Saturday 1 May 2004

Pic of the day: Dying embers... Screenshot from City of Heroes. (Actually nobody dies in this game, they are just defeated. Even so, that's got to hurt.)

Emberlord's world

In real life, such as it is, there are vast and foggy borderlands between psionics, magic and religion. (Of course, the easiest is to ignore all of these unless they intrude upon your life on their own.) When I design my own worlds, I have the luxury of drawing those boundaries with reasonable clarity. Yes, this is another world building entry, of sorts.

Like most things in my life these days, it has to do with the new online game City of Heroes. During the beta test I played a magic tanker called Solgard. In the intervening time, I have done a little research and found that the name is not only used quite frequently in pseudo mythological settings; it is also a family name, just not very common. Since I myself have an uncommon family name which I also use in online games, I decided against using Solgard as a character name. So in the resurrection, he is now Emberlord.

***

Here's the back story of Emberlord: Millennia ago, a highly evolved race of humans arrived on Earth from a parallel universe. This long-lived race with strong psionic powers were worshiped as gods by the primitive natives on this planet. With a lifespan more than 10 times as long as ours, they naturally bred very slowly. They were never truly numerous, and changed only little over the few thousand years they ruled our world. Meanwhile, the native humans grew into a civilized species; well, more or less. At this point, the "gods" moved on, as they had done before and would do again.

This race is of course not gods in the metaphysical meaning, certainly not in the sense of modern theology. I'll refer to them by their norse name Regin, those who reign, rulers. The Regin developed somewhere else in the cluster of humanly habitable worlds in the multiverse, where along a fifth and sixth dimension the worlds are stacked closely in roughly the same location and with roughly the same laws of nature as ours. The number of them is immense but hard to quantify, as the laws of nature very slowly change. A human from one end of the spectrum of worlds might be unable to survive on the other end, but there might still be a species very similar to his own; and someone from an average world between them might be able to travel to either. Well, given the technology or magic to cross the dimensional barrier, which few races seems to have.

The Regin generally hold themselves to decent ethical standards, but they are not really on a mission of enlightenment. They tend to be rather condescending toward the lower races, but will grudgingly show them respect as they become civilized. Some empathize more with the natives, while others treat them merely as pets or even tools. As interbreeding is bound to occur (especially between male Regin and native women) the lower species will eventually start to get closer. Before this can go to far, the Regin will disappear, although their innate wanderlust may be part of it as well. Regin can stage a mass exodus to another world, but they may also just trickle off-planet as they move on in clans or even individuals marrying into families on other worlds. There is some contact between nearby worlds. Some worlds don't have native humans at all, but have a fairly high and stable population of Regin. Think of them as cities surrounded by farmland of lower worlds.

The Regin cannot simply walk thorugh dimensional walls. There are items that can open dimensional portals. These portals are one-way only, so if you plan to get back you better bring another such item with you.

This is where our young hero was a bit too fast. Being born long after the Regin left our Earth (or rather the alternative Earth where Paragon City lies), he grew up in a Regin world and accidentally came across the chronicles of his family's stay on Earth. Fascinated by the concept of being treated as a god (and having unlimited access to cute women) he decided to travel to Earth just for a little while. (Regin don't age at the same pace as us, or even as each other, but mentally this guy is in what we would think of as late teens.) He secretly sneaks into the vault where the portal items are stored, and sets the item to the coordinates of his ancestors' former abode. Then he walks through the portal ... and it closes behind him. He is left in the 21st century on a world where superheroes and -villains are easily as powerful as he is, and where nobody worships Regin anymore. Aww, man ...

The Regin display a wide range of psionic powers. However, some families are stronger in one power and some in another. The strength increases with age for quite a while, so a young Regin is normally not very strong unless he has a special aptitude for one particular trait. Our main character descends from a family of "sun gods", who are fairly good at controlling heat and light. However, because his powers are still so limited, his newfound comrades make fun of his attempts to pass himself off as a solar deity. Instead they call him "Lord of the Embers" because he cannot maintain even a fire for very long.

On the bright side, he is already quite resistant to physical damange. He will also eventually develop other superhuman abilities like levitation, and the ability to heal himself and others through an act of will. Not godlike by today's standards, but still quite useful. Being thoroughly humiliated, Emberlord settles for a life as superhero in Paragon City while waiting for his family to find him.

***

It still amazes me, how I come up with an intricate backstory for a random character, and at the speed of thought. So it may not seem like intricate to you? Ask me about his childhood memories, family and social life, even fashion. It is like I'm standing in a library and only have to reach out to books that are not yet written. And presumably never will. A random character in a video game just isn't worth that much trouble.

There is a "bio" field for each character in the game, and I usually fill in mine with a concentrate of the backstory. Most players don't bother. I do get some compliments on my character descriptions, though. What can I say? That's just the kind of guy the muses in my head are. ^-^