Origin and Essence
The Realm of Sylvaeon is both natural and preternatural; spawned from the Fey place called Faerie. It exists in its own right, but is also a bridge between the mundane Universe and the fantastic places of dream and magic. As such, it is simultaneously a Nexus, a plane and a world. This makes many areas of Sylvaeon very “real” and material and certain others very elusive and magical.
The fabled Green Isle, the heart of Sylvaeon, is where these characteristics both emanate and blur. The Green Isle lies at the “center” of the world/realm of Sylvaeon. However, it is not always reachable simply by traveling to a map coordinate. The Green Isle admits only those it desires to or those that know the secret ways to it. At the very core of the Green Isle lies The Henge, a mammoth stone henge of gigantic size. Inside the Henge is the World Tree, Yggdrasil. Here is the Nexus to the hero gods, Faerie and other worlds – to many places and beings of ancient legend... or yet unknown.
Sylvaeon exists as a manifestation of all things Fey – yet this self-conscious realm has in places become corrupted. Once perfectly balanced and harmonious, in times past a blight infiltrated Sylvaeon. One who has many names that are best not spoken, commonly whispered of as The Ravager, tried to dominate his will upon the Realm. His twisted malice against the pureness of Sylvaeon has upset its original state. As a result, the essence of Sylvaeon is weakened at points. The dark power of the Ravager has caused “leaks” in the fabric of Sylvaeon, where he at times opened his own nexus gates, allowing terrible things to enter in. Whether by design or accident, many of the races of men and other creatures have come to dwell in Sylvaeon because of the thinning of the veil.
Still, Sylvaeon contains much good and it adapts to its new denizens, as they also adapt to Sylvaeon. Even though the dark Ravager has been resisted, his ire against beautiful Sylvaeon continues to grow... and with it, his desire to dominate the Realm.
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Good stuff! I hope to do as good when I start putting my campaign material up.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteSo, there is a dark force corrupting Faerie and Mankind is the interloper for a change (instead of elf-kind).
@Anthony: yep! human beings are not "native", but they do have racial dominance in some places... I'll get to that ;)
ReplyDeleteYa gotta have an Uber-Antagonist in a good campaign world. Of course, there are many lesser ones, but look at Tolkien... he always had one that rose above the rest!
@karnak: thanks! I have run several kinds of campaigns... world-building is not easy, as you know. It seems ideas change over time, so it is hard to nail things down - we want them to evolve - sometimes too much at once! Sylvaeon is not going to be "perfect", but it is mine :)