ETA: Holy Wall of Text, Batman! Apparently I had a lot to say and I apologize in advance for the length.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 13, 2021, 05:39:22 PM
So it's like sort of Virgin Conception - every elf restored into proper womb or is there a biological element. What if all female elves of higher caste were all murdered at the same time?

Theoretically, you might prevent them from being able to reincarnate, but it'd be a tall order as the elves are scattered across the globe. Leaving aside the number of people who have genocide in them, 3000 female high elves in El-Phara is one thing, 500,000 around the world is quite another.

Of course, this could be wrong, and new high elves would be born from the lower castes, but with the traits of the higher castes.

QuoteAlso TBH if this reincarnarion works in that way - that seems that asshole stalinist elves are right - this is proper metaphysical order of elfishness. Weird

Well, the High Elves seem to think so, but the Low Elves might disagree.

The High Elves get to live as close to their lives in the Astral Paradises as possible. The lower castes must labor in varying degrees based on their place in the hierarchy much as humans do to grow food and wines and produce luxuries for the elites when, in the Astral Paradises they were able to do their duties for the gods as assigned by the higher ranks (for example, delivering the effects of an astral spell cast by a mortal who made a pact with their god), but enjoying the same luxuries as those above them.

QuoteIs there any biological / mechanical difference between castes aside of womb you were born from?

Not to seem too Invader Zim, but height is one of the most obvious signs. Mechanically, I define three types; Low Elves, Common Elves and High Elves. Low elves are about six inches shorter than the average human (4' 6" - 5' 6"), common elves are roughly man-sized (5'-6'), and high elves about six-inches taller than the average human (5' 6" - 6' 6").

In addition, some of the high elves are able to manifest more divine aspects than is typical in their exile. Some retain the divine mutability that allowed them manifest in forms comfortable and familiar to mortals and are referred to by humans as Changelings for their most common roles these days are as spies and assassins.

Others are able to manifest wings of astral light (i.e. they're not biological parts of them) and are known as Archons (closest to the gods) and the highest can even manifest auras related to their patron god's aspects.

QuoteClever (Place of the People reminds this randist weirdo Goodkind evil Mongol-Stalinist-Catholic setting where capitol was also called something like that I think).

One of my many passions is etymology (the origin of words) and this is really just how names work. Endonyms (what people call themselves) almost end up being some variant of "the People" in their own language. Similarly, a lot of exonyms (what people call other people) end up being either "outsider" or "others from [place]."

Places also ultimately tend to boil down to very basic things; the local name for a hill is "The Hill" in their own tongue. Their name for the place they control is often just "The Land" or "The Place" as well. Outsiders then borrow that word when describing that place to their own people. Over successive generations and peoples migrating in and out of places the name sticks, but the original meaning is lost and so you end up with places that are named Torpenhow Hill (Tor meaning "hill" in one language, then a new group came in and their word for hill was "pen" so they called Tor Pen... Tor Hill to them, this got repeated with How, that language's word for hill, for Torpen How and finally into English with Torpenhow Hill or "Hill Hill Hill Hill").

So my specific reasoning with the elves is that, because they basically dropped in without any history in the region and the region itself being greatly depopulated, they named things entirely using basic endonyms. They are the People and their lands are the Place/Lands of the People.

Humans encounter them and hear them call themselves El and their lands as El-Phara. A little linguistic drift over two centuries like the default human plural adding an -s and it goes El > Els > Elfs > Elves and El-Phara > El-Pharan > Elfan > Elven.

QuoteWell but then I'd expect elves to consider their situation to be not-permanent - but more, we have to reclaim our place among stars? I mean there are concious what happened to them, and that their material non astral existence is off right? And fate of lower elven spirits in their homeland - was it as grim as well, or they are just extra fucked by being trapped in matter's cage (inb4 gnostic vibe).

They initially considered it temporary, but every effort to reopen the barriers between worlds ended in failure (the afterlife being an unreachable mystery one must take on faith is a big part of maintaining the versimiltude of the setting by ensuring that PCs think in ways like we do vs. being able to just planeshift and go visit you father in the afterlife and high five your god while you're visiting).

Even then though they hoped that by ending their mortal existence their spirits would return to the astral realms... until the first of them killed was reincarnated in the mortal world. That was when they realized that whatever the Cataclysm was that had befallen them had also bound their spirits to the Mortal World. They were stuck.

That was when the High Elves asserted their authority and structured their society to facilitate those "closest to the gods" being able to maintain an existence as close to the one they had in the astral realms as possible and that it was the duty of those elves beneath them to maintain it.

QuoteAlso - those Astral Gods existed for long millenia right - from your first Apocalypse time - so they were known to mortal beings right, so what is human pagans stance of 40 000 lesser angels dropped in pointy-eared bodies in a middle of Apocalyptic wasteland???

Well, the first thing to realize is that the elves aren't the first time celestial beings have ended up in the Mortal World.

The dawn of recorded history began when an army of primal spirits (elemental beings who formed the Mortal World in the first place; as servants of The Source according to the Old Faith, for their own ends according to the astral faiths) descended upon the tribes of human hunter-gatherers and enslaved them; gathering them into cities and forcing them to labor for the benefit of their masters.

These primal spirits came to be called Demons and the civilization they created The Demon Empire. They bred with mortal women to create the Malfeans, overseers for their human slaves. They turned the Mortal World into a fortress filled with human hostages for they had rebelled against the greater number of primal spirits (who profess the Mortal World was created for Men at the behest of The Source).

In the end, an alliance of humans (including the dwarves the demons created from them and some say even a few rebellious malfeans) and primal spirits drove out the demons and banished them forever to the Outer Darkness (except when foolish mortals let them in), but in the war between the primal spirits and their fallen brethren a full third of their number were too cowardly to pick a side and so the victorious primal spirits exiled their cowardly kin to the Mortal World where they would be forced to reside in mortal forms (sylphs, undine, dryads, sprites, unicorns, giants, dragons, etc.) until they had proven themselves worthy protectors of the Mortal World.

