Origins of magic
Origins of Magic is an example setting for Gempunks.
A few decades ago it was discovered that implanting gems harvested from terrifying creatures could allow people to cast spells or power specially designed items. The discoverers were not particularly eager to give up their knowledge, and while the essential gem power is now easy enough to uncover for those who have time or money to investigate, the natures of particular spells or items are often jealously guarded secrets.
Spells and Magic Items
Since magic is so recent, advanced spell theory has not yet been developed, making it difficult to learn more spells by gaining levels in classes like apprentice. You cannot learn a spell using a class if you have never watched that spell being cast before. It takes a DC 15 Items check to craft a magic item if you have not closely examined a specimen of that item, and failure means that you cannot try to craft that item again until you have examined such a specimen.
Civilizations
Desert Tribes of the East
Population is heavily concentrated around its two major rivers, lake, and ocean.
The exotic equatorial deserts and oases of the east are populated by various tribes, some of them most civilized indeed. The most powerful of the human tribes ascribes to the philosophy of "Necrotic Animism": they believe that the essence of peoples' beings continues to reside in their bodies after death. Sultans and wealthy merchants among them pay necromancers to have their bodies puppeted about, exposed to things they never got to experience in life. The less well-to-do simply have anesthetic and preservatives soaked into their bodies before burial.
Word of research into the nature of the soul and how it leaves the body after death has reached these people, who variously dismiss it as either lies, blasphemous lies, or merely an observation about some less important element of a person's psyche than their Essence.
Somewhat further from the major water supplies, there are many roaming orcish bands, hunting those few animals that travel through the area. While their nomadic nature keeps them from using or developing technologies like architecture or blacksmithing, they have the benefit of meeting people (mostly orcs) from various foreign lands, and are generally well-supplied with songs and stories, as well as spells and gems from a variety of colors.
Even further to the east, beyond the dunes of the desert tribes there is an agrarian orcish society. Strict population controls and a harsh stance on immigration have allowed them to maintain a population small enough to support their mobbing behavior without needing to travel far. Their mobs are excellent opportunities for the free exchange of information, so even the lowliest farmer is more educated than some nobles among human lands.
Forest Hunters of the Northeast
Fireweasels and belligs stalk the mountainous forests, living on the delicious beasts within. Since most other races are delicious to one or the other of these two savage, cunning species, few dare to enter the forests. Tensions with their neighbours are tense, so belligs and fireweasels that leave in search of adventure tend to prefer to travel past the nearby lands in favor of places where they have less of a reputation.
The Warring City-States
To the west of the Forest Hunters there is a large lush land of fertile valleys and dense forests, perfectly suited for human and swarm habitation. Before the discovery of magic, there was a stable and harmonious empire spanning the valley, but malcontents got their hands on magic before the forces of the empire did, and it collapsed shortly thereafter. Now it is a land of constant warfare between too many sides to count, made only more violent by the region's populous nature.
The Jungle Republic of the Chosen Ones
A bit to the southwest of the desert tribes is a vast jungle, ruled by the powerful and terrifying Divine Republic. The blue angels of this empire believe that divine inspiration lives in all of us, and only through decisions made in aggregate can they manage to decipher the true heavenly will. Their leaders are selected by a progressive series of voting processes: every twelve years, each town and village selects a new leader from any individual among their people — to ensure that the divine will is in each voter, each voter must perform a ritual in which they eat part of the heart of an intelligent being; for practical reasons, usually all the members of the town are gathered together so that they can perform the ritual simultaneously. Nine years after being elected, the leaders of the various towns and villages proceed to the capital in order to use the same process to select one of their number to be the next Divine Word, prime leader of the Republic. By tradition, the intelligent being used to provide a heart for that election is usually the previous Divine Word.
The Fleshlands
As one goes south of the jungle, the lush trees give way to the huge columns of toxic forests where gholums are most likely to appear, which themselves give way to the fleshlands where the majority of the arthropi make their homes, living off the tough meat of the land. The vast tunnel networks of the arthropi flesh-miners are divided into several warring clans, in constant conflict over the most tender lodes.
The Wish-Utopia
This series of large islands off the coast is populated by people who believe that the best thing in life is to enjoy one's role in it. In fact, there's nothing they wish more in life than to perform their allotted roles adequately. They wish nearly as much that everyone else in their society feels the same way. That's why anyone who is born into or immigrates to these islands is taken in their sleep to a Genie so they too can have these wonderful wishes.
Cults
Way of the Dragon
Founded by monks in the mountains of the north, the church of the way of the dragon has a special spire for dragon landings. When members or enemies offend the abbot, they are offered one chance to redeem their honor: remain calm and collected as a dragon eats them alive. The church accumulates new orange gems by trading live human food for eyes the local dragons collect from their rivals; needless to say, the local dragons are cruel and vicious reptiles.
