Thema: [Gog] Zeitleiste eines Moorcockschen Sci-Fi / Antiken-Settings

[Khouni]

Huhu ihr! Ich dachte mir, ich kopiere nochmal ins Tanelorn, was ich schon in /r/worldbuilding gepackt habe, und würde mich sehr über eure Anregungen freuen. Konkret geht es um den Versuch, eine grobe Zeitleiste meines Moorcock'schen Heartbreakers zu erstellen. Ich bitte um Entschuldigung, dass es auf Englisch gehalten (und daher vermutlich etwas missraten) ist; ich schreibe hauptsächlich auf Englisch für eine englischsprachige Gruppe. Wichtig wäre mir, ob es noch Punkte gibt, die irgendwie widersprüchling sind und der Auflösung bedürfen, oder ob irgendetwas sich schlechtweg unpassend anfühlt. Richtig toll sind natürlich auch Bemerkungen wie "Dazu würde ich gerne mehr hören!". Anhängend der kopierte Post aus Reddit:

 My interest lay in creating a tabletop setting where I might incorporate Mesopotamian language, culture and mythologies (including Judeo-Christian and subsequent esoteric interpretations) with my deep love for Moorcock's multiverse. The setting I call Gog; it draws inspiration from many places. For example, I borrowed geographic elements from the planet Algol setting (with the author's explicit allowance) and had the Carcosa setting inspire the mechanisms of sorcery. Perfect originality is not the goal, but rather a dense and consistent setting to have fun in. It is one possible incarnation of Earth from a Moorcock-ian perspective, with active play set in the far future possibly a million years from now. I listened to Hawkwind, Eletric Wizard, Lords of the Crimson Alliance, Sleep and Weird Lord Slough Feg while writing this.

My question for you would be: At which point would you, as potential game masters or readers, require more information in order to be able to play? What seems contradictory? Is something outright stupid, unnecessary or imbecile? I gladly take feedback and will resist the urge to blindly defend my admittedly vague ideas. Here is the original hex map, many fields of which are having events and contents written for in my big, big folder: http://twochambers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Karte150.jpg

Here is a quick vectorised map with place names: http://twochambers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/beschriftet.jpg
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This is intended to be a vague timeline detailing the important history of the setting of Gog. As to not be forced to write a novel, I will break it down to the basics a gamemaster needs to know for the setting.

