The Shattered World

The Age of the God Kings

The Age of the God-Kings began with the appearance from the sky of their Temple. It came to earth in the middle of the great plain, and from there the God-Kings reigned. As they were very powerful, most of the tribal Humans accepted their rule.

The God Kings and their servants taught Humans many crafts and sciences, including magic, to make the Humans more useful. Human laborers and craftsmen built the great cities of the God Kings, filled with palaces and gardens for their amusement. Humans were remade in the images of the God Kings themselves.

Unsatisfied with Humans, the God Kings created other intelligent creatures to amuse them or for simple services. The Birdmen were created as couriers, the Minotaurs as gladiators, and the Ogres and Giants were made for hard labor. Monsters such as Bandersnatchi and Jabberwocky were also made for the arena. Morpheons were made to be excellent guards.


The God War

Eventually, it is said, the God Kings decided to challenge the Gods of the Sky for dominance. There ensued a great war, where many Humans and other servants of the God Kings were slain. In the final battle, the Gods of the Sky unleashed a power called the Fists of Heaven and smote the world three times.

Four of the five greatest of the God Kings were destroyed, with all their works, their cities, and their servants. Three great seas filled the craters as the world was lashed by storms and darkness.

All life in the world would have been destroyed, but for the actions of VASH, the remaining leader of the God Kings, and those of the lesser God Kings who remained. VASH worked great magics from the surviving temple on the Captive Moon. The darkness could have lasted many years, but VASH brought an end to it in a month.

Still, food was scarce, and most large creatures died of starvation while many smaller creatures died of cold. The Humans and other intelligent races were hard hit also, but eventually the darkness lifted and life again seemed normal.


The Age of Men

Humans survived the darkness better than most, and remembered much of what the God Kings taught them. They have built many nations in the thousand years since the God War.

The lesser God Kings who survived have given up their aspirations of conquest, content to live with their servants inside the temples or palaces or bunkers created long ago. Some few have borne (or possibly created) children of their own. For the most part their activities are inscrutable to Humans. To interact with a God King is to invite catastrophe, it is said.


Races of Man

Humans are by far the most common intelligent humanoids in the world. There are several different "races" of Humans, differing mainly in coloration, as follows:

Vashites are green-skinned (with tone varying based on sun exposure), usually having black hair and brown eyes. About one in ten will have red hair and green eyes; these are sometimes considered unlucky. One in a hundred will have white hair and blue eyes, and these are generally considered blessed. Vashites are named for VASH, the God-King to whom many of them still give their allegiance. She is said to have created the Vashites in her own image. Vashites are passionate and willful like their creator.

Azurites are blue-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed Humans. A very few (perhaps one in a hundred) will have white hair and blue or grey eyes. Azurites claim to be the "children of SERUS," one of the five greatest God-Kings who was slain in the God-War. They are often wizards or craftsmen, noted for their calm detachment and patience.

Zornites have night-black skin, hair, and eyes. They claim to have been created by ZORAL, who was slain in the God-War. His place was taken by another of his creations who calls himself ZORN. One in a thousand will be born with shocking white hair. Zornites have very little body fat and slender bodies. This does not make them less strong or tough than the other Human races. They are a civilized and rational people, called inscrutable by other Humans.

The Red Men are just that... red. They have black hair and black eyes, though one in a hundred or so will have grey eyes; one in a thousand will have green eyes. Their folklore says they were created by the warrior God-King named HORASH, who died leading a mighty army in the God-War. Like their creator, the Red Men are warlike and usually found as mercenaries.

The Yellow Men are yellow, as the name says. Two-thirds have golden hair and eyes, while the remaining third have black hair and blue eyes. Their creator was named KYRIS, and like the other greater God-Kings he died in the God-War. Yellow Men are renowned sailors and merchants.

Hillmen, sometimes called Primitives, are normal Humans unchanged (for the most part) by the God-Kings. They have light tan to deep tan skin, with any of black, brown, or blonde hair and grey, blue, green, or brown eyes. The only major nation controlled by these "normal" Humans is Antyr. They are often looked down on by the other races of Humans.


Details of the God Kings

When the great Temple appeared, there were five greater God Kings and nearly a hundred lesser ones. Because of their historic significance, all the greater ones will be described here, along with those of the lesser God Kings who survived the Darkness.

