Universe Showcase: Iskari's Universe - WIP

I

Iskari

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This is a placeholder for the description of the Iskarian Universe, a realm of deific games and everyday life, bizarre fae and basic mortals, crude stone tools and fantastic spacecraft, good, evil, insanity, and magic!

I have been developing this existence for almost six years and now I want to share it with you!

The bulk of my narrative in this universe will be within the kingdom of Gurftheim, a tyrannical monarchy ruled by an iron-fisted king, a power-hungry queen, and a hedonistic and sadistic prince. Other settings include the free realm of Romaji where all the races of the world attempt to live in harmony, Mto-Rutubah where tribes roam and rains and rivers abound, Delfrey in which one can find their dreams among the mountains, and Paltur who's land is infested with criminals and enchantment.

In addition, I will be describing some of the alternate realms that exist beside the main world. These be as odd as the multi-dimensional madness of the fae-realm or the stunning otherworldly beauty of Eryst'thianne, or as mundane as the world where technology has made magic 'obsolete'.

This universe is chock full of mortal beings of every stripe. Humans and Anthropomorphics are the most common sentient beings, but the interaction of the fey realm has produced many fantastic races. Beside these, deities roam all of existence playing their incalculable game with all the universe as their playground and beings of form and purpose beyond the comprehension of mortal minds might find you.

I have written (and am writing) an anthropomorphic based (and very adult) story series based on a set of characters in this universe. Inquire for more details.
 
Monastery Information

The Monastery is founded on five principals, the goals that all monks must strive for.
Pursuit of Knowledge (Perfection of Mind)
Pursuit of Strength (Perfection of Body)
Pursuit of Balance (Perfection of Soul)
Understanding of the Proper Place (Perfection of Morality)
Understanding of the Spiritual and Fae realms and how they influence reality (Perfection of Being)

The history of the monastery.
The monastery was founded only fifty-seven years ago by devotees who needed a place to retreat. This initial group was made up of some of the finest minds in the world at the time. They found each other through profound visions they claimed were inspired by Ulth. Through these visions from the god of knowledge, they found that mortals were meant to be more than pawns in the GodGame, more than scraping impoverished, tyrannical kings, and whimsical freemen. Through understanding and the improvement of self, they could ascend beyond the mortal limitations of the world while still living in it.

Metaphysically, this was the power-play by the god Ulth, but through his nature, he encourages the study of all other gods and philosophies. Through his Magick, Forma, he empowered these first monks with the knowledge of great and efficient construction and, partnering with the god Being, who granted them magicks of building, the grand monastery was planned and constructed in just five years. When it started, the monastery was a plain, unadorned place, with only the most basic furnishings. The mandate of Ulth instructed the monks to fill this place with knowledge, people, and refinements of the plain and basic material.

Now, fifty seven years later, the monastery is a constant work in progress. Knowledge is gathered on all subjects, people of many species, and works of art are being created every day. Aspiring monks are required to work on each of the first three perfections daily, being given many tasks and chores to train their bodies and minds and learn to manage responsibilities.


Are there any ancient battles that have been fought by the monks or at the monastery itself?
The monks have ever had to defend themselves against those who opposed their beliefs and freedom. Many don't expose themselves to the outside world often and the monastery is built in a very difficult area. Assaults and sieges are very unlikely. The monastery is largely self-supporting being that they grow and raise their own food, hunt and gather in the surrounding forests, learn and practice crafts, and


Is the monastery considered legal or illegal?
This monastery is built in a remote, and currently uncontrolled region within Paltur, a place of steep mountains and dense forest. Efforts to tame this land are generally unsuccessful on large scales, as a result only bordertowns, small cities, tribal placements, and outposts have any chance of long term survival. Large cities tend to demand far too many resources to be sustainable. Many valleys in Paltur offer refuge and arable land enough to build settlements, though no one settlement has ever gathered populations and resources enough to make a bid for power.

Gurftheim is the closest major country to the monastery, but at a distance of five hundred miles through unforgiving terrain (several roadways do exist, but many are fraught with highwaymen or prone to disaster) it is unlikely that the tyrant country will ever make a large presence there. Fren is the country to the north and east, but as it tends to be a quite xenophobic place, often there is little trade with Paltur. The remaining land of interest are the wide plains of Dengei, a very uninteresting grassland with many small communities built around the waterways that wind through it.


