The Bitter King recruitment

[Rayse Valentino]

First thing of note is I'm taking suggestions for a better thread name, although I guess the nature of the thread won't be apparent until a few posts in. I have several ideas for the thread that while not set in stone, they're most likely going to happen, so I'm not gonna lie when I say this thread is fairly centered on what happens to my character, and thus any character by proxy is sort of along for the ride. Regardless, I don't do solos, so I'm looking for people to have some good reasons for being there.

One spot probably reserved for Slayer of The Rot. I don't know if I'll take anymore than one, though.

Click for thread. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23636-The-Bitter-King)

More importantly, this thread is just an example of a potential major site overhaul I'm planning. Whether or not it becomes canon is irrelevant to me, but let me emphasize that it's Super Freakin' Awesome(tm).

To be short, just read about The Planescape. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape) Fundamentally, the structure of this new 'region' won't be too different. The long answer is there's a whole bunch of planes, and each of them have their own set of rules and reality. Ever wanted to break the laws of physics in absurd ways? Ever wanted to have settings that made absolutely no sense? Wanted to effect major world change that affected everybody but at the same time affected no one? Planes allow you to do these things. When people talk about keeping things vague and allowing maximum creativity while at the same time having some structure to work with if you wanted, this is the perfect chance.

More details to come. If you want to talk about this, I prefer AIM: RayseFTW.

[Rayse Valentino]

Well, I'm gonna put this in spoilers but it's basically just lore relevant for this thread and this plane. It's not like I'm talking about plot or anything, but consider parts of the thread spoiled if you read this stuff. However, for potential participants or people just interested in this stuff, it's a good read I think:

edit: On second thought, everyone should read this because it's awesome.

In terms of the Planescape setting (the earlier link), consider Althanas to be the equivalent of the Prime Material or Natural World. Althanas is invariably part of the planar multiverse, buts its inhabitants rarely go to other planes. In fact, it's not unusual to suggest that getting to or from Althanas from another plane is extremely difficult, even believed impossible by the vast majority of planar entities.

In terms of getting to and from planes, that's up to you guys, but I will crib one cool way from DnD which is keys and doors. A key can be anything- a candlestick, a mouse, a cup made of a certain material, or anything you can think of. A door is just some empty space- a doorway, a window, a trash can, or just in the middle of the street. Anywhere is game for a door. When holding a key in a door, a portal appears. This is the portal that connects you to another plane. Be careful though, because it's a one-way trip. To get back to your plane you need a different key and a different door. I suppose two-way doors could technically be allowed, especially when you're traveling in the same plane (portals aren't just planar connectors), but to me it seems better if they're one-way.

Now to talk about the plane that's the setting for the thread: The Plane of Unlife. The laws of reality of this plane are pretty interesting: Everyone in it is undead. To extrapolate, let me define the two main types of undead: Corpse-born and ghouls. Corpse-born are any types of undead that started as corpses. Bodies that are thrown into this plane have a chance to become undead. Ghouls, on the other hand, are living beings that enter the plane and turn undead. This has many effects, most notably making you look like a rotting corpse like everyone else. Through body modification it's possible to look 'normal' by Althanian standards, but upon first entry your appearance changes drastically, as if your body was dead for a long time and had just risen. I'll go into sub-genres of undead in a bit.

There is an opposite effect when leaving the plane. Corpse-born become corpses again, and ghouls become living. Needless to say, the corpse-born generally don't try to leave. However, there is a great risk when leaving the plane as a ghoul, as many have the possibility of dying from the nether energy being sucked from their bodies so sharply. So ghouls don't leave either. Leaving is a pretty difficult affair in the first place, since you don't know what will be a key and a door, and the portal in was one-way. Those that do manage to leave rarely come back, so the knowledge of where the door was and what the key was goes with them. In the planar multiverse, you could say that The Plane of Unlife is an outlier and rather insulated from the other planes, which makes it a good introduction to this setting. The other planes will generally have many inhabitants that hail from many different planes.

There are many stories of the plane's creation. Some say it just started as a plane of nether energy, and when a God had a key and was at a door, he found himself in this plane and was turned undead. This had a harrowing effect on the God, turning him into a monstrous skeleton that has forgotten his True Name. Many of the corpse-born attribute their existence to The Writhing God, and revere him as a deity. There's a lot of tradition and rituals that revolve around The Writhing God.