It is traditional to represent the names of the God Kings in all-uppercase characters, and it shall be so here.

Greater God Kings

KYRIS, the Golden, Leader of the God Kings, was seen as a father-deity. He was mighty, wrathful if crossed, but overall was seen as a good leader. He is among those who died in the Darkness.

SERUS, the Blue, was the Scholar of the God Kings. He was seen as logical and cool-headed. He was the patron of Mages. SERUS died in the Darkness.

ZORAL, the Black, was Lord of the Dead and Master of Homunculi. He died in the Darkness, but left behind his son, ZORN, who is nearly his equal (it is said). ZORAL and ZORN are noted for their appearance, being "like glassy vessels full of stars."

HORASH, the Red God, Warlord of the God Kings, died leading the vanguard in the battle against the Gods of the Sky. There are none of his red-skinned followers left alive among the lesser God Kings.

VASH, the Green, is the only survivor of the greater God Kings. She is also the only female, and the only one to deviate from the normal Human form; she has a second set of arms below the first. VASH is the earth-mother figure, mistress of both fertility and lust.

Lesser God Kings

ZORN, son of ZORAL, is described above under his father's listing. He is reclusive, rarely seen outside the Black Pyramids which are his home.

(The other lesser God Kings are not detailed yet, but consist of two male and one female yellows, and two male blues.)


Magical Technologies of the God-Kings

Homunculi

The magical technology called Homunculi (singular Homuculus) is the knowledge and skill to create or shape living things in a permanent fashion. This knowledge, perfected by VASH but known to some level or another by all God-Kings, is the means by which Humans were remade and by which Minotaurs, Saurans, and Birdmen were created.

Machina

This is the knowledge of creating Automatons, the preferred servants of the God-Kings. There are many designs for such devices, but in general once a standard design is created the God-Kings duplicate it repeatedly.

In general such devices consume Mana from an internal store (in the form of magic crystals) and must be recharged from time to time as per normal magic crystals. The most powerful Machina have the ability to recharge themselves, just as normal creatures do.

Machinora

This is the most difficult magical technology of all, the combination of Automaton and living (Homunculus) components. Only VASH is known to be able to create such beings.

Windships

The God-Kings (or their servants) sometimes travel in Windships, flying craft powered by ancient magic. The details of their construction are not known, but a Windship in motion seems driven by its own howling wind.


Racism and Cross-Breeds

To start with, it is important to understand how the coloring of the people of the Shattered World came to be. Each God-King created his or her own race of followers, in his or her personal favorite color. Each colored person (that is, anyone other than a Hillman) has in his or her genetic makeup two color elements. Those that have both of the same color are "pure."

Any person of mixed parentage will be of a mixed color. These colors mix like paint most of the time, so that a cross between a Red Man and a Kyrian (the most common crossbreed) will produce orange children. The major exception is crosses between Red Men and Vashites; the Vashite green expresses as either blue or yellow in this case, so that the children have even chances of being purple or orange.

Crossbreeds are considered third-class citizens in almost all countries. Curiously, the colored races accord each other more respect than they do crossbreeds, even if the crossbreed is half-native. In other words, an Azurite will have more respect for a Zornite than for a purple person, even though the purple must be half blue Azurite.

When those of mixed parentage bear children, there is a fifty-fifty chance of each color element being inherited; so an orange woman (who are commonly prostitutes) who has a child by a Kyrian has a fifty percent chance of the child being pure Yellow Man. Such a child is still tainted, but he or she may move to a different area (another city, a foreign country, etc.) and lie about his or her parentage, gaining respectability.

It is a common epithet in Kyris to say "your mother is orange" as a way to start a fight, for instance.

Those who are half-Zornite are called shades. Half-Hillman, half-colored people are called fades, and as Hillmen are looked down on by the colored races anyway, fades are the lowest class of crossbreeds. All others are called by the color they are.

The one odd case is the half-Azurite, half-Kyrian cross; these people are green and can easily pass as Vashite. However, should one of them marry a pure Vashite, none of their children will be pure green; all will be either yellow-green or blue-green. Such people often attempt to pass but must avoid marriage. In Suritania, where the largest numbers of false greens are, they are called "dummies" and the penalty for claiming to be Vashite when in fact you are not is death. If a "dummy" can find another false green, there are even odds per child of producing green offspring, with the other half being either blue or yellow; but in this case they must hide these "pure" children, sometimes paying Kyrian facilitators to arrange adoptions for them.