Does it have any enemies, even if they are just political?
Tyrants, evil folk, some fey-beasts, and those who insist on the worship of only one or a few of the gods. Any who oppose the methods of personal enlightenment, the fey, or the gaining of knowledge and understanding will likely find this place abhorrent.


Is it rising, at its height of prestige, or in decline?
Rising. This monastery has inherited many things from the teachers that formed it, but is relatively new and full of fresh ideas.


Are there any legends or prophecies regarding the monastery, any student or teacher, or any legendary weapons?
Its library is constructed from many special sources. A separate chapel to Ulth, the god of knowledge, is central to the stack of scrolls, manuscripts, and books. Scribner tables surround this open chapel in three floors, the upper two of which form an atrium around the center. These are places where ecstatic visions of knowledge have been known to occur. If nothing else it is an area where new knowledge is taken before the altar there, read aloud, and copied for the library's records. It is said that this is one of the sites where the Final Message of All Deities will be delivered at the conclusion of the GodGame.

Many weapons, tokens, trophies, and relics have been gathered and placed into a growing museum. Nothing is magical, but many stories surround the items and the exploits they're related to. Young monks learn these stories to preserve them and to learn the lessons of the past.
 
Deities of the universe (incomplete and unsorted)

These deities represent aspects of the overbeing, the god of gods. They also are tied to the magic of the world, empowering the things that happen naturally.

Aaluran: Deity of Passion, love, sex, life, birth
Magicks: Eroticka
Notes: The most basic and primal force... plus a little extra. Pleasure is separate from enjoyment, though you can enjoy pleasure. It is passion, emotion, and sexual release that drives Eroticka.

KahRuhMei: Deity of Deception, lies, illusions, confusion
Magicks: Descivi
Notes: A lie is a tool of life. It is deceptively easy to master, innate to learn, and can be devastating if used incorrectly. Accomplished practitioners of Descivi are often exceptionally trustworthy seeming. The downside is that the gradient between truth and falsehood is an extremely fickle thing. A lie (and the truth) contains the potential to end the divine game. Lies coming true are a real worry to look out for. Luckily, the majority of lies and deceptions are mostly harmless.

Hapoh: Deity of Comfort, succor, and enjoyment
Magicks: Leva
Notes: These are the opposites of pain and suffering, but need not be passionate or emotional. Leva can be derived from a calm state or the desire to improve. It should be noted that Leva is not like Vain or Haedar as it is neither selfish nor generous. It is personal, and can be combined with those magicks, but it is more important to be calm and happy.

Dalmos: Deity of Death
Magicks: Necratia
Notes: Necratia is impossible for mortals, as channeling such energy would, by its own nature, kill the mortal caster. Thus there are no forms of necromancy useable by mortals (though Fey-beasts may easily break this rule). However, Necratia is a very well known source of power and wild Necratia effects are prevalent in areas of concentrated death.

Enigtholus: Deity of Truth
Magicks: Veritimil
Notes: A true word can reveal so much. Veritimil is only gathered when powerful truths are told in such a way that will lead to other truths. This is not to be confused with knowledge, however, which can be factual or fictional. Truth is much more ephemeral and dedicated. Veritimil is an excessively difficult for mortals to master.

Zanbos: Deity of pain, rape, torture, conquest
Magicks: Torturos
Notes: pain and suffering are about the easiest thing for any self aware being to know. Torturos is all about pain, though it is not necessarily about anger. It is also violation and can make sadists happy, thus Eroticka, Torturos, and Leva form an odd four-way interaction with the alien force of apathy. Unlike many other gradients, these can all feed from each others.

Being: Deity of Construction, creation, parts, wholeness
Magicks: Elementia
Notes: In this context, references to elements do NOT mean the classic four. Elements are pieces of the final project.

Or: Deity against all deities, denial, disbelief, critical thought, critique
Magicks: Atheiyes
Notes: Or denies being a deity and answers no prayers of any kind. The greatest way to offend Or is to suggest or imply that Or is divine in any way.

