Arrhynsia
Scope
The motivation behind building Arrhynsia
The concept of the World of Arrhynsia was originally created as the homebrew setting for a D&D campaign. It existed in the DMs mind and a handful of scribbled notes and journals until one of his players (yours truly) got inspired by her character's struggles and began to write. And it was funny, and heartwrenching, and creative and - well all kinds of things. But it really was NOT organized at all. Because of that, I never could remember what was happening from week to week. So I got a World Anvil subscription and started to take what I knew of the world and document it so I would have the Keen Mind Feat without having to spend the ASI on it or keep scraps of paper lying around that I constantly lost.
Anyway, the DM liked it and we began to co-author the world (that's who Byrnkastal is) and I now have all the POWER... So I write my novels which really don't follow the campaign at all - campaigns just don't make good books. Here I build the world so our players and other people can come and learn about the world settings that I just can't seem to fit into the pages I have to write because, well, books have word count limitations because publishing is a business and the people who own and work for publishers have mortgages.
Truthfully, this WA thing has gotten way ahead of our campaign, me, the DM, and the rest of the party. I find myself inspired to create more and more lore, filling in a rich tapestry of detail based on the bones of the story arcs we have chosen to pursue. I have created stories out of whole cloth just using the prompts and the creativity of others I discover in WA to inspire me. I have created numerous "knives" and presented them to our resident knife collector (Byrnkastal), and he wrings his hands and licks his chops when I give him a new monster or backstory conflict to inspire a new game arc.
And yes, the Tolkien disease has me firmly in its grip.
The goal of the project
I'd really like people to read the stories and laugh and think and go "Man - that is SO true - that's exactly what would happen (try reading the article on the "Arcane Brothel").
Arrhynsia's Unique Selling point
Arrhynsia isn't a "revolutionary" world as much as it is "evolutionary" building on a long tradition of Tolkienesque races, but adding my own magic systems and origin stories. I am in the process of changing the structure of the world to integrate story telling into all the major articles I write, and I try to give the articles I write a voice - a point of view if you will. I think the stories that happen here in Arrhynsia are fascinating and if you read an article I write, it should amuse and interest you and make you want to know more about the characters in the world and the adventures they have. After all, what is earth except for a place for us to stand on while we express our unique stories?
For key articles I try to put my head into a situation where information is being shared then write that information through the voice of the person telling the reader what is going on. I can't do that for everything, but it's characteristic of my writing style to give my work personality and voice. SO humans get described through the arrogant dwarven outsider's viewpoint as a race that can't get out of it's own way. A key location of my first novel - the Broken Staff Inn - is presented as an advertising brochure. A great dwarven writer (Thoven Chorter) uses his craft of story to erase the shadows of guilt and pain from a friend's life. An island culture is described by an personality oozing archaeologist and explorer (Egiten Aizuain) who is interviewed by a modern day podcaster. A story of a major battle between the dark elves and the dwarves is told in notes written by a man crushed by grief at the death of his friend, trying to put together a speech for his soldiers ala Lincoln's Gettysberg Address (The Loss). These are stories that have the feel of real people.
It makes Arrhynsia more human (ok insert your favorite sapient species here), and worth a read.
Theme
Genre
This book is clearly fantasy, with a transformative future, moving from earth-like technologies of 2000 years ago to modern tech in the future. The basic technology time frame is roughly 900-1500 AD earth equivalent with radical accelerations in certain areas enabled by magic.
Like refrigeration - and radio - and air travel (on a personal scale).
Reader Experience
I'd like my readers to be fascinated - not really knowing exactly what is going to show up on their screens next as they explore. I want it relatable to today's world, and to make my readers think.
The world of Arrhynsia is no more terrifying than ours, though it is in a whole lot more danger. Things have been tough on this little ball of mud. Just say'in.
As in the real world, there are places in Arrhynsia that are much darker and less safe than others. My hero comes from a very dark place (Coremeum) where the very survival of his people (Dark Elves) is at stake every day - subjected to disease and starvation, living in fear of crazy gods and powerful clans, with desparate rulers clinging to power to save their lives, terrible medicine, no electricity, no indoor plumbing... Very much like what life was like for pretty much everyone on earth for millions of years up until 1700 (and actually still is in some places), only without the life-giving rays of the sun (thank the gods for magic). The surface world is a paradise to him and bright as can be (literally), so even though its got problems, its an amazing place.
Reader Tone
This is a world in trouble. It's got a lot of problems to solve and the gods are really really tired of cleaning up the constant stream of messes. They would really like people to not make a mess of things so much. Just a couple thousand years of rest. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently it is...
Recurring Themes
To make the world a better place, there must be sacrifice. Nothing worthwhile or good comes without cost.
Trying to make sense of things is going to drive you crazy. Sometimes things don't make sense. Sometimes they just are. But that's ok, keep trying anyway. Making things make sense is usually better than the alternative.
Hope is stupid. You have to hope anyway, because it's the only thing that keeps disaster and evil from winning overwhelmingly.
Family is the most precious gift we get.
Hating people is stupid. Just forgive and let it go. Your forgiveness is not for them - it's for you. Why give that jerk continued power to make you miserable - spending your nights angry and filled with hate while your persecutor is sleeping like a baby and not thinking about you at all? Who won that one? Forgive and be free. Then you win.
You don't always get what you want. Sometimes you barely get what you need.
You have to be able to change or you'll die.
You don't have to agree with people to have them be a valued and important part of your world.