The members of the Way of the Dragon have discovered a small number of Orange spells, and have named them with poetic language:
| Common Tier | Elite Tier | Paragon Tier | Legend Tier | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spell | Name | Spell | Name | Spell | Name | Spell | Name |
| Time skip | Evade the Ages | Fireball | Blossom Falling on Still Water | Fire burst | Spring's First Bloom | Wurmfood | Embrace Destiny |
| Flaming body | Garb of Roses | Fireswallowing | Dragon Breathing In | Haste | Dragonfly Dodges Rain | Repeat | Infidel's Cycle of Savagery |
| Slow | The Dragon Sleeps | Wall of eternity | Dragon's Ideal Scale | Temporal feast | Cicada Awakens Prematurely | Fire beam | Gaze of the Dragon |
Brainhunters
Should not every individual be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of his country? Is not a body like a country, with the organs its various servants, warriors, and lords? Is it not only right and just for a king to step down so that a greater leader may take his place? I can see no other conclusion but that I must appoint Sir Multhas, whose brain is far cleverer than mine could ever hope to be, as king of my body. — Excerpt from Sir Thrun's last treatise
Sir Thrun was a visionary ahead of his time. Regarded in the decades immediately following his brain-surgery-related death as a madman, the advent of purple gems and the Brain Extractor led to a sudden surge in popularity, helped in no small part by the inventor of the extractor, who wished to avoid her imminent painful death from gangrene.
Brainhunters seek out clever and otherwise exceedingly skilled people on the verge of death and offer their bodies to them, on the condition that they promise to lead that body to greatness and success, and avoid abandoning the body for the next thirty years.
A certain sect of brainhunters, the Supplicants of Dominance, are not satisfied with the selection offered by such peaceable agreements. They instead kidnap intelligent people, brainwash them with the help of a genie, and forcibly implant their brains.
Terrains
Toxic Forest
The verdant greenery of the Toxic Forest is produced by the vivid green color of the toxic fumes emitted by stone columns.
Generating a 200 x 200 meter map:
1d6 hills, curved areas 5d10 by 5d10 meters in size, 2d10 meters tall at the peak.
2d10 stone columns, 6 meters wide, with a 4 meter wide hole leading to a cave filled with toxic waste. The columns are 4d10+10 meters tall, and rising from the hole at the top is a 100 meter diameter, roughly spherical cloud of toxic fumes.
Approximately 4000 trees, twisted and bubbling with flesh.
1d8 points of interest, roll 1d10 for each one and consult this table:
| d10 Roll | Feature |
|---|---|
| 1 | A small shrine |
| 2, 3, 4, 5 | A pond of toxic waste |
| 6, 7 | A river of toxic waste, stretching from one map edge to another, or from a pond to one map edge |
| 8 | A small mountain |
| 9 | A small mountain of pulsing, throbbing flesh |
| 10 | A cave or pit |
Fleshlands
The fleshlands are a single mass of muscle and organs. Fleshland areas are usually bordered by toxic forests.
Generating a 200 x 200 meter map:
1d10 gigantic eyes, 2d6 meters in diameter. Wounding an eye (it has 4 Toughness) makes it shake violently, and all creatures standing on it must make a DC 8 Acrobatics check or be flung 2d10 meters in a random direction.
1d6 mouths, 2d10 meters wide. The mouths are slightly open, but open and bite for 1d12+3 Physical damage every round at initiative count 0. Slain creatures are eaten completely.
1d6 spike groves, roughly elliptical in shape, 4d10 by 4d10 meters, with a height of each individual spike ranging from 3 to 4 meters. "Spikes" can be fingers, legs, horns, tentacles, tails, or other parts of similar nature.
1d6 points of interest, roll 1d10 for each one and consult this table:
| d10 Roll | Feature |
|---|---|
| 1, 2 | A pond of blood |
| 3, 4 | A river of blood, stretching from one map edge to another, or from a pond to one map edge |
| 5 | A pond of toxic waste |
| 6 | A river of toxic waste, stretching from one map edge to another, or from a pond to one map edge |
| 7 | A gaping nostril, that makes 20 meters of strong wind towards or away from itself, alternating each round. |
| 8 | A wing sticking 1d10+10 meters into the sky |
| 9, 10 | A field of thick hair, that encumbers anyone who tries to walk through it |
Ice Fields
Endless fields of ice float loosely on the rolling waves, as larger icebergs punctuate the surface.
Generating a 200 x 200 meter map:
1d4-1 Icebergs: Blocky ice shapes 3d10 by 3d10 meters in size, and 3d10 meters tall. The icebergs are two-thirds submerged.
1d6 Larger Ice Sheets: Sheets of contiguous ice 3d6 by 3d6 meters in size, 2 meters thick.
1d4-1 Stretches of Water: Regions with no ice covering them, 2d10 by 2d10 meters in size.
Smaller Ice Platforms: The remainder of the area is covered in smaller ice blocks, about 1 by 1 meters, and 0.25 meters thick.