These beings collectively came to be called the Eldritch.

So this isn't exactly the first time it's happened and the arrivals not been quite as great as advertised.

* * * *

Second, the other thing about the elves is that their religion doesn't exactly line up with any of the mortal astral god focused religions.

From the earliest astral religion to the more modern offshoots, there have been certain commonalities suggesting a shared deeper truth; twelve gods including a Sky Father as it's head, an Earth Mother as his wife, and a goddess of death; typically appearing with animal heads (akin to the Egyptians) and distinctions regarding good and evil (the earliest astral religion depicted the gods as possessing both positive and negative aspects of their domains; ex. a god of rulership and the sky; while more recent ones divided these up into a pantheon of a dozen good gods; ex. god of just rule and good weather; who are worshipped and a dozen evil ones who are worshiped against; ex. god of tyranny and storms).

By contrast, the Elven religion acknowledges only eleven gods (the goddess of death is absent), claims the Moon Goddess is the high queen and mother of the other ten gods (with the sky god as her consort) and that all the gods cycle through two aspects (called seelie and unseelie; positive and negative aspects of their portfolios) in accord with the phases of the moon.

The theologians of the Via Praetorum have therefore proclaimed as dogma that the elves are not the servants of the true gods, but the misguided children of the goddess of dreams (who is associated with the moon) and that the elven gods are not the true astral gods, but the dreams of Men about the gods.

Basically, the human religions have declared the elves to be heretics (albeit presently quite powerful and dangerous heretics) and that worship of the elven pantheon endangers the eternal souls of Men.

The elves obviously consider humans to be fools who worship falsely and that the "demon" Men worship as the goddess of death is proof of their folly.

And don't get the elves or the pontiffs of the Via Praetorum started on the followers of The Old Faith who regard the primal spirits (actual kin to demons) as their spiritual brothers and worship a force they can't even prove is a sapient entity as their God.

So, the short version... religions are complicated.

QuoteOK and for all those people - (orcs are human mutants right) - Astral Gods are real stuff, and elves were Astral Gods angels basically. So aside of being almost extinct like all people - how to they cope with elves prancing around.

Well, real in the sense that you can make ritual pacts with them and gain supernatural powers, but it's not like anyone living has seen them and, as has been mentioned previously, there is no planar travel to enable anyone to go check for sure.

There's also a couple of different religions based on the astral gods with slightly different beliefs about their nature (think Protestantism).

There's even groups, particularly arcane spellcasters, who deny the gods even truly exist... that they are just "AI's" existing within the Arcane Web and their "divine" magic is just arcane magic performed by these AIs running in system. They further point to the now lost magics of biomancy and the creation of sapient golems as proof that arcane magic could once create artificial life forms (which they claim the elves are).

Throw in the "elven heretics" from above and let reality ensue... i.e. there is no one consensus about the elves among humans other than "they're here and real enough to poke us with pointy things if provoked."

Even the elves don't entirely agree or there wouldn't be Dark Elves... and among the exiles there is real debate between continuing to worship the elven gods, adopt the human gods or say "there's no eternal paradise waiting no matter what I do so screw the gods."

Basically, I don't want there to be clean and easy answers to these questions. One of the biggest disconnects between real people and those of many D&D settings is that real people don't have the answers there in concrete form.

Gods don't manifest in mortal form down the street and we can't cast plane shift, walk up to a god and ask them which interpretation of their religion is correct or be certain of our afterlife because that same plane shift can allow us to meet our ancestor's soul as they're chilling in one of the god's realms.

I can't even begin to describe how alien that certain knowledge would make the typical D&D setting; but most just gloss it over and pretend the values and culture would still be mostly the same as here where all of that just has to taken on faith and now divine being is going to drop out of the sky to clarify any disputes.

Imagine what history would look like if, just before the first clash between Christians and Islam, God came down from heaven and said "Woah! Why are you attacking each other? X's interpretation is correct and you're both wrong about Y!"

That's your average D&D world in relation to religion.

So, in order to have a setting more in line with real people... all those things are mysteries with a lot of potential answers, but no one who can prove it... so, for the most part, you have to take which religion is true and what happens after you die on faith.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on February 13, 2021, 11:52:10 PM
Great job on the elves imho, many try to do elves differently and wind up with normal elves but wings, or an extra eye or a tail, you've world built them in such a way as to explain the average human perception of them and I dig it.

Thanks, I've put a LOT of work into putting together a coherent setting where all the pieces fit despite it being a kitchen sink setting.

It was also less about making elves different as it was trying to be true to the mythology of the "fair folk" (so called because people were terrified of possibly insulting them) while still allowing playable elves as PCs.

My elves as a whole are quite alien, especially compared to contemporary values, but the exiles likely to be PCs have necessarily adapted to better live among non-elves and so would be easier to roleplay. The fact that their rulers are also desperate to maintain their power and positions makes them very dangerous potential enemies as well without being just "we worship evil" types.

QuoteWell, the High Elves seem to think so, but the Low Elves might disagree.

The High Elves get to live as close to their lives in the Astral Paradises as possible. The lower castes must labor in varying degrees based on their place in the hierarchy much as humans do to grow food and wines and produce luxuries for the elites when, in the Astral Paradises they were able to do their duties for the gods as assigned by the higher ranks (for example, delivering the effects of an astral spell cast by a mortal who made a pact with their god), but enjoying the same luxuries as those above them.

Ok, but High Elves also were Astral God flunkies just for more important jobs so... dunno they seems very commonly demoralized.
I'd expect at least some important sects to centre their effort to return to Astral Realm rather than trying to pretend nothing happened.