    In the beginning there was nothing, and the nothing was chaos. Eventually out of the possibilities of no-shape-ness, the idea of existence emerged. Thus was born the first order, which gave shape to others. Struggle was between not-being, becoming and being.
    Ancient times, on a blue world, in the Land of Two Rivers, in a province of what some will call Assyria, a boy is born to a noble house under numinous stars. His name will be remembered as Gog.
    An age of prosperity is collapsing; a decade-long peace is faltering. Grief comes over all lands, and whole peoples travel to foreign shores to either fight in or escape the ever-present wars. Chaos is rising, threatening to devour the known world. The Gods of Night, directed by primordial dragon-mother Tiamat of the Netherworld, hold sway over human hearts, feasting upon their fears and crimson ambitions. Many Gods of Light succumb, their temples razed and their memory slain.
    Gog, grown a fighter and leader of his people, takes the throne of the province. In many battles he fights against the People of the Sea and other invaders, yet peace is not won. When need is greatest, wise men in grey robes appear, bearing prophecy. The prince follows the words of a seer, retreating into the desert for the better part of a year.
    Legend has it he fought a terrible beast upon Mount Lebanon. Others say he spent the whole year in meditation, fasting amidst the sands.
    Whatever the truth: after a year the warrior returns, changed. By his side he carries an enormous black sword called Hope, with a golden radiance following his every step. His banner now shows the head of a great serpent.
    The tides of war change. Prince Gog secures the borders of his realm, pacifies the region under his dragon banner and spreads the light of the gods of law. After many great battles against men and devils alike, the darkness is driven away, the strength of chaos is in decline. Sanity is regained as the greatest Lords of Chaos lay dying before the combined strength of the Gods of Light and the sword of Hope. The lesser Lords of Change are allowed a continued existence, for Prince Gog demands balance return to the world.
    The goddess of war and love gives birth to the child of Gog, raising it in hiding.
    For many years, Gog lives in peace, his throne passed on to his younger brother and seeking nothing but a quiet life far from attention. The veneration granted to him by his people grows with the years, his myth eventually becoming greater than even his mighty deeds. Monuments and temples are built in memory of the legendary hero whose fame surpasses that of all other gods.
    Among the Gods of Light their rises to prominence a being calling himself the One. His power grows with the years, ever increasing.
    In the human lands ever more people emerge as prophets of the One god, spreading what they claim his will and burning down monuments to the old gods of chaos and law both. Holy cities and sites of pilgrimage that had survived the great strife before now fall before the holy men.
    The old gods, magic and the wonders of the world are dying quickly. After mere deacdes, no more are the Abqallu of the oceans, the scorpion-sages guarding the secrets of the desert sands or the stone-warriors of the winged Lord Anzu of the Twisting Winds.
    The story of him who fought back the demons, who brought peace to the land and smote the people of the sea is becoming more and more adopted and converted into the creation myths of the One. The name of the ancient warrior is fading over the years.
    Prince Gog, now living in the obscurity of old age and overshadowed by the long-canonized myth of a man he no longer recognizes, is visited my sages in grey robes.
    An old man is found dead.
    In a province where the people still cling to the old faith, besieged by followers of the One, a young warrior emerges, with an enormous black sword called Hope and a banner showing the severed head of a dragon.
    In many battles the warrior single-handedly beats the hosts of the holy men. Winged servant beings of the One fall in great number against him, with accusing calls of “Blood traitor!” thrown at the swordsman.
    Through his prophets, the One spreads stories of a great foe: one of his most beloved creations who dared rebel against the holy order, defying godly will. All followers are rallied against this foul creature, merely known as “the Enemy”.
    In the lands still free of the One’s reign the young Warrior, calling himself Gog, shares people around him. As the remaining survivors of the old gods declare their support for him via their priests – the war goddess notably being the last to do so – many soldiers flock to his cause. His loyal men call themselves the Magog. Their new leader brings promise of freedom, yet the battles against the holy hordes cause uncountable deaths. Still, he is crowned King.
    The battles are a losing cause. As chaos overran the world before, the absolute order and the single purpose of the one now tip the cosmic scale to a new extreme.
