Cinders of the Cataclysm
117 Postea Calamitas
They say that the gods used to watch over us and the world was a peaceful and prosperous place. They say it used to be green and full of life, until we turned our backs on the gods and "embraced the Shadow", whatever that means. The Cataclysm scorched and scarred our world. In one gigantic, apocalyptic event everything we knew was turned into a barren, toxic wasteland. In the blink of an eye, there were suddenly no more nations, varying cultures or languages. All of it, wiped out in searing fire. On top of the shitpile that is this world is Fusion City, the single surviving spec of civilization. A monument to our greatness as a civilization. It's a trash heap full of opportunistic, greedy people clawing their way to the top of the food chain just so they can stomp on others. I say it's fucking bullshit. There are no gods and if there ever were, they abandoned us. So fuck 'em! I'm just trying to survive and fight against the tide to make the world a better place for everyone.
In a world without humans, five races form the remnants of civilisation, devastated by a cataclysmic disaster. Most live inside Fusion City, a domed megacity, climbing on top of each other to reach the top of the societal ladder. The city is a web of intrigue and corporate oppression where the wealthy live off of the backs of the poor, who struggle to survive midst this abundance.
Outside the city in the barren wasteland a few scattered settlements harbor the few survivors of the Cataclysm, those that did not have the luxury of living in the protected city. Mutants toil to earn their value under the elitist non-mutated survivors, tensions rising day by day as raider attacks become a growing problem.
What will you be in this world of wonder? A Kuna investigative journalist, working to uncover the latest corporate atrocity? A Dru'un street-goon fighting for his gang? An Illim police officer struggling with meager pay and an overwhelming crime rate? Or perhaps a Vindral wasteland wanderer, seeking the freedom to live as you please?
In Celenia: Cinders of the Cataclysm, you choose what and who you want to be. The adventure awaits!
July Announcement
Announcement: 28 July 2020
I said in the last update that the focus was going to be on fixing bugs in CD10. HAH. I guess ADHD happened because I've done very little work on CD10. Instead, my work this month has been all over the place.
Focus
I'm going to try (no promises) to have a more focused August, but right now I don't have a strict list of what I want to have done in August. It'll likely be finishing up porting and updating the advanced combat modules for CD10 so that Game Masters+ can use them for their games. Skills and Traits
The basic concept of skills and traits is a core feature, naturally, but I currently have "advanced" modules for skills and traits and I don't feel that it really gels well with the idea of CD10. The whole point of the free-form skill-based and traits-based progression system is the plethora of options you have available to you during character creation and subsequent progression. Locking that feature behind a paywall doesn't quite sit entirely right with me, and there really is no easy and convenient way to split it up into a "core" set of skills/traits and an "advanced" set. Instead, I believe I'm simply going to make all skills and traits publically available in Core. They're publically available in the Blocks system on Worldanvil anyway, so arbitrarily locking "easy access" to them seems counterproductive. Specific traits (such as magic, psionics, cybernetics etc) will be behind their respective modules still, but I believe the entire "core" set should be anything not settings-specific. Let me know what you think. Massive Overhaul
I've been annoyed for a long time about the lacking quality of pretty much every Dark Shadows article, and the code quality of the BBCode in everything, including Cinders. So what I'll be doing is go through my entire article collection, marking every single one as "WIP" and start a project to go through every article, update the texts, rewrite sections and clean up the BBCode. I'll only unmark a WIP once it's been updated to the new standard. I don't expect this overhaul to be done anytime soon, but it WILL let me update and play with CSS more and should result in better formatting on the articles, as well update poorly written older articles to my newer standards. Expect to see a few articles updated every week or so, mostly from Dark Shadows. So if you like Dark Shadows, this is going to be your moment. Conclusion
In closing, I just want to say a big WELCOME to the new patrons who joined during July. I highly appreciate your support, and your money will be reinvested into the production of CD10 and it's accompaning settings. If you have any issues accessing content you believe you should have access to, don't hesitate to contact me via my email or on the Discord. And if you haven't already joined the Discord, please do! We have a lovely community growing there!
Celenia now has a unified place to access all the things with the url: www.celenia.se. It leads to the primary setting of Cinders of the Cataclysm, but the navbar can take you anywhere within the Celenia universe! As always, I'll be livestreaming large parts of my efforts and if you haven't yet, drop by the streams (link below) and spend time with wonderful people in chat and have your questions about worldbuilding, game development, conlangs or roleplaying answered!
