Fantasy New Aeternum: Chapter 1 — The Anomaly [OOC]

Elenion Aura said:

I’ll also be playing an Arbiter in case anyone is interested. Though I’m lazy priority haha!

If you’ve expressed (and maintain) interest, go ahead and Post a WIP CS in the thread (or complete!)

Please poke me if anyone is waiting on answers to any specific lore questions.

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Definitely will put you as option

My WIP should be up by tmr, still searching for FC I like... :"

Elenion Aura said:

I’ll also be playing an Arbiter in case anyone is interested. Though I’m lazy priority haha!

If you’ve expressed (and maintain) interest, go ahead and Post a WIP CS in the thread (or complete!)

Please poke me if anyone is waiting on answers to any specific lore questions.

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Paperstick said:

Can you give us some examples of an appropriate sigil? I'm working on mine now, but I don't want to make something too powerful or just not fitting the game.

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Dovinique said:

Question also, will a japan/chinese outfit style character fit the theme?

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Kaliii said:

Got one more for you! How are humans treated in society? Are they treated equally, lesser? Are companions treated differently in society than your average run of the mill human? Are normal humans allowed to practice magic or is it only sanctioned individuals?

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Paperstick said:

Work In Progress! I'm having trouble figuring out how to get my images to appear, and waiting for some additional lore feedback, but she's coming along nicely.

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dragonsfire said:

Obscure little question Elenion Aura . Would all of the constellations be the same as ours in real life, or would there be fantasy versions? I can work perfectly fine with either answer. Also curious if New Aeternum have the same names/ideas for constellations as the non-magical world?

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Kaliii said:

Oh oh. On the CS it says something about a uniform. Is that just fluff or is there actually a uniform? Or is it just like a dress code kinda thing that they’d have to fall under? And if so what would it look like?

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Paperstick said:

About the innate powers section: what would you consider appropriate there? I'm planning on giving my character a contract with a jinn. Currently, she's traded her left arm in order to keep up with her peers, as before the contract she was actually kind of a failure. It gave her a boost to allow her to function magically at the level of any other arbiter character, and the new jinn arm is immune to the cold. That's all I have at the moment. Should I add more, or leave it at that?

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Headphones said:

Hello, everyone. I'm just going to shoot a few questions here to see if I could be a good fit for your upcoming group.

1. How often are players expected to post IC?
2. Are there any limits on the way in which we describe and/or show our character's appearance?

3. From what I understand, The Council is comprised of 19 Electorates, with the members of the latter having been voted into position by the populace. Meanwhile, The Conclave includes 19 Aspects, all of which were chosen by their respective predecessor. What is the dynamic between The Council and The Conclave? Do the two come together to share the Legislative Power of the country?
4. In relation to question 3, if The Council and The Conclave are the Legislative Power, then does that mean that there is no head of power, that is to say, a president, king or other?
5. What is the law-keeping force of the country? The Police?

6. So Lord Judgement is our district's Aspect? Is he in any way affiliated with the judicial power of the country or is the name just related to his powers or history of the position?
7. Are scions essentially akin to a military reserve force? That is to say, they are civilians until called upon for duty? And the Arbiters are the scions that are the first in line to be sent a notice, so they are inevitably more prepared, trained and capable than other scions?

8. Loving the Azgaar fantasy map. I used to dabble with the generator myself. Could we get some more terrain details? What type of environment are we set in?
9. You mentioned that other than being the governor of their district and the head of their household, the Aspect also has a "semi-religious" aspect to them. How, exactly? What is the country's official or most practiced religion?
10. You mentioned that the members of The Electorate can be "Aeternal, human, and other, miscellaneous beings". What are these "miscellaneous beings"?

Thank you for your time and I wish you all happy writing!

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Kaliii said:

Oh oh. On the CS it says something about a uniform. Is that just fluff or is there actually a uniform? Or is it just like a dress code kinda thing that they’d have to fall under? And if so what would it look like?

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Elenion Aura said:

Update on this:

gxxberkit kindly provided a mockup of what the Arbiter uniform might look like:

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Elenion Aura said:

All great questions! I will need to remember to compile all of these in the lore pages



The night sky would probably be filled with different constellations from the ones in our own. Feel free to invent a few! The last part is interesting...

