Constructing Cosmos: Part 8, WorldAnvil (2/2)

And we're back, let's see what's left of the WorldAnvil thing. This is a big one!

RACES

Peoples! Calling them peoples now. Mkay, I'm gonna talk about the ten core peoples in the same order in which I talked about them back in Part 1, and make sure I'm not repeating myself anywhere. Been looking forward to this, I forgot to mention a few things back when I was first freestyling about the peoples.

Dwarf

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: It's all been covered. 8,000 years, beneath mountains, big on mining and metalwork.
• Appearance: Three feet tall, sturdier and stockier than humans. Men have stern brows and big bulbous noses, while women look more regal. Hair is elaborately braided and men wear thick beards. One thing I've never mentioned I'd like to remember is their fashion sense... basically going with the Seven Dwarfs, at least regarding their civilians. Those very simple jackets and vests, trousers, shoes, and the floppy hats they all wear. Then the warrior-types have a bit more high-fantasy-style dwarven armor on over that, y'know.
• Abilities: Sturdy, tough, and resistant to poison. Hm, we gotta have more than that, right?
• Life Cycle: Says here they reach adulthood at a human pace, reach their physical prime at 50, and live about 350 years. As mentioned earlier, them's the D&D statistics, we need our own.

Elf

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: Okay, we've already established, 10,000 years, harmony with nature. Ooh, here's a nice tidbit -- harmony with nature doesn't just mean forests! The article specifies that elf cities might be built in a forest, desert, cave system, or even a reef! Advanced in philosophy, science, and art. As I forgot to mention, but you may have noticed, the representative for elves on the original art piece was Princess Kida, who's not an elf at all. Disney didn't really have elves until this year, when some elves (who, for story purposes, were basically just humans) starred in Onward. So when building up K&K two years ago, before Disney had elves, I figured you can't have a fantasy setting with humans and dwarves without elves, so I figured the Atlanteans would make for a worthwhile elf-like inspiration. Something I never thought of before was for there to be cultural differences, and rivalries, between the wood elves, high elves, and dark elves. I was resistant to the idea when it was first proposed to me, I really wanted them to just have different powers, but I quickly realized that doesn't make sense. There should be some tension and antagonism there, because... that's what happens when people are different. Still want them to be closely related culturally, though.
• Appearance: Elves are taller on average than human men and there's no statistically significant height difference between elf men and elf women. They're beautiful and delicate, their faces marked by large slanted eyes and long pointy ears -- Maer was originally drawn with much longer ears than Natha Lee, and I loved the idea of that being a trait that differs between individuals, I love when stuff pops up like that. And, as I mentioned earlier, skin, hair, and eye color come in a lot more variety than humans. Maybe there are no limitations at all.
• Abilities: All elves have agility and reflexes beyond those of humans, and sharper senses too. Written down here are a couple of other D&D details: that elves have a partially fey nature that makes them resistant to enchantment magic, and that they don't sleep. They can't be put to sleep by magic, and they rest at night by going into a meditative trance, during which they're perfectly aware of their surroundings, and require only half as much trance as a human requires sleep. Don't know if I'm gonna go with that. I like it, but I'm on the fence. And then I talked about the unique abilities of the three kinds of elves, already explained all that in Part 1 and how I intend to change it.
• Life Cycle: As mentioned, the 750-year lifespan, gonna change that, because that's how long 5E elves live. I will keep that they reach adulthood at the same pace as humans, and that they're considered young until the age of 100 -- you get clout when you reach a century, that seems a very reasonable aspect for people who live for so long. There's also a mention that they show no outward signs of the ravages of time -- an elderly and infirm elf on his way to his deathbed looks exactly the same as he did the day he turned 20. Maybe? Do we stick with that? I gotta think about that one.

Human

• Creature Type: Humanoid. You know, I bet when dwarves and elves first hear the word "humanoid", they complain about how ethnocentric it is.
• History: As covered, they're on the young side -- hmm, I notice that unlike the dwarves and elves, it's not established exactly how long humans have existed, just that they're the most recent of the three. I like that. Kinda neat and mysterious. And then they expanded across the world, and the world map specifically displays human borders.
• Appearance: It's explained that humans on Cosmos have the same variety in appearance as humans in the real world. Demographics correspond pretty closely to those of the part of the world that inspired the country -- so, white folks in Athundoft and Underheim, mostly black people in Akhmis... East Asian people come from Gyanshi and Mabayashi even though those two countries are nowhere near each other, okay, it doesn't make much sense, we can attribute it to formerly-isolated populations. And we've already established that Nastiin's current population is made of immigrants from all over, so it's sensible that it shares the ethnic diversity of the States. And, you know, what the heck, diversity everywhere, why not, there's a lot of travel in a lot of country's backstories. We can establish a majority in each nation but never make them too much of a majority! Anyway, back to the article: it establishes that cosmetic differences in humans are acknowledged in Cosmos, and what those cosmetics imply about ancestry, but there's virtually no racially-motivated hostility from one group of humans to another, it's just never occurred to the humans of Cosmos that there should be, because, well, there's other kinds of people to be racist against.
• Abilities: Oh, hey, I mentioned the endurance and throwing accuracy in this article, I thought I had scrapped those ideas. Guess I didn't give up on them after all. The true power of humans is adaptability: they can master way more skills in a lifetime than a dwarf or elf could in the same time period. D&D expresses this by giving humans a small bonus to all ability scores -- or, optionally, you can also choose just two ability scores and then pick a bonus skill and a bonus feat. And, of course, humans can live anywhere and common any climate. And often they do, even when it's unpleasant, because it's there.
• Life Cycle: The article says 9-month pregnancy, puberty at approximately the age of 12, considered adult somewhere between 15 and 21 depending on culture, physical peak is hit around 30 and they can be expected to live to be about 100. I basically just described humans to the humans reading this. I humansplained. ...I might establish a more consistent "coming of age" age across the entire world? Hmm, that doesn't seem very realistic, it really does vary across cultures a whole lot. It's just, you know... kinda makes me sick that there are a ton of US states where the age of consent is under 18, why has no one ever looked into that on the federal level? Who would be willing to publicly oppose it? Ah, whatever, I am trying to inject a bit more cynicism into the setting, and while I'd like to draw the line at making it possible to transport minors over state lines when I have the power to make a world where that's not a thing... I have to admit, it's faithful to the Disney atmosphere. Of the eleven official and three semi-official Disney Princesses, eight are under 18 and only one is over 20 (referring to the first appearance of each of them, to be clear), and the vast majority of them are the romantic leads of their stories. And if I'm seeking to make that darker and more adult... well, I don't really need to make it darker than Jafar dressing up Jasmine as a concubine, or Frollo's perverse obsession with Esmeralda... fine, maybe in some places on Cosmos, that's legal, it is technically a medieval setting even though I intend for it to be a very clean, sparkly, Disney-esque one with, y'know, modern sex positivity and liberation. Meh, it's difficult, you want to be gritty and adult sometimes but you don't want to be gross; maybe what I'll strive for is just for Keys & Kingdoms to be substantially less grim-gritty-and-gross than A Song of Ice and Fire, that's a good baseline.