QuoteNot to seem too Invader Zim, but height is one of the most obvious signs. Mechanically, I define three types; Low Elves, Common Elves and High Elves. Low elves are about six inches shorter than the average human (4' 6" - 5' 6"), common elves are roughly man-sized (5'-6'), and high elves about six-inches taller than the average human (5' 6" - 6' 6").

In addition, some of the high elves are able to manifest more divine aspects than is typical in their exile. Some retain the divine mutability that allowed them manifest in forms comfortable and familiar to mortals and are referred to by humans as Changelings for their most common roles these days are as spies and assassins.

Others are able to manifest wings of astral light (i.e. they're not biological parts of them) and are known as Archons (closest to the gods) and the highest can even manifest auras related to their patron god's aspects.

OK, that's cool.

QuoteOne of my many passions is etymology (the origin of words) and this is really just how names work. Endonyms (what people call themselves) almost end up being some variant of "the People" in their own language. Similarly, a lot of exonyms (what people call other people) end up being either "outsider" or "others from [place].

In old times it see, but most of modern nations and tribes have names reestabilished so many times it sort of faded it seem.
Like I mean almost any Slavic or Germanic language will have simmilar word for "people" but most stopped using such even towards themselves.
Especially among people who had many tribes and were not isolated specific tribes could boast some honorific which later could evolve into specific nation name. So ironically I'd expect most of advanced people that left isolated tribe status thousands years ago to loose simple "The People" meaning - now of course your Elves have not went so far - though of course question is considering they are astral spirits for whom incarnation is still relatively young - how it relates to their pre-Cataclysm astral ways of communication.

(And then of course there is effect of multiple shifts between many nations that makes it even funnier.
Like Polish word for Italians - Włosi is derived from Polish word for Romanians - Wołoszyni - which is derived from Germanic Vlachi/Valachi - which indeed means foreigner and on the other side of Europe - Wales/Welsh is the same word just in English version.)

QuoteThey initially considered it temporary, but every effort to reopen the barriers between worlds ended in failure (the afterlife being an unreachable mystery one must take on faith is a big part of maintaining the versimiltude of the setting by ensuring that PCs think in ways like we do vs. being able to just planeshift and go visit you father in the afterlife and high five your god while you're visiting).

OK, I get it with mortals. But elves are not mortals. They know what they are - metaphysically - so it's hardly the afterlife for them - it's more this world is prison for them.

QuoteThat was when the High Elves asserted their authority and structured their society to facilitate those "closest to the gods" being able to maintain an existence as close to the one they had in the astral realms as possible and that it was the duty of those elves beneath them to maintain it.

TBH I'm surprised considering their initial position - they have not decide to enslave mortals instead. I mean most mortals worshipped Astral Gods IIUC, and elves served as angelic spirits so they should be "so you puny mammals were serving our boss here right, good now you gonna serve us instead as we're here or smth".

QuoteSo this isn't exactly the first time it's happened and the arrivals not been quite as great as advertised.

Well but astral spirits and primal spirits are not the same it seems, right? I mean Astral Faiths differentiates it IIUC.

QuoteBy contrast, the Elven religion acknowledges only eleven gods (the goddess of death is absent), claims the Moon Goddess is the high queen and mother of the other ten gods (with the sky god as her consort) and that all the gods cycle through two aspects (called seelie and unseelie; positive and negative aspects of their portfolios) in accord with the phases of the moon.

The theologians of the Via Praetorum have therefore proclaimed as dogma that the elves are not the servants of the true gods, but the misguided children of the goddess of dreams (who is associated with the moon) and that the elven gods are not the true astral gods, but the dreams of Men about the gods.

OK, that makes great sense.
But now the question is - who is... more right. Like objectively considering inner dealing of Astral Pantheon.

From what you wrote so far I'd guess 12 is more or less real number (question of them being shards or reflections of Source aside) - but servants of Death Goddess were separated from Elves from some reason, so Elves do not know her, and Fetches are generally her elves for lack of better words, which would make them simmilar beings in metaphysical descriptor though of course with different accidents.

QuoteSo, the short version... religions are complicated.

Good.
I must say as much I'm not that big into BIG FUCKING HERO gameplay method I'd really like to see your setting printed.

QuoteIt was also less about making elves different as it was trying to be true to the mythology of the "fair folk" (so called because people were terrified of possibly insulting them) while still allowing playable elves as PCs.

OK last question - because you once said - now it seems it changed a bit - elves were meant to be embodiment of human dreams and gnomes of children dreams - I assume that's Praetorian perspective on them. But assuming they are real fallen/trapped angels and fetches are their equvialent on court of 12th goddess - what that makes gnomes?
Also what is fetch perspective on this considering their being presumably Psychopomp Astrals?

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 14, 2021, 05:09:29 PM
Ok, but High Elves also were Astral God flunkies just for more important jobs so... dunno they seems very commonly demoralized.

I'd expect at least some important sects to centre their effort to return to Astral Realm rather than trying to pretend nothing happened.

After a century of beating their heads against the wall with no discernible progress even the devoted tend to bow to reality and better use of resources. Not that they wouldn't jump at the chance to go home if it presented itself; but no one's even sure what the Cataclysm actually was, much less all the things it changed alongside all the destruction.

And rather than the high elves being easily demoralized, I was shooting for powerful and decadent with zero regard for murdering those who don't comply to recycle them into a new life that is hopefully more compliant to their whims.

To put it in perspective; the monster entry for elves includes Archon Sky Knights (think airborne cavalry with flechettes to harass the enemy before making their dive bomb-like spear charge), House Guards (their infantry), Changeling Assassins, Inquistors and Illusonists.

The High Elves who rule El-Phara are NOT nice. Indeed, they're probably more wicked than the Orcs. It's why I make a distinction between the elves humans generally come into contact with (i.e. those who've fled and hide in the wilds) and the ones who conducted regular Wild Hunts against the weaker barbarian tribes for their sport.

