Mokley

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Now that the articles are mixing it up and intertwining a bit more, they're getting harder to categorize, haha. This is a great thing! Maybe I'll end up listing the same article under multiple categories. Let me know what you guys think!

Elaborated on Mirror, Mirror by the River with a conversation that I hope gives myself and all of you out there a bit more insight into exactly how the phenomenon works. I tried to still keep that mysterious air around it.

@Zealous Blade

This is haunting and awesome. After some debate I placed it under Locations and not Stories, since it'll probably eventually be mapped. :D

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Added a example of the sort of thing that gets people killed in Elohim.

@Arawak

The inverted people are so very weird and unique and, in their own strange way, horrifying. I could see adventurers approaching out of mystified curiosity and soon regretting it. I placed them as a sub-point under Elohim, but let me know if you think it should be placed elsewhere!

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The Web of Fate

The word "Fate" is a well argued philosophical point. Some think it is non-sence, some think it is an element of mystery similar to the Ruse, And yet more think that there is a diety out there that controls everything.

For the most part, everything is speculative and one's belief in the concept only goes so far as how comfortable they are with the idea. But in the oldest library there is an article filed away, explaining a phenomenon that's been perceived by many great philosophical minds in the past.

(think I'll make this into a full article, but first food and stuff)

@Crawkid

In a world debating whether the persistent soul is truly that or a Ruse imitation, the question of Fate is definitely relevant. The Man on the Tower seems like quite a person to stumble across. Might he have published books? I wonder if he'd be the same Author that our heroine is looking for.

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Edit: I'm going to go ahead and start linking articles from the OOC in the Characters tab, else I fear their ideas might be lost!

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

The FENIKS Project

article by Zhu Ruogang for IDYLL GAZETTE

Idyll City -- the sky-island best known for its brightly painted skyscrapers and gravity-defying architecture -- has been hiding one of the most impressive feats of Thought Technology recorded to date. It is called the FENIKS Project, and it is causing ripples among intellectual communities throughout the world.

After decades of dedicated research at the Razum Research Center, Najima Kiira's team -- called the FENIKS Project -- has announced its success. "Death has been conquered," Najima said in a recent interview. "Fear and loss have been obliterated. This is a new age of hope."

Participants in the FENIKS Project -- some as young as six years old -- undergo surgery where a sliver of charged stone is implanted into the patient's skull. After a day's recovery, the patient is free to live a normal and happy life, with only annual checkups to ensure the stone is performing correctly.

Upon the death of the patient's natural body, the stone is retrieved and transferred to a Telo: an artificial body, likened to a doll, which does not age nor die. The patient, upon waking, remembers their life up until the moment of death -- and sometimes beyond -- and retains the entirety of their personality. After a brief period of therapy to learn to utilize the new Telo body, the patient is free to continue their life free of sickness or injury or further threat of death.

THE CONTROVERSY
"My Telo has wings!" a ten-year-old patient cheered in an interview. "They said I'll be able to fly! I've already got plenty of pretty dresses picked out. There's a boy in my class who's a Telo, and he has teeth like a shark. I think his mom's gonna make him file them though, he bit the teacher's dog."

"I'll be able to watch my grandchildren grow up," an elderly man wrote. "I'll captain the ships again, see the world, climb the highest mountains, and these old bones won't be slowing me down."

"I feel better knowing my husband has the FENIKS Project behind him," a mother of three told the GAZETTE. "I can't imagine our children growing up without a father."

"This isn't everlasting life," said Eliana Reyes, the FENIKS Project's most vocal critic. "The patient still dies. The implant is simply recording, storing the person's memories and energy. The process of transfer to a Telo is a glorified spell of witchcraft to create a Ruse. What gets up off that table isn't your son or daughter: it's a Ruse that thinks and acts like your child."

"What happens in the long term?" asked Frede Dall, an anti-thought activist out of Loris City. "This thought technology was only developed six years ago; its oldest successful patients have lived in their Tela for only that long. What happens after a decade? A century? Not even the Ruse are immortal."

"You realize witches have been doing this since the Bubbling," said Louis Wallace, leader of the Black Cap Coven. "The clan mothers would wear the stones, and when they died the stones would be put into a dog or a horse, and she'd continue to guide the clan in spirit. It was an honor to the ancestor, not a resurrection."