Merfolk

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: They've been around for as long as humans, and their cultures, can't believe I forgot to mention this, are very primitive and pastoral. Still "complex", for whatever that means, but they don't have a lot going for them as far as weaponry and labor-saving devices. They're small village type.
• Appearance: Another thing I forgot to mention is that I was a little on the fence as to what merfolk look like. Disney's version, of course, is totally human from the waist up, while below they have a tail which has the anatomy of a whale's tail but the outer covering of a fish tail. And sometimes I think maybe merfolk need to look more fishy on their top half as well -- maybe webbed hands, or ears that look like fins, or very noticeable gills? It looks like when I wrote this wiki, I was in the mood for basically going with the Disney version: human above the waist (but too stunningly beautiful to be human), and a tail that I describe as partially piscine and partially cetacean, basically what I just said. Do they maybe have dorsal fins...? No, I don't think so, I'll just go with the Disney version. It's also specified that their eyes and tails come in every color of the rainbow, while their skin and hair have a bit more variety than humans. Well, maybe not skin, I think non-human skin colors is a thing for elves, doesn't need to be a thing for merfolk. Though I can easily imagine merfolk with hair that's naturally green or blue or pink.
• Abilities: Can breathe in both air and water, though mobility out of water is very limited. D&D never bothered to distinguish freshwater from saltwater; if we do that, I'll say that merfolk generally inhabit shallow seas, but if they feel the need to go upriver, they can totally do that and breathe just fine. Very fast and agile swimmers, not so much as to be masters of the realm, but still pretty good. That super-hypnotic beauty we talked about, and that other thing I mentioned: can kinda talk with any animal that can breathe underwater, and can totally talk to whales and dolphins.
• Life Cycle: Works exactly the same, and in the same timeframe, as that of humans. While we're on the subject, I'd just like to mention: humans can totally have sex with merfolk. It's not easy to get in position, but their equipment is very much cetacean, so basically, you know, mammal compatible. That's not technically life cycle information, as merfolk and humans can't crossbreed, it's just, you know... a common question asked about merfolk, who have a lot of sex appeal, inevitably bringing up the question of just how piscine they are below the waist.