Deity: The overbeing, deity of deities, controller of the game, faith, gestalt
Magicks: Pantheon
Notes: Deity is the other gods, they are pieces of deity. The entire universe is made of pieces of Deity, but combined, they make one overarching and wholly unique entity. Deity works through the other deities, dictates (if the word even truly applies) the laws of nature, magicks, and existence, and controls the divine game. Nothing exists besides deity, and yet because of deity being everything, everything exists. If anything were to exist beside Deity (an impossibility) then obviously it too would have to be Deity. Too confusing? Too bad. Deity is also the source of self-belief, faith of any kind, and determinism.

Mobarahn: Deity of Change, natural workings, growth, transition
Magicks: Natura
Notes: this should not be strictly confused with "natural" occurrences. Nature, by its very nature, is in constant flux and thus can result in very new and odd things almost spontaneously and for very little reason. A practitioner of the Natura magick draws power from the growth, adaptation, and normal workings of the world. Many are skilled chemists, herbalists, scientists, or learned folk.

Galfos: Deity of Undoing, stagnation, failure
Magicks: Rot
Notes: Galfos and Rot are antithetical to life. Very much like death, no mortal can withstand an attempt to practice Rot. If anyone tried they would, by definition, fail. However, Rot is still a magick just like any other and will affect the world with or without a caster.

------: Deity of ignorance
Magicks: Unknown
Notes: Scholars of the magicks have determined that this deity must exist based solely on the existence of Ulth and the magick of Forma. Because all power for known mortal magicks are based on gradients between opposing forces, it becomes obvious that SOME sort of deity and magick must exist for ignorance. Unfortunately, no practitioners, worshipers, or even just general lay-knowledge exists about the Unknown magick... likely because if anything actually happened with it, no one would notice anyways.

Ulth: Deity of Knowledge, secrets, logic
Magicks: Forma
Notes: Some call it investigation, others reasoning, and others still call it 'the scientific method'. Whatever the case, where there is an unknown, there is the power to find it. Forma is best known for expressing itself in dreams, where the magickal power of knowledge is able to shape the unconscious mind. Many Forma practitioners feel it as a sense of "Eureka" gripping them as secrets are revealed in ways that the mind may never have otherwise known. The most powerful users of Forma can often transfer their very thoughts directly into the minds of others or teach the ripening mind with but a whim.

Tetugon: Deity of Selfishness, greed, pride
Magicks: Vain
Notes: Users of Vain are generally very torn. Since they tend to be exceptionally selfish individuals, it is rare that they generate enough of a gradient to work much with this energy. Worse yet, the energy must literally be pulled out of a greedy soul as it is, itself, possessive. Vain users can quickly lose themselves while working these magicks to get what they desire. The great irony is that they tend to gain everything they wished for, only to find they'd give it all up just to have their minds, bodies, and souls back.

Colensia: Deity of Altruism, charity, compassion
Magicks: Haedar
Notes: As long as users of Vain exist, there will always be plenty of power to lend to Haedar. Unfortunately, there are very few folk who know of Haedar, and even those generous souls that DO know of it tend not to use it. Haedar, despite its power and availability, is very difficult to work, as the soul cannot hold the energy. Haedar is just as giving as Vain is greedy, thus it bursts away from the user, giving him or her very little time to shape it.
 
The realms and the GodGame.

Within the universe there are three realms. The first is the Realm of Will. This is where the gods dwell, where matter and energy do not exist, where sentient beings are made and go when they die, and where the magicks are drawn from. Souls who have been there, and come back to life, often describe it in mortal terms, usually as a place of purest white or darkest black. Often those who encounter the gods are visited with visions relative to the deity's will, but these are all non-physical illusions. Since a mortal can only think in terms of the mortal realms, they will perceive things this way. Eryst'thienne is also housed on the Realm of Will, but again, the beauty that mortals perceive while there is purely non-physical. The realm of will has no concept of distance, size, or scale. No movement and infinite velocity are all based around the willpower of the observer. Unlike the mortal realm, in the realm of wills nothing has cause to compete, thus the gods are all beings of infinite and immeasurable power.

