There is an elemental cycle to all things.
The Blue Age was an age of Water...
The Green Age was an age of Earth...
The Brown Age is an age of Fire...
The White Age will be an age of Air...
The White Age will be an age of ice and snow, of stone and wind-swept rock. The great ice sheets will flow down from the north like water, and the sun will be a dim white sphere in an indigo sky.
The White Age occurs when Rajaat is finally freed, his form corrupted into elemental water and rain, bound now to the elemental planes. His rebirth returns the blue sun to the sky, but the change is only temporary as the star consumes itself, its outer shell exploding outwards with the magic used to release the War-bringer, leaving the small white orb the survivors of the White Age know.
Rajaat becomes encased in ice, his form frozen and trapped, but not before he metes out very final punishments upon the Sorcerer-Kings who betrayed him. Fanatical armies of the War-bringer, believing he is an elemental saviour, clash with the armies of the Sorcerer-Kings -- preservers fight preservers, druids battle druids, and fantastic machines of war are built by the psionic orders.
The Sorcerer-Kings fall, the battles between the armies loyal to Rajaat and the armies of the Sorcerer-Kings consume the world once more, and Rajaat is trapped by the death-spells of the last of the Sorcerer-Kings -- Oronis' last sacrifice.
Ancient psionically-powered technology is all that keeps the few huddled cities and their survivors alive; the thri-kreen have adapted themselves once more to the world's changes and live upon the icy plains; great, toothy beasts rule the snow lands; and terrible war machines of crystal and metal roam the land still, fulfilling their destructive directives, propogating themselves in hives.
Or this may not be what happens at all...this future is only a possibility...the Age of Air, however, is not. The White Age is a certainity.
Idea:
Because of the impact of defiling magic, the elemental cycle did not work out "properly". The age of water and the age of earth did not know magic and became the ages according to the elemental cycle. But defiling magic caused the later ages to be "tainted" with the element next in the cycle. The Age of Fire became tainted with air, becoming the Age of Sun.
And the Age of Air will be tainted with water, becoming the Age of Rain.
Comments?
Are you getting a commission on pre-release sales of Frostburn because I want it now.
Supercool
.Personally, I like desert over snow, but thats just me. Still a well thought out idea.
Good job.
Yoink!
Mine! Mine!! My preciousssssss!!!
Originally posted by Elonarc
Defiling magic caused the later ages to be "tainted" with the element next in the cycle. The Age of Fire became tainted with air, becoming the Age of Sun. And the Age of Air will be tainted with water, becoming the Age of Rain.
I'd been looking for a way to include the paraelements in the cycle, and that's PERFECT! Thank you, Elonarc!
And I think Mark's named the idea: Frostburn is just awesome!
(Or, I don't know, is "Frostburn: Under the Winter Sun" too wordy?)
I'll include some ideas on how this could be used in a regular DS campaign and some other notes shortly.
[After rereading, decided I should detail this a little more. The Rhul Thaun bridged the Blue Age with the Green Age by tapping into the sun. Using Raven's idea, The Age of Water was ended by destroying the Brown Tide with Sun, the element exactly opposite of Water and Earth. So the bridge between Earth and Fire would be Rain, Air and Water would be Magma, and so on. Or perhaps the bridge could be in between the two?]
Oh, and on the Bridges, it could be that a paraelement must be the bridge, but not necessarily in a pattern, but no element or paraelement could repeat (so the Deadlands might have already been a bridge, like you said, with Magma).
First, Frostburn could be used by regular DarkSun groups as a short side-trek, as a shadow -- a possibility of the future -- they stumble into through the Black, perhaps through the power of a curious Sorcerer-King (Nibenay would seem the best choice, as "the Shadow King") experimenting with properties of the Black. The period might be entered by an adventuring group who discovers a time-travelling artifact. Another possibility is that they might be sent forth by the Mind Lords to investigate the future, much as the Mind Lords themselves did so long ago.
As to the name, Frostburn: I didn't realize this was an actual product being produced by WotC! Doh! Ah well, I like the name regardless and will probably keep it, assuming someone doesn't suggest something better.
For the psionic war-machines of crystal-and-metal that are coming down from the north, attacking and spreading, I was thinking of using the Sheens featured in Dragon magazines #258 & #270 (IIRC), modified appropriately. And I found 3E writeups of them in the 3E Creature Catalog.
The leaders of the thri-kreen have modified their peoples once more to survive in the icy wastes. Their chitin is white and gray or blue, like the ice and snow; like the remorhaz, they can generate their own intense heat from plates on their backs. In the wastelands, there are only hunters who hunt one another. They are still pack hunters, chasing down the fanged wooly beasts of the wastelands, beasts like the yeti, the Athasian mammoth, and the frost worm.
Other creatures of the wastes (or things like them), in addition to those listed above: remorhaz, Athasian ploar bear, cryohydra, snow kirre, winter wolf, thoqqua, bulette, worg, daggoran, drakes, dune reapers, sandcrawler, etc. I'm thinking lots of strange polar insects, and ice/crystal creatures (ie: like crystal spiders and such), and various predatory pack creatures (even the mammoths are vicious killers).
Great icy caverns hold ancient cities and frozen artifacts of the long past, though such places are always surrounded by wild and terrible beasts and protected by unquiet ghosts. All is not frozen waste and icy glacier, though. Pine forests stretch out along the tundras, and prarie grasses occasionally break through the snow in the warm months, when hardy berries and succulent roots also grow and ripen.