Gargoyle

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: Nothin' here I didn't say in Part 1, let's go on.
• Appearance: This is tough. I'll say this much: I definitely want to set a few more ground rules than those of the Gargoyles gargoyles. The only truly consistent things about gargoyle design in the show? They have four-fingered clawed hands, and they have wings of some sort. And that's it. Sure, most gargoyles also have four-toed talon feet, a prehensile tail, and a horned human-like head; certainly all the gargoyles in Scotland, where our main gargoyle protagonists hail from, follow these rules. There's still a lot of variation; faces and wing designs are pretty unique. One individual in our core cast has a massive hooked beak instead of a mouth; that same individual has pterosaur wings instead of the batlike wings of the rest of the clan, while another has flying squirrel wings, where the webbing connects to his wrists and knees, making it impossible for him to wear normal clothes. And the differences in size are pretty stark; the largest gargoyle in the cast, the clan leader, is well over twice as tall as the smallest, the very-much-adult techie of the group. The gargoyles encountered in Japan and Guatemala seem to follow the rules; every gargoyle is very different, but at least they all have the same anatomy... save one member of the Guatemalan clan, who has the face of a snake, feathered wings, and a freaking snake tail instead of legs. And don't get me started on the London clan -- their tails are non-prehensile, which you'd think wouldn't be an optional part of gargoyle anatomy, their wings are also feathered, and then... their faces. They have the heads of heraldric animals. It's one thing for one gargoyle to have a beak, but for them to have the exact faces of a lion and a unicorn? That's absurd. Plus, they seem to be covered in fur, and a number of them have hooves instead of talons. I dunno, I just don't like the design of the London clan, it very much kills my suspension of disbelief about gargoyles being natural biological creatures. So... yeah, basically, gargoyle appearance... keeping it to the rules and not the exceptions, you can look like any gargoyle from the show that doesn't look like an animal. Skin colors are infinite, hands and feet are talons with four digits, prehensile tail, wings of any non-feathered design you want, faces are usually human-like with pointy ears and horns, hair is usually worn long and kept clean. Eye color... will actually be a thing, most gargoyles in the show are designed without any eye color at all, just pupils. Oh, and when gargoyles in the show are agitated or angry, their eyes glow -- men's eyes glow white, women's eyes glow red. Highly iconic, right? I've never thought to include that... but it's so cool and it'd be a great shout-out. Need to come up with some reasons for Airi to go all red-eye on us, maybe come up with a unique visual effect different from the original.
• Abilities: Gargoyles don't fly; they may have huge wings, but their bodies are quite massive. As Goliath so famously states at some point in the pilot episode, what they do is glide on currents of wind. If you've ever seen the animation of the show, you know that's bullshit, but at least the writers managed to keep it consistent. I've had a few ideas for how gliding can work in the tabletop RPG version, and to acknowledge that gargoyles are so good at gliding that most people find it immensely hard to believe when told they can't technically fly. Perfect vision in darkness... natural intimidation? Should that be a racial trait? Maybe not. And then there's the stone sleep. Details I forgot to mention in the first installment... well, I'm sure I implied that they're completely helpless in their stone state. They can't move or perceive their surroundings in any way; all they can do is dream. In gameplay terms, once a gargoyle has spent a full day as stone, they awaken at sunset having gained the benefits of... whatever amount of sleep a human needs to function in our particular system, as well as a meal, if they were outdoors in sunlight for a sufficient amount of their stone sleep. They absorb solar energy, you see, and indeed that's where they get most of the energy they need; we seldom see them eat in the show. Spending the day's stone sleep indoors or underground leaves you feeling like you missed a meal. Golly, am I still lifting too much from the show...? I do have to wonder. I also wonder about what gamers might think about having to play characters who are petrified during the day. The show certainly made that work with its stories, and I've managed to integrate Airi's stone sleep into the first season's plots pretty well, though I live in constant fear of forgetting that a scene set during the day means Airi can't be present. Hopefully, game masters (Key Masters? Kingdom Keepers? do we give our Game Masters a unique name?) will just have the sense to remember to have all the good stuff take place at night so the gargoyle in the party doesn't get sidelined.
• Life Cycle: Gargoyles hatch from eggs which are roughly the size of newborn humans. I'm not using the convoluted gargoyle life cycle from the show, with the women going into heat thrice in their lives, and the full moon, and the rookery where young are raised collectively and there are no parent-child relationships. Not gonna do that, making the actual reproductive process less mystical, and the parenting process a bit less culturally alien. Despite laying eggs, they nurse their young, because... well, let's be real, because nobody wants to see gargoyle babes without breasts. Do creatures that hatch from eggs have navels? Here's something I am taking from the show: gargoyles age half as fast as humans. Or, perhaps more accurately, gargoyles age at exactly the rate that humans do, it's just that they spend half their lives petrified, and petrified creatures don't age. So a 20-year-old gargoyle, though they have 20 years of life experience, has the physical development of a 10-year-old. What does 20 years of life experience look like as interpreted by the undeveloped brain of someone half that age? Heck if I know, but I guess we'll find out pretty soon: you see, the reason this fact about gargoyle lifespan isn't mentioned in the Explore Cosmos short is that Airi is completely unaware of it! Airi was raised by a very secretive human man, has lived alone for some time, and knows nothing about gargoyles that isn't obvious; so, at this point in her life, she thinks she's a short, cute, squeaky-voiced, asexual 22-year-old woman. No one questions it because gargoyles come in all shapes and sizes, but one day she'll meet a fellow gargoyle for the first time in her life, and he'll set her straight and bring her to the realization that she's actually an 11-year-old girl and that puberty is a thing that's gonna happen.

Pixie

• Creature Type: Fey.
• History: Pixies have existed for as long as humans have... perhaps exactly as long as humans have. They live in primitive tribes, in places in harmony with nature.
• Appearance: Pixies are, on average, nine inches tall. They look like beautiful miniature humans (maybe with some color variations, as right out of the gate, Kinzie has yellow eyes). Each has a pair of butterfly wings that's totally unique.
• Abilities: All pixies have the power of brief invisibility, and some simple nature magic. They also have a wide range of magical abilities -- which improve as they advance in class levels -- which is different depending on whether they were born in spring, summer, autumn, or winter. Haven't given much thought to what these powers might be. I do know Kinzie is a summer pixie, and that this means she's much faster and stronger when she's in direct sunlight... because that means she gets to make a quip about how inconvenient it is to work with a gargoyle in that case.
• Life Cycle: As I've mentioned, pixies appear, spontaneously and in fully adult bodies, in places of natural splendor. They don't age, but sometimes they just pass away, returning to the nature from whence they came. Why? Well, that's the big secret I was hyping up earlier. And here it is, my interpretation of a bit of Tinker Bell lore. As you may know, in the original Peter Pan book, Peter explains a morbid fact about pixies... well, the original book called them fairies, but what Peter explains is that, whenever a child expresses that they no longer believe in fairies, a fairy somewhere dies instantly; this has made fairies an endangered species. When Peter returns to adult Wendy near the end of the book, not only has Tinker Bell apparently died sometime in the interim, but Peter has completely forgotten she ever existed. Meanwhile, in Tinker Bell's solo franchise, pixies... which were back to being called fairies in this franchise after Disney had spent 55 years calling Tinker Bell a pixie... are born the first time a baby laughs. And hm, now that I mention that, I think the original book had other connections between children and pixies other than the whole belief thing, but I don't remember what those may have been. Anyway, these things inspired a special connection between Keys & Kingdoms pixies and human children. According to legend, a pixie is born every time a human is born, and the pixie expires of natural causes when the human they're linked to loses their sense of childlike wonder. As a result, some pixies live very fleeting lives, while others live as long as a human lifetime. Most pixies and humans believe this legend about the connection between their peoples, but it's never been scientifically observed.

