Sunday Sneak

So I thought I'd let you all in to the Atlas of Arunia stuff I've been working on behind the scenes. This is part of the boxed set, which won't come out until next year (around GenCon) or later -- next year, I suppose, if we're lucky. For those of you who reviewed Sordid Stories or The Imperial City, never fear: the October Frightfest known as Heart of Darkness is pretty much textually finished, I just need to run it a few times and see where/if it is broken or made nonsensical by player action.

So, without further ado, here is the opening of the Atlas of Arunia:

Arunia, the World

The phrase Arunia Ecumenia (ah-ROON-yuh ec-yoo-MEN-iya) in Varan and all dialects of elvish means “the inhabited world.” Arunia Ecumenia is made up of many parts. The easiest and most prominent division is that made by the scholars of the north: Atva-Arunia, Arunia Oriens, and Sudus-Arunia, that is Northern Arunia, Eastern Arunia, and Southern Arunia. Of course, this simplistic division does little to capture the multitudes of cultures, kingdoms, and geographic regions of the land.

Atva-Arunia is made up of a number of continents: Aquilis, Avium, Substrictus and the semi-mythical Domum Nubium which we can translate easily as Cloudhame. Aquilis, Avium, and Substrictus are contiguous land masses and one can (somewhat) easily traverse between them. Cloudhame lies far to the north, in the Sea of Clouds, unreachable save by ships stocked with months of food and a crew capable of making a dangerous icy voyage.

Classes from Zaan: the Lawful Cultist

As promised, here is the lawful cultist. Unfortunately, the list of Acts is incomplete, but that will be remedied in future Zaan posts. Of course, you could always cook up your own Lawful Acts and post them here!

Classes from Zaan: The Warrior

Zaan is a pretty unpleasant setting, and the details of the human warrior class have been sort of worked out. It hasn't been playtested, so it might not be all that wonderful, but at least it has the ring of Zaanite nonsense to it. The Zaanite Mage is located here, so that's two classes in the hole. There is also a Zaanite cleric (only the lawful cleric is finished) which I will conceivably post tomorrow.

Zaan: Magic Users

In addition to designing the 10th Age, some folks and I are working on an OSR setting/system modification known as Zaan. The idea is a sort of insane fantasy setting that reflects the kinds of ideas that twelve year olds might come up with if fed pixie sticks and allowed to doodle in their notebooks all day.

The concept of Zaan is that of a dying world peopled by warped versions of standard fantasy races. The Orbidium of Zaan is being consumed by the Cosmic Devoid, a side effect of the lugubrious and lazy elves magical meddling. Magic is dangerous and sword and sorcery-like, resulting in horrific alterations to the human body. Elves can use it without worry, of course, but they are too lazy to try to save the world. Here as a factor of interest, is the Magic User section of the Zaanual.