Don't underestimate the potential for evil in people. People can be real asses and do horrible things.
You have to stop evil (at least try) when you see it or you are part of it.
Sometimes people do horrible evil things for desperate reasons that you have no right to judge. It doesn't make what they did right or any less evil, it just means we have to hold their hands for longer when it's time for them to heal.
People need to be seen and have value.
Someone has to take out the trash, clean up the mess, be the grown up. Sometimes that means doing unpopular, mean things, even things you might call bad.
Someone has to lead. Someone has to follow. We all contribute and give what we can to make the world better.
Not everyone is going to like you.
Constructive train wrecking is a real thing.
Character Agency
Like in the real world, people do the changing in Arrhynsia and it can be healing (think Jesus, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, or Budda) or it can be murderous (like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot...), but what you do MATTERS.
The actions of people can change everything or very little, and it isn't always easy to tell which actions will have big impacts and which ones will be negligible. Who knows if that child you fed today will be a community or even world leader tomorrow? Who knows if the well you paid to drill in Africa or the education or the bicycle for a girl to get to school without getting raped will get her the education she needs to not starve? The micro-business loan you sponsored will probably help and might actually raise a family out of poverty enough that they will have food for all their children. Maybe the AIDS assistance or vaccines and medical care you made possible will keep some teacher or doctor or inventor or musician alive. Maybe the young person fleeing their pimp in SF will get a chance at a new life from that donation you made to the human trafficking shelter. Just maybe the countless hours you spent being a personal suicide hotline for a friend when their girlfriend dumps them will pay off and they will get their feet back under them and stabilize to live a fulfilling life.
Actions can really, really matter in real life and in this pretend world. That's where heros are born - and villians. Try to make the actions you and your characters choose be good ones because the bad actions have consequences you don't want. Really.
That's over 170 million irl people killed not as a result of war, but by their own repressive governents (led by those bad guys listed above) in the last century alone.
How about we not do that again?
How about our characters try not do it in Arrhynsia?
Focus
Drama
Coremeum
The Dark Caverns are in an uproar. Someone has been killing consorts of the priestesses of the circle of Ligeoa and it's ugly. The infighting and bickering has resulted in several high ranked persons in different clans being poisoned or assasinated. Recently, a purgatine of an entire military clan was attempted. Ligeoa herself has put en end to this. She appeared in Coremaeum and took control of the high circle, slew her high priestess for unknown reasons, and led her people in a full withdrawal to hidden caverns under the city. None of the surface dwellers can find the dark elves or understand what has happened to them - but it seems too good to be true that they are finally gone...The Whispering Plains
The humans flipped out over some stupid raiding of a trade caravan by some orcish tribes on the Whispering Plains. They shouldn't have been there in orcish territory in the first place, but the human king was probably looking for an excuse to get rid of the orcs anyway. The humans fought their way all the way to the orcish capital - where the goddess Yulasta lived, and the High Paladin of Guldari, Lord Walter Ralsh killed her. That was probably a mistake. Well, ok, not probably. It was definitely a mistake. Yulasta was holding the weave together, repairing it, and now it's falling apart. The eldritch have been wiggling through the holes and invading communities all over Arrhynsia.Whoops.The humans are riding to the rescue to help all their neighbors, bringing in armies of hard bitten warriors and knights. Oh, and they're graciously leaving their troops in place to "protect their good neighbors from the eldritch invasion". Yeah right. Of course, Yulasta was a very gentle goddess, and she kept the orcs in a passive, mostly harmless state in world affairs (within limits. I mean, they are orcs after all). Now that she's gone, the orcs have no restraint on their visciousness. The dwarves pet silver dragon Argentum took umbridge over the entire situation and united the orcs in a common cause to destroy the murderers of their mother goddess. The world has never seen a united orc army working together to acheive a common cause before.
"It is possible that that "starting a war with the orcs" thing might have been a mistake."They don't call this one "The Lost War" for nothing. The name was picked before anyone even knew who won.
The Echovad Forrest
Oh those elves. What a mess. Ever since the Betrayal, the whole lot of them have gone about cradling their dead god wounds to them like a woman carries her sickly child. Humph. The orcs never had a god at all until Jiisho took an interest in them - and even then they had to lose an entire generation of their males to bloodshed before they finally got a deity of their own. So it's not a pretty sight. They're down to 3 demi-gods now, the Iconoclast, the Ascetic, and the Green Lady who is deadly ill. There isn't much in the way of leadership left. The tribes of the elves have all picked their own interests and follow their own random ways. They certainly won't be able to stand up to an invasion by the eldritch monsters that just took down an entire floating city... crash. But I'm sure that they'll figure out how to get it backup in the air again - just as soon as they dig out and bury the thousands of bodies that are left in the wreckage. Wouldn't want the ghouls to come up out of the forest to eat them now would we?Uftlon
Where is Council Member Nidri anyway? She should have been back from the human orc war months ago, but no one in the dwarven kingdom has heard from her. The transportation networks are down, the communication options are limited. What's the dwarven government to do? Well, trying to not have your king die in the middle of a world crisis would be a good start. Too bad you can't count on dwarves to do ANYTHING the easy way... And of course, if all else fails, you can always hire an ignorant mercenary band to sort it all out and save the world. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that strategy?The Land of the Short
They called it the Short Plague, but it wasn't short for the short. Perhaps a hundred years or so. A plague that selectively kills haflings and gnomes, but doesn't touch other races? You would think that maybe it had been magically enhanced for exactly that purpose. Hmmmmm
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