Fairy

• Creature Type: Fey.
• History: The youngest of the races, born during the harmonic convergence a little over 3,000 years in the past. Most fairies were there that day and are now as powerful and as distant as gods, but fairies still appear sometimes, and these fairies born after the harmonic convergence, called neo-fairies, tend to get along better with mortals and usually take on the life of an adventurer.
• Appearance: Whatever they want it to be. As creatures of pure magical energy, every fairy looks exactly the way they wish to, though most stay human-sized and generally human-shaped. In their natural state, fairies are formless wisps.
• Abilities: Apart from being able to change their appearance at will, each fairy has a unique set of magical powers. These powers develop as they increase in levels, regardless of whether they choose to develop their inherent talent for wild magic sorcery. Powers I've given to the fairies appearing in The Choices thus far include flight, short-range teleportation, becoming insubstantial to resist attacks and walk through walls, and harmless purple flame to illuminate darkness. Need a nice long list of ideas! I'm also musing on the idea that maybe it's fairies, not elves, who resist enchantment and don't sleep? Makes a bit more sense, right?
• Life Cycle: Spontaneously born as adults during significant magical or astrological events. Do not age, and are immortal as far as anyone can tell. When exposed to an anti-magic field, they are forced into their wisp form and unable to move. When killed, they leave behind some sort of blotchy substance -- that's to make sure there's something left of them to cast a resurrection spell on.

Myshka

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: Predate humans by a few centuries. Known for scavenging their culture and technology from larger people, primarily humans in the modern age. Most now live on the fringes of major human cities.
• Appearance: About one foot tall, resembling bipedal rodents. Usually mice, but some look like rats, squirrels, chipmunks -- basically any rodent smaller than a myshka, or perhaps a hybrid of multiple rodents depending on lineage, as all myshkas can breed with one another.
• Abilities: Speedy for their size, and can climb vertically just as fast as they can run. Stealthy, innately courageous, and able to communicate at a base level with non-sapient rodents.
• Life Cycle: Myshkas live half as long as humans, every stage of their lifespan and reproductive cycle running almost perfectly at double-speed.

Syrsa

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: Predate myshkas, but not by very much. Cultural evolution took place hand in hand with the myshkas, the two diminutive peoples building civilization together, each with their own specialty as described before. Most myshka civilizations have a sizeable minority of syrsa citizens, and syrsas who do not live in such places live as solitary wanderers.
• Appearance: About one foot tall, on average a teensy bit shorter than myshkas. Humanoid insects, with one powerful pair of legs and two dexterous, three-fingered pairs of hands. Can resemble... I don't want to say any insect, maybe I can make a list to narrow it down a bit.
• Abilities: Known for charm and performing talents... that's more of a cultural thing, not a racial trait, that's gonna be one of those things that's recommended, not granted automatically. Other abilities probably come from the insect that the syrsa resembles; examples given in the article are flight, camouflage, a stinger, or a venomous bite.
• Life Cycle: As myshkas live half as long as humans, so syrsas live half as long as myshkas. All syrsas give live birth and have no larval stage, regardless of the life cycle of the insect they resemble. Hmm, how common should multiple births be among myshkas and syrsas?

