Corive

Deities

The deities are real - for the most part. In at least the history of Soplas, a trio of Dragons had been worshipped as deities while not being divine. There are conflicting creation mythologies, such as the origins of the world and where the peoples of Corive come from.

Mortals rarely become divine beings in most religions on Corive, and they are, they tend to rise to being akin to demi-gods. The exception on Soplas is the religion of the Orcs, where mortals have risen to the ranks of the gods and overthrew the less competent in favor of the current and more competent formerly mortal deities.

As a reader, I found that I disliked having to track six different names for the same deity (there is at least one official D&D setting where that's the case or days of the week, either way), so I went the other way.

— Lyraine Alei

Magic and Technology

Magic is a complex tool and one that has always been part of Corive. Magic and technology have advanced together; as memory passes and technology is lost, so does the memory of the magical advances from those ancients.

Corive is a reasonably high magical setting, meaning there are mundane everyday magics and flashy fantastical magics. Public perception of magic varies from region to region, culture to culture, but for the most part, the societies of Corive view magic as a tool and a weapon when turned against others.

The development of technology in Corive has been advanced and hindered when compared to modern-day Earth. 'Forged are a constructed intelligent species who are as capable of developing their own culture, debate and consider philosophy, making them a sophont species, but in general, look like someone took the styles of da Vici and applied them to the machines.

This melding of magic and technology is also adjusting the availability of flashier and more powerful magical abilities to everyday people.

Developed as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting initially, Corive is a world one could consider dangerous. However, Dungeons and Dragons seem to ignore in its base assumption, the dangers of the ordinary farmers in their daily lives.

Where there are people, the dangers are usually less or are more creative. Bandits may watch the roads the wolves avoid. But not every town is a bustling center of society, and towns struggling to maintain their industries die away as their children leave for work elsewhere or as those who live on the land are stranded by those who can relocate. Those towns tend to have more difficulties with maintaining a level of safety against the wilds.

However, the more heavily settled and active locations are not safe themselves - local politicians range from puppets to manipulators with their own goals, and people who hold on to power may not appreciate any rivals.

Adventuring is not an occupation of its own. Most adventurers are not referred to as adventurers and instead, mostly, as mercenaries. If they possess a title, adventurers are referred by their rank. There are local heroes, and there are people the townsfolk might consider as heroic when they were passing through the town.

I can go on in a rant, but it can be summarized as "A Player Character at level 1 is barely more than a commoner of the same background type, but a pack of wolves can kill a party of PCs. How in the world would an average herd owner deal with the same threat and turn out to be more successful often enough to maintain a living as a (basically Level 0) herder?"

You wouldn't hire a knight to go in and clear out a basement from a Giant Rat infestation. However, a knight could be talked into investigating some ruins where giant rats have suddenly started showing up.

— Lyraine Alei

Further Meta Reading

Placeholder names

I hate stressing over the specific names of places, things, and people, so I've started using placeholders that are usually descriptive more than an actual name. There are a few that I know have gained favor with some readers - EastLeader PersonBro for Siegmund Kerlbror as an example - and I've started incorporating the inevitability that I'll be stuck without a name for a noun, and I hope you enjoy my placeholders as much as I do.

To let y'all behind the scenes - most of the names I have for places are also placeholders, they're just second-level placeholders. Corive is a placeholder I've grown fond of - "COpyRIght Violations Everywhere" as a reference to how, at least at first, a lot of the things I had in my world were things from other settings I thought were cool and wanted to work on to make them my own. As far as I know, I've not violated actual copyrights, and the Corive name creation was a bit more tongue-in-cheek.

— Lyraine