QuoteIn old times it see, but most of modern nations and tribes have names reestabilished so many times it sort of faded it seem.

Your examples are largely contemporary European though. This is more akin to European colonists c. AD 1500 naming settlements in the New World... only the elves were basically an unchanging monoculture for several millennia before that.

Also, linguistic drift is much less of a thing when it's been the same elves the whole time.

QuoteOK, I get it with mortals. But elves are not mortals. They know what they are - metaphysically - so it's hardly the afterlife for them - it's more this world is prison for them.

Yup. The Cataclysm did a number on Creation.

According to the Fetches HALF their number were pulled into the Mortal World and one of their main jobs in the afterlife was hunting the damned souls who gave themselves to The Shadow before they could escape into the Mortal World. The number of undead has been on the rise in the 200 years since.

Ultimately, it comes down to a setting conceit. I don't want there to be easy answers about the afterlife for ANY PCs because such firm absolute answers utterly destroy the ability to honestly identify with characters residing in the fantasy world.

Most fantasy settings just pretend such knowledge wouldn't change anything about civilization in the same way they pretend a henotheistic pantheon of good and evil gods is going to produce a culture and values identical to Medieval Europe, just without the Christianity part.

Western civilization was built on the foundations of Christianity. It was extremely counter to cultures that preceded it and the only thing keeping our post-Christian secular society from collapsing into a Might Makes Right/Law of the Jungle dystopia is the inertia of the Christian civilization that preceded it and you can see Western civilization coming apart at the seams as that inertia runs out.

Now, go in the opposite direction and think about what this world would REALLY look like if we knew for certain that, say, the Catholic Church's was 100% right and every other religion was false and whenever anyone even started to try and put forth a heresy that an 100' tall gleaming white angel of the Lord would appear and announce that the heretic's beliefs were false.

That's what ANYONE being able to go into the Otherworlds and return does to a setting. There are no wars over which interpretation of the Biblical God claimed by Jews, Christians and Muslims is correct (so vast chunks of European history just don't happen).

Further, you also KNOW without doubt exactly what it takes to get into eternal paradise. No doubts. No "maybe this isn't really a sin", "I think that verse really means..." or "maybe it's all a crock invented by the hierarchy to maintain their own power." You KNOW. Who in their right mind is going to deviate from the known path in that situation?

For that matter, where is the need to innovate. If you know this world is just a brief pit stop before eternity why devote any time to improving living conditions here? Stone tools are good enough to plow the soil to get enough food to sustain the body until you enter paradise. Why go looking for copper or learn to forge bronze or smelt iron?

A world without the uncertainty of the afterlife and the truth of God/the gods' existence is simply too alien and I don't want my setting to be like every other shoddy D&D that pretends objective truth of gods and the afterlife wouldn't actually change anything.

So the elves are ultimately stuck because it makes a better campaign world.

QuoteTBH I'm surprised considering their initial position - they have not decide to enslave mortals instead. I mean most mortals worshipped Astral Gods IIUC, and elves served as angelic spirits so they should be "so you puny mammals were serving our boss here right, good now you gonna serve us instead as we're here or smth".

Oh, they did try. The main heroic realm now called the Free Cities was made an "Elven Protectorate" not five years after the Cataclysm.

The problem as I alluded to before is numbers. A few thousand humans (all that survived the Cataclysm in the default campaign region) isn't enough to support 60,000 elves in the lifestyles they'd been accustomed to. So the high elves also enslaved their low and common elves.

After 125 years the human population of the Free Cities was finally reaching a level where using them to replace the low elves might be practical, but by then the elves were facing invasion by the seemingly unstoppable orcish Bloodspear Empire (think Roman Legions not barbarians) and opted instead to pull their finite troop numbers from the Free Cities back to protect the El-Pharan heartland and left the Free Cities to the mercies of the orcs.

It was another 40 years before the orc onslaught was halted by the death of their Emperor and civil war between his four children for the throne began. By then the Free Cities (in a case of adapt or die) had established their own armies and were too strong to reconquer.

This is what happens when you're dicks to everyone weaker than you if you can't actually keep pace with their growth.

QuoteWell but astral spirits and primal spirits are not the same it seems, right? I mean Astral Faiths differentiates it IIUC.

Everyone in the setting differentiates. Primal spirits are elemental (air, earth, fire, water, plants, metal, ice, beasts) in nature and even the astral faiths acknowledge they built the Mortal World (primal comes from the fact they were around first; they just regard them the way Greek myth regarded the Titans.

Astral spirits by contrast embody ideas and concepts; rulership, justice, knowledge, love, war, manhood, womanhood, dreams, fortune, etc.

Regardless though, in relation to the point... beings from outside the Mortal World winding up in the world isn't unheard of and neither the demons nor the Eldritch were exactly paragons. Throw in their alien religion and it was pretty easy for human theologians to lean people towards the idea that the elves were not benevolent bringers of wisdom.

QuoteBut now the question is - who is... more right. Like objectively considering inner dealing of Astral Pantheon.

Officially? It's up to the GM.

I have a version that's canon for tables I run, but the entire point of including theological mysteries in the setting isn't to provide a concrete answer; it's to have the same sort of unanswered questions that afflict the real world. That's why there's contradictory evidence that supports any of the religions or even the atheists.

[/quote]From what you wrote so far I'd guess 12 is more or less real number (question of them being shards or reflections of Source aside) - but servants of Death Goddess were separated from Elves from some reason, so Elves do not know her, and Fetches are generally her elves for lack of better words, which would make them simmilar beings in metaphysical descriptor though of course with different accidents. [/quote]
Well, there's all sorts of weirdness about the goddess of death, winter and transition. Her most common epithet is The Grey Huntress and she is either the oldest of the gods (by up to a millennia) and unlike the other astral gods the manner in which she is depicted hasn't shifted across the two major historical periods of astral religion.

