#madlands

Fashion: I actually already talked a lot about fashion already over here, but quick recap: all the sidhe wear dresses, most people wear either normal old world clothes or ridiculous scavenged outfits, lots of people wear charms or tokens with a lot of personal significance as protection from magic (works a bit like taking an assumed name), there are a lot of wild anachronisms like people in jeans and t-shirts with swords and mages with plastic disney princess wands.

War: Conveniently enough I just started a war in my campaign so I can use it as an example.  The evil warlord Prozac just launched a huge attack on the city of Plummit, which culminated in him using a previously unseen power (a demon hand) to knock one of the city’s floating islands out of the sky to kill and capture it’s inhabitants (primarily Paladins).  “previously unseen power” is actually how most armies gain the upper hand now.  Arms races are nothing new but the world has changed a lot and there are new creatures, magic, and yes, weapons being discovered even now, 30 years after the nonsense.  Whenever anyone gets in a fight they have to be cautious, because they often have no idea what kind of mysterious power the other guy might have at their disposal.  The Paladins are the largest and most organized military group in Jersey, with a presence in most major settlements.  They know better than anyone that power corrupts, so they make sure that they never gain too much political pull in any community; the way they see it, their duty is to protect the civilian population and never to rule them.  That’s not to say they won’t throw their opinion in the ring, and they won’t follow a civilian government when they feel it is unjust.  They have a seat on the city council in New York and are free to allocate resources and pursue their goals in Jersey as they see fit.  Once the Paladin leadership in New New Brunswick hears about Prozac’s massively swollen forces and brazen attack on Plummit, he will become their top priority.  Other than that, the most notable armed conflicts in Jersey are the Iberian Wars, an ongoing series of skirmishes and open war between factions fighting for control of Newark.  These conflicts have been raging for years and show no sign of slowing down, and the Paladins simply don’t have the presence they need to intervene yet.

Arms and Armor: the prompt says “utility in armor and weapons has a greater importance than aesthetics,” to which I respond with a hearty scoff.  For the fae, at least, utility and aesthetic are one and the same.  A fae’s power comes from their identity, which is incredibly difficult to maintain in a world that literally doesn’t want you to exist.  Now more than ever it’s important that a fae dresses so that someone who sees them can instantly tell their Court affiliation (or lack thereof), social status, and personality.  For humans, armor is either old world fare like kevlar vests or armor made from scavenged metal.  Guns are still their weapons of choice (hey, the things work) while fae who haven’t adopted those human weapons stick with their magic or silver swords (silver weapons halt a fae’s natural regeneration, but silver isn’t completely abhorrent to them like iron).  However, like I mentioned above, everyone has learned to expect the unexpected.  Right now, some of the protection my players have includes a slingshot used to fire stale munchkins, a shard of bone that will let them grow giant tusks for a few hours, and a spell that will let them teleport around when someone tries to hit them.  Also, the attack on Plummit involved quite a lot of giant farm animals being catapulted at the city.

Summit is a town of roughly 20 thousand people in 6 sq. miles of Union county, New Jersey.  Like about 50% of the locations in Jersey, it’s named after the hills that are literally everywhere in this state (the other half are named after trees or bodies of water).  During the nonsense, the entire town was thrown into the air as huge chunks of the ground told gravity what they really thought of it.  The survivors and new settlers simply couldn’t resist, and renamed the town Plummit.  

The year is now 2046, 30 years after the Nonsense, and Plummit has grown into a flourishing community of humans and fae.  During the gravity wells formation, the chunks of the town thrust into the air were by no means evenly distributed, so Plummit is actually comprised of a series of islands, rather than a single landmass.  Over time some of these islands have been connected with engineering or magic, making the city more cohesive. Some of the islands have anchoring points for bridges or grappling hooks, while others have magical assistance such as flying trolleys, fae with wings, or birds carrying people over disproportionately small gaps.  Most old world buildings are collapsed, so the town is a mixture of ramshackle human buildings and fae dwellings made of living wood. There’s a market where fae and humans can try to figure out the others system of value, a human majority and sizable populations of fae, tuathans, and fomorians (they’re both half-elves basically).  There are also plenty of travelers, messengers, and adventurers that visit the city regularly.  

Although the townsfolk usually don’t talk about it, it’s generally known that the ruins beneath the city, a shadowed plain of pillars and canyons, are still very dangerous.  Any adventurers brave and foolish enough to head below return with tales of monsters and wild magic-- or worse, they don’t return at all.  As long as they stay out of them, however, the ruins have never given Plummit any problems.  Given how easy it is to defend the city, Plummit is, ironically enough, a relatively stable an peaceful place in an otherwise chaotic region.  

Aight time for like 12 doses of half baked worldbuilding lets go kids

Fauna: I’m not sure if I covered this already, but fae are, physically, much weaker than humans. It wasn’t their strong suit to begin with, and now they’re quite literally out of their element, in a world where they’re already struggling just to stay solid. Even huge, monstrous fae warped by the nonsense like trolls are surprisingly fragile. This applies to earth animals as well– a redcap can cackle and taunt all it wants, but if the bear gets close it’s all over. Thus, the local wildlife has actually done rather well after the nonsense, especially as nature has reclaimed the ruins of old world towns and cities. Humans still work with animals such as dogs and horses (which have made a big comeback with the failing roads and lack of gas), and fae magic can charm a bear as well as anything else.