Native

• Creature Type: Humanoid.
• History: The first sapient race to appear on Cosmos... and I would imagine they did so in the south, as they bear a slight resemblance to the animal-headed Egyptian gods. They never spread far as a civilization of their own; there are some native villages in the world, but most live in the big city settlements of other people. Even people who have never heard of natives recognize them on an instinctive level and don't find them odd... that's a reference to when I was first conceiving this thing as a retelling of Kingdom Hearts, an explanation for why no one finds Donald and Goofy's appearance odd.
• Appearance: Anthropomorphic animals. A native can resemble any air-breathing vertebrate, so no fish or bug natives, but anything else in the "beast" category goes! Details: each native resembles a specific species, referred to as their animal trait. They have the head of this animal. Their body is mostly human, but with the skin of their animal trait, so fur, feathers, scales, and so on, and the animal's tail. Their bodies being much more human than those of myshkas, they have a human's sexy curvature, having boobs and butts while myshkas don't. Most natives have ten fingers and ten toes, on hands and feet that are almost completely human; if their animal trait doesn't have external fingers -- such as a horse, a whale, or a snake -- they instead have eight fingers and eight toes. How tall a native is depends on the size of their animal trait... if you're not familiar with creature sizes in D&D, we'll be talking about that later.
• Tiny animal = Small native, about 3 feet tall
• Small animal = Medium native, about 4 feet tall
• Medium animal = Medium native, about 5 feet tall
• Large animal = Medium native, about 6 feet tall
• Huge animal = Medium native, about 7 feet tall
• Gargantuan animal = Medium native, about 8 feet tall
• Abilities: As I mentioned, natives don't have a whole lot going for them. Most of them are probably better at biting than humans are, since most animals are. But a dog native doesn't have a keener sense of smell than a human, and a duck native can't fly and isn't necessarily a great swimmer; they're basically just human... without the special human traits like endurance and great aim. Even a native whose animal trait usually has a prehensile tail doesn't have the fine motor control over that tail that the animal would. What they do have is good fortune, as described before.
• Life Cycle: The article says that natives appear to have the same lifespan and reproductive cycle that humans do, but this is questionable due to their lack of external aging and their strangely extensive family trees. Meh, this was just a cheap attempt to reference the unusual nature of the Disney family: how Max Goof has no mother we've ever heard of, how so many members of Donald's family have uncles but no parents, nephews but no siblings, how Mickey's been around for 92 years and is still a young man, and in particular for the Kingdom Hearts example, in which Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear in the prequel game, Birth By Sleep, despite still being children in the main timeline that's set ten years later. Yeah, I think I'll ditch all of those nonsensical mysteries and just say that natives really do have the same life cycle as humans. This means no eggs and very rare multiple births, regardless of what kind of animal they resemble. As for what happens when two natives of completely different animal traits have children together? Well, for starters, that's exceptionally rare, as there's a caste system in place: what kind of animal you look like determines your social role and who you can date. It still happens, of course; and... well, you'll recall I mentioned some native inspiration comes from both BoJack Horseman and RWBY. In a RWBY special feature about Faunus, it's explained that if two Faunus reproduce who have the animal trait of the same animal, their child will take after that same animal as well; if a Faunus reproduces with a human, that child will probably be a Faunus with the Faunus parent's animal trait, but has a slim chance of being human; and if two Faunus who take after different animals reproduce, their child's animal trait will be completely random -- a wolf and a bear might have a snake. And I thought that would work for natives as well, but then I experimented with a bit of random number generating and didn't like the results. It works for the Faunus, because Faunus look almost entirely human apart from a single visually-apparent animal trait, usually ears or a tail. But with natives, who are straight-up furries, it's way more conspicuous and harder to justfiy. So I'm going the BoJack route -- if you're not familiar, in BoJack's version of Earth, only about half of the world's population are human, the other half are animals. Every animal species you can possibly imagine is represented somewhere in the series; all animals are completely human from the neck down (save insects, who have an extra pair of arms and usually wings) and there are no non-anthropomorphic animals to be found anywhere; all animal life on Earth is human, it's just that half of them have non-human heads. The series occasionally engages in a bit of world-building on the subject, but it's largely just a background detail to a show that's not remotely about that aspect of its setting. Anyway, in the BoJack Horseman universe, if two people of different species have a child, that child will take after one parent or the other. For instance, we meet a deer married to a human and they have two children; the elder child is a deer, her little brother is a human. So, I think I'm going with that for natives. Hmm, in both of these systems, I mentioned what happens if humans are involved... I don't think natives can procreate with humans, though I imagine it's not for lack of trying, I'm sure the mutual attraction there is quite powerful. The next blog entry, in which I'll delve into thoughts I've had about the universe based on watching my collection of Disney films, will include a bit more about my rationale behind thinking up how native reproduction works, plus where I got the idea that there's a caste system involved.

RELIGIONS

You've seen the godly family trees I presented back in Part 4. This section had three articles, one for each pantheon, and consisted of a list of the important gods of each pantheon, as depicted in the Deities & Demigods book, listed strongest to weakest.

Asgardian Pantheon

• Greater Gods: Odin, Thor, Frey, Frigga, Loki
• Intermediate Gods: Heimdall, Tyr, Hela, Freya, Thrym, Surtur, Baldur, Forseti, Aegir, Njord
• Lesser Gods: Sif, Skadi, Uller
• Demigods: Odur, Hermod

Olympian Pantheon

• Greater Gods: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Athena, Hera
• Intermediate Gods: Ares, Artemis, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hecate
• Lesser Gods: Demeter, Hestia, Tyche, Pan
• Demigods: Nike, Hercules

Pharaonic Pantheon

• Greater Gods: Re-Horakhti, Osiris, Isis, Set
• Intermediate Gods: Ptah, Thoth, Nephthys
• Lesser Gods: Bast, Hathor, Bes, Anubis
• Demigods: Apep, Sobek, Imhotep

Here in the DeviantArt collection of Stacy's illustrations, they're presented in the overall order from strongest to weakest: https://www.deviantart.com/trulymadmoves/art/Kings-of-the-Gods-816015881 Just something I think ought to be fairly significant, y'know? In most D&D rules, the weakest god is twice as powerful as the most powerful possible player character; you can fight them, but for all intents and purposes, they're undefeatable. I don't think that's quite the case here; in Greek and Norse stories that I'm aware of, the gods often are threatened. Definitely super-powerful and with a hell of a lot of backup, as well as aware of everything going on within a 20-mile radius and anyone talking about them anywhere, so in addition to being really good in a fight they're also at a colossal advantage in preparing for one, but they're not invincible, and if something on the level of the Tarrasque turns up, or a kraken, maybe even a very ancient dragon or elemental, they may very well be in actual trouble.

So, these articles listed the gods. It listed their alignment from the Deities book and each included a very small description. I'm gonna read those descriptions now and gather the relevant information contained within. Some of that information is worth thinking about for some additional world-building, as follows:

Locations: Places mentioned within the articles about the gods.

