A Fistful of Setting Questions

 

Le Naturaliste

This blog will return to the regularly scheduled 'Planescape Shit and Magical Steam Trains' in a bit, but I wanted to ask some setting questions of my own, since Vayra's inspired me. And then probably answer them. 

1. Which specific NPC do I want to piss off the least? 
2. Which god should I want to piss off the most? 
3. What's the worst thing I could meet at a crossroads? 
4. What's the nearest thing that can utterly destroy me to your starting town? Or starting town equivalent? 
5. Is apotheosis open to my character? If not, why not? 
6. Do people in your world have souls? Why? 
7. Does jazz exist in your setting yet? Can I invent it and not be stoned to death? 
8. What's the weirdest country/polity/region/area on your map? 
9. Do guns exist yet? If they do, is there anything making them weird/different?
10. Is there a divide between mundane/magical animals? 

I'll answer these for Aclas at some point. 

(Edit, 12/02/12)

AND THAT TIME IS NOW

1. I probably have too many answers to this question. A good contender would be Vec, the head of the Vis Guild, the most powerful of the Old Guilds. The Vis Guild has the power of a small country and Vec can muster it all. They're also a master inventor, judging by their highly advanced 'ironlimb' prostheses and construct bodyguards. Nothing is really known about Vec beyond this. 

2. The most powerful Aspects are the stuffy Triumvirate, (Lantasa, Aspect of the Harvest, Ozo, Aspect of Civilisation, and Wyrva, Aspect of Law), who've banded together to make everything fuckin boring, boo!

(Depending on your viewpoint. Their church tends to be reactionary, anti-magic ('mundanist') and luddite, although the Aspects themselves are too distant to get a real read.)

3. During the day? A deserting war-wizard with a grudge. At night? A Voidling, (creature of Anti-Life spawned from the Void Between Stars) far and away. Devils in this setting don't appear at crossroads unless you're in the Underdark. 

4. In the starting city, Iskadar, there's a homeless, amnesiac archmage wandering around the lower levels of the city (it's five cities stacked on top of each other, basically) called Cadavyx. He's chill, though. Also, 4 days train and a day's walk away there's an Ancient Dragon in the hills of Ivra called Skalar. 

5. Aptheosis is open! You just have to be the most pertinent example of something for a generation (best warrior, best inventor, best musician, best ruler, etc. etc.) and then compete with the current Aspect of That Thing for the position of Aspecthood. There's 48 Aspects and some are harder to unseat than others. 

Or just become a really powerful wizard and you're basically a god by then. 

6. Yes! Life and Magic come from Stars. Stars and Souls are the same thing, in the same way a Planet is the same thing as a grain of sand. This is why Voidlings eat souls, because it's the only way to snuff out a Star (their sworn enemies) whose light burns them. 

7. Yes! You don't need to invent it. It's all the rage. 

8. Other than the entire underdark, what remains of the state of Viciar is a giant Shattering, where the laws of physics have become shifting and liquid. Inside Viciar, the sky changes colour, time dilates, chairs talk to you and solid, liquid and gas are interchangeable, among other things. They grow very weird drugs there. 

9. Yes! They're powered by Vis, which is a recently invented 'Modern Fuel' of magic suspended in water. It explodes if silver (which disrupts magic) is put into it - guns have silver hammers and firing pins. 

10. Nope! Most dogs are druids, all foxes are bards and many sharks are wizards.