As mentioned previously, different astral faiths approach the duality of the aspects of the gods in different ways. The oldest versions say that each of the 12 embody both the good and the bad and are basically beyond morality. Modern versions instead claim this was a mistaken interpretation and there are actually twelve good gods who protect mankind from the twelve evil gods.

The thing about The Grey Huntress is that while all the other gods were split in two (ex. Rulership into just rule and tyranny), instead a new evil god associated with the undead and disease was created as her opposite number (whereas even the oldest tales recorded The Grey Huntress as the enemy of the undead and one who came to relieve suffering not to inflict it).

And on top of that The Grey Huntress is also acknowledged in The Old Faith, but as a powerful primal spirit associated with winter and transition. In the aftermath of The First Empire's fall, the Speakers of The Old Faith have claimed that it was not enough for the Grey Huntress that the primal spirits stand aside and allow the First Empire to be destroyed for its sins; instead she joined the young astral gods in bringing it to its well deserved end and afterwards became an honorary member of the pantheon.

There are some astral sects who also believe this general story but claim The Grey Huntress saw the wickedness of the primal spirits and abandoned them, transforming herself into an astral god.

Which of these tales is true is left to the GM, but if you must know my personal headcanon; none of the astral religions are true; the Old Faith is. The astral gods are the result of the spiritual damage to the mortal world in the war with the demons.

Originally, the world was meant to perfectly reflect the spiritual light of The Source, but the spiritual corruption of the demons shattered its perfect surface and scattering the spiritual light like a mirror ball across the dome of the sky. Where this spiritual energy pooled it gained thought and eventually became the astral gods.

Realizing that they could gain strength by promoting aspects of reality related to their particular mote of spiritual light; they approached the enslaved Beastmen and formed the first astral pacts with them, trading pursuit of the gods' interests for magic to break the hold the biomancers of the first had upon them.

In my personal headcanon, The Grey Huntress is indeed a primal spirit who sided with the astral gods against the First Empire and afterwards maneuvered her way into the pantheon to continue to fulfill her role in shepherding the souls of Men to their proper places in the afterlife even if they had turned their back on The Old Faith.

And in answer to the last question about the Fetches, it's again up to the GM, but my headcanon is that they're NOT astral beings at all. The Huntress' Grey Host are souls undergoing a sort of purgatory to earn remittance for sins committed in life before sending them on to their final reward. The Cataclysm has complicated things, but ultimately even the biggest delay relative to eternity is trivial so when they first arrived in the Mortal World they chose to continue their duties as best they could; hunting the undead and delivering comfort to the sick and dying. Because of the hostile and dangerous life they lead, virtually every Fetch has reincarnated at least once and has no direct memories of existence in the otherworlds, just the stories passed on to them.

The Fetches are essentially the flip side of the elves; same situation as them, but opposite reaction (continue the mission even in changed circumstances vs. abandon the mission to maintain their comfortable circumstances).

The gnomes are the embodied dreams of children vs. the elves who embody the dreams of men (the low elves were once the dreams of peasants and serfs... they are smaller because the self-image of many serfs is similarly diminished by their circumstances. Similarly, the high elves are the embodied dreams of nobles and aristocrats who view themselves as larger than life.

They differ from elves mostly in degree rather than kind and because I literally wrote them up to be playable for my young (8-11) godkids with literally the softest death option of any species... if killed their body turns to mist and they emerge from the mists of the fey crossing they first entered the Mortal World through, but with no memories of their adventures (they have to start fresh unless you find them and use a particular ritual that's as costly/difficult as raise dead to restore the lost memories.

But throwing ALL of that up in the air is the Blood Spear (for which the orc empire is named); a miles tall fortress believed to predate even the arrival of the demons who introduced civilization to the human hunter-gathers... if true then all of the above is wrong.

OK, this go definitely way too offtopic, so I shall restrain my OCD a little bit:

1. In terms of languages that was of course more wide approach, not criticism of specifically elven situation (if anything I was always bit surprised how Tolkien elven languages evolved into quite different forms despite elven immortality).

2. Overall I don't think it's impossible to identify with people who KNOWS about afterlife. I think it can be done, but it demands certain mental exercise, and most of D&D players sort of ignores this, and problems rising from it, so it's not well solved - aside of Eberron, but then Eberron has objective Limbo for souls, so it simply puts most religious elements outside of sphere of afterlife.
And of course it's a bit like your Angel smiting Marthin Luther situation - with this difference that you have multiple sides in eternal conflict, so still it's not like The Truth - but more - choose a side you wanna align your soul with after your dead - bad choice and you can be eaten and anihilated utterly, good choice and you can become celestial badger. Maybe. So afterlife being unholy clusterfuck of Outer Planes is adding certain dimension that even with nature of Planes being known - there is still not like Objective Order there, more... Objective War.
And there will be people who'd prefer take risk to rise in Hellish hierarchies rather than go being archon's flunkie in Celestia - because it's still objectively plausible for earthly tyrant to rise to position of power in Hell.

3. Overall political situation seems finer with every detail. Orcs are IIRC - human mutated by demons for warfare, right? Or by Cataclysm?

4. In terms of Grey Huntress - it's a loose idea, but considering how fracture is this world - I'd definitely include somewhere heresies of Astral that dualised her as well. While undead stance seems to be quite easy to put beyond it - I mean undeath is not mere seelie/unseelie aspects of reality - it is abomination against reality - but faith in her as winter goddess I think supernatural divisions aside should be prone to evolve into such way - bit like Queen Mab of Dresden Files - many aspects of winter. (And winter gods often were kinda assholes in real pagan religions, distrusted and demonised). But that's - just idea.