• Asgard: The celestial realm inhabited by most of the northern gods. As we've established, you get there by crossing the Bifrost, an actual physical rainbow bridge found in the north of Athundoft. And then it's, hmm... I don't think it's like a fluffy cloud heaven, that's more of an Olympus thing, maybe it's like a treetop village with lots of walkways, to reference Yggdrasil? Lots of grand mead halls and such.
• Niflheim: The underworld inhabited by Hela. Now, I'm not going with Norse mythology's cosmology, with nine different worlds connected by a great cosmic tree. All the gods who don't live on Asgard live somewhere else in Athundoft instead. So Niflheim will be a great underground cavern, but a worldly one, not an extradimensional one. A few of the entries mention the time Baldur was taken to the underworld and brought back by Hermod; I assume this location is in fact Niflheim, at least here in Cosmos.
• Jotunheim and Muspelheim: The realms of the frost giants and fire giants respectively. Once again, instead of being worlds, these two locations will simply be mountains in Athundoft, one icy and one fiery despite being right next to each other.
• Aegir's Home: Aegir keeps his distance from the other gods, living with his wife and their servants in some sort of home under the sea. I looked up Aegir for a bit more information, but not much is said about his home, only that he often has the gods over for dinner parties, which runs a bit contrary to what Deities says about Aegir.
• Olympus: A place inhabited, once again, by most of the eastern gods. It's a mountain in the center of Magnae, a mountain whose peak is in a completely different dimension, and that dimension is where you find the fluffy cloud heavenly realm of Olympus. It's not all clouds, presumably there's some grassy fields, and groves of apple and olive trees, all that good stuff. The three celestial realms of the setting are completely separate worlds; you can't get from Olympus to Asgard without most of your route consisting of the material world and/or the astral plane.
• Hades: An extradimensional underworld -- more of a fourth celestial realm than a hell dimension, despite its appearance and reputation -- ruled by the god of the same name. It's located directly beneath Olympus; like the other celestial realms, you can basically walk there, but there's a long and treacherous cave system you gotta get through first. Greek mythology has a lot of details about the geography of the place; lots of rivers that do lots of stuff, plus Elysium for good souls, the Asphodel Meadows for people who were no one special, and Tartarus where the wicked are punished and the gods' predecessors imprisoned.
• Atlantis: Poseidon's undersea palace doesn't seem to have a name in mythology; Wikipedia just says he lived in either Olympus or "the sea". So, maybe we make Atlantis his actual undersea castle-town, rather than a favored city of his that got sunk. With merfolk and elves as his subjects there! 'Cause, like, air pockets. As I said earlier, elves live in all natural environments.
• Arcadia: A wildland somewhere in Magnae (or possibly in Magnae's corresponding location in the Feywild?), where Pan lives.
• Offering Fields: Don't know much about this place in terms of real Ancient Egyptian mythology, but I've interpreted it as a beautiful underworld. You get there by entering a great ancient pyramid in the north of Akhmis. It's a bit gloomy, it certainly looks like it's underground, but it's a pleasant place of lush greenery, a pretty big improvement over northern Akhmis's blistering desert.
• Solar Barge: Re-Horakhti's golden boat, which sheds all of the light in the Offering Fields. In the myths, the sun god sails this boat across the sky all day, then through the underworld all night, with the crew and some allies having to fight off Set and Apep in order to make sure the sun rises. Sounds exhausting! I don't wanna put these gods through that every damn day. So... it's just a very nice boat.
• Twelve Hours of Night: A deep, dark cavern beneath the Offering Fields, full of raging winds and terrible demons, inhabited by Set and Apep, the southern pantheon's resident bad guys.
• Mount Bakhau: A mountain at the edges of the Offering Fields. Bast and Ptah live there, taking on a high vantage point so they can keep an eye on the Twelve Hours.

Characters: Individuals, other than the gods who get to be a real part of the pantheon, mentioned in those gods' descriptions, most of them deities themselves -- not deities important enough to be widely worshipped, but they're definitely there.

• Jord: A Jotun, the mother of Thor.
• Gerd: The wife of Frey.
• Fenrir: A monstrous wolf. Son of Loki and brother of Hela, he's the guy who bit off Tyr's hand. Not mentioned on the page: Fenrir and Hela have another brother, Jormungandur, and that trio's mother is a Jotun by the name of Angurboda. (and yes, I made the decision just now to change all these Norse names that think the letter "r" is a syllable so that syllable is "ur" instead).
• Nanna: Wife to Baldur and mother to Forseti.
• Ran: Wife to Aegir.
• Kronos and Rhea: The leaders of the second generation of Titans, the parents of Zeus and his five elder siblings. The tyrannical and mad Kronos was chopped into pieces by Zeus and those pieces cast into Tartarus, whereas... hm... whatever happened to Rhea after Zeus defeated Kronos? She cared for her children and sought to keep Zeus safe from Kronos's wrath, but I don't think the mythology ever established what became of her after the Titans were overthrown.
• Persephone: Daughter of Demeter (via Zeus, because of course) and wife to Hades. How much influence she actually has on the seasons based on the way she travels between her husband's place and her mother's every six months, well, that's not clear -- though it's worth mentioning that on Cosmos, unlike Earth, the seasons are the same in the northern and southern hemispheres. 'Cuz magic. While modern depictions generally depict Persephone as abused by Hades and deeply resentful, the pair of them actually had a pretty healthy marriage by the standards of Ancient Greek literature; I'd want to reflect that.
• Leto: A Titan, mother of Artemis and Apollo.
• Maia: A goddess of some sort, mother of Hermes.
• Ouranos: Father of Kronos and Rhea; the sky god, original ruler of the east along with his wife Gaia. I'm callin' him Ouranos, because, well, being an adult and all, I'm tired of Uranus jokes. He was chopped into pieces with his own scythe by his son Kronos, who would later be chopped into pieces by his son. Circle of life.
• Semele: A mortal woman and priestess of Zeus; mother of Dionysus. Does that make Zeus her boss? That's what workplace sexual harassment laws are for, bro.
• Alcmene: A wise and strikingly tall mortal princess, mother of Hercules. Being mortals, I would assume Semele and Alcmene are long deceased by the current Cosmos timeline.
• Charon: The ferryman of Hades. Wasn't actually mentioned in the article, but I don't want to forget about him, he's kind of a big deal.
• Ra: The eldest of the southern gods, and formerly their king. What happened to him is ambiguous; some say Set killed him, others that Horus successfully rescued him from Set, but that Ra regardless left the world behind to seek true perfect enlightenment. Either way, the throne of the pantheon was granted to his great-great-grandson Horus, who became Re-Horakhti. Like his successor, Ra took the form of a man with a falcon's head.
• Geb and Nut: The grandchildren of Ra and the parents of Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Set. Not mentioned in the article but certainly worth mentioning are Shu and Tefnut, the parents of Geb and Nut. Yes, Horus is the result of an act of parthenogenesis followed by three generations of sibling inbreeding. Good thing gods don't have genetics, or he'd be one messed-up-lookin' falcon. People with "pure" royal bloodlines usually don't end up looking like Daenerys Targaryen, more like... a pug. Pugs look the way they do because they're also inbred. Anyway, while it's ambiguous as to whether Ra died or simply left the world behind, his children and grandchildren most certainly did the latter; they still exist, but someplace far beyond mortal concern or comprehension. Also worth noting; Geb and Shu appear as ordinary men, and Nut as an ordinary woman, but Tefnut has the head of a lioness. Just didn't want to forget that. We don't have to make the other three totally human, though; Hathor didn't have a cow head in the original religion.