"The FENIKS Project is the future of the preservation of knowledge," insists the founder, Najima Kiira. "The mistakes of our past will no longer be left to history books; we will learn directly from our ancestors, and we will no longer repeat their mistakes. Ahead of us is an age of peace, hope, prosperity, and a release from the grip of Death."

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Collaborative Maps!

I've created a dummy account on Inkarnate for us to collaborate on creating maps! I'm not sure what will happen if two people try to edit maps at once, but I guess we'll find out haha.

Go to https://inkarnate.com/users/sign_in and log in as the following:

email: [e-mail]
password: rpguild2

As of right now there are no maps yet, but feel free to create new ones. :)

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Holy crap you guys rock! I have some of my own articles in the works, but you all keep posting more ideas that would be perfect to incorporate, hahaha.

@SepticGentleman Haha this is a great laugh to start the morning. The vendors are so charming and unique! I assume they may only be found along the long roads? Any inkling where they come from -- or more importantly, where the stuff comes from? xD This reminded me of a character I had once that could instantly summon any item he liked, but it was being stolen from nearby.

@Zealous Blade This gives me a MushiShi vibe -- and also a slight uncertainty which pair of father-son is actually real. Maybe there's something about this particular river that mirrors its sides? Or even, perhaps, crossing the river takes you to a sort of mirror-existence? Or, maybe there's something about staring down the length of the river that allows a Ruse to infect or possess a person's mind.

@Wardian This reads more like a legend of the origin of some unusual mountain formations than what actually happened, as some of the concepts are just a little too crazy even for this world, hahaha -- but it brings up some good questions about whether a Ruse can sustain itself (as in nature there are always exceptions to rules, and the God of Proving Others Wrong is a perfect example) and what is actually required in order to destroy a Ruse. The Barkolopus are Ruse-eaters, and the Null Towers serve the same function. It's already been brought up that burning sage, for example, can ward them off, but can they hurt each other? Could a powerful collective intent to destroy a Ruse work as well as to create one?

Now, completely unrelated, I'm imagining a village gathering together in anger and beating off a huge, terrible Ruse with sticks -- and winning. xD

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

@Crawkid This is the best kind of horror -- reminds me of Lovecraft, the stories where you never see the monster and it's more terrifying because of it. Immediately I started thinking of Ruse that might have been created out of a horrible shipwreck or natural disaster -- or maybe a group of witches doing this intentionally. The mystery is intriguing.

As for the author -- maybe the author himself has a mystery surrounding him. Impossible to track down, his supposed house empty, his books published through strange means.

Deeper down the rabbit hole we go! xD

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

@snake153 This is pretty cool and epic! It reads like it's written from the POV of someone living in the world, is that right? Maybe this is an account from a certain civilization -- these theories and myths could very well have some basis in reality that might not be exactly as they're told. (though, of course, definitely believed as they're told!) Like, the mystical city probably really does exist, but not exactly in the way that it's perceived in the myths. I'd be interested to see or develop the people who worshiped Del.

Just thinking out loud! Good stuff! :3

@Crawkid Oohh, maybe this book would be able to help her figure out and put an end to her own Ruse haunting? Or has she created those Ruse herself using the information from the book, maybe with unanticipated consequences? Maybe she'd go try to find the author in hopes of getting help?

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

@Crawkid Awesome! You actually inspired me to create a new section for open ideas that are also canon. :D

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

@Crawkid I can't quite canonize your article until it's in some kind of finished format, but as an idea it's great the way it is -- maybe will inspire a future character or article!

If you were to give the character a name and flesh her out a bit, it can totally be added officially!

Edit: I keep rethinking what to do with unfinished ideas, haha. Added a category section just for ideas! They're absolutely important and useful to the overall world.

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Rumors of the Ruse

an excerpt, by Kipling Barborossa

It is common understanding that different cultures have differing definitions of what is collectively called the "Ruse." Throughout my travels I have encountered such explanations as follows:

• They are great monsters that devour dreams in order to gain selfish power.
• They are the whispers in one's ear, the heckling voice in one's own head.
• They are visions of persons, places or events that have since gone, as mirages in the desert.
• They are formless pockets of energy, with or without sentience, which inhabit liminal spaces.
• They are flora, fauna, minerals, objects or elements which exist and behave in ways that defy natural laws.
• They are gods, demigods and deities with power and authority over nature.
• They are the spirits of the dead.
• They are comprised of a fifth natural element.
• They are a foreign corruption of Nature.
• They are inseparable from existence itself.
• They do not exist at all.

