Premise
Hear me and halt, traveller, for I sift through the blue sands of Vaarn and speak these hallowed truths.
In the Age of the Titans, shrines of chrome and circuitry were erected everywhere to the the First Thinking Machines. The Titans. The hubris of humanity was their womb and the zenith of their civilization the seed. Peerless in thought and ethereal in being, the Titans governed with grace and were the suzerains of the stars. Then, a great and terrible war happened that cast the Titans off their thrones and this rust-ridden conflict was scarred in the legends as the Titanomachy.
In the Age of the Autarchs, Urth was clenched under the fist of the Autarchy, a coven of genetically enhanced god kings and queens. Unlike the Titans, their reign was marked by violence, cruelty and fear. Statues reaching to the heavens were carved in hand by throngs of slaves and abominations were cultivated in flesh vats to roam on Vaarn.
In the Age of the Great Collapse, the principalities of the Autarchy were sundered and the constellations bled into the land. Much has been lost from this period but like the Titans before them, the Autarchs were cast off from their golden thrones and across Urth, the monuments to their egos crumbled to dust.
It is now the Final Age, where the sunsets darken and the sunrises dim every second.
The wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin. It is said that these sky-coloured sands hide the graves of the Autarchs; have swallowed the buried arcologies in which the true seed of humankind was preserved through the Great Collapse; conceal forgotten crypts of memory, decaying crystalline lattices of ancient ego-engines upon which the dusk-blue dunes encroach without pity.
From the New Hegemony to the south come drifters and dreamers, desecraters of the tech-tombs that lie sunken beneath the azure wastes. Light-years overhead, aurum-hulled craft ply their tender routes between the spheres, and miles below a pilgrim’s feet, strange wombs are kindled once more with life undreamed of.
These are the hinterlands, where humanity’s great works have fallen to everlasting decay, where machine, fungus, animal and more think to crown themselves our equal. The phthalo-sands, where newbeasts hunt proudly with boots upon their hind paws and chromepriests chant unending binary devotions to their nameless synthetic god. Only the desperate or the mad would seek to make a life here, to roam the blue desert, to sift these sands....
A fool's gander!
In the Age of the Titans, shrines of chrome and circuitry were erected everywhere to the the First Thinking Machines. The Titans. The hubris of humanity was their womb and the zenith of their civilization the seed. Peerless in thought and ethereal in being, the Titans governed with grace and were the suzerains of the stars. Then, a great and terrible war happened that cast the Titans off their thrones and this rust-ridden conflict was scarred in the legends as the Titanomachy.
In the Age of the Autarchs, Urth was clenched under the fist of the Autarchy, a coven of genetically enhanced god kings and queens. Unlike the Titans, their reign was marked by violence, cruelty and fear. Statues reaching to the heavens were carved in hand by throngs of slaves and abominations were cultivated in flesh vats to roam on Vaarn.
In the Age of the Great Collapse, the principalities of the Autarchy were sundered and the constellations bled into the land. Much has been lost from this period but like the Titans before them, the Autarchs were cast off from their golden thrones and across Urth, the monuments to their egos crumbled to dust.
It is now the Final Age, where the sunsets darken and the sunrises dim every second.
The wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin. It is said that these sky-coloured sands hide the graves of the Autarchs; have swallowed the buried arcologies in which the true seed of humankind was preserved through the Great Collapse; conceal forgotten crypts of memory, decaying crystalline lattices of ancient ego-engines upon which the dusk-blue dunes encroach without pity.
From the New Hegemony to the south come drifters and dreamers, desecraters of the tech-tombs that lie sunken beneath the azure wastes. Light-years overhead, aurum-hulled craft ply their tender routes between the spheres, and miles below a pilgrim’s feet, strange wombs are kindled once more with life undreamed of.
These are the hinterlands, where humanity’s great works have fallen to everlasting decay, where machine, fungus, animal and more think to crown themselves our equal. The phthalo-sands, where newbeasts hunt proudly with boots upon their hind paws and chromepriests chant unending binary devotions to their nameless synthetic god. Only the desperate or the mad would seek to make a life here, to roam the blue desert, to sift these sands....
A fool's gander!
An Antique Land is a science-fantasy RP that takes place in an Earth (now known as Urth) that is completely unrecognizable from what we know. Enough time has passed for our sun to become a red giant and be on the verge of dying. In that period, hundreds of civilizations have risen and fallen, turning Urth into a junkyard of ruin and refuse.