The people are carnivores, though, for there is no way to engage in agriculture or grow foodstuffs, so they must hunt for meat, and gather what few berries and roots they can during the warm months. Hunting Parties strike out from the cities regularly, searching for fresh meat and materials in the wasteland. Most return. There is little trade or travel between cities -- strangers are suspect: as ghosts, or as barbarians loyal to the Warbringer.
Living cities maintained by psionic technology contain the huddled survivors of the last wars. Powered by the psionic energies of its inhabitants, the cities generate internal heat against the freezing cold of the outer world, and protect the inhabitants from the dangers beyond with walls of thick, black chitin.
The cities are not paradises, nor without problems: savage beasts and barbarians attack regularly necessitating repairs, things wear out and need to be replaced, crystals fragment or burn up, obsidian orbs need to be replaced, pipes break and clog -- the city itself catching ill or becoming uncooperative -- and raw materials have to be fed into the "furnaces" to feed the living shell.
Others eke out livings in small fortresses and camps on the tundra, built of hewn logs, tanned leather and insect shells, or in cavern complexes in the mountains and hills. These are mostly barbarians, the survivors of those groups who were loyal to Rajaat, the Warbringer.
People worship the Seven Immortals: those fabled heroes who fought against the evil of the Warbringer. Their true names are lost to history, and the people know them only by the names which they have been given: Lord Beast (Hamanu), Lady Forest (Lalai-Puy), Blood Warrior (Atzetuk), Guide of the Dead (Dregoth), the Shadow Twins (Nibenay & Andropinis), and Guardian Sun (Oronis) -- whose sacrifice saved the world. Clerics of these tend large public shrines to the Immortals (though most families maintain small, private shrines as well) and usually live in positions of leadership among the cities, running and coordinating their continued existance.
Mechanically, the clerics can gain power from the Immortals because while the former sorcerer-kings are dead, the elemental vortices that powered their spell-granting remain, answering now to any who call to them without the minds of the sorcerer-kings to limit dispensation of the power flowing through them.
An eighth Immortal exists, but he is whispered of in feared awe. Sometimes called the Selfish One when people do not wish to speak his name and draw his attention, his name is the Coiled Drake -- who was once called Daskinor -- who fled and hid when the Warbringer came. Depending on the city, he is seen as either a benevolent but distant force, who stayed behind to help the world, or a master of monsters and a scheming coward.
To the barbarians who do not respect the Immortals, the Coiled Drake is also known as the Wizard of the Obsidian Tower. In the icy north there is a tower of dark glass; the tower is home to a powerful wizard who (it is claimed) will grant any wish to the one daring and foolish enough to reach the height of his black home. Of those who have tried, none have ever returned.
This was once the city of Eldaarich, a city buried in ice, a city whose people dug deep into the earth with the coming of Rajaat, digging down and down and down, becoming less and less human through the ages. Now they are horrid, ghoulish, beast-things that haunt the ice-buried city beneath the tower and the black gulfs spiralling down into the earth.
Other legends tell of monastic psionic orders of incredible might and longevity (The Fortress of the Order of Candles), and of a warm paradise that exists somewhere in the frozen wastes, where there is so much food you could never go hungry and no monsters or barbarians.
When the Warbringer battled the Seven Immortals, a great rift was torn into the Gray, and now the two planes sometimes mix, the mists of the Gray spreading across the landscape, filling chasms, valleys, and forest clearings, calling up the buried dead and awakening ghosts. The Mists are places where the Gray has leaked through into this world. They are dangerous, deadly places because of the undead that roam them, and because those who become lost in the mists quickly join the same ranks. The Mists are luckily short-lived events, dispersing over short periods of time, except for the Plains of Mist.
Surrounding the icy prison of the Warbringer, the Plains of Mist are a vast flatland that roils with the mists of the Gray. The mists here are constant and eternal, only their depth changes: at some times they may be no deeper than one's ankle or knee, at other times they may rise to block even vision of the heavens. Unlike the Mists elsewhere, however, the mists of the plains are not deadly to the living, but there are other dangers: those who fall here return to life as undead. To the barbarians yet loyal to the Warbringer, the Plains are a sacred place where they bury their dead: so that they may serve their saviour-god in death as they did in life.
Though there is no longer a stigma against them, wizards are rare for the simple reason that the life necessary to fuel their magic is sparse to non-existant in most places of the world. Wizards in these days have learned to draw forth the energy of living beings, though it is difficult (the wizard must overcome a DC of varying intensity) and any wizard who does so will be attacked, they may also utilize their own lifeforce -- burning it away to power their magic, though few live long who rely on this. For the most part, wizards use specially crafted obsidian orbs from the cities, which contain energies they can utilize, or live in the Barren Forests.
Defilers are incredibly powerful, but tear the life energies from things permanently, injuring, sickening and killing. Preservers can keep this damage to a minimum, causing only naseau and temporary weakness, and their obsidian orbs last much longer for them before burning out, but their magics are not as powerful.
Stuff that's missing: what exactly IS psionic technology? Examples? Outline of the cities as it relates to this and how they function. Role of the elements (and paraelements), the druids. What the various races are like currently. Various other locations and different places.
Good job!
A few questions, though, about this wintery hell-land Athas has become:
1) Is Rajaat still imprisoned? You mentioned him becoming "encased in ice." Is he still capable of action regardless, as is the devil prince of the fifth layer of the Nine Hells, in the Greyhawk cosmology?
2) I take it the Plane of Water has transformed into Ice, and Rain has transformed into Snow? (After all, Mud became Silt, with the turning of the Ages...)
--other than that, nice idea! NB