Worlds are immaterial. They are formed of the perceptions and beliefs we have about the physical phenomena and individual people around us. There are as many worlds as there are people within it, but in some cases, the perceptions of a wide number overlap strongly enough that a common set of perceptions takes hold as “the way things are”. These worlds have a heavy impact on the choices, thoughts and actions of the people within them and thus, down the line, the physical reality that shapes those perceptions.
There’s the First World; where psychics are something with growing plausibility, technology is taken for granted and war and violence are so far from present as to be considered a thing from the movies. There’s the Second World; where psychic powers and non-human entities are an everyday thing, but where true danger and conflict is almost as far away as it is from the First World.
In the growing complacence of the First and Second Worlds, the perceived need for guardians has fallen. Even among the Immortals, many have turned aside from the path of the shield and sword; gun and knife, as something that has outlived it’s necessity. The Walled World grows smaller every generation and the guardians that remain, if they even know about each other, do not talk to each other.
It is this lack of coherence among the guardians and blind naivete among the civilians that has allowed the Ragged World to spread again behind the Walls. Like hidden outbreaks of rabies just lying within carriers waiting to spread out in a plague of cruelty and violence, the villains wait their turns. Some driven by madness, some by greed, some by power, some by motivations alien to most and some by the best of intentions. They are moving their pieces unaware that the game they play has far more players than they think.
The world is boiling and only a few are aware of it while most consider the ten years of battle in Eastern Europe, the fifty years of violent Burmese occupation in large segments of India or the hundred plus of years of rebellion in Ireland as merely isolated phenomena.
Still, for a bit, a calm life is possible before the storm comes crashing down.
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The Divine Blood RPG is built around my sci-fantasy stories of the same name. This is the second kickstarter in connection with this project, started mostly in response to suggestions from others and the fact that I was directed to more communities through which to publicize my projects.
As to the use of this. This money is going towards stretch goals as the title says. The first kickstarter funded me for $980 and that gave me a headstart on the art for the project. A successful kickstarter here will let me speed up the process of purchasing new art as well as allow me more lee-way when I budget for formatters and editors.
Also, some of the rewards go towards being included in the text.
So far, the advanced character creation example was named by a kickstarter, several of the starting minor races were chosen by past kickstarter donators, one kickstarter donator appears as a shadowy figure in one of the darker example scenarios, another appears as a girl who’s just barely discovering that she’s not human in one of the more humorous example scenarios. Several other donators helped me create sample characters ranging from a girl with a possessing entity and the daughter of Bast and a human archeologist.
One of my frequent donators is frequently asking me information for what is either a fanfic or a campaign, I’m not entirely sure which. Though it seems to be set in the Americas rather than Australia and South-East Asia like my novels primarily are. My eventual hope for the setting is a shared universe, so I am willing to work with anybody that wants to contribute.