5. OK I'm still bit confused with elves/gnomes situation. Are they created specifically as servants by Astral Gods to suit their needs, or they manifested on their own from mortal dreams (in which case what about all abstract and weird nightmares?) and they were just appropriated by Astral Gods? In your true!vision of course.

6. Generally I very much like your metaphysics, it's probably my top 10 of published and unpublished wordbuilding efforts in this regard. So I much say I'm more interested in how this world works in this regard, than in - how beings inside have no real idea - could be problem if I ever play it - I mean knowledge of Chaos Gods before I played Warhammer certainly lessered their impact in actual gameplay, simmilarily Cthulhu bestiary is not really genuinely scary these days - but good concept for metaphysics is its own reward anyway.

QuoteBut throwing ALL of that up in the air is the Blood Spear (for which the orc empire is named); a miles tall fortress believed to predate even the arrival of the demons who introduced civilization to the human hunter-gathers... if true then all of the above is wrong.

7. I mean sure it adds extra ancient secret - but still all this history you told me from demon invasion, First Empire, rise of Astral Gods, Cataclysm - all of those could be true, with some extra ancient history forgotten even by those with proper knowledge of demon war times. I mean it's not like demons attacked creation from the get go - so there was time for all kinds of wild forgotten shenanigans.

Off-topic to the thread, but still on the topic of RPGs and grown organically from it so, at least for the moment I feel comfortable continuing. Since your primary interest is the metaphysics, I'll try to address your questions without direct quotes to keep things more concise.

First and foremost is that there is no official right answer in my system for me to spoil should you ever play. This is because pretty much the entire first chapter of my GM's Guide is about how to make the game and setting your own. One subsection lists each of the major questions posed by the setting (which religion is correct, what caused the Cataclysm, etc.) and proposes several possibilities for the GM can pick from for their campaign (or make up their own).

One potential answer is even all the gods are false, all the magic is really sufficiently advanced technology and the world itself is Earth 250 million years from now after the original humans evolved into the "primal spirits" and seeded future Earth with a new evolution of humanity (and other animals) so their ancestral home wouldn't be left empty.

Another section discusses how to present the world fluff ranging from civilization/technology on par with the European Dark Ages (c. AD 650), to a default high fantasy world, to a modern post-apocalypse with magic (direct homage to Thundarr the Barbarian with that version), to a science fantasy setting akin to post-apocalyptic Star Wars (The Source? The Force? What's the difference?).

I WANT GM's to be able to make the game their own. Even the "Big Damn Heroes" is merely a default; the first chapter includes suggestions and optional rules to tune their game to be anything from a silly Saturday morning cartoon to serious survival horror.

BDH also doesn't mean superheroes; it just means not starting at zero. If you put PCs on a linear scale in my system where a peasant conscript is a 1 and an average soldier is a 2, then a starting PC is a 5 (as would be a vetern soldier), a mid-level PC is a 10 and a max level PC is a 20. A dozen soldiers (2x12=24) remain a grave threat to a lone PC even if that PC is max level. An elite soldier (10) would be dangerous even to a pair of starting PCs and lethal to a lone starting PC (and the most dangerous monsters go past 80 on the linear scale).

Tangent aside, you wanted my personal choices for the metaphysics though so I'll endeavor to comply.

The first thing to understand of my personal metaphysical preferences is that I am VERY Catholic to the point of not being comfortable even pretending to worship a made-up god in most D&D worlds.

Evil in my metaphysics is not the opposite of Good, it is the absence of Good. Hell is not someplace where one can rule, it is the Outer Darkness into which you choose to be cast rather than embrace the light; the black winter night beyond the safety of hearth and home. Only the demons trapped there and whispering to foolish mortals to be let in from the cold however briefly sell the lie that one could rule in the Abyss.

My Devil expy; the Demon Emperor once called Lightbringer; came to so hate the life and light of The Source that he devised a scheme by which he would allow himself to be annihilated and his spiritual power transformed into The Shadow World, existing forever in the spiritual shadow of the Mortal World where no light or life can reach and which seeps into and poisons lost souls to twist them into the undead.

Yes, the undead of my setting are actually considered more horrible than even the demons. They are the anathema of all life and exist only to destroy Creation as the Demon Emperor's final act of spite against the mortals The Source so dearly loved.

A related and important point of the cosmology too is that the soul is inviolate; no one can damn a soul save for the soul itself and souls cannot be destroyed or consumed. This is perhaps one of the areas I've hated most about the cosmologies of many fantasy settings where the soul seems little more than a fuel source and the threat of obliteration cheapened from the true cosmic horror if such a thing were possible to a cheap bit of drama.

You just can't have an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God in any sort of setting where one can be damned to Hell or annihilated through no fault of your own. It just doesn't work. So, in my setting, while the body might be reanimated by as a soulless vessel by a necromancer, they have no purchase on a soul that does not wish to become undead. It also means that the most wicked horrors do NOT just kill their victims; that would allow their soul to escape; instead they keep them alive in order to torment them and hopefully drive them to the hatred and despair that would allow them to become an undead... but also gives heroes the time to rescue someone taken before that occurs which just makes for better adventure hooks.

Sidebar: you mentioned astral heresies involving merging the Grey Huntress with her undead counterpart; well, in addition to the above "anthema to all that lives" bit, I'd also suggest that, at least in my headcanon, all such movements met quick and grisly ends before they could gain any traction because invoking the goddess of destroying the undead while trying to create undead strikes me as akin to an ice cube asking for attention from a flamethrower.

This also corresponds to my headcanon answer that Venetrix, The Grey Huntress, is really a primal spirit allowing herself to be worshipped as an astral goddess in order to fulfill her role as The Angel of Death (akin to Michael in Catholic theology who appears to mortals at the hour of death in order to give them one last chance at repentance, thus thwarting the intentions of the Devil). The Fetches are souls saved from damnation by Ventetrix and serving a time in purgatory by making the same offers of redemption to others in Venetrix's stead.