    King Gog performs a secret ritual to conjure Bes, misshapen God of Light and yet notorious trickster among his kind, and Anzu of the Twisting Winds, Bird Lord of Change, but keen admirer of mankind who stayed neutral in previous wars out of disdain for his chaotic masters’ ambitions. In these two, Gog hopes to find familiar hearts. His goal: a destruction of the whole cruel play, to bring an end to all wars by preventing further movement of the scale. Set it in one position, never allowing further shifting again. The three create a plan to enter the world of the grey sages and the ominous keepers of the balance, to steal the very tablets of creation and use their might to shape the dynamics of reality as to never again allow cosmic folly to be in the way of life.
    With the help of a twisted sorcerer and at a terrible cost, a ritual grants entry to the outer worlds. Little is known of the challenges the three companions faced during their travels. There is a great slaughter amongst the very preservers of the balance, the Palace of Time is raided and its guardian, Fortune, is slain.
    A man is granted dominion over the prophets, made avatar on earth in the name of the One in exchange for loyalty. His features resemble those of the sorcerer who sent the Three to the outer spheres.
    Just after defeating the last obstacle before winning the tablets of creation, the Three are ambushed by the winged servant creatures of the One, all hosts of his heavens fighting against the heroes in bloody battle. For days they fight, and eventually Bes is slain. Gog, half-dying and with Hope clutched in a fist hanging limp from is side, is carried back to the world on the wings of Anzu. The heavenly servant beings claim the tablets for their master.
    Now in possession of the tablets, the One holds unlimited power over reality. His first act is one of vengeance, sending plagues of pests and pestilences over his opponent’s people, flames and burning stones from the heavens, curses and death. His reign seems supreme; for finally his word is law and the world will be cured by his wisdom. Unopposed by the creature he dimly, with only half a thought, remembers as being his father, but grew to believe a rebel servant as by his own story – after all, his word is law and must be law even over himself – there will be perfection. Sanity shall rule. With all the remaining power of the tablets and in a mere second he ruled away all human magic, ruled away all gods of the world, all chaos that allowed such absurdities as gods to exist. The only higher being existence now, he cast himself to his heavenly realm, which he was next to wish away. Now seated in nothingness – an affront to his own logic – he ruled away himself, for the perfect order he brought the world was now set in motion. A perfect world required no god, in fact as the law was his and therefore was complete, any further change to it must prove unjust. That could not be. Already fading away, he smiles, ever proud that he was – and will ever be – the One that healed the world.
    Shortly before that, amidst the searing flames that fell from the sky, in a crumbling castle and surrounded by the last remnants of his army, King Gog lay dying. And yet he smiled.
    The battle had not been completely lost. In his last moments the dwarf god Bes had struck one of the tablets. During his travels in the outer worlds, King Gog had heard of a place, a realm not unlike that of the grey sages, that existed outside of time. There the scales did not matter; humanity decided their own fate without the mingling of higher – in his opinion, infinitely lower – beings. He could not stop the game. He could not save everybody. But he very well could use what power remained in him, in his god-slaying sword called Hope in his free-willed companion Anzu’s divine heart… and in the shard that had broken off the tablet. With the right kind of sorcery it might just be enough to bring the people who trusted him to that fabled place.
    In the flames and surrounded by screams of dying, the ritual is performed.
    Later records state that the One god had purged his enemies from the land, turning their whole army to dust with nothing to remain. It was the last of his miracles that was seen, and with that ended his age as the vengeful god.
    Over the next thousands of years, the idea of the One god and of his law changed. Eventually all that remained were the core ideas of his law, or what his people believed was his law.
    Magic stayed gone, nature behaved orderly.
    Humanity grows stronger, Rome rose and fell, as did countless other empires. Faiths come and vanish again. Many interpretations of the One arise, with endless troves of people claiming to know his will. Part of humanity aches for divine presence.
    Technology advances. After countless wars, peace comes to earth. Humanity reaches for the stars and wins dominion over the reaches of space. There is peace with some other species, war with others. Humanity turns out to be stronger, fiercer and more resourceful than most, being regarded with fear and awe in most parts of the galaxy.
[fortgesetzt]

