About Ethnis
Overview
Hello! If you're here, you've likely already read the Introduction To Ethnis, but now want a peek behind the curtain to see what it's all really about and who is writing it.
So welcome, welcome to a little backstage tour. We recommend turning back if you don't want the intention of the writing spelled out to you—we understand if sometimes that ruins the magic a bit.
Motivation — Why write Ethnis?
The main purpose of Ethnis is to seek purpose, and to examine that pursuit.
The pursuit for purpose is a drive we all possess, but many lack the privilege to seek it. How do we assure everyone the privilege? How will technology affect purpose? How do we combat despair in an often cold and uncaring world?
Conflict — Why read Ethnis?
Read Ethnis to expand your perspective, and for cool, weird stories.
You join Ethnis at a point when everything hangs in a powerful, yet fragile balance—A gossamer spiderweb of steel. Life is often vivid, dramatic, and intense. Everything is geared up as though to make its final stand, never certain what tomorrow will bring. It's the perfect backdrop to show characters at their most striking.
Navigation
Classifications
Ethnis covers many genres. Every tale and molecule of lore adorns itself in a pastiche patchwork of genre trappings needed to tell its story.
Sci-Fantasy • Absurdism • Punk • Uncanny Horror
Much of Ethnis happens on a small scale against the backdrop of the larger universe and the great drama of the Banners.
Sometimes it's the tale of a lone colony, sometimes it's the fate of a world, and sometimes all of Ethnis is at stake.
Most of Ethnis is told from the perspective of the common person and their growth in the larger universe, but some stories are told from the perspective of the powerful elite or ancient beings.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
For all the importance of the message of 1984, Orwell was a known paranoid bigot and stalker. He might very much hate who we are, and what we are writing, because people like him wear the boot he spoke of.
Narration
E.N.Core Character Creation, which was designed to be run alongside Ethnis (among other settings) has a mechanic called Narrators, which challenge you to personify a character for the storyteller. To the right is one of these Narrators, and below we explain their constituent parts.
Mood/Tone
Introspection, through evaluating modern social issues and simulating their future to guess what technology will address, what will remain, and what new issues will arise.
Anticipation in the way we show those issues. We anticipate the challenges of tomorrow. As much in dread as in excitement.
Liminal in our tone. To be liminal is to exist on a threshold. Here, that threshold is in how we anticipate the future through understanding the present. This is expressed in our prose.
Theme
Whether discussing the roleplay universe or the written, Ethnis is a setting of adventures. This requires many hooks that pull you into Ethnis to explore it for yourself.
In designing these adventures we aim to cultivate two specific feelings—one at the beginning of the adventure and another at the end. The first is the wonder of the unknown, the wanderer's itch.
At the other end of the experience, looking back, we want them to experience a nostalgia, a gratefulness of the experience had and a longing for more of it.
Tone
Anticipation
Introspection
Themes
Sacrifice
Identity
Trials
Self-Hate
Oppression
The Lysian speaks in a voice so soft that it's easy to forget it's there. Its tales are heard, but its presence is often forgotten.
Note the Lysian by their tender, yet dissassociated approach to tales, and so are caught off guard when it demonstrates its moving and intense prose.
For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. [...] The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. [...] Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.
Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas …”
Exploration is an urge engrained in all of us. Whether it is the outward, physical exploration of the world or the inward, metaphysical exploration of the mind. Ethnis presents the two hand-in-hand.
Exploration of your world is integral to self-growth, and self-growth is integral to understanding the space we inhabit. Each furthers the other infinitely. If you hit a wall in your growth, it is because there are walls in your world or in your mind.
About the Developers
Funded or not, I will always work on Ethnis. It is my greatest passion. The first concepts developed when I was a kid, and have grown and expanded to the massive universe that you see today. By day I work as a software developer, by night I chip away at this massive, lifelong project!
Just like Ademal, I'm going to be working on Ethnis no matter what the situation. It's what I want to see myself doing, and I feel that it will be successful because of our dedication. I've been working on Ethnis since the day I met Ademal about nine years ago, and it has grown so much since then. I'm excited to see and work on Ethnis' future.
How to Support Ethnis
If after reading all of this you decide you would like to support the continued development of Ethnis, consider supporting us directly via Patreon or buying Ethnis merchandise on Zazzle! All income made goes right back into the business costs of maintaining and growing Ethnis, and into its art!
Don't forget to press that follow button below, and come join our discord community! We're friendly! Some bite, but that's mostly the peeps from the Hedon faction.
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