A pitch for a shared world starting point

[Rurik]

Here is an idea I'll through out for as a starting point for a shared world. It is actually based on an idea I've been planning on for a bit - first for MRQ, then having decided that that system wasn't quite right I've been keeping it on a back burner waiting for BRP. It is based on a city with a mix of cultures and a nearby ruin fouled with evil, and was already had gate openers - though in the original setting they only opened one gate - as the setting was originally titled "The City on the Edge of Hell" I'll let you guess which one.

There is more to it than just this summary - I've developed some of the cults and have some notes on nearby cultures, and actually have some good ideas for human cultures that sprang from the human only/fantasy races discussion. Gates could easily exist to ther parts of the world as well.

So without further ado here is the pitch:

The city commonly known as Portal has stood on the banks of the River Jule for as long as any of today's people can remember. It had been ruled since before known history by the ancient and now dead race called the Akershule, and they called it Asherayne.

The Akershule were powerful sorcerers, and knew ways of opening gates to other worlds. Some say that they were never of this world, and came to the world from one of the gates, but know one knows for sure. Though they built great structures and knew great magic, they never expanded their control over the primitive peoples around them, ruling only over their city and the surrounding lands that supported it. They traded with the barbarian cultures around them in times of peace, and were brutally efficient at defending their lands in times of war. And always the markets of Asherayne were filled with wonders from beyond the gates.

Then, many hundreds of years ago, they opened a gate to somewhere they should not have. Hordes of demons poured through and overran the part of the city west of the River Jule, besieged the rest of the city, and spread out to the surrounding lands. For over a decade they besieged Asherayne but could not overrun it's fortifications. Eventually, the surrounding peoples united against the evil that the Akershule had unleashed, and drove it back and lifted the siege. The Akershule let the barbarian armies into their city and united they attacked across the remaining bridges into the west city and drove the demons back into their gate, and the Akershule cast magics to try and seal the gate.

Once the enemy from beyond was defeated the barbarian armies inside the city walls turned on the Akershule and attacked them, killing as many of them as they could and driving the rest out to their keeps in the mountains north of the city. There the surviving Akershule, their civilization all but destroyed, entombed themselves in mountain catacombs and committed suicide. They left inscriptions on their tombs promising to return to right the wrongs of the past - though no one knows if they mean the wrongs committed upon them by the young races or the wrongs they committed by them upon the world by unleashing hell.

Today, the city is called Portal by most, and the east city is ruled by the descendents of those who conquered it. It's population represents all nearby cultures, though the natives themselves are mainly an urbanized people, a mixed breed of all the surrounding peoples. The gates still stand, and though cults have arisen around these mysterious portals, no one truly understands their working. The West city is still abandoned and haunted by evil things, a great ruin where the demon gate still stands. Hellish things seep through it still to haunt the west city and surrounding lands, though the ancient magics have held back the hordes of demons - so far.

Any feedback, thoughts, or cool ideas?

[frogspawner]

Nice one! I think it's great, and Portal/Asherayne well deserves a place on SharedWorld.

The western ruins are a perfect adventuring site, as are the tombs of the Akershule, for those who don't mind a longer trek. The city might be a melting-pot of semi-civilized barbarians, inheritors of ill-understood alien wonders, riven by loyalties to outer tribes/odd cults - very good scope for interesting local characters. And if any characters did 'seep through' from other worlds, anything could happen to them - and probably straight away! Hailed as gods, feared as sorcerors, robbed for their alien wonders, attacked as demons... Marvellous. I can hardly wait!

[Atgxtg]

Maybe the mass suicide was really a ritual to embody certain members with enteral life (or unlife), and a few Akershule still exist and keep watch over the gate to ensure that what once happened can never happen again?

[Trifletraxor]

Maybe it wasn't suicide, just cryogenic freezing?

SGL.

[Rurik]

Thanks for the good feedback. The setting seemed like a pretty easy fit to many of the ideas going around. It was designed around oppurtunities for adventure (ancient ruins and wonderous artifacts) and even had gates (well originally one), and a reason for them to be mysterious rather than easily controlled.

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Maybe the mass suicide was really a ritual to embody certain members with enteral life (or unlife), and a few Akershule still exist and keep watch over the gate to ensure that what once happened can never happen again?

Well I must admit that the original campaign arc idea may have involved a couple minor plot devices involving the weakening of the wards on the demon gate and the return of the ancients...

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Maybe it wasn't suicide, just cryogenic freezing?

Surely you mean ancient sleeping magics?

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Maybe it wasn't suicide, just cryogenic freezing?

...but occasionally they need to come out (at night, to minimize thaw) seeking transfusions (because blood isn't perfectly preserved)...?

Originally Posted by Rurik

Well I must admit that the original campaign arc idea may have involved a couple minor plot devices involving the weakening of the wards on the demon gate and the return of the ancients...

Wow. SciFi and CoC crossover already. Spot on!

[tzunder]

This is the one for me so far. Can we mix in multi-planar/multi-cultural stuff. Are you proposing this as an actual shared project? Can you actually let it out of your grasp and let others develop it? What if 'they' take it somewhere you didn't imagine, will you feel you have lost your baby? These are all very important questions when you consider making this 'shared-world'.

[Rurik]

Originally Posted by tzunder

This is the one for me so far. Can we mix in multi-planar/multi-cultural stuff. Are you proposing this as an actual shared project? Can you actually let it out of your grasp and let others develop it? What if 'they' take it somewhere you didn't imagine, will you feel you have lost your baby? These are all very important questions when you consider making this 'shared-world'.

This is definately being put out there as a starting point for a shared project, and in doing so I realise it may be taken far away from my original concept; I am fine with that. I'm excited to try a shared world and offered this up to to see if there was interest and maybe get the ball rolling.

Already on the Geography thread some pretty wild ideas have come out and I love it - even if many or even all of them never get used for this shared project I think the brainstorming has been great.

As a setting it has been kicking around for well over a year now looking for a home - it was originally going to be a setting for MRQ, but then for a couple of reasons I moved away from that, BRP never being far from my mind as a home for it. I have a bunch of notes on the city, cults, a couple of cultures, and a fairly detailed campaign arc, but I have not put so much effort into it that I don't mind seeing it go in a different direction. The name Portal is completely new - I came up with it when I decided to propose this as a starting point for this project (it seems to fit well).

[tzunder]

Are you okay to CC licence all of this and then we can start? This is exactly the city I want to help develop with you..

All the licence/author and systems/setting integration questions need resolving too.

I think that we would need a wiki to start with, I think our host here at BRP Central must be working on that as I type!

[Rurik]

I am entirely ready to CC this. I will get my notes organised and ready to post on the wiki - all of which is open to reworking to fit the concensus.

I'm very open to any licensing. CC for fluff and OGL for crunch seems like a good solution to me though. In all honesty I'll go along with what is quickest - I'd just assume move on knowing that all I am due from anything I add is my attribution.