[Khouni]

[Teil 2]

    After many tenthousands of years, one of the planets under mankind’s rule simply vanishes. Then another. And another.
    Through the singularities at the border of known space, unfathomable objects emerge, planet-sized and defying all logic in their shapes and movements, flickering between being and not-being.  Winged snakelike creatures fly from these through the reaches of space, carried in suspension via means inexplicable.
    Wars are fought between mankind and these invaders. Where the snakes come, sense stops being an applicable concept. Geography changes, transmutes into living beings, shadows become solid and dreams kill people. Weren’t it as absurd and hadn’t the word long been forgotten, people would this as the return of magic. With combined effort humanity destroys the planet-sized beings, with many allied races sacrificing themselves in the process. Still, most planets have to be abandoned, including the ancient homeworld. Humanity retreats to the furthest edges of the galaxy, rebuilding and rediscovering itself.
    Without connection to the Mothers the snakes lose some of their power. Space travel becomes almost impossible. Their reality-changing might demands energy, energy derived from the Greater Kings of Chaos that shone so brightly in the skies of their own home dimension. In this plane the only remaining shred of chaos seemed to lie in the ape creatures of the conquered world. Some snakes resort to sacrificing their own kind – for the energy was strong in them, too -, which reduces their number. Others begin breeding the ape creatures, changing and twisting them as well as other creatures of the plane for science, amusement and to increase their innate potential for magic as to gain more power from their ritual usage.
    For hundreds of thousands of years, chaos rules supreme in most of this dimension’s space. Many different races of ape are bred, each for different purposes, which their bloods and essences tailored to evoke specific magics.
    The number of the snakes dwindling due to being cut off from their Mothers for many millennia, fugitive ape-creatures from the breeding pits frequently rebel, often killing their former masters who had grown lazy and complacent with old age and unchallenged decadence. Others simply run away, to form communities exclusive to their breed.
    On most worlds in the outer galaxy, the end of the snakes is initiated by relentless attacks from beings in mechanical suits, slender, somewhat tall and absurdly powerful in their technological prowess. Sadly, their interest barely extends to the former human home world. They don’t seem to value it very much.
    The creatures – barely recognizable as of (at least mostly) human stock – had not lost their intellect; in fact it was a vital requirement for the purposes of the snakes. In the slave pits they formed their own ideas about the world, kept the power of language alive… and some even managed to catch a glimpse at their former masters’ skills.
    In the millennia following the decline of the snakes, the new humans re-discovered the creation of tools, of hunting, of agriculture. They formed settlements, city states and cultures – often limited to one of the strictly divergent post-human species, if only for the simple reason of being unable to mate with those of different breeds.
    Many of the horrors brought forth by the age of snakes remain on the world, often feasting upon the post-humans and using their innate magical power to grow immensely powerful. Sometimes a ship of the mechanical beings arrives and control the population of these creatures. Probes and drones do most of the work, but eventually a fortress with production facilities is installed. A great walled hub encircling a mining operation which drilled down for many kilometres allowed for rich metal harvest to create more battle drones in the system.
    To the west of a great highland, a race of arachnids created by the snakes  takes up their old masters’ work. Not dependent upon the planet beings for reproduction their numbers swell, their raids into the post-human lands become more frequent. Their sorceries grow potent enough to attract the attention of the explanetarians. The skirmishes escalate to full-blown war. Swaths of land are cleared with the use of nuclear weaponry and anti-matter bombs. The threat is as good as wiped out, except for a few remaining pockets, but the colony suffers irreparable damage, the hulls breached and a particularly terrible summoning attempt of a greater being ending in a complete destruction of the fleet. The remaining explanetarians either flee in escape pods, retreat to stasis chambers in remoter outposts hoping for eventual evacuation – or simply die after a while. Some are able to interbreed with a group of the ape creatures, possessing surprisingly similar genetic coding. Over the course of generations the memory of these groups fades into myth, with some of their artefacts getting plundered and handed down as mighty weapons or seemingly magical wonders.The radioactive wasteland to the west remains testament to the former destructions.
    The race of green-skinned humans moves mainly to the west, some settling in the forested hills and mountain regions at the highland’s border. There they begin cultivating plants, herding animals and building villages. In time, there’s become the first post-human regions with laws, borders and administration. Stories turn into religions, mystical disciplines arise. The technique of smelting ore is discovered, but far from being perfected.
    Other of the green-skinned race had moved even further west leaving the highland region altogether, traversing the wastelands. In the distant they find great weapon-beasts and fertile grounds at their disposal, but that is another story.
    The great rift that splits the highland, with one of the few extant jungles densely covering its mighty river, is being settled by the race of blue-skinned giantmen. Some of them possess great mystical power; their society is built around control of such individuals. Still, some use their talents for bringing war and misery upon their brethren.
    Many other races – foremost among them the umbral herdsmen calling themselves the Njema and tribe former stone-skinned work-slaves – settle in the central and northern highlands and mountains, living life as hardy nomads or hunter-gatherers.
    One of the blue-skinned giant race, born with four eyes, becomes a powerful shaman. Looking for power, he summons forth a great horror that threatens to lay waste to the jungle realm of the rift; a hero of his own tribe arises to stop him in merciless battle. The shaman’s foul presence stains the region for decades to come, and many a young man muses of the glory of rulership over the tribes.