I would imagine that Old Aeternum probably had its own names for constellations in antiquity. There was a few thousand years of exile between Old Aeternum and New Aeternum, wherein the race was displaced in a dimension with no sky, and no stars. Memory of the ancient names of those astral bodies may have been lost, or maybe reclaimed (or just renamed) when the Aeternals returned. Or they just co-opt whatever the muggles call them

Long way of saying: Maybe? What do you think?



They are technically nepo babies investigators of the law, so there is a uniform that goes along with that. I've actually commissioned a friend of mine to create mockups of what I imagine the uniforms look like! So stay tuned for that. There may be times in RP when the Arbiters don't want to be seen in their uniforms and can wear plainclothes however



That is probably sufficient! Innate powers may come more to the forefront later



1. How often are players expected to post IC?
I try not to set too strict timelines on these things because life so often gets in the way. I will say that I will try and keep the story rolling and will just ask that players communicate when they expect they'll be slower in replying.
2. Are there any limits on the way in which we describe and/or show our character's appearance?
I'm not sure I understand, but if you mean in terms of 'style' or what face claim to choose, my preference is for an 'anime' look but that's flexible(-ish). I would be a bit less keen on any real-life face claims waltzing around haha

3. From what I understand, The Council is comprised of 19 Electorates, with the members of the latter having been voted into position by the populace. Meanwhile, The Conclave includes 19 Aspects, all of which were chosen by their respective predecessor. What is the dynamic between The Council and The Conclave? Do the two come together to share the Legislative Power of the country?
Upon further consideration, I think the Council could probably be comprised of more than 19 Electorates. The number of Electors per district is probably proportional to the size of the District they serve.
They mostly keep out of each other's way. The Conclave do not get very involved in policy discussion, certainly not amongst themselves. They really don't meet very often (in fact it is usually a Bad Thing if they are all in one room together). Conversely, the Electorate meets more frequently to discuss matters of state, policy, and other issues related to governance or district disputes.

4. In relation to question 3, if The Council and The Conclave are the Legislative Power, then does that mean that there is no head of power, that is to say, a president, king or other?
That is mostly correct, there is no 'Executive Branch' of the government. There used to be 2 Aspects (perhaps aptly titled the Emperor and Empress) who would jointly fulfill this role. Due to an event which definitely needs its own lore page, those Aspects are no longer around (there were at a maximum 22 Aspects - there are now only 20) and so the duties they held have been more-or-less distributed amongst the remaining powers that be. Each District functions essentially like a kingdom all its own, though shares some connective tissue to its neighbors through common history, the electorate and the like
5. What is the law-keeping force of the country? The Police?
This is probably district-to-district. Each District's Aspect is the 'commander-in-chief' of their district's military/security; it would be rare (and somewhat frowned upon) if one district tried to police another, even in good faith, unless certain circumstances were met

6. So Lord Judgement is our district's Aspect? Is he in any way affiliated with the judicial power of the country or is the name just related to his powers or history of the position?
Correct. The characters will all be coming from The Balance - the hot pink region on the west of the New Aeternum map, just above the orange region bordering the Wastes (The Tower's district). He is not a formal authority outside of his charged district, but other Aspects do occasionally look to him for dealing with matters of dispute as an impartial arbitrator. His name, Judgment, is derived more so from his status as one of the Aspects (each follows the same naming convention; named for one of the major arcana), than any official responsibilities in a judicial capacity
7. Are scions essentially akin to a military reserve force? That is to say, they are civilians until called upon for duty? And the Arbiters are the scions that are the first in line to be sent a notice, so they are inevitably more prepared, trained and capable than other scions?
Scions are more akin to working nobility. They are members of Lord Judgment's house and family, which separates them from regular guardsmen or the like, who wouldn't bear the same titles or privileges. Scions of Lord Judgment's court are actually possibly an anomaly among the districts. Scions of a different district might have no real responsibilities and may act as fringe members of a royal lineage, skirting by on their pedigree. Some of Lord Judgment's scions may even be like this, but they wouldn't be arbiters in that case. Arbiters are a specific segment of Scions of Lord Judgment's court who have elected to serve as Lord Judgment's personal investigators, and so are trained with that in mind

