Scope
The motivation behind building Chimera D10
Chimera is a world inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's darker works that carry a sturdy hope through them: Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It is an homage to my first post apocalyptic video game: the Legend of Zelda. It is a call to the worlds of Monster Hunter where there are Heroes, bound to their enthusiasm, community, and hope in the future. It is a love letter to Science Fantasy and the bizarre technologies that corrupted the world of The Dark Crystal. It carries my wanderlust, and my desire to create a world with hopeful endings, empathy, and kind people.
The goal of the project
I would love to make money off of this setting--but that's dependent on me marketing it (haha). Instead, I want to share it with others and give myself a place to put where my dreams take me.
Chimera D10's Unique Selling point
I want a hopeful Science Fantasy story where the world is kinder than our own, magic and technology meet in a soft-post-apocalypse where people build together, and it's drenched in the Art Nouveau style.
Theme
Genre
Soft-Post-Apocalyptic Science Fantasy with pervasive magic (neither high nor low)
Reader Experience
Imagine a Monster Hunter feel; the world is old, fantastical, and dangerous, but the people who live in this world are those driven by their love and enthusiasm for the world around them--those who charge enthusiastically and passionately into danger with reckless abandon.
This is what it means to be a part of this world--to live with it, in balance with it, and to understand it.
Reader Tone
Knightglow. Post Apocalyptic and Hopeful; Complex viewpoints bend toward compassion that ultimately seeks to defy grim circumstances and terrible realities.
Recurring Themes
Magic is ultimately a transcendent and omnipotent force that has as much the ability to shape reality as it does corrupt others. The world has pervasive magic. It is alive and well in all things - inanimate, animate, biotic, nonbiotic. Magic is like the bonds between atoms, it simply exists and weaves itself into the fabric of all things. How Magic is used and if magic should be used is of constant debate within the world.
Ancient Technologies are unearthed and powered by forbidden magics (such as energy being pulled from a Lich who is eternally trying to reform). This is what caused ruin in the previous incarnation of the world.
All monsters are corruptions of humanity, meaning that all tragedy in the world is of mortal make. "All that is monstrous is man" is a common phrase. Monsters all come from people. The void of the soul is what causes people to crave, desire, and have ambitions, but to feed into this too often is to become that void of the soul, to tear the rest of it to pieces. Monsters are tragic creatures. But this does not mean we are beyond redemption and unworthy; it means we must grow.
The world has forces of evil as much as it has forces of good but full of nobility. "The arch of the moral arch of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice". Good nor evil fights for the upperhand - they are the same creature. Instead, they simply seek to digest and become the other, in a perpetual state of yin and yang. This is observable in magic, in random chances of good and bad luck.
Character Agency
Heroic characters will leave deep imprints on the world, whether they are in a city or in the smallest of hamlets. The kindest of actions will ripple out to inspire others. And as the Heroes grow in strength, so too will their influence and reputation in the world at large.
Focus
- Military Influence
There is a division between nations that have standing armies and those who buy out mercenaries companies to fight for them. This creates proxy wars between forces and makes war look great publicly without ones direct involvement. But these mercenary companies gain strength through repute and investments from other nations, making them a stronger economic and political force within the world. The Heroes Guild is one such force, but with a focus on connection and harmony.
- Technology Influence
Ancient technologies and magics dot and lurk all about Tara. Several technologies such as a method of ending corruption, mechanical humanoid weapons of mass destruction known as Agiera, and Moonstone--a lunar material that generates magic, are all desired technologies. Currently, there is a secret arms race to establish technological superiority against other nations to become the most advanced and thereby the most powerful. This would begin a second age of conquest, where the most advanced (and rich) would rule.
- Magic Influence
Magic is a transcendent and omnipotent force within Tara. It can become a part of a person by filing the voids within a person's soul, thus making it like an existential infection. Managing magic, deciding its purpose and regulations are common dialogues held by those wishing to see an end to corruption--a well-documented and adverse effect of magic. To combat these effects, magic is often researched, making mages guilds--places and houses of this research--a necessity.
Economic Influence:
Technology improves economy, but creates a greater wealth divide.
Arts and Culture:
Technology uncovered and in greater wealth and strife comes culture
Social Service:
Joining a Guild gives an average person a greater ability to affect the social lives of those in need. While not altogether the most important force, they serves as protectors against monsters and the like.
Agriculture and Trade:
Guilds serve as the connective tissue of the world in terms of trade. Agriculturally, the world revolves around the cycles of the volcano, periods of intense heat and monsoons during the summer, and bitter cold and frost during the winter, for most regions.
Religion:
A majority of Gods have stayed out of the world's affairs for a long time. The only connection people have to their gods is through Conduits who speak for the gods and can answer prayers through their Conduit. -- Religions in Chimera don't ask if a god exists, it asks instead is a god worth worshiping.
Wealth Distribution:
Technology has caused a greater wealth divide that the guilds seek to answer by spreading up jobs for all. Even the wealthy are terrorized by monsters. however, there are still the elite who can afford to defend themselves and others, those who can equip themselves with weapons to defend themselves, and those who rely on walls.
Race Relations:
In Tara, Tarans are the most common race (a seat of privilege) and there is religious conflict between the Myrrdin and Rook. The Gol, Vespid, and Rook are seen as monsters, while the Dracovians are elevated to high position within society. Simmias are Race Fluid, so they can enjoy the station that benefits them the most.
Rule of Law:
This is greatly in decline as mercenary companies gain greater influence due greater political strength from economic growth. Effectively, government power is decentralized when it comes to security.
Class Relations:
Technology has increased Class exploitation, creating a division between those who can afford protection, to those who defend, to those who are defended, and those who can't afford to be defended (by paying a city tax to live in a walled city).
Drama
Magic is like an infectious and omnipotent force most concerned with eternal self-perpetuation even if it compromises the body of the individual "infected". As such, there is an ideological conflict about the inherit goodness or evilness of using magic in order to affect reality.
Two empires fight for ideological superiority with technological advances the world has yet to understand. Warfare scars the world and terrible devastation is wrought that perpetuates a cycle of conflict spurred by a yearning for vengeance.
Monster attacks are most frequent at night, causing people to need to live behind walls and for the outer world to be treacherous to all who venture late at night.
Even at the age of the Gen of Heroes, the Heroes Guild still acts as peacekeepers of the land, ensuring prosperity and equality for all who ask for help. But for how much longer?
A Plague begins to spread form the Queqiao province, "The Petrifying Disease", potentially caused by the Effluvial Gases in the Mushroom Grove underneath the Emerald Spires.
There are rumors of divine sparks remaining after the War of Godking Faust, with several powers now seeking to attain them for the god-like powers they bestow.
Mages are gaining greater rights in communities due to the influence of Mage Guilds rising across the land.
There are some people born without true names--the names of their soul--and they are regarded akin to the celestial and daemonic forces of the world.