It is my privilege to present a conclusive definition which, through extensive research, encompasses every documented form of the Ruse:

The Ruse are a presence -- physical or spiritual, living or inanimate -- whose existence is defined by or depends upon thought.

But what is thought? Thought is interchangeably referred to as intention, emotion, belief, and dream. Thought is not, as commonly assumed, limited to human minds. Fauna (and even, in certain circumstances, flora) are as capable of thought and its effects, if to smaller degrees, as humanity. They simply lack the concentration that we humans take for granted.

Concentration -- whether intentional, as in a spell of witchcraft, or unintentional, as a recurring nightmare -- is the womb from which a Ruse is born.

But what, then, is the difference between a Ruse and a spell?

A Ruse, as previously defined, is a presence. Something that, for lack of a better term, exists with some level of independence. A light in the sky may be a Ruse. A voice may be a Ruse.

A spell, however, is the process of applying thought and intent to affect something else directly. The enchantment of objects is an application of spellwork. A chant to cause the clouds to gather and rain, or a sigil drawn on a door to protect a home, or a potion brewed with the intent to cure an ailment -- these are all examples of spells. A spell may -- and commonly will -- create a Ruse. A Ruse which possesses enough sentience to also possess thought may also cast spells.

Ruse and spells are undeniably intertwined, in that both are only possible through the power of thought. Thought, I am confident, is a natural element, just as important as fire, water, earth and air. It may exist independently, yet may also be utilized as a tool to change the world around us.

In the next chapter I will discuss the philosophical question of the Ruse: who is to say that everything that now exists does not depend on some cosmic sustained thought, and that all of us and all that we know are not Ruse ourselves?

YOWL: a worldbuild collaboration

Rumors of the Ruse

an excerpt, by Kipling Barborossa

It is common understanding that different cultures have differing definitions of what is collectively called the "Ruse." Throughout my travels I have encountered such explanations as follows:

• They are great monsters that devour dreams in order to gain selfish power.
• They are the whispers in one's ear, the heckling voice in one's own head.
• They are visions of persons, places or events that have since gone, as mirages in the desert.
• They are formless pockets of energy, with or without sentience, which inhabit liminal spaces.
• They are flora, fauna, minerals, objects or elements which exist and behave in ways that defy natural laws.
• They are gods, demigods and deities with power and authority over nature.
• They are the spirits of the dead.
• They are comprised of a fifth natural element.
• They are a foreign corruption of Nature.
• They are inseparable from existence itself.
• They do not exist at all.

It is my privilege to present a conclusive definition which, through extensive research, encompasses every documented form of the Ruse:

The Ruse are a presence -- physical or spiritual, living or inanimate -- whose existence is defined by or depends upon thought.

But what is thought? Thought is interchangeably referred to as intention, emotion, belief, and dream. Thought is not, as commonly assumed, limited to human minds. Fauna (and even, in certain circumstances, flora) are as capable of thought and its effects, if to smaller degrees, as humanity. They simply lack the concentration that we humans take for granted.

Concentration -- whether intentional, as in a spell of witchcraft, or unintentional, as a recurring nightmare -- is the womb from which a Ruse is born.

But what, then, is the difference between a Ruse and a spell?

A Ruse, as previously defined, is a presence. Something that, for lack of a better term, exists with some level of independence. A light in the sky may be a Ruse. A voice may be a Ruse.

A spell, however, is the process of applying thought and intent to affect something else directly. The enchantment of objects is an application of spellwork. A chant to cause the clouds to gather and rain, or a sigil drawn on a door to protect a home, or a potion brewed with the intent to cure an ailment -- these are all examples of spells. A spell may -- and commonly will -- create a Ruse. A Ruse which possesses enough sentience to also possess thought may also cast spells.

Ruse and spells are undeniably intertwined, in that both are only possible through the power of thought. Thought, I am confident, is a natural element, just as important as fire, water, earth and air. It may exist independently, yet may also be utilized as a tool to change the world around us.

In the next chapter I will discuss the philosophical question of the Ruse: who is to say that everything that now exists does not depend on some cosmic sustained thought, and that all of us and all that we know are not Ruse ourselves?

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Just to break the fourth wall a little bit, here's my interpretation of the core magic system -- which I hope will support almost any magic or religious system you guys want to come up with. :3