In fact, this is one of the most lucrative and specialized of the Kyrian trades: adoption. When mixed color parents produce pure color children they may pay all they have to get that child adopted into a pure color family, for its own good. A few Kyrian traders have made their fortunes this way.


The Nation of Antyr

After the God-War, the region to the northeast of Dracotera became known as "the Wastes" because no one of the civilized races wanted to live there. The land is high plains with sparse rainfall in the summer and high, cold winds and snow in the winter. The inhabitants were nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes of normal Humans (aka Hillmen). For most of a thousand years this was the status quo.

All that changed when the new chief of the Antyr tribe, hunting with a few of his closest friends, literally fell into a bunker dating back to the God-War. Few of the wonders therein were functional, having been damaged in the war or subsequently decaying from sheer ages of neglect; but the hunters found one thing of interest: an automaton.

No one will tell the story of how the chief, Adar son of Huth, was able to reactivate the automaton, nor of how she came to call him master, but the automaton had all the ancient knowledge. Adar called her Silver because of her appearance; her designation, Quan-23-Imri-792, being useless as a name. (Quan and Imri are letters in the ancient alphabet of the Gods.)

In appearance she is basically female, though lacking hair, breasts, genitals, or nails. Her skin is like quicksilver, gleaming and smooth, soft to the touch but magically hardening if struck. She speaks in a low, beautiful voice which never betrays any emotions, as she claims to have none. She never eats, drinks, or sleeps; her mechanism of sustenance is not known. Her eyes are like silver orbs, having no visible surface features.

Adar's people split up into two tribes, as many were afraid of Silver or angered by her presence. Adar used her knowledge to build a village, and when tribesmen from other tribes came to join him he made them to acknowledge him as King. Soon the village was a city with the most modern of conveniences (running water for instance) and the surrounding land was filled with farms receiving water from a new canal system.

For every tribesman who eagerly joined Adar, there were two others who hated him, and eventually there was war. When the dust settled, the western third of the Wastes was ceded to the enemies of Adar, and the eastern two-thirds became known as the Kingdom of Antyr. With more reliable food sources and better defenses against predators and raiders, the Antyrans quickly reached and then exceeded the numbers of the tribesmen.

As the Antyran nation continued to grow, the King of Suritania (a Vashite nation) became worried; so he decided to blame Hillmen border raids on Antyr (though he knew better) and declared war.

The Antyran forces were unskilled at modern warfare, but Silver gave them many advantages which allowed them to eventually win, forcing King Rothus of Suritania to agree to a treaty. By this time, Adar's son, Athron, was King in Antyr, as Adar had fallen in battle. Athron considers Rothus treacherous and unreliable, so even with the treaty Antyr still maintains forts and patrols in the mountains of the border.


The Fountain of HORASH

The Fountain is a magical region in the present nation of Thanagiroth which is said to be where the fortress of HORASH was before the God-War. All that remains are tilted and broken stones, and a glowing fountain of magical energy.

Some believe that the energy of the Fountain can be used by mages to power mighty spells; but this is uncertain, as the rulers of Thanagiroth have limited access to the Fountain for many years.


The Island of Kyris

Kyris is a volcanic island in the center of the Primus Sea. It is named for the God-King Kyris, killed in the God-War; the Kyrians are of the Yellow Men race, which he created.

As Kyris (the island) is hard to farm, the inhabitants have become great seagoing merchants. There is a substantial colony of Minotaurs on the island, who are more civilized than most; many of them work as sailors, though few advance to trader.

Kyrians have a reputation as being sharp operators, willing to make a gold crown any way they can, but in general one will hold to the letter of any contract he signs.

Kyris is presently ruled by Naressa, Lady Regent of the House of Liriel. She is the aunt, and closest living relative, of the proper Queen of Kyris, Galinna, who is just nine years old. Galinna's mother, the former Queen Arialla, and her consort Colbard were killed a few years ago in an attack by sea raiders.


If you liked this you may like the first short story set in the Shattered World:

ID: 447260   (Rated: 18+) Title: Harvis  Description: In the Shattered World, you don't play games with a God-King. Especially VASH... By: Chris Gonnerman