Prakaethion
The 7th day of Warmwind, 2405th year of the Modern Era
Scope
The motivation behind building Prakaethion
This world is being built for the purpose of housing all or nearly all of my future Pathfinder and D&D campaigns.
The goal of the project
I want a massive, varied world that makes the characters feel small at first, and that feels dangerous, unexplored and alive.
Prakaethion's Unique Selling point
The Calamity cycle means that the world is almost impossibly old, and that ancient history is all but unknowable. It allows for ruins and layers upon layers of civilizations and developments that are so far removed from the current era as to be alien, while also reinforcing that the world is genuinely in some kind of predestined peril.
Theme
Genre
Fantasy world with pervasive magic and supernatural creatures and occurrences. Magic comes in many forms and from many sources. The technological level is roughly renaissance, with the earliest firearms and ocean faring ships being the peak of technology that is easily visible. The printing press has also been invented, but none of these technologies are widespread as of yet.
Reader Experience
The world should feel vast, dangerous and open. The world is constantly rocking between the control of civilization and natural (and supernatural) forces. The past should serve as a terrifying reminder of what the future could bring.
Reader Tone
The world is relatively dark, with serious consequences and the nature of power being cruel to those without. Pockets of brightness can and do exist, but only due to noble efforts of benefactors using their power for others.
Recurring Themes
The Cataclysm cycle as a whole: Ancient, inevitable but variable, devastating but never the end.
The nature of the gods and what they have become, ancient beings now struggling to maintain the parts of them that connected them to the world in the first place
The decaying ruins of a town, rotting wood being overtaken by weeds and vines. Pan down through the earth to see a far more ancient ruin several hundred feet below the surface, with the remains of residents preserved in volcanic stone.
Character Agency
Character agency is dependent on level, but generally speaking, at high levels, the fate of the world might be preserved for a time, but the cycle of cataclysms, so far as anyone is aware, is inevitable. The individual fates of nations and peoples is very mutable by the characters; What and when the next cataclysm is, as well as the precise impact, is by no means set in stone.
Focus
Drama
Larostria vs. Eastern Federations
These nations used to be at war, but had a cease fire ever since the plague. Now the tensions rise again and it seems battle will once again be joined.
Rebuilding from the Plague
The population is still regrowing and peoples are still reclaiming villages and land that were abandoned when their residents died of the infection. People are still paranoid about new illnesses or signs of the old plague.
The Age of Sail
Ocean faring ships are still very new, and cultures from across the seas are only just now starting to crash in earnest. New foods, peoples, traditions and entire ways of life and thought are being introduced around the world. Some seek fortune, opportunity or a new life far from home.
The discovery of old cataclysms
The nature of several of the old cataclysms is becoming known to several peoples, who are now moving to either prevent similar events from happening in the future (e.g. the dwarves seeking to mediate conflicts to avoid another apocalyptic spell-weapon) or seeking to learn more about them (How did it come to pass the the gods needed to send their armies in force to the material plane to make war?)
Constant threats of the wild and unnatural
Natural and unnatural forces have moved into the gaps left by people after the plague, and have grown stronger in unseen corners. It seems no place is without stories of something threatening harm to ordinary people who drop their guard.