Haha, you thought I was done with worldbuilding entries for my Ballads of Dawn game, huh? (So did I. Oops.) Well, it's Sunday again, and guess who's in need of yet another quick worldbuilding session? Me!! Not that I'm complaining. Once I had the idea, I knew I had to.
Today, I'm creating the Abyssal King.
Utilizing Existing Lore
In my last post, I wrote that the capital of Vilderine, Tarrenburgh, had been attacked by a "boss-level" monster that was defeated. After the defeat, the appearances of monsters decreased. A common villain of such description in webtoons and manga/anime are demon kings. This sounded perfect. However, the people of this world also theorize that the Abyssal Border is where demi-gods that are cursed or punished are sent by the gods. What would make them think that?
The pantheon offered in BoD contains 6 deities, each with a listed domain and who they're a patron of. There is divine magic, which is separate from natural magic, and holy orders that serve their deities. What if the reason that people think the monsters are related to demi-gods is because they resemble demi-gods, but the truth is that they are the other side of the coin? What if the deities represent what is the good and virtuous of their domain, while the creatures of the Abyssal Border are the worst features?
Take Oenar, who's domain is the Light and the Sky. Light brings hope, makes things grow. But anyone who's played Final Fantasy XIV knows that too much light can bring harm. It can blind, burn, alter your perception of time. Songbirds fly in the sky, but so do birds of prey. Where a demi-god from Oenar's domain may appear as an angel with beautiful white wings and divine light, a monster of the domain may appear with hideous feathers, a scouring beam attack, and an increase in perceptive abilities that makes hiding from them difficult.
And if the gods have a pantheon, some semblance of a hierarchy or power structure, then of course, the Abyss would have one as well, and on the throne would be the Abyssal King.
All Hail the King
The "King" is just a title and doesn't reflect a gender. And, while I mentioned the different domains earlier, I think it would be natural to have some crossovers between them, but perhaps stable creatures of more than one domain would be rare. The Abyssal King could be a mix of all of the domains, a rare and extraordinarily powerful being. While Vilderine's monarchy doesn't choose heirs based on birth order, this monarch would, and would be strict about keeping their bloodline as strong as possible.
Oh, and this is a sentient king. This is no mindless monster. In fact, I'm thinking that for the most part, they're fairly humanoid, though still pretty monstrous in size and shape. They're cunning, ruthless, and hungry—they see the bright glory of the world on the other side of the Border, and crave it for themselves.
Maintaining an even balance of six different domains may be hard to do realistically, though, so I rolled 4d6 to determine which of the domains are presenting the strongest in the current Abyssal King. The results are:
- Light and Sky (Blinding, flight, all-seeing)
- Life and Death (Overgrowth, decay, poison)
- Love and War (Lust, wrath, vengeance)
- Knowledge and Wealth (Arrogance, greed, vanity)
And, just to make things saucy, the current king is really a queen. But I wouldn't call her that, she much prefers the other title.
Magic and Magic
Let us assume that the Abyssal Border is similar to a tear in a veil between two planes and let's pull from Final Fantasy XIV again. In the game, there's a "Void" and the bigger or more powerful a Voidsent is, the bigger the hole in between the worlds has to be in order to let it through. I'll apply similar logic to this setting, but while leveraging the power of the deities. They utilize "divine magic" while these residents of the Abyss utilize "anti-divine" magic.
Or at least, that is how the people perceive it. As more is learned about these creatures, people may eventually work out that they are not demi-gods, but a separate thing entirely. But I think what would be a greater twist would be if the Abyss's magic wasn't "anti-divinity" but natural magic, blown out of proportion and then skewed to match the domains they were born in.
The rulebook says that everyone is born with some degree of natural magic, which falls under one of the four major elements, and they usually specialize in one element. Natural magic is hereditary—which would track with what I described earlier for the Abyss—and it is weaker than divine magic. Natural magic is derived from the caster's mana, while divine magic is bequeathed from a deity. Therefore, it makes sense that what people are used to viewing as natural magic would be "weaker". But the creatures of the Abyssal domains would be on par with deities and demi-gods, which is why they are harder to kill and are more dangerous to deal with.
At this point, I'll recognize there's 4 elements and 6 domains, which isn't a 1:1 equivalent. But if you add Light and Darkness as elements, that results in 6! So I'm still covered. :D
The Battle at Tarrenburgh
So, what happened during the battle in the capital city? Well, perhaps it wasn't the Abyssal King that was attempting to take over, but a general or an upper echelon of one of the six domains. I rolled to determine which one it was, based on the following list:
- Light
- Darkness
- Earth
- Fire
- Water
- Air
The result was Darkness, which would likely further push the misassumption that the Abyss is full of doomed and cursed entities that were cast aside by divinity. The attacks from the Abyssal Border are a recent event that started around the time when Vilderine's monarch was a child, around 70-80 years ago, and while the Border was beginning to be studied, the presence of monsters makes doing so difficult. Therefore, misassumptions based on what is seen and defeated are perfectly reasonable.
Since this "general" was a domain master of Darkness ("domain master" may get a specific name later), the equivalent opposing deity would be Oenar, who's domain is Light and Sky. The lore in the book doesn't mention a hierarchy or who's the ruler of them all, but generally it's the deity in charge of light or the sun. I'm not really seeking to be unique in all of this, so we'll deem Oenar the leader of the divinity and probably the one that is considered the "purest" and most powerful.
Since divine magic of this domain of light would be the opposite of the natural magic of darkness as an element, the general and their armies were defeated with the aid of Oenar's holy order. This event further pushes that assumption that the Abyss is just the same kind of magic but cursed, since all the people saw was the purest divine power pushing back twisted "demons".
ASS-U-ME
Assumptions are powerful things. They can lure you into a false sense of security, making you think the world is one way when it may not be the case. So far, here are the facts and assumptions I've come up with regarding the Abyss:
- The denizens are cursed demi-gods punished by the deities (ASSUMPTION)
- The denizens are their own type of entity (FACT)
- Their magic is divine magic, just twisted and cursed (ASSUMPTION)
- Their magic is natural magic, but pushed beyond the boundaries of mortal mana pools' capacities (FACT)
- The powerful being that attacked Tarrenburgh was defeated because divine power was stronger (ASSUMPTION)
- The being was defeated because their element, darkness, was weak to the domain of the holy order that responded in greater strength, which was the domain of light and sky (FACT)
And, unbeknownst to anyone in Vilderine, there are more beings of that same power and one who sits above them all, the Abyssal King.
With all of that, I have even more plot devices I can utilize for my game. Which I will play. At some point. For real.
P.S.: Just to throw another fun idea in at the end: Imagine sexy children of the Abyssal King who may not be all evil...and may be single. :)
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