Peoples: Individual races and designations of the godly characters.

• Aesir: The race of most of the Asgardian gods.
• Vanir: A race the Aesir were once at war with, but are now integrated. The only noteworthy Vanir in the pantheon are Frey and Freya and their father Njord. Odur has a mysterious background, but since he's married to Freya, and is the only god to look like a dwarf while Frey and Freya are the only two who look like elves, I think I'll make Odur a Vanir as well.
• Jotun: The gods of the giants. Thrym, Surtur, and Skadi are explicitly such, and research tells me Aegir is classified as such as well.
• Olympian: The race of most of the eastern gods. Godly designation in Greek myth seems to be purely generational; so Zeus's generation and the generation after his are Olympians.
• Titan: The race of the two generations that came before Zeus. I don't think there was anybody before them. While some versions depict the Titans as being monstrous giants, I'm gonna keep them looking basically human. The only Titan in the current lineup of the pantheon is Tyche. Although... hmm, I looked up Tyche and it says she's a daughter of Aphrodite and either Zeus or Hermes. Deities made her a Titan who sided with Zeus in the war. Meh, screw it, I'm keeping her that way, I'm letting her be a Titan.
• Ennead: Had to do some research to find out if the Egyptian gods ever had a name beyond just being the Egyptian gods, and I learned that the Ennead was the name for the nine original members of the pantheon: Ra, his two children, their two children, and their four children. Those last four -- Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Set -- are the oldest generation of the current incarnation of the pantheon, by the Deities outline. Some versions also include Horus among the Ennead, which works quite well, as in this version Horus takes over Ra's job as king. With all of the other Egyptian gods apparently lacking any sort of name, I think that the title of Ennead should also be granted to Horus's two daughters and to Anubis.
• Chaos Serpent: Apep's classification. The only significant god in any of the pantheons to be a downright monster with no human traits whatsoever. Despite not technically being an agent of chaos (his alignment being listed as Neutral Evil), chaos is where he comes from. Specifically, isfet, the chaos that the Ancient Egyptian gods opposed with their ma'at, harmony. In a bit of cross-pantheon synergy, Jormungandur might also qualify as a chaos serpent.
• Unspecified (Northern): Asgardian gods who can't quite be categorized anywhere. I put Loki here -- Loki in mythology is technically a Jotun, but I want him to be of unknown origin in this universe. Heimdall's origin is also unknown, and Hela and her brothers, being rather monstrous, should be classified as Loki's unknown race rather than Jotun like their mother.
• Unspecified (Eastern): Olympian gods of other categories. Let's start with Aphrodite; she was born from the chopped-up bits of Ouranos being chucked into the sea, which I guess kind of makes her part of Kronos's generation, does that make her a Titan? More likely she's something else altogether. Then we have Pan; he's the son of Hermes, his mother being an unidentified dryad, making him two generations younger than Zeus, and thus making him... not an Olympian, possibly evidenced by the fact he's the only god in the east pantheon who takes on a non-human form. And then there's Hecate and Nike; they're granddaughters of Krius, who is a brother of Kronos. That means they're the same generation as Zeus's children, which would make them Olympians, except that their respective fathers, Perses and Pallas, are Titans despite being of Zeus's generation, so, I guess my system was flawed, let's just... let's just say we don't know where Hecate and Nike come from.
• Unspecified (Southern): Basically, all the non-Ennead southern gods. Thoth, Ptah, and Bes are said to be immigrants, having once been part of some other, forgotten pantheon -- at this point, probably forgotten by even themselves. Sobek, being the son of Nephthys and Set, by all rights should be an Ennead, but I don't think that's what the Deities writers had in mind -- he's classified as a demigod, and described as deformed; he appears as a full-on anthropomorphic crocodile rather than a human with a crocodile head like most of his cohorts and, indeed, his actual mythological counterpart. So, I'm thinking there's something actually wrong with him, somehow he's not a real Ennead despite his lineage. Finally, there's Imhotep, the only god in any of the pantheons to have ascended to godhood through pure fame and influence, having no godly lineage whatsoever; as such, he's not technically an Ennead either (while fellow ascended mortals Dionysus and Hercules still qualify as Olympian due to being sons of Zeus).

I have a lot of cool story ideas for the gods, but I should probably try to curb those a bit -- the cast of The Choices aren't nearly important or powerful enough to be involved in stories with the gods. Someone else's story, perhaps.