Flora: kudzu got a whole lot worse after the Nonsense. Plants have proven more susceptible to magical mutation than animals or humans, and the dryads that were displaced from the Otherworld needed somewhere to stay. Unfortunately, many of them didn’t survive the transition with their minds and souls intact, so the wilderness reclaiming human civilization can be just as deadly as its inhabitants. Basically, the flora and fauna of Jersey are much more dangerous and often have been changed in unexpected ways.

Food Lov the cronch. Many human and fae communities have returned to to support themselves, as the monsters and bandits scavenging old world ruins p dangerous. Unfortunately they’re often forced to do so, as there just isn’t enough suitable land to support the remains of the most densely populated US state (and the ruins are just too tempting). Water is also a regular problem (we have crappy water quality to begin with). But remember while you’re out looking for food– never take anything from the forest. And NEVER accept anything a kind stranger on the road offers you.

Technology Because it’s my world and I can do what I want I decided that when magic landed in the world like Walmart on small business it seriously altered the planets electromagnetic field to the point that mass communication is a bust. Phones, radios, computers, any broadcasting and receiving devices can’t do their thing through the field of “static.” This lack of communication is one of the biggest impediments to rebuilding human society and a problem that they’ve been throwing themselves against since the first days after the Nonsense. In the absence of mass communication people rely on courier networks who travel on horseback, in vehicles, or even on foot to deliver messages and supplies, as well as passing either along with trading caravans. The fae have adopted a similar system, but use quicklings instead. There haven’t been many new breakthroughs in the sciences not directly related to fighting, warding off, or coexisting with the fae, but people have proven very resourceful in recycling and repurposing old world materials and technology. Some settlements have even restored their electricity, and at least one town in Jersey has not one but two functioning hospitals.

Magic Oh man I get to talk about the fae… oh crap I have to talk about the fae… okay so magic– it’s kind of like the laws of nature of the Otherworld. The way that humans are affected and can affect gravity and physics and biology, that’s the way fae feel about magic. Fae don’t have to think about their magic, it’s just a part of who they are (if you remember the way the dragon language was explained in skyrim, how it’s intrinsic to their being and an integral part of how they see and interact with the world, it’s kinda like that). In fact the fae find one of the most confusing things about the creatures on earth, including humans, is that we don’t have magic in the same way, that we’re locked into following the rules of our world and don’t seem to have any direct way to influence them. Magic is terrifying to humans, and rightly so, but it turns out they’re a bit tougher than they think– you know how in avatar people can just kind of shrug off getting slammed with giant rocks or like engulfed in flames? Humans can do that. Magic just isn’t as powerful outside the Otherworld, where it’s competing with our reality. That’s not to say humans are just immune, if a fae manages to catch them in a geas or keeps up the pressure (or rolls a nat 20) a human can still be charmed or roasted or frozen or any of the other nastiness magic could throw their way. Tuathans, ironically enough, actually have more powerful magic than true fae, but are much more limited. A powerful fae mage can manipulate time, fate, matter, energy, emotions, minds, souls, they can forge powerful pacts and oaths and stuff, the kind of things you might expect. Tuathans can do a fraction of that. They also have to actually learn and practice tapping into their magic, it’s not innate and natural like it is for the fae. Generally (a.k.a. in game terms) tuathans are split into warlocks, who can mess with matter, energy, light, and anatomy, and spellbinders, who mess with thoughts, emotions, and souls

For day 2 the official prompt is about geography!  I have literally no artistic ability so it’s fortunate that my world is set on Earth.  The world has definitely changed a lot, but the geography is about the same.  If you looked at a map of Jersey vs. a hypothetical map I could draw up of Jersey post-Nonsense, the boundaries would be different or nonexistent and the locations far more flashy but for the most part everything stayed more or less where it was.

For @ladytabletop‘s bonus prompts, today’s challenge is writing a creation story! ...I’m still working on it tbh.  I was agonizing over it a lot at the beginning but I figured it was more important to plan out how things would end up, and then work backwards from there.  What I think I have established is that the world of the fae (I’ve been calling it the Otherworld or just Sideways) was destroyed in a maelstrom of wild magic, which came to be called the Nonsense, on December 31st, 2016.  In the process it caused the fae crossings to Earth, normally tenuous and small, to expand into large portals.  The fae, who were simply desperate to escape their fate, exited these portals in droves.  Unfortunately, they brought along monsters with the same bright idea, fae who became twisted by the onslaught of magic, and the storm itself.  Only a fraction of it’s power slipped through, but it was more than enough to throw Earth into chaos, topple much of human society, and firmly plant magic in the world to stay.  Then, though none of the earthbound fae can explain why, the portals sealed shut, and have never stirred since.  In the back of their minds, every fae can sense that the storm still rages even now, and all they can do is pray that it never finds a way to slip between the cracks again.