The second is the Realm of Mortals. This is the physical place of matter and energy, divided amongst all the potentialities of being. Each mortal perceives only one infinitesimal facet of this realm, the reality into which they are born. Of course all other potentials are played out simultaneously in parallel realities. This is the board for the games the gods play. The realm of will influences this mortal realm to produce the magicks, the souls of living beings, and the dreams they all share. If one were able to harness the ability to transit between realities, they could find anything they wished if they merely took long enough to look for it. Because of the nature of these realities, one could find places that are transposed, mirrored, further forward or far behind in progress (time travel) or even where they or someone they knew never existed at all. Many of these facet realities have differing balances of the forces of the deities acting on them. Some may be consumed by lust, or hate, or scholars... some are nothing but ever-greedy singularities, while others have given of themselves to such extent that they have simply flown apart. some are so consumed by ignorance that nothing beyond the very basic of energy has ever formed. However, for most intents and purposes of gaming, the reality your people find themselves in will be generally 'normal' and 'balanced'.

The third realm is the Realm of the Fey. In this universe, Fey is a name given to anything that is supernatural but not a direct agent of a deity. The Fey were created by the overbeing to serve as "wild cards" in the godgame. They have abilities far removed from the physical limitations of the realm of mortals and even from the willpower based magicks of the Realm of Will. A fey is capable of 'changing the game', throwing off the intricate and unfathomable strategies of the gods themselves. A fey may be beneficial, detrimental, or completely neutral to the plight of mortals... some of them doing more than one thing at a time if they wish. They can take any form they please and, in their own realm, can resemble anything at all, from people to chairs to whole continents or tiny tiny specks. Fey rarely overtly interact with mortals, typically preferring subtly in their actions, but can just as easily decide to be extemely overt. The fey are as freewilled as it is possible to be and readily violate the laws of physics and magic if it suits their needs. If any certainty can be expected of the fey, it is that they are never on 'your side' even if all other evidence says that they are. They are only ever on their own side. Fey do not need to eat, sleep, breathe, mate, feel, or any of the other things that mortals do. The ones that do, do it simply because they can. The fey exist in six spatial dimensions that they are capable of accessing while in the mortal realm. A fey may make a hybrid with one or more mortals, though this is uncommon and the offspring will inevitably follow a mix of fey and mortal rules. Only one fey of any kind exists at any one time. If a fey is active in on mortal reality facet, they are in NONE of the others. This goes for all hybrids as well.

The godgame is the entertainment of choice for the deities. From the beginning, such as it is for a timeless being of everything, the overdeity decided that there would be a game, fracturing his essence into discreet concepts with their own discreet agendas, creating the mortal realm through willpower alone, and erecting the fey realm with only the divine mandate to "make things interesting". Now the gods compete with each other to turn as many of the infinite facets of reality toward their personal concepts as they are able. They may team up, stay separate, or do nothing at all as they wish, and indeed they do all these things at once. Being the nature of infinity, this game will never end, but has also only just begun and has gone on forever. Each deity has uncountable victories, defeats, stalemates, and ties for itself. The outcome is not important, what is important is the stories and the entertainments felt. Mortals have the unique privilege of being able to impose their will upon a universe of rules and uncertainties, free to do as they please but bound by the rules. Be it the toiling farmer, the miserable beggar, the wealthy king, or the whimsical freeman, all are taking a personal part in a game beyond their wildest imagination.
 
Here is the character sheet for the roleplay I want to run.


Name: A Age: ## Gender: ale Species: (anthros, humans, possibly others but ask first)
Primary Vice: A Primary Virtue: A

List Three Physical Strengths:
List Three Physical Weaknesses:
List Three Mental Strengths:
List Three Mental Weaknesses:
List Three Emotional Strengths:
List Three Emotional Weaknesses:

There are five goals of Perfection at this monastery. We pursue them all in our own way, but they must be pursued one at a time. Which will you pursue with the most fervor?:

Physical Description:
Personality Description:
Origin:
Previous Life Experience:
Describe your Philosophy:

Why have you come to the monastery?

Tell me of your previous Master(s):


WARNING: This will be a serious RP with nothing (or very little) 'cartoon' or 'anime'. It is intended to be rigorous, difficult, and (hopefully) enlightening for the player as well as the character. It is intended for you to have fun, but not at the expense of others or to the detriment of the story. The plots will not be tailored toward your character winning or succeeding and you may find tasks that are impossible. You will have plenty of opportunity to mess up, die, fail, or lose. The path your character will tread is a difficult one fraught with frustration, danger, and the threat of temptation. Ejection from the monastery (with very, very little exception) is tantamount to character death. If you understand and agree to this, and have fully read this warning, please type your (the player) name and an asterisk in the top line above your character name.
 
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