Day: 22
Inminu Prolu
Greater Celestial Being
Year: NA
Inminu Prolu is associated with the sea, and to a lesser extent with all water. This courageous and impulsive Celestial Being fought heroically along side Valroon when Eshrenel rebelled. He was crippled by Eshrenel and has been erratic, unresponsive, and dangerous ever sense. This has allowed the sea to become a haven for evil both subtle and gross. He is symbolized by waves or a cracked plate helm.
Day: 23
Conferiab
Greater Celestial Being
Year: NA
The Celestial Being that created dogs and gave them to humans, Conferiab is known to be humble, a unique characteristic among Celestial Beings. He is associated with protection and is sometimes credited with punishing people that treat dogs badly. Conferiab is not portrayed with dog-like characteristics but his iconography includes dogs, a dog’s head, or tooth.
Day: 24
Nurgyl
Demon Prince
Year: NA
Called the Ancient One, Nurgyl is a powerful asexual demon prince. It is associated with plague, disease, and disease-bearing animals like bats, rats, and flies, but above all ailments of the skin. Nurgyl often has a variety of human cults active in the world, which can cause magical diseases that cannot be cured supernaturally. In 1273 human cultists of Nurgyl caused a plague, called Nurgyl’s Distemper, which killed almost every humanoid in and around the Father Lake. Its iconography includes a rat with broken teeth and yellow flies.
nasty - inspired by the warhammer dude?
Well the Warhammer god is inspired by the Mesopotamian god Nergal, and I’m sure the Mesopotamians were inspired by something else… so whose to say.
Eotin
Demon Prince?
Year: NA
A minor demon prince or very powerful ‘normal’ demon. Eotin is a servant of Nex and is associated with hunger and starvation. He is called the ‘father’ of both Ettins and Ghouls. He created the race of subterranean two-headed giants all of whom are priests of Eotin with limited mystical abilities. When humans engage in cannibalism, Eotin will sometimes transform them into undead monsters with a hunger for human flesh (ghouls). Eotin, like all his creations, craves the blood and flesh of intelligent creatures. His only iconography is his own depiction, which is sometimes a two headed demon, other times is gaunt and emaciated, but never both.
It’s inspiration turtles all the way down.
Day 26
Needed a light day. I wrote up a description of a book found in a past campaign and added it to my list of premade in-world books.
Ossiak’s Manuscript
Author: Ossiak
Year: c424
Ossiak’s Manuscript records the author’s attempts to transmute himself into an immortal undead creature while maintaining as much of his identity as possible. To that end, he was aided by the demon Gothsen, he may also have been using primary sources authored by Artofus. It details a 66-day process, during which one must perform horrible acts on both themselves and others in order to achieve the transformation. The book ends with Ossiak about to complete the ritual, the fact that nothing else is recorded is taken as evidence that the process does not work. Even so it has been the starting point of many later necromancers trying to perfect the transmutation.
Day 27
Ses’sa’sinis
Spiritual Being
Year: NA
Ses’sa’sinis refused to fight when Eshrenel rebelled against Valroon and, for her neutrality, she was expelled from Paradise. After her banishment, she created lizardmen who may have held sway over large territories at some point before the Winnowing. Ses’sa’sinis seems to have slowly lost motivation, power, or interest in the world and her lizardmen are now relegated to swamps and marches. Celestial Beings and Demons mainly ignore both her and her creations. Humans believe her to be a demon, and not without good reason, as lizardmen commonly eat intelligent creatures.
Ses’sa’sinis is one of my favorite demons! Although I have no idea how to pronounce her name.
Day 28
Because the dominant religion in the game teaches a very black and white morality, players often assume the the world’s morality is in fact black and white. Today’s and yesterday’s posts suggest that their might be grey in the world.
