Answering campaign setting questions for the river kingdom
Buncha people in the GLoG server were answering various "campaign setting questions." I love clicks and exposure and numbers going up so I'm posting my answers instead.
Vayra's ten setting questions
1. What class knows the most martial arts? Are they real martial arts like kung fu, or made up ones like krav maga?
Pretty much every class has their own school of fake martial art. Man-Killers are probably the most overt, being masters of magnetism used in conjunction with sword-fighting, but the still-in-production Heretics learn many tricks and techniques from their guides into blasphemy against Lugal.
2. Can I start out having already made a deal with the devil or do I have to do that in game?
You can do either. Let me explain. Deal with the devil—well, worship of the devil—is sort of the Heretic's whole deal. But consorting specifically with the red serpent of the desert—the first and greatest cardinal sin, worse than anything a Heretic's presumed to have done—would have to be done in-game.
3. Do you want me to write an 8-page backstory? Can I write an 8-page backstory, if I want to? If I write something down in it like I'm the timelost princess of the brass city and the daughter of the sun and I commanded legions in the Hell War but was betrayed by my father's vizier but I don't know that, or that I'm elf conan and cooler than everyone else, will that be true?
Only if it's a eight pages of good backstory. :)
4. If I eat someone's heart, will I gain their powers? What about their brain?
Yes; also yes, but only if it's prepared correctly.
5. These classes are boring, can I be one from somewhere else? What about from a different system entirely?
Unlock the mysteries of the setting and their accompanying secret/unique class options. Or pitch another class to me with the expectation that it will get modified or rejected outright. See question 3—come to me with a good idea and reap the rewards of my interest.
6. If I make a sword, which one of us gets to name it?
You. You made it.
7. Am I allowed to kill the other player characters? What would I have to do to be allowed to? Do I win if I kill them all? Actually, how do I win in general?
Yes. Get in a position where they're vulnerable and you're strong. Depends on your goals, but probably not—they can just roll new characters. Again, depends on your goals, but probably either by ending time or flooding hell or usurping Lugal or something. Idk it's not my problem.
8. What language stands in for 'Common'? Or what are we all talking to each other in? Like the party, mostly, but also everyone else?
Urukite. Basically every region is going to have its own accent and dialect, but the river kingdom is small enough and homogeneous enough that the language is still fairly intelligible no matter where you go.
9. How do I learn how to talk to rocks? No not once a day just, like, normally?
Just learn their language! Not that hard, once you get over the blasphemy of it all. They are all the children of the Doorkeeper of Hell, he who is sometimes mistaken as the King of Hell, but in truth is simply the Warden of those Great Cavernous Places Beneath the Earth. If you get on the good side of one of the bats that act as messengers between the lands of the living and the dead, I'm sure they'd be willing to teach you.
10. Which kinds of wizards get to serve kings and live in towers and shit and which ones are run out of town or stoned to death in the streets? Can I be both? At the same time?
Pretty much anyone you'd classify as a wizard (i.e., Heretics, mostly) will get run out of town by anyone remotely pious and certainly by Lugal's hegemonic authorities, though in a broader sense you could definitely call what both Obligators and Graces do 'wizardly tricks,' and they're beloved. You could be both at the same time by really being a Heretic but masquerading around as an Obligator.
And also deus ex parabola's ten
1. Which specific NPC do I want to piss off the least?
Lugal. He's pretty hard to piss off, though, just by virtue of being impossible to access. But, as in everything, the nearest Man-Killer shall be the extension of His presence. Do not piss off one of those guys.
2. Which god should I want to piss off the most?
The dead one, probably. He can't get much madder than his corpse already is.
3. What's the worst thing I could meet at a crossroads?
So many things. A wayward shade is pretty tame in comparison to a Wild Man's warband marching on the nearest village. If night approaches, perhaps a vampire has decided to introduce itself before draining you dry.
4. What's the nearest thing that can utterly destroy me to your starting town? Or starting town equivalent?
I wrote a whole adventure about just this scenario. :)
5. Is apotheosis open to my character? If not, why not?
Yes. You would be the second mortal in the whole history of the world to achieve such a feat.
6. Do people in your world have souls? Why?
Yes. Why? Because otherwise people would have never existed. Stupid question.
7. Does jazz exist in your setting yet? Can I invent it and not be stoned to death?
No, and it's my greatest sadness when considering the state of the river kingdom. I weep each and every day about it. You could invent jazz and not get stoned to death probably only if you were a Grace. Only they really have the sway to make that sort of thing catch on.
8. What's the weirdest country/polity/region/area on your map?
Weird is an imprecise descriptor. The river kingdom as a whole is pretty weird to modern eyes. The headwaters in which tromps the divine elephant are pretty weird. The Underworld is pretty weird. Probably the weirdest is the Isle of Apes Uplifted, way out alone and undiscovered in the murderous salt sea.
9. Do guns exist yet? If they do, is there anything making them weird/different?
Guns existed at one point. No longer. There are a thousand thousand caches of rifles drowned beneath the waves.
10. Is there a divide between mundane/magical animals?
No. All that exists is as it is meant to be. "Unnatural" is a meaningless term.