own and fight against itself, sooooo yeah I like the betrayal aspect of the idea too !
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Julian Grimm
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Julian Grimm »

anvil242 wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 11:30 am
"Unklar was a lie" seems a little timely. I feel triggered :)
I'm missing something...lol
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Julian Grimm »

Lurker wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 6:40 pm
You know me, I'm not a HUGE fan of the thousand years of winter dark - no sunlight ice age. No plant or anima would ever survive that. Also, with the different societies (with different pantheons implied), so I'm all about changing the BtB setting/history.


However, I think Unklar is a lie goes a step to far. If you go down that route, (well by you I mean if I went down that route) I'd dial back the BtB history of it being Winter Dark to a semi-ice age increased winters, but not full up DARK, and dial down his power a notch or 3 (and yes let the history and stories be worse than it actually was).
I agree with you. My biggest issue with Aihrde is the history and amount of it. It's too constraining in my book. Then again I cut my teeth on Greyhawk and the Grey Box Realms where you got about a page of back history and snippets here and there based on country or region. If you were lucky you got a truncated timeline that was a good springboard for ideas.

And I have went with it all being a legend based on differing factors like a Little Ice Age fueling a rise in humanoid worshipping a Horned God migrations and wars over resources. This so happens at the rise of an empire I call the Winter Imperium that happened to refer to their Emperor as The Unklar similar to how Roman Emperors were called Caesar.

Fast forward a bit and the Winter Imperium is decadent and crumbling with breakaway states needing something to drive their armies forward so you get Unklar merged with the horned god and all the problems come from him. This all codifies when Pryzmira, her followers, and other leaders need a reasoning for their divine right and Bob's your uncle we have it! So they weave it all together into a story that gives them justification for the Winter Dark Wars and the founding of new kingdoms.

This is all off the cuff so YMMV

Now, Unklar protecting Aihrde, interesting. He doesn't even have to be 'good' to fill that roll - I will be brutal to you foolish peoples, but it is for your own good … Now he has been overthrown, what comes next. Interesting in deed. I'm not a full up Catahoula fan, so I wouldn't go to the Deep Dark Old Ones, but still it could be interesting.
Yeah the old ones were just something I pulled in trying to connect things like Tharzdun and the TOEE to Aihrde to get some classic Greyhawk stuff in the setting. But yeah, pick a threat and go. Unlar has to play Mean Dad to everyone to make sure they are safe...You ever play Fable 3? If so you get where I am coming from.
The Witch Queen is … Now I take the bait on that one ! Of the ideas I like that one the most ! I always like the Greek Dis, Norse Hel, etc and liked to include them in the game world as being more active and influential than may be the norm for average settings (going to have to be very careful to not indulge myself with that mind set running the games for my girls !) Plus, where good may tend toward sacrificing itself to help other good, evil tends to eat its own and fight against itself, sooooo yeah I like the betrayal aspect of the idea too !
In case you haven't noticed there is a bit of a theme here. I want to get some classic AD&D stuff in the setting and porting a few Greyhawk ideas and baddies in get that rolling. This is the danger of Steve saying Aihrde was ours to do what we want with...I don't think he figured on me dismembering, mutilating and rebuilding it into something else. :lol:
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Persimmon »

Yeah, I port all kinds of classic AD&D stuff into my homebrew campaign, even keeping, or just slightly modifying some of the place names. In most cases those back stories are vague enough to make it easy. I've done the same with C&C, though in a few cases, like with Aufstrag, it requires a bit more work. So I just said that Aufstrag was literally dragged into my world from Aihrde. I decided awhile back to just run things in my world as none of the players were that interested in learning a bunch of backstory and I already know or can easily make up anything I want on the fly.
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by serleran »

One thing I have considered doing is to take a few more contemporary thoughts and work them backwards to Aihrde.

For example, Unklar is a being similar to Voldemort but with multiple personality disorder (rather than several phylacteries), not too unlike The Beast from the Split movie, one of which is the wizard guy who "found" him, absorbing part of the essence to grow exponentially more powerful.

However, other parts of himself want to remain separate, enjoying the freedom. Some are actually good aligned and others just evil beyond compare - around 20 or so "parts." The most powerfully bad work in a sort of unity in a way reminiscent of the Diablo franchise lore, and in fact, it was these fellows that brought about the Winter Dark until overthrown.


I've never put much thought into it though and I know my group wouldn't delve too hard into the game history so... just "theorycrafting."

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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Julian Grimm »

I like it.

Another idea I kicked around was making it a bit more like Earthdawn in that the Winter's Dark wasn't just Unklar and his empire but multiple evil entities that carved the world up and bringing in some pretty terrible things. What we see in the Cradle of the World was just one part of a whole slew of dark lords and eldritch beings coming into the world.
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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by serleran »

I actually ran with an Earthdawn vibe for the last C&C game I played. Magic was the hardest "conversion" to be true to setting.

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Re: A bit of 'heresy'

Post by Julian Grimm »

Yeah those are different magic systems entirely.
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