SPELLS

In this section, I intended to compile all of the D&D spells our heroes and adversaries would be capable of casting. Never finished, because that's tedious as hell. I didn't just copy down the rules straight from the D&D book; I merely wrote down the in-universe effect of the spell, since this was for the purpose of writing the story of The Choices, and you shouldn't write a story that conforms to the rules of an RPG. All the same, spells are such tangible and specific things in D&D that we needed to know exactly which spells our characters were capable of using. I also came up with precisely what the verbal and somatic component were for each spell -- that is to say, exactly what words and hand gestures you have to use in order to cast it. That was kinda fun, but exhausting.

Can't use any of this. Need to come up with our own magic system, one that works as part of a story and as part of a game. I have... absolutely no ideas, just that the magic system is the one place right now where we really have to think about how the game works.

I'm thinking maybe a mana system? That's usually how magic works when there's a rules system in place. Every living and/or conscious thing has a store of mana, with which you can produce just about any magical effect you can imagine, so long as you know the words of power and have sufficient mana in your own mind or soul or wherever you keep it, to pull it off. A weak spell can be made stronger by putting more mana into it. This contrasts D&D's use of "Vancian magic", in which you have to "lock and load" your spells at dawn each day, by memorizing them from your spellbook, praying to your god for them, or whatever bards and rangers do, I still don't understand where those guys even get magic in the first place. Once you've prepared your spells for the day, you can only cast those very specific spells you've prepared.

Like I said, I really don't have a clue. This is the single most important aspect of a fantasy world, the magic system. It can make or break the entire setting... and I have zero ideas. I mean, yes, I have the mana idea, but I don't know how to move forward from there and decide what, in fact, the various branches of magic are capable of.

I wanna briefly come back around to verbal components -- I definitely want speaking while casting a spell to be a requirement, but I can't think of a good thing for the spellcasters to say. Simply shouting the name of the spell, like in anime or The Order of the Stick, can't possibly be taken seriously. I tried some Latin incantations, but when I tried to write fight scenes that way, considering your average wizard or sorcerer fights exclusively by casting spells and must therefore cast one every few seconds, that shit got old real fast. Maybe I should take the Final Fantasy approach and simply give each spell a single keyword; all fire spells are cast by shouting the word "fire", possibly in a foreign language. (I don't use conlangs in my fantasy stories, just real languages under different names; after all, if this story set in a completely different world is written in English, why must every other language in the story be made-up?) Guess we'll have to see how well that works.

STORIES

And finally, stories. This segment of the wiki contained the articles for Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices and Keys & Kingdoms: Explore Cosmos. Suddenly, I'm wondering if stories set in Cosmos should have the Keys & Kingdoms heading when there are other Keys & Kingdoms settings... yeah, sure, why not, Cosmos is absolutely the default setting of the K&K multiverse. Stories set on Christalss instead of Cosmos can have the World of Christalss heading, that was a plan at some point.

So, I'm not gonna tell you too much about the story content, still hoping to actually tell you these stories someday, but here's the basic idea. I have five seasons of The Choices planned. The story might end there. If it doesn't, I'm not going to think about what happens afterward until that fifth season finale happens, and probably won't be the one to write and direct it myself.

The article for The Choices includes a bunch of themes I wanted for the series... some taglines and stuff... 

Season 1

The seasons of The Choices are largely defined by what country the characters are in at the time; they travel to various important places. After all, this is our first introduction to this world, so we should be able to see quite a bit of it!

The first season takes place in Sheafell. We're currently working on a pilot episode in which the characters are interrogated about what happened last night, and their heroic deeds are pieced together through flashback.

After the pilot episode, it was intended that we release the first season of Explore Cosmos -- and you know all about that, we've gone over that. Then comes the remaining 11 episodes of Season 1. Each episode has its own article because that first season, it was planned out pretty well. Won't give you any details, but once I'm done here, that's when I'm gonna start looking over some summaries and scripts and see about re-creating the season!

Season 2

The tradition hopefully continues if releasing a season of Explore Cosmos before a proper season. The plan was for it to be hosted by the villains and be all about the magic system. Hopefully, we have one by then.

The heroes start off the second season by following a lead that brought them to Underheim at the end of the first -- generally, the idea is for a year or so to pass between seasons. Then a little before the halfway point of the season, they take a magical airship to Onnecco! I have a pretty good outline for the 12-episode season.

Season 3

The plan for the third season of Explore Cosmos was for the Choices to give fellow adventurers advice on using their skills. Guess I assumed we'd have actual game rules by then! Season 3 of The Choices proper takes place in Athundoft and is a bit of a breather away from the main villains, they're much less involved. I don't have a detailed outline for this one, just a general idea for what it's about, and the people and places involved.

Season 4

The fourth season of Explore Cosmos explores the history and politics of all the countries in much greater detail. Once again, under the assumption that we actually have some great detail about them by this point! Season 4 of The Choices takes place in Akhmis and I have a few ideas on what gets covered there.

Season 5

I've actually written quite a bit of Explore Cosmos season 5 -- it's hosted by Zeus, Odin, and Re-Horakhti, and they talk about the gods of the Cosmos. Mm, I'll have to remember to look over the writing I did for this, make sure its facts are true in material that comes out before it!

The actual story, well, I was thinking its primary setting should be Magnae, but that they should also return to Akhmis for parts of it. Still not sure about how that works, about how we get to the ending. Just that it's a pretty good ending that works as either the ending-ending or just the ending for now! Also had some gods involved, but I'm on the fence about whether I should stick with that, I really don't think that the Choices ever get to be cool enough for the gods to involve themselves in their story.

So, there we go, that's the WorldAnvil stuff. Not time to delete the WorldAnvil thing yet, still have some data on some of the pages that I need to copy down and... just don't feel like doing right now. It'll get on over to Campfire pretty soon.