strategy for using obsidian for ttrpg management
Motivation
I created this world after becoming disillusioned with a home D&D game, where I borrowed heavily from Critical Role’s Wildemount setting to run a pirate game. Since it was my first “proper” time running an ongoing campaign - I’d previously only run a few sessions at a time - and everyone was excited to just start playing, I decided that taking the map of Wildemount (specifically the Cerulean Coast) and tacking on a pirate-themed game would be a good shortcut. I already knew the world from seeing it played in Critical Role and the map was cool.
Fast-forward two years, and I suddenly realised that I was bored. So fucking bored with the map, the world, the constraints I’d placed on my own world-building. I hated that my ideas were preconditioned by the existence of the map, my players had all left the ocean area and were no longer pirating. I had lost motivation to continue the campaign.
The Remedy
The fix, then, was to abandon anything that wasn’t my own. I started from first principles - what kind of game did I enjoy? What would keep me interested in the long term? My curiosity led to a blend of science fiction and medieval fantasy. An ancient world of ruins filled with advanced technology. I drew inspiration from many sources, but I’d like to shout out Monte Cook’s Ninth World setting. I’ve specifically taken the term “numenera” to describe ancient technology so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic.
I decided to approach world-building from a new perspective, too.
Core Tenets of Dys
The World Is Ancient
- We’re talking deep time. The current iteration of civilisation is just the latest in a long line.
- Many advanced civilisations have risen and fallen over millions of years, leaving behind only remnants of their former glory.
- Tectonic plates and the very stars themselves have shifted.
- Most of the ancient remnants are undiscovered, unexplored, and ineffable because numenera is magic, magic is numenera.
- The Ancients is the collective term for Those Who Came Before. Nobody knows how many civilisations have sprung up, lasted millennia, and then faded into obscurity.
- Different ancients discovered different technologies. This gives me free license to add in basically anything I can think of as long as it’s cool.
The Current World Is Mundane
- Where the ancients achieved great heights of “magic”, the current civilisation has not. There are no great magical abilities, no world-shaping technologies.
- We are a scavenger world, searching through the rubble of the great ancient societies for anything useful.
Ancient Technology Is Dangerous, Unknowable, and Coveted
A Brief And Recent History
What follows is a partial account of the history of the world, according to common knowledge at the time of writing. Years are counted Before Luminary (BL) and After Luminary (AL), with the Luminary’s activation of the Bright Tower marking year 0 AL.
The Time of Chaos (??? - 250 BL)
- Ancient vaults begin to open across the world, releasing strange creatures and “magic” into the realm.
- Unchecked access to numenera creates an arms race.
- Petty warlords abuse ancient magic to wage devastating conquests across the realm. Some regions are left completely uninhabitable by these destructive forces.
- Fractured cultures hold varying beliefs/superstitions on the use of numenera.
Enter The Luminary
“I am the Luminary. I saw first-hand the destructive power of the numenera and the devastation it could wreak in the wrong hands. The warlords of the time of chaos and their wanton use of whatever power they could grasp would have spelled an early end for humanity.”
“I put a stop to it. I protected us from extinction, as I still do today. You cannot fathom what I have sacrificed in the process.”
“I guide us towards a bright future. A utopia without suffering or strife. But we are not ready.”