Salisque
Demon Prince
Year: NA
Salisque is sometimes called the demon of subtle evil. He professes allegiance to Eshrenel but acts very differently than he does and does not help Eshrenel in his endeavors. Whereas Eshrenel’s cultists murder, unleash demons, and poison wells, Salisque’s cultists encourage others to be weak willed and succumb to temptations like intemperance, cowardice, drunkenness, drugs, lust, sloth, and other forms of hedonism. Salisque has a larger following in human cultures than any other demon.
Day 29 – Lake Monster!!
Addnac
Legendary Creature
Year: NA
Addnac is a lake monster that lives in the Gash Lake. It resembles a whale with the mouth of a largemouth bass and the head, skin, and markings of a toad. Addnac was a constant and massive danger to the ancient inhabitants of the lake, until Corewell of Gwarin miraculously put it to sleep (or banished it to the deep water). Thereafter it would spend centuries idol on the bottom of the ancient lake, waking to savage fishermen and coastal communities for years at a time. Although isolated sightings are also rarely reported. It is known to have been active from 631 to 648 and 1275 to 1292 (among other times).
Day 30
The most legendary of legendary creatures in my world.
Dragon
Legendary Creature
Year: NA
The Dragon was an immense winged reptile of a highly magical and evil nature that fought in Eshrenel’s rebellion. The earliest written Church teachings on the subject are from 275. Those teachings say that the Dragon was killed in Eshrenel’s rebellion, but so powerful was the creature that its death throws will last for all of history. Rumors persist that earlier doctrine taught the more straightforward story that the Dragon was merely grievously wounded in that war. Regardless the Dragon spawned the myriad of magical reptilian monsters that inhabit the desolate corners of the world, drakes, hydra, basilisks, wyverns, etc.
Day: 31
The best thing about Lore 24 is that I make make up whatever I want without regard to themes I was working on yesterday, or my goals for next week! Here is what I had motivation and inspiration to work on today. (my world is divided into east and west that is reminiscent of the eastern and western Roman Empire).
Eastern Mystery Cults
Religion
Year: NA
While the Western Church of Ignimius has orders in addition to its hierocracy, the Eastern Church has Mystery Cults in addition to its hierocracy. Mystery cults are organized within, but totally independent of, the Church. A person does not have to be ordained to join most, and lay people can even become leaders within a Mystery Cult. Sometimes their membership is literally a secret, sometimes not. The name ‘Mystery Cults’ derive from the fact that most, if not all, claim to possess secret knowledge not known to the Church at large. The more prestigious mystery cults never proselytize and joining one might actually be quite difficult. The secretive nature of the cults makes them a hotbed of heresy.
The Strophee Mystery Cult believes that they can uncover wisdom and compel visions from Paragons and Celestial Beings by way of complicated breathing exercises. This belief often puts them on the edge of heresy (one cannot compel a Celestial Being), which in turn makes them more sympathetic to other groups the Church persecutes.
The Asteria Mystery Cult are itinerant priests that travel to study the movement of the celestial bodies and try to divine what they foretell. They cannot sleep inside a village, town, or city, and rely on donations from influential people in the areas they travel to.
The Didasko Mystery Cult is open only to the rich and powerful. It claims to have been founded by a Celestial Being, which Celestial Being is kept secret, as is the membership, and how to join.
The Cult of Affliction is a group of hieratical priests that believe that suffering can absolve a person of their vicious actions. In addition to this being false it undemands the Church’s role in assisting parishioners into Paradise, and leads some to seek out or even inflict suffering on others.
Day: 32
A villian that caused a TPK (it wasn’t me!). The players if not the characters will get another shot at him around the end of the month.
Erasmus The Mighty
Legendary Creature
Year: ?? to
A vampire lord of great power, Erasmus the Mighty was a leader or war lord in Lannia before he was turned into a vampire, his early history is unknown. From around 700 to 939 he ruled and terrorized a small village in the Thorny Grove. He killed all the members of the Elf Foe Troupe after they entered his village in 939. Erasmus moved from the village shortly after. Rumors persist that he turned Py the Demonologist into a vampire, and possibly Roland.