One of these regions is Vaarn, a blasted wasteland of blue sand and chrome artifices. Multiple beings dwell within Vaarn: the mutated cacogen, the magnanimous True Kin, the burgeoning newbeasts, the mysterious mycomorphs and the reclusive synth. To the south of Vaarn is the New Hegemony, an imperial power composed of True Kin who aim to resurrect the glory days of the prior Ages. They are the unofficial rulers of Vaarn in law only but not in power for none can tame these azure dunes.
You are the recent hire of a scavenging crew known as the Idling Galgal that has been generously bankrolled by the Gnomish water barons to retrieve exotica of immense value. However, in the middle of your journey to the western plains of the Faa Nomads, your group was ambushed by a group of Cacklemaw. For over a week, you have been trapped within barbed carbide caves for the amusement of these hyena folk.
However, tonight’s the night you and your group are planning to blow this joint……
Map of Faa'rahad
Lore
Disclaimer: Some lore has been kept deliberately vague in order to allow for interpretation and creativity. Technology has not received a section because if you can think of it, it's there somewhere in the bowels of Vaarn.
Rules
- We came here to roleplay and not to fight, flame or enter feuds with one another. Treat all others the same way you would want to be treated (unless you're a verbal sadomachoist). All arguments should occur in the PMs and if I tell you to stop it, stop it.
- All writing must obey the conventions of RPGO's guidelines. This means no explicit adult material or erotica. If you want to embrace your inner freak in the sheets, then, do it in the DMs and if you want someone to do it with you, do it in the DMs.
- Know how to have fun with your post lengths. The writing I expect from players is quality over quantity with adherence to efficiency. I do not care how many words you write, although, this does not mean you can write one sentence and expect to get away with it. The minimum is one paragraph but I expect any player who joins this RP will know what expectations to set for themselves.
- Have fun worldbuilding! Vaarn is pretty much a blank canvas for you to plaster your crazy ideas onto. Everything that has happened in this world has pretty much already happened. If you have an idea and it feels natural, communicate it in the RP and it will most assuredly fit within the scope of this world. Was there a war in the past between mycomorphs and phyta that caused them to have their rivalry? Add it in! Is there an extremist sect of the New Hegemony who believes that imperial conquest of Vaarn is needed to acquire fresh genetic material to prevent inbreeding from destroying their population? Sure!
Do Faa Nomads spit in each others mouth as a way of - On second thought, disregard that idea.
- There is no such thing as a posting schedule. That being said, players are expected to communicate frequently to the GM and other players if they are unavailable or have lost interest in this RP. Failure to do so after two weeks will result in the player being exiled to the astral planes of Golgothum.
- Have fun and feel free to sacrifice your character to maintain your personal autonomy of free time whenever you feel like it. You have no obligation to remain a member of this RP and you can freely request for your character to be shelved at any time. Do note that you can only make one character for this RP.
- You must accept the fact that I will be unfair to you whenever possible and that durian is the superior fruit to all other fruits in existence.
- All writing must obey the conventions of RPGO's guidelines. This means no explicit adult material or erotica. If you want to embrace your inner freak in the sheets, then, do it in the DMs and if you want someone to do it with you, do it in the DMs.
- Know how to have fun with your post lengths. The writing I expect from players is quality over quantity with adherence to efficiency. I do not care how many words you write, although, this does not mean you can write one sentence and expect to get away with it. The minimum is one paragraph but I expect any player who joins this RP will know what expectations to set for themselves.
- Have fun worldbuilding! Vaarn is pretty much a blank canvas for you to plaster your crazy ideas onto. Everything that has happened in this world has pretty much already happened. If you have an idea and it feels natural, communicate it in the RP and it will most assuredly fit within the scope of this world. Was there a war in the past between mycomorphs and phyta that caused them to have their rivalry? Add it in! Is there an extremist sect of the New Hegemony who believes that imperial conquest of Vaarn is needed to acquire fresh genetic material to prevent inbreeding from destroying their population? Sure!
Do Faa Nomads spit in each others mouth as a way of - On second thought, disregard that idea.
- There is no such thing as a posting schedule. That being said, players are expected to communicate frequently to the GM and other players if they are unavailable or have lost interest in this RP. Failure to do so after two weeks will result in the player being exiled to the astral planes of Golgothum.
- Have fun and feel free to sacrifice your character to maintain your personal autonomy of free time whenever you feel like it. You have no obligation to remain a member of this RP and you can freely request for your character to be shelved at any time. Do note that you can only make one character for this RP.
- You must accept the fact that I will be unfair to you whenever possible and that durian is the superior fruit to all other fruits in existence.
Character Sheet
Note: You can format your character sheet in whatever way you wish from this example format