    The slave race of the arachnids, bred deep below the earth with translucent flesh and frail bodies for the sole purpose of powerful magical sacrifice, breaks free. Most of them die in the attempt. They seek acceptance in the world, but are considered horrific, chased away from villages they dare enter.
    Many years pass. Human-like life, while primitive and often ridden with violent conflict, spreads for the first time again. With the exception of few power-hungry individuals barely able to achieve any meaningful results or even make sense of the snake ruins’ secrets, sorcery grows weaker. An ecosystem is established, the chaotic magical transmutations becoming stable facts of the world. Species spread, posthumanity adopts. The green-skinned – after mere hundreds of years after establishing agriculture – become the first human race to write down words and numbers since ancient times. They establish orders of abjurers, priests using mystical power to banish chaotic spawn from their lands.
    While the world is in relatively stable recovery an army complete with siege weapons, refugee families, wounded and dying, but mostly competent soldiers under the lead of a stern-faced king blinks into existence up in the highlands. The king wields a great black sword, and the army marches under the crimson banner of the dragon. The Magog, but a moment from incineration by the One, awake. They do not awake in the fabled place of KIng Gog’s dreams, but in a mockery of the world as they knew it.
    Rumour has it an enemy sorcerer had foreseen Gog’s attempts at escape and – knowing of his master the One’s plan to rid the world of magical folly and therefore his own talents – had managed to hide amongst the Magog, quickly stealing away after the tumultuous arrival in this weird world.
    First contact with the strangely disfigured native inhabitants results in casualties, as communication is impossible. Many think they have gone to hell, facing demons from the old stories.
    The story that follows is that of unstoppable conquest; an advanced civilisation willing and ready to finally create the peace they missed in a previous life – and be it by the blood of all that stood before them.
    Meanwhile, far to the southeast, many skull-faced slaves of the arachnids have found refuge in the oasis town of Oruula. With their knowledge of cthonian secrets the town quickly rises in influence and power. While still shunned by the general populace of yellow-skinned craftsmen their value is acknowledged by the upper class. They form their own caste in the settlement, serving its trade-lords from a position of secrecy.
    Friendship between King Gog and trusted Lord Anzu breaks, with the winged Demon Lord flying away towards the high mountains, bitterly disappointed by the outcome of events.
    The Magog take what they need from the land, but they still need to settle somewhere if they ever want to gain lasting strength in this world. Their pilgrimage brings them to a lake the natives call Hali, where there stands a huge broken metal dome encircling ruined buildings and a bottomless pit. The ruins hide powerful iron beasts, but the few intact ones fall after many battles with the Magog and the terrible black sword of their leader.
    Eventually they settle amidst the metal walls, naming their city after their King Gog.
    From the city of Gog, Magog rule spreads over the land. Over the decades the fortunes are with them; the walls fill quickly with buildings, barracks, craftshops and temples to what they remember of their fathers’ gods. A palace is erected from the metallic ruins of the ancient builders of the place, devoted to their watchful King. The latter retreats to solitude in the great building, letting satraps rule the city and the claimed provinces in his name.
    Considering themselves the only humans in this harsh world of sorcerous beasts and demon-like natives, Magog know little mercy. Slavery becomes common. The practice of the green-skinned banishment priests becomes adopted. All attempts at sorcery are forbidden at threat of most severe punishments, with familicide among the kinder options.
    North of Oruula, in a swampy region where many sources defy the encroaching desert, tribesmen speak of a huge tower from which a powerful wizard rules the land, winged servants doing his bidding.
    Colonies are established over the course of centuries; Qutta is founded as a quarry town at the northern end of the rift. The great silver bridge over the rift itself becomes settled by the militant priests of the keeper-god for its strategic value as the gateway to the land of Magog. They build the great fortress of Dur-Dannukin to control all traffic.
    600 years after the arrival of the Magog, slave revolts in the subdued border regions of the green-skinned race – called Arraqu by the Magog, for their colour – become more common. Gog needs these regions for their rich sources of timber and burnable wood, as without it the manufacture of steel would be  impossible. Brutal punishments befall settlements that refuse to pay tribute, Magog settlers are supplanting and driving away native inhabitants.
    The steel is important, for population grows and the emerging city states of Oruula in the east, the jungle realm of the blue-skinned Gubi giants, the priest-clans of the Arraqu and legends of another green-skinned King’s empire to the far west pose threats to Magog supremacy.
    Dissidence in the realm itself seems to fester. Many young lords and adventurers are at odds with the strict hierarchy. Some make their attempts at open agitation (often meeting a swift end by the sword), others conspire in secret against the seemingly immortal king. Fewer still travel the ruins of old, following the legends of the slave races telling of the sorcery of snakes. There is power to be found beneath sand and stone.
    The temples remain the strongest allies of King Gog, for it is generally agreed upon that the gods and their slowly regrowing power owe their renewed establishment solely to the bearer of Hope. After centuries, priests are able to produce wonders again. With the scales tipped so far to the side of chaos, the One’s ban of magic is not completely undone, but changed. Where all the gods – even those of chaos, for they had name and shape-  once emerged as specks of order in the wild magic of the human soul, their essence now derives some of their power from the ambient magic left behind by the snakes and their alien Mother planets. The effects of this are unknown.
    In the mountains, Demon Lord Anzu weeps for his former friend. In his eyes, Gog – once the source from which the myth of the One was created – now in turn becomes as the One became before him. Instead of ending the game as they had hoped, the King and his realm merely begin the folly again.
    With heavy heart he sets plans in motion, knowing full well  that his attempts at saving mankind from self-wrought destruction may yet again be doomed.

