The Blog: Telrhin Updates and World Errata

A short piece on the night sky and how it reflects the larger cosmos of Telrhin. More than a map of stars and the solar system, it tells the story of the world.
 

The sky above is dark and thick with stars, rich and vibrant and full of life.

A velvet dark ceiling, gathered around the black void at the center: the Womb, the Well of Dreams, the dream-dark source of all things.

The three moons find their place too: Luna the red goddess, Tala the grey, and Mashana the broken moon that circles the great dark world of Orh heavy in the skies above.

Behold the gloriously brutal critical hit table from Arduin Grimoire! Prostrate yourself before its greatness.

I had almost forgotten about Arduin until I stumbled on the delightfully brutal crit table. This is from 1977 for those of you who don't know Arduin, which is its own great piece of gaming history from the David A. Hargrave.

Songs from the Drunk Bard (snippets from the ongoing work on Telrhin): A short piece from the section on Rakshem: Khitagan and the Three Lands

The Divine Empress

The great god Kiyotamaka crossed the world and lay ruin to everything in his wake. As he flew over the Three Lands, a lone girl stood her ground in defiance, and he spared her for her bravery.

This is a snippet from the history appendix about Talon. The image shows her incarnation as Maragul, the Faceless Mother.

Goddess, demi-god, the Black Queen. Her hand has been in conflicts throughout the story of Telrhin, from the discord among the Five Gods through the betrayal of the Kaladri and the Eldring Wars.

Goddess of the broken moon Mashana, the Golden Queen liberating the world from the tyranny of the old order, leaving war and famine in her wake. 

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is in my fat geeky hands! Added to the collection.

Pre-ordered from Labyrinth Games & Puzzles here in DC, best Friendly Local Game Store.

And that's not a stock photo, those are my books! I bought that original 1E DMG in 1980 at a hobby shop in Princeton New Jersey.

I fed the World Overview page to Google's NotebookLM, and this is what it created. An AI generated discussion of the world between two AI podcasters.

"It's like a dragon just swooped in and stole your expectations."

Apparently Telrhin has no unicorns.

At the end of the day, covered in the dust of a few tombs, any adventurer worth their salt makes their way to the tavern.

A place to kick back, brag about the day's victories, mourn the losses, and enjoy a good pint.

This is an excerpt covering the monomyth of Serpent Earth and the premise of the world story.
 

The world is changing, writhing, cracking under the strain of time. Serpent Earth is waking, her many dreams fracturing as she uncoils. 

In the beginning the world was a scattered sky of different dreams, each one a world, born from the Womb and the Well of Dreams. Born from the sleeping minds of sleeping gods.

This is a short piece demonstrating the mundane magic of a fantasy world. In this case a temple in a major city, and the kind of things considered impressive but expected in a world of dragons, gods, and magic.

This is from some new work in the Field Guide to the Lowlands, in a section on Courts and Intrigue.

Very possible this was all influenced by too many games of this:

Lockdown gaming has driven us to this... pic.twitter.com/T7US1yTL5E

— The World of Telrhin (@Telrhin) June 9, 2020

In a world where the laws of science are mutable, and there's a palpable existence of good and evil, how do people define reality?

Each campaign can embrace its own direction for this, but the default worldview for most people is one of these.

The Gods Want You to Die (and other fun facts): in the end, every god wants you to die. They may promise health or safety, love or happiness, but what matters is your faith in them. That devotion binds your spirit to them and helps deliver your glow. It's ravenous and desperate and it drives the gods more than anything else. Without it they wither and die.

A few thoughts on a recent one-off adventure. It was a tomb in the Lowlands in a place called the Valley of the Drowned Kings.

The adventure was meant to be easy. It was a classic "go explore the dungeon" setup for some friends, two of them new to the whole Dungeons & Dragons thing. It was set in the Lowlands, the main gateway region of the world that's easy to grasp and step into. All standard fantasy fare.

I decided to jump start the story at a campsite a half day from the tomb. They had a map. They had an NPC guide.

"...in the soft hum of people’s sleeping minds I’ll tell you more. I’ll tell you about the Nine Rulers of the Seven States, the Lost City, the Darig Kingdoms, and the forgotten past of the Venthi people. Because here in Brok Nine every dream has found its way, and with it every secret and every truth."

This is from the work I was doing on a second edition of Maelstrom Storytelling for Hubris Games back in 2006. I think it was Chapter Three with a note to call it "At the Storm's Edge".

The Pox Crain is a bar in the dusty streets of Dryer Mob. Steps lead down to the relative cool of a low vaulted cellar near the Ivory Souk in Southwarren. It smells of hookahs, fish oil from the small kitchen, and cabbage. Sounds of the souk drift in from the street above and mix with the conversations of old men playing tiles, washer women in the alley behind, and the talk of travelers, traders, and the occasional drunk.

To most people, that's all there is. But to some, the Pox Crain is a vexing series of half-seen pathways into the Veil, full of whispers and echoes of dreams, spirits and the dead.

Serpent Earth coiled herself to sleep after the Long Night in which all things came to be. The black sun Syr grew ever larger until it threatened to overcome the gold sun Hael. In time they struggled, as Serpent Earth slept on.

If there were such a thing as archaeologists they'd find remnants of forgotten gods as well as different interpretations of the current ones. There's Bachnel, the brother of Gahl who was god of night and dreams, and the Goat God of the Grasslands called Puknet. There are ancient Rayikian texts with references to Borgia goddess of seizures and possession. There are whole religions that are lost, like the Sanctum of the Four Winds.

Wolves, bears, garden-looting rabbits: real problems for medieval villagers. They also had bandits, plagues, and feudal wars. Add in some griffons, goblins, ghosts, dire wolves, and a few heartless fairies and you wonder how normal people get through a single day in a fantasy world.

How do things work in a world with magic? In games we tend to talk about monsters in the wild, in tombs, in dungeons. What about the villages? These tiny outposts of civilization have to have some way of surviving.

These are some thoughts on how it all can work, making better sense for a world while adding layers of story, and even a few adventure hooks.

It all ended in the mining town of Pitfife near the Copper Lake in the Cairn Hills. Grimly, as expected. The final showdown with Kleg Blacklung, the man who killed their grandfather, came down to the wire. Abas and Kleg took each other down, and though not dead the brothers were bleeding out and the last of the Rahmans standing was a henchwoman named Hissie. Not that Kleg had many men left, and some of them were still on fire: but either the brothers would die there on the floor or at best find themselves chained and battered on their way to execution.

Adventure Setup: The Rope Bridge Frying Pan

I wrote this as an adventure setup, in the style of a (long) event promo blurb:

The gorge looked a lot nicer when you weren’t running for your life. The sagging rope bridge bounces more than you’d like and you’re not making good time, what with all the loot you’re carrying.

A short stab at the world origin myth from the Lowlanders world view, which is one of many Westron variants of the Serpent Earth mythology.

Odom Tan is the 'great uncle', a folk figure who travels between the farms and towns, whose real identity as Tandim Ulgrasar is forgotten -- and unimportant -- to the rural Lowlanders.

Diagram of the Three Worlds: Prime (known world), the Embers, and the Listar (Spirit World). The Traum is its own reality, a greater embryo for the inception of the original Chimerums before the Diegesic Struggle and the Antedivisian world.