Day: 33
Elf Foe Troupe
Organization
Year: 938-940
This term is used retroactively to describe any adventurer that explored the Thorny Grove around the year 940, extracting technology, knowledge, and treasures from the ruins of the elven kingdom that was destroyed at the end of the Elf-Conclave War. The term is also sometimes used to identify a single adventuring party that was the most successful and archetypical of the group; Corviano the Historian, Py the Demonologist, Ulf the Shadowhunter, Scarthos Genis a wizard, Roland, and Freya “Ogre-slayer” Woundhart. The Elven advances pulled out of the Thorny Grove greatly improved human agriculture, among other things, and started to pull humanity out of the First Dark Age. They also insighted human envy of the Elves and directly led to the War of Rage.
Day 34
Golden Age
Time Period
Year: c-25 to c300
Called the Golden age of Ignimius by most people and The Golden age of Urna by the Conclave, the history of this time is vague and sometimes contradictory. It is thought of by most people as a wonderful time of extreme prosperity and glory for humanity, even though many wars and rebellions were fought in the first two and a half centuries of this time. This is also the time when all the major human cities were built. The classical white marble architecture of this period can still be seen in major cities (particularly in the East and in the City of Urnum).
Day 35
Drentrilph
Demon Prince
Year: NA
Drentrilph is the demon prince of poisonous or withered plants and various plant blights. He is a minor demon prince that opposes Eshrenel, why he does this is not understood. The hierarchy and politics of demons is largely unknown to men. Drentrilph seems to want nothing to do with humans. He never has human cultists and his main goal seems to be to propagate goblin cults which he then uses to attack other goblinoids. He, along with demons that are loyal to him, kill plants by shooting them with arrows. His iconography includes a brown vine with thorns and a bow made from an unworked branch.
Day 36
My world has a few ‘fantastic material’, along the lines of Mithril or elven steel. This is one of them.
Abidel:
Great Abidel and Lesser Abidel are the two prairie grasses that compose the Kobold Prairie. These grasses are non-flammable while alive and extremely tough. Living Abidel can only be cut with very high-quality steel blades which then require sharpening after about a minute of use. The seed producing heads on the top of Abidel secrete a thin but extremely sticky liquid. This liquid sticks to everything but Abidel plants themselves. Once adhered to skin, this liquid cannot be removed for a week. It is corrosive to iron and tarnishes silver. Cloth exposed to it becomes brittle and is destroyed after a week, leather after 2 weeks. Great Abidel is 12 to 14 feet tall, Lesser Abidel is 3 to 6 feet tall. With much cost and effort Abidel can be turned into a type of cloth called durum using a method similar to that which turns flax into linen. Durum is often used to make padded armor of superior quality.
Another submission from DMMC via nonenothing
Day 37
I could never stand that the ecology of caverns and dungeons don’t make any sense at all in RPGs. I’m sure everyone has their own topics where realism is important. This is mine, so I made up Dungeon Wheat.
Dungeon Wheat:
Dungeon Wheat is a green plant that grows and reproduces without sunlight, in fact sunlight will kill Dungeon Wheat within a few hours. It can grow in subterranean constructions but is more common in natural caverns. What factors determine where it will and will not grow are not known, but it does not grow in very dry or hot environments. Dungeon Wheat is made of two parts; a single leaf that resembles the aquatic plant duck weed and a single thread that functions as a stem and/or root. These threads are thin, brown, tough, and wiry resembling the byssus threads of mussels. As Dungeon Wheat grows the threads intertwine forming long loose ‘ropes’ that hang down from ceilings. The leaves on these ‘ropes’ are often wet, even when the surroundings are relatively dry. If separated, the threads from Dungeon Wheat can be woven into course cloth and cordage that is light and strong. Dungeon Wheat forms the base of the food chain deep underground.