I'm going to try (no promises) to have a more focused August, but right now I don't have a strict list of what I want to have done in August. It'll likely be finishing up porting and updating the advanced combat modules for CD10 so that Game Masters+ can use them for their games. Skills and Traits
The basic concept of skills and traits is a core feature, naturally, but I currently have "advanced" modules for skills and traits and I don't feel that it really gels well with the idea of CD10. The whole point of the free-form skill-based and traits-based progression system is the plethora of options you have available to you during character creation and subsequent progression. Locking that feature behind a paywall doesn't quite sit entirely right with me, and there really is no easy and convenient way to split it up into a "core" set of skills/traits and an "advanced" set. Instead, I believe I'm simply going to make all skills and traits publically available in Core. They're publically available in the Blocks system on Worldanvil anyway, so arbitrarily locking "easy access" to them seems counterproductive. Specific traits (such as magic, psionics, cybernetics etc) will be behind their respective modules still, but I believe the entire "core" set should be anything not settings-specific. Let me know what you think. Massive Overhaul
I've been annoyed for a long time about the lacking quality of pretty much every Dark Shadows article, and the code quality of the BBCode in everything, including Cinders. So what I'll be doing is go through my entire article collection, marking every single one as "WIP" and start a project to go through every article, update the texts, rewrite sections and clean up the BBCode. I'll only unmark a WIP once it's been updated to the new standard. I don't expect this overhaul to be done anytime soon, but it WILL let me update and play with CSS more and should result in better formatting on the articles, as well update poorly written older articles to my newer standards. Expect to see a few articles updated every week or so, mostly from Dark Shadows. So if you like Dark Shadows, this is going to be your moment. Conclusion
In closing, I just want to say a big WELCOME to the new patrons who joined during July. I highly appreciate your support, and your money will be reinvested into the production of CD10 and it's accompaning settings. If you have any issues accessing content you believe you should have access to, don't hesitate to contact me via my email or on the Discord. And if you haven't already joined the Discord, please do! We have a lovely community growing there!
Celenia now has a unified place to access all the things with the url: www.celenia.se. It leads to the primary setting of Cinders of the Cataclysm, but the navbar can take you anywhere within the Celenia universe! As always, I'll be livestreaming large parts of my efforts and if you haven't yet, drop by the streams (link below) and spend time with wonderful people in chat and have your questions about worldbuilding, game development, conlangs or roleplaying answered!
Patreon and Social Media
You can support Celenia on Patreon and get access to all the behind-the-scenes content available, get unique discord ranks and much more! Remember that CD10 Core is free to use, but that pledging on patreon gives you access to the advanced modules as well! You can follow Celenia on Twitter, join the official Beyond Reality Discord server as well as me on Twitch.tv where I share the worldbuilding and RPG-designing openly with you all every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 PM UTC.
Celenia is a tabletop roleplaying game universe with a number of games/settings in it, most taking place on the world of Dunia, a firmament flatworld floating in an endless abyss of water. Celenia, as a tabletop setting, has been in development for over 18 years, primarily in the shape of Celenia: Dark Shadows, a dark fantasy setting with folklore-like magic and mystery.
Celenia: Cinders of the Cataclysm (CotC) is a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk sci-fantasy table-top roleplaying game set in the same world as Dark Shadows, only in a near-future setting. CotC uses the narratively focused CD10 RPG system.
Celenia - The World
Dark Shadows - The Prequel to Cinders of the Cataclysm
Celenia D10 RPG System - CD10 Systems Reference
To get a quick start into CotC, the Comprehensive Guide to Cinders of the Cataclysm will help you find your footing quickly!
Useful links
Celenia - The World
Dark Shadows - The Prequel to Cinders of the Cataclysm
Celenia D10 RPG System - CD10 Systems Reference
To get a quick start into CotC, the Comprehensive Guide to Cinders of the Cataclysm will help you find your footing quickly!
A one-shot adventure played in this world is available below, courtecy of the team behind How to be a Great GM's series, "Adventures of the Windswift". The adventure uses the CD10 system, developed by me.
CD10 and Cinders of the Cataclysm is in development and to get access to the settings or playtest the system, head over to Patreon.com.
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Celenia and Cinders of the Cataclysm © 1998 - 2020 Tobias Linder. All rights reserved.
Any art displayed on the page is credited to the original artist and belongs to them, with the exception of art created by Nina Lanfer and Mizomei, which are specifically commissioned for the CotC project and are © 1998 - 2019 Tobias Linder. Default "Cinders of the Cataclysm" banner art is "Neos City" by Jordan Grimmer. Text by Tobias Linder.
Any art displayed on the page is credited to the original artist and belongs to them, with the exception of art created by Nina Lanfer and Mizomei, which are specifically commissioned for the CotC project and are © 1998 - 2019 Tobias Linder. Default "Cinders of the Cataclysm" banner art is "Neos City" by Jordan Grimmer. Text by Tobias Linder.