8. Loving the Azgaar fantasy map. I used to dabble with the generator myself. Could we get some more terrain details? What type of environment are we set in?
I'm glad you like it! The generator is quite daunting / my use of it has been very rudimentary. I must also admit this is a bit of a blind spot for me. Each District's biome is likely magically attuned to the Aspect who rules it (the District of Lord Sun for example is likely quite arid and hot). This probably breaks a lot of rules of how terrain and geography affect environments. I will try at the very least to describe the major locales (that of Lord Judgment's and Lord Tower's Districts) in a forthcoming lore page
9. You mentioned that other than being the governor of their district and the head of their household, the Aspect also has a "semi-religious" aspect to them. How, exactly? What is the country's official or most practiced religion?
For Aeternals, there is only one religion. And it doesn't even require all that much faith. They believe in a pantheon of 22 gods, each of whom inhabits a living avatar and walks among them as Aspects. In another creation myth (they all get jumbled), there was a tribe who uncovered the secrets of the gods and thus took up their mantles. Whether the Aspects are receiving any divine communication however, they have never said
10. You mentioned that the members of The Electorate can be "Aeternal, human, and other, miscellaneous beings". What are these "miscellaneous beings"?
Yes! And thank you for pointing that out to me. I want to make a brief addendum to something I said previously
Kaliii I misspoke a little earlier. Humans are present in New Aeternum, being the descendants of whichever human tribes lived on the island when 'Old Aeternum' was ported off to the other place. There is no human immigration—which is to say, folks who live outside of New Aeternum are not permitted to move there. As for prejudices, they're probably fairly tame. Or the humans are used to the aeternals being classist pricks after all these millennia

Now to the question at hand: miscellaneous beings was my lazy way of insinuating that races beyond Human and Aeternal do occupy New Aeternum as minority populations. Jinn or spirits are somewhat of an example of this. There is room for communities of several different flavors of fantasy race. If you would like to propose any / ask if any are included, I will more than likely be open to them!

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Elenion Aura said:

Update on this:

gxxberkit kindly provided a mockup of what the Arbiter uniform might look like:

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Headphones said:

9. I'm getting a creative spark here, so I'd like to delve in a bit. Would it be alright to say that the "houses of worship" of the religion, as well as the way that the "clergy" is organised, align with the essence of each Aspect? I don't know if the question makes a lot of sense, lol, so here are some examples:
- In The Balance, the places where Lord Judgement would be celebrated wouldn't be shrines, but courthouses. Regular people can study to become judges, attorneys, magistrates, etc., but there would also be those who, be it by choice or by lineage, are a part of the "clergy" (name pending). This latter group are tasked with preserving the legacy of "Judgement" by tending to the courthouses, studying the "concepts of Judgement", serving as councillors during court sessions, giving lectures to the populace and more, but not necessarily go out in battle. I'll hold back on playing with the concept and wait for your input. I will underline that I don't intend for this to be a malicious, oppressive or unpleasant organization.
- In the state of The High Priestess, you'd have a more typical focus on monasteries and shrines with sacred ponds and lunar festivities.
- In the state of The Demon, the "house of worship" could be a casino or pleasurehouse, as one of the ideas behind that tarot card is that people willingly "chain" themselves and/or don't realise that they can easily "remove their chains", if they had the will to do it.
- The state of The Sun can have a holy house that is more like a community space that offers tame pleasant activities that just gives good vibes.
- The state of Justice can have their holy house be mixed with a library.
- etc., etc., but in every state the Aspect that is not their own can still be represented with paintings in their respective type of place.

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dragonsfire said:

Ooh! Since the Aspect’s Title itself exists as an unchanging thing separate from the Lord as an individual (even if they share memories), this makes a lot of sense!

Like you said the “essence” might have its own cultural influence and expectations, not neatly lining up with the identity of any given Lord.

Distinct structures/implementation also amplifies the geographical weirdness of New Aeternum; like if both Bastion and Dawnstrike have mountains, Bastion has it’s churches and other important buildings within mountains to defend them while, say, Dawnstrike has churches at the top of mountains so they are closer to the sun.

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