The main area of the plane is just a giant circular city made of lime, with walls around it going up a quarter of a mile. The walls are there to keep out The Writing God, who is almost as large as the city itself, who slowly claws at the walls and seeks his true name. He does this so slowly that many meditate at the top of the wall for decades just to see a tiny movement of The Writhing God. The view from the top of the wall is The Writhing God's skull halfway up, and two glowing red eyes in its eyesockets that drive some to madness. It has patchy white hair hanging from the back of its skull. Also, you can see its spine and ribcage under it, but below that the mists are so heavy it's hard to see, but it's apparent that it has an infinite number of bony limbs that mix with the mist to create a tangled forest of bone that goes as far as the eye can see.

The mist brings me to the city itself. How thick the mist is depends on your elevation. The seedier aspects of the city hide deep in the mists, while the more nobler undead live high in the spires and upper levels, where the mist is light. The sky of this plane is just a swirling mass of black and red, and there is a constant state of neverfall; where night never falls and day never rises. This is represented by a dim red light at all hours of neverfall. In fact, all the lights here are red. They can be yellowish-red, blueish-red, but ultimately they're mostly red.

Back to the corpse-born, I haven't thought of many different types yet, but among them there are skeletons, zombies, and liches, at least. Skeletons are what you would expect- they were just a skeletal frame before they turned undead. They generally require a lot of maintenance and are considered the lowest rung of society. Zombies are the next level- your typical undead. Got some meat to their bones. Then, there are the liches. All of them wear long, flowing purple robes, and their faces are completely featureless. Their skulls have been modified to just be solid, oblong spheres with no holes at all. The liches wear an an egg-shaped ball attached to a necklace, where they store a piece of their soul. The rest of their soul resides in this grand inverted tower, and it is the tallest building in the city. It has these giant bubble-like bulbous balls attached to it along the way up, which serve as official chambers for government. They can communicate with each other telepathically due to this soul connection. They're very methodical and orders-based, having lost much of their being to the grand collective

About the ghouls, well, they're fairly troubled. They're not very popular in the city, because they tend to go mad. Every time they sleep, ghouls have nightmares about The Writhing God. Some say it is because The Writhing God himself is a ghoul and thinks that all the ghouls know his True Name, and thus he hounds them in their dreams, although this is blasphemy among the corpse-born, who firmly believe The Writhing God is a proper corpse-born like them. The nightmares get worse and worse as time goes on, and many turn to cannabalism, occultism, and such. The ghouls have their own name for The Writhing God, not uttered in public but amongst themselves, and it is The Bitter King. At some point they step over the line and get disposed of in The Crematorium.

The Sanitorium is a holy place, where many rituals are conducted on fallen undead. At its center is a great pit of endless fire, where Lost Ones and criminals are tossed in. Lost Ones are essentially undead who have lost their soul, or to put it in a better way- corpses that can't be reanimated. They're gone for good. The Sanitorium's main fuction is that it's the place where undead are put together again if they fall to pieces or worse. If they can't be saved, The pit is nearby for their disposal, with a religious ceremony to accompany them to The Great Nothing. Many believe that The Plane of Unlife is the last stop on the reincarnation path, and everyone in it is living their Last Lives. Reincarnation is a big thing in DnD, and I think it should have a place here as well, at least in the planes.

Now, the undeads last a long ass time. Their bodies rot very slowly, but their minds decay faster. It's not unusual to see grand visionairies of centuries past become reduced to shambling, mindless drones. Some sign contracts for money, stating that when they're not longer capable of rational thought their bodies are to be used as slave labor. In the DnD universe it's a little different. There's the same type of contract but it's when you die, your corpse is reanimated and used as slave labor, so here they're forced to do a basic aptitude test every decade or so. If an injury is too grievous, those from the Sanatorium can elect to be ritualistically disposed of and it's a great tradition, casting into the endless fire. Many priests gather around and perform rituals, as if offering sacrifices to The Writhing God.

One final thing is that time passes very slowly in this plane. A few centuries in here is maybe a day in another plane, including Althanas.

edit: Oh I forgot to mention... I want this planar multiverse of all planes excluding Althanas... to be the new Haidia.

That's about all I got so far, thanks for reading!

[Rayse Valentino]

I'm really hoping Slayer joins me, but if not, oh well. I'm a bit picky but having discussions about the whole planar stuff would be nice. This is just as much a discussion thread as it is recruitment. And if anyone was turned off by the first paragraph, then ignore it. All I meant was, I guess, I was DMing it, but I want to be as open as possible.