 

So what do we have? A blasted, twisted land full of more or less primitive to, say, early metal aged human-like subspecies. Ruins of mighty snake people, elusive conclaves of arachnid sorcerers, warring city-states with secret cabals and monastic orders. Mutant creatures of sorcerous origin, or simply malformed due to the devastating radiating weapons from countless wars. Their might be remaining life pods or stations of the explanetarians (who might be what became of the humans that left behind the known stars), sealed away magic that is waiting to be brought back onto the world. Strange extradimensional beings that might be summoned by the foolish or uncaring. Amidst all these a forceful empire of the last remaining hope sapiens sapiens, filled with zeal for their immortal King who might very well be an incarnation of the Eternal Champion – but one who had betrayed the balance he was to fight for, seeking to change the game instead of taking part of it. His curse and punishment might be for him to forever live and see his work undone, being forced to play a role.
We had a god that was created as a mirror from the overwhelmingly strong myth of his own ageing father, a god who became a twisted interpretation of the peace-seeking deeds and struggles of the first war of Prince Gog. A god who later believed his own myth, seeing himself as the father of the rebel hero grown young again. One might muse about a cosmic Oedipal complex where reality and myth, father and sun keep exchanging meaning, role and notions of identity.  Gog himself, first having fought to bring order to a chaotic world, then to protect the remnants of chaos and change at the threat of absolute law, has become the strongest agent of order again in a mad world. Will he become as the One before him? Why has he retreated?
What are the plans of Anzu, the Lord of Birds and the Twisting Winds? Will he conspire? Will he attempt to bring balance against the law of Gog? Anything might happen.

More importantly, in a world at the brink of collapse, what will the players do? Seek fame and fortune? Fight in the many battles and wars? Search for powerful rituals or ancient weapons from the stars? Maybe create a colony or even found a province of their own rule? Will they side with the Magog (who just might be the only force able to stop the encroaching chaos again) or will they fight its harsh tyranny? Will they attempt to bring magic back, or destroy it for good?
And what about the gods? What are their plans, now that they have sufficient power for existence again?

[LushWoods]

Du hast auf alle Fälle nen verdammt guten Musikgeschmack, mein lieber Scholli 
Ich empfehle noch ne gute Portion Windhand und Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. 

[Khouni]

Windhand kenne ich noch gar nicht, Uncle Acid läuft hier schonmal. Danke, ich höre gleich rein!

[fivebucks]

  Sehr gelungen!