As to the gnomes/elves thing... I've gone back and forth on whether the gnomes should even be a separate species from the elves, with the final decision coming down to my aforementioned "pre-built for my 8-11 year old godkids to enjoy" winning out over their metaphysical commonalities with elves.

Headcanon time... in my headcanon the best analogy for the astral gods is this; The Source is sunlight and the Mortal World a fractured prism where instead of the colors forming a clear spectrum of one color into the next, they were scattered across the dome of the sky. In this analogy the Sky Father is the patch of blue that reaches its zenith in the sky during the spring equinox while Bellos (god of strength and just war) is the red star in ascent in mid summer after the solstice.

Each is a fraction of the infinite spiritual energy of The Source and because they are sparks of the divine (as are human souls) they developed intellects and free will (albeit with an obsessive focus on the spiritual aspect they embody). Lesser astral servitors are basically the reflections of the reflections; motes of divine power affiliated with a particular astral god, but independent of them.

The elves in my headcanon are the motes connected to the most prominent astral reflection; the moon Arcadia that is the spiritual reflection of dreams. Because dreams are so diverse it's more akin to a pale array of the full color spectrum instead of the single colors of the other gods. This makes elves far more nuanced in their personalities than most astral spirits (enough so that they can be PCs... whereas most servitors lack the ability; a succubus could not take an action meant to evoke lust in someone anymore than we could will our hearts to stop beating). Their role in the spirit world was to visit mortals in their sleep to create the dreamscapes they explored and take on the roles of anyone appearing within them... essentially the ultimate improv actors.

What are now the elves did this for adults and the castes correspond to the people they supplied dreams to (high elves supplying mighty and glorious dreams, low elves the small and humble dreams). Gnomes enacted the dreams of children; a very specialized subset as young children's imaginations are more vivid and their dreams don't even require sleep (think "imaginary friend" and you're in the ballpark).

By nature of their tasks the gnomes were so free-spirited they simply could not be constrained by something as stultifying as the elven castes; the dreams of children could be grander than the mightiest king's and humbler than the lowliest peasant's at the same time. So while the elves exiled to Earth organized into their castes and communities, the gnomes scattered into the wilds where they live like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan and don't even have a concept of sex (and, to be honest, find even romantic kissing kind of icky, though oddly intriguing... kinda like a train wreck); when one is killed their body turns to mist and at the location they first entered the Mortal World they walk out of the mists there absent only any memories since they last emerged from the mists.

[looks at questions] Lastly, orcs were humans mutated by the Cataclysm into hyper-predators. They are stronger, faster and possess sharper senses than humans while being equally intelligent and only hindered by heightened levels of adrenaline pushing them to action when others would be cautious.

Of particular note, the orc who united the various bands into an Empire claimed to be the blood heir of the last Praetorian Emperor (and thus rightful ruler of all the lands once controlled by the Praetorian Empire). He risked the dangers of the ancient tower called the Blood Spear and returned with a mighty artifact (called the Bloodspear for which he named his Empire) that made him invincible in battle and threatened El-Phara, the feudal kingdom of Ironhold, the Mercantile Republic of Riverhold and the lands that are now the Free Cities.

But being invincible in battle did not save him from more subtle forms of assassination. His dying breath was the command that his true heir would be the one worthy of wielding the artifact that came to symbolize his rule, but it disappeared with the Emperor's last breath leaving four children each with a valid claim but no way to prove they were the one worthy save by destroying their siblings. Thus did the Bloodspear Empire fall into civil war that continues to this day even though the Emperor's four children are now grandparents themselves.

If someone could unite them the Bloodspear Empire could be the most dangerous force on the continent; so it's in the best interests of everyone to keep them squabbling among themselves.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 14, 2021, 02:32:51 PM
Basically, I don't want there to be clean and easy answers to these questions. One of the biggest disconnects between real people and those of many D&D settings is that real people don't have the answers there in concrete form.

From what I have seen of real people is that having answers in concrete form does not stop them from doing or believing anything.

QuoteSidebar: you mentioned astral heresies involving merging the Grey Huntress with her undead counterpart; well, in addition to the above "anthema to all that lives" bit, I'd also suggest that, at least in my headcanon, all such movements met quick and grisly ends before they could gain any traction because invoking the goddess of destroying the undead while trying to create undead strikes me as akin to an ice cube asking for attention from a flamethrower.

Oh, no, no, no - that was most definitely not intention my mine. I totally get undead lord being anathema beyond any rules. I was thinking about something else.
I mean seelie Ruler is Justice while unseelie Ruler is Tyranny. But anarchy is anathema to both of them, and if there was anarchic force both aspects would be all for kicking his ass.
Venetrix aspects dead and winter - have for mortals very dark connotations. I do not consider potential unseelie Venetrix (even as false belief of various sects - and yes I know seelie/unseelie is elven term but you get what I mean) as undead rotting abomination - God of Undeath is (which I guess is memory/aspect of Lucifer himself right?) but more you know Mab from Dresden Files. Cruel, life engstinguishing, predatory Winter (and I mean she is huntress so there is quite easy potential for it). Lady Reaper - but not Rob Zombie. So false and fake yet plausible division would be between protection in midst of winter, protection from undead, midviwe to death and suffering reliever and dark aspect - cruelty of winter, lady reaper who take pneumonia ridden small kids in middle of postapocalyptic forest community, wolves harassing caravans in middle of winter night, and so on.

From pagan perspective I can see it seen as well certain necessary cruelty of natural order. Meanwhile undead are not just - those are bad gods, undead is something MUCH WORSE.

QuoteFrom what I have seen of real people is that having answers in concrete form does not stop them from doing or believing anything.

Yeah to some degree it's right and sort of goes in counter to Chris' argument about how knowledge would change reality - because in the end in classic D&D setting (though some were oversaturated with too many high level NPCs maybe) - number of people KNOWING what's going on is limited, I mean even powerful outsiders are limited often to own domain. Numbers of people who can meet their grandpa in afterlife and return is really really small. And various planes, gods, outsiders are warring with each other - before Faerun, and Krynn get's own planes - Great Wheel was meant to be afterlife for infinite number of prime material planes.

So it's absolute Chaos - and while sure existence of something is well proven, the details are unholy mess, almost certainly.
Now of course - while that how it should be for normal mortals of the world - PCs unfortunately could read books, so they were treated this knowledge bit differently.

Quoteby which he would allow himself to be annihilated

But if he also was soul / spirit of Source ... How?

AD&D1e. 3d6 down the line is the right and proper way to play. Gygax was soft.

https://www.thevikinghatgm.com/2021/02/ad-character-generation.html

I have lots of fantastic memories of ADnD wayback when it was the current version.
I hated 2nd ed, it was a mess and the Skill rules etc were just tacked on.

Basic DnD and the follow on boxed sets were fun for a certain style of play (and still is good if you're looking for that now)

I never played v3 or v3.5, although enjoyed Pathfinder 1st ed, which is apparently a lot like 3.5

4th Ed was a horrible version made to appeal to the MMO crowd.

So whilst I had lots of fun with ADnD, 5e is overall better really than all but maybe ODnD and its modern derivatives in OSR, which are great if you're looking for a play and go simple style gaming.

QuoteAD&D1e. 3d6 down the line is the right and proper way to play. Gygax was soft.

Depends of convention. But I think fgr newbies it's not a bad idea.

Kinds late to this thread but here's my pedigree, so to speak...

I started with OD&D, then BX, then 1e for years. Then 2e for slightly less years as I was in the military for most of that time, then 3e. Bought 4e boxed set and said wtf is this game and thought I'd never play D&D again until 5e came out. Been playing 5e a lot.

If I were to pick my favourite it would be 1e followed by BX, then 2e. 1e because we played the hell out of that version and I have so many good memories of it.

I like 5e too as it's brought a lot of people into the hobby and RPG'S in general but I am beginning to dislike it for the growing wokeness and sjw BS. I hate being told how racist and sexist and everything else I am by people that only know one edition and have no clue about the history of the game and the people who played it before they were even born. Someone mentioned how 2e FR had so many examples of strong women in power in the many towns, cities, kingdoms, etc and the current dross from wotc needs to make a big issue of pointing out women in power now whereas previously it was just a given and accepted already... but that apparently never existed. I realise that's not a rules issue
moreso  than a culture issue but it's really leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Like Pundit says, why buy products from people that hate you?

@ Samsquantch

Oh I agree I don't like where it's going and has been going for some time politically.
The books I own are older ones though, so if newer editions have been altered to satisfy a PC agenda, then I'm not affected at this time.

I did get sick of 5e after about 11th level. It suffers the same fate of other editions of DnD and just becomes unwieldy over time with abilities to track etc.

Quote from: danskmacabre on February 16, 2021, 05:37:10 PM
@ Samsquantch

Oh I agree I don't like where it's going and has been going for some time politically.
The books I own are older ones though, so if newer editions have been altered to satisfy a PC agenda, then I'm not affected at this time.

I did get sick of 5e after about 11th level. It suffers the same fate of other editions of DnD and just becomes unwieldy over time with abilities to track etc.

I haven't purchased anything new from WotC since the Abyss book came out (can't recall the name atm) for that reason. I want gaming books from a company, not a lecture on why I am bad Nazi man for how I was born.

Quote from: Samsquantch on February 17, 2021, 02:21:42 AM
I haven't purchased anything new from WotC since the Abyss book came out (can't recall the name atm) for that reason. I want gaming books from a company, not a lecture on why I am bad Nazi man for how I was born.

I recently got the Eberron 5e sourcebook, as I wanted to run a Warforged in some games that were set up recently after work in our office.
I doubt I'll be running Eberron, but I do like the setting and the book is a fun read too.

I haven't particularly noticed a PC agenda in this book, but then I'm not really looking very hard either.

Still, it's been years since the 5e book purchase before that (probably Volo's guide I guess).
When I ran DnD, I used mostly my own content for background and game worlds, so I had no need to buy background books.

Quote from: danskmacabre on February 17, 2021, 09:28:23 PM

Quote from: Samsquantch on February 17, 2021, 02:21:42 AM
I haven't purchased anything new from WotC since the Abyss book came out (can't recall the name atm) for that reason. I want gaming books from a company, not a lecture on why I am bad Nazi man for how I was born.

I recently got the Eberron 5e sourcebook, as I wanted to run a Warforged in some games that were set up recently after work in our office.
I doubt I'll be running Eberron, but I do like the setting and the book is a fun read too.

I haven't particularly noticed a PC agenda in this book, but then I'm not really looking very hard either.

Still, it's been years since the 5e book purchase before that (probably Volo's guide I guess).
When I ran DnD, I used mostly my own content for background and game worlds, so I had no need to buy background books.

Since the late 80's my campaign has been set in a semi customised Forgotten Realms setting so I have tended to buy the products as them came out for every edition, in fact some of the only 4th ed stuff I bought was just for setting. I did the same for 5th since 4th edition nearly killed D&D for me and now, the more the lecturing and SJW aspects are coming out the more I am thinking of moving my setting out of FR and just going back to a proper homebrew like it was in the beginning. I will admit though, the fancy maps and products of FR and Greyhawk were a powerful lure for a still young gamer and lot less work (in some ways) than full homebrew. But you can't beat homebrew when it doesn't require reading a thick book to know what's going on since you made it up from the beginning...